Magic: The Gathering Card Shops

Magic is a singles game before it is anything else, and that is the first thing to look for. A shop that only stacks booster boxes by the register is a shop you will leave empty-handed when you need a specific card for a deck. The shops listed below carry Magic inventory in some serious form — binders and showcase cases of singles, sealed product across current and recent sets, or both.

What a Magic shop feels like depends heavily on which format its regulars play. Commander has become the centre of gravity for most stores, which shows up as deep bulk-rare boxes, staples priced to move, and a table of eight people on a weeknight. Shops with a strong draft and prerelease following stock differently again, leaning on sealed and running events every release weekend. A smaller number keep Legacy and Vintage alive in pockets, usually where an older player base never left, and those are the shops where Reserved List cards actually sit in a case rather than being a story.

When you are sizing up a new store, ask three things. What do they price singles against, and how current is it? Do they buy, and at what rate against that price? What actually fires on a given night — a shop that advertises five formats and fires one is telling you something. Condition standards are worth a question too, since Magic grades to near mint and lightly played rather than a numeric scale, and the gap between a shop that sleeves carefully and one that does not is real money on an expensive card.