Ted Yee of T&N Games in Burnaby, BC (Canada) comments on the lack of product availability for the recent Magic: The Gathering--Innistrad prerelease.

New set, new attendance records, same problems.  Wizards of the Coast upped everyone's product allocations for the Magic: The Gathering--Innistrad Prerelease but it still was not enough.  Pleading with them for more product, once again, fell on deaf ears.  We had 64 players show up for our 1st event of the weekend: Midnight Prerelease, which burned up 75% of our allocation with 3 events to go over the course of the weekend.  Even with average attendance, we still would have run out by the time the 3rd event came and the only reason we were able to get all the events in was that we turned several people away (and we gave them M12 draft sets because of it) and many of the players agreed to take their prizes at a later time.

With enough product and more than the four sanctioning numbers they allowed us, even with the record-breaking numbers we had for our store, we would have pushed through another 100 players throughout the course of the weekend.  I like big attendance, but I dislike running out of product.  It makes us look like incompetent fools.

Now, I'm not all about the negative so I'll say some good things.  The set looks to be a lot of fun.  The players enjoyed the cards.  The transform mechanic, while still awkward, didn't play out nearly as badly as people expected and in fact contributed to increased sales of sleeves for the event.  The overall experience was positive for those who actually got to play.

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