Bar. Card shop. Game store. Pizza restaurant. Long ago, the four nations of The Gathering Place lived together, in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Hasbro Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements of our business, could stop them. But, when the world needed them most, they vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, a Pizzabender named Aang. Though his pizzabending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he’s ready to save anyone. But I believe…. Aang can save the world.
(As always, you can find all of The Gathering Place’s weekly and monthly happenings over on our calendar)
We do have some BIG news that’s not Avatar-related — the TGP Online Store (and linked in-store kiosk) have been updated with a HUGE amount of new inventory. We’re talking literally over 9,000 cards. There’s a dang Chrome Mox in the online inventory now, we’ve got two Vexing Baubles, there’s a lot of fun stuff, new sets, classics and bangers of all colors and flavors.
This has been a big project, and it’s been in the works for a good while. The efforts to transmute as much of the TGP collection as possible into online inventory free to peruse, browse and buy from has been ongoing and finally going live with this upload is a big step forward! Expect to see more higher-end product on the online store and kiosk as time goes on!
There’s also a One Piece Treasure Cup on Sunday, 11/23! You know what’s after that? Thanksgiving! You know what’s after that? TGP’S BIG-MODE BLACK FRIDAY SALE! Stay tuned for details on those sweet, sweet deals and we’ll see you around!
This week at The Gathering Place: we’re entering Week 8 of Commander League X, Riftbound locals are taking off, FNM is drafting Bloomburrow (!!!) it’s an Old School MTG Thursday week, and we’ve got tournaments aplenty with One Piece Prerelease, the second Commander League X tournament, and Flesh and Blood Pro Quest!
Before we get there, though… have you seen the adoption box? It’s on the bar, and it’s been one of our favorite new additions to the shop. As cards are sorted and processed down in the Distro Dungeon, not all of them fit into what we’re trying to make happen elsewhere. This box has hosted Mothman, weird Pokémon, misprints, whatever we think somebody, somewhere might be interested in. Give it a look sometime, see what’s up for adoption!
Now, to keep breaking down this week’s events, here’s some quick hits taken straight from the TGP Calendar – which, is where it always is, but at this point it’s still worth pointing out you can check it for weekly and monthly events. We’re working through December now, so keep an eye out.
MTG Friday Night Magic
7:00 pm start
$35 entry
This week’s FNM we’re drafting Bloomburrow! Taking it back to the realm of critter, creatures and all sorts of fun interactions, Bloomburrow is a modern classic MTG set and we’re delighted to be able to bring it back to the draft table this week. Also, we appreciate how many folks have interacted with (and paid attention to) our draft announcements — so expect to see more of those as we plan out more fun events on Friday nights!
MTG Legacy Cash Tournament
12:00 p.m.
Spotlighting the Legacy format, this cash-payout MTG tournament has a buy-in of $30 to contribute to the prize pool, allows for 15 proxies in any given deck (proxies must be clearly representative of the intended card and contain all information the official printing does in an easy-to-identify fashion).
New set, new cards, new shenanigans on the TCG high seas! The Gathering Place continues to be one of the top spots around to play One Piece, so we’ll see you out there for the new set this Sunday!
The second tournament, another throwdown, Commander League X continues with another opportunity to test in battle, forge in flames, and claim the glory that rightfully belongs to you and your carefully crafted League deck! You’ve traded, you’ve bargained, you’ve made it happen to get here…. now, show ’em what you’re made of!
The newest TCG on the block, the shiny new card game everybody wants to play with, the League of Legends tabletop adaptation, Riftbound has arrived at TGP! We’re running regular locals every other Sunday with tournaments in the mix, so check the monthly calendar and get ready to rumble Riftbound!
So, that about wraps it up as far as what’s going on around TGP this week goes. Obviously, there’s a lot happening. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you around!
Happy “End of October” one and all! As spooky season comes to a close and Christmas decorations are already in stores all around town, it’s only fair we have one last week of Halloween at TGP.
Our official Halloweekend Party was last week, it was pretty fun and cool and shoutout to everybody who came out to make it so. Since Franklin Street is well-known for Halloween outings, we’re keeping things relatively relaxed back here on Rosemary. Pizza will be open and slinging this Friday night, we’ll be running a special Halloween Chaos Draft for Friday Night Magic, we’ve got a really cool D&D one-shot lined up, there’s plenty of fun stuff happening. Check out the previous post we made for all the Halloween happenings, if you’re so inclined.
The real big news this week(end) is twofold: as November begins, the monthly CEDH Dual Land tournament kicks off THIS WEEKEND. It’s the first Saturday of each month and boy howdy would you look at the time.
Sunday is looking absolutely, positively STACKED, as well. There’s not one, not two, but THREE events happening. A One Piece TCG prerelease, an MTG Standard RCQ tournament and a Riftbound Modified Champion Deck tournament. Registration links are on respective sites/software(s), and we’ll put them here:
No preorder for Riftbound stock is available, but events can be preregistered for.
Second. Allocation issues continue to be present for just about every card game. Riftbound and Gundam are currently two pretty big offenders for us. We just got in a couple, literally not much at all, Gundam boxes to sell. We’ll be doing them by the pack so folks get a chance to crack them on locals nights. Riftbound will be first-come, first-served. If you’re intent on snagging on, being here when we open on Friday is the play.
Third. Commander Meetups. They’ve been a huge part of what we do week-over-week, and there’s an element in play, a bit of suffering from success in the mix.
we’ve hosted so many players at so many Commander Meetup events at The Gathering Place we’re out of promo cards to give away
We’re going to have to change how Commander Meetup prizing works. What that looks like, how it happens, is TBD. You’ll know when we do. In the meantime. We can guarantee we’ll still be giving out a free pack of Magic cards to all pods. The most important change is this:
All. Literally every single Commander Meetup player. Will be required. REQUIRED. to sign up on the MTG Companion app. This is non-negotiable. This is how Wizards judges how much product and promos we can have. More signups, more better. Simple as. If you need any help with this, or have any questions, talk to a staff member at TGP.
Thanks for hanging, for reading, and being you. See you around, have an excellent rest of your week!
This week at The Gathering Place, we’re getting spookier than usual! This week is our Halloweekend Party, happening on Saturday specifically! We’ve also got the event everybody’s been excited about, the return of the king, JANK is BACK baby! Jank 5: The Huffening is this Sunday! Get your Sharpie hand ready and your brain ready to rumble for some of the biggest, best and wildest prizes Jank has ever seen!
MTG Duskmourn SEALED (with prerelease kits!) at 4pm
Crafts at the bar at 5pm – Paint a lil’ pumpkin wood cutout with your fav bartenders in town!
Spooky-Oke starts at 10pm with your friend and ours, DJ Leo! It’ll be a graveyard smash, guaranteed.
Special Commander pods prizing, Halloween-related, come play and be rewarded!
Of course, Jank Bank 5: The Huffening. We can’t do much more without talking that event over. The prizes are crazy, the games are gonna be crazier, honestly this is about to be some of the most fun possible to have playing MTG at TGP here in NC. Check out all the details in our post here, and remember Jank 5 has a cap of 50 attendees. Space is limited! Register today if you haven’t already!
This week at The Gathering Place, we’ve got a lot happening — especially considering Halloween is just around the corner!
It’s a week for Old School Thursday at TGP, Sorcery, FAB, all the usuals are happening. Friday Night Magic is getting shaken up, Spider-Man no more. Instead, we’ll be drafting Outlaws of Thunder Junction. We’ve also already got drafts planned for the next few FNM sessions: Kamigawa Neon Dynasty, a Halloween Spooktacular, and Bloomburrow! (in that order!) You’ll see a post about that on socials soon but, in the meantime, we did mention Halloween….
You clicked that link, right? Cool. Obviously, that’s a whole lot happening. We’re excited to host all this Halloween-centered action and we look forward to seeing all y’all trickin’ and treatin’ real soon. Truly, spooky season is our time to shine as your local nerd bar haven.
In other news, Commander League X continues with the first big tournament in the rearview. Since we’ve passed that particular milestone, we’d like to extend an invitation to all Commander League players to submit feedback on how things are going so far directly to TGP. Just email us here. Or get in touch over on Discord, send a DM to Victor/Ludovician.
One Piece “Set Sail” Learn to Play Event is set for October 19th at 1pm!
One Piece has proven time and again it’s a hit in the TGP community, and the “Set Sail” event is an opportunity to bring new players into the fold. If you know anyone who’s a little One Piece curious, if you want to reintroduce yourself, or play a brand-new archetype, “Set Sail” might just be the place to do it.
Buy-in is $40, $20 per person. Bring a friend, play One Piece, get free promos and stickers! This is a capped event, so early bird gets the devil fruit!
Warhammer 40k Kill Team Meetup
Starts at 1:00 p.m.
40k Kill Team battles have raged at TGP for quite some time, and our monthly meetup is the place to get together and fight over territory in the grimdark far future.
Monthly, we’re setting specific space aside for 40k games. It’s a casual, fun environment to show off your squad, hone your skills in squad-based combat and battle for glory.
Digimon BT-23 Hacker’s Slumber Prerelease Event
1:00 pm
Did you know that Digimon are digital monsters? Did you know that Digimon are the champions? Change, into digital champions. To, save the, digital, world. Digimon. Digital monsters. Digimon are the champions. ($30 entry per player)
Come play at the prerelease event on October 19th at 1pm to play the new cards before official release!
That just about does it for this week’s announcements! As always, thanks for reading and we’ll see you around. Have a great week!
October is finally, officially here! As the weather cools and spooky season kicks off good and proper, The Gathering Place has an October full of events, tournaments, fun stuff and more!
This week specifically, TGP is hosting the first of three Commander League X Tournaments! We’re in early days of the season yet, so for any late-comers — know there’s still time to join Commander League X! Our tenth season is going big: prizes, raffles, glory, plus all the wild Commander League pulls, pivots and turnaround long-time veterans have come to know, love and expect. For more details on Commander League, and its tenth season at TGP, click here! The tournament happens on Saturday, starting at noon, so we’ll see you there!
Also on Saturday, also related to Magic and the gathering thereof, October’s monthly Cash Tourney is Modern! Bring your best brews and battle it out for cash on Saturday, October 11 at 12:00 p.m. Be advised, the Modern MTG Cash Tourney is a no-proxy event. Entry is $30, and goes in the prize pool.
We’ve had a full announcement post rounding up events currently planned for October, and as always you can find the TGP calendar and events information on the events page of the website.
A wacky, wild, Sharpie-MTG event, Jank 5 is shaping up to be one of the all-time greats. The prizes are popping, the bulk boxes are big, and the discussion on the TGP discord has already been humming with some crazy ideas. Entry is $50, which includes everything you’ll need to play in the tournament (no pre-building required!), a bespoke commemorative playmat and access to one of the craziest, most creative, and best prize pools in Jank history! Click here for all the details, and we hope to see you — Sharpie in hand — on October 26!
We’ll do a full announcement just for it soon enough, but right now it’s worth everybody’s time to highlight TGP’s Halloweekend party! We’ll be drafting spooky-style (Duskmourn, Innistrad, all that jazz), trick or treating, slinging drinks and slices out of Alpha Pie, it’s gonna be rad. See you on October 25 for all that action, and be on the lookout for even more spOoOoOoooOOoooky details!
This week at The Gathering Place, we’re winding down September and kicking off October properly with a CEDH Dual Land tournament!
Details on the monthly Dual Land Showdown: $30 buy-in, with a Dual Land going to 1st place! Pay out to top 4, with more prizing based on attendance. Come battle for Duals and Glory! (full proxy allowed, all proxies must be clearly representative of the intended card and contain all information the official printing does in an easy-to-identify fashion)
Here’s a full breakdown of all the events happening in October (that we’ve planned so far!)
Be on the lookout for more details, posts, and fun stuff coming out about other October happenings — most notably the HALLOWEEKEND party! We’ve got tricks, treats and more all lined up and we hope to see you there!
Since it’s the first Saturday of the month, we’ve got the TGP Comedy Showcase on deck, this month returning for a special game show format!
Also worth highlighting: this week is an Old School Thursday! Here’s the details if you want to play some MTG grandpa-style, come out on Thursday evening, buy-in for $15 includes a spot at the table, a slice of pizza and a beer! Truly, no better way to spend your Thursday night.
The monthly Cash Tournament for October is Modern, the first tournament for Commander League X is coming up soon, there’s a lot to look forward to as 2025 enters the home stretch. Thanks for being part of our neighborhood, and we’ll see you around!
This week at the Gathering Place, we’re in the shadow of MTG dropping Spider-Man and generally hanging out. It’s a good week to be a game shop patron in beautiful Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
September is winding down, fall is well and truly in the air, and we’re holding out hope that we don’t end up trapped in Fool’s Autumn and Second Summer for too long.
Commander League X is in its second week, plenty of folks have been asking about it and it’s worth ensuring everybody knows: if you want to join League, you can! Things are just getting started, you’ve got time before the first tournament, and your pack slots are waiting for you. If you’d like to know more about Commander League X, click here.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, Friday Night Magic this week is extremely Spider-centric at TGP. We’ll be drafting Spider-Man, and the Standard Draft on Sunday has a nonzero chance of being Spider-Man if that’s what people want. We’ve also got some other draft options, so keep an eye out or make your voice heard over in the TGP Discord.
Flesh and Blood’s Friday night is draft-focused as well, with Super Slam coming back through for another round after last week’s prerelease. $30 entry per player, 2 pack per win, one steel chair per customer.
It’s been super fun to see how much people love the Biddie’s Night Bingo series, and this Saturday will be TGP’s third outing into wilds of local bingo! We’ll be cranking the oldies and putting out the Werther’s Originals and giving out prizes – we’ll see you there!
October is comin’ up on us quickly, so don’t forget to check in over on the TGP weekly/monthly calendar, especially relevant since the month kicks off with back-to-back tournaments! As always, be safe, be well, and we’ll see you around!
It’s time to talk about what’s happening at The Gathering Place this week, and boy howdy is it about to be a WEEK at TGP! We’ve got Commander League X kicking off today, Spider-Man prerelease events this weekend, Flesh and Blood Super Slam kicking off, an Old School Thursday, a mini paint night and all the usual stuff.
Speaking of League, worth noting Preston has added a bunch of fresh precons to the TGP website. Decks from Bloomburrow, Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Duskmourn – there’s new inventory, so if you want to take a look in advance of this evening’s kickoff event you totally should!
This evening’s kickoff event begins at 6:00, games start at 7:00. We’ll be podding up League players, raffling off prizes, cracking packs and getting the League X season going good and proper. We’ll see you there!
Outside of League X, the banner item this week is the MTG Spider-Man Prerelease. It’s going to be a busy, packed week at TGP if previous prereleases are any indication, so be ready for that. There’s a post on the TGP website detailing Spider-Man, but it’s worth it to say here:
E is $35 per player. Typical prerelease structure, three Swiss rounds, 1 pack per win. Entrants will all receive a Spider-Man prerelease kit.
We’ll also have as much Spider-Man sealed product for sale as we can, per-customer limitations will most likely be in effect, and product will be sold first-come, first served. Customers who preordered Spider-Man product will be able to pick up their orders on Friday.
Hey all! Our beloved Victor is currently down for the count with Covid, so this week’s TGP Dispatch is brought to you by your friendly neighborhood dork and social media post goblin, Will Joseph.
This week at The Gathering Place, we’re spotlighting competitive Magic in many of its forms, with three major events of different formats (CEDH, Sealed, and Vintage) in one weekend! If you’ve been looking to get into a more serious side of MTG, maybe this is your sign to start!
Of course our more casual events are still firing, with a draft for FNM and a standard set draft on Sunday. For commander players, remember to drop by our free Commander Meetups (Tuesday/Thursday nights at 7pm)!
Have you ever wanted to win a Black Lotus? Bring your best CEDH deck down to TGP at 12pm, Saturday, 9/13 to fight for your spot in the Land, Go Black Lotus Invitational! This is a full-proxy event, with $25 of your $35 entry going into the prize pool. The winner will also receive an invitation to play in a future event with an Unlimited Black Lotus on the line! Preregistration and more info for this event is available on Topdeck HERE, and entry is capped at 80 players, so consider preregistering now!
Looking to jam some of Magic’s most powerful cards in a format with a lot of history? TGP is also hosting a Vintage cash tournament, also at 12pm on Saturday, 9/13. Resolve a Black Lotus while the CEDH players are fighting to play for one!
Our 9/14 RCQ, which was previously switched from EOE Sealed to Standard due to allocation concern, has now been changed again, this time back to EOE Sealed. At 11:30am on Sunday, bring a pack of sleeves, your best Sealed luck, and a good attitude to compete in our 1-slot RCQ! All material on the website is being updated, and once again we plan to update our social media with this change. We’re aware of the frustration that the flip-flopping nature of this event could cause, and we’re doing our very best to ensure that we never have to do this odd dance again.
Bandai games also continue to be a growing presence, with our official Gundam weeklies becoming a highlight of Wednesday nights. We’re also officially going to receive product for future Gundam TCG sets, so expect to see boxes, packs, starter decks, and more in-store when set 2 releases! One Piece also continues to fire multiple events per week, so if you’re looking to become a Pilot or a Pirate, now’s a great time to learn!
Looking forward to next week, it’s time for a return to Universes Beyond with Spider-man prereleases on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Just in time for those prereleases, Commander League X will be kicking off Tuesday, 9/16, so get yourself ready for the most X-TREME league so far, as well as a newly updated League Rules document with a more comprehensive ruleset.
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D&D One-Shots are a weekly event at The Gathering Place, hosted by TGP and ran by our community of Dungeon Masters. These one-shots are a free event, all experience levels welcome!
Simultaneously a relic of the '90s and the torch carried by kids today, there's clearly something special in the stories of Pokémon trainers and all these wonderful little pocket monsters generation after generation has come to love.
