On May 22nd, the eBay owned TCGPlayer fired more than 220 employees in its Syracuse, N.Y. Authentication Center, in an attempt to avoid negotiations with the workers’ union. With the workers going to rallies in front of the authentication center and urging people sign petitions and to write letters to the CEOs, notable community figures from different trading card game spaces have united, possibly for the first time, to dunk on something that isn’t Pokémon. Wide-scale boycotts of both eBay and TCGPlayer have sparked among communities, which left a lot of players asking the question – where do I get my cards now?
By process of elimination, the next biggest US-based marketplace for card games is now Derek, your friend, who goes to every locals with at least two binders full of neat cards. Derek, whose smile is as approachable as his handshake warm, remained humble at this discovery: “Whoa, that’s pretty cool! Anyway, you wanna trade?”
Derek gained renown in the local scene for helping new players get into the game better by gifting them cards useful in their decks and selling 3 Mulcharmies for the price of 2, because he can’t let himself leave the third one without friends.
A player in your locals eagerly sang Derek’s praises: “Some bigger sellers on TCGPlayer might ask for a quarter or even a dollar for bulk cards, but Derek just gives those up for free. Says we need ’em more than he does. He’s like the chick on Change of Heart but both of his sides are the nice one.”
Another regular added: “It usually takes about a week to get my cards from TCGPlayer. eBay’s sometimes worse – their shipping time might take up to two! Derek, well… on average his shipping time is only 20 seconds!”
“I sometimes struggle to get the sleeved cards out of the binder,” admitted Derek.
While this paradigm shift in the TCG market has affected primarily American players, European communities remain mostly indifferent to the happenings, due to their reliance on the European alternative Cärdmarket. A reader from Europe, when asked if he had an alternative for the dominating European TCG marketplace, responded: “Ja, of course. If I don’t ever feel like shopping in Sammelkartenmarkt, I can always count on my reliable friend Dirk.”
