FTW: For the Win — Local services in Florence

Having lived in the area my entire life and seen many hobby stores come and go, there is a reason FTW is still around. The owners go out of their way to be professional and courteous to all customers, and do not let outside baggage prevent them from treating everyone fairly.

FTW host an extremely high number of different games for a hobby shop (most of which only focus on 2 or 3), running sanctioned and unsanctioned tournaments for Pokemon, Magic, Dragon Ball Super, One Piece, My Hero, Warhammer and more, and this has caused most of the communities to merge and mingle, making it very easy to start playing a new game or get back into one you played before.

The owners strive to make the atmosphere a friendly one, and even someone like me who just doesn't like being around people can find someone to sit down and get a friendly game. People are always willing to teach new players how to play games and help them build their decks.

All tournaments are ran fairly and this is one of the only stores where I have not heard of any kind of favoritism or skimming the prize support ( stores in the past have just sold the free prize support online). The owners go above and beyond on special events, from goodie bags to prize wheels, and sometimes don't even profit from the tournaments just to make sure everyone has a good time.

Prices are fair. For card games they use TCG as long as TCG carries it. Everything else is MSRP, though they tend to offer discounts for spending a certain amount. They also don't price gouge special magic sets like some stores tend to do.

Overall S+ game store and I hope it continues to operate for...

If I were to make a complaint about this store it would be that it's not open often enough. I have been going to FTW since before they moved locations. Before it was a solid 3.5 but now they are really doing it better than anyone else. I pulled up today while they were still closed and found out that people actually just sit outside and wait for the store to open its doors. It makes sense though with a wide range of products covering everything from Digimon to Warhammer, to Dragon Ball, to Magic. They have tournaments for pretty much everything and a great balance between the workers. I'm bad with names but they have someone who kind of keeps up with everything, someone who is great at explaining how everything works and making people feel welcome, and a guy that will recommend you the perfect card for that nice commander you are building despite it being a random piece of chaff from 2003 that you have never heard of. Also my friend and I went one time and a random dude had just cooked brownies for everyone in the shop. I don't know that I can come up with anything better to say about a community of people.

TLDR: standard prices, great location, wonderful place to look for cards, amazing staff, and an awesome place to meet up with people to jam a couple games of whatever the hell you want. If you haven't been here and are thinking about...

This is my second time over the last 6 months visiting this store. I have been going to this store since they were in their previous location years ago.

They have a great selection of singles and sealed, but nothing is priced. You have to ask for prices and then you feel like you’re a burden for asking.

Card shops are supposed to be a fun and exciting place to go and this was just not like that for me.

The owners have helped me the last two times I went and they were not friendly at all. Everytime you try to create conversation you will feel as if they want nothing to do with you. I told them I own a shop in Utah, to try to create conversation, and they used that against me in a rude way.

I asked if they would consider $130 on a $144 price. It was a very reasonable offer based on the current market pricing. They proceeded to say, “We cannot, I’m sure you understand since you own a shop.” It was a very smart aleck interaction, although it was a very respectable offer. I purchased two of the cards anyways and I then get home and the more expensive of the two, $70, was not the copy of the card I chose in the store.

This is not the type of experience I expect at a hobby/game shop, where it’s supposed to be an enjoyable hobby.

I left two stars since they did have a...