Feels a lot less like "I've got to get in earlier next time" and a lot more like "I got scammed out of my time and I'm just not going to try next time."
Fans said "these are too expensive, let's print custom ones." And wizards said "what if we printed you custom ones... But they're even more expensive!"
This is me, for sure. Seeing scalpers dominate this space has me boycotting secret lairs until the my do away with these fixed print releases. 🤷🏼♂️ $0.02
The overlap between TCGs and dogshit like Crypto and NFTs is honestly fascinating because it just lays bare the appeal for certain types of people: unregulated markets that can be artificially pumped and dumped.
Ha! They told me I can't have some weeb version of Storm! Well jokes on them, I instead paid an artist to draw one for me so I can get in a printer, and it costs far less!
True. Which is good for unsanctioned commander play, which I think is the target audience for this product. They're also trying to sanction commander play at stores, which drives things in another direction. WPN stores are forbidden from allowing proxies in sanctioned events. Fun fact- what we call proxies are referred to by wizards as Counterfeit Cards, they call Proxies something a judge assigns you when a card you get out of a pack in a draft is damaged or something.
Yep :)) I'm not saying this was the intent, but it really felt like a frog boiling situation. Like, okay, at first it's just a few cards, and they're making in-universe versions, that's fine I guess. Then it's a crossover set with D&D, and sure a lot of it comes from outside Magic canon but it looks close enough and there's huge overlap in players there so that's not so bad. Then there's a whole LotR set and... I mean, now it feels really weird, because iconic characters like Gandalf and Frodo are obviously not Magic. Most of the set still fits in though, and if you somehow didn't know who Gandalf was he could easily be a Magic character, so it's basically fine. Then the 40k commander decks, and... we're not getting in-universe versions of these, are we? It'd be too many cards. There's just all these dudes with guns in Magic now? Alright, I guess at least it isn't legal everywhere, I don't have to play with it if I don't want to. And now... I mean, there's really no saving grace.
@@cheesi I'm just waiting for the return to "you must contain at least 5 Universes Beyond product cards in your Standard deck for it to be legal" like they did with Homelands
@@ralphieboy97that wasn’t special for homelands, was it? Wasn’t having a minimum number of cards from each standard legal set a rule at standard’s inception?
@ it was for the first PT and it was because Homelands was so underwhelming and there were virtually no decks running cards from the set. So Wizard's made the rule that you had to include at least 5 cards from each standard legal set at the PT.
What's driving me insane is that Wizards was always literally printing money, essentially out of thin air, by selling pieces of f****ing cardboard for millions of dollars, but this somehow wasn't good enough for Hasbro, so they go like "let's alienate the players that actually play the game regularly to make a quick buck from lotr-and-what-not fans who probably will buy a couple of commander decks but they probably won't stick around afterwards" wtf?
It's the Pokemon model. Once you're a fan of the franchise, you're likely to stay a fan. Youll buy the new games no matter how bad they look, how many features they remove, etc. Youre a pokemon fan so youll buy the new game. So the marketing is all about on boarding new customers and making them fans too. We love magic, the game. The universe beyond sets are magic now. This is the game. But the player base keeps lying to themselves saying it will get better, UB will fail, why won't wotc love us the long time fans, etc. Go look at the pokemon base and see they say the same things every new generation. It's a game, if you aren't having fun go find a new game. But this is magic now. UB is magic, secret lairs are magic.
@@matd2892 They aren't stupid of course, there surely is an economics justification behind this behavior, just like you said. My bet is that they have to keep making more money than the previous quarter to keep the stock price up, and UB sells good (even if Assassin's Creed didn't) and it fulfills that purpose. It just sucks that, like you said, we have to find a new game now. :( Edit: We do love "the game" as in "the systems and the mechanics" but there is more to the game than this. I get that there are people that love mtg just for the "game" but there are people that are invested in the lore as well. This "let's get new players into the game by dilluting the lore with x-men and spongebob because this stuff is popular" feels like how I would imagine it would feel to put transformers monster bosses into the witcher games in order to attract tranformers fans to the witcher. Saying that "transformers is witcher now" after the fact doesn't change how asinine an idea it would be. There comes a certain point where fighting Mr. Crabs and Optimus Prime etc becomes so jarring that it robs you of the capacity to enjoy "the game" itself.
@@mojojojo2888 magic isn't going anywhere, why do you need to find a new game? The game is the same, the names on the cards will be references to other IPs but the game will play the same. Magic isn't dying. No need to panic.
@@mojojojo2888The economics are 'cash in now, screw the future of the game...' This is a corporation that had been bought out by a DEI conglomerate. They want to make money. They want to make the game worse. They want to shove in diversity. They hate you, thr White male playerbase.
The only format I still play is Pauper, and even that's on shaky ground. It's mostly free from these unreprintable non-magic IP cards, but even that's not going to last with these full sets. Once "Bring Me Pictures of Spider-Man" becomes a pauper staple, I'm out
@@nicolaim4275 let's do it. I'm totally down for that. I don't mind giving up stern scolding or bowmasters as a concession for not getting hit by captain america's shield
It must suck to be at WotC, comming up with new set pitches that will either get shot down by execs or angry fans, meanwhile the Pokemon TCG is printing new Charizards every year and people keep buying it.
The sad part about this debacle is that i've heard several friends outright give up on future secret lairs. A buddy of mine was extremely excited at the premise of the Final Fantasy secret lair and set, but after sitting in the line for 2 hours for this Marvel Mishap and getting nothing, he just gave up. He texted me and said he was done, he wasnt even going to try for his anticipated set later next year. The line skip loophole and the obvious short prints were the nail in the coffin for him, and I wouldnt be surprised if he stops buying MTG altogether. Sure, unfortunately I'm sure WotC sees "one player lost, X players gained" kind of deal from that, but holy shit, just like that, a player gone, all because they wanted artificial scarcity and to promise to shareholders that they'd sell out the set.
This is why the legal mandate of publicly traded companies of “make shareholders as much money as possible” is bullshit. It should be about the customers, about the people who buy and enjoy your product. I’m generally pro-capitalism but it’s not without its failings, and this is definitely one of them
Also, I hypothesize that those stakeholders are totally oblivious of the people options and they witness and know only the "it sold out" piece of information.
I've always said that when Magic players complain that Wizards is printing "too many products" or "they're burned out on Magic products" the signal to Hasbro is basically "we're making too many things that people want to buy", and by their estimation that doesn't sound like much of a problem at all. One of the largest expenses for any business is onboarding customers and customer acquisition. Hasbro/Wizards has a tried and true method of doing this, with an age old twist: Universes Beyond. Now they can onboard people using IPs they're familiar with, and collectors will gobble up all their inventory so the inventory doesn't depreciate. Now they're attracting new recurring revenue and also guaranteed to move their product. As long as interest in collecting is there they can survive slumps in player interest and acquisition.😊
The problem with onboarding customers with Universes Beyond, is that it's at the cost of the very thing they're supposed to be onboarding onto. Eventually, all they'll have is customers who stick around for one set, maybe two, before quickly losing interest in the game entirely; and after that happens, at some point they're going to run out of potential new customers.
@terthna7186 in that one or 2 sets they can make more, theoretically, than 30+ year magic fans ever spend with them. I haven't bought a booster product in 2 decades, someone giving Hasbro $200-$300 for Marvel cards then exiting is better for them by some metrics. Certainly better than people who complain and buy nothing. I'm not ideologically attached to that business strategy, I'm just passing off what is probably the calculus they've landed on
A big problem with treating any card game as an investment is that the trademark/copyright holder literally holds all the cards. If WotC decides to flood the market with reprints of everything tomorrow, they can. Or, as we saw with Commander recently, a rules change can undercut the value of a card even without reprints. Buying this stuff as an investment is putting all your eggs in their basket and hoping their interests align with yours, which is almost never the case.
Me sitting here as an economist: price is information and that information can be frequently distorted. Always nice to see topics I studied talked about even if not in the precise terms.
I think the right way to do this is base gameplay pieces have a standard art, then companies can release whatever foiled out limited run collectors edition. So tournament grinders and newer players can get the base pieces they need for a deck, and bling kings can spend $1700 trophy item
I take issue with the equivocation between "collecting" and "investing", the latter of which has completely subverted the meaning of the former. This conversation is always so frustrating because for christ sake we are talking about a literal cardboard playing game. Actually collecting because you're a little neurotic and like the game is cool, investing into the game because you see a 'fat check' in 5 years is seriously deranged. Big shock which group the mega Corp is willing to cater🤦♂️
That's how it used to be with "From the Vault" and it was a terrible system. LGS would buy them and mark them up considerably or just sit on them until the value went up.
@@Caliban_80 You're just replacing one scalper with another. You just think the former is better because they put up a folding card table for you to play on Friday nights, with the hopes that you spend money. One is not more noble than the other.
@mooninites755 the difference is that the LGS has to maintain reputation in the local community or risk losing player support. Online scalpers have no such risk
I am realising now that MtG is a collectable first and a card game second. But I have too much invested, the game itself, the testing, the endless new ideas is a big hook.
"When magic has a down turn" I kinda feel like unattainable mechanically unique cards could already be considered a down turn. Let alone any number of the frustration things WOTC has done in the past few years but at least there's proxies. Dont buy singles folks, buy a printer and make proxies if you want to play because that's the only way to do it unless you pay mark ups or get lucky.
the difference with the starter kit though, is that those should be getting reprinted to fill demand. it really doesn't matter who buys those as the more those cards get into the card economy, the more the prices of those cards will go down
The secondary market is an incredibly large entity to blame alongside Secret Lair itself. With the popularity of the game to new players with new IPs, Secret Lairs are becoming far more known and appealing to that secondary market (collectors, resellers, etc.) The day of the Marvel Secret Lairs selling out, there were already resellers on eBay selling them for 3-4x the price, something I've seen all the way back since since the Junji Ito SL. Some might question this, asking, "How can the secondary market sell them the same day they sell out?", brother, these sellers sell the promise that they got their order in so they will acknowledge a delay in the shipment/delivery date. I had to get one of the Hatsune Miku Secret Lairs off eBay for $90 when they sold for $30 on Secret Lair because they sold out while I was at work. The seller had 20 available... Secret Lair needs to limit 1 to 2 orders per person, per CARD. If a credit/debit card is used for checkout on a specific set, it shouldn't be able to buy more than a set amount.
Magics been printing limited and format ruining cards since the start. Mana crypt is a perfect example. This doesn't make it any better, I fucking hate magic in 2024. 🗿
Luckily I was able to order mine. I didn't get the Arcane Signet. I was in line within 10 seconds of it being up. They really needed to cancel orders of people who were in line early using exploits and print extra Arcane Signets for anyone who placed an order.
As somebody who is the magic player amongst a group of other Marvel nerds. The way that this secret layer was handled was a huge slap in the face to them, as they had no frame of reference for how this worked and now have the feel bads as they can't get cards that attracted them to Magic in the first place. Even just as a collector's item, not being able to get this thing you heard about because you weren't at a website fast enough is not a great look when you're trying to hit a new mass market.
Wizards should just set up secret lairs so they can also be pre-ordered at your LGS in addition to the limited window. LGS can take orders for a week/month/whatever before the window on the website. This would give them more accurate measure of demand, as well as support the stores that people play in. Collectors who don't play or frequent a store would still get it through the website.
As a life long magic fan .. I came to terms with the fact, magic is not for me anymore .. but I actualy don't mind while there was a lot of money to be made from the sweaty spikes at fnms all over america and europa .. there's a lot more cash to be made from casual commander players and the collectors ... Lord of the ring with it's 1/1 has broken sales records and most crossover secret lairs sell out .. good for them I don't think I can handle Spongebob
This makes me want to make a new tcg with booster packs, but then go and sell singles on the game’s official website for as little above cost as what would be reasonable to. Collecting for the sake of collecting is such a foreign idea to me that now I really want to make a game that discourages it as much as possible. The game should be the reason to buy in, because the game is fun and not because you think you can make money on it. Unfortunately this is an awful business model but damn if I don’t wanna try anyway
I mean, we'll see what happens. We all obviously know what would be good for the players and for the game. It's not up to us. It's up to Hasbro board meeting members. The whims of capital don't care about the consumer because they are too large to boycott.
I think a fusion of approaches is probably how you fix this. Keep it up for the same limited time, and keep the queue process (though fixing that wouldn't hurt). Then, have a print run for people who get there first. It gets sent quickly and received quickly. Then for everyone else, print to order and they can be received as quickly as possible afterwards. Maybe even make it cheaper for the people who wait or choose to wait and then scalpers will lose at least some strength in it, while not waiting months for every secret lair also
I started playing a couple months ago, built a whole wolverine commander deck when the card got announced, queued for 3 hours and actually got a copy. I think if I had to pay secondary market value for the cards, it might have killed my love for magic.
Regarding the Marvel secret layers(which is presently in the thumbnail), Disney it's owners publicly thanked the entities that operate some of the CCP's Uyghur Internment Camps at a time in which it was public knowledge that these camps had shoot on sight orders for escapees and were a part of The Uyghur Genocide. Wizards of the Coast and any company for that matter should not get involved with Disney in any way. Disney did this in the credits of their live action Mulan movie after filming near one of these camps.
I could get behind the idea of artificial scarcity and limited print runs to maintain the collectibility of the game, but history shows nothing is sacred to Hasbro. I remember paying an absorbinant amount of money for the From the Vault 20 because i really wanted that sick Jace, The Mind Sculptor, but my boy has been reprinted into the ground and is a $20 card now. I learned my lesson and will be purchasing none of these cards until they are reprinted several times, and they will if they are in demand enough. WOTC isnt going to leave that $ on the table forever
So, while I agree with just about everything in the video, the community and content creators have gotten something wrong with this whole thing. We keep calling it a disaster, but to WotC/Hasbro, this was a MASSIVE success. They're a company and they don't care what the community has to say so long as money keeps coming in. They know that magic players have goldfish memories. We've already been through this with Walking Dead/Street Fighter/ Stranger Things. We've been through this with the Cats and Dogs and Angels commander decks. My prediction: They don't reprint these, they move on. They have all the data they need to keep this going. So, lets say there were 100000 of each of the five face cards, next time they'll print 250000. Everyone will remember this most recent debacle and jump on the FOMO train. Next run is 500000. Once they don't sell out, they'll circle around to another 100000 print run. By then the Timmies will have forgotten about Storm and Wolverine, and the new Marvel Villain's secret lair will go off the same way and WotC/Hasbro will scoop in a fortune again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Nobody's quitting they game over this, they know that, so nothing will change.
This is like Nexus of Fate + Walking Dead SLD on steroid. All I can see here is MTG will be more and more like mobile, free to play game, but worst. First it's not free, and secondly, there's not much of the scalper. And Once Scalper know it Marvel SLD is not the new Power 9 or Cradle of expensive + People just use money on something else. They'll go down like the 3rd Miku drop. Good luck for Wotc for using these Greedy tactice, I hope it'll boost Hasbro stock from -15% to at least 0% (Spoiler it won't)
The 'collectability' isn't the biggest issue, it's tied with people realizing cards either 'Designed for Commander' or that are just GOOD in Commander will always fetch a high price. The true issue is the secondary market that push people to mass-purchase products only to then resell them at massively inflated price. I SHOULDN'T want to proxy my favorite card game, I should WANT to spend money on it, but ever since the JLo ban and all the loss in faith with Wizards why should I spend money when nothing is certain except for concerning steps forward?
I opened up the secret lair page like 4 or 5 hours after it went live and pretty much everything besides the huge bundles was still in stock, maybe I just had a different experience but it sounds like a lot of people complaining. We're crazy late to something they knew was going to sell incredibly well
One thing I'd really love to know even though we'll never get it is what kind of influence the other party is having on these decisions. I wouldn't be surprised if it's an escalation thing - marvel sees LotR got xyz concessions, and demands more for their cards. Then the next IP asks for more than that. I especially think this might be behind the announcement that UB was going into standard. I also wonder if it's behind the one ring not being banned - it's the most iconic part of LotR and they certainly don't want people unable to use it. Perhaps I'm just being paranoid, but it definitely feels like wizards is trying to push each installation a little further than the last to attract more and more IPs.
Yes, it sucks when the collectible market takes over the demand for your favorite hobby. I'm old enough to remember seeing Marvel comics do this in the 1990s, well the whole comic book industry, but marvel ended up going bankrupt and now Disney owns them. Wizards of the coast might not suffer the same fate because wizards has a much smaller pond to be a big fish in. But Hasbro should really just be satisfied that they're making steady money instead of freaking out that they're not making more and more and more and more money.
You know, maybe Magic actually has enough new players. Maybe we should put what'd attract new players aside for a while, and focus on catering to the existing millions-strong playerbase.
Most people sad at not getting this SL dont realise they are the problem, if only they honestly tracked how much Wotc slop they purchased over the last few years
then why did they allow for 1 person to buy 5x of each lair. selling the whole thing out to the few.. instead of limiting it to 1x unique lair pr customer. giving everyone a chance to get it. people on secondary market selling up to 19 arcane signets.. while thousand sit in que getting nothing.
I don't think that universes beyond is really the issue I think the way they are restricting the print n release is the issue if they had done a lord of the rings style release for marvel it would've been fine
Your apple+banana system of ordering is exactly the way thr allocated alcohol ends up being sold. The business model is somewhat similar too, in that most alcohol is sold via a third party because of how post prohibition laws limited the alcohol maker from distributing the alcohol themselves. What's occurred in modern times with the boom of bourbon and now tequila and rum, stores that sell high volumes of a distributors bottom shelf or highlighted product receive more allocated (Pappy Van Winkle, etc) bottles. even though a small store could put in an order for one of those allocated bottles (apples) what shows up is a bottom shelf bottle of something (bananas). So this method is actually something you see in other industries, it's just an anomaly driven by FOMO, artificial scarcity, and collecting mindset.
That is interesting! Though, I think actual scarcity plays a role in the alcohol example. I suppose they could have distilled more however many years ago, but there is only a certain amount that has been made and it takes a very long time.
@@distractionmakers Although through the magic of chemistry, if they really wanted to produce more now, they could. It wouldn't have the prestige or mystique of the limited run version, but it could be molecularly identical, so the desirable aspect is still an artificial scarcity, in the same way that serialised magic cards are artificial.
scalping is bad. But WOTC strengthening its collector base is good if they want to stay competitive in this TCG market. As a public company, they need to prioritize profit, and naturally their target audience has expanded beyond just players. There will always be players, but the type of players they attract is evolving. folks need to understand this shift and not react with frustration all the time. Hopefully, WOTC can strike a balance between catering to collectors and maintaining a satisfying experience for players...all while lowering entry/complexity to welcome new players.
Been debating of quitting magic cause of it after playing for 2 years. I was one of the suckers who waited in line for 3 hours to get rejected.If not, I am definitely only buying singles and proxies. But the danger with that is ai art.
This is what happens when a toy company buys a game company specifically for game X and doesn't care about game Y... until years later they discovered game Y is the real money maker and decides to monetize and squeeze dry a game they never cared about. Hasbro only bought wizards of the Coast because they wanted D&D. They didn't give a flying fuck about Magic the Gathering at the time literally thought they were taking a hit for the sake of getting at D&D. Hasbro's never cared about magic gathering as a game. They only care now because they realize how well they can monetize it as a collectible. They have no skin in the game or concern for the longevity of the game of magic. They're going to do what EA has been doing in the game industry for years now and they're going to squeeze every drop of blood from the stone that is Magic the Gathering before they throw away the husk that's left over when they're done. I think anyone who is making an argument that wizards /hasbro didn't know that this was their endgame years ago when they debuted The walking Dead secret lair is conveniently forgetting how many years in advance wishes of the Coast plans out their products. Products have gone through and finished R&D testing and play testing 12 to 18 months before they print. Less developed sets can be as far as 2 to 3 years out. We are not even 12 months past the horizon of wizards of the coasts product planning at the time of the walking Dead secret layer release. They knew almost everything that they have done since then was coming when they told us not to worry and told us that people were being alarmist and that it wasn't to slippery slope. They lied to us many times since then and people need to stop extending any amount of good faith or giving them any trust. At this point. They have shown that they're willing to lie and abuse our trust as consumers.
Its all downhill from here. Instead of Magic being Magic its new fanbase after new fanbase of non-magic IP's coming in. Then those fanbases will leave once their favorite UB set is rotated out.
been playing magic for about 15 years, i will never buy another card again. I will be creating my own content and proxying any mtg card that im interested in. This isnt because of whatever they did with the secret lair, but now less people are gonna judge me for not supporting wizards lmao
I still don't understand why the Arcane signet topic is still seen as a disaster. It was clear it was a limited run and a collectible and desirable item. Don't know why people get pissed off when not being able to get one. That being said, that art sucked and i like the gauntlet version MUCH better.
Even the beloved Flesh and Blood game creates value through artificial scarcity of chase cards. Literally any of them could choose to not reprint any card in the card pool at any point to drive up prices.
wizard is actually killing the secondary market with reprints and such. I think they have this two pronged approach at creating these limited products for hype and destroying the secondary market so that cards become available again. I, for one, am happy that what would make a card valuable and rare would be its art and not its playability. Wotc does a lot wrong, but the magic community is a fucking pitt of snakes too. All i want is for kids to be able to play with dual lands one day.
Cry me a river. Most of us can't even afford the regular Magic products, let alone extra secret special ones. What I see is a bunch of spoiled folks who are shocked that, even when they want something and can afford it, they still aren't guaranteed to get it. Let them eat cake.
My solution has always been that secret lairs should have a different card back. I think this solves all the consumer psychology issues, even with the current sales model, and probably doesn't dent the sales too much given that SLs are still selling out even with terrible reprint value.
I am a long-time Magic player ('94-present) and collectability was very important to me. I liked having a foil game piece that was worth $70 at the time, but maybe went to $20 as the card didn't see any more play. While I can hear the upset masses, Wizards has shown they will just reprint at a moment's notice, to collector detriment. Example: I got 4 of the Secret Lair with Concordoant Crossroads foil from an overseas artist, and then they reprinted Concordant Crossroads in a masters set months later. That really eroded my confidence, so I moved to Pauper. My UW Familiars/Blink deck is entirely foil and cost me an arm and a leg, but I know the cards will keep value (4 Planeshift foil Sunscape Familiar, 4 Torment Foil Deep Analysis, 4 Urza's foil Snap, etc. etc.) so when I sit down for a match, I can at last realize my dream of being Mr. Monopoly and scoffing at people without blinged out decks. (I'm only half-kidding.) In closing, my wish is for Wizards to reduce foil variants, reduce print/art variants so that people need to jostle for the ones they want. The dream is there being only one foil Gigantosaurus per 100,000 people so when you open it you're like a local hero, carried around on a ticker tape parade. 7th Edition foil basically. And print unique Magic stuff like Vanguard cards....or Planechase, that you don't need but are cool! P.S. Forrest i caught the X-Men joke and you are a gifted speaker and comedy is in your future. P.P.S. I love you guys and ThatMillGuy name-dropped you on one of his episodes.
Why do you guys never introduce yourselves at the beginning of videos? I mostly listen to these in the background and never connected you guys to the existing art work you have out there.
Feels a lot less like "I've got to get in earlier next time" and a lot more like "I got scammed out of my time and I'm just not going to try next time."
Fr, and you can buy a decent printer for the price of one of 2 of them and then you've got unlimited cards forever
Fans said "these are too expensive, let's print custom ones."
And wizards said "what if we printed you custom ones... But they're even more expensive!"
If only, if only. it seems we don't learn as a collective though
This is me, for sure. Seeing scalpers dominate this space has me boycotting secret lairs until the my do away with these fixed print releases. 🤷🏼♂️ $0.02
💯
The overlap between TCGs and dogshit like Crypto and NFTs is honestly fascinating because it just lays bare the appeal for certain types of people: unregulated markets that can be artificially pumped and dumped.
It's a corporate wet dream. They have all of the power to decide what the value of the item is worth and can crash that value any time they want.
Which is why it's baffling to me that some of the exact same people who call NFTs evil or whatever are also bragging about their $10k coommander decks
I got my X-Men collectible cards just fine... from my HP printer.
My man. Proxies for the win.
Ha! They told me I can't have some weeb version of Storm! Well jokes on them, I instead paid an artist to draw one for me so I can get in a printer, and it costs far less!
It is always justified to proxy things that you aren't even expected to be allowed access to.
True. Which is good for unsanctioned commander play, which I think is the target audience for this product. They're also trying to sanction commander play at stores, which drives things in another direction. WPN stores are forbidden from allowing proxies in sanctioned events. Fun fact- what we call proxies are referred to by wizards as Counterfeit Cards, they call Proxies something a judge assigns you when a card you get out of a pack in a draft is damaged or something.
I think u meant to type “it is always justified to proxy things.”
You're technically wrong about what WotC considers a Counterfeit, in that you have to be trying to pass it off as the real deal to qualify.
"Piracy is a failure of service"
@@Kryptnyt they aren't *trying* to make LGS play sanctioned, it already is. Since 2014.
I think the worst part is no more guarantee of Universes Within versions
I never signed up for Weiß Schwarz
Yep :)) I'm not saying this was the intent, but it really felt like a frog boiling situation. Like, okay, at first it's just a few cards, and they're making in-universe versions, that's fine I guess. Then it's a crossover set with D&D, and sure a lot of it comes from outside Magic canon but it looks close enough and there's huge overlap in players there so that's not so bad. Then there's a whole LotR set and... I mean, now it feels really weird, because iconic characters like Gandalf and Frodo are obviously not Magic. Most of the set still fits in though, and if you somehow didn't know who Gandalf was he could easily be a Magic character, so it's basically fine. Then the 40k commander decks, and... we're not getting in-universe versions of these, are we? It'd be too many cards. There's just all these dudes with guns in Magic now? Alright, I guess at least it isn't legal everywhere, I don't have to play with it if I don't want to. And now... I mean, there's really no saving grace.
@@cheesi I'm just waiting for the return to "you must contain at least 5 Universes Beyond product cards in your Standard deck for it to be legal" like they did with Homelands
@@ralphieboy97that wasn’t special for homelands, was it? Wasn’t having a minimum number of cards from each standard legal set a rule at standard’s inception?
@ it was for the first PT and it was because Homelands was so underwhelming and there were virtually no decks running cards from the set. So Wizard's made the rule that you had to include at least 5 cards from each standard legal set at the PT.
Yeah this is the thing that broke me. I'm on the proxy train now
What's driving me insane is that Wizards was always literally printing money, essentially out of thin air, by selling pieces of f****ing cardboard for millions of dollars, but this somehow wasn't good enough for Hasbro, so they go like "let's alienate the players that actually play the game regularly to make a quick buck from lotr-and-what-not fans who probably will buy a couple of commander decks but they probably won't stick around afterwards" wtf?
It's the Pokemon model. Once you're a fan of the franchise, you're likely to stay a fan. Youll buy the new games no matter how bad they look, how many features they remove, etc. Youre a pokemon fan so youll buy the new game. So the marketing is all about on boarding new customers and making them fans too.
We love magic, the game. The universe beyond sets are magic now. This is the game. But the player base keeps lying to themselves saying it will get better, UB will fail, why won't wotc love us the long time fans, etc. Go look at the pokemon base and see they say the same things every new generation.
It's a game, if you aren't having fun go find a new game. But this is magic now. UB is magic, secret lairs are magic.
@@matd2892 They aren't stupid of course, there surely is an economics justification behind this behavior, just like you said. My bet is that they have to keep making more money than the previous quarter to keep the stock price up, and UB sells good (even if Assassin's Creed didn't) and it fulfills that purpose. It just sucks that, like you said, we have to find a new game now. :(
Edit: We do love "the game" as in "the systems and the mechanics" but there is more to the game than this. I get that there are people that love mtg just for the "game" but there are people that are invested in the lore as well. This "let's get new players into the game by dilluting the lore with x-men and spongebob because this stuff is popular" feels like how I would imagine it would feel to put transformers monster bosses into the witcher games in order to attract tranformers fans to the witcher. Saying that "transformers is witcher now" after the fact doesn't change how asinine an idea it would be. There comes a certain point where fighting Mr. Crabs and Optimus Prime etc becomes so jarring that it robs you of the capacity to enjoy "the game" itself.
@@mojojojo2888 magic isn't going anywhere, why do you need to find a new game? The game is the same, the names on the cards will be references to other IPs but the game will play the same. Magic isn't dying. No need to panic.
@@mojojojo2888The economics are 'cash in now, screw the future of the game...'
This is a corporation that had been bought out by a DEI conglomerate.
They want to make money.
They want to make the game worse.
They want to shove in diversity.
They hate you, thr White male playerbase.
The only format I still play is Pauper, and even that's on shaky ground. It's mostly free from these unreprintable non-magic IP cards, but even that's not going to last with these full sets. Once "Bring Me Pictures of Spider-Man" becomes a pauper staple, I'm out
There should be a beyondless format where only original IP sets are allowed.
@@nicolaim4275agreed
@@nicolaim4275first time I have heard it called beyondless. Beyondless Pauper is going to be my new format. Lorine Reveals be damned.
@@nicolaim4275 let's do it. I'm totally down for that. I don't mind giving up stern scolding or bowmasters as a concession for not getting hit by captain america's shield
At this point, I'm just going to build some kind of pauper cube. I'm like a bottom feeder, playing at the bottom of an ocean of overpriced cards.
Proxy your cards homie. People who won't play with you because of proxies arent worth playing with anyway
Pauper cube sounds amazing!
It must suck to be at WotC, comming up with new set pitches that will either get shot down by execs or angry fans, meanwhile the Pokemon TCG is printing new Charizards every year and people keep buying it.
If the "Pokemon people" don't enrage and try to oppose, then ...
The sad part about this debacle is that i've heard several friends outright give up on future secret lairs. A buddy of mine was extremely excited at the premise of the Final Fantasy secret lair and set, but after sitting in the line for 2 hours for this Marvel Mishap and getting nothing, he just gave up. He texted me and said he was done, he wasnt even going to try for his anticipated set later next year. The line skip loophole and the obvious short prints were the nail in the coffin for him, and I wouldnt be surprised if he stops buying MTG altogether. Sure, unfortunately I'm sure WotC sees "one player lost, X players gained" kind of deal from that, but holy shit, just like that, a player gone, all because they wanted artificial scarcity and to promise to shareholders that they'd sell out the set.
This is why the legal mandate of publicly traded companies of “make shareholders as much money as possible” is bullshit. It should be about the customers, about the people who buy and enjoy your product. I’m generally pro-capitalism but it’s not without its failings, and this is definitely one of them
Yeah it's super fucked
Also, I hypothesize that those stakeholders are totally oblivious of the people options and they witness and know only the "it sold out" piece of information.
I've always said that when Magic players complain that Wizards is printing "too many products" or "they're burned out on Magic products" the signal to Hasbro is basically "we're making too many things that people want to buy", and by their estimation that doesn't sound like much of a problem at all.
One of the largest expenses for any business is onboarding customers and customer acquisition. Hasbro/Wizards has a tried and true method of doing this, with an age old twist: Universes Beyond. Now they can onboard people using IPs they're familiar with, and collectors will gobble up all their inventory so the inventory doesn't depreciate. Now they're attracting new recurring revenue and also guaranteed to move their product. As long as interest in collecting is there they can survive slumps in player interest and acquisition.😊
The problem with onboarding customers with Universes Beyond, is that it's at the cost of the very thing they're supposed to be onboarding onto. Eventually, all they'll have is customers who stick around for one set, maybe two, before quickly losing interest in the game entirely; and after that happens, at some point they're going to run out of potential new customers.
@terthna7186 in that one or 2 sets they can make more, theoretically, than 30+ year magic fans ever spend with them. I haven't bought a booster product in 2 decades, someone giving Hasbro $200-$300 for Marvel cards then exiting is better for them by some metrics. Certainly better than people who complain and buy nothing.
I'm not ideologically attached to that business strategy, I'm just passing off what is probably the calculus they've landed on
Magic is now funko pops with rules text. Play flesh and blood!
A big problem with treating any card game as an investment is that the trademark/copyright holder literally holds all the cards. If WotC decides to flood the market with reprints of everything tomorrow, they can. Or, as we saw with Commander recently, a rules change can undercut the value of a card even without reprints. Buying this stuff as an investment is putting all your eggs in their basket and hoping their interests align with yours, which is almost never the case.
Me sitting here as an economist: price is information and that information can be frequently distorted. Always nice to see topics I studied talked about even if not in the precise terms.
I think the right way to do this is base gameplay pieces have a standard art, then companies can release whatever foiled out limited run collectors edition. So tournament grinders and newer players can get the base pieces they need for a deck, and bling kings can spend $1700 trophy item
I'm with you, but sadly this would not induce the current (or higher) level of FOMO that Hasbro and whoever are craving
I take issue with the equivocation between "collecting" and "investing", the latter of which has completely subverted the meaning of the former. This conversation is always so frustrating because for christ sake we are talking about a literal cardboard playing game. Actually collecting because you're a little neurotic and like the game is cool, investing into the game because you see a 'fat check' in 5 years is seriously deranged. Big shock which group the mega Corp is willing to cater🤦♂️
Secret Lair should have always been LGS exclusive.
Yes!
That's how it used to be with "From the Vault" and it was a terrible system. LGS would buy them and mark them up considerably or just sit on them until the value went up.
@@mooninites755 I’d rather pay the LGS a mark up than scalperbot0097
@@Caliban_80 You're just replacing one scalper with another. You just think the former is better because they put up a folding card table for you to play on Friday nights, with the hopes that you spend money. One is not more noble than the other.
@mooninites755 the difference is that the LGS has to maintain reputation in the local community or risk losing player support. Online scalpers have no such risk
I am realising now that MtG is a collectable first and a card game second. But I have too much invested, the game itself, the testing, the endless new ideas is a big hook.
"When magic has a down turn"
I kinda feel like unattainable mechanically unique cards could already be considered a down turn. Let alone any number of the frustration things WOTC has done in the past few years but at least there's proxies.
Dont buy singles folks, buy a printer and make proxies if you want to play because that's the only way to do it unless you pay mark ups or get lucky.
the difference with the starter kit though, is that those should be getting reprinted to fill demand. it really doesn't matter who buys those as the more those cards get into the card economy, the more the prices of those cards will go down
The secondary market is an incredibly large entity to blame alongside Secret Lair itself. With the popularity of the game to new players with new IPs, Secret Lairs are becoming far more known and appealing to that secondary market (collectors, resellers, etc.) The day of the Marvel Secret Lairs selling out, there were already resellers on eBay selling them for 3-4x the price, something I've seen all the way back since since the Junji Ito SL. Some might question this, asking, "How can the secondary market sell them the same day they sell out?", brother, these sellers sell the promise that they got their order in so they will acknowledge a delay in the shipment/delivery date. I had to get one of the Hatsune Miku Secret Lairs off eBay for $90 when they sold for $30 on Secret Lair because they sold out while I was at work. The seller had 20 available...
Secret Lair needs to limit 1 to 2 orders per person, per CARD. If a credit/debit card is used for checkout on a specific set, it shouldn't be able to buy more than a set amount.
Magics been printing limited and format ruining cards since the start. Mana crypt is a perfect example. This doesn't make it any better, I fucking hate magic in 2024. 🗿
0:48 never change please.
Yeah that line is particularly clever "culture-wise"
I loved it!
The reserve list is a pretty explicit acknowledgment of the secondary market. Do you think it’d be better for the gameplay to remove it?
I don't know how they can legally both state to not acknowledging the Secondary Market and keep the Reserved List.
It seems a contradiction
Why do we keep giving this company money?
I don’t. I use proxies.
We need to say speculator instead of investor
Luckily I was able to order mine. I didn't get the Arcane Signet. I was in line within 10 seconds of it being up. They really needed to cancel orders of people who were in line early using exploits and print extra Arcane Signets for anyone who placed an order.
Yikes. That sucks.
I'm in the same boat and fully agree those that circumvented the rules need to be punished
@@justincoleman9776 Also, the rules should be different. Then this can't be an issue in the first place.
I got altered to play altered, the story of Metazoo though reflects the market nonsense
True
As somebody who is the magic player amongst a group of other Marvel nerds. The way that this secret layer was handled was a huge slap in the face to them, as they had no frame of reference for how this worked and now have the feel bads as they can't get cards that attracted them to Magic in the first place. Even just as a collector's item, not being able to get this thing you heard about because you weren't at a website fast enough is not a great look when you're trying to hit a new mass market.
I’m not going to dignify that X men joke at the beginning with a laugh, but my body said otherwise
Wizards should just set up secret lairs so they can also be pre-ordered at your LGS in addition to the limited window. LGS can take orders for a week/month/whatever before the window on the website. This would give them more accurate measure of demand, as well as support the stores that people play in. Collectors who don't play or frequent a store would still get it through the website.
As a life long magic fan .. I came to terms with the fact, magic is not for me anymore .. but I actualy don't mind while there was a lot of money to be made from the sweaty spikes at fnms all over america and europa .. there's a lot more cash to be made from casual commander players and the collectors ... Lord of the ring with it's 1/1 has broken sales records and most crossover secret lairs sell out .. good for them I don't think I can handle Spongebob
Even after getting my order in, they shipped me the wrong cards. Quality on this whole thing was crazy. I won't be doing it again.
This makes me want to make a new tcg with booster packs, but then go and sell singles on the game’s official website for as little above cost as what would be reasonable to. Collecting for the sake of collecting is such a foreign idea to me that now I really want to make a game that discourages it as much as possible. The game should be the reason to buy in, because the game is fun and not because you think you can make money on it. Unfortunately this is an awful business model but damn if I don’t wanna try anyway
I mean, we'll see what happens. We all obviously know what would be good for the players and for the game. It's not up to us. It's up to Hasbro board meeting members. The whims of capital don't care about the consumer because they are too large to boycott.
magic gave away cards with the early books, i think. thats how we got arena and mana vault.
I think a fusion of approaches is probably how you fix this. Keep it up for the same limited time, and keep the queue process (though fixing that wouldn't hurt). Then, have a print run for people who get there first. It gets sent quickly and received quickly. Then for everyone else, print to order and they can be received as quickly as possible afterwards. Maybe even make it cheaper for the people who wait or choose to wait and then scalpers will lose at least some strength in it, while not waiting months for every secret lair also
I started playing a couple months ago, built a whole wolverine commander deck when the card got announced, queued for 3 hours and actually got a copy. I think if I had to pay secondary market value for the cards, it might have killed my love for magic.
Regarding the Marvel secret layers(which is presently in the thumbnail), Disney it's owners publicly thanked the entities that operate some of the CCP's Uyghur Internment Camps at a time in which it was public knowledge that these camps had shoot on sight orders for escapees and were a part of The Uyghur Genocide. Wizards of the Coast and any company for that matter should not get involved with Disney in any way.
Disney did this in the credits of their live action Mulan movie after filming near one of these camps.
I could get behind the idea of artificial scarcity and limited print runs to maintain the collectibility of the game, but history shows nothing is sacred to Hasbro. I remember paying an absorbinant amount of money for the From the Vault 20 because i really wanted that sick Jace, The Mind Sculptor, but my boy has been reprinted into the ground and is a $20 card now. I learned my lesson and will be purchasing none of these cards until they are reprinted several times, and they will if they are in demand enough. WOTC isnt going to leave that $ on the table forever
So, while I agree with just about everything in the video, the community and content creators have gotten something wrong with this whole thing. We keep calling it a disaster, but to WotC/Hasbro, this was a MASSIVE success. They're a company and they don't care what the community has to say so long as money keeps coming in. They know that magic players have goldfish memories. We've already been through this with Walking Dead/Street Fighter/ Stranger Things. We've been through this with the Cats and Dogs and Angels commander decks.
My prediction: They don't reprint these, they move on. They have all the data they need to keep this going. So, lets say there were 100000 of each of the five face cards, next time they'll print 250000. Everyone will remember this most recent debacle and jump on the FOMO train. Next run is 500000. Once they don't sell out, they'll circle around to another 100000 print run. By then the Timmies will have forgotten about Storm and Wolverine, and the new Marvel Villain's secret lair will go off the same way and WotC/Hasbro will scoop in a fortune again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Nobody's quitting they game over this, they know that, so nothing will change.
It's a frustrating experience from start to finish, whether you get the thing you wanted to buy or not. Nobody is happy.
This is like Nexus of Fate + Walking Dead SLD on steroid.
All I can see here is MTG will be more and more like mobile, free to play game, but worst. First it's not free, and secondly, there's not much of the scalper.
And Once Scalper know it Marvel SLD is not the new Power 9 or Cradle of expensive + People just use money on something else. They'll go down like the 3rd Miku drop.
Good luck for Wotc for using these Greedy tactice, I hope it'll boost Hasbro stock from -15% to at least 0% (Spoiler it won't)
The 'collectability' isn't the biggest issue, it's tied with people realizing cards either 'Designed for Commander' or that are just GOOD in Commander will always fetch a high price. The true issue is the secondary market that push people to mass-purchase products only to then resell them at massively inflated price.
I SHOULDN'T want to proxy my favorite card game, I should WANT to spend money on it, but ever since the JLo ban and all the loss in faith with Wizards why should I spend money when nothing is certain except for concerning steps forward?
I ended up quitting. The game just isn't fun anymore
I opened up the secret lair page like 4 or 5 hours after it went live and pretty much everything besides the huge bundles was still in stock, maybe I just had a different experience but it sounds like a lot of people complaining. We're crazy late to something they knew was going to sell incredibly well
One thing I'd really love to know even though we'll never get it is what kind of influence the other party is having on these decisions.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's an escalation thing - marvel sees LotR got xyz concessions, and demands more for their cards. Then the next IP asks for more than that.
I especially think this might be behind the announcement that UB was going into standard. I also wonder if it's behind the one ring not being banned - it's the most iconic part of LotR and they certainly don't want people unable to use it.
Perhaps I'm just being paranoid, but it definitely feels like wizards is trying to push each installation a little further than the last to attract more and more IPs.
Richard Garfield chose to sell the company and with that leave the faith to the markets by enriching himself
Thank you for saying that this had nothing to do with distribution and fulfillment, and was all about the money.
I'm sure someone has mentioned the Arena card from the book, right? Even Wizards did it!
Game pieces should be available for those who want to play the game. Fancy versions should be for collectors. This way of Secret Lair is just toxic
Yes, it sucks when the collectible market takes over the demand for your favorite hobby. I'm old enough to remember seeing Marvel comics do this in the 1990s, well the whole comic book industry, but marvel ended up going bankrupt and now Disney owns them. Wizards of the coast might not suffer the same fate because wizards has a much smaller pond to be a big fish in. But Hasbro should really just be satisfied that they're making steady money instead of freaking out that they're not making more and more and more and more money.
Investors in the Wall Street Gambling Market won't let them make steady profit. Number must go up or disaster.
You know, maybe Magic actually has enough new players. Maybe we should put what'd attract new players aside for a while, and focus on catering to the existing millions-strong playerbase.
ALTERED!!!
Most people sad at not getting this SL dont realise they are the problem, if only they honestly tracked how much Wotc slop they purchased over the last few years
then why did they allow for 1 person to buy 5x of each lair. selling the whole thing out to the few.. instead of limiting it to 1x unique lair pr customer. giving everyone a chance to get it. people on secondary market selling up to 19 arcane signets.. while thousand sit in que getting nothing.
I have never been able to get a Secret Lair. Whenever I go to buy it they are sold out.
I don't think that universes beyond is really the issue I think the way they are restricting the print n release is the issue if they had done a lord of the rings style release for marvel it would've been fine
Your apple+banana system of ordering is exactly the way thr allocated alcohol ends up being sold. The business model is somewhat similar too, in that most alcohol is sold via a third party because of how post prohibition laws limited the alcohol maker from distributing the alcohol themselves.
What's occurred in modern times with the boom of bourbon and now tequila and rum, stores that sell high volumes of a distributors bottom shelf or highlighted product receive more allocated (Pappy Van Winkle, etc) bottles. even though a small store could put in an order for one of those allocated bottles (apples) what shows up is a bottom shelf bottle of something (bananas). So this method is actually something you see in other industries, it's just an anomaly driven by FOMO, artificial scarcity, and collecting mindset.
That is interesting! Though, I think actual scarcity plays a role in the alcohol example. I suppose they could have distilled more however many years ago, but there is only a certain amount that has been made and it takes a very long time.
@@distractionmakers Although through the magic of chemistry, if they really wanted to produce more now, they could. It wouldn't have the prestige or mystique of the limited run version, but it could be molecularly identical, so the desirable aspect is still an artificial scarcity, in the same way that serialised magic cards are artificial.
scalping is bad. But WOTC strengthening its collector base is good if they want to stay competitive in this TCG market. As a public company, they need to prioritize profit, and naturally their target audience has expanded beyond just players. There will always be players, but the type of players they attract is evolving. folks need to understand this shift and not react with frustration all the time. Hopefully, WOTC can strike a balance between catering to collectors and maintaining a satisfying experience for players...all while lowering entry/complexity to welcome new players.
Print to demand (and restoring printing languages canceled including Portuguese) makes so much more sense.
Play Pauper and Jank, ignore collectables
Been debating of quitting magic cause of it after playing for 2 years. I was one of the suckers who waited in line for 3 hours to get rejected.If not, I am definitely only buying singles and proxies. But the danger with that is ai art.
This is what happens when a toy company buys a game company specifically for game X and doesn't care about game Y... until years later they discovered game Y is the real money maker and decides to monetize and squeeze dry a game they never cared about.
Hasbro only bought wizards of the Coast because they wanted D&D. They didn't give a flying fuck about Magic the Gathering at the time literally thought they were taking a hit for the sake of getting at D&D. Hasbro's never cared about magic gathering as a game. They only care now because they realize how well they can monetize it as a collectible. They have no skin in the game or concern for the longevity of the game of magic. They're going to do what EA has been doing in the game industry for years now and they're going to squeeze every drop of blood from the stone that is Magic the Gathering before they throw away the husk that's left over when they're done.
I think anyone who is making an argument that wizards /hasbro didn't know that this was their endgame years ago when they debuted The walking Dead secret lair is conveniently forgetting how many years in advance wishes of the Coast plans out their products. Products have gone through and finished R&D testing and play testing 12 to 18 months before they print. Less developed sets can be as far as 2 to 3 years out. We are not even 12 months past the horizon of wizards of the coasts product planning at the time of the walking Dead secret layer release. They knew almost everything that they have done since then was coming when they told us not to worry and told us that people were being alarmist and that it wasn't to slippery slope.
They lied to us many times since then and people need to stop extending any amount of good faith or giving them any trust. At this point. They have shown that they're willing to lie and abuse our trust as consumers.
Its all downhill from here. Instead of Magic being Magic its new fanbase after new fanbase of non-magic IP's coming in. Then those fanbases will leave once their favorite UB set is rotated out.
been playing magic for about 15 years, i will never buy another card again. I will be creating my own content and proxying any mtg card that im interested in. This isnt because of whatever they did with the secret lair, but now less people are gonna judge me for not supporting wizards lmao
Are you guys the RLM of the TCG space
Can you get your own Rich Evans
MtG did the unique cards as box toppers until Nexus of Fate broke standard. Nexus is even too good for my tarkir cube
I’d love to hear your theories on how crypto/nfts related to games. Maybe a side, non-mtg video?
I still don't understand why the Arcane signet topic is still seen as a disaster. It was clear it was a limited run and a collectible and desirable item. Don't know why people get pissed off when not being able to get one. That being said, that art sucked and i like the gauntlet version MUCH better.
Where can I get a Giant Growth shirt like that?
Artificial scarcity is the name of the game for pretty much all TCGs
Even the beloved Flesh and Blood game creates value through artificial scarcity of chase cards. Literally any of them could choose to not reprint any card in the card pool at any point to drive up prices.
It cracks me up that Pokémon tcg pocket is a gacha game, and somehow it feels better than arena value wise.
wizard is actually killing the secondary market with reprints and such. I think they have this two pronged approach at creating these limited products for hype and destroying the secondary market so that cards become available again. I, for one, am happy that what would make a card valuable and rare would be its art and not its playability. Wotc does a lot wrong, but the magic community is a fucking pitt of snakes too. All i want is for kids to be able to play with dual lands one day.
You know what’s else is frustrating, Canada post……
I will Proxy all of these secret lair cards! I can't wait to show you guys when they are done :)
I cannot create positive global change, but I can choose where I spend my disposable income.
Liked the video for the crackling fire noises at the end
Debacle? I got mine.
Feels good to be a proxy user
Damn just noticed the Giant Growth shirt! That's awesome, I need it 😮anyone know where I can??
First Monty Python then Marvel. I got hosed.
Oooof
@distractionmakers BIG OOF
Not a big fan of Fortnite, I don't think MTG is for me anymore.
0:53 Hilarious
Wow businesses want money 🤯
Cry me a river. Most of us can't even afford the regular Magic products, let alone extra secret special ones. What I see is a bunch of spoiled folks who are shocked that, even when they want something and can afford it, they still aren't guaranteed to get it. Let them eat cake.
been less since cronicles
Lol. X-Men.
Was the subgame of this video, competing to make the worst pun? Lol
Haha who won?
Proxy you fools
Nice!😊
Money! Dun, Dun, DUNNN!
It would be helpful if people would stop supporting magic and proxie otherwise they will continue bad behavior
Prepare for HP Masters!
My solution has always been that secret lairs should have a different card back. I think this solves all the consumer psychology issues, even with the current sales model, and probably doesn't dent the sales too much given that SLs are still selling out even with terrible reprint value.
I am a long-time Magic player ('94-present) and collectability was very important to me. I liked having a foil game piece that was worth $70 at the time, but maybe went to $20 as the card didn't see any more play. While I can hear the upset masses, Wizards has shown they will just reprint at a moment's notice, to collector detriment.
Example: I got 4 of the Secret Lair with Concordoant Crossroads foil from an overseas artist, and then they reprinted Concordant Crossroads in a masters set months later. That really eroded my confidence, so I moved to Pauper.
My UW Familiars/Blink deck is entirely foil and cost me an arm and a leg, but I know the cards will keep value (4 Planeshift foil Sunscape Familiar, 4 Torment Foil Deep Analysis, 4 Urza's foil Snap, etc. etc.) so when I sit down for a match, I can at last realize my dream of being Mr. Monopoly and scoffing at people without blinged out decks. (I'm only half-kidding.)
In closing, my wish is for Wizards to reduce foil variants, reduce print/art variants so that people need to jostle for the ones they want. The dream is there being only one foil Gigantosaurus per 100,000 people so when you open it you're like a local hero, carried around on a ticker tape parade. 7th Edition foil basically.
And print unique Magic stuff like Vanguard cards....or Planechase, that you don't need but are cool!
P.S. Forrest i caught the X-Men joke and you are a gifted speaker and comedy is in your future.
P.P.S. I love you guys and ThatMillGuy name-dropped you on one of his episodes.
Nothing to disagree with. Just sadness oof 😢
Why do you guys never introduce yourselves at the beginning of videos? I mostly listen to these in the background and never connected you guys to the existing art work you have out there.
Mtg is Fortnite now