Larger Than Life — Attraction in Town of Clay

I go hear for MTG and mainly commander nights are getting worse, store in understaffed frequently and employees are able or willing to keep to the event schedule, and they need to start improving their commander night experience

This place is going downhill. In terms of MTG and their commander night it has gotten way worse than a year ago. There were 3 pods from casual to hardcore, blue yellow and red, however they got rid of red so the people with cut throat decks are in yellow and they forced people from blue to move up to yellow if they were using any custom deck even if it was budget or not able to stand up to yellow and blue is only for precon decks however the people in blue now regularly break that rule anyway. Yellow is dominated by 1-2 people where everyone knows they dominate however will not even work in tandem to try to win. They have optional objectives for their monthly scoreboard and try to promote more fun matches however this leads to people playing irrationally like doing a huge setback to the person who will dominate the table but then strike a deal to give him all is power back if he lets him get a optional objective. Yellow is allowed infinite combos on turn 7+ and because everyone in yellow runs them especially those from the used to be red pod the matches are essentially on timers until that turn all the time. They need a third pod again between yellow and blue for more casual experience and no infinite combos.

The store in recent months has become understaffed with typically only 1 employee there who gets swamped past 8 and frequently start their commander nights late or call the matches late. On Fridays it should start at 7pm, two 90 min matches, however this starts more at around 7:15 on average and also it will be 830 and the employee will not call time or announce next matches. It takes them until 9-915 to announce time then another 15 min to actually call the next matches. And forget about the packs they give to winners as they have also frequently forgotten to give those out in due time as well. The employees then after starting the matches late at times like to then remind everyone at 10 that they will be closing soon as the store closes at 11 and they will need to start closing up ~10:30pm even though the 90 min commander match started late due to them at around 9:30pm

The only positive things that still have me go there is that it is free and they have the leaderboards for store credit however ever since being forced up to their yellow pod I have had a 100% loss streak so I don't keep track of points when playing, and the free pack for winning is not even something to keep me coming because I have no hope of getting it anymore, the optional objectives cause irrational plays at tables or irrational player focusing by cozying up to the stronger players at the tabletop get a little more points and focusing down weaker person or people at the table. And basically when you hear the names of the person who absolutely dominate the store you basically already give up any hope you have of even...

I usually visit this store due to its ease of access and their Magic Commander Nights. I will not be any more after an experience with three staff members, Alex, Antonio and JC. I come in after work frequently to make purchases and generally have ok interactions. On 11/12/24 at around 5:45ish PM, I walked in and went to look at the binders of Magic Cards. I did not interact with anyone initially until one yelled my name out in the busy store and another one made a jab at my frequent visits, saying "Is it a day that ends in Y?". Not a problem so far, I get it, I'm there a lot. I go to get prices checked for a couple of cards and state I have a list to be pulled, saying I'll go and look first for some items. Met with a "You better look!". I showed the typed list sorted by card type, quantity and set codes. Was told to add colors for items, because its the rules. That's fine, but I make a noise. Alex says "Did you heard how he rolled his eyes at you Antonio? It was loud haha", "Oh, and next thing he's going to say that another person would have just did it for him. Not like he doesn't already pull all the lists already!". I don't expect special treatment. I went to do my corrections to my list of items. I don't appreciate hearing them make fun of a person who works there who can't defend themselves and sounds like they do more than them. I also don't appreciate being laughed at or the butt of a joke when there are 3 other people waiting for pricings for cards, 2 others at binders or doing lists, and one at the register waiting while two people leave and one goes to help a customer. I won't be coming back due to the disrespect and discomfort from this situation, and I will also be avoiding the mall...

They had asked their Facebook community for help finding thieves and I was blocked from their page for civilly commenting on how their buying prices felt like a similar raw deal. The owner messaged me saying it was an odd comment but instead of talking about it immediately blocked me (odd response). Still giving them a chance I've still since bought comics and statues but I went in today and unsuccessfully tried to buy a boxed Legends Venom figure that was on display. It said 29.99 and was displayed with other sale items but apparently it was a mistake that it was on the sales floor because "it was damaged and needed to be returned" (but the box was fine by me). The owner offered to sell it still, for much more than the marked 29.99 as he wanted 60$ for it, so emboldened I declined and since I noticed items there which were at Best Buy this same day for literally half his price I asked about being freed from the FB penalty box since I hadn't really said anything offensive and only criticized pricing. He called me too agro to want to deal with but I figured since he had just disclosed his business model of marking everything up double he definitely wasn't going to unblock me.

So here we are! Here's my review in short:

Owner is super polite, especially when he doesn't like you (ie: calling the thieves "these fine people") This place is great for gatherings and for window shopping ideas because it's all elsewhere...