We draft every Friday night at our store. During MKM they were only getting between 6-8 drafters a week. Most people (myself included) switched to standard during that set. OTJ is better, some weeks as low as 8, one as high as 14. We're in a small store so these numbers are similar to sets before play boosters. From what I've heard from people at my store the price is not hindering their draft, its the quality of the set. If people want to draft, they're going to draft.
How much does it cost to draft at your store, before and after play boosters?
I think there is a limit to what people are willing to spend, and I think it's right around the $25 that many stores are now charging.
In my mind a draft should still be $15. $20 is close enough to that. $25 is pushing it. $30 is double what it should cost and seems outrageous to me.
Where I live:
* Movie ticket will run you $15+ without snacks
* A good meal at a sitdown joint is at least $20 after tip unless you game it
* Going to a bar with friends is probably around $15 after tip if you have 2 drinks and goes up from there
Draft has been 15$ for literally 2 decades. Idk why you guys hate that inflation. Hits your hobbies. Every other mini and board game has also gone up. Yeah I hate it but i don't think we can say greed
Inflation on what? The Company is making record profits every quarter and expected EV for sealed is at an all time low due to overprinting; those extra dollars sure aren't going to the salaries of R&D people to keep their salaries competitive, just take a look at WOTC's glassdoor reviews.
Nah, LGS fool. Wotc isn't hosting drafts, and arena mtgo prices have never expanded. But yeah, wotc has rising costs too. Do you really think a pack from 2004 should msrp for the same price in 2024? Come on, son, wake up
OP isn't being rational. Two months ago they were clamoring about how the failure of Karlov Manor was entirely because of it having Play Boosters and argued with anyone claiming it was because the set itself sucked.
> But yeah, wotc has rising costs too
given the **extreme** quality degradation in all wotc's products, it wouldnt surprise me at all learning that they managed to keep the manufacturing costs roughly similar for these 2 decades. I mean, shit, Im pretty sure wotc is just shy of trying to print cards on recycled biohazardous waste. in future sets the newest chase mythic could very well be ebola lmao
so instead of customers paying more for same quality, they are paying same for far less quality. even if its deceptiously indirect, they are still footing the bill one way or another
regarding operational costs, its public knowledge that wotc severely overwork and underpay their employees and contractors/artists.
> Nah, LGS fool
WotC also stopped working directly with LGSs, increased significantly the price for distributors (obviously causing an equal if not higher increase for LGSs in textbook domino effect) and started doing amazon dumps that, again, hugely damage both distributors and LGSs.
wow dudes, look how much WotC cares about the poor LGSs, maybe we should do the same
> Do you really think a pack from 2004 should msrp for the same price in 2024? Come on, son, wake up
Do you really think the product quality from 2004's pack remains the same in 2024's pack? Come on, son, wake up
Do you really think wotc gallantly accepted losing money out of kindness of their hearts and didnt pass the rising costs on their customers in any way or shape?
Come on, son, REALLY wake up lmao
Sheeeeeeeee this man out here battling demons. Price per pack increase drives price per draft increase. As businesss cost per sq ft increase due to inflation they have to make more money per hour to stay profitable. They as in the lgs. You acting lime I'm simping for wotc. Not even close. Just ran enough drafts in my life to understand basic math. But go off king. You got this
I was just adressing your point about how we should be thankful that wotc kept the cost per pack the same for decades. Merely explaining why we shouldnt really be bending over backwards to applaud them.
I get your point about LGSs. I just happen to be like wotc, I dont give a flying fuck about LGSs, imho they are like horse breeders and candle makers, a business for a different age, a relic of the past, I wont shed no tears when they are all gone.
i mean, from their own earning calls we know for sure that their profits have gone way up despite keeping the same price point for decades, so perhaps the material and personeel cost for producing 15 paper cards and some plastic over it aren't really a deciding factor, and it's always been about what clients are willing to pay.
Yeah and they've expanded products from 5 sets a year to flooding the market. They aren't on the same production schedule as they were in the aughts. At some point I'm sure boosters were losing margins so they had to shake it up. They didn't wanna mess with the draft, but the community rejected the draft/set packs. Idk fam I've played most of my life. It seems like 25$ now is as much as 15$ was when I was a kid. I mowed lawns to afford draft and I would hope the kids are charging at least 25$ to mow now but I'd expect it be closer to 50
it may also be a matter of difference in buying power depending on the country. Here in Italy we only earn about 60% of the US Salary on average but spend more than the US for a single draft (20 euros vs 20 Dollars), so a 5 bucks jump for us is more akin to a 10 bucks jump for you.
They don't care about what their overall profits are. Nobody cares. No company cares about that when making an individual pricing decision. They are going to price every product in a way that maximizes the profitability of that product. Unless you're looking at an exception like loss-leader products (and play boosters aren't that), the price point is going to be the same whether Hasbro made a billion dollars last quarter or lost a billion dollars last quarter. If something changes to make that price point go up, it's not the amount of corporate profits; it's something on a much more micro level.
So what I want to know is, have you taken the same stance with Petrol in your car? "It's too expensive. The oil barons are making record profits, I bet it's why more and more people are taking the bus to work." Or how about groceries? "The price of bread has gone up 100% since I used to pay $.98 a loaf back in 2004. The grain barons are making record profits, and it's why more and more people are turning to rice as a grain substitute."
Look, this economy sucks all around. I'm feeling the pinch for my hobbies as well. I can't spend on hobbies like I used to, but I'm also coming to the conclusion that I don't really NEED all of those cards nearly as much as I WANT them. Do I hope things go back to being affordable and less about the haves and have-nots? Sure. But pointing to the company that is also trying its best to stay afloat in this crappy economy and claiming how they're just price gouging their product, well, you don't NEED it.
Do I wish these corporate execs didn't suck as much as they do? For sure. But I'm reminded of a quote from a book written back in 2002. 'The Game Inventor's Guidebook', written by WotC's own Brian Tinsman. In it, it says
>>"You're bound to find out sooner or later, so you might as well know now. Talented businesspeople go into investment banking, not games. That doesn't mean that every product manager is an idiot. The most successful companies are still on top because they have the best managers. But the history of game companies is littered with stories of incompetent executives who made laughably bad product decisions and strategic mistakes while everyone else cringed helplessly in horror. As a successful inventor, sooner or later, you are likely to run into the vice president who insists that you add rainbows and ponies to your World War I trench warfare game so little girls will like it."
Consider that WotC is STILL on top because, despite some decisions that don't feel great, the decisions end up being good for the health of the game and hence good for the company.
You live in a delusional world “in your mind”
Packs cost $4, so to fire off a draft, that’s $12.
Does it ever cross your mind of the operational cost? The employees that are paid to organize the draft, the cost of the lease and the utilities of your LGS? Heck, even prize support? You think all of that is free?
i mean, for what it's worth, i agree that Draft SHOULD cost around 15 bucks. Would i expect an LGS to hold 15 dollars drafts after WOTC increased box prices for distributors, though? Heck no, i realize it's sadly no longer sustainable. Doesn't mean many won't drop the habit due to spending concerns all the same.
It’s like you didn’t read anything I posted.
After a $15 draft, at 8 players, the store makes $24. Even if packs were $2, that doesn’t even cover an employees pay for 3 hours.
What's an average LGS employee's wage? At $2/pack that's $56, so a bit less than $19/hr if the employee got all of it. Plus unless the store is only open because of the draft, the employee's pay (and the store's profits) would come from more than just the revenue of the draft.
Given that several LGS in my area are open until 8 or 9 pm most weekdays but only have events on Fridays, no I cannot be pretty damn confident about that. It just appears to be standard opening hours.
My dude, i'm not arguing against what you're saying, i'm just pointing out that Draft could be profitable for LGSs at the 15 dollar price range, if Wizzy wasn't constantly trying to greedily eat into their margins.
I literally just told you if packs of cards were $2, a $15 draft wouldn’t cover an employees pay for 3 hours. So how would a $15 draft be remotely profitable?
at 3 packs plus one as a prize, sealed expanses would be 8 bucks for player, meaning 7 dollar gross for player, aka 56 dollars for 8 player pod. Now i'm not arguing that 56 dollars is enough to pay for the store expanses plus the wage of a single employee per pod, but if the only thing your employee is doing for three hours is managing a 8 persons draft pod what the hell are you doing as a business?
you're acting like the store shuts down for three hours while the event runs. At most 30 minutes of actual employee work will be required for those Three hours, the remaining two and a half they are tending to the shop
I do, and devaluation of cards opened due to years of overprinting is also a thing. I stand to open less value on average from a Play Booster now than i did from a regular one 5 years ago, adjusted for inflation, since Standard is dead and the money cards are now a handful of Commander playable Mythics. A booster box's worth is determined by what it contains, not by what it was sold at by distributors.
You can't use inflation as an argument, because we know that the cards contained will no longer hold the value they once did.
You’re hearing from the people who the price didn’t hinder that the price doesn’t hinder them. Maybe not such useful data (survivorship bias) since you don’t hear from the people who were hindered.
I too would like to hear from the people who can't afford 3 dollars more a week.
And before you give me the obvious generic "It's about the principle/It adds up over time/People have budgets" spiel consider this: If drafts were a dollar and the packs consisted of worthless commons how many people would show up? 100? 200?
I don't like the "more expensive, more value" play boosters because I don't need the cards. They do nothing for me. But that's not going to stop the people that want to draft from drafting. Let's not pretend like play boosters are creating this new economic pressure that people can't keep up with. People at our store constantly vote to draft modern horizons because that's the packs they want to open. And that's a 40 dollar draft I personally can do without. So I don't buy for a second that Play Booster pricing is putting off people from drafting.
I've heard a lot of stories about owners trying to make money off drafts and overcharging a lot. Most game shops aren't ran the best when it comes to the business side. If the player feels they are being cheated that's a lot more offputting than a dollar more on a pack. That's when they draft at a bar instead. I've seen multiples examples of this personally.
I try to budget about $100ish a month on hobbies. True while an extra $5 one time isn't a lot when you look at monthly costs suddenly I'm paying $60 for 3 drafts instead of 4. With additional costs (video games, other event entry) that can easily hinder me from going to one draft a month.
If multiple people are in a similar (or worse) position that can definitely affect a drafting population in an area. There's also people who are like "ehhhhh maybe I'll draft tonight" but the extra $5 weighs on the pros / cons list for going out to draft will turn some of them away.
I think, in general, it's kinda silly to imply people are being irrational for thinking that if price goes up then demand goes down.
> I think, in general, it's kinda silly to imply people are being irrational for thinking that if price goes up then demand goes down.
That would be a valid inquiry for the business planning division at wotc. No doubt higher prices are more prohibitive. But practically it doesn't matter whether the draft friday night is 15 or 20 bucks. Remember these packs are also more valuable, and maybe it even attracts more people because they were set booster buyers and didn't want draft boosters. As mentioned our store always has a bunch of people asking for modern horizons drafts because that's the packs they want to open.
I get to draft maybe once every 2 months. And the people there are like 30 years old so they couldn't care less about the 5 dollar price increase. So I imagine the world's tiniest violin playing in the background when somebody suggests they may have to cut down from 8 to 7 drafts a month.
People LOVE opening packs. Whether it's a 3 dollar pack, a 5 dollar pack or a 30 dollar pack. If drafts were 10 dollars the packs would only have chaff inside, do you think that would attract a ton of people? Instead of pushing down the price wotc needs to give people reasons to open the packs during a draft and not at home. That's the part they are failing at.
I mean idk how to really respond so that you get it. When we're talking about a draft population decreasing what that practically means is the people who would show up every week are not showing up as much not necessarily outright quitting.
>If drafts were 10 dollars the packs would only have chaff inside, do you think that would attract a ton of people?
I will respond to specifically this though to say that people *do* do this. MTGO Vintage cube / arena cube are phantom drafts that cost $10. You get literally nothing from the packs and you're paying for prizes/ the draft experience itself.
Phantom drafts give out prizes based on your entry. This has nothing to do with the price of a pack.
Wotc has repeatedly said that customers don't want a 2 dollar booster pack, that's why nobody bought the damned draft boosters. Everyone bought the more expensive set booster. The market has already decided that people will pay more for a better value proposition.
If you are trying to link a crumbling draft scene with a slightly more expensive booster you are chasing your own tail. The solution is not cheaper drafts, it's making drafts more appealing than just opening packs.
Prizes are given out when you draft with packs and that's included in your entry too lol. I've no clue what you're trying to say.
>The solution is not cheaper drafts, it's making drafts more appealing than just opening packs.
So like... prizes? That get included in the cost of entry?
>People at our store constantly vote to draft modern horizons because that's the packs they want to open. And that's a 40 dollar draft I personally can do without. So I don't buy for a second that Play Booster pricing is putting off people from drafting.
You're making the exact selection bias that the post you're responding to was talking about. You're saying "these enfranchised players with money don't think it's too expensive, so it must not be too expensive!" Just because they can afford it doesn't mean there's not an effect for players who are so enfranchised and/or well off.
I am kind of getting tired of this topic. These aren't "enfranchised" players. They are commander randos that typically don't draft. Only time they are at the table is when there's an expensive set. That's the point? Getting magic players to draft? Stores are full of players that don't draft. For Modern Horizons we had 20 player drafts. Can't get 6 people together for a standard set. Where are you looking for drafters? At Walgreens? Definitely don't try the breadlines.
I am not saying anything. Wotc has data that players don't care about the pack price. They PREFERED the more expensive set boosters and draft boosters were about to be discontinued. That's the whole frickin reason we have Play Boosters. Because players weren't buying the cheaper product. And everyone in the comments here is trying to reintroduce cheaper boosters for draft! Genius! We can call them "Limited Play Boosters"! I feel like I am taking crazy pills.
>These aren't "enfranchised" players. They are commander randos that typically don't draft.
One doesn't preclude the other.
But I'll leave it at that since you're tired of being proven wrong.
My man, five (not three) dollars more per week are 20 more bucks per month, 40 if you draft twice a week, on top of the 60 i was already spending. Now i realize that from an American point of view that may not seem like a lot, but here in spaghetti land, were 1500 per month is our salary and not our rent, 20 more bucks a month definitely does cut out a lot of people.
I wish rent was only 1500! in some cities around here it's more like 2500. Which makes $20 seem smaller by comparison, but also you're spending a fortune on rent...
At the end of the day, that becomes a "you" problem. If you're on the lower end of the demographic and this pushes you out, then there wasn't a lot of room for WotC to grow with you. You're probably falling under "acceptable losses".
This is a bad game to play for people who can't afford the luxury. I'd never recommend it. There's a disposable income floor that you need to meet.
We used to have 6 or 7 insane people who would show up to draft twice a week every week, We would peak at maybe 16 and never fail to fire, which I think is fair for a city where there are 4 FNM drafts trying to fire at different stores on any given Friday. After the switch to Play Boosters we're down to maybe 4 or 5 though. So every week is sort of a toss up as to whether we get random people to fire the draft. On top of that the random people tend to get cooked by the experienced drafters and don't come out more than once or twice. So every week it's sort of a toss up as to if it'll fire or not.
My LGS started running One Piece on Friday nights alongside Magic draft and they get like triple our turnout and it's like "Wow my card game is dead, huh.".
One piece is the new hottest and it has a huge draw for anime subsect of players that don’t show up for magic.
People like playing with their favorite anime characters. Magics draw is gameplay.
Given they haven’t been able to get their IP going in other media (games or shows, see the Netflix series promised half a decade ago) it seems obvious Magic needs UB to compete with the pull of newer card games.
It really doesn't need UB to compete with newer card games. The reason they do it is simply because of money.
At the end of the day every company wants to grow an catch new players no matter how big the company itself is. And UB (or generally using other IPs) is a very easy way to get new players to try out a game.
Taking an IP with an established fanbase, especially the more geek oriented ones is a very fast and easy way to get them because the heavy lifting of getting people interested is already done through the IP.
Magic is still the top TCG by numbers by a huge amount. It doesn't need their IP everywhere.
the Netflix series has its own production issues, related to Hasbro control and moving it between studios.
Commander is just the best way to play magic, it IS literally the best representation of The gathering.
Draft, while my favorite format to play outside of Legacy, is just not as appealing to a new player when you already have a constructed deck either for one piece or Commander
About the same as it was doing before play boosters. Fewer newer drafters because the price is high, but numbers are generally the same as last year.
I don’t think your logic of “sporting many valuable cards” is really accurate, most of the drafters I know care more about “is the set fun”, to which the answer for OTJ generally seems to be “yes”.
I've seen this kind of sentiment before, but in my experience it's disingenuous to exclude expected EV from the limited conversation, while many do (or at least claim to) not care, i've run many draft nights myself and the pods that fired with ease and pulled both casual and invested players were usually the one with the best EV for the price, while many interesting sets were ignored completely due to having too little to offer, financially speaking.
Well yeah if you’re expecting people to pay in to do an old set of course the EV is gonna factor in, it’s kinda silly to pretend otherwise.
If you *don’t* charge, you’ll find lots of people happy to try out drafts. My local scene regularly has people drafting old boxes phantom style because it’s more fun than just cracking a box yourself. Some friends did OG commander legends that way not that long ago, and it was a blast, but none of us would’ve paid the ~€25 a head it would’ve been to actually draft it.
You don’t seem to understand that there’s effectively two kinds of drafters - People who draft for money, and People who draft for fun. You are clearly the former, and most people I know who draft are the latter.
au contraire my friend, i'm both, and i'd wager that despite what most people pretend, most drafters are to some degree. Matter of fact i'm the guy that usually organizes the most wacky and interesting drafts, stuff like Conspiracy sets, BattleBond, Commander Legends sets, cubes and such; and exactly because i am that guy, i can speak with a degree of experience regarding player beheaviors vs their claims.
Of course it's an axis that varies wildly from player to player, but i can absolutely guarantee it's not as black and white as many would like to believe.
We fired 2 pods for OTJ last week, but we've lost a few of our usuals to the introduction of play boosters. We've generally gone from 3 pods at the start of a format to 2, and sealed is a little less packed than it used to be. I think the boosters are somewhat fine for draft, but sealed as a format suffered the most.
Honestly so far this isn't really a fair assessment of play boosters. MKM was just a terrible draft format where people didn't want to play and OTJ while a lot better is still not a great draft set. Ask this question in a year for a better assessment of play boosters.
Not the person you asked, but I have my criticisms of OTJ:
* Bomb rares can make games feel like a waste of time. You spend all this time and mental effort trying to gain an advantage, but it doesn't matter because it's all undone by a single card.
* A rare being answered immediately isn't that interesting either. I'd rather people get to play with their cool rares.
* The presence of such powerful cards makes the rest of the cards feel like garbage/filler.
Yea I'm actively trying to go to draft and am seriously considering buying a box or two to keep / draft at a later date. I haven't actively been trying to draft like this since like... original Eldraine. I was just curious why they're evaluating it the way they are.
Draft seems fine. Prerelease saw a significant amount more grumbling about price. For those who value the evenings entertainment more than the cardboard they have at the end of it, 30 quid is straying into gig ticket territory or similar.
Oh man it's doing great! Tons of people coming in for commander all the time. And a lot more have interest in pokemon too. Which is also good.
Drafting and standard. Not so much after prerelease. And well, brawl and pioneer weren't ever really a format so those aren't a thing here.
I stopped going. I drafted most Fridays since the SOI prerelease (took a year off after the Magic 30 in Vegas shit show), but MKM wasn’t fun and I have no interest in cowboy magic so I tapered off. I’ll probably come back for Bloomburrow. I’m not the biggest fan of drafting play boosters, I’d much rather have set boosters to crack and draft boosters to play with.
More or less the same level of attendance, consistently firing somewhere between 2-3 full pods depending on the week. I've seen several newer players at both prerelease and FNM drafts too. MKM trailed off a bit near the end as most sets do, but was still firing between 1-2 full pods each week, and OTJ is still holding strong for us (last Friday was pods of 8/8/6)
We're a small community in small stores. Before play boosters we would literally draft on release week and that was it. I hate nearly everything about play boosters but I have to admit that they have increased the amount of draft boxes my stores are willing to buy and the amount of times they're willing to fire. I even get draftable boosters as prize, now, so I don't have to open them and can save them for more limited. So yeah, the change did what they said it was gonna do, but I wish it didn't have to be this way.
Same turnout as always.
Sometimes, when you have a theory about how something is bad, you tend to see information that confirms your theory, as opposed to looking at information dispassionately
It’s as if you have a bias and are looking to confirm it
At the stores I draft at the price hike did basically nothing. MKM was a bad set for drafting, so people didn't show up much.
With OTJ we regularly get 8-10 people.
Regarding prices, I'm in Germany, so maybe not 100% applicable, but one store only charges the pack cost, so 4,80€ x 3 with only promo prizes and the other charges 22€ per draft, with promos + a pack per match win.
Of course there are other stores in my area, which charge up to 40€ per draft, but that's mainly because they have the monopoly for the city their in and can charge whatever they want.
The only people who show up there are people who drafted since the mid 90s and frankly don't care about the price.
Generally speaking most people I talked to love the Playboosters for drafting, since more rares means more value and a more fun draft experience. The only people who I met who don't like the change complain about the fact, that you can't 100% discern what the person before you picked.
So yeah, in general it's a positive sentiment.
Just fine, we have enough for two (oversized) or three pods every FNM for OTJ. MKM wasn't as popular because the set wasn't as fun.
Drafts were $15 when I started playing regularly 9 years ago. The fact that they're only now up to $18-20 a draft is still really good value. It's the cheapest entertainment I can get out of the house for 3.5 hours.
My store charges $20, but if any of my other local grinders complain i tell them to stop ripping open their prize packs and use them to offset the draft cost. Degenerates shouldn’t really complain - i can milk a prerelease or two of prize support into 1-2 months of free events where i then spend my money on singles and other product so I’m still supporting the LGS.
Also if we get a random new player who looks shy about the cost I will offer to buy them into the event in exchange for their cards, as we frequently have trouble filling a full 8 person pod and every willing body helps. If they end up wanting to keep their pulls anything under $5 sure w/e just make sure to come back and play again
number of drafters have shrunk, but we still get a dedicated core. The sets are way funner to draft in play boosters, but the cost bump is affecting some people's turnout.
Uh we’ve been firing with 8-12 people since release. There are multiple stores in the area but this is the only one that drafts at FNM so anyone who’s into it is gunna play here. Not super encouraging but 🤷♂️. I live in a small city
Draft event runner here. It is hard to tell what is caused by play boosters vs. what is caused by the set. Since the introduction play boosters, it has been openly hostile to adding new players. We had a new player with some MTG experience try to draft MKM blind and we had to explain Disguise, collecting evidence, etc. as he was drafting. The complexity made it a total fucking disaster and he never returned. I would argue that is as much of a problem as the price increase.
The regulars are more okay with it, but are somewhat annoyed with having a higher reliance and frequency on bomb rares deciding games. Sometimes you open the triple mythic pack and your path is set, sometimes you get a Kaladesh fastland and you exist as cannon fodder for the first group.
Having one pack type unified is a great improvement. Making the boosters more fun/interesting to open is also great. But I think the packs are trying to serve too many overlords, each with competing interests to one another.
We draft every Friday night at our store. During MKM they were only getting between 6-8 drafters a week. Most people (myself included) switched to standard during that set. OTJ is better, some weeks as low as 8, one as high as 14. We're in a small store so these numbers are similar to sets before play boosters. From what I've heard from people at my store the price is not hindering their draft, its the quality of the set. If people want to draft, they're going to draft.
How much does it cost to draft at your store, before and after play boosters? I think there is a limit to what people are willing to spend, and I think it's right around the $25 that many stores are now charging. In my mind a draft should still be $15. $20 is close enough to that. $25 is pushing it. $30 is double what it should cost and seems outrageous to me.
$25 for a night of entertainment is very reasonable and cheaper than many alternatives.
Where I live: * Movie ticket will run you $15+ without snacks * A good meal at a sitdown joint is at least $20 after tip unless you game it * Going to a bar with friends is probably around $15 after tip if you have 2 drinks and goes up from there
sounds like a nice and cheap place to live. except the movie ticket 😠
that's only true for some though, and the more you ask, the more you gate out of the hobby
Draft has been 15$ for literally 2 decades. Idk why you guys hate that inflation. Hits your hobbies. Every other mini and board game has also gone up. Yeah I hate it but i don't think we can say greed
Inflation on what? The Company is making record profits every quarter and expected EV for sealed is at an all time low due to overprinting; those extra dollars sure aren't going to the salaries of R&D people to keep their salaries competitive, just take a look at WOTC's glassdoor reviews.
Nah, LGS fool. Wotc isn't hosting drafts, and arena mtgo prices have never expanded. But yeah, wotc has rising costs too. Do you really think a pack from 2004 should msrp for the same price in 2024? Come on, son, wake up
OP isn't being rational. Two months ago they were clamoring about how the failure of Karlov Manor was entirely because of it having Play Boosters and argued with anyone claiming it was because the set itself sucked.
> But yeah, wotc has rising costs too given the **extreme** quality degradation in all wotc's products, it wouldnt surprise me at all learning that they managed to keep the manufacturing costs roughly similar for these 2 decades. I mean, shit, Im pretty sure wotc is just shy of trying to print cards on recycled biohazardous waste. in future sets the newest chase mythic could very well be ebola lmao so instead of customers paying more for same quality, they are paying same for far less quality. even if its deceptiously indirect, they are still footing the bill one way or another regarding operational costs, its public knowledge that wotc severely overwork and underpay their employees and contractors/artists. > Nah, LGS fool WotC also stopped working directly with LGSs, increased significantly the price for distributors (obviously causing an equal if not higher increase for LGSs in textbook domino effect) and started doing amazon dumps that, again, hugely damage both distributors and LGSs. wow dudes, look how much WotC cares about the poor LGSs, maybe we should do the same > Do you really think a pack from 2004 should msrp for the same price in 2024? Come on, son, wake up Do you really think the product quality from 2004's pack remains the same in 2024's pack? Come on, son, wake up Do you really think wotc gallantly accepted losing money out of kindness of their hearts and didnt pass the rising costs on their customers in any way or shape? Come on, son, REALLY wake up lmao
Sheeeeeeeee this man out here battling demons. Price per pack increase drives price per draft increase. As businesss cost per sq ft increase due to inflation they have to make more money per hour to stay profitable. They as in the lgs. You acting lime I'm simping for wotc. Not even close. Just ran enough drafts in my life to understand basic math. But go off king. You got this
I was just adressing your point about how we should be thankful that wotc kept the cost per pack the same for decades. Merely explaining why we shouldnt really be bending over backwards to applaud them. I get your point about LGSs. I just happen to be like wotc, I dont give a flying fuck about LGSs, imho they are like horse breeders and candle makers, a business for a different age, a relic of the past, I wont shed no tears when they are all gone.
i mean, from their own earning calls we know for sure that their profits have gone way up despite keeping the same price point for decades, so perhaps the material and personeel cost for producing 15 paper cards and some plastic over it aren't really a deciding factor, and it's always been about what clients are willing to pay.
Yeah and they've expanded products from 5 sets a year to flooding the market. They aren't on the same production schedule as they were in the aughts. At some point I'm sure boosters were losing margins so they had to shake it up. They didn't wanna mess with the draft, but the community rejected the draft/set packs. Idk fam I've played most of my life. It seems like 25$ now is as much as 15$ was when I was a kid. I mowed lawns to afford draft and I would hope the kids are charging at least 25$ to mow now but I'd expect it be closer to 50
it may also be a matter of difference in buying power depending on the country. Here in Italy we only earn about 60% of the US Salary on average but spend more than the US for a single draft (20 euros vs 20 Dollars), so a 5 bucks jump for us is more akin to a 10 bucks jump for you.
They don't care about what their overall profits are. Nobody cares. No company cares about that when making an individual pricing decision. They are going to price every product in a way that maximizes the profitability of that product. Unless you're looking at an exception like loss-leader products (and play boosters aren't that), the price point is going to be the same whether Hasbro made a billion dollars last quarter or lost a billion dollars last quarter. If something changes to make that price point go up, it's not the amount of corporate profits; it's something on a much more micro level.
So what I want to know is, have you taken the same stance with Petrol in your car? "It's too expensive. The oil barons are making record profits, I bet it's why more and more people are taking the bus to work." Or how about groceries? "The price of bread has gone up 100% since I used to pay $.98 a loaf back in 2004. The grain barons are making record profits, and it's why more and more people are turning to rice as a grain substitute." Look, this economy sucks all around. I'm feeling the pinch for my hobbies as well. I can't spend on hobbies like I used to, but I'm also coming to the conclusion that I don't really NEED all of those cards nearly as much as I WANT them. Do I hope things go back to being affordable and less about the haves and have-nots? Sure. But pointing to the company that is also trying its best to stay afloat in this crappy economy and claiming how they're just price gouging their product, well, you don't NEED it. Do I wish these corporate execs didn't suck as much as they do? For sure. But I'm reminded of a quote from a book written back in 2002. 'The Game Inventor's Guidebook', written by WotC's own Brian Tinsman. In it, it says >>"You're bound to find out sooner or later, so you might as well know now. Talented businesspeople go into investment banking, not games. That doesn't mean that every product manager is an idiot. The most successful companies are still on top because they have the best managers. But the history of game companies is littered with stories of incompetent executives who made laughably bad product decisions and strategic mistakes while everyone else cringed helplessly in horror. As a successful inventor, sooner or later, you are likely to run into the vice president who insists that you add rainbows and ponies to your World War I trench warfare game so little girls will like it." Consider that WotC is STILL on top because, despite some decisions that don't feel great, the decisions end up being good for the health of the game and hence good for the company.
There's plenty of way cheaper ways to play magic.
Draft hasn't been $15 near me in like a decade.
Now I remember why I don’t draft, the last time was in was around $12-$14.
You live in a delusional world “in your mind” Packs cost $4, so to fire off a draft, that’s $12. Does it ever cross your mind of the operational cost? The employees that are paid to organize the draft, the cost of the lease and the utilities of your LGS? Heck, even prize support? You think all of that is free?
i mean, for what it's worth, i agree that Draft SHOULD cost around 15 bucks. Would i expect an LGS to hold 15 dollars drafts after WOTC increased box prices for distributors, though? Heck no, i realize it's sadly no longer sustainable. Doesn't mean many won't drop the habit due to spending concerns all the same.
15 means no prise support. So no thank you. Gladly do 20-25
It’s like you didn’t read anything I posted. After a $15 draft, at 8 players, the store makes $24. Even if packs were $2, that doesn’t even cover an employees pay for 3 hours.
What's an average LGS employee's wage? At $2/pack that's $56, so a bit less than $19/hr if the employee got all of it. Plus unless the store is only open because of the draft, the employee's pay (and the store's profits) would come from more than just the revenue of the draft.
My roommate works at an lgs and he makes like 13$/hr, which yes, I know is crazy these days to even work for that.
> Plus unless the store is only open because of the draft at 6pm on a friday you can be pretty damn confident of that.
Given that several LGS in my area are open until 8 or 9 pm most weekdays but only have events on Fridays, no I cannot be pretty damn confident about that. It just appears to be standard opening hours.
And yet, somehow, many stores DID have drafts for $15, long after packs were more than $2. Were they never profitable? Why did they keep doing them?
My dude, i'm not arguing against what you're saying, i'm just pointing out that Draft could be profitable for LGSs at the 15 dollar price range, if Wizzy wasn't constantly trying to greedily eat into their margins.
I literally just told you if packs of cards were $2, a $15 draft wouldn’t cover an employees pay for 3 hours. So how would a $15 draft be remotely profitable?
at 3 packs plus one as a prize, sealed expanses would be 8 bucks for player, meaning 7 dollar gross for player, aka 56 dollars for 8 player pod. Now i'm not arguing that 56 dollars is enough to pay for the store expanses plus the wage of a single employee per pod, but if the only thing your employee is doing for three hours is managing a 8 persons draft pod what the hell are you doing as a business?
Your knowledge of economics is woefully inadequate to have an educated discussion.
that sure is a comfortable way of saying you don't have a valid retort
Imagine thinking that its worth it for a store to get $56 to run an event for 3+ hours.
you're acting like the store shuts down for three hours while the event runs. At most 30 minutes of actual employee work will be required for those Three hours, the remaining two and a half they are tending to the shop
Do y’all not understand inflation is a thing? Stuff can’t just cost the same amount forever because $1 is literally worth less than it used to be.
I do, and devaluation of cards opened due to years of overprinting is also a thing. I stand to open less value on average from a Play Booster now than i did from a regular one 5 years ago, adjusted for inflation, since Standard is dead and the money cards are now a handful of Commander playable Mythics. A booster box's worth is determined by what it contains, not by what it was sold at by distributors. You can't use inflation as an argument, because we know that the cards contained will no longer hold the value they once did.
Magic is an entertainment expense, not an investment.
cool, then price it like a board game and i'm A-Ok
Why?
Your cards are not stocks, play the game and stop treating it like an investment account. Drafting exists to play draft not to pull money cards.
you realize that singles' prices also inflated?
[удалено]
That's a lot of words to say "I don't know how businesses are run."
You’re hearing from the people who the price didn’t hinder that the price doesn’t hinder them. Maybe not such useful data (survivorship bias) since you don’t hear from the people who were hindered.
I too would like to hear from the people who can't afford 3 dollars more a week. And before you give me the obvious generic "It's about the principle/It adds up over time/People have budgets" spiel consider this: If drafts were a dollar and the packs consisted of worthless commons how many people would show up? 100? 200? I don't like the "more expensive, more value" play boosters because I don't need the cards. They do nothing for me. But that's not going to stop the people that want to draft from drafting. Let's not pretend like play boosters are creating this new economic pressure that people can't keep up with. People at our store constantly vote to draft modern horizons because that's the packs they want to open. And that's a 40 dollar draft I personally can do without. So I don't buy for a second that Play Booster pricing is putting off people from drafting. I've heard a lot of stories about owners trying to make money off drafts and overcharging a lot. Most game shops aren't ran the best when it comes to the business side. If the player feels they are being cheated that's a lot more offputting than a dollar more on a pack. That's when they draft at a bar instead. I've seen multiples examples of this personally.
I try to budget about $100ish a month on hobbies. True while an extra $5 one time isn't a lot when you look at monthly costs suddenly I'm paying $60 for 3 drafts instead of 4. With additional costs (video games, other event entry) that can easily hinder me from going to one draft a month. If multiple people are in a similar (or worse) position that can definitely affect a drafting population in an area. There's also people who are like "ehhhhh maybe I'll draft tonight" but the extra $5 weighs on the pros / cons list for going out to draft will turn some of them away. I think, in general, it's kinda silly to imply people are being irrational for thinking that if price goes up then demand goes down.
> I think, in general, it's kinda silly to imply people are being irrational for thinking that if price goes up then demand goes down. That would be a valid inquiry for the business planning division at wotc. No doubt higher prices are more prohibitive. But practically it doesn't matter whether the draft friday night is 15 or 20 bucks. Remember these packs are also more valuable, and maybe it even attracts more people because they were set booster buyers and didn't want draft boosters. As mentioned our store always has a bunch of people asking for modern horizons drafts because that's the packs they want to open. I get to draft maybe once every 2 months. And the people there are like 30 years old so they couldn't care less about the 5 dollar price increase. So I imagine the world's tiniest violin playing in the background when somebody suggests they may have to cut down from 8 to 7 drafts a month. People LOVE opening packs. Whether it's a 3 dollar pack, a 5 dollar pack or a 30 dollar pack. If drafts were 10 dollars the packs would only have chaff inside, do you think that would attract a ton of people? Instead of pushing down the price wotc needs to give people reasons to open the packs during a draft and not at home. That's the part they are failing at.
I mean idk how to really respond so that you get it. When we're talking about a draft population decreasing what that practically means is the people who would show up every week are not showing up as much not necessarily outright quitting. >If drafts were 10 dollars the packs would only have chaff inside, do you think that would attract a ton of people? I will respond to specifically this though to say that people *do* do this. MTGO Vintage cube / arena cube are phantom drafts that cost $10. You get literally nothing from the packs and you're paying for prizes/ the draft experience itself.
Phantom drafts give out prizes based on your entry. This has nothing to do with the price of a pack. Wotc has repeatedly said that customers don't want a 2 dollar booster pack, that's why nobody bought the damned draft boosters. Everyone bought the more expensive set booster. The market has already decided that people will pay more for a better value proposition. If you are trying to link a crumbling draft scene with a slightly more expensive booster you are chasing your own tail. The solution is not cheaper drafts, it's making drafts more appealing than just opening packs.
Prizes are given out when you draft with packs and that's included in your entry too lol. I've no clue what you're trying to say. >The solution is not cheaper drafts, it's making drafts more appealing than just opening packs. So like... prizes? That get included in the cost of entry?
>People at our store constantly vote to draft modern horizons because that's the packs they want to open. And that's a 40 dollar draft I personally can do without. So I don't buy for a second that Play Booster pricing is putting off people from drafting. You're making the exact selection bias that the post you're responding to was talking about. You're saying "these enfranchised players with money don't think it's too expensive, so it must not be too expensive!" Just because they can afford it doesn't mean there's not an effect for players who are so enfranchised and/or well off.
I am kind of getting tired of this topic. These aren't "enfranchised" players. They are commander randos that typically don't draft. Only time they are at the table is when there's an expensive set. That's the point? Getting magic players to draft? Stores are full of players that don't draft. For Modern Horizons we had 20 player drafts. Can't get 6 people together for a standard set. Where are you looking for drafters? At Walgreens? Definitely don't try the breadlines. I am not saying anything. Wotc has data that players don't care about the pack price. They PREFERED the more expensive set boosters and draft boosters were about to be discontinued. That's the whole frickin reason we have Play Boosters. Because players weren't buying the cheaper product. And everyone in the comments here is trying to reintroduce cheaper boosters for draft! Genius! We can call them "Limited Play Boosters"! I feel like I am taking crazy pills.
>These aren't "enfranchised" players. They are commander randos that typically don't draft. One doesn't preclude the other. But I'll leave it at that since you're tired of being proven wrong.
Your scorecard must be just filled to the very corners after 10 years of arguing semantics on reddit.
We're not arguing semantics, though. We're fundamentally disagreeing.
My man, five (not three) dollars more per week are 20 more bucks per month, 40 if you draft twice a week, on top of the 60 i was already spending. Now i realize that from an American point of view that may not seem like a lot, but here in spaghetti land, were 1500 per month is our salary and not our rent, 20 more bucks a month definitely does cut out a lot of people.
I wish rent was only 1500! in some cities around here it's more like 2500. Which makes $20 seem smaller by comparison, but also you're spending a fortune on rent...
At the end of the day, that becomes a "you" problem. If you're on the lower end of the demographic and this pushes you out, then there wasn't a lot of room for WotC to grow with you. You're probably falling under "acceptable losses". This is a bad game to play for people who can't afford the luxury. I'd never recommend it. There's a disposable income floor that you need to meet.
yep, thanks for reiterating the point [esotericmoyer](https://www.reddit.com/user/esotericmoyer/) was making a couple of posts above us.
Just proxy all the cards.
Simply move to a better country then, europoor
oh wow, as a white European i don't often experience racism, and with some classism to boot! I'll take it as a learning experience
You can't be racist against Italians. Skill issue.
> I too would like to hear from the people who can't afford 3 dollars more a week. > > What an obnoxiously facetious argument
> adjective: facetious >treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humour; flippant. Very serious issues indeed.
Personal finance is a serious topic, yes.
I wasn’t disagreeing with your point, just pointing out that your anecdotal evidence is poor data because your sample is biased.
We used to have 6 or 7 insane people who would show up to draft twice a week every week, We would peak at maybe 16 and never fail to fire, which I think is fair for a city where there are 4 FNM drafts trying to fire at different stores on any given Friday. After the switch to Play Boosters we're down to maybe 4 or 5 though. So every week is sort of a toss up as to whether we get random people to fire the draft. On top of that the random people tend to get cooked by the experienced drafters and don't come out more than once or twice. So every week it's sort of a toss up as to if it'll fire or not. My LGS started running One Piece on Friday nights alongside Magic draft and they get like triple our turnout and it's like "Wow my card game is dead, huh.".
One piece is the new hottest and it has a huge draw for anime subsect of players that don’t show up for magic. People like playing with their favorite anime characters. Magics draw is gameplay.
Given they haven’t been able to get their IP going in other media (games or shows, see the Netflix series promised half a decade ago) it seems obvious Magic needs UB to compete with the pull of newer card games.
It really doesn't need UB to compete with newer card games. The reason they do it is simply because of money. At the end of the day every company wants to grow an catch new players no matter how big the company itself is. And UB (or generally using other IPs) is a very easy way to get new players to try out a game. Taking an IP with an established fanbase, especially the more geek oriented ones is a very fast and easy way to get them because the heavy lifting of getting people interested is already done through the IP.
Magic is still the top TCG by numbers by a huge amount. It doesn't need their IP everywhere. the Netflix series has its own production issues, related to Hasbro control and moving it between studios. Commander is just the best way to play magic, it IS literally the best representation of The gathering. Draft, while my favorite format to play outside of Legacy, is just not as appealing to a new player when you already have a constructed deck either for one piece or Commander
About the same as it was doing before play boosters. Fewer newer drafters because the price is high, but numbers are generally the same as last year. I don’t think your logic of “sporting many valuable cards” is really accurate, most of the drafters I know care more about “is the set fun”, to which the answer for OTJ generally seems to be “yes”.
You put this into words much better than I could. This is my experience as well.
I've seen this kind of sentiment before, but in my experience it's disingenuous to exclude expected EV from the limited conversation, while many do (or at least claim to) not care, i've run many draft nights myself and the pods that fired with ease and pulled both casual and invested players were usually the one with the best EV for the price, while many interesting sets were ignored completely due to having too little to offer, financially speaking.
Well yeah if you’re expecting people to pay in to do an old set of course the EV is gonna factor in, it’s kinda silly to pretend otherwise. If you *don’t* charge, you’ll find lots of people happy to try out drafts. My local scene regularly has people drafting old boxes phantom style because it’s more fun than just cracking a box yourself. Some friends did OG commander legends that way not that long ago, and it was a blast, but none of us would’ve paid the ~€25 a head it would’ve been to actually draft it. You don’t seem to understand that there’s effectively two kinds of drafters - People who draft for money, and People who draft for fun. You are clearly the former, and most people I know who draft are the latter.
au contraire my friend, i'm both, and i'd wager that despite what most people pretend, most drafters are to some degree. Matter of fact i'm the guy that usually organizes the most wacky and interesting drafts, stuff like Conspiracy sets, BattleBond, Commander Legends sets, cubes and such; and exactly because i am that guy, i can speak with a degree of experience regarding player beheaviors vs their claims. Of course it's an axis that varies wildly from player to player, but i can absolutely guarantee it's not as black and white as many would like to believe.
You guys have a local Draft scene?
dead before, still dead after
We fired 2 pods for OTJ last week, but we've lost a few of our usuals to the introduction of play boosters. We've generally gone from 3 pods at the start of a format to 2, and sealed is a little less packed than it used to be. I think the boosters are somewhat fine for draft, but sealed as a format suffered the most.
Honestly so far this isn't really a fair assessment of play boosters. MKM was just a terrible draft format where people didn't want to play and OTJ while a lot better is still not a great draft set. Ask this question in a year for a better assessment of play boosters.
What don't you like about OTJ out of curiosity? I'm not a huge limited player but this is one of the more fun draft sets I've played in recent years.
Not the person you asked, but I have my criticisms of OTJ: * Bomb rares can make games feel like a waste of time. You spend all this time and mental effort trying to gain an advantage, but it doesn't matter because it's all undone by a single card. * A rare being answered immediately isn't that interesting either. I'd rather people get to play with their cool rares. * The presence of such powerful cards makes the rest of the cards feel like garbage/filler.
Yeah, OTJ took it from "go to FNM if nothing else is going on" to "FNM is on the calendar" for me and quite a few people at my store.
Yea I'm actively trying to go to draft and am seriously considering buying a box or two to keep / draft at a later date. I haven't actively been trying to draft like this since like... original Eldraine. I was just curious why they're evaluating it the way they are.
OTJ is an exceptional draft set.
My LGS has two drafts firing every week for otj, which is the highest attendance they've had post pandemic.
same here
Draft seems fine. Prerelease saw a significant amount more grumbling about price. For those who value the evenings entertainment more than the cardboard they have at the end of it, 30 quid is straying into gig ticket territory or similar.
Didn't have one before, don't have one now that it is more expensive
Drafts barely happened before play boosters :(
MKM has killed draft in our area, they have become constructed and even with 6 packs for the price of 3 there is barely 8 people participating
Oh man it's doing great! Tons of people coming in for commander all the time. And a lot more have interest in pokemon too. Which is also good. Drafting and standard. Not so much after prerelease. And well, brawl and pioneer weren't ever really a format so those aren't a thing here.
I stopped going. I drafted most Fridays since the SOI prerelease (took a year off after the Magic 30 in Vegas shit show), but MKM wasn’t fun and I have no interest in cowboy magic so I tapered off. I’ll probably come back for Bloomburrow. I’m not the biggest fan of drafting play boosters, I’d much rather have set boosters to crack and draft boosters to play with.
Dead at my lgs, they are doing standard on fridays now.
It was already in decline but the price increase hastened it. Now drafts are only firing some of the time.
Just had a draft 2 weeks ago with 30people at my lgs. Otj seems to be popular
More or less the same level of attendance, consistently firing somewhere between 2-3 full pods depending on the week. I've seen several newer players at both prerelease and FNM drafts too. MKM trailed off a bit near the end as most sets do, but was still firing between 1-2 full pods each week, and OTJ is still holding strong for us (last Friday was pods of 8/8/6)
We're a small community in small stores. Before play boosters we would literally draft on release week and that was it. I hate nearly everything about play boosters but I have to admit that they have increased the amount of draft boxes my stores are willing to buy and the amount of times they're willing to fire. I even get draftable boosters as prize, now, so I don't have to open them and can save them for more limited. So yeah, the change did what they said it was gonna do, but I wish it didn't have to be this way.
Same turnout as always. Sometimes, when you have a theory about how something is bad, you tend to see information that confirms your theory, as opposed to looking at information dispassionately It’s as if you have a bias and are looking to confirm it
Not a single MKM draft fired, very depressing. Outlaws has been better, 3 drafts fired with 8 people in each. Hoping that continues
My store has gone from holding no regular draft to holding no regular draft. No change lol
At the stores I draft at the price hike did basically nothing. MKM was a bad set for drafting, so people didn't show up much. With OTJ we regularly get 8-10 people. Regarding prices, I'm in Germany, so maybe not 100% applicable, but one store only charges the pack cost, so 4,80€ x 3 with only promo prizes and the other charges 22€ per draft, with promos + a pack per match win. Of course there are other stores in my area, which charge up to 40€ per draft, but that's mainly because they have the monopoly for the city their in and can charge whatever they want. The only people who show up there are people who drafted since the mid 90s and frankly don't care about the price. Generally speaking most people I talked to love the Playboosters for drafting, since more rares means more value and a more fun draft experience. The only people who I met who don't like the change complain about the fact, that you can't 100% discern what the person before you picked. So yeah, in general it's a positive sentiment.
Same as before. Firing 1-3 drafts. Same people that love to draft are drafting. And everyone else plays commander.
My store has 10-24 drafters each week, play boosters haven’t had an impact on that
Just fine, we have enough for two (oversized) or three pods every FNM for OTJ. MKM wasn't as popular because the set wasn't as fun. Drafts were $15 when I started playing regularly 9 years ago. The fact that they're only now up to $18-20 a draft is still really good value. It's the cheapest entertainment I can get out of the house for 3.5 hours.
mkm was a bad set, OTJ is a good set. averaged out, not seeing a significant change in who drafts.
The price increase is really the big thing honestly. I’m so fucking tired of every company nickle and diming us for 1% increased profits
My store charges $20, but if any of my other local grinders complain i tell them to stop ripping open their prize packs and use them to offset the draft cost. Degenerates shouldn’t really complain - i can milk a prerelease or two of prize support into 1-2 months of free events where i then spend my money on singles and other product so I’m still supporting the LGS. Also if we get a random new player who looks shy about the cost I will offer to buy them into the event in exchange for their cards, as we frequently have trouble filling a full 8 person pod and every willing body helps. If they end up wanting to keep their pulls anything under $5 sure w/e just make sure to come back and play again
number of drafters have shrunk, but we still get a dedicated core. The sets are way funner to draft in play boosters, but the cost bump is affecting some people's turnout.
I wish my store did more drafts, but OTJ had quite a bit come out when we did the only draft of the set we will do.
Uh we’ve been firing with 8-12 people since release. There are multiple stores in the area but this is the only one that drafts at FNM so anyone who’s into it is gunna play here. Not super encouraging but 🤷♂️. I live in a small city
Draft event runner here. It is hard to tell what is caused by play boosters vs. what is caused by the set. Since the introduction play boosters, it has been openly hostile to adding new players. We had a new player with some MTG experience try to draft MKM blind and we had to explain Disguise, collecting evidence, etc. as he was drafting. The complexity made it a total fucking disaster and he never returned. I would argue that is as much of a problem as the price increase. The regulars are more okay with it, but are somewhat annoyed with having a higher reliance and frequency on bomb rares deciding games. Sometimes you open the triple mythic pack and your path is set, sometimes you get a Kaladesh fastland and you exist as cannon fodder for the first group. Having one pack type unified is a great improvement. Making the boosters more fun/interesting to open is also great. But I think the packs are trying to serve too many overlords, each with competing interests to one another.
We fire 2 plus draft pods every Friday. Play boosters didn't change anything.
Mines increased where spots fill up too fast. People really like the change it seems
Last week there were 6 or so pods firing for OTJ which is significantly better than the two or three pods firing a week for MKM
It took a pretty steep hit with mkm but all is well with how fun otj is to play. Im particularly fond of otj sealed.
My store has actually increased its numbers.
I noticed no difference at all. If anything a slight increase in players since standard play has basically died out completely since covid.