When making limited run products, be they trading cards, shoes or anything else really, you either print to demand or you print to scalpers. There's no real inbetween. Change my mind.
@@doctordistracto8390long run scalping isn’t even close to short run scalping. A lot of magic players enjoy the secondary market when it functions properly, but basically giving scalpers the entire stock of what they are selling inflates the prices to completely unreasonable levels. Also a print to demand model increases the overall supply if there is demand for it, which makes “long term scalpers” less effective because of supply and demand.
@@doctordistracto8390 Yeah. I didn't say "print indefinitely". Set a 1 week time window to order them. Can have, for example, 10,000 sets printed and ready to go for the first buyers.
@@Arctanis-vt3hlI have no plans on reselling it, it's has "not a real card" on the back, and I'm not playing with it in WOTC sanctioned events. It's not piracy if I'm not trying to flood the market with fake cards, they are just for personal use in proxy friendly pods.
@@Arctanis-vt3hl So what? If you want to buy the product but the company made it inordinately difficult to get the product. But you still want to have fun with it then proxying it is pretty much the only way to go. If you have a moral problem against proxying then I would argue that scalping is morally worse than simply printing it for your own personal use, in a non competitive way.
Honestly, at this pace, I'm fully expecting to see a standard legal secret lair within the next year or so. People are gonna be angry, the anger will get drowned out by people being hyped about whatever's in the box, while a famous WotC employee will write a heartfelt essay about how they totally see how this could hurt players, but also it was their best-selling secret lair of all time, so while they personally can see how people could have problems with it yaddayadda.
I still, to this day, believe that MaRo is a boon to this community. granted it maybe corpo speech half the time and he couldn't give his opinion if he did disagree but he does talk to the fan base on his own time, which is more than most companies would ever think to do. But it's gotten to where I don't trust WOTC or MaRo. They Guaranteed that they wouldn't make Universe Beyond standard legal. They have. They Guaranteed that there would be in-universe equivalents of Mechanically unique UB cards. Now there won't. At this point they could guarantee the grass was green, and I'd have to go and check When your Guarantees are not guaranteed, why should I trust anything you say.
@@TheMcg197 It's not even about trust per se. I don't think WotC employees are secretly evil or out to "get us". WotC is a corporation at the end of the day, and I can absolutely hold the belief that the people working for them are well-meaning while also acknowledging that it's literally their job to act as a sort of reverse meat shield to placate an irate player base.
@@ZynikerV Oh I don't think it's malicious in anyway, I think they've just been...overzealous? in the promises made previously. it's even likely that the design team themselves were promised these things, so they felt comfortable saying "we guarantee that UB will not be standard legal" only to get a message from corporate later who say "despite previous plans we are now putting UB in standard" So if they want to not disparage the company, have to say "Yeah I actually love to design things for other IP's and not the one I've helped grow for 20 years" The problem is that the bad blood is already here, the well already poisoned. Depressingly it seems like MaRo has learned this and is promising less, but sadly in the other direction, saying that the in terms of releases the amount of UB is "For Now, not Forever" while crucially not mentioning if he means more or Less UB. I wish there was a more productive outlet for complaints and such, other than the current bombardment that MaRo is receiving, to the point that he's getting frustrated with it. But WOTC won't ever listen to us unless we vote with our wallets, and the playerbase is far to fractured to do that.
I love to hear Vince's opinion, but would also like spice8rack to expand upon this subject in a 2 hour video featuring multiple books on socioeconomics.
But they sold out already, got their max revenue. How are you "stealing" when they made as much money as it was possible for them to make within the constraints they set themselves?
I was so tilted, queued for 5 hours and didn't get the 1 product I wanted (Wolverine). I submitted feedback and they gave me a bulk sent email that said at the bottom that they hadn't read my feedback, lmao.
I’ve gotten one step further, my complaint got ‘read’ by someone but gave me the same generic bs answer as the auto bulk reply and did not even acknowledge one point from my email. “We at WotC are so sorry that we have to send you this genuine e-mail because we could not satisfy you with our generic bulk answer. So here is another sorry that you are shit out of luck and we’ve put a little name under it, so you feel recognized.”
Something that people could do is complain, not to WotC, because they won't listen to us, but to Marvel. Tell them that the way the Secret Lair was handled has seriously damaged your impression of their brand and that you're reconsidering buying into the main sets as well. That will make Marvel complain to WotC, and WotC *will* listen to that.
This is why I’ve become so proxy friendly over the years. WotC keeps trying to squeeze the players, and I can’t hold it against someone that didn’t luck out against the absurd checkout line for just printing off the cards they wanted to build around. I lucked out, but to those who didn’t, print your proxies, and print your middle fingers raised to WotC while you’re at it.
Still a problem w/ well-off Anti-Proxy WotC-Simps pulling the whole, “I’m not playing against anyone who Proxies,” at the LGS. I wouldn’t care about not playing against one guy in pickup pod, but down here these guys LOVE to drag their friends into it, who agree w/ their stance to keep the peace. That’s why I buy bootleg versions of cards 20$ and up. If no one knows a card isn’t a WotC original, there can’t be any arguments or lingering acrimony. Players are buying them in large quantities, it’s just this Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell issue I think is ridiculous. WotC deserves to take a bath, as does Hasbro, as do scalpers, as do speccers utilizing arbitrage, and Finance Bros like Rudy. Makes the game much more affordable and argument-free, with the cherry on top of denying awful people profits. And I dunno about all of them, but the two stateside bootleggers I’ve spoken with both seem like really nice guys, who give away a lot of cards.
@@Shawn-f3x "WotC deserves to take a bath, as does Hasbro, as do scalpers, as do speccers utilizing arbitrage, and Finance Bros like Rudy." because I can't have my way. Hope you grow up someday for the good of everyone that has to deal with or even listen to you
@ Being hostile to business interests that believe themselves entitled to ever more hard-earned cash from people for a trivial amount of effort and no commensurate increase in value being offered to consumers is hardly an immoral position. Do you just not hear the hostility Rudy routinely expresses toward anyone who wants this game to be more affordable? Or do you think SL-scalpers are just hard-hustling entrepreneurs deserving of respect? How about the guys snagging every below-market offering of an in-demand single on eBay/TCGPlayer for immediate resale? If it’s legitimate for these people to harm the interests of consumers in pursuit of profit, what’s objectionable about me wishing the cash reserves and revenue streams they utilize to make the game more expensive would be reduced? Personally, I’m an investor in the second largest of the stateside bootleg card makers, because the only thing that private citizens can do to help tame the secondary market is reduce demand.
@@TheNewblade1tcc made non-official in-universe versions of secret lair exclusive UB cards that you can print for yourself. Partly to combat the accessibility issues and partly to address the fact that since the Street Fighter in-universe cards in set boosters no more UB cards have received in-universe reskins.
I hate price gouging, but from a practical standpoint, I have to consider which course of action is more realistic to helping mitigate this problem. 1) Shaming people until a mass quantity of strangers online uniformly agree to never price gouge again, or 2) Continue to harp and pressure Wizards to eventually return to the print to demand model. Sure, it's hard to get Wizards to do much of anything, but community pressure has been far more effective against them in the past than it has against the anonymous price gouger.
Or leave them holding the envelope don't buy from them let them waste their money buying from wizards then when they can no longer buy from wizards let wizards realize how detrimental it is to let them do it
@@Grimmlocked No, no, no. People with stunted maturity levels want the world to change to their desires without doing anything about it, they would never make changes in their own lives
These kinds of practices only encourage proxying. Gatekeeping product behind a limited supply gimmick like secret lair is a nefarious and egregious practice for what is essentially printed carboard. You're not getting tickets to an event which has limited seats, you're not getting a signed piece or a handcrafted item which by nature are limited in existence. You're just getting shiny cardboard, easily replicable. And because it's easily replicable you're shooting yourself in the foot as a company encouraging even your most loyal customers to resort to these practices. Effectively limiting your own income by limiting your own supply. Amazing, just amazing.
It's not a gimmick, it's literally been their sales model in different ways for decades. It's always hilarious to hear people whine about it because they CHOSE to play this game. There are hundreds of thousands of games not based around randomized chase items. These mentally stunted people chose this game then complain about it and want it to change to fit what they want. Go play something else, there's plenty of people who like the game for what it is.
@chim007azo Secret Lair is a gimmick, sorry bud. Why? Because it's a model based on a fictitious scarcity, thus a gimmick. Back in Tenth Edition when I joined and chose to invest in this game, secret lair wasn't here. And it wouldn't exist for another 10 years until 2019. I think your argument is really empty and conformist! (:
@@CloudPlays444 Lots of brands use manufactured scarcity as their business model. All of TCG's are manufactured scarcity. I find your argument either willfully ignorant or lacking in intelligence.
@@chim007azo Secret Lair does seem to be the worst example of it, as it's such frequent and blatant scarcity right from the start. It's fine to complain, give feedback and be critical, as locking players out of game pieces intentionally doesn't create a good relationship with the player base. I personally just ignore secret lairs now, I play the game casually and have a great time with it.
I looked at the names, who sell fo this prices and will never buy from them again (not that I buy much anyways, still). Maybe there should be a list of this people. So you can dodge them. Buying multiple sets and selling them for 4x the price is just terrible.
Magic is one of those hobbies that we consumers should easily be able to resist FOMO since proxying has become a readily available alternative that we should never be buying from the scalpers. Other hobbies (like 40k) still have aways to go since not everyone can easily dive into 3d printing yet, but proxing tradable cards is very affordable/easy to do. On this point we should be able to say no and realistically follow through on voting with our wallets. Those who feel some compulsion to won the "real thing", need to understand that you can afford to delay catering to that urge and use proxies as your test-run for the card, and by the time you have had enough time to evaluate whether it is something you do enjoy playing with the prices should have dropped enough to where the scalpers will not be maximizing their profit.
WOTC/Hasbro have declared that they do not want our money anymore with this lair. If they did they would have made it print to demand or printed so much that it wouldn't sell out untill at least 7 days. I'm talking 10-100x what they actually printed. So in light of their declaration of not wanting our money, I just won't anymore. I'm gonna buy like 10,000 proxys of the best and most expensive cards to build deck. I'm gonna buy cool alt art proxys online. I'm not going to buy SL's anymore.
Magic 30th Aniversary was Wizards saying proxies are ok... after a year of missing every single secret lair I wanted while waiting in line a total of 1 full day, Wizards hammered home that proxying is ok...
Proxying mine. Miss by wotc, I'll grab them if they come down to reality, but I refuse to put any money in and flippers pockets. They need to learn a lesson and take losses
I plan on selling the ones I bought to my friends at the price I paid for them. Of course, I'll be keeping the reprints that I wanted for my commander decks, but I'll replace them with the non-UB versions so at least they're still getting the same cards mechanically. Don't believe in selling these for a profit, especially with how absolutely fucked the limited print run was.
Shit you’re right. It’s the same thing just that with landlordism it isn’t just that people don’t get the card of their favourite character tm, but actually freeze on the streets. What a world we live in
In a summary this is the response I get from WOTC “We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause but thank you for your understanding in this matter.” No apology, ownership, accountability from WOTC for wasting their customer’s time. THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO! Your work is greatly appreciated.
Vince, you gave the correct answer yourself. Wizards is bound by Hasbro, a publicly traded US company. They only answer to their shareholders, not "the community" of Magic, regardless of what we want them to do. So obviously they only care for best market outcome from their side. Selling out quickly is a huge success for them It shows potential IP partners that they know their deal. Even if it sucks for all of us on the buyer side waiting for hours in a queue and often not getting a thing but a headache in the process.
Waiting in the queue is not normally any issue. I've never had any problem getting a Lair. The widespread information on how to skip waiting in the queue and jump to check out is what caused the issues this time. The more people complain about the minor issues, the more likely it is Wizards can ignore the real problem.
I don't quite follow your argument that these limited print runs look better to the IP holder. In the comparison to the $1000 product, the real problem becomes apparent, but you argued it the wrong direction -- that product WAS limited. It didn't sell out. And having these limited run Secret Lairs actually runs the risk of the same thing happening -- the item NOT selling out, and having left over unwanted product. But print-to-demand always sells out. They literally sell every copy. AND they make more money.
As an anticapitalist pinko, I think all profit-seeking is inherently pretty evil. But I'm pretty sure even a libertarian would think that price for the Black Panther set is vile
I'm still super fkn mad about people skipping the queue and going around the honest people (like myself) who get left holding the bag (of nothing). And the silence from WoTC is just as infuriating. I'm so bitter about this. I only tried to get the foil Storm lair too. Fk me I guess though.
Alternatively you could just not buy the product. It’s a luxury good that does absolutely nothing of real use. And don’t give me that cardboard investment bullshit, invest in something that actually matters like real estate.
@@WhipLash42o 'vote with your wallet' doesn't work with mass-produced products sold globally utilizing massive-popular media ip, remember when people tried to boycott that harry potter game? it doesn't work, you're not convincing tens upon tens of millions of people to not consume these products.
Woah dude, you cant talk about the standard of the game like that. The "investors" will have a conniption and complain about how valid the shiny cardboard stonks are
I don’t understand why they can’t do both. Have a limited run ready to be shipped on launch that sells out quickly, looks good to your investors and partners, and that you can build hype around. And then also have a second, print on demand run if the first one sells out. This way, you’re not holding on extra stock if you don’t need to and your website is not completely empty in between releases (which feels horrible as a consumer)
Or, do the foils as a single limited run and non-foil as a print to demand run. Collectors get their hype items for resale, people that want a tournament legal game piece get theirs, but slower.
I feel like content creators never help with this though. Every single video I watch of them complaining of these secret lairs, they always end with “Yeah and I still bought it anyway”. If people see their favourite players / content creators not buying product or proxying, then they’ll be more incentivised to do it as well
@@PleasantKenobi I haven't really watched much of the Festival in a Box tbh so I didn't realise you hadn't bought that. The Marvel Secret Lair is the first SL i have ever bought. I just feel like if most content creators would stop buying SL's and show that they won't be supporting it until they change, so many more people would follow suit
@@PleasantKenobi did you now? Aww...but had to get this one, 'cause you're such a marvel fanboys.... aren't you? But seriously, there is a point in what he said about content creators, putting up this rants but still buying the lairs... more so when every other mtg content creator had put out videos, in which at some point they were being very ok with people sharing on their discords/Patreon etc. hacks/links or whatever to jump the queue and some even doing it themselves... So what about that? Fighting price gauging by probably f-ing other out the queue?
@@PleasantKenobi you left a comment laughing at me for this exact criticism when the Warhammer decks were announced. "hey I only buy SOME" or "hey I stopped buying them after the damaged was done" isn't the clap back you seem to think it is. own your mistake. the community needed to band together early on and reject them outright and consistently and you spoke in direct opposition to the people saying that we needed to reject this practice as well. own your mistake.
I can't help but see everything ub as a new reserve list that wizards will revisit. And everything these mechanical unique cards are included in will be premium priced to keep the ragavan and horizons type reprint equity Prices being so high is only a benefit to Hasbro and their shareholders, nevermind corporate dealings financial requirements and targets. Then all the business peacocking to hide daddy Hasbro's shambling corpse
I tell people all the time just buy counterfeits better quality for a fraction of the price and u can't even tell the difference anymore its a win win for whoever wants to play but doesn't wanna buy over priced cardboard.
Are there going to be other events like this somewhere in the UK between 15th and 30th December? Asking because i'll be in the UK for Christmas and would be cool to attend to such events
I have some other thoughts about the limited accessability of these secret lairs. It is going to be pandemonium when a card from it will become a heavily sought commander or staple in the formats they're legal in. All while only been printed in a (very?) limited run. And don't get me started on the ip's they're working with. Final fantasy, LotR, those I can live with but marvel, dr who, transformers, fallout...???
I can't really afford sealed products, much less Secret Lairs, price gouged or not. Sometimes I splurge when stores have sealed products discounted, but mostly I have to buy singles online, and I only buy cards priced below $5.00 USD.
I wouldn't worry too much - I'm 90% sure these will be Special Guest in the Spider-Man set. With different art obviously, but with Maro saying all mechanically unique Secret Lair card will come out as either UB or UW in a booster product and Spider-Man being a narrower than expected Marvel set, these cards as Special Guests would make perfect sense.
The real problem we will find in the future is WoTC's observation of this secondary market and seeing the money they left on the table. This is when you see a 4 card Secret Lair with 1 good card 3 worthless cards that look pretty for $99.99 each.
Secret lairs getting 1st edition/1st printing versions is my solution to the problem. Wizards still gets the fomo bonus to to sales speed then they can just have print to demand for the everyone else. Just have an intern make a different set symbol for the plebs and get a boatload of additional sales. Easy peazy, win win.
Magic isn't Pokemon or Yugioh. They know very well how reprints and lack of scarcity affects the secondary market and their business model. It's very much not easy peazy or a win
The reasonable course would be a hybrid model. A certain amount would be printed in the initial run and people could choose to get their bundles in the "Priority" run (For an additional fee perhaps? Are you listening Wizards?) Or you could choose the slow boat and get your cards in the Print on Demand queue six months later. This would allow Wizards to have their splashy sellout moment with all of the whales or impatient people buying in the priority phase while people who are poorer or patient can still get the cards.
Gougers are not the reason you don't have the cards you want. The reason you don't have the cards you want is that Wizards didn't print enough of them, or they set their prices too low. If Wizards wants to run a weird lottery where they sell $200 cards for $50 to random people who sit in a queue for 5 hours, that's their prerogative. Seems like a weird business choice though. I'm curious - is there much evidence that gougers snapped up a significant fraction of the supply? How are people coming to that conclusion?
I am not claiming to know, I'm just taking a guess for conversation sake. I think people assume scalpers got a sizeable portion is probably because of how quickly they appear for sale online. Personally, I think the last time I followed a SL that I was interested in, sales for the cards were up the day of (which I guess you're pre-ordering from the re-seller then for when they receive it?) Anyway, that's my guess as to why people feel confident saying they went to scalpers. Overall, I agree with you that it's a WotC issue more than anything else.
I know a guy that scalps and it kinda feels bad. He buys one of the everything bundles for every secret lair with hype around it and sells it to people that he plays with for 50% of market price then sells the rest to an LGS or online. Most of us that wanted Marvel bundles got them so he's only selling the foil BP and Arcane Signet to people he knows and selling the rest for about a 2x return to people online. It sucks hearing about all this stuff because there are definitely scalpers that just have a program buy the max amount to resell while he's just sitting in queue with everyone else for a few hours to make $500 but he's technically in the same camp as the other scalpers.
Yeah I'm not crazy about proxying (for myself) just because the power level can get kind of crazy, but nowadays it just is the only way Making a plane was really fun
They should make a limited print run (maybe with collector numbers?), then when that sells out, print to demand for the rest of the duration of the lair drop.
I didn't have the budget to get them when they dropped, but even with that I checked to try to get the Wolverine one. it was of course sold out. I have since made Vtuber Proxy versions of the mechanically unique cards and encourage anyone who wants to build around them to print out proxies whether the be mine or even just a black and white paper printout over a land. This game that I love should not be gatekept by FOMO or prices, and I will never feel bad proxying things that should be available to the players at a reasonable price.
Let's talk about people who choose to get involved in a game with randomized chase cards then complain about the game having randomized chase cards. It's like taking the job you hate or dating someone who's wrong for you. Are we supposed to feel bad about your life choices?
I think proxies ARE pretty normalized outside of spaces like this comment section, or the various MtG reddits, and so on. Which isn't to say it shouldn't be discussed or anything like that. Personally, I feel like whenever I meet a new group of people who largely play outside of game stores, they all tend to have some proxies sprinkled in their decks. Admittedly, that's just my personal experience.
It wasnt even a 4 hour fomo window. My buddy sent me a text he was in line. I recieved the text the second i joined the line. Storm in foil and non-foil and arcane signet sold out before he was able to checkout. There was a window of maybe seconds depending on what you wanted.
A guy in our local discord posted the minute as soon as he got his SLD in trying to flip them for 3x and the moderators kicked him. I gotta say very valid response. Because a lot of us like my self, waited in queue and couldn’t them. Then and we were very open about trying to get them. Then to just walk in and try and up charge the shit out of his own small community. Heck that guy
Agree 100%. I wasn’t able to make my purchase of this one. And i refuse to pay the inflated prices. Just another way that WotC is sticking it to the community in favor of the investors. I want to also add that mechanically unique cards should be print to demand like the previous secret lairs. Not limited like this. Different story if it’s a reprint, I get not wanting to dilute existing variants. But these were new cards, and some quite strong. Such a bummer, coming off the heels of the new commander bans…
The last secret lair I bought from wizards was Sheldon's Spellbook, the last secret lair I've bought 2nd hand was Gavin's coin flip commander deck, it came with an extra copy of vandalblast and temur battle rage. I thought I got screwed out of 2 other cards but nope, just got some duplicates.
I love the idea of secret layers after the vault products left. But back when From the vault product was new I. De. Show me loved the chance to go to different stores to see if they had it looking at the price. And seeing the differences
The issue is gougers only exist because people will pay for them. The only thing wizards could do is print on demand, but that reduces the chance of a frenzy to happen, which they want to happen to impress share holders.
@DerekScottBland Yeah they may not be able to brag "Oh look, we sold everything in 2 hours" but when their earnings call hits they can flex the money they made
I've been saying it forever - shareholders ruin businesses. They don't care about the employees of said company and rarely care about the company's mission or goals. The company often has to sellout in the interest of making the shareholders money, EVEN if they are already making money. You can't expect to grow forever.
@@DerekScottBland Print to demand does not always bring in more money, because limiting print run increases demand. So print to demand may sell 45 000 copies, but limiting the print run to 50 000 may sell 50 000.
@@Arctanis-vt3hl Without share holders a business would collapse. Going public means you would have otherwise shut your doors. I agree it's evil, but the alternative is going to Yu-Gi-Oh or Lorcana as Magic burns.
When I checked out and paid I could have bought at least a few more sets (I bought one foil bundle just for myself) and I knew I’d be able to flip them for easy profit, and I’ve never flipped cards before. But I decided against it and closed the secret lair website so other people could have them.
I couldn't have said it better myself, you nailed the point perfectly. I was gonna get the Dr. Who SL for my brother, for his birthday. Instead, I was stuck in queue the whole time, and it got sold out.
@@ToadimusPrime"The set will include four Commander decks, collectors boosters and limited-time print-on-demand Secret Lair cards featuring doctors, companions, villains and locations from throughout the show’s 60-year history." It was unlimited and up for weeks, I know because I was waffling on it and bought it the last day.
I get tired of stores complaining when product prices drop that no one is supporting them and when prices jump they gouge or cancel sales to customers to sell off online at the higher price. Its just toxic and makes buying local product a bad experience.
You realize with this statement you're the toxic one. You're literally saying you're against the store trying to stay in business by trying to make money when they can to make up for the products they lose money on.
@chim007azo nope, I am saying that when the store plays the whoa is me no one buys my stuff but won't build any good will when things are good they are making zero ground with players. A good store doesn't gouge players when the prices are high
I mostly agree. I wish WotC would do something to make the experience better but I think they had those solutions in place and intentionally moved away from them. I highly doubt that WotC will change anything since this seems to be their goal. I will say they could at the very least fix the queue system. Leaving the line cutting methods in place is just a terrible and lazy idea.
WotC will never feel any sort of financial pressure as a result of dissatisfaction aroud Secret Lairs, because the limited supply ensures it sells out completely. It doesn't matter if you choose not to buy Secret Lairs, because you would never have even had the chance to buy it anyway. The only way to affect any change is to hurt their bottom line, and the only way to do that is to not buy Magic products at all. Yes, that means Foundations and Dragonstorm and Return to Lorwyn and Final Fantasy or whatever other set is coming up. WotC will continue to encourage the complete financialization of Magic: the Gathering at the detriment of people who actually want to play the game until it actively hurts their profits. Otherwise they're happy to make a worse game if the customers are going to keep on buying it anyway.
They could always send secret layers to lgs in addition to selling online. That way they get the same sold out online thing but people can still get the stuff from the lgs.
People b*tch about scalpers and price gouging and then buy them when they can and say my money and I can do whatever I want with it. You people are the problems. Just don't buy them for that price and make the scalpers sit on dead product.
You’re speaking to two separate entities and combining them into the same person. Thereby taking ownership of the problem away from WOTC and making it about the players being the problem.
@quayo90 yes, i was talking about two separate issues at once. How about players stop buying from scalpers and honestly, i think I might walk back the price gouging because I don't think WOTC is price gouging now that I think about it. 50 bucks seems fair for a high demand product.
I have zero interest in these products (SL) but my blood boils seeing my fellow players treated this way. WotC needs to pull their heads of their asses.
I was one of those people that queued and then got that server crash and by the time I got back to the front of the line the Captain America one was sold out :( I just wanted cap, I didn't care about the other cards in the pack... have you seen how much cap is selling for now? I could get a booster box for that price
Yeah, the current way Secret Lair is being handled is designed so fans lose. I'm seeing a lot of parrels to this and when Nintendo set up preorders for the Collector's Edition of Xenoblade 3 as the methods of getting those items are similar. The 5-hour wait and people managing to get more than the limit just reeks of a bot flood tactic. All the gouger has to do is have multiple devices running and have an army of bots handle the process of putting items in the cart and checking out. This then causes the servers to get clogged but due to how much traffic there is, the gouger is still able to get inventory as at least a couple of get in and complete what they were programmed to do.
I managed to get a non foil Iron man. But as things stand I wonder why I shouldn't just sell it and buy proxies. I only want to play casual commander anyways.
I know I’m going to sound very pedantic but price gouging is in relation relation to anything. Whether that be product or services. And scalping is more specifically about resale.
I queued for 5 hours and managed to get the foil Storm drop before it sold out. That bring said, do not support resellers. These drops are not worth hundreds of dollars, and we're already seeing a race to the bottom on sites like Ebay. Usually I'm the player that likes to own at least 1 real copy before I proxy; but with these terrible practices.....Just proxy the SL cards.
@@PleasantKenobi You explain how this relates to UB in the video: "The item sold out immediately with zero uncertainty and thus they can go to a future IP partner and explain to them look how much money you can make with absolute certainty and no chance of a loss or product rotting on shelves or digital shelves if you will or product damaging the brand and that's an important part of the whole non-limited thing that I didn't really talk about in the last video is that the certainty that you sell out is huge..."
I dont mind resellers if they waited their turn. Made to order means made to order, WotC should have produced all orders in said window plus 10%. Then resellers can make their profits after everybody's had a fair shot.
I really wanted Storm, I couldn't get Storm, so I proxied Storm. I'm not buying SLs going forward, I don't like waiting for hours and hours fighting over scraps.
The print to demand model both worked, and had the products re-sold at a higher price. The only drawback was the lead times on the cards but between that and this, I'd pick the print to demand.
@@AshGodfrost Lol, PK isn’t the arbiter of if it worked. Again, using logic, if it worked why did they stop? If you mean it was easier for buyers, yes. If you mean cost effective and generated more sales, again, why would they have stopped?
@chim007azo Immediate profit, to show third party IP's guaranteed money, less work on their end for printing products because they print a set number. I don't even know why you can't conceive that they changed it for their benefit and not the consumers. It's quite blatantly not in our favour given price gouging, bulk buyers, and their queueing systems not even working.
@@AshGodfrost As a consumer of collectibles, I much prefer this limited method. You seem to have gotten my point without realizing it. The only thing that matters for them is if it works for them. That is their measure of success. You seem to agree print to demand didn’t work for them. Your stumbling block seems to be understanding “I liked it the other way” doesn’t equal “the other way worked.”
1:18 - Just as an argument for "results": I've never bought any Magic, and never interacted with WotC or scalpers. I'd assume they both suck, but am clueless. 🤷♂️
@@PleasantKenobi Also, how whacky do you want the planes? Obviously no dexterity checks, but what about something like Rules Lawyer or Old Fogey levels of whacky?
@chim007azo woosh, man, I was talking about corporate greed, not scalpers, which wouldn't exist in this instance if Wotc printed on demand instead of using FOMO to get all the money.
@@aaronbennett3966 corporate responsibility is not greed. Plenty of hardworking people have their money in retirement plans invested in stocks. They’re not after unlimited money. A company owes them doing its best to give them return on those investments.
Don't blame the sellers, blame the people paying exorbitant prices. As long as there are people willing to pay those prices, scalping will always exist. Wizards cashing in on FOMO is the real issue here.
I was lucky enough to get one of the bundles, but I am going to try finding people I know that wanted them and selling to them at cost. This is so I know they will use the cards and not just flip them.
I was creating a custom set with lore a few years ago and created twenty custom planes to fit the lore. Expect submissions from me.. Question though, are you wanting these to be silly, powerful, or (insert your needs here).
Man, I miss the videos when Secret Lairs were print to demand and every content creator was complaining that the cards aren't valuable enough in them. That they aren't good value for money, why would anyone buy this shit. Now they make it so that the cards actually have some value and everybody cries about that instead. I guess it's obvious since people have to complain about something, this time the shift just feels REALLY fast ;)
My foil secret lair drop arrived today, but the Arcane Signet envelope didn't have a card in it! Thanks WOTC!
Oh wow!
Contact them they keep stock back to address stuff like this.
Buy slop, get slop.
@@doctordistracto8390 Yes, hopefully they still have some left, ticket submitted!
@@hp5310slop
When making limited run products, be they trading cards, shoes or anything else really, you either print to demand or you print to scalpers. There's no real inbetween.
Change my mind.
I'd say print to demand is still time limited so you're just printing to long run scalpers instead of short run. Same way all magic has always worked.
@@doctordistracto8390long run scalping isn’t even close to short run scalping. A lot of magic players enjoy the secondary market when it functions properly, but basically giving scalpers the entire stock of what they are selling inflates the prices to completely unreasonable levels. Also a print to demand model increases the overall supply if there is demand for it, which makes “long term scalpers” less effective because of supply and demand.
*you print to scalpers either way.
Only difference: Either the upsell is tomorrow or a month from now
@@doctordistracto8390 Yeah. I didn't say "print indefinitely". Set a 1 week time window to order them. Can have, for example, 10,000 sets printed and ready to go for the first buyers.
You could also overprint. Companies are now skilled at avoiding this, but it's in the possibility space.
Don't buy from scalpers when you can proxy instead!
The problem with proxying is that you're commiting piracy and what you're printing is ultimately fake.
@@Arctanis-vt3hlI have no plans on reselling it, it's has "not a real card" on the back, and I'm not playing with it in WOTC sanctioned events. It's not piracy if I'm not trying to flood the market with fake cards, they are just for personal use in proxy friendly pods.
@@Arctanis-vt3hl So what? If you want to buy the product but the company made it inordinately difficult to get the product. But you still want to have fun with it then proxying it is pretty much the only way to go. If you have a moral problem against proxying then I would argue that scalping is morally worse than simply printing it for your own personal use, in a non competitive way.
You’re committing piracy if you’re selling the proxie and/or tr
@@Arctanis-vt3hl You... Don't seem to know what piracy is.
Honestly, at this pace, I'm fully expecting to see a standard legal secret lair within the next year or so. People are gonna be angry, the anger will get drowned out by people being hyped about whatever's in the box, while a famous WotC employee will write a heartfelt essay about how they totally see how this could hurt players, but also it was their best-selling secret lair of all time, so while they personally can see how people could have problems with it yaddayadda.
I still, to this day, believe that MaRo is a boon to this community. granted it maybe corpo speech half the time and he couldn't give his opinion if he did disagree but he does talk to the fan base on his own time, which is more than most companies would ever think to do.
But it's gotten to where I don't trust WOTC or MaRo.
They Guaranteed that they wouldn't make Universe Beyond standard legal. They have.
They Guaranteed that there would be in-universe equivalents of Mechanically unique UB cards. Now there won't.
At this point they could guarantee the grass was green, and I'd have to go and check
When your Guarantees are not guaranteed, why should I trust anything you say.
@@TheMcg197 It's not even about trust per se. I don't think WotC employees are secretly evil or out to "get us". WotC is a corporation at the end of the day, and I can absolutely hold the belief that the people working for them are well-meaning while also acknowledging that it's literally their job to act as a sort of reverse meat shield to placate an irate player base.
@@TheMcg197and the only promise they won't break is the reserved list...
@@ZynikerV Oh I don't think it's malicious in anyway, I think they've just been...overzealous? in the promises made previously. it's even likely that the design team themselves were promised these things, so they felt comfortable saying "we guarantee that UB will not be standard legal" only to get a message from corporate later who say "despite previous plans we are now putting UB in standard" So if they want to not disparage the company, have to say "Yeah I actually love to design things for other IP's and not the one I've helped grow for 20 years"
The problem is that the bad blood is already here, the well already poisoned. Depressingly it seems like MaRo has learned this and is promising less, but sadly in the other direction, saying that the in terms of releases the amount of UB is "For Now, not Forever" while crucially not mentioning if he means more or Less UB.
I wish there was a more productive outlet for complaints and such, other than the current bombardment that MaRo is receiving, to the point that he's getting frustrated with it. But WOTC won't ever listen to us unless we vote with our wallets, and the playerbase is far to fractured to do that.
I love to hear Vince's opinion, but would also like spice8rack to expand upon this subject in a 2 hour video featuring multiple books on socioeconomics.
"They're going to keep making secret lairs because it makes line go up easy, anyway, now for a dramatic reading of my magnum opus, Odebad to Slobad."
Remember, every time you Proxy a secret lair drop, no one loses out on anything.
Except the artists and game designer you are stealing from
But they sold out already, got their max revenue. How are you "stealing" when they made as much money as it was possible for them to make within the constraints they set themselves?
@@TheEvolver311not my problem... Also nobody is stealing anything Tf.
@@TheEvolver311 they already got paid, so no.
I mean I loose a sheet of printer paper but I can live with that
I was so tilted, queued for 5 hours and didn't get the 1 product I wanted (Wolverine). I submitted feedback and they gave me a bulk sent email that said at the bottom that they hadn't read my feedback, lmao.
I’ve gotten one step further, my complaint got ‘read’ by someone but gave me the same generic bs answer as the auto bulk reply and did not even acknowledge one point from my email.
“We at WotC are so sorry that we have to send you this genuine e-mail because we could not satisfy you with our generic bulk answer. So here is another sorry that you are shit out of luck and we’ve put a little name under it, so you feel recognized.”
Rekt
Also my condolences
@TheNimuro yep I got the same thing
hahahahahahahahahahaha
Something that people could do is complain, not to WotC, because they won't listen to us, but to Marvel. Tell them that the way the Secret Lair was handled has seriously damaged your impression of their brand and that you're reconsidering buying into the main sets as well. That will make Marvel complain to WotC, and WotC *will* listen to that.
Tell Marvel You are switching to DC & tell Disney You are switching to MAX
This is why I’ve become so proxy friendly over the years. WotC keeps trying to squeeze the players, and I can’t hold it against someone that didn’t luck out against the absurd checkout line for just printing off the cards they wanted to build around. I lucked out, but to those who didn’t, print your proxies, and print your middle fingers raised to WotC while you’re at it.
Still a problem w/ well-off Anti-Proxy WotC-Simps pulling the whole, “I’m not playing against anyone who Proxies,” at the LGS.
I wouldn’t care about not playing against one guy in pickup pod, but down here these guys LOVE to drag their friends into it, who agree w/ their stance to keep the peace.
That’s why I buy bootleg versions of cards 20$ and up.
If no one knows a card isn’t a WotC original, there can’t be any arguments or lingering acrimony.
Players are buying them in large quantities, it’s just this Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell issue I think is ridiculous.
WotC deserves to take a bath, as does Hasbro, as do scalpers, as do speccers utilizing arbitrage, and Finance Bros like Rudy.
Makes the game much more affordable and argument-free, with the cherry on top of denying awful people profits.
And I dunno about all of them, but the two stateside bootleggers I’ve spoken with both seem like really nice guys, who give away a lot of cards.
@@Shawn-f3x "WotC deserves to take a bath, as does Hasbro, as do scalpers, as do speccers utilizing arbitrage, and Finance Bros like Rudy." because I can't have my way. Hope you grow up someday for the good of everyone that has to deal with or even listen to you
@@chim007azo Corpo shills are laughable, get outta here.
@@adriadelafuente3648 whiny kids who only want their way and don't consider the consequences on other people are annoying AF, get outta here
@ Being hostile to business interests that believe themselves entitled to ever more hard-earned cash from people for a trivial amount of effort and no commensurate increase in value being offered to consumers is hardly an immoral position.
Do you just not hear the hostility Rudy routinely expresses toward anyone who wants this game to be more affordable?
Or do you think SL-scalpers are just hard-hustling entrepreneurs deserving of respect?
How about the guys snagging every below-market offering of an in-demand single on eBay/TCGPlayer for immediate resale?
If it’s legitimate for these people to harm the interests of consumers in pursuit of profit, what’s objectionable about me wishing the cash reserves and revenue streams they utilize to make the game more expensive would be reduced?
Personally, I’m an investor in the second largest of the stateside bootleg card makers, because the only thing that private citizens can do to help tame the secondary market is reduce demand.
You're never the guy I expect to be so sensitive and thoughtful, eventually it'll stop surprising me. Keep being awesome.
Wow haha, thanks I guess? Do I look like a ruffian haha?
@@PleasantKenobiyou do have a beard. Most of us know that means you are an outlaw motorcycle club member.
I've got all the decks that TCC built printed for $8
Printer to brrrr
Did u purchase singles or sum?
@@TheNewblade1 printer go brrr also yes singles
@@TheNewblade1proxy’s
@@TheNewblade1tcc made non-official in-universe versions of secret lair exclusive UB cards that you can print for yourself. Partly to combat the accessibility issues and partly to address the fact that since the Street Fighter in-universe cards in set boosters no more UB cards have received in-universe reskins.
I wanted to get the Storm Lair to build the commander, but I am about to proxy the shit out of it 😂.
I hate price gouging, but from a practical standpoint, I have to consider which course of action is more realistic to helping mitigate this problem. 1) Shaming people until a mass quantity of strangers online uniformly agree to never price gouge again, or 2) Continue to harp and pressure Wizards to eventually return to the print to demand model. Sure, it's hard to get Wizards to do much of anything, but community pressure has been far more effective against them in the past than it has against the anonymous price gouger.
3) proxy shamelessly
Or leave them holding the envelope don't buy from them let them waste their money buying from wizards then when they can no longer buy from wizards let wizards realize how detrimental it is to let them do it
@@rosewarrior706 yup, play other games is the real answer
@@Grimmlocked No, no, no. People with stunted maturity levels want the world to change to their desires without doing anything about it, they would never make changes in their own lives
@@rosewarrior706 . . . are you sure you're replying to the right comment? I have no idea what that rant had to do with anything I said.
These kinds of practices only encourage proxying.
Gatekeeping product behind a limited supply gimmick like secret lair is a nefarious and egregious practice for what is essentially printed carboard.
You're not getting tickets to an event which has limited seats, you're not getting a signed piece or a handcrafted item which by nature are limited in existence. You're just getting shiny cardboard, easily replicable. And because it's easily replicable you're shooting yourself in the foot as a company encouraging even your most loyal customers to resort to these practices. Effectively limiting your own income by limiting your own supply. Amazing, just amazing.
It's not a gimmick, it's literally been their sales model in different ways for decades. It's always hilarious to hear people whine about it because they CHOSE to play this game. There are hundreds of thousands of games not based around randomized chase items. These mentally stunted people chose this game then complain about it and want it to change to fit what they want. Go play something else, there's plenty of people who like the game for what it is.
@chim007azo Secret Lair is a gimmick, sorry bud. Why? Because it's a model based on a fictitious scarcity, thus a gimmick.
Back in Tenth Edition when I joined and chose to invest in this game, secret lair wasn't here. And it wouldn't exist for another 10 years until 2019.
I think your argument is really empty and conformist! (:
Forget proxies just buy counterfeits
@@CloudPlays444 Lots of brands use manufactured scarcity as their business model. All of TCG's are manufactured scarcity. I find your argument either willfully ignorant or lacking in intelligence.
@@chim007azo Secret Lair does seem to be the worst example of it, as it's such frequent and blatant scarcity right from the start. It's fine to complain, give feedback and be critical, as locking players out of game pieces intentionally doesn't create a good relationship with the player base.
I personally just ignore secret lairs now, I play the game casually and have a great time with it.
I wonder how many of the initial sales are the scalpers themselves trying to make it look like they're selling at those prices
I looked at the names, who sell fo this prices and will never buy from them again (not that I buy much anyways, still). Maybe there should be a list of this people. So you can dodge them. Buying multiple sets and selling them for 4x the price is just terrible.
Magic is one of those hobbies that we consumers should easily be able to resist FOMO since proxying has become a readily available alternative that we should never be buying from the scalpers. Other hobbies (like 40k) still have aways to go since not everyone can easily dive into 3d printing yet, but proxing tradable cards is very affordable/easy to do.
On this point we should be able to say no and realistically follow through on voting with our wallets. Those who feel some compulsion to won the "real thing", need to understand that you can afford to delay catering to that urge and use proxies as your test-run for the card, and by the time you have had enough time to evaluate whether it is something you do enjoy playing with the prices should have dropped enough to where the scalpers will not be maximizing their profit.
WOTC/Hasbro have declared that they do not want our money anymore with this lair. If they did they would have made it print to demand or printed so much that it wouldn't sell out untill at least 7 days. I'm talking 10-100x what they actually printed. So in light of their declaration of not wanting our money, I just won't anymore. I'm gonna buy like 10,000 proxys of the best and most expensive cards to build deck. I'm gonna buy cool alt art proxys online. I'm not going to buy SL's anymore.
Modern cards aren't long-term collectable and Commander is a casual format. Proxy the cards and play the game. 🤷♂️
Magic 30th Aniversary was Wizards saying proxies are ok...
after a year of missing every single secret lair I wanted while waiting in line a total of 1 full day, Wizards hammered home that proxying is ok...
Proxying mine. Miss by wotc, I'll grab them if they come down to reality, but I refuse to put any money in and flippers pockets. They need to learn a lesson and take losses
I plan on selling the ones I bought to my friends at the price I paid for them. Of course, I'll be keeping the reprints that I wanted for my commander decks, but I'll replace them with the non-UB versions so at least they're still getting the same cards mechanically. Don't believe in selling these for a profit, especially with how absolutely fucked the limited print run was.
5:35 You've just explained why landlording is amoral. I wish more people would realize this.
Shit you’re right. It’s the same thing just that with landlordism it isn’t just that people don’t get the card of their favourite character tm, but actually freeze on the streets. What a world we live in
In a summary this is the response I get from WOTC “We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause but thank you for your understanding in this matter.”
No apology, ownership, accountability from WOTC for wasting their customer’s time. THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO!
Your work is greatly appreciated.
such passive language to avoid responsibility.
"this may have cause inconvenience" not "we caused you a problem"
@ exactly! So, we as consumers don’t have any understanding for WOTC.
It sounds like a really collectible item. Im glad I was able to pick them up
Wasn't the whole idea of secret lairs originally to be 'order to print' so things like price gouging could be prevented?!
I wouldn't care as much if they weren't mechanically unique cards
Lol I proxied all of them. Would have bought them if I could but Wizards decided to be stupid. So whatever.
Vince, you gave the correct answer yourself. Wizards is bound by Hasbro, a publicly traded US company. They only answer to their shareholders, not "the community" of Magic, regardless of what we want them to do. So obviously they only care for best market outcome from their side. Selling out quickly is a huge success for them It shows potential IP partners that they know their deal. Even if it sucks for all of us on the buyer side waiting for hours in a queue and often not getting a thing but a headache in the process.
Waiting in the queue is not normally any issue. I've never had any problem getting a Lair. The widespread information on how to skip waiting in the queue and jump to check out is what caused the issues this time. The more people complain about the minor issues, the more likely it is Wizards can ignore the real problem.
@@chim007azo no one cares how you feel
I don't quite follow your argument that these limited print runs look better to the IP holder.
In the comparison to the $1000 product, the real problem becomes apparent, but you argued it the wrong direction -- that product WAS limited. It didn't sell out. And having these limited run Secret Lairs actually runs the risk of the same thing happening -- the item NOT selling out, and having left over unwanted product.
But print-to-demand always sells out. They literally sell every copy. AND they make more money.
Proxy secret lairs. Don't give money to scalpers.
As an anticapitalist pinko, I think all profit-seeking is inherently pretty evil. But I'm pretty sure even a libertarian would think that price for the Black Panther set is vile
I'm still super fkn mad about people skipping the queue and going around the honest people (like myself) who get left holding the bag (of nothing). And the silence from WoTC is just as infuriating. I'm so bitter about this. I only tried to get the foil Storm lair too. Fk me I guess though.
The system is working as intended. It fits nicely with capitalism. If we all become a collective of shareholders maybe they would listen.
We sending wotc to the moon?
Alternatively you could just not buy the product. It’s a luxury good that does absolutely nothing of real use. And don’t give me that cardboard investment bullshit, invest in something that actually matters like real estate.
@@WhipLash42oLuckily WotC isn't running anyone's credit, yet.
@@WhipLash42o 'vote with your wallet' doesn't work with mass-produced products sold globally utilizing massive-popular media ip, remember when people tried to boycott that harry potter game? it doesn't work, you're not convincing tens upon tens of millions of people to not consume these products.
Woah dude, you cant talk about the standard of the game like that. The "investors" will have a conniption and complain about how valid the shiny cardboard stonks are
Proxies are amazing for this
I don’t understand why they can’t do both. Have a limited run ready to be shipped on launch that sells out quickly, looks good to your investors and partners, and that you can build hype around. And then also have a second, print on demand run if the first one sells out. This way, you’re not holding on extra stock if you don’t need to and your website is not completely empty in between releases (which feels horrible as a consumer)
Or, do the foils as a single limited run and non-foil as a print to demand run. Collectors get their hype items for resale, people that want a tournament legal game piece get theirs, but slower.
I feel like content creators never help with this though. Every single video I watch of them complaining of these secret lairs, they always end with “Yeah and I still bought it anyway”. If people see their favourite players / content creators not buying product or proxying, then they’ll be more incentivised to do it as well
I've abstained from buying so many Lairs, like the Festival in a Box, but you didn't comment on that video no?
@@PleasantKenobi I haven't really watched much of the Festival in a Box tbh so I didn't realise you hadn't bought that. The Marvel Secret Lair is the first SL i have ever bought. I just feel like if most content creators would stop buying SL's and show that they won't be supporting it until they change, so many more people would follow suit
Never bought a secret lair never will. It’s just weird and deletes half the fun of the game.
@@PleasantKenobi did you now? Aww...but had to get this one, 'cause you're such a marvel fanboys.... aren't you? But seriously, there is a point in what he said about content creators, putting up this rants but still buying the lairs... more so when every other mtg content creator had put out videos, in which at some point they were being very ok with people sharing on their discords/Patreon etc. hacks/links or whatever to jump the queue and some even doing it themselves... So what about that? Fighting price gauging by probably f-ing other out the queue?
@@PleasantKenobi you left a comment laughing at me for this exact criticism when the Warhammer decks were announced.
"hey I only buy SOME"
or
"hey I stopped buying them after the damaged was done"
isn't the clap back you seem to think it is.
own your mistake.
the community needed to band together early on and reject them outright and consistently and you spoke in direct opposition to the people saying that we needed to reject this practice as well.
own your mistake.
I can't help but see everything ub as a new reserve list that wizards will revisit. And everything these mechanical unique cards are included in will be premium priced to keep the ragavan and horizons type reprint equity
Prices being so high is only a benefit to Hasbro and their shareholders, nevermind corporate dealings financial requirements and targets. Then all the business peacocking to hide daddy Hasbro's shambling corpse
I loved the game cube and dolphin noise, chuckled hard at that.
People are still buying official product? Thought everyone just played proxies now lol
I tell people all the time just buy counterfeits better quality for a fraction of the price and u can't even tell the difference anymore its a win win for whoever wants to play but doesn't wanna buy over priced cardboard.
Are there going to be other events like this somewhere in the UK between 15th and 30th December? Asking because i'll be in the UK for Christmas and would be cool to attend to such events
I have some other thoughts about the limited accessability of these secret lairs. It is going to be pandemonium when a card from it will become a heavily sought commander or staple in the formats they're legal in. All while only been printed in a (very?) limited run.
And don't get me started on the ip's they're working with. Final fantasy, LotR, those I can live with but marvel, dr who, transformers, fallout...???
Marvel has tons of high magic users. Dr. Strange was highly influential on 1960-70s fantasy.
If you are OK with FF it makes 0 sense to oppose Marvel.
I can't really afford sealed products, much less Secret Lairs, price gouged or not. Sometimes I splurge when stores have sealed products discounted, but mostly I have to buy singles online, and I only buy cards priced below $5.00 USD.
you should proxy. you can get better card stock as well.
the only thing that stops me proxying everything is that I only play for fun, otherwise good will be damned as wizards have become thoroughly amoral
I wouldn't worry too much - I'm 90% sure these will be Special Guest in the Spider-Man set. With different art obviously, but with Maro saying all mechanically unique Secret Lair card will come out as either UB or UW in a booster product and Spider-Man being a narrower than expected Marvel set, these cards as Special Guests would make perfect sense.
The real problem we will find in the future is WoTC's observation of this secondary market and seeing the money they left on the table. This is when you see a 4 card Secret Lair with 1 good card 3 worthless cards that look pretty for $99.99 each.
I’m still waiting to any sort of response/statement from Wizards/Hasbro. Like 0 response/post is very poor community communication.
Secret lairs getting 1st edition/1st printing versions is my solution to the problem. Wizards still gets the fomo bonus to to sales speed then they can just have print to demand for the everyone else. Just have an intern make a different set symbol for the plebs and get a boatload of additional sales. Easy peazy, win win.
Magic isn't Pokemon or Yugioh. They know very well how reprints and lack of scarcity affects the secondary market and their business model. It's very much not easy peazy or a win
Or just buy counterfeits... Better quality, cheaper and in sleeves no one would ever be able to tell the difference
The reasonable course would be a hybrid model. A certain amount would be printed in the initial run and people could choose to get their bundles in the "Priority" run (For an additional fee perhaps? Are you listening Wizards?) Or you could choose the slow boat and get your cards in the Print on Demand queue six months later. This would allow Wizards to have their splashy sellout moment with all of the whales or impatient people buying in the priority phase while people who are poorer or patient can still get the cards.
Gougers are not the reason you don't have the cards you want. The reason you don't have the cards you want is that Wizards didn't print enough of them, or they set their prices too low.
If Wizards wants to run a weird lottery where they sell $200 cards for $50 to random people who sit in a queue for 5 hours, that's their prerogative. Seems like a weird business choice though.
I'm curious - is there much evidence that gougers snapped up a significant fraction of the supply? How are people coming to that conclusion?
I am not claiming to know, I'm just taking a guess for conversation sake. I think people assume scalpers got a sizeable portion is probably because of how quickly they appear for sale online. Personally, I think the last time I followed a SL that I was interested in, sales for the cards were up the day of (which I guess you're pre-ordering from the re-seller then for when they receive it?)
Anyway, that's my guess as to why people feel confident saying they went to scalpers. Overall, I agree with you that it's a WotC issue more than anything else.
I know a guy that scalps and it kinda feels bad. He buys one of the everything bundles for every secret lair with hype around it and sells it to people that he plays with for 50% of market price then sells the rest to an LGS or online. Most of us that wanted Marvel bundles got them so he's only selling the foil BP and Arcane Signet to people he knows and selling the rest for about a 2x return to people online. It sucks hearing about all this stuff because there are definitely scalpers that just have a program buy the max amount to resell while he's just sitting in queue with everyone else for a few hours to make $500 but he's technically in the same camp as the other scalpers.
Yeah I'm not crazy about proxying (for myself) just because the power level can get kind of crazy, but nowadays it just is the only way
Making a plane was really fun
eh, as long as you have a little self control you can avoid that.
also you can easily remove those overpowered cards without it costing you
They should make a limited print run (maybe with collector numbers?), then when that sells out, print to demand for the rest of the duration of the lair drop.
I didn't have the budget to get them when they dropped, but even with that I checked to try to get the Wolverine one. it was of course sold out. I have since made Vtuber Proxy versions of the mechanically unique cards and encourage anyone who wants to build around them to print out proxies whether the be mine or even just a black and white paper printout over a land. This game that I love should not be gatekept by FOMO or prices, and I will never feel bad proxying things that should be available to the players at a reasonable price.
Let's talk about proxies and why they need to be normalized...
Let's talk about people who choose to get involved in a game with randomized chase cards then complain about the game having randomized chase cards. It's like taking the job you hate or dating someone who's wrong for you. Are we supposed to feel bad about your life choices?
Magic is a luxury hobby it has never been cheap.
Just buy counterfeits and double sleeve them can't even tell the difference.
@@chim007azonot at all counterfeits solve all this nonsense with WoTC 😂😂..
I think proxies ARE pretty normalized outside of spaces like this comment section, or the various MtG reddits, and so on. Which isn't to say it shouldn't be discussed or anything like that. Personally, I feel like whenever I meet a new group of people who largely play outside of game stores, they all tend to have some proxies sprinkled in their decks. Admittedly, that's just my personal experience.
Will the plains be made public after the event if we want to use them?
It wasnt even a 4 hour fomo window. My buddy sent me a text he was in line. I recieved the text the second i joined the line. Storm in foil and non-foil and arcane signet sold out before he was able to checkout. There was a window of maybe seconds depending on what you wanted.
A guy in our local discord posted the minute as soon as he got his SLD in trying to flip them for 3x and the moderators kicked him. I gotta say very valid response. Because a lot of us like my self, waited in queue and couldn’t them. Then and we were very open about trying to get them. Then to just walk in and try and up charge the shit out of his own small community. Heck that guy
Agree 100%. I wasn’t able to make my purchase of this one. And i refuse to pay the inflated prices. Just another way that WotC is sticking it to the community in favor of the investors.
I want to also add that mechanically unique cards should be print to demand like the previous secret lairs. Not limited like this. Different story if it’s a reprint, I get not wanting to dilute existing variants. But these were new cards, and some quite strong.
Such a bummer, coming off the heels of the new commander bans…
Casual reminder that WTOC bragged to shareholders this would happen a week before it did
And?
The last secret lair I bought from wizards was Sheldon's Spellbook, the last secret lair I've bought 2nd hand was Gavin's coin flip commander deck, it came with an extra copy of vandalblast and temur battle rage. I thought I got screwed out of 2 other cards but nope, just got some duplicates.
I love the idea of secret layers after the vault products left.
But back when From the vault product was new I. De. Show me loved the chance to go to different stores to see if they had it looking at the price.
And seeing the differences
with the cost of living currently so high, magic the gathering is a luxury experience thats very easy to stop doing
You should release all of the planes once done. I’d love this for home games
The issue is gougers only exist because people will pay for them.
The only thing wizards could do is print on demand, but that reduces the chance of a frenzy to happen, which they want to happen to impress share holders.
Which is mind boggling, because print to demand brings in MORE MONEY.
@DerekScottBland Yeah they may not be able to brag "Oh look, we sold everything in 2 hours" but when their earnings call hits they can flex the money they made
I've been saying it forever - shareholders ruin businesses. They don't care about the employees of said company and rarely care about the company's mission or goals. The company often has to sellout in the interest of making the shareholders money, EVEN if they are already making money. You can't expect to grow forever.
@@DerekScottBland Print to demand does not always bring in more money, because limiting print run increases demand. So print to demand may sell 45 000 copies, but limiting the print run to 50 000 may sell 50 000.
@@Arctanis-vt3hl Without share holders a business would collapse. Going public means you would have otherwise shut your doors. I agree it's evil, but the alternative is going to Yu-Gi-Oh or Lorcana as Magic burns.
When I checked out and paid I could have bought at least a few more sets (I bought one foil bundle just for myself) and I knew I’d be able to flip them for easy profit, and I’ve never flipped cards before. But I decided against it and closed the secret lair website so other people could have them.
I couldn't have said it better myself, you nailed the point perfectly.
I was gonna get the Dr. Who SL for my brother, for his birthday. Instead, I was stuck in queue the whole time, and it got sold out.
The Dr. Who secret lair was print on demand tho
@@gabriellemarchand2247 Was it? Because when I tried getting it that day, it kept getting the message that it was not available
@@ToadimusPrime"The set will include four Commander decks, collectors boosters and limited-time print-on-demand Secret Lair cards featuring doctors, companions, villains and locations from throughout the show’s 60-year history." It was unlimited and up for weeks, I know because I was waffling on it and bought it the last day.
@trevorsomething5071 Might have just encountered some issue on the website at the time. Might have been buggy when I was checking or something...
I get tired of stores complaining when product prices drop that no one is supporting them and when prices jump they gouge or cancel sales to customers to sell off online at the higher price. Its just toxic and makes buying local product a bad experience.
You realize with this statement you're the toxic one. You're literally saying you're against the store trying to stay in business by trying to make money when they can to make up for the products they lose money on.
@chim007azo nope, I am saying that when the store plays the whoa is me no one buys my stuff but won't build any good will when things are good they are making zero ground with players. A good store doesn't gouge players when the prices are high
@@Spamthulhu that's a ridiculously childish and unrealistic view
Stores aren't your friends. Corporations doubly so. ❤
@@chim007azo cry more
I mostly agree. I wish WotC would do something to make the experience better but I think they had those solutions in place and intentionally moved away from them. I highly doubt that WotC will change anything since this seems to be their goal. I will say they could at the very least fix the queue system. Leaving the line cutting methods in place is just a terrible and lazy idea.
It’s crazy how, among the big three TCGs, two of them make it as difficulty as humanly possible to get into them.
WotC will never feel any sort of financial pressure as a result of dissatisfaction aroud Secret Lairs, because the limited supply ensures it sells out completely. It doesn't matter if you choose not to buy Secret Lairs, because you would never have even had the chance to buy it anyway. The only way to affect any change is to hurt their bottom line, and the only way to do that is to not buy Magic products at all.
Yes, that means Foundations and Dragonstorm and Return to Lorwyn and Final Fantasy or whatever other set is coming up. WotC will continue to encourage the complete financialization of Magic: the Gathering at the detriment of people who actually want to play the game until it actively hurts their profits. Otherwise they're happy to make a worse game if the customers are going to keep on buying it anyway.
Based PK. Print to demand was so much better, and I would gladly wait a year for product to come if it meant we could go back to that model
They could always send secret layers to lgs in addition to selling online. That way they get the same sold out online thing but people can still get the stuff from the lgs.
People b*tch about scalpers and price gouging and then buy them when they can and say my money and I can do whatever I want with it. You people are the problems. Just don't buy them for that price and make the scalpers sit on dead product.
You’re speaking to two separate entities and combining them into the same person. Thereby taking ownership of the problem away from WOTC and making it about the players being the problem.
@quayo90 yes, i was talking about two separate issues at once. How about players stop buying from scalpers and honestly, i think I might walk back the price gouging because I don't think WOTC is price gouging now that I think about it. 50 bucks seems fair for a high demand product.
I have zero interest in these products (SL) but my blood boils seeing my fellow players treated this way. WotC needs to pull their heads of their asses.
I was one of those people that queued and then got that server crash and by the time I got back to the front of the line the Captain America one was sold out :( I just wanted cap, I didn't care about the other cards in the pack... have you seen how much cap is selling for now? I could get a booster box for that price
Video starts at 4:27
Yeah, the current way Secret Lair is being handled is designed so fans lose. I'm seeing a lot of parrels to this and when Nintendo set up preorders for the Collector's Edition of Xenoblade 3 as the methods of getting those items are similar. The 5-hour wait and people managing to get more than the limit just reeks of a bot flood tactic. All the gouger has to do is have multiple devices running and have an army of bots handle the process of putting items in the cart and checking out. This then causes the servers to get clogged but due to how much traffic there is, the gouger is still able to get inventory as at least a couple of get in and complete what they were programmed to do.
I managed to get a non foil Iron man. But as things stand I wonder why I shouldn't just sell it and buy proxies. I only want to play casual commander anyways.
I know I’m going to sound very pedantic but price gouging is in relation relation to anything. Whether that be product or services. And scalping is more specifically about resale.
I queued for 5 hours and managed to get the foil Storm drop before it sold out. That bring said, do not support resellers. These drops are not worth hundreds of dollars, and we're already seeing a race to the bottom on sites like Ebay.
Usually I'm the player that likes to own at least 1 real copy before I proxy; but with these terrible practices.....Just proxy the SL cards.
I am reveling in this disaster. Maybe just maybe it sours people's opinion of ub nonsense and we can get proper mtg back.
This has nothing to do with UB, and I find it really frustrating that people go out of their way to conflate the two.
This is *entirely* the way they're doing Secret Lairs. I had literally zero issues getting my Junji Ito SLs back a couple years ago.
@@PleasantKenobi You explain how this relates to UB in the video: "The item sold out immediately with zero uncertainty and thus they can go to a future IP partner and explain to them look how much money you can make with absolute certainty and no chance of a loss or product rotting on shelves or digital shelves if you will or product damaging the brand and that's an important part of the whole non-limited thing that I didn't really talk about in the last video is that the certainty that you sell out is huge..."
@@PleasantKenobi its a problem of both.
I dont mind resellers if they waited their turn. Made to order means made to order, WotC should have produced all orders in said window plus 10%. Then resellers can make their profits after everybody's had a fair shot.
I really wanted Storm, I couldn't get Storm, so I proxied Storm. I'm not buying SLs going forward, I don't like waiting for hours and hours fighting over scraps.
The print to demand model both worked, and had the products re-sold at a higher price. The only drawback was the lead times on the cards but between that and this, I'd pick the print to demand.
No, it didn’t work, otherwise they’d still be doing it.
@chim007azo did we watch the same video? What part of print to demand didn't work apart from not screwing people out of the product?
@@AshGodfrost Lol, PK isn’t the arbiter of if it worked. Again, using logic, if it worked why did they stop? If you mean it was easier for buyers, yes. If you mean cost effective and generated more sales, again, why would they have stopped?
@chim007azo Immediate profit, to show third party IP's guaranteed money, less work on their end for printing products because they print a set number. I don't even know why you can't conceive that they changed it for their benefit and not the consumers. It's quite blatantly not in our favour given price gouging, bulk buyers, and their queueing systems not even working.
@@AshGodfrost As a consumer of collectibles, I much prefer this limited method. You seem to have gotten my point without realizing it. The only thing that matters for them is if it works for them. That is their measure of success. You seem to agree print to demand didn’t work for them. Your stumbling block seems to be understanding “I liked it the other way” doesn’t equal “the other way worked.”
I got into magic a month ago through arena and as a drama frog and sewer socialist, I'm loving it. Wotc is just an amazing company.
lmfao the plane could just be "Inside the cube of the abyss" effect of the plane is "On Upkeep, draw from PleasantKenobi's Party Box."
PK should join Bluesky. They call them “skeets” there instead of “tweets.” I think he’d like that, but I admit I don’t get it.
You may benefit from reviewing the hip hop magnum opus "Get Low" by Lil Jon and The Eastside Boyz.
@@AkoustikusWHAT? HEEEEY! 🍻
YEEEEEAAAAAH@@brendans1983
1:18 - Just as an argument for "results": I've never bought any Magic, and never interacted with WotC or scalpers. I'd assume they both suck, but am clueless. 🤷♂️
People need to stop spending money on this. Vote with your wallet
How many plane cards are we allowed to submit for the event?
One per person, so make it good.
@@PleasantKenobi Also, how whacky do you want the planes? Obviously no dexterity checks, but what about something like Rules Lawyer or Old Fogey levels of whacky?
Submitted! wish I could be there, but at least this way I can still participate an eensy bit.
The problem with all economics is greedy people trying to make infinite money.
Yeah that $50 on a Lair is really going to help a scalper with that final hurdle to 1 billion
@chim007azo woosh, man, I was talking about corporate greed, not scalpers, which wouldn't exist in this instance if Wotc printed on demand instead of using FOMO to get all the money.
@@aaronbennett3966 corporate responsibility is not greed. Plenty of hardworking people have their money in retirement plans invested in stocks. They’re not after unlimited money. A company owes them doing its best to give them return on those investments.
@@chim007azo poop
It sucks that the Marvel drops had to be the one that WoTC screwed the print run on. I actually liked the idea of running Storm as a CMDR.
Don't blame the sellers, blame the people paying exorbitant prices.
As long as there are people willing to pay those prices, scalping will always exist.
Wizards cashing in on FOMO is the real issue here.
I was lucky enough to get one of the bundles, but I am going to try finding people I know that wanted them and selling to them at cost. This is so I know they will use the cards and not just flip them.
I was creating a custom set with lore a few years ago and created twenty custom planes to fit the lore. Expect submissions from me.. Question though, are you wanting these to be silly, powerful, or (insert your needs here).
Man, I miss the videos when Secret Lairs were print to demand and every content creator was complaining that the cards aren't valuable enough in them. That they aren't good value for money, why would anyone buy this shit.
Now they make it so that the cards actually have some value and everybody cries about that instead.
I guess it's obvious since people have to complain about something, this time the shift just feels REALLY fast ;)
do you think you made a point?
do you think you're pointing out some hypocrisy?
The race to the bottom has started on the price of the secret lairs, still more than it was from wotc, but lets see how far that price comes down.
My package is coming tomorrow or the next day. I'll keep you guys posted whether or not it has everything I paid for.