I am giving away Bloomburrow Booster boxes, both Collector and Play, plus some of my Secret Lairs on my next Whatnot stream! Join me Friday, August 2nd at 11am PST and you can use my code at www.whatnot.com/invite/tolariancollege to get a $15 credit when you create a new account!
Random thing prof. Could you make a video how we NEED modern masters to return!? We need modern horizons reprints like grief or force of negation. In addition we always need classics like bolt or fetches. At least for any updated Oracle text.
Thanks for the video, even if it got soured yet again by corporate shenanigans. Luckily, the amount of people considering scalping completely fine is remains low, but sadly there are still people among those that are against it that give in to it anyway and buy their stuff.
Hello Professor! I own a card shop in Lyons, CO. I ended up lucky and got two sets of the Monty Python vol. 1 & vol. 2. I would be honored to send one set to you sir. I love you and your channel and I feel bad for everyone who did not get what they wanted from this Secret Lair. The system is definitely broken. Let me know what you think and keep doing what you do because it’s awesome. Have a great day sir.
This is exactly what WotC wanted. They get to report their product is "flying off shelves" to investors and actual players get to enjoy scalper prices. I don't care if Rosewater is "bringing up player concerns" because nothing will happen.
Honestly, as controversial as it is to say, I think Mark Rosewater has become a net negative to the game in recent years, and I'm hoping he retires soon. I feel like his leadership has made nothing but mistakes in regards to how cards are designed and how products are designed since War of the Spark, in a way that's making me lose interest in the game.
My dream conversation when someone gets that report: "It's flying off shelves!" "How many did you sell?" "Enough to make money!" "Would you have made more money if you had more to sell?" "…" "Wait, why are you limiting the amount of cheap cardboard we're selling to people who want that?"
@@BoyzbyThis is my hang up with scalping in general. The idea that Nike would make less money if they made more of the sneaker is insane. Same with magic if they printed more copies of the Secret Lair. Bots are going to buy them out in both cases regardless of the amount of units, and they lose money by stupidly following a outdated FOMO model.
Best part about the limited supply run is that now I physically can't waste money on bundles that aren't worth the amount WOTC wants to charge for them. Thanks WOTC, you're a real one
And because of this I didn’t understand wotc decisions. It’s like they don’t want our money. Sry only 2000 units available, we don’t care about the other 2000 people’s money.
@@thetruedraco3786 That's the thing though they don't want your money. They want investor money. The game is not "sell quality products to customers" it is "trick old dudes that never worked a day in their lives and have no idea how anything works that they'll make bank" and things like "our products sell out in hours" work on those guys.
@@thetruedraco3786 Sometimes the limitation is more value than the full income of a product. Secret Lairs where selling bad in the first batches and most of the buyers where lgs who sold them with heavy markups on the secondary market. People complainted and WotC widened the window to buy the drops, so the people bought them without the lgs in the middle, who where sitting on tons of unsellable sl drops in early 2022. The AS: Wayne Reynolds from the April 2022 Superdrop are starting for 15 Euro nonfoil and 20 Euro foil on Cardmarket. That´s 20 Euro and 25 Euro under the original price. Out of all the 151 2022 drops, only around ten of them are equal in or have gone up in value. My lgs stopped buying new ones after the first superdrop in 2023 und kicked the rest of the unsold product in bulk with losses out in mid 2023. Now the even refuse to trade in all singles who are from a sl drop or tide to a sl drop.
wotc sure did listen when everyone complained about having to wait for secret lairs to arrive. Now, they sell out so fast that you'd have to be a scalper to get one.
The real problem is lack of understanding their consumer basis, how did they not make a fuck ton of the Monty python cards knowing they would be popular?
I was 30 minutes late in entering the queue and still got two copies of both Monty Python secret lairs (one for myself, one for my brother). Show up even remotely on time and you can get them too.
@@GambitsEndI logged in at 9:02am PST, waiting in queue for over an hour, and they were sold out when my queue ended. So no, not really. "Remotely on time" should be like, the first ten days of a twenty day run, not literally within the first several minutes and only if you get lucky that they don't arbitrarily tell you it's sold out
Secret Lairs go live at some time during the middle of the night for me. There's actually something comforting about knowing they'll be gone by the time I wake up. Can't get FOMO if there's already nothing left to miss out on.
My attitude exactly. It will be interesting to see if the scalpers will actually be able to resell at the prices they aim for in the long run or if the interest in the product will decrease together with its availability.
Wotc can’t make a consumer friendly product. They lost the ability. Honestly the best way to fix it would be to simply boycott new products entirely and just make do with cards we already own for a couple years. It won’t happen and they know it, which is why they won’t change the consumer hostile course.
DnD and MtG are two nightmares of an IP to try and gouge people for. Mtg is a card game with most of its best cards behind it and its most popular format being fan made, and DnD is playing imagination with math rocks. Both these IP's depend on goodwill to function because lets be real, i can play proxy magic with anyone, and dnd books are available at the click of a button. Without goodwill your hope is they support you via supporting an LGS, so if you screw the fans, and screw the retailers, you're kinda doomed lol.
I have loved Monty Python and Magic for decades. I was so excited when I found out about this Secret Lair. Now they managed to turn it into resentment. Congratulations WotC.
Last year, when I could just buy a Secret Lair at my convenience over a months period, I bought 15 different ones. This year, with the limited supply system, I bought 1, and its the only one they offered print to demaind on this year: Sheldon's.
And the worst part is: the higher-up corporate suits and shareholders will _only_ see this whole disgusting debacle as a good thing. "We made a shitton of money selling out of a new product instantly!" Also, they have no incentive nor reason to ever improve the system, because whales and scalpers instantly buy it all out regardless. Meanwhile the entire concept of Secret Lairs being limited print run, limited time, $40 for 5 cards, and full of $2 bulk rares or worse, are all awful and objectively bad for the game and the fans.
Hey at least the scalpers are gonna have a hard time selling something for double what they paid for it when it was already worth half what they paid lol
If the value in the secret lairs stays low like this, scalpers are gonna buy them out and then get tuck with a subpar product that will only sell to the more wealthy magic players
I am sure we would all be SHOCKED to find out that suites get to "double dip" on their value as well b/c they are ALSO invested in secondary card market sites and shops...but not your LGS of course.
My money is on the change to Limited Supply being caused by them seeing low order numbers on a significant number of print-to-order Secret Lairs. Of course, it’d make sense the numbers were low- lots of those previous lairs were bad in both card selection and value. But WotC dug themselves into this hole, and saw their only option to be “Fire up the FOMO machine”.
I was genuinely devasted by the Raining Cats and Dogs selling out in a few hours. I was so hyped, following it's release for weeks. And boom, I find out after work it's sold out.
Yea that sucked to miss. It was my fault, though - I accidentally set my reminder alarm for PM rather than AM, and when I checked that evening they were gone.
@@CatManThree Wasn't the Cats and Dogs the first limited quantity release they did? If so, perhaps the only reason it lasted 6 hours is because people didn't yet realize just how limited it was and therefore didn't feel the need to swarm it at the start. I bet if they released that today it would sell out in less than 2 as well lol
You missed out on them refusing people at Comic Con by capping the lines and then selling out in 30 minutes from open because they didn’t bring enough, only to find them instantly on Ebay for 50% markup. It was soooo frustrating.
I was at Star Wars Celebration one year, and I remember LEGO pretty much only had enough promos for people who bought the early admission tickets to the convention. I saw people in line to get the promo writing up their eBay listings as they waited.
@@subzero308 It’s a double edged sword. WOTC and scalpers. Same thing happened with Lorcana until Disney saw what was going on and upped the amount of printed cards to allow everyone a chance to get their products. WOTC doesn’t get it. Plain and simple. They also are part of Hasbro now so they have a stock price to help maintain.
Isn't this pretty much what happened with that Van Gogh pokemon exhibit? They were giving out a special pikachu card, and people were being animals trying to buy a much random merch as they could to get a bunch of cards. The cards were being resold before the end of the day. So the Pokémon Company decided to straight up stop giving out the card because some people couldn't be decent human beings for 2 seconds.
@aaronkelly8725 I always thought farewell would have been good. Its white thus holy, its a massive wipe thus a explosion and its choose able so like a grenade you pick what to throw it at.
I felt so much joy seeing that Twilight Zone reference at the video's start, and EVEN MORE joy when it evolved into a Tower of Terror reference. I love my theme parks and this video left me with a big goofy smile on my face. Great to see TCC loves that ride too!
Literally should be 1 per person. If you want multiple, buy one foil and one non-foil. But no one should be able to buy more than 1. Anything more is just asking for bots and scalpers.
WoTC should do what GW did when scalpers tried to buy out the horus heresy books, cancel bulk orders, block their ips, and offer up those canceled orders to nonbots. You can say what you want about GW but that was awesome
A friend received their Monty Python order today. We discussed that there should be a print-to-demand model, but if they really want to drive up the FOMO and appease stakeholders, limit it to a 24 hour period. They got better with the shipping time as shown with Sheldon’s spellbook. Allow everyone the opportunity to claim it at face price but keep the ordering period short.
Another one of those ideas that are so obvious that I ask myself what is really going on at WotC. And it doesn't really help that Rosewater and the rest of the PR gang are not ashamed to lie in our faces when selling these decisions to their angry customers.
Honestly, I wish they had the limted run, then the switch to print to demand after. Scalpers and whales get them early, while regular fans can still get them at a reasonable price.
This is what corporations always do-they make a product people want, get folks hooked, and then deliberately make that product suck to try and make a few more coins off it. It’s called enshittification, and it’s destroying everything.
I'm glad they used the print-to-demand model for Sheldon's Spellbook. Very happy to have gotten a copy of that while I could, but much like you I don't think I'll be engaging with the Secret Lair product line anymore.
Agreed. Honestly, if Wotc would've used this new system for Sheldon's Spellbook, that would've been insulting AF. They KNEW they'd be playing with fire then and would regret their choices.
The red TCC logo is....kind of intimidating, ngl. I actually felt like I was attending a class where the prof was about to talk about why everyone's essays were nothing but Garbage Fires.
As a person who use to take calls for a business, thank you for telling people to not yell at the customer service. I understand some customer service is better than others, but they will often times try and help to the best of their ability, they are often times not responsible for the reason you are upset, and yelling at them only makes them less willing to help you. I have been yelled at in the past so many times I had to shift to a different position.
YES! THANK YOU PROF! I gave up on the last few Secret Lairs, because I learned that by the time I came home from work (I'm a financial auditor so I'm on site and can't look at my phone until I'm back home) they wouldn't be available anymore. It's so so sad.
I agree, it's absolutely toxic for the players! The scalping economy is horrendous (I have an online MTG store and refuse to scalp SLD's!). Beyond everything you mentioned, the international player base is getting hurt terribly as well, as it was already extremely difficult for them to get SLD cards! Now the markup makes it near impossible!
Yes. Magic card people like that have ruined it for me. I'm not paying 100 dollars for a new card that just dropped. Maybe one from 15yrs ago but what? Why are all the cards soo damn expensive? Then wizards sees it and makes their boxes cost hundreds of dollars.
You should buy the Secret Lairs for $30 (Non-Foil) and sell them for like $35-$40. Grab as many as you can for the customers who can’t, and put them in the hands of actual players for a reasonable price while undercutting the scalpers at every turn 👏
@@trowawayacc I don't know how you would create laws around this stuff. You can't force companies to keep producing something. If a company decides they are only willing to produce X of a product and that product sells out, they can choose to not make any more. Maybe you could have a law against the "produce to demand" model, but I don't think that would be a good law to have. I don't know what you're referring to in other countries, but I would like to see a source as that's a very bold claim that every country outside the US and Europe have laws against this.
This entire situation is very reminiscent of the days when I used to collect sneakers. Waiting in never ending queues, or having to create multiple accounts and log in on different devices just to get a shot at waiting in the digital line. I despise WoTC taking on this approach. Next thing you know and they’ll start doing “raffles” just to have a chance to get into line…
Something I always hate about these silly Secret Lairs on top of all the things you mentioned is how they have the gall to charge me $10 in shipping after charging me $30 for 5-6 cards that probably don't even have close to that estimated value.
It's a ploy to manipulate you into hitting the free shipping minimum of $100. It's a thing popularized by Amazon to bloat sales from an impulse purchase.
For those who are curious about the timeline, Prof released his State of the Secret Lair vid supporting the improvement of the print to demand format on December 22, 2023, and WotC announced the change to limited print on January 2, 2024. I'm kinda surprised that Prof lasted this long.
I am boycotting Magic the Gathering until I get my full set for $140! My first time trying to buy a Secret Lair! The non foil volume 1 and 2 are $29.99 each and the 2 foils are $39.99. I had all four in my cart for $140 and the payment would not go through!!! This was supposed to be on sale for almost a month and it sells out in 5 minutes!!! 😡🤬
I have nothing nice to say about Secret Lairs so instead I will say "Shuffle Up and Play with Ify Nwadiwe, Ben Ulmer, and Dark Pact Cosplay??? I'm so excited!!!"
Thanks for this video. My father introduced me and my siblings to Monty Python and the Holy Grail when we were kids. It was lots of laughs and great memories. My father and brother passed in the last 4 years, and I was really looking forward to getting the Monty Python Secret Lair. I signed up to get notified when it would be available, but never got any notifications or emails or anything. Found out it was sold out before I even had the chance to buy it, and I refuse to give money to scalpers. I got the Princess Bride SL cards and Jurassic Park ones for my son but will not ever get any more SL cards in the future. Glad to see I'm not the only one frustrated with the system.
I got one but I signed up again for the notification this time once I got news it was coming. Probably a good idea to do that every time you see one you might buy
Me too. I specifically set that up for Monty Python and only got notified when the random one came out what it is called? Brain bed ? Ah I don't care what it's called because it wasn't on my radar.
17:44 Woaaahh... sir that's an axolotl to be specific, not just any salamander I really appreciate this video though, I didn't even know there was a new secret lair lol
LOL came to say the same. thank you, ctrl+F for saving us from re-comments lol. And yea I never know if there is a new secret lair except for these videos
WotC have taken the Warhammer/Gamesworkshop practice of selling their merchandise. Which is far worse for the consumer and simply for the purpose of selling out their stock to make sales for their investors look much better. It’s entirely for their bottom line not to make the product or the service better, if anything they wilfully made their service worse.
I was working Nigh shift in Australia, when the lairs went live, I didn’t have an hour at work that I could spare. When I finished work at 8am they’d almost all sold out, if people didn’t or couldn’t wake up in the middle of the night, automatically missed out.
After the announcement I started seeing Secret Lair ads around saying "Counterspell FOMO", so they definitely knew what they were doing. Secret Lairs were what got me into Magic in the first place (I bought one before I ever even had a deck). I can't promise I'll never buy again but it has certainly soured my taste for them. They have to be REALLY good for me to even consider them at this point
When Secret Lair initially started, it had some promise. Solid reprints with great art and thematically made. If they continued doing this, Secret Lair could've been one of the coolest and good things in magic. Like professor said, it's mainly memes and crossovers now. Artist spotlights are cool but they usually don't have cards equal to the value of the product itself.
after everything this company does, I switched to creating my own proxies For my friends and for the people with whom I play at the local club this is not a problem and I save a lot of money and nerves, and there is some creativity in this too
Proxies have been the answer for a very long time. You can even get near perfect replicas through "professional" proxy companies for essentially pennies if you still want something that looks and feels like a real card. WotC hasn't deserved customer money in a long while.
@@ForeverLaxx I heard about such companies, but unfortunately where I live they don’t work That’s why I learned how to make replicas using my inkjet printer and different types of paper I print cards on transparent film, and then glue them onto thin holographic cardboard They look like foil cards with a slight depth effect due to layers, it turns out very cute
The infinite pre-order style printings made it feel like wizards was going above and beyond, providing a showcase for individual artists. You stumbled upon a secret lair and were rewarded for it! Look at some of these cards with custom artwork, and every so often its an entirely new card! Isnt that so cool, your friends will love these special versions you picked up. Now it feels like I'm imprisoned in the secret lair. I'm stressed. Will I be able to afford this? Will I be fast enough? The warden is going to be here soon, and they don't like it when I'm too slow. I may have to ask the person next to me for some of their goods but they sell it to me for three times what its worth. It just doesn't feel fun anymore. This used to be a game about having fun.
Given that the entire Secret Lair system was inspired by limited edition sneaker drops for sneaker collectors, I am utterly unsurprised that the whole thing moved to increased artificial scarcity
There’s so many comments that say “I got mine just fine, you must have done something wrong”. That’s not the problem. That’s literally useless. The issue is that it sold out in an hour, not that everyone “can’t figure out how to order online” some people just need to be jerks no matter what
I regret not buying the Monty Python lair when I had the chance. Was at work and thought It could wait another 30 minutes while I pit stuff away. By the time I get done, only Vol2 was left and when I get to check out, I'm sent back to the front page because "Whoopsie, we're all sold out!" This was definitely a disaster for sure
I jumped int he queue within minutes of it going up and it was already gone by the time I got there. You wouldn't have gotten anything even if you hadn't waited. No regrets to be had! Hope this helps! lol
I was on vacation when these went on sale so I woke up at 2am. Had 200 dollars to spend on Monty python stashed away and you can imagine the disappointment when you get through the cue and realize that the company you want to give your money doesn't actually want it and you can't get cool collectibles without paying someone who got lucky and bought the max at market price
I was willing to pay wizards $80 to get these for my cube, but I'm not willing to pay $300 to a scalper. Thanks, wizards, for saving me from giving you money. I won't try to do that anymore.
@@awskater5899 They got a set amount of money, sure, but they missed out on a ton from people who couldn't buy. I wanted to buy them, but since I'm busy I signed up for notifications to let me know when they were going to release. I didn't get an email and only found out the sale was live an hour after it was already sold out. Also, I don't have "nothing". I just don't have the Monty Python secret lairs that I wanted. It's not like the money didn't get spent - it just didn't go to Wizards. And now I know not to even bother trying in the future so they won't be getting any future money from me either. I'll keep an eye on the secondary market for the Monty Python cards and will pick them up from third parties if they go down to a reasonable level.
I was going to buy the Monty Python secret Lair, I was actually incredibly excited for it and it would have been my first Secret Lair. I even signed up for the notification. Not only did I not get the email notification but I wasn’t even able to get in line cause it had already sold out. Now I have absolutely no interest in getting any secret lair until the change is made
You knew what time they were going on sale. The notification system is lagged because it will only send a message when the product is in stock. The system sends out thousands of emails and yours was delayed. If you really wanted the drop you'd have queued up at 12:00 when the drop occured. It was NOT hidden, there was a countdown on the fucking site. Good stuff.
@@awskater5899 While that's true, and I keep telling people not to rely solely on the site, it's absolutely disgusting that they apparently are making the limited run drops smaller and smaller so they sell out faster. It's either that or they continue to let scalpers get much more than they should. I don't blame people for not liking the current system.
Yeah there was a countdown on the website for days prior with the release date out for over a week. Don't rely on an email when you can set an alarm notification on your phone calendar.
@awskater5899 What are you talking about? The first few days when they were announced, they didn't have 'a countdown' on the site, all they had was a little box to type in your email for a notification'.
Why would Wizards of the Coast sell you Secret Lairs for $35-$50, when they, their employees, and scalpers who give them kickbacks can sell you stuff for more, up to $250?
I'm with you, Prof. This was the first Secret Lair I wanted to buy. I got dozens of requests to sign up for immediate notification when the MP Secret Lair went live and got exactly zero emails on the day (I work during the time and can't sit on websites 24/7. Never again.
The form link no longer works. It just takes you to your own open support tickets with no option to give feedback about a secret lair you didn't purchase. Guess they got sick of people telling them what they didn't want to hear.
The way I went "WOOOOOAAAAHHHHH" to the RED Tolarian CC symbol agter the intro skit! I was like PROF HAS GONE TO THE DARK SIDE!!! WOTC BEAT DOWN THE WILL OF A GOOD MAN AND HE'S ON HIS VILLIAN ARC!!!!! xD
A few years ago i picked up a couple secret lairs and loved them. Still working on finishing those decks. Then a little while ago i saw the princess bride cards and the undead secret lair and wanted to pick them up for me and my wife. Paid and ordered them, waited months and they never arrived, watched the tracking like a hawk and it never moved for months. Just to suddenly be changed straight from “leaving the factory” to delivered. Nothing at the door, took months to get a refund and knew from that moment on i would never buy another secret lair.
in a way they found the most convoluted way to get rid of secret lair. barely anyone outside of scalpers will get this stuff, so the large majority of players will never actually see them.
The sad irony is that since scalpers are running their Buy Bots to snatch up 90+% of the product, WotC's coffers are getting filled the same amount as if legitimate players were buying it. To them, it doesn't matter who buys as long as the product sells. A scalper purchase looks identical on an earnings report submitted to investors. Nothing is going to change and they won't stop releasing 12 Secret Lairs every month.
3:36 Reminds me of that one The Office episode where the employee Dwight buys all the princess unicorn dolls from the city’s stores and resells them at absurd prices.
Fucking PREACH Prof! This secret lair pissed me off so much. Monty Python was an important thing for my dad and I, so I was going to get the Monty Python lairs to have a reminder of him when I play magic (he died in 2022). The fact that I wasn't able to get this because scalpers used bots to grab up everything before anyone else could really pissed me off.
Like others have said in comments already, this was the first secret lair drop I have even considered since the switch to limited print runs. When I had two weeks to decide what I wanted, I also had two weeks to set aside money for them, so I always ended up buying the few I liked! Now, even if I kinda like one or two it's gone before I remember the sell date, and I can't even justify the price tag by waiting long enough to have money in the busget.
Yep. When they made the change announcement, I was like: "Oh I guess I don't have to worry about SLs anymore." I haven't bought a single one under this new system. I haven't even looked at them.
I tried to buy the Monty Python one. It was sold out while I was entering payment details. I'm done. Unsubbed from the secret lair notifications. No more money while they do limited quanities. They *fixed* things with print to demand, and now they've intentionally un-fixed it. No more.
I just LOVE that secret lairs have turned into sneaker drops where you need to be one of the first 50 people to order or it sells out in 5 minutes. Love that. Definitely not sarcasm
One of the most important things to do is: Don't buy from scrapers. I was also not able to buy the Monty Python Secret Lairs because I had a very bad day and didn't have time to buy it when the sale started. But I would never pay more for the cards than what they were priced at on the official website!
I was shocked to learn how many of my friends didn't get the Python drop. I feel guilty for having purchased both of them and doubly so since i had the opportunity to add more into my cart. Had i known this ends in such a fiasco i would have definitely done so. This sucks and I know my mood would be ruined for a week had i also gone out of it empty handed, this is my favorite movie after all.
Why? You participated in the drop and bought the cards. Anyone that queued up at 12-12:30 got their cards. Most people either didn't invest the time to buy them, forgot or whatever. They failed, you succeeded? Why are you upset?
I was working at the time, and took a break to check as soon as I could (a couple hours after the start), so I was stunned it had sold out so fast. I really just was looking for a couple cards, since one of my first decks back in 94 revolved around Tim, and I was thrilled to have a chance to get a real Tim, until I wasn't. In 30 years of playing this might be the most disappointed I've been with the game (ok ok, who am I kidding, M30 was worse, but still)
@@awskater5899 I will say, there is a very weird pattern of what feels like... Corporate cheerleading in your comments here that I've seen around? "Oh yes, it's perfectly reasonable for Wizards to make people wait in line for an hour plus on a particular day just to have a chance of buying their product, anyone criticizing them for the policies that lead to this, or feeling bad about it is a fool!" or whatever. You know that WotC doesn't value your loyalty, right? They don't notice or care about you trying to invalidate how others feel about what they've done? You're effectively just being rude to people online in service of nothing, and like... Why? If someone feels bad that their friends missed out on something, you know, their friends, people who they care about, had a bad experience, so they go "Awh, that sucks" who the hell are you to tell them that's illegitimate? Is this the attitude you express towards your friends? They have a rough day, and you tell them to screw off, they should've gotten up earlier, tried harder, whatever? I can't imagine. Why would you tell other people they should feel that way about their friends? It just seems nonsensical to me.
What irks me even more than selling out instantly is the monty python cards clearly could’ve been a whole set but they were so greedy they split it in two and made the second one even smaller than usual. Disgusting. No one should buy these either from wizards or the secondary market. It’ll teach scalpers and wizards that we’re not their pay piggies. Proxy them. They’re essentially reskins anyways.
Even a print-to-demand Teferi's Protection from that drop has largely held value after a short dip from scalpers flooding the market with their copies, so WotC can't even hide behind a "Gosh, we'll tank the singles market for collectors and scalpers if we actually print enough!" 😂
I'm ULTRA new to MTG, and Monty Python's Secret Lair was my first ever MTG purchase. I didn't know anything about secret lair, or even that it was limited stock nor time based. Not sure how I managed to snag it but wow I didn't know the whole system around it was so bad!
I was at my computer at 9am when the Secret Lair started. I had my items in the cart 3 minutes later, and I was still waiting in line for over an hour. Crazy! But I did manage to get what I wanted, thankfully. And no, I only bought 1 of each thing I wanted. No scalping here!
Same here, the timing of the drop was convinient for me so I just ordered my monty pythons, spent a minute or two in the store, then moved to the queue. The queue was like 50 mins, but i got mine. I didnt even realise people were fighting for these! I only ordered one of each MP tho so i dont feel bad, just lucky. How WOTC didnt expect this disaster, idk
I wasn't even able to get past the enter screen. After I managed to get in and waited an hour, it decided to throw me back to the buggy enter screen, thus assuring I wouldn't be able to snag one. Worst experience ever.
I got in queue in the first 60 seconds, waited over an hour only to get dropped, got back in line, waited another 45 minutes to find the only thing I wanted was sold out
WotC should give you like $15 per hour for waiting in a line, you shouldn't have to allow them to waste your time while you try to hand them some money.
I recently got back into magic, after a pause since 2019 and was familiar with the older secret lair ordering system. I was very disappointed seeing the bundle sold out. Needless to say, I am not willing to engage with these business practices. I would rather proxy the cards and, if possible support the artists in other ways.
I feel like Secret Lairs and crossovers just happen way too often now, I understand why- they bring tons of money, but it still feels like it's pushing Magic away from the cool unique planes that it had before when we now have 2 fully crossover sets, being Assassin's Creed and Lord of the Rings
I mean… Nobody was buying these as an efficient way to get these cards. It was to have official cards with special art So sure, I could print these… But I don’t own a printer, and honestly I wouldn’t even know how to go about printing a decent proxy that’s actually thick and card-like, rather than a scrap of paper. Overall, it seems rather inconvenient, and only accessible to those who are privileged enough to own a printer and other resources Not to say that I never will proxy anything… Just that I had no immediate need for these cards in any of my decks, yet I was still hoping to buy a single Monty Python drop. (And if/when I do need these cards for actual gameplay, I could just get the normal versions via much simpler means 🤷)
Pro I am printing proxies of staples right now because I like AI and google cached art better. I always credit the artist, but Hasbro has pulled the rules off the table. so ima destroy all lands 🤣
@@MuhahahahazOne easy way of proxying cards is to print it on a piece of paper and then put it above your bulk cards. Bookstores also usually have printers that you are allowed to use for a small fee so you can print them on mass.
Every once and a while I'll think we give Americans too much shit, they can't be as bad as we all say, and then I'll scroll through the comments of a random TH-cam video and find someone from GODDAMN VERMONT trying to stake a claim on maple. Bite me, eh
I'm with you, prof! This was the last straw, no more secret lairs for me. When there isn't even a full day of availability, good art or my favorite IPs aren't worth supporting this system
Please keep doing these reviews (especially if you discontinue purchasing the product)! Yes, all press is good press, but the negative sentiment you generate and how you inform players is invaluable prof
Waited for the second Miku lair drop, only to not be able to fill out shipping and billing info, then would reload the page and it would put me back in que. I did this over and over for 2 hours and then everything sold out. This time I got in after waiting 57 minutes and barely got my lairs ordered. This is absolutely ridiculous.
![[UNCUT] "บอสณวัฒน์" แฉ! แหล่งซุกเงินแก๊งบอส ขยันผิดที่ไม่กี่ปีก็เข้าคุก l คนดังนั่งเคลียร์ l17ต.ค.67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/BL56qIfXYZM/mqdefault.jpg)
I am giving away Bloomburrow Booster boxes, both Collector and Play, plus some of my Secret Lairs on my next Whatnot stream! Join me Friday, August 2nd at 11am PST and you can use my code at www.whatnot.com/invite/tolariancollege to get a $15 credit when you create a new account!
Random thing prof. Could you make a video how we NEED modern masters to return!?
We need modern horizons reprints like grief or force of negation. In addition we always need classics like bolt or fetches. At least for any updated Oracle text.
Random question but do you still teach English classes? I would be extremely intrested in some!
Thanks for the video, even if it got soured yet again by corporate shenanigans.
Luckily, the amount of people considering scalping completely fine is remains low, but sadly there are still people among those that are against it that give in to it anyway and buy their stuff.
Hello Professor! I own a card shop in Lyons, CO. I ended up lucky and got two sets of the Monty Python vol. 1 & vol. 2. I would be honored to send one set to you sir. I love you and your channel and I feel bad for everyone who did not get what they wanted from this Secret Lair. The system is definitely broken. Let me know what you think and keep doing what you do because it’s awesome. Have a great day sir.
See ya on Friday
This is exactly what WotC wanted. They get to report their product is "flying off shelves" to investors and actual players get to enjoy scalper prices. I don't care if Rosewater is "bringing up player concerns" because nothing will happen.
Honestly, as controversial as it is to say, I think Mark Rosewater has become a net negative to the game in recent years, and I'm hoping he retires soon. I feel like his leadership has made nothing but mistakes in regards to how cards are designed and how products are designed since War of the Spark, in a way that's making me lose interest in the game.
i wouldnt be surprised if half of them are sold to employees to resell them
@@cheeseboy4673 Agreed, MaRo fell off
My dream conversation when someone gets that report:
"It's flying off shelves!"
"How many did you sell?"
"Enough to make money!"
"Would you have made more money if you had more to sell?"
"…"
"Wait, why are you limiting the amount of cheap cardboard we're selling to people who want that?"
@@BoyzbyThis is my hang up with scalping in general. The idea that Nike would make less money if they made more of the sneaker is insane. Same with magic if they printed more copies of the Secret Lair. Bots are going to buy them out in both cases regardless of the amount of units, and they lose money by stupidly following a outdated FOMO model.
Best part about the limited supply run is that now I physically can't waste money on bundles that aren't worth the amount WOTC wants to charge for them. Thanks WOTC, you're a real one
And because of this I didn’t understand wotc decisions. It’s like they don’t want our money. Sry only 2000 units available, we don’t care about the other 2000 people’s money.
@@thetruedraco3786it's probably so they can report the quick buy outs to investors
@@thetruedraco3786 That's the thing though they don't want your money. They want investor money. The game is not "sell quality products to customers" it is "trick old dudes that never worked a day in their lives and have no idea how anything works that they'll make bank" and things like "our products sell out in hours" work on those guys.
@@thetruedraco3786 Sometimes the limitation is more value than the full income of a product. Secret Lairs where selling bad in the first batches and most of the buyers where lgs who sold them with heavy markups on the secondary market. People complainted and WotC widened the window to buy the drops, so the people bought them without the lgs in the middle, who where sitting on tons of unsellable sl drops in early 2022. The AS: Wayne Reynolds from the April 2022 Superdrop are starting for 15 Euro nonfoil and 20 Euro foil on Cardmarket. That´s 20 Euro and 25 Euro under the original price. Out of all the 151 2022 drops, only around ten of them are equal in or have gone up in value. My lgs stopped buying new ones after the first superdrop in 2023 und kicked the rest of the unsold product in bulk with losses out in mid 2023. Now the even refuse to trade in all singles who are from a sl drop or tide to a sl drop.
Fair enough. Or you can spend money on printer ink. Psssst (proxy)
wotc sure did listen when everyone complained about having to wait for secret lairs to arrive. Now, they sell out so fast that you'd have to be a scalper to get one.
The real problem is lack of understanding their consumer basis, how did they not make a fuck ton of the Monty python cards knowing they would be popular?
And then it still took 2 months for my Miku to arrive >.
I was 30 minutes late in entering the queue and still got two copies of both Monty Python secret lairs (one for myself, one for my brother). Show up even remotely on time and you can get them too.
"I will vote with my wallet!" he declared of the sold-out product that bots bought within seconds.
@@GambitsEndI logged in at 9:02am PST, waiting in queue for over an hour, and they were sold out when my queue ended. So no, not really. "Remotely on time" should be like, the first ten days of a twenty day run, not literally within the first several minutes and only if you get lucky that they don't arbitrarily tell you it's sold out
Secret Lairs go live at some time during the middle of the night for me. There's actually something comforting about knowing they'll be gone by the time I wake up. Can't get FOMO if there's already nothing left to miss out on.
2am release, sold out by 4, I wake up at 7 usually. No point even looking into them
My attitude exactly. It will be interesting to see if the scalpers will actually be able to resell at the prices they aim for in the long run or if the interest in the product will decrease together with its availability.
Stay Zen, my friend.
FOMO? More like No-Mo
Wotc can’t make a consumer friendly product. They lost the ability. Honestly the best way to fix it would be to simply boycott new products entirely and just make do with cards we already own for a couple years. It won’t happen and they know it, which is why they won’t change the consumer hostile course.
My wife and I were very excited for Bloomburrow, but life is full of near-infinite hobbies and thus we move on
100% this.
Years ahead of you ;)
DnD and MtG are two nightmares of an IP to try and gouge people for. Mtg is a card game with most of its best cards behind it and its most popular format being fan made, and DnD is playing imagination with math rocks.
Both these IP's depend on goodwill to function because lets be real, i can play proxy magic with anyone, and dnd books are available at the click of a button.
Without goodwill your hope is they support you via supporting an LGS, so if you screw the fans, and screw the retailers, you're kinda doomed lol.
I have loved Monty Python and Magic for decades. I was so excited when I found out about this Secret Lair. Now they managed to turn it into resentment. Congratulations WotC.
Same, I was really looking forward to Monty Python ever since it was announced but I logged in 2 hours after the release and all gone.
I'll sell you mine. I don't even like monty python
@@gundamxcreatoryou are apart of the problem
The only change is that I still love Monty Python but now I hate WotC!
Last year, when I could just buy a Secret Lair at my convenience over a months period, I bought 15 different ones. This year, with the limited supply system, I bought 1, and its the only one they offered print to demaind on this year: Sheldon's.
And the worst part is: the higher-up corporate suits and shareholders will _only_ see this whole disgusting debacle as a good thing. "We made a shitton of money selling out of a new product instantly!"
Also, they have no incentive nor reason to ever improve the system, because whales and scalpers instantly buy it all out regardless.
Meanwhile the entire concept of Secret Lairs being limited print run, limited time, $40 for 5 cards, and full of $2 bulk rares or worse, are all awful and objectively bad for the game and the fans.
Imagine how much more they would have sold though if they werent tossers
Boycott the scalpers until they realize they just waste their money
Hey at least the scalpers are gonna have a hard time selling something for double what they paid for it when it was already worth half what they paid lol
If the value in the secret lairs stays low like this, scalpers are gonna buy them out and then get tuck with a subpar product that will only sell to the more wealthy magic players
I am sure we would all be SHOCKED to find out that suites get to "double dip" on their value as well b/c they are ALSO invested in secondary card market sites and shops...but not your LGS of course.
The new Secret Lair alert skits are getting progressively more surreal and demented. I’m here for it.
Demented surrealness is very representative of Secret Lair releases as a whole tho, isn't it?
My money is on the change to Limited Supply being caused by them seeing low order numbers on a significant number of print-to-order Secret Lairs.
Of course, it’d make sense the numbers were low- lots of those previous lairs were bad in both card selection and value. But WotC dug themselves into this hole, and saw their only option to be “Fire up the FOMO machine”.
With every new Secret Lair video Prof goes deeper and deeper into the spiral of madness, and i'm all for it
It is interesting to see him delve and cross the threshold into madness.
I for one can't wait to see his villain arc
I was genuinely devasted by the Raining Cats and Dogs selling out in a few hours. I was so hyped, following it's release for weeks. And boom, I find out after work it's sold out.
Restroom breaks are a necessity when online seller outers are on the line 😏
Yea that sucked to miss. It was my fault, though - I accidentally set my reminder alarm for PM rather than AM, and when I checked that evening they were gone.
It lasting around 6 hours was pretty surprising though. New lairs sell out in less than 2.
@@CatManThree Wasn't the Cats and Dogs the first limited quantity release they did? If so, perhaps the only reason it lasted 6 hours is because people didn't yet realize just how limited it was and therefore didn't feel the need to swarm it at the start. I bet if they released that today it would sell out in less than 2 as well lol
@@ullrich Yeah, thats what I assume.
You missed out on them refusing people at Comic Con by capping the lines and then selling out in 30 minutes from open because they didn’t bring enough, only to find them instantly on Ebay for 50% markup. It was soooo frustrating.
I was at Star Wars Celebration one year, and I remember LEGO pretty much only had enough promos for people who bought the early admission tickets to the convention. I saw people in line to get the promo writing up their eBay listings as they waited.
Don't blame the ones selling it on eBay blame it on WoTC they have the power to stop all the nonsense including counterfeits and they refuse.
@@subzero308 It’s a double edged sword. WOTC and scalpers. Same thing happened with Lorcana until Disney saw what was going on and upped the amount of printed cards to allow everyone a chance to get their products. WOTC doesn’t get it. Plain and simple. They also are part of Hasbro now so they have a stock price to help maintain.
Isn't this pretty much what happened with that Van Gogh pokemon exhibit? They were giving out a special pikachu card, and people were being animals trying to buy a much random merch as they could to get a bunch of cards. The cards were being resold before the end of the day. So the Pokémon Company decided to straight up stop giving out the card because some people couldn't be decent human beings for 2 seconds.
@@PhoenicopterusRthey actually reprinted it in an effort to kill the market
I think the worst offence of this secret lair is that they didn‘t include two copies of „Taunt from the ramparts“
Nice. I was thinking engineered explosives, ratched bomb, or one of the legendary artefact boardwipes skinned as "The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch"
@aaronkelly8725 I always thought farewell would have been good. Its white thus holy, its a massive wipe thus a explosion and its choose able so like a grenade you pick what to throw it at.
That would have added too much value…/s
I felt so much joy seeing that Twilight Zone reference at the video's start, and EVEN MORE joy when it evolved into a Tower of Terror reference. I love my theme parks and this video left me with a big goofy smile on my face. Great to see TCC loves that ride too!
The fact they have a limit of 5 per person shows how much WOTC cares about us lol
Wotc never cared about you in the first place.
Last I saw was 10
@@nyslice oh facts, never said they did
It's funny because a limit of 4 would just be a play set
Literally should be 1 per person. If you want multiple, buy one foil and one non-foil. But no one should be able to buy more than 1. Anything more is just asking for bots and scalpers.
🚨New Professor Disappointed at WotC Marketing and FOMO Practices Alert🚨
FOMO has evolved into just MO. There's no shot at getting the product at regular prices, so I can't even be afraid at missing it.
@@Shinius i like this. i really like this phrase. it sums up present day capitalism really well!
🚨 New Professor Disappointed Alert 🚨
@@ShiniusWell said.
It’s more than FOMO it’s forceful artificial scarcity. This is what created Blood Diamonds as an industry.
Waited in queue for an hour to try to get Monty Python only to get denied. Like yourself, I likely won't be trying to buy them again in the future.
Same thing happened to me got in the queue within 5 minutes of it dropping and was denied after over an hour and a half wait
Same
Ditto
WoTC should do what GW did when scalpers tried to buy out the horus heresy books, cancel bulk orders, block their ips, and offer up those canceled orders to nonbots. You can say what you want about GW but that was awesome
I almost went to get one, the only secret lair I'd have ever got. The flavour for those was on POINT. But... wow.
That intro was magical, thank you Prof
A friend received their Monty Python order today. We discussed that there should be a print-to-demand model, but if they really want to drive up the FOMO and appease stakeholders, limit it to a 24 hour period. They got better with the shipping time as shown with Sheldon’s spellbook. Allow everyone the opportunity to claim it at face price but keep the ordering period short.
Another one of those ideas that are so obvious that I ask myself what is really going on at WotC. And it doesn't really help that Rosewater and the rest of the PR gang are not ashamed to lie in our faces when selling these decisions to their angry customers.
Honestly, I wish they had the limted run, then the switch to print to demand after. Scalpers and whales get them early, while regular fans can still get them at a reasonable price.
This is what corporations always do-they make a product people want, get folks hooked, and then deliberately make that product suck to try and make a few more coins off it. It’s called enshittification, and it’s destroying everything.
Hot damn, that's actually a real word. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
@@themonkeyhand Well I'll be
Shout this out from every rooftop, friend
@@themonkeyhand Yep. And it's everywhere these days.
I'm glad they used the print-to-demand model for Sheldon's Spellbook. Very happy to have gotten a copy of that while I could, but much like you I don't think I'll be engaging with the Secret Lair product line anymore.
It does prove that they can still do print-to-demand, further underscoring how hollow their reasoning is.
Yeah they make 5 that not many people want, and 1-2 that everyone wants and gets sold out instantly
would have been such a travesty if that one was restricted... F*&^ Wizards.
Agreed. Honestly, if Wotc would've used this new system for Sheldon's Spellbook, that would've been insulting AF. They KNEW they'd be playing with fire then and would regret their choices.
The red TCC logo is....kind of intimidating, ngl. I actually felt like I was attending a class where the prof was about to talk about why everyone's essays were nothing but Garbage Fires.
It definitely gave me "Dark Future" vibes. OwO
As a person who use to take calls for a business, thank you for telling people to not yell at the customer service. I understand some customer service is better than others, but they will often times try and help to the best of their ability, they are often times not responsible for the reason you are upset, and yelling at them only makes them less willing to help you. I have been yelled at in the past so many times I had to shift to a different position.
YES! THANK YOU PROF! I gave up on the last few Secret Lairs, because I learned that by the time I came home from work (I'm a financial auditor so I'm on site and can't look at my phone until I'm back home) they wouldn't be available anymore. It's so so sad.
This is the first time I'm finding out that it's not two birds of paradise it's a double sided one...
ITS WHAT????
No way! I thought it was both :/
Just how reading the card explains the card, reading any of the information about the secret lair would have explained the secret lair.
Maybe it's for the best I couldn't make it in time anyway
If you read the Secret Lair it tells you that. I honestly like the fact that it is a flip card more. Very unique BoP.
I agree, it's absolutely toxic for the players! The scalping economy is horrendous (I have an online MTG store and refuse to scalp SLD's!). Beyond everything you mentioned, the international player base is getting hurt terribly as well, as it was already extremely difficult for them to get SLD cards! Now the markup makes it near impossible!
Based
Yes. Magic card people like that have ruined it for me. I'm not paying 100 dollars for a new card that just dropped. Maybe one from 15yrs ago but what? Why are all the cards soo damn expensive? Then wizards sees it and makes their boxes cost hundreds of dollars.
You should buy the Secret Lairs for $30 (Non-Foil) and sell them for like $35-$40. Grab as many as you can for the customers who can’t, and put them in the hands of actual players for a reasonable price while undercutting the scalpers at every turn 👏
pffft sound like some cry babies make money when you see money and still wreck shop at MTG.
There are times I really wish social manipulation, marketing tactics, or otherwise created artificial scarcity and egregious FOMO should be illegal.
Vote blue? Outside of usa and europe its just the law 😂
@@trowawayaccsorry mate but Democrats don’t give a flying fuck either if money is rolling in. Neither party cares about you.
@@trowawayacc I don't know how you would create laws around this stuff. You can't force companies to keep producing something. If a company decides they are only willing to produce X of a product and that product sells out, they can choose to not make any more. Maybe you could have a law against the "produce to demand" model, but I don't think that would be a good law to have. I don't know what you're referring to in other countries, but I would like to see a source as that's a very bold claim that every country outside the US and Europe have laws against this.
@@trowawayacclmao blue has been in charge for 4 years, nobody is going to fix this, voting isn't going to fix this
This entire situation is very reminiscent of the days when I used to collect sneakers. Waiting in never ending queues, or having to create multiple accounts and log in on different devices just to get a shot at waiting in the digital line. I despise WoTC taking on this approach. Next thing you know and they’ll start doing “raffles” just to have a chance to get into line…
From all the FOMO driven, overpriced collectibles, Sneakers as a whole are one of the most absurd for me.
The dude who pitched secret lairs to wotc cited being a sneakerhead as their inspiration so the similarities are absolutely intentional
@@MasterP86it used to be kinda charming before companies started leaning into it.
OMG the production value here. No wonder you're the first 1m subscriber MTG channel. Way to go Prof and team!!
Well that red TCC logo is haunting. Matches the tone.
Now we just need to intro jingle pitch shifted way down
Something I always hate about these silly Secret Lairs on top of all the things you mentioned is how they have the gall to charge me $10 in shipping after charging me $30 for 5-6 cards that probably don't even have close to that estimated value.
It's a ploy to manipulate you into hitting the free shipping minimum of $100. It's a thing popularized by Amazon to bloat sales from an impulse purchase.
For those who are curious about the timeline, Prof released his State of the Secret Lair vid supporting the improvement of the print to demand format on December 22, 2023, and WotC announced the change to limited print on January 2, 2024. I'm kinda surprised that Prof lasted this long.
I am boycotting Magic the Gathering until I get my full set for $140! My first time trying to buy a Secret Lair! The non foil volume 1 and 2 are $29.99 each and the 2 foils are $39.99. I had all four in my cart for $140 and the payment would not go through!!! This was supposed to be on sale for almost a month and it sells out in 5 minutes!!! 😡🤬
I have nothing nice to say about Secret Lairs so instead I will say "Shuffle Up and Play with Ify Nwadiwe, Ben Ulmer, and Dark Pact Cosplay??? I'm so excited!!!"
Dang, the little fact about how many secret lairs that’ve been printed so far wasn’t was I was expecting at all 😳 a true twilight zone switch up!
As someone who worked at Tower of Terror I appreciate this intro so much.
Thanks for this video. My father introduced me and my siblings to Monty Python and the Holy Grail when we were kids. It was lots of laughs and great memories. My father and brother passed in the last 4 years, and I was really looking forward to getting the Monty Python Secret Lair. I signed up to get notified when it would be available, but never got any notifications or emails or anything. Found out it was sold out before I even had the chance to buy it, and I refuse to give money to scalpers. I got the Princess Bride SL cards and Jurassic Park ones for my son but will not ever get any more SL cards in the future. Glad to see I'm not the only one frustrated with the system.
Yes! Many communities need to understand that for most companies the only way to tell them you're unhappy is to stop supporting them with your money!!
I didn't even get an email letting me know the sale was live, I've bought many secret lairs.
Same
Same here
I got one but I signed up again for the notification this time once I got news it was coming. Probably a good idea to do that every time you see one you might buy
@@fraser7211 I signed up two days before never got an email even checked my spam folder
Me too. I specifically set that up for Monty Python and only got notified when the random one came out what it is called? Brain bed ? Ah I don't care what it's called because it wasn't on my radar.
17:44 Woaaahh... sir that's an axolotl to be specific, not just any salamander
I really appreciate this video though, I didn't even know there was a new secret lair lol
LOL came to say the same. thank you, ctrl+F for saving us from re-comments lol. And yea I never know if there is a new secret lair except for these videos
WotC have taken the Warhammer/Gamesworkshop practice of selling their merchandise. Which is far worse for the consumer and simply for the purpose of selling out their stock to make sales for their investors look much better. It’s entirely for their bottom line not to make the product or the service better, if anything they wilfully made their service worse.
I was working Nigh shift in Australia, when the lairs went live, I didn’t have an hour at work that I could spare. When I finished work at 8am they’d almost all sold out, if people didn’t or couldn’t wake up in the middle of the night, automatically missed out.
After the announcement I started seeing Secret Lair ads around saying "Counterspell FOMO", so they definitely knew what they were doing. Secret Lairs were what got me into Magic in the first place (I bought one before I ever even had a deck). I can't promise I'll never buy again but it has certainly soured my taste for them. They have to be REALLY good for me to even consider them at this point
When Secret Lair initially started, it had some promise. Solid reprints with great art and thematically made. If they continued doing this, Secret Lair could've been one of the coolest and good things in magic. Like professor said, it's mainly memes and crossovers now. Artist spotlights are cool but they usually don't have cards equal to the value of the product itself.
after everything this company does, I switched to creating my own proxies
For my friends and for the people with whom I play at the local club this is not a problem and I save a lot of money and nerves, and there is some creativity in this too
Proxies have been the answer for a very long time. You can even get near perfect replicas through "professional" proxy companies for essentially pennies if you still want something that looks and feels like a real card.
WotC hasn't deserved customer money in a long while.
@@ForeverLaxx I heard about such companies, but unfortunately where I live they don’t work
That’s why I learned how to make replicas using my inkjet printer and different types of paper
I print cards on transparent film, and then glue them onto thin holographic cardboard
They look like foil cards with a slight depth effect due to layers, it turns out very cute
Broke. Cheater.....
@@asapotter9243 yes, i am!
The infinite pre-order style printings made it feel like wizards was going above and beyond, providing a showcase for individual artists. You stumbled upon a secret lair and were rewarded for it! Look at some of these cards with custom artwork, and every so often its an entirely new card! Isnt that so cool, your friends will love these special versions you picked up.
Now it feels like I'm imprisoned in the secret lair. I'm stressed. Will I be able to afford this? Will I be fast enough? The warden is going to be here soon, and they don't like it when I'm too slow. I may have to ask the person next to me for some of their goods but they sell it to me for three times what its worth. It just doesn't feel fun anymore. This used to be a game about having fun.
Given that the entire Secret Lair system was inspired by limited edition sneaker drops for sneaker collectors, I am utterly unsurprised that the whole thing moved to increased artificial scarcity
There’s so many comments that say “I got mine just fine, you must have done something wrong”. That’s not the problem. That’s literally useless. The issue is that it sold out in an hour, not that everyone “can’t figure out how to order online” some people just need to be jerks no matter what
"The Scary Door"
I regret not buying the Monty Python lair when I had the chance. Was at work and thought It could wait another 30 minutes while I pit stuff away. By the time I get done, only Vol2 was left and when I get to check out, I'm sent back to the front page because "Whoopsie, we're all sold out!"
This was definitely a disaster for sure
I jumped int he queue within minutes of it going up and it was already gone by the time I got there. You wouldn't have gotten anything even if you hadn't waited. No regrets to be had! Hope this helps! lol
Sry bro i was at work catching 3 by 11 inch cores of concrete when i ordered mine. Got 2 sets.
" we should increase the prices on our next release since these sold out" 🥴
“These keep selling out, we don’t have to put good cards in them”
I was on vacation when these went on sale so I woke up at 2am. Had 200 dollars to spend on Monty python stashed away and you can imagine the disappointment when you get through the cue and realize that the company you want to give your money doesn't actually want it and you can't get cool collectibles without paying someone who got lucky and bought the max at market price
I was willing to pay wizards $80 to get these for my cube, but I'm not willing to pay $300 to a scalper. Thanks, wizards, for saving me from giving you money. I won't try to do that anymore.
But they got all of their money and now you have nothing. Did you even try to buy them?
@@awskater5899 They got a set amount of money, sure, but they missed out on a ton from people who couldn't buy. I wanted to buy them, but since I'm busy I signed up for notifications to let me know when they were going to release. I didn't get an email and only found out the sale was live an hour after it was already sold out. Also, I don't have "nothing". I just don't have the Monty Python secret lairs that I wanted. It's not like the money didn't get spent - it just didn't go to Wizards. And now I know not to even bother trying in the future so they won't be getting any future money from me either. I'll keep an eye on the secondary market for the Monty Python cards and will pick them up from third parties if they go down to a reasonable level.
@awskater5899 are you a WOTC investor or something? Why are you replying to so many people defending WOTC here? Noone likes you. Leave.
@@awskater5899 he has his money and dignity lmao
@@paulthetexan same. This was terrible.
I was going to buy the Monty Python secret Lair, I was actually incredibly excited for it and it would have been my first Secret Lair. I even signed up for the notification. Not only did I not get the email notification but I wasn’t even able to get in line cause it had already sold out. Now I have absolutely no interest in getting any secret lair until the change is made
You knew what time they were going on sale. The notification system is lagged because it will only send a message when the product is in stock. The system sends out thousands of emails and yours was delayed. If you really wanted the drop you'd have queued up at 12:00 when the drop occured. It was NOT hidden, there was a countdown on the fucking site. Good stuff.
@@awskater5899 Stop sucking wotc cock and realize that this was a greedy cash grab backed by a horrendous business model. Good stuff.
@@awskater5899 While that's true, and I keep telling people not to rely solely on the site, it's absolutely disgusting that they apparently are making the limited run drops smaller and smaller so they sell out faster. It's either that or they continue to let scalpers get much more than they should. I don't blame people for not liking the current system.
Yeah there was a countdown on the website for days prior with the release date out for over a week. Don't rely on an email when you can set an alarm notification on your phone calendar.
@awskater5899 What are you talking about? The first few days when they were announced, they didn't have 'a countdown' on the site, all they had was a little box to type in your email for a notification'.
Why would Wizards of the Coast sell you Secret Lairs for $35-$50, when they, their employees, and scalpers who give them kickbacks can sell you stuff for more, up to $250?
I'm with you, Prof. This was the first Secret Lair I wanted to buy. I got dozens of requests to sign up for immediate notification when the MP Secret Lair went live and got exactly zero emails on the day (I work during the time and can't sit on websites 24/7. Never again.
This intro is so good! Profs editors working overtime 😂
The limited print run only inflates the interest for the less desirable lairs, while missing out on profits for the more desired lairs.
Nope, got on saw Monty python sold out, closed tab. Would have bought all of them while I was there, but was so disappointed I just said fuck it.
Liking for the Twilight zone gag intro alone , that was great.
The form link no longer works. It just takes you to your own open support tickets with no option to give feedback about a secret lair you didn't purchase. Guess they got sick of people telling them what they didn't want to hear.
I couldn't find the link for the form in the description. Do you mind telling me at which line is it? Sorry :/
Yep, I got the same thing just now.
The way I went "WOOOOOAAAAHHHHH" to the RED Tolarian CC symbol agter the intro skit! I was like PROF HAS GONE TO THE DARK SIDE!!! WOTC BEAT DOWN THE WILL OF A GOOD MAN AND HE'S ON HIS VILLIAN ARC!!!!! xD
A few years ago i picked up a couple secret lairs and loved them. Still working on finishing those decks. Then a little while ago i saw the princess bride cards and the undead secret lair and wanted to pick them up for me and my wife. Paid and ordered them, waited months and they never arrived, watched the tracking like a hawk and it never moved for months. Just to suddenly be changed straight from “leaving the factory” to delivered. Nothing at the door, took months to get a refund and knew from that moment on i would never buy another secret lair.
in a way they found the most convoluted way to get rid of secret lair. barely anyone outside of scalpers will get this stuff, so the large majority of players will never actually see them.
The sad irony is that since scalpers are running their Buy Bots to snatch up 90+% of the product, WotC's coffers are getting filled the same amount as if legitimate players were buying it. To them, it doesn't matter who buys as long as the product sells. A scalper purchase looks identical on an earnings report submitted to investors. Nothing is going to change and they won't stop releasing 12 Secret Lairs every month.
Like value boosters...
Crazy how professor gets younger just for a bit in these videos sometimes
The funniest thing is that they probably didn't change the back end at all. It still takes forever for them to send these new ones out.
I got the Monty Python cards yesterday.
3:36 Reminds me of that one The Office episode where the employee Dwight buys all the princess unicorn dolls from the city’s stores and resells them at absurd prices.
Fucking PREACH Prof! This secret lair pissed me off so much. Monty Python was an important thing for my dad and I, so I was going to get the Monty Python lairs to have a reminder of him when I play magic (he died in 2022). The fact that I wasn't able to get this because scalpers used bots to grab up everything before anyone else could really pissed me off.
Wotc saw princess bride resale at 4x original sale price and said “Let’s split the package in half and charge twice as much as before.”
Like others have said in comments already, this was the first secret lair drop I have even considered since the switch to limited print runs. When I had two weeks to decide what I wanted, I also had two weeks to set aside money for them, so I always ended up buying the few I liked! Now, even if I kinda like one or two it's gone before I remember the sell date, and I can't even justify the price tag by waiting long enough to have money in the busget.
The Twilight Zone was such an amazing show ahead of its time.
Yep. When they made the change announcement, I was like: "Oh I guess I don't have to worry about SLs anymore." I haven't bought a single one under this new system. I haven't even looked at them.
Thank you for acknowledging our Maple bucks prof! The financial value is sadly even worse for us in Canada, as I am sure it is in other countries too.
I tried to buy the Monty Python one. It was sold out while I was entering payment details.
I'm done. Unsubbed from the secret lair notifications. No more money while they do limited quanities.
They *fixed* things with print to demand, and now they've intentionally un-fixed it.
No more.
I opened the new secret lair page and immediately stopped caring. The smell of greed is undeniable.
I just LOVE that secret lairs have turned into sneaker drops where you need to be one of the first 50 people to order or it sells out in 5 minutes. Love that. Definitely not sarcasm
The twilight zone Tower of Terror joke was on point for the elevator theme. 👍 well done!
One of the most important things to do is: Don't buy from scrapers. I was also not able to buy the Monty Python Secret Lairs because I had a very bad day and didn't have time to buy it when the sale started. But I would never pay more for the cards than what they were priced at on the official website!
I was shocked to learn how many of my friends didn't get the Python drop. I feel guilty for having purchased both of them and doubly so since i had the opportunity to add more into my cart. Had i known this ends in such a fiasco i would have definitely done so. This sucks and I know my mood would be ruined for a week had i also gone out of it empty handed, this is my favorite movie after all.
Why? You participated in the drop and bought the cards. Anyone that queued up at 12-12:30 got their cards. Most people either didn't invest the time to buy them, forgot or whatever. They failed, you succeeded? Why are you upset?
I was working at the time, and took a break to check as soon as I could (a couple hours after the start), so I was stunned it had sold out so fast. I really just was looking for a couple cards, since one of my first decks back in 94 revolved around Tim, and I was thrilled to have a chance to get a real Tim, until I wasn't. In 30 years of playing this might be the most disappointed I've been with the game (ok ok, who am I kidding, M30 was worse, but still)
@@awskater5899 I will say, there is a very weird pattern of what feels like... Corporate cheerleading in your comments here that I've seen around? "Oh yes, it's perfectly reasonable for Wizards to make people wait in line for an hour plus on a particular day just to have a chance of buying their product, anyone criticizing them for the policies that lead to this, or feeling bad about it is a fool!" or whatever.
You know that WotC doesn't value your loyalty, right? They don't notice or care about you trying to invalidate how others feel about what they've done? You're effectively just being rude to people online in service of nothing, and like... Why? If someone feels bad that their friends missed out on something, you know, their friends, people who they care about, had a bad experience, so they go "Awh, that sucks" who the hell are you to tell them that's illegitimate?
Is this the attitude you express towards your friends? They have a rough day, and you tell them to screw off, they should've gotten up earlier, tried harder, whatever? I can't imagine. Why would you tell other people they should feel that way about their friends? It just seems nonsensical to me.
@@awskater5899 Bootlicking nonsense
You could always allow proxies of these cards at your table.
What irks me even more than selling out instantly is the monty python cards clearly could’ve been a whole set but they were so greedy they split it in two and made the second one even smaller than usual. Disgusting. No one should buy these either from wizards or the secondary market. It’ll teach scalpers and wizards that we’re not their pay piggies. Proxy them. They’re essentially reskins anyways.
@@jcstaff1007 this is supposed to be when the reality sets in that you’re in the minority with the complaints and the Lairs resell just fine.
Like Secret Lair Sheldon was the only worthwhile Secret Lair that has come out. Keep up the great work Prof.
Even a print-to-demand Teferi's Protection from that drop has largely held value after a short dip from scalpers flooding the market with their copies, so WotC can't even hide behind a "Gosh, we'll tank the singles market for collectors and scalpers if we actually print enough!" 😂
Thank you for sticking up for us Prof.
I'm ULTRA new to MTG, and Monty Python's Secret Lair was my first ever MTG purchase. I didn't know anything about secret lair, or even that it was limited stock nor time based. Not sure how I managed to snag it but wow I didn't know the whole system around it was so bad!
When WotC said it "serves customers better" they mean their real customers, shareholders.
I was at my computer at 9am when the Secret Lair started. I had my items in the cart 3 minutes later, and I was still waiting in line for over an hour. Crazy! But I did manage to get what I wanted, thankfully. And no, I only bought 1 of each thing I wanted. No scalping here!
I don't blame scalpers I blame the trash company who allows it pretty much.
Same here, the timing of the drop was convinient for me so I just ordered my monty pythons, spent a minute or two in the store, then moved to the queue. The queue was like 50 mins, but i got mine. I didnt even realise people were fighting for these! I only ordered one of each MP tho so i dont feel bad, just lucky. How WOTC didnt expect this disaster, idk
Damn, the Professor’s tie rocks. Can I buy a Secret Lair where I just get that tie? A better value, I think.
You can but you needed to be in the queue a year ago and it sold out 5 minutes in.
I didn't really notice his tie until I read this. It is a nice tie and I would also like to know where he got it.
Wow, didn't realize they split the Monty Python Secret lair into two bundles. Even worse of a deal than I previously thought.
I wasn't even able to get past the enter screen. After I managed to get in and waited an hour, it decided to throw me back to the buggy enter screen, thus assuring I wouldn't be able to snag one. Worst experience ever.
I sometime wonder how many people who watch these know what Community is.
6 seasons and a movie!
You know I literally had the actor who played Garrett on an episode and had him say New Secret Lair alert, right? I love my life.
@@TolarianCommunityCollege god that rules.
@@mrmistmonster it did
@@TolarianCommunityCollege
And Spencer Crittenden, he's Alison Brie's brother on the show 😃
I got in queue in the first 60 seconds, waited over an hour only to get dropped, got back in line, waited another 45 minutes to find the only thing I wanted was sold out
WotC should give you like $15 per hour for waiting in a line, you shouldn't have to allow them to waste your time while you try to hand them some money.
I recently got back into magic, after a pause since 2019 and was familiar with the older secret lair ordering system.
I was very disappointed seeing the bundle sold out. Needless to say, I am not willing to engage with these business practices.
I would rather proxy the cards and, if possible support the artists in other ways.
Original Magic Art!
I feel like Secret Lairs and crossovers just happen way too often now, I understand why- they bring tons of money, but it still feels like it's pushing Magic away from the cool unique planes that it had before when we now have 2 fully crossover sets, being Assassin's Creed and Lord of the Rings
Thank you, Prof, for a measured response to a frustrating and disappointing situation.
Imagine a world where there was a service that you could pay money to and they would print cards for you.
Oh hey, proxies exist.
I mean… Nobody was buying these as an efficient way to get these cards. It was to have official cards with special art
So sure, I could print these… But I don’t own a printer, and honestly I wouldn’t even know how to go about printing a decent proxy that’s actually thick and card-like, rather than a scrap of paper. Overall, it seems rather inconvenient, and only accessible to those who are privileged enough to own a printer and other resources
Not to say that I never will proxy anything… Just that I had no immediate need for these cards in any of my decks, yet I was still hoping to buy a single Monty Python drop. (And if/when I do need these cards for actual gameplay, I could just get the normal versions via much simpler means 🤷)
Pro I am printing proxies of staples right now because I like AI and google cached art better. I always credit the artist, but Hasbro has pulled the rules off the table.
so ima destroy all lands 🤣
@@MuhahahahazOne easy way of proxying cards is to print it on a piece of paper and then put it above your bulk cards. Bookstores also usually have printers that you are allowed to use for a small fee so you can print them on mass.
Buy counterfeits way way cheaper and the quality is amazing can't even tell wen sleeved especially double sleeved
@Muhahahahaz you can get professional pronted grade foils for like 500 for 80 quid
As a Vermonter, I resent your insinuation that Canadians own more maple leaves than we do.
"You's uhhhh .....You's tryin to provoke me here budd err?" lol
Is this fucking bait??? cus im falling for it. Pretty sure our entire (second largest ever) country has more maple leaves than your tiny state
Every once and a while I'll think we give Americans too much shit, they can't be as bad as we all say, and then I'll scroll through the comments of a random TH-cam video and find someone from GODDAMN VERMONT trying to stake a claim on maple. Bite me, eh
That’s okay, I’ll just buy proxies, thanks
I'm with you, prof! This was the last straw, no more secret lairs for me. When there isn't even a full day of availability, good art or my favorite IPs aren't worth supporting this system
Please keep doing these reviews (especially if you discontinue purchasing the product)! Yes, all press is good press, but the negative sentiment you generate and how you inform players is invaluable prof
Waited for the second Miku lair drop, only to not be able to fill out shipping and billing info, then would reload the page and it would put me back in que. I did this over and over for 2 hours and then everything sold out. This time I got in after waiting 57 minutes and barely got my lairs ordered. This is absolutely ridiculous.