Dragon's Keep - Provo

The original Dragon's Keep, open on University Avenue for three decades, with two floors of Magic singles, Pokemon, miniatures and a basement full of tournament tables.

Everything else in the Dragon's Keep chain descends from this store. The University Avenue location opened in the early 1990s and is the oldest comic and game shop in Utah County, now the flagship of four Utah Valley storefronts. Three decades of continuous operation buys a kind of inventory depth that newer shops cannot fake, and the back room's vintage comic stock is a good illustration of it.

Magic: The Gathering is the anchor category — sealed product up front, singles pulled from a TCGplayer Pro storefront, and an official Wizards Play Network designation that keeps the event calendar full. Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! occupy real shelf space rather than a token endcap. Beyond cards there are board games, D&D and Pathfinder books, Warhammer 40K and Age of Sigmar kits with the paints to match, and a dice selection that rewards browsing.

The layout is the underrated part. Ground floor holds retail plus standing-height gaming tables; the basement adds four to six more tables and a separate side room, which is where the war-gaming crowd and the longer tournaments end up. Regulars point to free Commander play, a Tuesday Commander night and ten-dollar Modern events on Thursday with store credit on the line. Physical looking-for-group boards still hang on the wall, which is charming and, in Provo, still functional.

Two practical warnings. Parking is the store's known weak spot — a small cramped rear lot, two-hour-limited spaces out front, and street parking as the fallback. And if you are bringing a collection in to sell, get a second opinion on anything genuinely rare first; a minority of reviewers have raised sharp complaints about buy offers on older Magic cards. Hours run 11AM to 10PM Monday through Thursday, 11AM to 11PM Friday, 10AM to 10PM Saturday, and the store is closed Sunday.