Montasy Comics

Not mad about how much money they gave me for my stuff but mad because they were disrespectful asked for 15 just to get home and they were even more rude so i only made 10 for pretty good contrition cards and pretty rare they were surprised when my cards came out of the yugioh tins acting lime they didn’t know how people by cards so if your looking to sell don’t come here due to shitty negational skills and over all rudeness and the know it all attitude would have given no stars but i cant do that
So 300 yugioh 120 magic 120 Pokemon 10 $

I have visited this store several times lately — and each time received polite service with more help and information than I would have expected. The store does clearly focus on the different card games such as Magic and Yugioh. The comic selection is minimal. On the other hand if your an adult with children who just got into the card games (Yugioh for mine) than this place is exactly what you are looking for.
When I first entered the store I explained what my situation (children learning Yugioh), what I knew so far (almost nothing) and what my budget was. They explained the cards, they options for buying them, strategies for setting up good decks for 6 year olds, and showed me what they had that would be appropriate. They were not pushy, nor did they waste my money on expensive decks.
On my second visit one of the store members spent at least 20 minutes on on one with me. I needed feedback on my deck, to purchase inexpensive cards, and a better understanding of the rules. He did all of this with no complaints. I learned more in that 20 minutes than a week trying to sort through youtube videos.
THE BATHROOM
Yes, it is off limits. I mentioned the bathroom being in Unilocal reviews. The staff explained that every time they opened it to the public it was immediately wrecked by someone. Broken toilet seat. Printer paper flushed down the toilet. I didn’t want more examples. WHO DOES THAT!?! Seriously, how mental do you need to be to screw with someones bathroom? The only reason I can think of is customer anger over being romantically rejected by the pretty asian girl working their. A lot of the customers are clearly limited in their interaction with girls. She probably gets hit on constantly — she was pretty standoffish with me — as I would expect in her situation. So, no bathroom does suck, but given the circumstances I don’t see how they have any other choice.

I would hardly call this comic store, anymore. They mostly push magic and yugioh card. Small shop with almost no back issues. Employees who know nothing about comics. Also dropped off old Magic card to sell, they said they would count them and check them out. I check back in a week and they lost them. LOST THEM. gave me no recourse for losing my cards. this place is crappy. Not being a troll. I just cant believe they lost my stuff and barely apologized
.

Really enjoyed my visit here. The staff was friendly, made some solid recommendations, and I found some back issues I had been chasing. Really good mix of old and new.

This was the shop that first introduced me to Magic: The Gathering, so I have a soft spot for this place. Jimmy, the owner, is one of the nicest human beings I’ve met playing this game, and he really seems excited about keeping his players happy.
If you work in midtown, the location is indeed outstanding. FNMs here after a long week of work are a treat. The player base is adult, tending towards professional careerists, so you get less of the attitude that you would encounter at most other shops. You’d actually get a skewed perception of the M: TG player base if you played here exclusively (for the better — I actually thought M: TG was a game exclusively for computer scientists, architects, marketing geeks, mathematicians and thinkers of various sorts for a while… until I went to a few GPs… boy can that turn you off the game completely).
If you need singles, you can phone in an order and pick it up quickly. Nice service, especially since it’s near the transit hubs in NYC, and they have a reasonable stock of singles on hand.
The shop, however, had been experiencing growing pains, possibly due to its location… I can’t imagine their rent being cheap, and so they probably don’t pay their employees well or have enough spare to get good furniture. It’s almost too popular, too convenient for its own good, so it gets overly packed with folks. Very cramped.
Food could be better — junk food only. Food license issues I guess… go downstairs and head to Sunrise Mart for healthier Japanese options, which is what a lot of folks do…
Events are strictly timed and if you’re not actively shopping or playing in a tournament, you’ll feel unwelcome. Not a place to linger, precisely because it is a cramped game shop.
I really hope that Jimmy can save up and move to a larger, cheaper location, and make things a bit more upscale. I have to imagine the comics somehow make him money, or else I personally would have ditched the comic half to make more space for gaming stuff (and how do you compete with the back-​breaking competition from the comic book shops around the area)?
For NYC, it’s a race to the top to see who can manage to open an east coast Café Mox, I think!

Edit (7÷15÷2015): The store’s management has recently decided that they are going to drop customer service from their list of concerns, deciding to double charge me for an event.
I’ve been a loyal customer for a long time, but am going to start rethinking spending any money on product at this store. I suggest others do the same.
This is my original review, now a bit out of date.
Montasy Comics is probably the best spot for Magic the Gathering in Manhattan. There are comparable/​better options in Brooklyn, but those who don’t like wandering all the way out on the L are usually inclined to prefer Manhattan.
As a regular (and former employee) there are some things to be aware of going into the store. The staff is hit-​or-​miss, often because of the amount of turnover at the service level. Some staff members have been there a while; some are brand new. The Bambi-​esque new staff members tend to be pretty useless, while the veterans can often be fairly helpful.
The management makes some decisions that are… let’s call them «unorthodox»… with regard to tournament structure. The first is that the prize support is pretty flat. It’s not *bad* prize support, it’s just spread over a larger number of players than most stores, which creates some whiney-​ness from the players who want bigger payouts. Some features of the store (notably the chairs and the ventilation) are sub-​optimal, and the singles are priced on the high-​end.
The real up-​shot of Montasy, though, is that it has a strong base of friendly local players of various levels of experience. It is one of the few places that I have been able to find where I can play Magic with and against high-​level players without dealing with the collection of PTQ grinding jerks that frequent other places in the area. (There are times when you will have to suffer those fools, but not having to do it at FNM is nice.)

As a disclaimer, I’m a Magic player and not a Comic Book Buyer, so I won’t comment on their selection there.
Location:
Outstanding! I live and work in Manhattan so this place is perfectly positioned for me since Grand Central is one of my main transit hubs.
Tournaments:
They have an event every day more or less, from Standard to Draft to Modern. Things run fairly smoothly. The prize support is a very flat structure, which favors giving prizes out to more players rather than loading a lot of prize at the top. Spikey players probably won’t like this, but most are happy with it as far as I’ve seen.
Singles:
The Singles selection is decent, but their prices are a bit high for most people’s tastes. Many stores will utilize TCG Mid prices (which most players have also adopted for the purposes of making trades), but I believe Montasy uses the mid price and then tacks on a couple dollars.
Environment:
Decent lighting, not terribly dirty, air conditioning. It can get a bit crowded, but what can you expect from a location as good as this? The chairs should be replaced with metal ones, as the plastic ones they use are incredibly flimsy.
Overall I am very gracious this place exists. I used to play at JHU before they abandon shipped on their old location and their play space was a real dump (literally a dark, dank, disgusting basement not fit for human habitation), so that makes Montasy a true breath of fresh air.

Montasy is a pretty good place to go, but not great. Here are the pros and cons:
Pros:
–Good location in central Manhattan.
–Good lighting and a decent sized space makes it less likely you will get a headache while playing Magic: The Gathering.
Cons:
–Shouting employees make it more likely you will get a headache here while playing Magic: The Gathering.
–Some employees are genuinely nice and helpful, and some are not. I don’t deny that there is sometimes an attitude of indifference or unpleasantness with the customer service at times from some employees.
–Bathroom is usually «out of service» because employees don’t like people making it messy. If you ask nicely and they know you, they will probably let you use it.
–Prize support for tournaments is not great, and tends to be skewed to reward more players (good for newer players who finish in the middle of the pack rather than the elite players who consistently finish well).
Overall, a decent place to go. Even though I listed more Cons than Pros, good lighting, space and location count for a lot.

Upstairs in a decent sized space, Montasy is a shrine to Magic the Gathering. They have everything you could want for that game. It tends to overshadow virtually everything else. This is not a gaming or toy store, and they have far little in the way of tabletop gaming — and no pop toys or collectibles. They have a large selection of comics, although they are light in the graphic novel section as well. But, hey, they named it Montasy «Comics,» so they certainly live up to their name. The staff was helpful and certainly knowledgeable, but too much of this shop (for my taste) is full of tables for playing Magic. Worth a quick stop.

This place is pretty terrible.
The comics section is basically an after thought. There are much better places to go to get comics in that area within walking distance. (Midtown Comics + Jim Hanleys Universe). These places also have employees that are knowledgeable and passionate about the material they sell.
Playing Magic at this store is just unpleasant. The customer service is terrible. Employees barely acknowledge you and are unpleasant during magic tournaments. You’re much better off going to Uncommons or 20 Sided.
The bathroom is always broken (I’ve been there 3 times over a 2 month period and every time its been «broken»). Looking at some of the other reviews it seems like its just a bathroom for employees. If you’re asking people to come play in magic tournaments at your store that last 3+ hours you shouldn’t be sending them across the street to take a piss.
If I could will this place out of existence I would.

A decent place to play magic: the gathering in the city. As you can expect for such a central location, they don’t have much space and there’s been more than one event I showed up to and couldn’t get in. If you get there early enough for Friday night magic or a prerelease, its great fun. They also have a great collection of comics and the accompanying paraphernalia, but not as wide a selection of comics as midtown. Still a great place you should check out.

I hate this place. I went once to check out the space when they had just added this new location. It looked promising — decent singles selection and play space (by NYC standards). The bathroom was «down», but I thought nothing of it at the time.
A few months later I went there for a Magic GPT:
1) they had awful prize support — in fact, the outside judge that had brought in had to convince the owners to throw in a few more packs.
2) they were horribly unorganized — the TO tried going around to each individual person for registration, which resulted in a lot of unnecessary trips back and forth to run debit cards, get dci numbers, etc. Clearly he hadn’t thought things through, and the tournament started much later than expected. Later on, he asked if the players wanted to do another swiss round and cut to top 4 or just go ahead and cut to top 8. WHO LETS THEIR PLAYERS DECIDE THAT?!
3) they charged tax on the tournament entry (NEVER seen this before).
4) the bathroom was still «broken». No apologies offered — just a simply «there’s a restroom available across the street in the shopping center». Coincidence? Nope. I’ve asked a few of my friends who have been there multiple times, and they’ve concluded that the bathroom is only for employees. So disrespectful.
I’ve perfectly fine with never going back to this place.

I’ve had good experiences here — they run tournaments very well, the space is great by NYC terms, and the staff is patient and courteous. Way better than some of the other spots in Manhattan.

This is a really cool comic book and game shop. I stumbled upon it while walking to get lunch and I’m glad I stopped in.
The people who work here are super friendly and let me creep about without being too pushy, which was cool. I liked the amount of cards they have, especially yu-​gi-​oh! cards (I secretly wish I still played) and the large gaming space in the back.
I’m definitely going to check back in later on.

Very underused space! Yeah, the magic tournaments are ok, but the comics section is severely lacking. Also, my friend and I were walking around, and not once we were approached or acknowledged by the two employees who were in NO WAY helping other customers. This place really needs better staff, and better selections of comics/​graphic novels.

The lengthy review below I would like to chalk up to an isolated bad experience. I’ve been to both locations when I am in the neighborhood and have always been greeted by friendly and patient people, most of them MtG players themselves. Have done a few MtG events as well in Midtown and beyond freezing to air conditioning I had a good time. Prices are on par with most city dealers. Some singles can be really cheap if you look at the binders.

This place is great. Was treated really well when I visited the store.
Good selection, and big area for gaming.

Great spot to play a game of Yu-​gi-​oh, or magic. They have great deals with single cards and packs. I enjoy the staff since they are down to earth, and amusing all of the time. They get crowded during certain events since their prizes and deals are superb