What a month September has been! We added support for Lorcana, which is the first new TCG we’ve added since we brought Pokémon online way back in 2021. With our Development Team now in a groove and our new, more robust software infrastructure in place, our pace of adding new TCGs is going to increase dramatically, and One Piece is next on the docket.

Aside from software updates, September also saw us launch new pricing and ownership plan options, and we have already had customers opt for both the restructured rental contract and for outright purchase of a machine. With a price tag of $30K [USD], that’s no small decision! I mean, you could buy a Tesla Model 3 for that kind of coin. So why would anyone spend that amount of money on a trading card sorting machine? Well, unless you are the most prolific Uber driver of all time, your Tesla Model 3 isn’t ever going to break even for you, and – were I to place a wager – it probably wasn’t purchased as a money-making machine. A PhyzBatch-9000 card sorter, on the other hand, is an investment that hundreds of businesses have made to capitalize on a booming industry.

To help clarify this point, consider the following two graphs. The first illustrates The Pokémon Company’s annual card production volumes (measured between the months of March in each year) dating back eight years.

Now, it’s very difficult for our brains to conceptualize exactly what one-billion trading cards looks like, but a useful analogy is to consider their weight. One billion cards weigh approximately 2,000 tons. Assuming all the other TCGs combined print about as much as Pokémon does, there are roughly 50,000 tons of TCG cards entering the market each and every year – equivalent to a mid-size cruise ship. This is ludicrous.

The next graph illustrates the record-setting sale price for an individual Magic: The Gathering card, dating back over the past 10 years. I’m no mathematician, but I feel as though there is a trend here. And yes, that is $3 million [USD] for a single piece of cardboard.

A quick peek at the Product page of our website reveals that we will be heading into October with a cool quarter-billion cards collectively processed by our distributed fleet of machines. Given the industry trends and the absolutely staggering number of cards being printed annually, I would say there’s still plenty of room for our business to expand – and expanding we are! So far this year we are averaging 8.5 new PhyzBatch-9000 orders every month, and we are now operating our equipment in seven different countries on two continents. Since we launched back on Star Wars Day in 2021 we have received a total of 350 orders. Considering nearly 100% of those orders are from word-of-mouth referrals, this is remarkable.

As our business grows in scale, so too must it grow into maturity, and in that respect, we have brought on our first official business advisors. Back in April, Dan and I attended CETAC West’s Entrepreneur to CEO Workshop where we met many exceptional individuals, both in mentor and mentee capacities. Dan and I had a particular affinity with two of those mentors, and they each recently agreed to join TCG Machines’ Board of Advisors. This is excellent news, as both of these mentors are just wonderful people who I am very happy to have guiding our growth; they each bring a wealth of experience and expertise which will be invaluable for us moving forward. We will have information on our new advisors up on our website in the very near future.

So, in the spirit of keeping a healthy work-life balance (and we can put a bold green checkmark in the work column), let’s check in on how things are going outside of work. Harkening back to my June blogpost, I have been doing a reasonable job at playing cards on a regular basis. At the end of July, I attended a Bloomburrow prerelease with a couple of my good buddies: Chris and Don. There were 40 people registered in that sealed deck tournament, and I was heading into the fourth and final round with a perfect 3-0 record. Who should I meet at the final table? None other than my nemesis - er, good friend, Don. Well, I must say that I felt pretty good about this, but then in a twist ending that no one saw coming Don beat me in two straight games. And on my birthday no less! I should have been able to shrug this off, but he had also bailed on breakfast that morning. A breakfast that was his idea. Don!!!

There was no possible way for me to make good on my goal of drafting once per week, at least not in-person. Summer plans with family and friends filled every weekend, so I drafted Bloomburrow whenever I had a spare evening during the week by playing on Magic Arena (the online version of Magic: The Gathering). Frustratingly, despite my having studied for the set and having done reasonably well at the prerelease, Bloomburrow just had my number. For six weeks, I struggled mightily to achieve good, or even consistent, results. I would think I had drafted the best red-white mouse deck ever, then lose 1-3. Then I would think that I had drafted a thoroughly underwhelming blue-green frogs deck and finish 5-3. Well, with just a couple of weeks left before the Duskmourn prelease (sidebar: Really? Just eight weeks between major set releases? What are you doing, WotC! I suppose the answer there is, “Making over $1 billion [USD] per year.” Touché, WotC.), I finally managed to get to seven wins, wracking up a 7-0 record and bursting my way into the platinum league! Oooh, platinum.

That felt good. And, it was perfect timing to get some closure on Bloomburrow, because the Rum-Arena (Rum-rena? It’s a working title) crew was planning their next gathering to kick-off Duskmourn. Duskmourn, Magic: The Gathering’s latest set which is themed after 70s and 80s horror movies. The Rum-rena event took place this passed Friday, and it did not disappoint. As with previous editions, a relatively small group of men drank way too much rum and took turns drafting Duskmourn on a ridiculously large TV. Four of us drafted, and I had the dubious distinction of being the final drafter, kicking off my turn sometime after 2:00 AM. I am not sure if you have ever drunk a lot of hard liquor before, but it generally isn’t conducive to making you better at anything. In spite of this, I managed to crank out a 7-2 record with a really efficient blue-white “eerie tempo” deck (timestamp for the below photo, 3:39 AM).

Aside from the rum, there were a couple other factors that made me rather proud of that win: (1) there were no rare cards in my deck; and (2) for some reason my ranking didn’t get reset with the new release (usually everyone gets reset back to the “bronze” league) and I was still competing in the platinum league. Am I just bragging? Yes. But hey, back-to-back 7-x records drafting in two different sets, and both in the platinum league? For someone that doesn’t play all that often, this is very likely the apex of my online Magic drafting career.

Despite the never-ending sprint that is both entrepreneurship and parenting, I am feeling pretty good. Much less like a zombie than I did earlier this year, regardless of what the title image for this post would suggest. Also, a couple of my very good friends moved back to town recently, one from Australia and one from Manitoba, so my social circles are bustling with new life!

Yeah. Let’s see what October brings 😃