I am a big Believer that Secret Lairs should just do both: Have an Initial Print ready for those who cant wait and then print more for the people who want them after that. But that doesnt align with Fomo.
Normally its checkpoint that drops an episode right as major news is released. But it seems like it is TTC with the banned and restricted list this time lol!
Wheeler literally knee slapping at 1:15:10 pretty much sums up Magic in 2024 for me. I want every year end recap to just be Wheeler taking the absolute piss out of everything from now on. 😂
The Fallout Secret Lairs introduced the rarity to the Bonus Cards for Secret Lairs. The Miku situation is...complicated? There's a nonzero chance that Snapcaster Miku is the bonus for the Winter set due to Collector Number. Elvish Mystic was 805, the summer release was 806, Fall 807, and Snapcaster is 808...but 804 is currently unnoccupied. (803 is the Doctor Who Regeneration Sonic Screwdriver). Ultimately, we won't know for sure until the final release.
I wonder how much research they have to do just to remember what was going on the first few sets of the year because Wizards just has drop after drop after drop after drop after drop and I'm certain they all blend together.
Nelson's reaction to the Divinci secret lair thing at 1:29:00 is such a great encapsulation. It like he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity for a moment
Just an idea here.. Maybe y'all could consider doing a 2024 review of secret lair products and a review of regular release sets and then use the views to tell if the secret lair products are worth an episode. I personally don't care at all about the secret lair drops but I do care to hear your opinions on regular sets 🙂
A kinda fun fact is the Not A Wolf twitter was created/run by comedian Dan Sheehan! Formerly of Commander's Sphere and now the Pie Break podcast so it does tie into the magic community. (He also wrote the Squee short story for Dominaria United)
13:30 if they can anticipate a certain amount will definitely sell, they could let that amount sell/sell out, and they could then open a new buying window for future orders. There is nothing stopping them from doing both.
54:14 some of Scott M. Fischer's early MTG works included lots of natural bits on the paintings, like twigs and leaves, but plenty other non-paint items. see his 5th Edition Fungusaur, and the inner frame "border" of his Fungus Elemental from Weatherlight. actually, go ahead and look at all of Scott's work because it's just fantastic.
I fear all they said about MKM will happen again in Aetherdrift. I want to see Amonkhet and their struggle with Bolas destroying the plane and then being invaded by the Phyrexians and Kaladesh government was overthrown so the society decided to rename the whole plane to Avishkar. Its the first glimpse into Muraganda, ready to explore. I dont want to see race cars.
If I had a nickel for every time LRR dropped a podcast right after big news. I’d have like 3 nickels. Which isn’t a lot but weird it’s happened three times.
I can follow the Play Booster conversations and I remember it from back in January. But also I have a news stie where I do a Play Booster breakdown every set so maybe I'm not the best measuring stick for this...
My problem with the universes beyond stuff is not being able to find it at retail price anywhere. Fallout was so expensive when it came out and sold out everywhere. I got one deck and thats it.
when secret lairs started if you were one of the first to buy it they had pre printed stock and then if you were late they ALSO did print to demands, during covid they fell behind due to printing slow downs and stopped doing that but they have already solved the problem of people who want the cards immediately.
at 35:00 you're talking about how limited formats are getting too bomb heavy... I miss having at least some respite in past years of core sets being generally underpowered cards. I can't think of the last time that drafting didn't feel like cube. Don't get me wrong, I like cube, but we don't need cube for every meal.
I understand the distaste for Universes Beyond, and I’m still in generally the same camp, but at least for Fallout, I’ve genuinely seen so many people get into Magic through them. I’ve met… I think 5 now? different people at my local game stores commander night who started playing magic because they thought the fallout commander decks looked cool, and are now showing up to draft nights regularly
The extra rare bonus cards started with the fallout ones I believe. Just lottery if you get an exclusive art Mana crypt. Big problem with the bonus cards like this is how much they go against what secret lair used to be by having these as extra cards in the style/property. If you want all the fallout secret lair cards better get lucky or fork out like $1k or more. At least old rarer bonus cards were their own style and available in multiple print to demand drops. Also absolute worst part of sans mercy is how good some of the art is and it stuck on those terrible meme cards
I will level with you, LRR. You can skip the secret lairs. I give you permission. We don't need to get a rundown of this obnoxious product every year. I love every single other part of the retrospectives, from the banter to the in-depth knowledge of game stores and formats to the entire history and breadth of magic. I don't think you need to exaughstively cover the absurd cash grab. It eats up so much other time that could be taken up by talking about more interesting things.
Yeah, if at all, they should really only cover the Secret Lairs they personally care about, like that Monty Python one for Graham, cuz then they at least have things to talk about, like 'is this the perfect card choice for this thing from that IP? What card is missing?' or 'did it sell out fast?' (the answer for which will probs be yes because artificial scarcity ahoy, but hey, that's still... something).
The worse part is that they had another plane that would have been better suited for it. They could have set it on New Capenna. New Capenna is a world run by crime families. The Angels came back (somehow. The story wasn't clear.) and one of the 5 crime bosses was killed as a result of Ob Nixilis trying to take over. The Angels could have set up the detective agency to combat the crime on New Capena. Another issue the set had was that there were a lot of detectives, but little to no criminals. What were the detectives doing? What crimes were they solving? Lots of people were wearing hats for no reason. They have a reason on New Capenna.
Personally I have not liked how they are doing Remastered sets ever since TSR. TSR was what I was hoping they would all be: a single box version of an iconic block draft with the issues ironed out and a price tag somewhere south of $1000 per box. Every Remaster since though has been like some kind of planar-themed cube draft, which if I wanted an official cube-lite product I would just buy the better Mystery Booster.
it's crazy just how bad some of these Miku cards were, especially when like... Miku has TONS of art styles to pull from, and a lot of older names on the project as well also I cannot wait to see Nelson's reaction to KAITO being a Jace and not Kaito for the 3rd Miku
Magic this year felt exhausting. Felt like there was a set released every month. So is Hasbro just trying to inflate their stock value before some sort of bubble bursts on them or what?
"Grr I'm so mad about the ban update, I'm going to downvote this yearly recap video by people not responsible for the decision." -205 people at this point aparantly
I agree with Nelson. They should simplify everything. All things not-preconstructed decks or specifically designed products should b combined into one, and sold at the price of a booster pack in the 90s, with no adjustment for inflation. Keep it simple and cheap. What's this capitalism you speak of?
No, Miku was not the first Secret Lair with Variant Bonus Cards, that was Fallout which had a hecking Mana Vault as the "Top prize" and was absolutely disgusting. Like, don't get me wrong, the Miku One is worse, but that's because until they stop making Secret Lairs suck with only a limited print run and nothing else, we'll always have a small amount of them that will never reach demand and thus you'll have to take out a loan to get the cards. Kinda wish Wizards would get their heads out of their asses, or I guess out of the asses of Hasbro's Executives, with making Secret Lairs now just a way to induce FOMO instead of giving back some joy and random cool arts to the players, but alas, Capitalism and whatnot. Honestly, it's why I enjoy collecting other TCGs now, though I do want to point out that Wheeler, shockingly, was wrong again about Pokemon TCG. Pokemon has Five Commons, Three Uncommons, and then two Reverse Foil/Rare Foil/Double Rare Foil/Secret Rare Foil/Whatever else they sneak in Foil per pack for 10 cards. So while it's more predictable than a Play Booster (Which I will continue to say was a bad compromise forced upon them by the previously mentioned heads up Hasbro's Executive Ass), it's still more varied than one as well. Weirdly enough, Yugioh actually is closer to what Wheeler said, but it's always been that way, with Commons for 9 of the cards, and then the 10th can be one of uh, infinitely growing types of Rares, though recently they ditched silver letter Rares in regular packs, for Super Rare or above foils. It's only well after the set has moved on, though technically Yugioh NEVER stops printing previous sets as they have a rolling banlist and not cycling out like Magic does, that we can figure out the "Uncommon" or "Short Print" in their parlance is. Regardless, I probably talked too long and no one wants to read this comment, but I do appreciate all you guys do and stuff, it's just the law of the internet that I only feel comfortable commenting when something negative happens and not something positive. Sorry.
I'm not even too happy about MKM's gameplay. Like, Detective tribal is probably the only thing I could care about from the set proper, plus Sophia making Bant Dogs a thing in the precon, but the set mechanics fall flat for me. I don't like face-down cards at all, don't particularly like clues (only like them n the Detective tribal context) and collect evidence to me is too a high a cost for low return.
I despise that obeka art. Everything from the posing to the lighting makes no sense and I feel it robbed her of her badass energy in favor of a more damsel-y appearance befitting of women in pulp. Huge L for my Obeka, also she's like $0.50 so having a $30 premium on top of that is so dumb
It's funny hearing Wheeler say "my commander being Leonardo Da Vinci" doesn't feel very "Magic" to him... to me, those kinds of references to history are very Magic
![KSI - Dirty [Official Visualiser]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/VoDh1h1dPUE/mqdefault.jpg)
I am a big Believer that Secret Lairs should just do both: Have an Initial Print ready for those who cant wait and then print more for the people who want them after that.
But that doesnt align with Fomo.
that's literally how they worked up till covid when they fell behind on printing them. they really should go back to that.
Normally its checkpoint that drops an episode right as major news is released. But it seems like it is TTC with the banned and restricted list this time lol!
Lol they must've pissed off some kind of MTG God. They missed the EDH bans, WOTC now getting control of EDH, and now today's B&R
they really are cursed, huh?
Oooh. Your concept for a set about ravnica rebuilding after the invasions sounds way better than what we got.
Wheeler literally knee slapping at 1:15:10 pretty much sums up Magic in 2024 for me. I want every year end recap to just be Wheeler taking the absolute piss out of everything from now on. 😂
I'm happily awaiting next part with the news on the return of Friday Nights.
Getting both this and the B&R Announcement on the same day, nice!
I do enjoy the fact that the answer to 'who is this for' for most of the Secret Lairs is answerable with 'Crim'
I greatly appreciate you covering the secret lairs. I don't follow them as they come out so seeing all of them listed out is interesting.
The Fallout Secret Lairs introduced the rarity to the Bonus Cards for Secret Lairs.
The Miku situation is...complicated? There's a nonzero chance that Snapcaster Miku is the bonus for the Winter set due to Collector Number. Elvish Mystic was 805, the summer release was 806, Fall 807, and Snapcaster is 808...but 804 is currently unnoccupied. (803 is the Doctor Who Regeneration Sonic Screwdriver).
Ultimately, we won't know for sure until the final release.
I wonder how much research they have to do just to remember what was going on the first few sets of the year because Wizards just has drop after drop after drop after drop after drop and I'm certain they all blend together.
Nelson's reaction to the Divinci secret lair thing at 1:29:00 is such a great encapsulation. It like he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity for a moment
Just an idea here..
Maybe y'all could consider doing a 2024 review of secret lair products and a review of regular release sets and then use the views to tell if the secret lair products are worth an episode.
I personally don't care at all about the secret lair drops but I do care to hear your opinions on regular sets 🙂
I can confirm that is the button - at least that's what I got from my Black Friday purchases.
A kinda fun fact is the Not A Wolf twitter was created/run by comedian Dan Sheehan! Formerly of Commander's Sphere and now the Pie Break podcast so it does tie into the magic community. (He also wrote the Squee short story for Dominaria United)
13:30 if they can anticipate a certain amount will definitely sell, they could let that amount sell/sell out, and they could then open a new buying window for future orders. There is nothing stopping them from doing both.
54:14 some of Scott M. Fischer's early MTG works included lots of natural bits on the paintings, like twigs and leaves, but plenty other non-paint items. see his 5th Edition Fungusaur, and the inner frame "border" of his Fungus Elemental from Weatherlight. actually, go ahead and look at all of Scott's work because it's just fantastic.
1:22:57
Nadu’s year in review:
“…yeah”
“Right…”
“Ugh”
“Whelp”
I fear all they said about MKM will happen again in Aetherdrift. I want to see Amonkhet and their struggle with Bolas destroying the plane and then being invaded by the Phyrexians and Kaladesh government was overthrown so the society decided to rename the whole plane to Avishkar. Its the first glimpse into Muraganda, ready to explore. I dont want to see race cars.
Im pretty sure aetherdrift is set on kaladesh tho
@ANTREU96 Aetherdrift is set on Kaladesh (now Avishkar), Amonkhet and Muraganda. The race track goes through those 3 planes.
Galaxy brain from wizards you just foil the bejesus out of double faced cards and then no pringle
If I had a nickel for every time LRR dropped a podcast right after big news. I’d have like 3 nickels. Which isn’t a lot but weird it’s happened three times.
I can follow the Play Booster conversations and I remember it from back in January. But also I have a news stie where I do a Play Booster breakdown every set so maybe I'm not the best measuring stick for this...
9:57 Excellent choice James
0:15 the plane of Yes, home of The Roundabout™
Happy new year everyone!
Leonardo da Vincis famous Haystack blueprints
my mtg review is we got 2 possum this year whilst all previous years we got 0 possum per year so this is the best year for magic
I'm so glad we have a large Magic community channel that doesn't pull its punches.
"Why was Marchesa here?"
Why did Gonti put a hat on his hat?
Marchesa did the same thing! She's wearing her crown over her cowboy hat!
My problem with the universes beyond stuff is not being able to find it at retail price anywhere. Fallout was so expensive when it came out and sold out everywhere. I got one deck and thats it.
when secret lairs started if you were one of the first to buy it they had pre printed stock and then if you were late they ALSO did print to demands, during covid they fell behind due to printing slow downs and stopped doing that but they have already solved the problem of people who want the cards immediately.
at 35:00 you're talking about how limited formats are getting too bomb heavy... I miss having at least some respite in past years of core sets being generally underpowered cards. I can't think of the last time that drafting didn't feel like cube. Don't get me wrong, I like cube, but we don't need cube for every meal.
38:08 honestly, I would just run the Clue gimmick on top of any /other/ multiplayer format you want, even commander.
"no time for new things, only things you already know" ... the entertainment industry atm in a nutshell
I understand the distaste for Universes Beyond, and I’m still in generally the same camp, but at least for Fallout, I’ve genuinely seen so many people get into Magic through them. I’ve met… I think 5 now? different people at my local game stores commander night who started playing magic because they thought the fallout commander decks looked cool, and are now showing up to draft nights regularly
The extra rare bonus cards started with the fallout ones I believe. Just lottery if you get an exclusive art Mana crypt.
Big problem with the bonus cards like this is how much they go against what secret lair used to be by having these as extra cards in the style/property. If you want all the fallout secret lair cards better get lucky or fork out like $1k or more. At least old rarer bonus cards were their own style and available in multiple print to demand drops.
Also absolute worst part of sans mercy is how good some of the art is and it stuck on those terrible meme cards
I will level with you, LRR. You can skip the secret lairs. I give you permission. We don't need to get a rundown of this obnoxious product every year. I love every single other part of the retrospectives, from the banter to the in-depth knowledge of game stores and formats to the entire history and breadth of magic. I don't think you need to exaughstively cover the absurd cash grab. It eats up so much other time that could be taken up by talking about more interesting things.
Yeah, if at all, they should really only cover the Secret Lairs they personally care about, like that Monty Python one for Graham, cuz then they at least have things to talk about, like 'is this the perfect card choice for this thing from that IP? What card is missing?' or 'did it sell out fast?' (the answer for which will probs be yes because artificial scarcity ahoy, but hey, that's still... something).
I still side with the "Detective" set being set ok a different plane. Ravnica is NOT a backdrop set. It's a pillar plane of MTG lore.
The worse part is that they had another plane that would have been better suited for it. They could have set it on New Capenna.
New Capenna is a world run by crime families. The Angels came back (somehow. The story wasn't clear.) and one of the 5 crime bosses was killed as a result of Ob Nixilis trying to take over. The Angels could have set up the detective agency to combat the crime on New Capena.
Another issue the set had was that there were a lot of detectives, but little to no criminals. What were the detectives doing? What crimes were they solving? Lots of people were wearing hats for no reason. They have a reason on New Capenna.
Good points.
Personally I have not liked how they are doing Remastered sets ever since TSR. TSR was what I was hoping they would all be: a single box version of an iconic block draft with the issues ironed out and a price tag somewhere south of $1000 per box.
Every Remaster since though has been like some kind of planar-themed cube draft, which if I wanted an official cube-lite product I would just buy the better Mystery Booster.
I love Bounty of the Luxa too! Except it is just... never good enough.
it's crazy just how bad some of these Miku cards were, especially when like... Miku has TONS of art styles to pull from, and a lot of older names on the project as well
also I cannot wait to see Nelson's reaction to KAITO being a Jace and not Kaito for the 3rd Miku
I wonder if the Gumshoe issue has to due with copyright over the character of Detective Dick Gumshoe in the Ace Attorney series? Just guessing.
Graham forgot the third way you can win Ravnica: Clue Edition, by not playing Ravnica: Clue Edition.
If they make a Miku Dark Depths, then they have to make a 20/20 Miku Lage token right?
Magic this year felt exhausting. Felt like there was a set released every month.
So is Hasbro just trying to inflate their stock value before some sort of bubble bursts on them or what?
Ravnica Clue edition didn’t actually have all the weapons. They didn’t include the pistol because of Magic’s no gun rule
*looks awkwardly at Portal* 👀
Goodbye 2024!
"Grr I'm so mad about the ban update, I'm going to downvote this yearly recap video by people not responsible for the decision." -205 people at this point aparantly
And not talking about it at all cus this was shot well before, you know, a few hours ago.
I agree with Nelson. They should simplify everything. All things not-preconstructed decks or specifically designed products should b combined into one, and sold at the price of a booster pack in the 90s, with no adjustment for inflation. Keep it simple and cheap. What's this capitalism you speak of?
Did anyone else read "wall of otters?"
man part 1 was only ~1.5hr long :/ part 2 better be at least 3 hours
No, Miku was not the first Secret Lair with Variant Bonus Cards, that was Fallout which had a hecking Mana Vault as the "Top prize" and was absolutely disgusting. Like, don't get me wrong, the Miku One is worse, but that's because until they stop making Secret Lairs suck with only a limited print run and nothing else, we'll always have a small amount of them that will never reach demand and thus you'll have to take out a loan to get the cards. Kinda wish Wizards would get their heads out of their asses, or I guess out of the asses of Hasbro's Executives, with making Secret Lairs now just a way to induce FOMO instead of giving back some joy and random cool arts to the players, but alas, Capitalism and whatnot.
Honestly, it's why I enjoy collecting other TCGs now, though I do want to point out that Wheeler, shockingly, was wrong again about Pokemon TCG. Pokemon has Five Commons, Three Uncommons, and then two Reverse Foil/Rare Foil/Double Rare Foil/Secret Rare Foil/Whatever else they sneak in Foil per pack for 10 cards. So while it's more predictable than a Play Booster (Which I will continue to say was a bad compromise forced upon them by the previously mentioned heads up Hasbro's Executive Ass), it's still more varied than one as well. Weirdly enough, Yugioh actually is closer to what Wheeler said, but it's always been that way, with Commons for 9 of the cards, and then the 10th can be one of uh, infinitely growing types of Rares, though recently they ditched silver letter Rares in regular packs, for Super Rare or above foils. It's only well after the set has moved on, though technically Yugioh NEVER stops printing previous sets as they have a rolling banlist and not cycling out like Magic does, that we can figure out the "Uncommon" or "Short Print" in their parlance is.
Regardless, I probably talked too long and no one wants to read this comment, but I do appreciate all you guys do and stuff, it's just the law of the internet that I only feel comfortable commenting when something negative happens and not something positive. Sorry.
Umm, actually..
Rad counters trigger on your first main phase, not on your upkeep..
So how about those modern unbannings lol.
I'm not even too happy about MKM's gameplay. Like, Detective tribal is probably the only thing I could care about from the set proper, plus Sophia making Bant Dogs a thing in the precon, but the set mechanics fall flat for me. I don't like face-down cards at all, don't particularly like clues (only like them n the Detective tribal context) and collect evidence to me is too a high a cost for low return.
First? About to start watching, wonder if they mention the timing of this video dropping on the B&R announcement day?
Let this comment be how you (comment reader, not OP) learn that Splinter Twin has been unbanned in Modern.
Oh whelp
They film these on Fridays.
I dont understand why you call the secret lairs 'Sets that came out'. Please just talk about the sets that came out in the past year.
Actually got the Rin and Seri deck fairly quickly. The one good thing about limited print runs
god they chose the wrong artists for like 80% of the miku cards
I despise that obeka art. Everything from the posing to the lighting makes no sense and I feel it robbed her of her badass energy in favor of a more damsel-y appearance befitting of women in pulp. Huge L for my Obeka, also she's like $0.50 so having a $30 premium on top of that is so dumb
It's funny hearing Wheeler say "my commander being Leonardo Da Vinci" doesn't feel very "Magic" to him... to me, those kinds of references to history are very Magic
Bringing cynical old man energy the last coupla weeks