~ July 2022 - MID-Month Updates ~

Seriously....RELAX.

Take your TIME.

Read this ENTIRE POST.

Welcome to the infamous Rudy Monthly Update.

The most shared and reacted to post in the CCG world.

Alright lets get the bad news out first....This is the WORST summer i have ever seen in the 6.9 years i have been on youtube. It is surreal how bad it is. Lots of LGS's quit...stuck distributors with product. Bills are unpaid, competition has dropped off. Lots of firesale products at losses to raise capital. Absolute wild market conditions in the last 3 months.

GOOD NEWS...i believe this summer is the bottom. I know its very dumb and risky to discuss bottoms, but i believe this is the worst. I am seeing standard magic/pokemon boxes stabilize and even uptick 5%-10% form the lows from 45 days ago.

Magic the Gathering - SUMMARY - I believe the "injection" of profit into LGS's from double masters hase stabilized the fire sale of products. I noticed a huge shift in behavior right after double masters hit the market. I almost want to say DM2022 saved the mtg economy on a larger scale than anyone can fully imagine. Pre-DM2022 stores were selling everything at a loss to stay in business. That pressure has now been removed.

Magic the Gathering - Baldurs Gate - Draft and set boxes are actually selling at a stable rate and the pricing of singles and sealed boxes are very stable. With the assumption that wotc literally cant reprint multiple waves of this product. The market and distribution has accepted what is out there is going to be most of everything at this point. I remain very bullish long term on this product line. 99% of all stores have finished fireselling everything.

Magic the Gathering - DM2022 - Now that 90%+ of all supply has flushed through the product, prices remain VERY strong at $340/$325 for draft/collectors with no signs of any crash or hard drop. Great long term hold

Magic the Gathering - RESERVED LIST - Remains "stable" and weak, no reserved lit buyouts...buylists remain partially closed and large stores do not want to inject a lot of capital into expensive cards inthe current market. PRO TIP: once the buylist goes back on line and prices uptick...its too late and prices will move quickly. THis is the time to be continnously adding to positions slowely and calmly over a long period of time.

Magic the Gathering DOMINARIA UNITED - No once cares about the price increase anymore.....i have already recieved over 50+ patron messages asking if im going to be selling 24 collector box master cases. I dont know the asnwer at this time. I wont have pricing or quantity on this product line until 10 days before release. To be very blunt about it, this set is going to sell like wildfire. Its going to be a monster success. Doesnt matter if you open a case and only pull 2 legend common cards. Its going to sell out, and its going to age well in the future. Doesnt matter if you pay $250 or $350 a collector box. In 5 years it will be so rare and expensive the short term swings wont matter.

Pokemon - General - Market remaind very strong and appears to be leading the "recovery" and stabilizing the market. Pokemon sealed was the first CCG to show signs of recovery 30 days ago. With chilling reign hitting $100 and brilliant upticking, and now Astral getting the final restock, and still holding $100 a box is VERY impressive for this market. Still love the sealed boxes of any era. Still hate graded singles.

Pokemon GO - since this set does not have booster boxes, i will not be selling or carrying it. THe next pokemon set to patrons will be Lost origins

Weiss Schwarz-  TCGPLAYER SELLERS - Use extreme caution, many patrons have told me about a couple sellers that FIRESELL weiss boxes at insaney cheap prices. Some patrons have literally purchased 30-50 LOOSE boxes from these cheap sellers and recieved ZERO SP cards and RRR cards. What is happening is these stores open cases until they hit the big case pull. THen dump the rest on the market. ONLY buy from a SELLER you trust or a local store you trust. If the price is to good too be true, its a scam.

Weiss Schwarz - UPCOMING - i Believe i have 3 more weiss sets coming up in the next 45 days....Tokyo/Quint 2/ Attack on titan FINAL....be aware....the supply is being reduced and sales are going sell out. I believe with shifting market conditions the print runs have been adjusted, some of my large pre-orders are all being reduced moving forward.

Weiss Schwarz - CONCLUSION - I remain very bullish and very impressed at the product lines and crossovers with popular IP's. Weiss continues to do very very well even in this garbage economy. I still believe sealed Weiss should remain a good diversified piece of any Sealed Collector. Long term data and pricing remains very impressive.

Force of Will - Im not sure i will be offering any future sets anymore. The print runs are so small, i believe i can only get a couple cases. I have heard rumors that some larger companies might be buying the company and brand out. I have no idea whats going to happen. I still love the brand and some of the older boxes are getting very very rare.

Flesh and Blood - REALITY - Secondary market remains "BORING". Absoulty no major movements in any direction. The secondary market remains very skeptical post monarch and print runs. Online sales remain stable. Distribution and LSS continue to state demand is strong at the LGS level but is not being fully reflected in online sales. In general, I monitor the view count on 10 other FaB youtube channels and i monitor the velocity of sales on ebay/tcgplayer. All 10 other youtube channels that focus on Fab have experienced a 50%-75% decline in views on Fab videos compared to 1 year ago. This is alignment with market declines and engagement.

I do NOT believe FaB has any risk of going to zero or shutting down. The company is well capitalized and stable. They are working on multiple new sets for 2023 and pipline remains fluid and shows no signs of stopping.

My personal opinion remains, the "NEGATIVE/ANGER ONLINE WON THE BATTLE" and the loud angry voices got its wish and prices of everything are now cheap and players want everything from a Tunic to legendaries to be cheap and "easy" to get. This mindset has shattered the "COLLECTIBLE" in CCG. The market now reflects that. Print runs need to return to 37k-60k range to show seriousness. Prices would rise, players will complain, things will become expensive. FaB to me, is something so special, i believe it should be expensive, and you need to pay up if you want to play a highly complex beautiful game. It is supposed to be TOUGH. It is supposed to be DIFFICULT to get. It is supposed to be SPECIAL. Print runs in the 125k-200k range have damaged the foundation of a truely beautiful CCG ran by passionate people.

It took magic 30 years and millions of players to have print runs into the 100k-300k range that we see today for standard releases and collector box series.

At the end of the day, print run reductions of this level are impossible. It would require a reduction in revenue that would probably make the company dangerously tight in the long run. With the team/employee size of LSS, i dont think the balance sheet could handle the reduction in cash flow.

Flesh and Blood - Conclusion - I believe LSS will navigate and survive long term. I believe FaB will stand the test of time. I miss the 2019-2020 era of when it was truely "special" and tough to acquire. People would go crazy when they actually pulled a cold foil. The excitement was off the charts. The best things in this world are difficult to get.

Flesh and Blood - GEMKEEPERS - Things are on track to have 1 special piece of cold foil gear per year for the Hero. Gemkeepers will still get there discount, and this time it will feel truely special. The goal is at the end of each calendar year. Once per year. Details have not been decided yet.

Metazoo - UFO - This release had the HIGHEST quantity of patrons buy a metazoo kit EVER. At this same time, this release had the smallest order size averageing 1 kit per patron vs. 2 kits per patron. This is inline with economic pressures and spending being reduced.

Metazoo - OVERALL - Similar to FaB market prices have come down the same 30%-50% from the highs as the bear market rips stores/collectors/investors into pieces. I have no concern about metazoo surviving long term. They continue to build a "BRAND" and want to spread the name and theme far and wide. I believe if/when we get a metazoo animated series and some other videogames/books/comics type product lines the brand will continue to do very well.

Metazoo - PRINT RUNS - Looking at the secondary market we can see when the print run was increases in Wilderness ($80) compared to nightfall ($160). Im not sure what the exact supply of boxes for UFO will be placed into the market but i suspect the company is monitoring this. I have disucssed it with Mike and he is very passionate and obsessed with the market and his brand. Many people "HATE" Mike due to his rules and "Bannings". 

It is important to understand that this guys entire life is Metazoo and from day 1 he has been attacked/harrassed and threatened with his "MetaPoo" brand. So yea....if i was in his shoes i would be doing the same thing after being treated so poorly for years. Simliar to my business/patreon/youtube channel, it is important to remove the "Noise/trolls" and focus on important factors....sometimes good people get axed and it is difficult to determine who is the bad guy. Welcome to the 2022 internet.

Metazoo - CONCLUSION - I like the game, families love the game. People LOVE metazoo. I am proud to be a part of it. It will make its own path into the future.

KICKSTARTERS - WARNINGS - I am one the fence about making a youtube video on this topic. As discussed a couple months ago, i warned about many Kickstarters taking off with the money and goign bankrupt. It is has been brought to my attention multiple kickstarters have now failed and lots of money is missing. I am hearing "fake suiciide notes"....people getting caught at airpots fleeing. People simply quiting and saying im out of money. I think its going to get a lot worse.

KICKSTARTER - SORCERY - This is the only other CCG i am a part of, i believe the alpha kickstarters orders will be filled in Q4 of this year. I believe the BETA? version and promos will be come in Q2 of 2023. As long as things go well, i be running a patron promotion and doing box openings etc....at that time. It will be a while.

6.9 Year Anniversary Kit - Boxes are done and i have all items need to bring it to market. I was considering launching in late August but with this Dominaria launch, i will be pushing it to September/October range. I am expecting economic conditions to improve further.

3 Layer Sealed Box

- Layer 1 - 6 Gold Serialized Accessories and 2 custom etched FaB dice

                - Specific serialized items can be redeemed for bonuses #1... #69... etc...

- Layer 2 - contains 3 single card slots. (Metazoo/FaB/MTG)

               - FaB has serialized Sketch cards from all employees at LSS or ???

               - MTG - has serialized Custom Medallion Altared Art Beta Common/Uncommons or ???

               - Metazoo - 6.9 Rudy or ???

- Layer 3 - Hopes and Dreams 

                ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have presented this 6.9 box to a couple people and 1 distributor and they were blown away. Private feedback was incredibly positive.

Price point is still not decided but im estimating between $499 - $699

There will be a 5 video series to discuss the story of each item in this project.

Total sunk cost sits at $700,000-$900,000 range.

Started work in October 2021.

If you decide to purchase and OPEN this item....PLEASE FILM THE OPENING and put it on youtube so i can see what you get.

Overall Market Conclusion - I truely believe we have some great months ahead. It has been an absoultly CRUEL summer. Stores have gone under. Distribution has been stuck with tons of products from closed accounts. People have been very angry/mean/stressed. You can feel it everywhere.

It is important to remember times like this. Because when the market turns, and all the NEW people jump in, they wont understand whats it's like to live through these type of downturns.

I believe at this point in time, most short term "flippers/get rich quick" type of buyers are long gone. 

It is important for stores and people to give up and "FLUSH" the system out to rebuild a new economic cycle.

I am very bullish moving into the next 12 months. 

We have returned to a normal market where good products move up 5%-10% a year. 

I believe Mtg/Poke/FaB/Zoo/Weiss are ALL putting out good products.

I believe the products will reflect the quality and uniquess in the coming years by having higher prices and desirability.

In a BEAR market, we have to figure out and use data to attempt to understand the future since everything is treating equally bad.

In a BULL market, you simply have to show up and try....and you win.

In ANY market cycle, most people dont make it to Round 2.

thank you for the support, and i hope my perspective can help you navigate life.

Never give up

-Rudy 🐈 

Dont click the Kitty Kat