Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University.  This week, Thorne looks at the underperformance of Magic: The Gathering's Assassin's Creed set, Dungeons & Dragons: Quests from the Infinite Staircase, and the return of Welcome Decks.

Magic: The Gathering: Assassin's Creed and Dungeons & Dragons: Quests from the Infinite Staircase both released this month to generally tepid response, but stores got some welcome news in the announced return of Magic Welcome Decks.

Universes Beyond Assassin's Creed.  The Magic: The Gathering Assassin's Creed set released July 5, 2024 and it pleasantly surprised me by selling much better than I expected (see "Deets on Magic: The Gathering Assassin’s Creed").  We did get our orders allocated significantly, but we still sold through Bundles and Beyond Boosters briskly. Only the Collector Boosters have proven to be slower movers.

Like Fallout, we had several people buy it just because they really like Assassin’s Creed and of course, we had several Magic players who actively avoided it because they do not like Assassin’s Creed.  Still, it is one more set in a string of releases from Wizards of the Coast that we will bring in, sell through, and with Bloomburrow and Duskmourn looming on the horizon, quickly forget.

Quests from The Infinite Staircase.  I had moderately high hopes for this release, much higher than the rest of the staff at the store (see "Quests from the Infinite Staircase Incoming").  They felt, with the announcement of the D&D Player’s Handbook 2024 for the fall, customers would forgo the 2024 releases prior to the Player’s Handbook out of worry they would not be compatible with the updated rules.  However, we did well with the Deck of Many Things, having to reorder a $100 boxed set several times this year and, despite the D&D Beyond promotion, also had to reorder copies of Vecna: Eve of Ruin multiple times after selling through our initial shipment within two weeks.

Ergo, I expected a similar response to Quests from The Infinite Staircase but this release flopped for us.  We only had three customers preorder the book and sold zero copies off the shelf on the release date.  I think a large part of the problem was the lack of promotion Wizards of the Coast put behind the book.  Vecna: Eve of Ruin had quite a bit of promotion from WotC before its release and incentives from D&D Beyond to order it there.  As far as I can find, there was no similar push for Quests from The Infinite Staircase, which is a shame as it is a great book to tie into the Dungeons & Dragons 50th Anniversary.

The six adventures making up Quests From the Infinite Staircase originally released for Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in the 1970s and early 1980s, with copies of the original modules selling for $30 to $100.  Updating the adventures to 5E and heavily promoting the book as part of Dungeons & Dragons 50th Anniversary should have been a no-brainer but I have seen no promotion of that aspect of the book.  Even the 50th anniversary logo is relegated to the back cover.

Duskmourn Promotions.  WotC has apparently realized that the increased price for Play Boosters has really cut into full booster box sales, so much so that the buy-a-box card, after all these years, is no longer a sufficient incentive.  To juice box sales, WPN stores will receive a limited number of Collector boosters to give away with the purchase of a booster box.  In addition, finally realizing that Welcome Boosters did little to draw in new Magic players, Duskmourn: House of Horror will see the welcome return of Welcome Decks, the long absent 30-card decks designed to show off the basics of Magic to new players and give them something to take.  Welcome Boosters were a nice giveaway, but they never had any real purpose for existing, aside from putting Magic cards in people’s hands.

Comments?  How did Assassin’s Creed and Quests from The Infinite Staircase do in your store?  Send them to castleperilousgames@gmail.com.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.