Welcome to Cyber Monday, the biggest internet shopping day of the year. For the Magic community this usually means pretty steep discounts on your favorite products. Whether you’re looking for booster boxes, singles, playmats, dice, boxed sets, supplemental products, or almost anything else (except MTGO products) you’ll be able to find some pretty good discounts. But where should you even begin looking?
First you’re going to have to figure out what you want to get. That’s the easy part. This year, Wizards of the Coast even put together a friendly guide for veteran planeswalkers and for those of you who might be looking to find the right gift for the special planeswalker in your life. In the guide you’ll find recommendations for sealed products such as the special holiday in-store only buy-a-box promotion or the Kaladesh gift box. You’ll also see Wizards has one non-card products in there: the Art of Innistrad.
Before we continue diving into how you can save money on Magic the Gathering this holiday season, I want to make a note that I’m a big fan of local game stores. I highly recommend that if you didn’t go to your local shop for a Black Friday or Small Business Saturday deal that you strongly consider heading over there before relying on Cyber Monday. Your local shop owner is more than likely willing to extend any deals they were offering in the past 72 hours and it will help you keep your community thriving.
Of course, if you are on a strict budget then by all means make your purchases wherever you can. Magic is, after all, an incredibly expensive game. There are a ton of boxed sets to choose from this year and they’re all in the Wizards guide. On the other hand you might already know exactly which cards you want to get and you’re not interested in a boxed set. Once you have your wish list ready 
Live Updates:
- Get 35% off of playmats from Cardboard Crack [link]
- Get 10% kickback on all single cards and minis from TCG Player [link]
- Massdrop has 25% off foreign packs of Kaladesh [link]
Massdrop Hobby Shop
If you’ve never been to Massdrop you should check it out regardless of any Cyber Monday deals they have going on. You’ll have to create an account to see most stuff, but it’s usually worth it. The way the site works is that retailers agree to sell items in bulk, at a discount, if enough people commit to buying it. For example, the Planechase Anthology retails for $149.99 but enough people agreed to buy it which unlocked a discount price of $109.99. Saving $40 is pretty sweet, it’s enough to pick up a sweet set of dice and a playmat to go with your new Planechase Anthology. I don’t know what deal Massdrop will be having for Cyber Monday but I highly recommend you check it out.
Star City Games
You know them as the largest internet retailer of Magic the Gathering products and also the largest independent tournament organizer in North America (if not the world). You can always check out SCG’s Currently On Sale page to see what deals are going on. They have weekly promotions. Unfortunately that page is incredibly difficult to search. Right now SCG has a Black Friday sale of booster boxes of Kaladesh on sale for $79.99 but they’re out of stock. I would recommend checking back in there tomorrow to see if they re-stock that deal, or if they come up with a few more.
TCG Player
I’m a huge fan of TCG Player and they continue to endear themselves to me. In the past, they’ve had free shipping on Cyber Monday and have also given pretty good discounts on single sales. These are usually limited to specific sellers but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are deals again tomorrow. While Star City Games is a good place to look for deals on sealed product this holiday season, TCG Player is where you want to be if you need to pick up singles for any of your decks or just your collection in general.
Amazon
The elephant in the room when it comes to Cyber Monday is always going to be Amazon dot com. You can’t avoid the fact that Amazon is able to significantly under-cut the retail market when it comes to books and toys. The absence of a retail storefront allows Amazon to pass the savings onto the consumer. But you don’t need me to explain Amazon to you. All you need to know is that any boxed set, book, or even single card you are considering buying at any other site, well, you might want to check the price on Amazon before you click the purchase button elsewhere.
What We Learned is a weekly feature here at Hipsters of the Coast written by former amateur Magic Player Rich Stein, who came really close to making day two of a Grand Prix on several occasions. Each week we will take a look at the past seven days of major events, big news items, and community happenings so that you can keep up-to-date on all the latest and greatest Magic: the Gathering community news.