Magic: The Gathering LGS That Will Re-Open For Limited Hours Gets Criticized by Local Community

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, local games stores (LGS) where Magic: The Gathering players usually gather have temporarily closed for the safety of the community and to comply with social distancing standards, but one store in Rosewell, Georgia has already announced that it will re-open for limited hours over the weekend.

Over its Facebook page, Heroic Games has announced their plan to re-open this weekend. "Hey everyone, I have some good news," Heroic Games wrote in a Facebook post. "In accordance with what the Governor said today the shop will be open again (for limited hours) over the weekend and if that goes well we will resume food sales on Monday." The Georgia-based LGS went on to reveal their limited schedule this weekend that includes the daily Friday Night Magic, and hours for open gaming.

"While it is a relief that we will be open to the public I cannot stress enough that we need to see the support of our customers over the next week," Heroic Games added. "We have Ikoria and Secret Lair pre-orders ready to go, the new Yu-gi-oh and Vanguard sets in stock, and plenty of Games Workshop product. This coupled with our dwindled but still existent board gaming walls, X-Wing, and of course our D&D minis we hope to have a great weekend and get back to a semblance of normality by next week."

While some people have expressed their support for the store's opening, some locals disagree and claim the decision as irresponsible as re-opening the LGS will be complicit in viral spread.

One of those people is Will Sykes, who responded in the comments:

"This is an atrociously short sided decision and while i understand the need to be able to do buisness the decision to run something like FNM that cannot happen under social distancing requirements is incredibly dangerous and irresponsible. I urge you to rethink the FNM/open gaming space decision. As someone wirking in an essential buisness with a comprimised immune system i'm putting my wellbeing at risk daily and i cannot justify supporting any buisness that would make such a blatantly awful decision that would make this situation last longer/get worse."

Another user named Felix called the decision to re-open "incredibly dangerous and short-sighted". He said that although local businesses are suffering from this pandemic, "We are dealing with an incredible infectious virus that is still trending up in Atlanta. Helping facilitate social gathering is dangerous and ignorant."

Some Redditors also expressed their concerns for the employees working at the store while others have expressed their sympathy to LGS who are having a tough time during these hard times.

Heroic Games followed up the post with a set of addendums and rules which will go into effect in stores:

Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro's publisher of Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons, have taken efforts to help stores in their Wizards Play Network (WPN) recover from these difficult times. The company has also released an infographic for the community to support their LGS.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Hopefully, things will get back to normal so we can gather in LGS without the dangers of viruses. For now, many players like me would rather play the best game in the world via Magic: The Gathering Arena.

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