As you all know, this is the SOI pre-release weekend. I hope everybody is doing well and having a great time. I haven’t had the chance to play because the big majority of events in my city have been canceled to the next week, or to further notice.
It’s not the first time, and I’m not really sure why this is happening since all the pre-release events for the Tarkir block were really ok, but some say that’s because is difficult to bring in the product in time through costumes.
I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and we are having a bit of trouble stabilizing most things right now, being MTG the least of our problems really, but you can feel the atmosphere in almost everything. We had a change in our government recently and, even before the elections were held, that meant that the Grand Prix weren’t being held here in 2016, but in Costa Rica. Not having the Grand Prix is a big deal for local pro players who can’t travel abroad, shops, vendors, and more casual players who sell cards to others and play side events cheaper than in stores in any FNM. This were due to “Political Inestability”, even though, again, the elections were yet to come (Anyway, kudos to anyone playing the Costa Rica GP, I hear they are great organizers).
Another thing happening right now is the devaluation of our coin. It has been happening since the 2000′s, and now is quite high, being 1 dls = 14 pesos. Add that to the inflation, the fact that most people aren’t getting rises in their salaries and that many people is loosing their jobs, and you guess that maybe, paying 630 pesos isn’t worth it for a pre-release event. A lot of friends who were able to play in the past, can’t right now just because of the prices. I fear that this will continue happening.
Magic never was a cheap game, Is not designed to be cheap, but most of the prices aren’t even correlating with the real prices in the USA, even taking the devalutaion into consideration (this even includes sleeves and other related products). I had the chance to play the pre-release event of OGW in San Francisco earlier this year, and I remember talking to my friends back in Buenos Aires, and how they weren’t playing because of how expensive it was, and at the same time I was doing the math for what I was paying, and it didn’t made sense. This prices aren’t even trying to cover for the cardboard Avacyn’s or the cool lamps, since most of this things never get to Latin America.
So this is what is happening right now, in a rough nutshell and in bad english, in my city. I don’t know how other players in other parts of the world are handling similar issues, but it would be interesting to know, since Magic is a world phenomenon and is approached by, not only other cultures, but by other economical realities and environments.
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