Secret Lair

[Card Slinger J]

I find the secret lair product to be deeply worrying. They're releasing them constantly, with artificially narrow windows to give customers a sense of urgency and the inability to see how the prices will shake out in any meaningful way, cutting out LGSs, and selling what are essentially premium cosmetic upgrades...Gee, does that maybe sound like the predatory practice of another, perhaps related, industry? Nah, clearly just my imagination.

This artificial narrow window from Secret Lair is really what's saving the LGS while at the same time cutting them out of the supply chain. Everyone knows that MTG and others like it have been following the predatory practices of the loot crate model for years now, it's just that the Triple A video game industry is more of a prime target due to having a much wider appeal. Kids and young teenagers these days just aren't into paper tabletop games like the previous generation was.

I do feel that it's a bit disingenuous of Wizards of the Coast to bring back Buy-a-Box Promos in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths when it doesn't even have the same appeal as Secret Lair. I just don't understand why they would bring them back as they got salty with people flipping and selling FNM Promos online when it originally should've went into the hands of FNM participants. LGS owners pissing off Wizards of the Coast was what really got us into this mess in the first place and now it feels like we've come full circle.

[DirkGently]

I do feel that it's a bit disingenuous of Wizards of the Coast to bring back Buy-a-Box Promos in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths when it doesn't even have the same appeal as Secret Lair. I just don't understand why they would bring them back as they got salty with people flipping and selling FNM Promos online when it originally should've went into the hands of FNM participants. LGS owners pissing off Wizards of the Coast was what really got us into this mess in the first place and now it feels like we've come full circle.

For clarification for future readers: Box toppers are coming back. Obviously Buy-a-box promos haven't gone anywhere.

As long as the toppers are fancy versions of existing cards I'm fine with it.

Really, if it wasn't for wotc's newfound love affair with shoving exclusive cards into things I don't want to buy, I wouldn't care or even really mind most of this stuff. I've never liked foils and generally go for whatever the cheapest printing of anything I'm looking for is. Function over form. But after getting burned this many times, it's getting reeeaaaaal hard for me not to get pessimistic.

I mean, theme boosters, wizards? Really? You're going to hide exclusive cards designed for commander - a format that honestly is not a good entry point to mtg - in special crappy boosters designed for new players? Piss off.

I'm never going to stop being salty about this. I just want to get all my new cards via drafting. CHANGE IS THE WOOORST.

Ok rant done.

[Card Slinger J]

For clarification for future readers: Box toppers are coming back. Obviously Buy-a-box promos haven't gone anywhere.

So apparently box toppers and Buy-a-Box Promos aren't the same thing? I could've sworn they were. Oh well...

[Atraxian]

A decent way to address the limited time window for order would be to either leave the orders open and just ship the products when a new Secret Lair becomes available or to have a window in the holiday season in which you can place an order for any of the previous Secret Lairs.
With the margin they are making with this product I really doubt that printing some odd extra Secret Lairs would make any difference if not actually making WotC more money.

Yet... "It is for collectors, so it must be artificially scarce in its availability" am I right?

[DirkGently]

So apparently box toppers and Buy-a-Box Promos aren't the same thing? I could've sworn they were. Oh well...

Box toppers are in their own little foil-wrapper pack iirc (I won one at an ultimate masters FNM after playing like crap, getting a buy, and still somehow getting 2nd lol. Cracked a foil karn too. Sometimes lucky.) And they'll be randomized full-ish art, most likely. Actually I wonder how they'll differentiate them from the full-arts from collectors boosters? Or maybe they'll just be the same thing.

A decent way to address the limited time window for order would be to either leave the orders open and just ship the products when a new Secret Lair becomes available or to have a window in the holiday season in which you can place an order for any of the previous Secret Lairs.
With the margin they are making with this product I really doubt that printing some odd extra Secret Lairs would make any difference if not actually making WotC more money.

Yet... "It is for collectors, so it must be artificially scarce in its availability" am I right?

I mean, they're not REALLY scarce. If a billion people ordered them, they'd sell a billion (I mean, maybe, idk if they have that capacity tbh but they'd probably figure it out). It's just gotta be within that window.

I would not be at all surprised if they brought them back later, at least the popular ones. Make people anxious that they won't be able to get them later (or the price will go up) by having a limited window so they buy them ASAP, then as time passes people will be salty because they missed the opportunity, and then wotc can benevolently agree to publish more. Cue applause.

Brawl precons did basically that. Limited number, urgency ensues, everyone rushes off to buy them out ASAP. Then they print more later and get a whole second round of purchases, probably more because people are now anxious that, if they miss this new window, they'll be locked out for good. Don't ever let your customer think "Well, I can always buy it later" because then they might never get around to buying it.

This is literally exactly what fortnite does. Act like it's your last chance to buy something to create urgency, then offer it again later anyway because late money is still money.

[Atraxian]

Went to look at the numbers (because better be sure).
Turns out that the numbers of cards available for purchase on the secondary market (on cardmarket for Europe at least) for the secret lairs are comparable to foil mythic from standard sets.
Really didn't expect that, to be honest.
Admit my mistake on that front.

EDIT: Yet this all depends on how the secondary market absorbs the product.
If most of those who bought it just to flip it on the secondary market thinking of making easy money get to feel the burn of a bad investment and stop doing that, the singles will become quite harder to come by.

[CrazyPierre]

Not really a fan of them or the speed of the releases, though the Thalia one was very, very tempting.
I'd rather just wait for Commander Legends or whatnot, there might be some sweet adds for my new Jor Kadeen deck.

[Inkeyes22]

I new one is hitting shelves (I mean figuratively, not literally, although it may be on your lgs shelves in a few weeks) on the 12th.

[Inkeyes22]

Another one dropped today, it is really getting out of hand.

[RxPhantom]

Another one dropped today, it is really getting out of hand.

Link?

[WizardMN]

Another one dropped today, it is really getting out of hand.

Link?

This is the only link that matters for the new Secret Lair

[RxPhantom]

I came back to delete my comment because I remembered what day it was, but it was too late.

[Inkeyes22]

Another one dropped today, it is really getting out of hand.

Link?

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... mpiled-and

[materpillar]

Not going to lie, I'd get a massive kick out of owning those cards if this turned out to be a product they actually print.

[Rorseph]

Not going to lie, I'd get a massive kick out of owning those cards if this turned out to be a product they actually print.

Same. I've actually got Mudhole, Storm Crow, and Chimney Imp in top loaders. I would buy at least two of these if they were eventually real.

[Outcryqq]

Not going to lie, I'd get a massive kick out of owning those cards if this turned out to be a product they actually print.

Same. I've actually got Mudhole, Storm Crow, and Chimney Imp in top loaders. I would buy at least two of these if they were eventually real.

Y'all are in luck, site says they will print these and give them to stores to distribute however they want.

[Rorseph]

Not going to lie, I'd get a massive kick out of owning those cards if this turned out to be a product they actually print.

Same. I've actually got Mudhole, Storm Crow, and Chimney Imp in top loaders. I would buy at least two of these if they were eventually real.

Y'all are in luck, site says they will print these and give them to stores to distribute however they want.

i should have read the whole thing.

Good thing my FLGS is a WPN store where I'm in tight with the staff because I'm the organizer for D&D Adventurers League there.

[toctheyounger]

So good they even spelt Gavin Verhey's name wrong in the article.

I missed my calling as a proofreader.

[WWolfe]

All the names are plays on peoples name. Davin Derhey is Gavin Verhey. Rake Blasmussen is Blake Rasmussen. Etc.

[Inkeyes22]

Is this useful? I kinda feel like the people that care already know and the people that don't (5 basic lands for $30?!?!??!) this is just spam.

[Outcryqq]

Is this useful? I kinda feel like the people that care already know and the people that don't (5 basic lands for $30?!?!??!) this is just spam.

/shrug
I hadn't heard, but care to hear about them, though the newest one doesn't appeal to me. I think you bumped the thread?

[Inkeyes22]

Is this useful? I kinda feel like the people that care already know and the people that don't (5 basic lands for $30?!?!??!) this is just spam.

/shrug
I hadn't heard, but care to hear about them, though the newest one doesn't appeal to me. I think you bumped the thread?

Okay, I will keep it updated and see how it goes. I do hope they use the SL series to get needed reprints out faster than they can react with a randomized product.

[if4ko]

The more I think about it, the more WOTC's explanation in the TCC interview is correct. Different cards cost different amounts of money to produce. There are a lot of people in the pipeline, from artists to R+D to distributors, who need to be paid. Take the Godzilla cards, for example. They're a Toho property, so you have months of negotiation and thousands in licensing fees. A set of Godzilla-themed basic lands will cost more to produce than, say, a Scalding Tarn or a Misty Rainforest. So if you were hypothetically to release a Secret Lair of both, the Godzilla one should cost more to recuperate those costs.

Oh. Right.

[DirkGently]

But you've gotta pay for the big stupid box that nobody wants :laugh:

I did find that answer really frustrating, because while I'm sure it's true that cards cost different amounts to produce, it obviously doesn't explain the price difference, at all. Both because there's nothing particularly special about fetchlands compared to other reprints as far as I can think, and because the difference is far too huge to be explained by artist fees or whatever.

That said, at the end of the day, if wotc had originally intended to sell the fetches for $30 instead it likely wouldn't have made any difference because the secondary market took over, thanks to the scarcity. Either way it would have been $400 most likely, that's just supply and demand.

[if4ko]

Probably not. I think Wizards putting such a high "MSRP" on the product didn't help, and that the artificial scarcity is what's driving the price.

I just thought it was funny that they'd pull the excuse of "card costs" right before they announce a Secret Lair for normal price that objectively took more money to produce. The only thing that would probably cost even close to the Toho licensing fees was the commission fee for Yoshitaka Amano.