LGS Owner Explains Why Magic: The Gathering Prices May Reportedly Increase in Europe

Magic: The Gathering players in Europe might have to pay more for MTG products starting with the release of Throne of Eldraine, and one local game store owner from the United Kingdom recently shared a post on Facebook explaining why the prices of Magic products may increase when Throne of Eldraine comes out this fall.

"From Throne of Eldraine, the MINIMUM price a store pays for Magic boosters will have gone up 30p from War of the Spark to Throne of Eldraine," Dave Salisbury, the owner of Fan Boy Three store, wrote. "So what does this mean? Well, since Wizards have abolished setting MSRP on their products before this announcement, it means stores are encouraged to take a hit on their events, their booster sales and their box sales. But stores were already pretty close to the wire due to competition. Now the box price everyone pays has gone up £10. No ifs, no buts, no exemptions or exceptions. Every store now pays much much more for Magic than they used to if they bought in bulk."

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Salisbury also said that the cost of prerelease events will rise and talks about the struggles of the local game stores in Europe. "No store wants to raise its prices," he said. "Thus us what we call a hammer and anvil moment, because with a game as big as Magic, losing all your customers because you put in a price rise? It could mean that store loses customers and loses sales and goes out of business."

The U.K store owner went on to explain why the local game stores have no choice but to increase prices for MTG products: "Maybe your store can hold the line on booster prices. Individual boosters. Maybe we will keep our extremely successful Multibuy offers and take the hit. But on events we were already just breaking even. On booster box sales we were pared pretty thin. And if your store has to raise the price of FNM or Sealed, or box price, its not because they want to. It's because they absolutely have to."

Salisbury says that distribution companies and Wizards of the Coast left them with no choice. "And you know, globally? Boosters have been at the same price for the last ten years," he said. "This is inflation at work, not evil. It's just in one great pre-Brexit chunk. I don't blame Wizards for increasing the price. But I do call them on the disingenuity of abolishing MSRP before implementing these rises, globally and unilaterally."

You can read the full post below:

Last February, Wizards of the Coast announced that they will no longer provide manufacturer's suggested retail prices (MSRPs) for Magic: The Gathering products.

"We're making this change to streamline our communications around new products," DailyMTG content manager Blake Rasmussen wrote. "MSRPs are not favored in many parts of the world, which led to some confusion among our global player base. As Magic becomes more and more global, it makes less and less sense to suggest a retail price."

It's still unclear if prices of Magic products in other regions will increase when Throne of Eldraine comes out but I hope local game stores from around the world will be able to thrive, not just Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast.

Throne of Eldraine is set to release on October 4. Prerelease will be held on September 28-29.

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