Two Magic the Gathering retailers, The Upkeep Games in Michigan and Double Midnight Comics in New Hampshire, are helping ease the sting for customers who recently purchased expensive cards that were unexpectedly banned in the Commander format this Monday. The market values of the cards have collapsed since the ban was announced, but both stores are offering to refund the original purchase price in store credit for customers who return their cards.
Of the four cards added to the MTG Commander banlist on Monday, three were extremely expensive, with prices starting at $80 and only going up depending on the printing. Dockside Extortionist, Mana Crypt, and Jeweled Lotus owed their high price tags to their very high power levels in the popular MTG Commander format, on top of being very rare MTG cards.
The cards are now unplayable in competitive Commander (CEDH) and will be subject to “rule zero” discussions that will keep them off the table in many casual Commander pods, so their prices on the MTG secondary market have dropped precipitously. Players who bought the cards at their higher valuations can’t expect to recoup their money by selling them, and key replacement cards, like Mana Vault, have begun to soar in price as demand increases.
Until October 4, Double Midnight customers who purchased any of the high ticket cards in the last three months, and who have an itemized receipt, can return the cards for full store credit equal to what they paid for the card, not what it’s worth now.
The Upkeep Games is similarly refunding purchases made in the last two weeks, and hasn’t specified an expiry date for the promotion.
Christopher Walton, owner of The Upkeep Games, says “we’ve been in that position ourselves before opening the store; it sucks when you save up for a card and then can’t use it anymore”. He adds “we want to take care of our community so we’re flexible on our policies”.
Tony Houst, general manager at Double Midnight Comics says “it didn’t sit right with us to be mostly unscathed and leave the brunt of the damage on our loyal customers and players who helped get us through the last couple years”.
He mentions “one kid in highschool who saved up lawn mowing money all summer to buy a Jeweled Lotus”, and adds “I had to do something so I could look them in the eye when we had to tell them their card was not playable in Commander anymore and was now worthless”.
“I expect this to cost us around a thousand dollars by the end of the promotion, which would basically cancel out any of the profit we made from those cards from the past month”, Houst says. He says he’s “aware that’s a big loss, not one every store can do”, and he doesn’t want to set a precedent for every time a card gets banned, “but with how sudden and devastating this was for players, this felt like the right thing to do”.
Walton says that if more bans are coming “we’ll definitely be offering returns on those cards as well”. The store tries “to run with non-profit values in mind”, with the owners drawing the same salary as their staff and all profits reinvested “in the business, the community, and our employees”. He says this gives the store “the flexibility to take care of our customers when something like this happens”, but acknowledges other retailers won’t have a cost structure that can support this.
Both stores see the no-quibble refunds as a way to give back to a community that has supported them. “We are very lucky because our community has always taken care of us and we want to be able to take care of them”, Walton says. Houst concurs: “Local Game Stores are nothing without their communities that build them up, and we always want Double Midnight to be a shining example of that”.
Houst thinks the announcement of the bans was mishandled, though “as a player and for general commander it’s the right move”. He thinks the bans should have been split into two phases, with a strong message that “fast mana is a problem [the Rules Committee intended] to address in the beginning of 2025”, before Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus were banned. “Commander has a long history of being very stable and gradual with changes”, he says, so four bans landing at once has shaken the community.
For CEDH, he thinks the bans represent “a considerable shake up coming at a time that CEDH is gaining momentum and working towards having larger events”. He adds “players just getting into that part of the format are who we think are affected the most”.
If you’ve had it with keeping up with the MTG release schedule in paper and want to build an MTG Arena deck, we don’t have an offer as generous as The Upkeep Games or Double Midnight Comics, but we do have a guide to all the MTG Arena codes that can unlock free digital booster packs that you should definitely check out!
Source: Wargamer
