My fellow Spice Lords, it’s time for us to have a conversation about Mystery…a mysterious conversation if you’d like. We try to have transparent communication with customers every few months, and heading into August I’d like to talk about some of the things we’re doing at the end of 2024.
The stress of the Fallout allocations hit me hard. It was a set I was excited for, and one that I had talked about blissfully with our customers. When we got our allocation numbers, I had a yelling match with our largest distributor rep. “How the **** could you do this to us?!” and “Why are we always cut on the things our customers actually want?” It genuinely felt as though, after all of these years of dedication to MTG, we’ve had little to show for it. Even as a WPN Premium, and a store that has an annual 6000 tickets (paid attendance records) with 260+ activated and engaged players, we’ve had smaller allocations than some of our non-playspace competitors. Only god knows what kind of deals these people have, and why non-WPNs are getting this sought after product at all.
Around that time, complaints of our play-space being too small became overwhelming. Expansion is difficult, especially with me not being in the states, so it was something we heard but couldn’t act upon.
After all of this was said and done, I came to a realization after seeing the success of our Fantasy, Disney, and Sci-fi weekly quiz nights here in Seoul. Seeing people sit around, drink, eat, and have fun, without stress…it was incredible. How do we get to that point at Mystery?
Here’s the outline of goals we’d like to achieve in 2025:
1: We’ve created a new position in the company completely focused on the community. This individual designates community leaders, and rewards them for helping us bridge the gap between what players want, and what we can provide. They’re also focused on maintaining the event schedule, and ensuring events are posted well in advance so customers can plan ahead. This person will also be verifying all event prizing to ensure it’s correct and better than our competitors.
2: Space. This is a tough one. Part of reducing stress on customers is ensuring they ALWAYS know they’ll have a seat at Mystery. When I first opened the shop, the idea that we’d have 40+ players actively in the store multiple times a week sounded crazy. Now, we’re aiming to have 100+. This is feasible, but it requires the city’s approval as our expansion was blocked due to a neighbor not having access to their secondary exit - if we can get the Land Lord to create a new exit, and work around this, we’ll be adding 3000 sq ft to the store in 2025. This means we’ll have 100-140 seats for both casual and competitive play.
3: Adding food & beverage. For the past 7 months, I’ve dedicated a lot of my time to the espresso machine. I knew I wanted to offer something far beyond just TCGs and cards for those coming to our shop - I wanted to offer an experience. Our test run in Seoul has been stellar.
Our “Chandra” and “Dark Ritual” have become favorites, even with a lot of the customer’s here having never played MTG. I think it’s something our peeps back in Dallas would love.
In 2025, we will adding food and coffee to the shop - a beautiful La Marozocco Espresso machine, and industry-grade kitchen equipment to be able to offer something to snack on between games. This offering will also hopefully tie into our event pricing, and allow us to discount event entry for those who also eat/drink at the store.
Feel you have suggestions that go further than what was mentioned above?
Email them to us at info@mysterymtg.com!
If you also want to be a part of this journey, feel free to contact us for employment opportunities!
State of Mystery - August 2024
