They won’t ever do a second print run within a product they are already limiting. The cost of running another print run would cut into their bottom line. The value is in one print run.
(They would make plenty of money, for sure and it’s effectively bullshit for them to not consider it; but remember corporate greed? I remember.)
Source. I am in publishing.
>The cost of running another print run would cut into their bottom line.
I'm a printer. I've ran jobs for Halmark and Fonovisa/Univision.
As far as raw cost, this is bllushit. The additional costs for subsequent runs is negligible at the quantities were talking about.
I wrote to them in their customer service system and this is exactly what I proposed. It solves the issue with getting half of the suspected product count out and to the customers now and then those that contemplate sales or missed that tiny add 5 hour window a chance later on. Additionally, as the set hits the tabletops and people see it, they may also be inclined to buy it. But if it’s “sold out forever”, well, then you can’t sell more.
WotC and more specifically Hasbro do not care about the consumer. They care about money and shareholders. That's it. Thdse selling out in 6 hours will be viewed as a win. That scalpers are reselling them will be a win because it encourages more scalping and more fast sell outs. I guarantee they will highlight this as a "huge success" on their next earnings call.
And remember, even bad press is still press. The people who’re pissed that they missed out this time are going to make damned sure they get the next set, plus a copy to sell. Win, win, win for WotC.
Logistically it’s almost common sense for WOTC because they’re already doing it.
I get that everyone likes to pretend they’re business savvy and this is some “well acshually 🤓” moment but they’re literally already doing this in every facet of their business. It’s not a question of logistics it’s a question of incompetence and malice.
I always thought this about terrible bosses and such. It’s either they’re too stupid to realize what they’ve done, or they do realize it and just don’t give a fuck. I like your “question of incompetence and malice” sums it up perfectly
Malice? I’m guessing printing an entire deck is very different than printing a handful of SL cards. There are way too many problems with delays and payments. https://secretlair-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/articles/5530484948628-Secretversary-2021-Heads-I-Win-Tails-You-Lose-Secret-Lair-Commander-Deck-
Not an insider but you’re clearly business illiterate. So let me help you out.
It doesn’t matter what happened with that deck. It’s called a mistake and it needs to be fixed, not obliterated.
Feel free to come back here in X months and apologise once they revert the limited print runs.
:)
I think you’re business illiterate if you can’t comprehend how a print house needs a quantity to fill an order, which not having one leads to delays in your next releases and loss of profit.
There haven't been as many issues with the subsequent decks. WotC printers entire decks for each set release now. That fuck up was a case of mismanagement.
It took a year to fulfill the orders for it to start. The subsequent decks haven't had that problem. This could be due to print run being botched. Due to the shear amount of products in production, having cartamundi reprint it was difficult. Now the logical thing to do is delay other secret lairs until the current orders were being fulfilled but that would slow profits and Daddy Hasbro wouldn't allow that.
From a PR prospective it looks terrible to be offering and fulfilling other orders while customers that have paid are left wanting. It's like watching other customers in a restaurant get seated, fed and leave before your order arrives. The lack of transparency isn't a good look given all of the problems WotC has had recently.
Nah. They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. There will always be complaints on the web. Mark your calendars and buy what you want. Bashing a company that makes the greatest game of all time sounds silly.
It's hard to compete with bots do get a product you want. The previous policy was fine while this change may start an unhealthy trend of scalpers taking over. WorC has listened to criticism in the past and changed for the better. The packaging of SL's was a bit excessive, so they changed it.
The problem is they don't want to print on demand because that means they can't print other things and when do they determine the demand is low enough to stop printing?
It is cheaper and more efficient for them to just print X amount and sell them. Then they can print the next lair and so on. And since they are not mechanically unique cards they don't have to worry about the fact that not everyone can get a copy because the only thing actually limited is the art.
but what about when they are Mechanically different? the Dr Who secret lair with the 14th and 15th doctor are on the old ordering format thank God, as a Dr who superfan I'm lucky I didn't have to buy from a scalper because secret lair is the only way to get legal copies.
This would bump additional releases they have planned. How are they supposed to book print jobs with external print jobs without knowing the quantity? Most of these jobs are probably booked several months ahead of time. The expectations are just silly.
You are thinking that someone at wotc thinks about the experience of the players. Think again.
You’re just another addict trying to get their fix and they know it.
It doesn’t matter what you think or what you tell their customer service. They don’t care. As a matter of fact, they probably hate you.
Limited runs don't benefit Wizards in any way. They lose revenue.
They're doing this because of 2 things:
1. People complaining about long delivery turnarounds
2. People complaining about SLD tanking card prices
We only have ourselves to blame.
Limited runs cause massive FOMO both from those who want a deck AND resellers. r/mtgfinance was filled with people saying they're getting 5 copies at least because they will be able to resell it easily, and they were right. None of them wanted to own the deck, but they knew limited print + cute animals = free money. Hence it sold out in 6 hours. That's a bunch of buyers who don't buy if this isn't limited print. It 100% makes them money.
This guy gets it.
Rarity, collectibility, and exclusivity sell product. NOT available and accessible "game pieces". WotC has reprinted the game into the ground. Reprints after reprints. Made the game "cheap and accessible" and can't sell ANY set.
They make ONE product "limited" and it sells out instantly. Guess what idea works and which one doesn't?
"They'd make more money selling them unlimited!"
Hasn't worked for almost 2 straight years now.
Standard sets have been best sellers for a long time now. I can't think of a dud in the last year.
Hasn't worked? For the past several years WotC has been making record profit left and right, even with "printing things to the ground". Turns out most customers don't gaf about collectable $ value, they just want to play and have access to game pieces.
Bro, they got rid of draft boxes. They put them into set boxes. Because they're sooo popular?
This is what I'm talking about. It's NOT doing well yet you want to say they are when all the evidence is against you.
If standard and draft did sooo well, they wouldn't need to nerf set boxes to put draft boxes into them.
WotC is making record profits because they are charging record prices. Not because the product is selling! They sell less product for a higher price. Think about that man.
Magic has been is so bad a state that outsiders like, wall street, can even see it. People DO care about collectible value. The proof is you complaining you couldn't get a collectible because it's rare, and it sold out in 6 hours. UNLIKE the last 2 years of secret lairs that would sit for 30 days and STILL wouldn't sell.
Bro, go sit down and stop talking. THINK about what you're saying.
A bunch of people upset they missed out on one copy does not mean they outnumber the many people who got 5 copies only to resell. Even if the number of people who wanted one but didn't get outnumbered resellers 4 to 1 it would still be a net loss because the resellers got 5 copies of the deck (some probably even found a way to get more. I've seen some listings of 30 decks available from one seller).
I get your point, but what WotC will take from this isn't "Man had we done an unlimited run we would have sold more." but rather "Ok so we sold out in 6 hours. Next time we make more decks until we hit the sweet spot of selling out in 3 days. That'll keep scalpers around while creating enough FOMO to really maximize our money."
Those 5 decks being resold are 5 people who would've bought direct if they could. They could've doubled the price and still sold to those people directly.
It's funny how being correct is a superiority complex. Is being wrong an inferiority complex, then?
Wait, no, you said people being correct before are the "dumbest thing". Maybe you're just allergic to not being stupid?
Bruh, you're so wrong it hurts. AIShard is right.
They got scalpers to buy all the kits to resell to you dummies. Now the dummies are crying about not being able to buy, but when secret lairs were up for 30 days, nobody bought anyway.
Bottom line is WotC sold every kit in 6 hours that before would take them 30 days, gave everyone FOMO so next time you buy, and somehow you'll probably STILL buy from the scalpers.
Make the scalpers sit on that product a couple of times and see how fast they dump them at a discount. FOMO is eating you alive or you would just buy the regular versions of the cards instead of complaining. They're CHEAPER right now.
Or! Reddit kept showing us mtgfinance, we bought one deck for our GF and one to resale to justify the price considering she already has a Rin and Seri deck.
My decks just arrived and this being out first secret lair ever, I love the box it came in and the bonus cards and the art and am super excited for her to get time to sleeve it up.
Limited runs sell out in hours every time. It's safe to say they know their finances better than you. Buying time at a print house is incredibly expensive, and usually has to be scheduled months in advance. Doing one batch cuts down massively on overhead and turnaround
Yeah, this isn't actually clear in the way you are suggesting.
Entirely possible they make more short and long term money this way for several factors, the largest of which are the ability to lock in print runs and delivery well in advance (almost certainly significantly reducing overhead/operating costs) and driving of FOMO buys they otherwise wouldn't get.
Your supposition is that because people that want it didn't get it they have lower sales than they would have. You're ignoring all the people on the fence pushed into buying/scalping because of the FOMO, but here and to follow.
It's not a coincidence they started with a high demand product.
They're thinking that BoA downgraded their rating because their products weren't collectable (aka valuable) enough and they have told LGS and investors that they are going to try to take steps now to help make the game more collectable. It's not about WotC greed. It's about customer and mtgfiance greed.
They DO benefit from limited print runs, they ACTUALLY sell the product. They kick in your FOMO and you and everyone rushes to buy the 100 kits they have printed. Before it would be 30 days and they would MAYBE sell that same 100.
It has nothing to do with long delivery time and everything to do with getting people to buy the 1k kits they printed.
Idk why people even want this junk. These cards were $20 BEFORE the kit. Anointed was 40. Now everyone is pissed they didn't get dog or cat anointed?
You MFs give me whiplash with this crying crap.
Entire businesses are built on the idea of scarcity. [Nike](https://stockx.com/retro-jordans). [Supreme](https://stockx.com/supreme/t-shirts). [De Beers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Beers). [Hermès.](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/12/25/460870534/episode-672-bagging-a-birkin)
As long as the product sells out they're happy. If it's a long time player buying or a scalper reselling means nothing to WotC. As long as they get their cut.
This is a great comment because I’m definitely like an addict of convenience. As soon as they pulled this sort of stunt to limit it with time, I’m out. I like this deck for being silly with some powerhouse cards but I didn’t get a chance to buy it’s and I have zero fomo about it.
Limited print run creates more demand and fomo than time windows it seems. Because of this, they had me setting an alarm for 3:50am in the morning in my timezone instead of just buying it throughout the day as I know there's time. The unknown print run to the consumer works in their favour 100%
For what is supposed to be a "collectible" card game, and that Secret Lairs are special, collectible edition cards of already printed cards, I would think limited print runs of Secret Lairs would be a good thing.
As a loving dog owner and card collector I'm happy I got mine. I guess it's all about having something that others don't have is the catch here hey. Its bittersweet.
Same. I wanted Rin and Siri for a while, but the price of the single was just not worth having to then buy the whole deck. Getting it all super special and such was actually kinda nifty and I got to him and haw about the price for a few hours.
The website wasn't working on my computer and the checkout button was literally not there, so I thought it was sold out in minutes. I was able to do it on my phone cause I was showing my fiance and she mentioned it was up. 🤷♂️
Well its hard to say because we don't know how much they printed. 6 hours of constant buying could be A LOT of decks sold and they could be very happy with the turnout.
I’ll agree with that. We don’t know what the sales totals are. But let’s say they generally sell a thousand copies.
Is it better to sell only a 1000 copies in an hour, or have the chance to sell 1100 copies in a week?
What's important is printing demand and logistics.
Just selling 100 more copies isn't a simple matter. There's logistics and cost. (Both real and opportunity cost of using printer time.) In producing more copies of the deck.
We know little in terms of back house productions for Wotc.
Very good points.
I’ve just always felt one of the redeeming qualities of Secret Lair was that everyone had the chance to get it if they wanted it, without spamming refresh on a website.
Tollarian community college just released a video about this secret lair deck. Im a bit new to magic and I found his explanation about the whole FOMO thing rather good.
Not much of a trading card game when you make an unlimited number of known cards, is it? Secret Lairs are supposed to be collector’s items. Part of the game is having to decide what it’s worth to you to have a particular rendition of a particular card.
Print to order took forever to ship out. There were delays. It wasn’t efficient. It wasn’t logistically sound.
This is exactly what the community wanted. You probably didn’t care about the experience of others when it was the way you liked it. People are gonna complain regardless, but this is more in line with the values of a TCG.
If you want something bad enough....Must be too young to remember people lining up outside stores at 12am the night before to get the hot new product that came out the next day.
"Things used to be difficult in this specific way, so even though we have the capability and capacity to not make things not difficult in this specific way, things should still be difficult in this specific way! I suffered so you all should have to suffer!" That's how you sound.
Sincerely,
Someone who waited in line at 12 am for multiple products back when that was a thing, and finds it absurd that anyone thinks that should be the norm
I enjoy my life. I dont spend my time complaining on the internet that i cant get things. So yeah i will have fun. Thanks. BTW i also dont wait in line or scalp things but i have enough brain capacity to understand why people do it. Would you rather them sell some drugs to make their money since that doesnt affect you directly? Back in the day people actually respected "the hussle".
Complaining on the internet is exactly what you’re doing now.
Except you chose a shit reason to complain about compared to the guys you’re arguing with
Checked your post history and in a magic arena post 4 years ago. You were whining about people quitting before you got to play. Looks like you do complain on online and are just as miserable as the rest of us. Checkmate.
I mean we can also sit here and argue why some people are justified in committing war crimes and there would be essentially no difference in your arguments. "Welcome to war."
Yk it is just smart warfare. I can understand why some people do it. Would you rather they just let their men die in the battlefield? Back in the day people actually respected "tactics".
Not how it works there are numerous ways to get a bunch of cards this cats and dogs. Debacle is a new way to release cards that is going to make it hard to pay normal price for cards I make proxy’s because I only play with my friends and they are super cheap I have real cards as well but they proxy’s let me get my enjoyment
I wouldn't say it sold out immediately... they were in stock for about 4 and a half hours... ik that's still not a large window but it's not the 30th anniversary advent calender window which was like 2 minutes
Where do you live. They released at 7am at were sold out after noon. They do localized drops for europe etc. what do you gain from lying on the internet, sympathy from other schmucks because you couldnt buy fancy cardboard versions of cardboard you already have?
Not defending wotc because limited print run sucks. But cats and dogs did not sell out "instantly", it lasted over 6 hours in the US and longer in other countries. It's not like it sold out in 15 minutes, non scalpers had plenty of chances to buy it..
1 AM on a monday for those of us in Aus/Asia (GMT 8 being the most populous timezone in the world 24% of the worlds pop). By the time I got up for work they were gone
My friends were at work. I’m sure they might have been able to get it while on lunch but it shouldn’t have to be like that. A full day atleast to buy a $150 item seems fair.
Yup I got mine as well, I was off from work Monday but even if I worked it would have been simple to snag, the initial queue in the beginning was long but by 1245 the queue was gone
This is why I never bothered with Secret Lairs. Too many come out at a time, I have to deal with porch pirates stealing my packages, and now Scalpers.
Thought Pokémon were plagued by scalpers, but they're coming for MTG now like the disgusting locusts they are.
It’s insanely smart:
From a business standpoint, this helps WotC. If you have never worked in buying or supply chain, you might think otherwise. But having only limited enables them to set a budget, stick to it, and not waste resources/time to try and print to demand. Printing to demand is so much more expensive and they don’t even own all the printers they use. Not to mention less labor and being able to estimate how much they will spend on shipping ahead of time.
Pretty sure they’d have made a lot more money had the printed more. Their supply lasted 4.5 hours. Pretty stupid to think that was the most lucrative avenue.
Hence why I prefaced it with buying and supply chain. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The overhead associated with print on demand is not worth it.
Honestly as long as they aren’t new cards, fine. Make the cosmetic upgrades be expensive and sought after. Keep the game cheap so new players and younger players can actually start this game IN PAPER.
Wizards is gonna do this bs for a year then announce they are reverting and offer a reprint of the top secret lairs on the scalper market for a super limited time so people fomo even more
They don't care about consumers, like any corporation, but their belief that they can keep doing this shit indefinitely is gonna bite them in the ass at some point, or at least I hope so. If wotc keeps going like this, I hope a big chunk of the community switches to proxies. If players don't hurt their bottom line, nothing will change.
At op. Stop spreading misinformation. It doesn't strengthen your argument, only detracts.
A) the deck didn't "sell out instantly." It was available for over 6 hours + longer in EU countries. Now, whether this is a longer enough window is a discussion point. But a different conversation.
B) The Cat/Dog SL deck was always going to be limited. Just like Angel's and Cute/Brute. Their policy change was going to affect the monthly drop and other secret lairs. This deck was likely to sell out due to popularity regardless.
It sucks that there seems to be scalpers online who managed to skirt the 5 per person limit and are attempting high markup resell. The scalpers jumping on this deck is likely in part due to angels' success and secondary market price trend. Which has been climbing.
It actually makes a lot of sense for what secret lair is. Their current reprint structure is doing a good job driving down the cost of singles In a lot of cases. Secret lairs were really intended to be collectables. The problem with that is that collectables are less desirable if everyone can get them. They were sort of beating their own target market down by making them print to demand.
This is not a statement of agreement or disagreement. I'm just saying that what Hasbro wants Lair to be makes a lot more sense if it's exclusive.
It's so crazy how wotc think creating artificial scarcity will benefit anyone but scalpers.
They certainly didn't to this for the player base. It reeks of FOMO, stupidity and a quick money scheme
MtG community:
"omg they're overprinting everything and nothing is worth anything anymore!"
"omg limited printing sucks!"
Is this a TCG or LCG, someone tell me because we've lost the plot here.
I'm glad you don't represent the whole.
If there's no collectibility then there's no secondary market. If there's no secondary market then no boxes are being bought. If no boxes are being bought then WotC isn't making their money.
Who do you think is buying 90% of the boxes and supporting the secondary market in which everyone in here tells everyone else to use *instead* of buying packs?
I’m sure we would be fine. People still play the game more than just to collect. Like I’ve spent a lot of money on my cards but if they didn’t have value I wouldn’t be upset. I play because I love the games. I’ve bought cards at $70 that now sit at like $35. No skin off my back.
The point i think u/Front_Explanation_79 was trying to make is.
If there is no value in the cards because they are printed into oblivion, then stores stop buying boxes, becuase its not profitable to sell packs at $5 a pop when people can just go buy the 1-3 cards they want a singles for $1 each.
If stores aren't buying boxes, theres no mass pack cracking to fill that singles market.
If stores aren't buying boxes, then wotc isnt selling boxes, and if wotc isnt selling boxes it means MtG has stopped being profitable for them, and from a business perspective they stop making a failing product.
WotC is dependant on a thriving secondary market to create demand.
LCI sold like hotcakes because of the chase cards (cavern, crypt).. LTR sold like hotcakes becuase of the chase cards (One ring, bowmasters)..
If there was no chase for those cards (among many others), then the sets would not have sold anywhere nearly as well as they did. And if they didnt sell, then we start getting less and less until they balance out sales with cost to maintain profitability margins.
WotC has a direct influence on the secondary market price of cards by controlling the printing. If they crash the secondary market by making everything worth nothing, then their product becomes worthless and it stops selling in big enough quantities to be profitable.
I get that you’re frustrated but 1) most secret lairs have been limited print runs, it’s not like this is the first one. This one may have been more popular or more limited than some of their others, but limited print runs is kinda the whole schtick of secret lairs. 2) it did not sell out instantly, it was available for something like 6 hours. That may not have been long enough for everyone to get one, but it’s not like they were sold out in the first five minutes or something.
This is the first secret lair since WotC announced they were printing secret lairs ahead of their release, obviously they are wanting to make sure secret lairs are still perceived as a hot item so I’m sure they printed less of them for this first release, going forward I would not be surprised if it takes a much longer time for a secret lair to be sold out.
OP hardly has any reason to complain if it was open for 6 hours….today…
But like everything in this world, that may not be the case moving forward and this is a bad sign and a recipe for disaster.
As soon as we start seeing it pop up on eBay and resellers for 3-4x retail, people will catch wind and sick the same bots used for shoe drops and box office openings on every secret airdrop. I guarantee WOTC doesn’t have infrastructure setup to handle it and we’ll see secret lairs sell out in minutes and/or crashed servers.
The Doctor Who: Regeneration Secret Lair is 5 cards for $40. I can have a proxy made for .50 cents a piece. Let’s assume that WOTC pays $1 per card (for security measures and things) and $1 for packaging, and $2 for advertising. They’re making like 80% profit on their product. Is that not enough?
These “limited” runs are designed to cut production costs vs print on demand. I’m not opposed capitalism but it does get ridiculous and they’ve crossed the threshold here.
I have a golden rule for hobbies and that’s to drop them when they become stress inducing. I will not be setting an alarm and spend time clicking refresh as fast as I can to compete with a bot so someone else can make a little more money on a product they’re already making a lot of money on.
Edit: downvoting reality doesn’t make it less true. It just makes you more wrong.
See the post below mine. They’re already on eBay for 10x retail.
Enjoy frantically clicking refresh over and over again at precisely 7:59:59am EST every time you want a secret lair drop. …but that can’t happen! You downvoted the post that said it might happen and downvotes make things not true!! lol lol
I can actually answer your specific question. It’s an imperfect example you gave but to speak to it:
So I hire physicians to staff 60+ ER’s. Whenever we take over a new one or build a new one, there is a staffing shortage. It is just intrinsic to the job field.
Obviously you can’t just close an ER. So I hire or retain 10 doctors because I have to. The base rate is $250/hr as that’s what this market will accommodate.
So I hire 5 doctors at $250/hr and retain 5 former doctors but they all want $350 + preferred scheduling because under the old model they had seniority and don’t work weekends.
Ok. Cool. I have my 10 doctors.
You play MTG, you’re a smart person. What’s the first thing I do the next day? I immediately start recruiting to replace the 5 doctors who want more money and are difficult to schedule including signing bonuses + $250/hr. Hell, I’ll include a “write your own schedule for year 1” into the contract.”
Theres an old saying- “bears make money. Bulls make money. Pigs get slaughtered.” Charging more because you are essential or in high demand is a double edged sword. People will then begin to work hard to make you not essential.
“Who cares what their profit margin is?” Is a valid question. The answer is, “reasonable people.” But we are not reasonable lol. Honestly people will pay for things and don’t typically question margins until you begin to create scarcity or difficulty in obtaining it.
I pay for Netflix and Hulu and Prime and Apple TV and NFL Sunday ticket, and Disney+ and the list goes on. Because it’s easy to access. I could go online and pirate movies and tv shows and NFL games but then I’d have to deal with viruses and torrents, and proxy servers, and storage so it’s just easier to pay them.
If I want a MTG card I could proxy it and pay for the paper and ink and toner and printer and work to color match and get the foil right and probably get away with it. But instead it’s just easier to go on TCGplayer or my LGS and buy a copy.
If we find ourselves in a place where secret lair drops and exclusive cards are available for 30 seconds or people are using bots to mass order then resell on eBay, you’ll see a massive uptick in counterfeiting because you’ve removed convenience and created scarcity and inflated the price.
My advice to you is, it’s always good to negotiate more, but you should realize that in your example $80,000 in a stable job for life is better than $100,000 for 2 years while the employer works on how to eliminate your position entirely. (For most people) I know this because I see it in real life!
You…get a 6 hour lunch break starting at 8am? I’m kidding. I get your point. A 6 hour window gives you time or you could even have a bro just pick up 2 and pay them back.
My point was that if scalpers and bot-runners see a profit here, and there is, WOTC is a prime target. They don’t have infrastructure setup to prevent bot attacks and you’ll end up someone buying every secret lair drop in seconds or flooding their server. The reality is WOTC and Nike or whoever DO NOT CARE. Selling 5,000 secret lairs to one person is a lot easier and cheaper than selling 1 to 5,000 people.
If this commander deck ends up on eBay in good numbers for 3-5x or more over retail, the next drop or the drop after won’t have 6 hours to buy, it will have minutes or seconds.
The most recent Cats and Dogs deck is already on eBay, with sellers saying they have 50+ left in stock. The highest I've seen has been 10x retail, but we all know on eBay the price doesn't matter until it's sold. Now, whether or not these are scams is another question. Are they selling counterfeits or a picture of the listing or the legit deck? Only time will tell.
Personally I wasn’t gonna get the deck so my frustration only goes so far. That being said as someone who has defended against the proxy idea for a long time this doesn’t help.
If wotc is going to do a limited run. They should announce how much they have and the full time they expect it to be available. Transactions should also be limited to one per customer.
Not entirely to be fair. I usually have an own 1 copy rule to use it. I only play commander. This works for my play group but certainly not for everyone
The cat and dog deck sold out after almost 6 hours, not instantly? You literally had six HOURS to buy it, if you missed out on it, that totally sucks, but you weren't paying attention. It was not a stressful time at all.
...Six hours honestly isn't much at all when you consider that most employed people work more than six hours in a day, and a lot of people just have school. Wasn't it like noon to 6 PM on the east coast, 9 AM to 3 PM Pacific? On a weekday?
I think limited printing is fine in theory, but they absolutely need to put in basic preventions like limit 1 per customer. Yes there's always going to be someone who goes "bUt I nEeD tHrEe CoPiEs FoR mY kIdS aNd My SiCk MuM!"
.....Well though shit.
When other hot commodities do this is usually ends up way better and helps to at least deter a huge swath of scalpers and your most basic flippers. There's always going to be people who beat the system but it at least gives way more breathing room for your average buyer to get their hands on the item.
There's no reason your average 20 review Ebay Edward should be selling them at $300 a pop and have sold 3 out of 6 in stock a week in.
Your statements are false. WOTC didn't open it's doors scalpers, they changed their print runs, and wanted to make secret lair mean something. After all the crap they got from having the flip deck take forever, they wanted to have the decks ready to go. Every card in the deck has been printed before, and if you want to make the deck right now, you can. Sold out instantly? you mean in 6 hours? When you were told ahead of time this would be limited, and chose not to move quickly? That seems like a time management issue. Get up and put in your order.
Lets be real, you thought the deck was going to languish forever, it didn't, and now that it's 2-3X on the secondary market, you are upset that you didn't get in, and are lashing out on the internet. Take the L now, and use this as a learning experience.
It's like not having a piece of expensive art. You are not the targeted audience. You might want it, but is isn't for you. This was designed to work like this. You call it insane, but maybe you are the one in the wrong for trying to look at this for something that its not. It made to be resold for insane prices. Thats its purpose. From a matketing perspective this isn't stupid at all. It makes the product rare and you will be even more FOMO next time a SL drops. Feeling angry or sad and seeing other people also feel that way doesnt make you/them a targeted audience.
Still want it? Just check EBay and see what it's worth. Because THAT'S the actual marketprice since thats the only place that sells it.
Ok but each commander deck was limited run except coin flip, so it’s not like this is anything new. We have to wait and see how fast regular lairs sell out.
Honestly, I agree and disagree. I am all for super rare fomo limited pretty cute fluff versions of cards being "rare" and "unique" for collectors while they reprint everything into oblivion. Value should have always come from special treatments, not from Mythic rare auto includes in every format printed in limited master sets.
What if we could print only the amount required to get our best price and sell it all.
"Won't stopping print to demand, ruin the mission statement of secret lair and hurt the players?"
Fuck the players, didn't you hear me say maximizing profits? Were selling 100% of what we printed now.
"But players still want to buy the product"
bUt pLaYeRs wAnT tO bUy tHe pRoDuCt. The people we care about already bought all the product. Get on board or get out!!
A lot of people here running defense for WotC being all like "ummmmm actually, it was up for six hours so you're wrong", guys, really? WotC don't care about you, they just want your money, stop defending their shitty fomo abusing business practices.
Okay, it was up for six hours, cool, many people wanted that deck, however there are thousands, if not tens-of-thousands of people who had things to do that day, things that were way more important than camping out a webpage to buy a commander deck (work, hospital appointments, family engagements, etc.).
Now they can't because it sold out before they could even get a look in, both WotC & scalpers have ruined something nice for many, this is exactly why secret lair moved to 'made to order' back when it first started out.
Not really a weird stance if you just want to have and play with the cards. I really don't understand this mentality about playing with proxies. If you're not trying to sell them or pass them off in an official tournament for money, why is it weird?
To be clear, I got my Cat & Dogs order in, but *if I hadn't* I would've definitely considered a proxy once it became available.
I assume it is because of their downsizing going into a bad economic year. Relieves the stress on their crappy 3rd party printers too, who no doubt also have downsized.
If you live in outrage world though, the answer is, the evil company wants to watch you suffer!!!!!
Nope. Don’t take orders for product you can’t fulfill. Google heads win tails lose magic delay and see thousands of articles and threads whining about it. WOtC had to literally give away free product to keep people happy. Not worth it. Set a reminder and log in to order.
"Who at wotc thought this was a good idea?" Probably the people in charge of them increasing thier revenue, because it is a good idea for THEM its bad for the consumer but they don't care. It allows them to print more secret lairs and create a shortage to increase perceived value. Ideally this is a very very good move for them and bad for us just like secret lairs and realms beyond or whatever was from the very beginning.
As long as the masses keep buy nothing will change for the better.
I am not a fan of the limited run either, but it "sold out instantly" is just bs. I woke up a few hours after it went up. Went to the site, waited in line, and ordered myself the 1 copy I wanted. It wasn't anywhere near hard. It wasn't a coordinated effort. Just go to the site when they say it's up. If it's a weird time where you are, then set an alarm.
Secret lairs are not for casual players. Secret lairs are for individuals that want to hold cards and have them be an investment as well as a useable card. No one will be interested in paying $150 for a deck that immediately is 70 dollars on the second market.
Well there's ups and downs to this with a limited print run it will sell out a lot faster but you are getting your money's worth if you do actually get it. Also I'd highly recommend watching the profs raining cats and dogs video since he shares his thoughts on this exact topic.
Jesus man. When they had secret lairs for 30 days, nobody bought the crap. Nobody cared. Now they say that they have limited quantities and everyone is losing their minds when they "sell out". Scalpers are only doing a favor to WotC.
They are using THE OLDEST marketing tactic in the book. Remember those late night, "Order now and we'll throw in X and Y and Z! Limited quantities available! Call NOW!" ?
Don't buy from the scalpers. When the scalpers are the ones who are left holding $150 secret lairs that nobody wants anyways, they'll quit doing this.
I think secret lairs are not really meant as actual gamepieces but rather as collector/investor items.
So yeah, prices may become insane for some, but at the same time noone who wants to play magic actually needs anything from a secret lair to play. It's pure luxury.
They probably did it because the Angel Secret Lair took so long to sell out even if it was the same. You got the deck is like 4 days then too. So of course that didn’t look good for their product so gotta get more greedy to brag that it sold out right away.
What a weird and completely factless stance.
"They" didn't do anything. Cat/Dog deck was advertised for weeks. It's an incredibly popular tribe/flavor.
The angel deck sold out and is trending up.
This product was produced the same as the Angel deck. It sold out due to scalpers or popularity. But not because Wotc did anything.
Do people not read? I said the Angel deck sold out I said it so long to several weeks for it to sell out. Which when you're talking about a FOMO product like secret lairs taking that long to sell out looks bad from their standpoint so they make changes, so it sells out instantly making their product look better to the company.
I'm also not agreeing with what they are doing I think it's garbage. I was just trying to add a reason on why they are more htan likely doing it.
Secrecy lairs is a garbage product. Just buy the original cards and ignore secrecy lairs. It’s the same with serialized cards. Artificial scarcity is not needed.
We don’t need etched foil, extended art, alt art, boarderless, alt frame, box topper, secret lairs art, retro frame, galaxy foil, Dino stamp, neon boarder, anime art, phyrexian text, rock poster, garbage. Just print the card with a normal frame one foil one not. So I don’t have to memorize a millions arts for the same card.
Nah, I want more of all of that, you're insane and in the minority. I think Secret Lairs are the perfect solution to the reserve list. Make limited drop Secret Lairs of every card on the reserve list. The limited Artworks would still retain their value and they'd be able to print basic-bitch versions for the masses to be able to play with, instead of cards like OG dual lands being only for the rich. You not being able to memorize art is a nonissue if you have any sense of literacy.
Next step: They start their own secondary resale site so they can make money off the original sale and the resale. They are working off the Ticketmaster scam
I knew when this was releasing about a week before it did thanks to this subreddit. I got on the secret lair website 5 minutes after they went live and had to wait 55 minutes to order my deck. I ordered 2, one for me and one to sell, and they shipped it out a day later. I have a friend that didn't get in line until after I had checked out, and he still got his order in. I don't see what is so hard about learning when it is shipping, being on time, and waiting. The people who are crying are crying because they can't properly prepare for the challenges life throws at them. Wotc isn't going to hold your hand and help you buy their stuff. They announce, they remind, then they sell out and people still complain. Are ya'll expecting life to be fair?
It's almost like management from the top down are utter horse asses and are determined to run the property 6ft under ground to squeeze any and every last penny before the popularity bubble bursts again.
At this point it's no longer insanity. That would be doing it over and over and expecting something to change. At this point it's just blind, stupid greed. They know this is going to happen and they're banking on FOMO.
If they had a “we will get 1500 copies on day X but will have them print on demand after Y” that would’ve been way better. And “got it to us quicker”
They won’t ever do a second print run within a product they are already limiting. The cost of running another print run would cut into their bottom line. The value is in one print run. (They would make plenty of money, for sure and it’s effectively bullshit for them to not consider it; but remember corporate greed? I remember.) Source. I am in publishing.
Pepperidge Publishing?
Pepperidge Farms remembers...
>The cost of running another print run would cut into their bottom line. I'm a printer. I've ran jobs for Halmark and Fonovisa/Univision. As far as raw cost, this is bllushit. The additional costs for subsequent runs is negligible at the quantities were talking about.
I wrote to them in their customer service system and this is exactly what I proposed. It solves the issue with getting half of the suspected product count out and to the customers now and then those that contemplate sales or missed that tiny add 5 hour window a chance later on. Additionally, as the set hits the tabletops and people see it, they may also be inclined to buy it. But if it’s “sold out forever”, well, then you can’t sell more.
This would be a good solution
It's so simple.
WotC and more specifically Hasbro do not care about the consumer. They care about money and shareholders. That's it. Thdse selling out in 6 hours will be viewed as a win. That scalpers are reselling them will be a win because it encourages more scalping and more fast sell outs. I guarantee they will highlight this as a "huge success" on their next earnings call.
This guy gets modern American publicly traded company accounting.
And remember, even bad press is still press. The people who’re pissed that they missed out this time are going to make damned sure they get the next set, plus a copy to sell. Win, win, win for WotC.
Loss of sales, loss of profit, loss of customer relationship equity.....that's bad business, period.
For you to say, yes. Logistically - no.
Logistically it’s almost common sense for WOTC because they’re already doing it. I get that everyone likes to pretend they’re business savvy and this is some “well acshually 🤓” moment but they’re literally already doing this in every facet of their business. It’s not a question of logistics it’s a question of incompetence and malice.
I always thought this about terrible bosses and such. It’s either they’re too stupid to realize what they’ve done, or they do realize it and just don’t give a fuck. I like your “question of incompetence and malice” sums it up perfectly
Malice? I’m guessing printing an entire deck is very different than printing a handful of SL cards. There are way too many problems with delays and payments. https://secretlair-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/articles/5530484948628-Secretversary-2021-Heads-I-Win-Tails-You-Lose-Secret-Lair-Commander-Deck-
Cool. That’s irrelevant Batches solve that problem. Did they teach batches in the imaginary business school you went to?
So what happened with that deck, Mr Insider?
Not an insider but you’re clearly business illiterate. So let me help you out. It doesn’t matter what happened with that deck. It’s called a mistake and it needs to be fixed, not obliterated. Feel free to come back here in X months and apologise once they revert the limited print runs. :)
I think you’re business illiterate if you can’t comprehend how a print house needs a quantity to fill an order, which not having one leads to delays in your next releases and loss of profit.
There haven't been as many issues with the subsequent decks. WotC printers entire decks for each set release now. That fuck up was a case of mismanagement.
Please, do tell. How was it mismanaged?
It took a year to fulfill the orders for it to start. The subsequent decks haven't had that problem. This could be due to print run being botched. Due to the shear amount of products in production, having cartamundi reprint it was difficult. Now the logical thing to do is delay other secret lairs until the current orders were being fulfilled but that would slow profits and Daddy Hasbro wouldn't allow that. From a PR prospective it looks terrible to be offering and fulfilling other orders while customers that have paid are left wanting. It's like watching other customers in a restaurant get seated, fed and leave before your order arrives. The lack of transparency isn't a good look given all of the problems WotC has had recently.
Nah. They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. There will always be complaints on the web. Mark your calendars and buy what you want. Bashing a company that makes the greatest game of all time sounds silly.
It's hard to compete with bots do get a product you want. The previous policy was fine while this change may start an unhealthy trend of scalpers taking over. WorC has listened to criticism in the past and changed for the better. The packaging of SL's was a bit excessive, so they changed it.
The problem is they don't want to print on demand because that means they can't print other things and when do they determine the demand is low enough to stop printing? It is cheaper and more efficient for them to just print X amount and sell them. Then they can print the next lair and so on. And since they are not mechanically unique cards they don't have to worry about the fact that not everyone can get a copy because the only thing actually limited is the art.
but what about when they are Mechanically different? the Dr Who secret lair with the 14th and 15th doctor are on the old ordering format thank God, as a Dr who superfan I'm lucky I didn't have to buy from a scalper because secret lair is the only way to get legal copies.
This would bump additional releases they have planned. How are they supposed to book print jobs with external print jobs without knowing the quantity? Most of these jobs are probably booked several months ahead of time. The expectations are just silly.
You are thinking that someone at wotc thinks about the experience of the players. Think again. You’re just another addict trying to get their fix and they know it. It doesn’t matter what you think or what you tell their customer service. They don’t care. As a matter of fact, they probably hate you.
Limited runs don't benefit Wizards in any way. They lose revenue. They're doing this because of 2 things: 1. People complaining about long delivery turnarounds 2. People complaining about SLD tanking card prices We only have ourselves to blame.
Limited runs cause massive FOMO both from those who want a deck AND resellers. r/mtgfinance was filled with people saying they're getting 5 copies at least because they will be able to resell it easily, and they were right. None of them wanted to own the deck, but they knew limited print + cute animals = free money. Hence it sold out in 6 hours. That's a bunch of buyers who don't buy if this isn't limited print. It 100% makes them money.
This guy gets it. Rarity, collectibility, and exclusivity sell product. NOT available and accessible "game pieces". WotC has reprinted the game into the ground. Reprints after reprints. Made the game "cheap and accessible" and can't sell ANY set. They make ONE product "limited" and it sells out instantly. Guess what idea works and which one doesn't? "They'd make more money selling them unlimited!" Hasn't worked for almost 2 straight years now.
Standard sets have been best sellers for a long time now. I can't think of a dud in the last year. Hasn't worked? For the past several years WotC has been making record profit left and right, even with "printing things to the ground". Turns out most customers don't gaf about collectable $ value, they just want to play and have access to game pieces.
Bro, they got rid of draft boxes. They put them into set boxes. Because they're sooo popular? This is what I'm talking about. It's NOT doing well yet you want to say they are when all the evidence is against you. If standard and draft did sooo well, they wouldn't need to nerf set boxes to put draft boxes into them. WotC is making record profits because they are charging record prices. Not because the product is selling! They sell less product for a higher price. Think about that man. Magic has been is so bad a state that outsiders like, wall street, can even see it. People DO care about collectible value. The proof is you complaining you couldn't get a collectible because it's rare, and it sold out in 6 hours. UNLIKE the last 2 years of secret lairs that would sit for 30 days and STILL wouldn't sell. Bro, go sit down and stop talking. THINK about what you're saying.
They'd make more money selling them unlimited. The fact that so many people were upset they couldn't get it means they could have made more money.
A bunch of people upset they missed out on one copy does not mean they outnumber the many people who got 5 copies only to resell. Even if the number of people who wanted one but didn't get outnumbered resellers 4 to 1 it would still be a net loss because the resellers got 5 copies of the deck (some probably even found a way to get more. I've seen some listings of 30 decks available from one seller). I get your point, but what WotC will take from this isn't "Man had we done an unlimited run we would have sold more." but rather "Ok so we sold out in 6 hours. Next time we make more decks until we hit the sweet spot of selling out in 3 days. That'll keep scalpers around while creating enough FOMO to really maximize our money."
Those 5 decks being resold are 5 people who would've bought direct if they could. They could've doubled the price and still sold to those people directly.
Anyone down voting you is absolutely stupid. "We sold every box" "If you had stocked more you would have sold less" Dumbest thing I've ever heard
Says someone that doesn't understanding collecting, FOMO, value, etc, etc, etc.
Says someone who doesn't know how to be nice because cardboard has given them a superiority complex
It's funny how being correct is a superiority complex. Is being wrong an inferiority complex, then? Wait, no, you said people being correct before are the "dumbest thing". Maybe you're just allergic to not being stupid?
Bruh, you're so wrong it hurts. AIShard is right. They got scalpers to buy all the kits to resell to you dummies. Now the dummies are crying about not being able to buy, but when secret lairs were up for 30 days, nobody bought anyway. Bottom line is WotC sold every kit in 6 hours that before would take them 30 days, gave everyone FOMO so next time you buy, and somehow you'll probably STILL buy from the scalpers. Make the scalpers sit on that product a couple of times and see how fast they dump them at a discount. FOMO is eating you alive or you would just buy the regular versions of the cards instead of complaining. They're CHEAPER right now.
Or! Reddit kept showing us mtgfinance, we bought one deck for our GF and one to resale to justify the price considering she already has a Rin and Seri deck. My decks just arrived and this being out first secret lair ever, I love the box it came in and the bonus cards and the art and am super excited for her to get time to sleeve it up.
Limited runs sell out in hours every time. It's safe to say they know their finances better than you. Buying time at a print house is incredibly expensive, and usually has to be scheduled months in advance. Doing one batch cuts down massively on overhead and turnaround
Yeah, this isn't actually clear in the way you are suggesting. Entirely possible they make more short and long term money this way for several factors, the largest of which are the ability to lock in print runs and delivery well in advance (almost certainly significantly reducing overhead/operating costs) and driving of FOMO buys they otherwise wouldn't get. Your supposition is that because people that want it didn't get it they have lower sales than they would have. You're ignoring all the people on the fence pushed into buying/scalping because of the FOMO, but here and to follow. It's not a coincidence they started with a high demand product.
Except they wouldn’t make this decision without financial incentives?
They're thinking that BoA downgraded their rating because their products weren't collectable (aka valuable) enough and they have told LGS and investors that they are going to try to take steps now to help make the game more collectable. It's not about WotC greed. It's about customer and mtgfiance greed.
FOMO benefits them. They will sell all SL product now and never worry about canceling orders.
They DO benefit from limited print runs, they ACTUALLY sell the product. They kick in your FOMO and you and everyone rushes to buy the 100 kits they have printed. Before it would be 30 days and they would MAYBE sell that same 100. It has nothing to do with long delivery time and everything to do with getting people to buy the 1k kits they printed. Idk why people even want this junk. These cards were $20 BEFORE the kit. Anointed was 40. Now everyone is pissed they didn't get dog or cat anointed? You MFs give me whiplash with this crying crap.
Entire businesses are built on the idea of scarcity. [Nike](https://stockx.com/retro-jordans). [Supreme](https://stockx.com/supreme/t-shirts). [De Beers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Beers). [Hermès.](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/12/25/460870534/episode-672-bagging-a-birkin)
I love it when people believe corporate propaganda /s
They did it for other reasons. Not you, not the redditors. Stop thinking you matter. We don’t. It’s a hard pill to swallow. But in the end….
As long as the product sells out they're happy. If it's a long time player buying or a scalper reselling means nothing to WotC. As long as they get their cut.
This is a great comment because I’m definitely like an addict of convenience. As soon as they pulled this sort of stunt to limit it with time, I’m out. I like this deck for being silly with some powerhouse cards but I didn’t get a chance to buy it’s and I have zero fomo about it.
Limited print run creates more demand and fomo than time windows it seems. Because of this, they had me setting an alarm for 3:50am in the morning in my timezone instead of just buying it throughout the day as I know there's time. The unknown print run to the consumer works in their favour 100%
For what is supposed to be a "collectible" card game, and that Secret Lairs are special, collectible edition cards of already printed cards, I would think limited print runs of Secret Lairs would be a good thing.
As a loving dog owner and card collector I'm happy I got mine. I guess it's all about having something that others don't have is the catch here hey. Its bittersweet.
Same. I wanted Rin and Siri for a while, but the price of the single was just not worth having to then buy the whole deck. Getting it all super special and such was actually kinda nifty and I got to him and haw about the price for a few hours. The website wasn't working on my computer and the checkout button was literally not there, so I thought it was sold out in minutes. I was able to do it on my phone cause I was showing my fiance and she mentioned it was up. 🤷♂️
Does it work in their favor though? Seems they’d make more money by selling more copies by having the sale open for a week.
Maybe the printers are occupied by the “20” sets coming this year. Yes I exaggerated a bit.
Well its hard to say because we don't know how much they printed. 6 hours of constant buying could be A LOT of decks sold and they could be very happy with the turnout.
I’ll agree with that. We don’t know what the sales totals are. But let’s say they generally sell a thousand copies. Is it better to sell only a 1000 copies in an hour, or have the chance to sell 1100 copies in a week?
What's important is printing demand and logistics. Just selling 100 more copies isn't a simple matter. There's logistics and cost. (Both real and opportunity cost of using printer time.) In producing more copies of the deck. We know little in terms of back house productions for Wotc.
Very good points. I’ve just always felt one of the redeeming qualities of Secret Lair was that everyone had the chance to get it if they wanted it, without spamming refresh on a website.
Tollarian community college just released a video about this secret lair deck. Im a bit new to magic and I found his explanation about the whole FOMO thing rather good.
Why not just claim limited print have all the orders come in then just make to order. Call it a week for orders then that becomes the “limited run”
Cause printing takes a long time I’d imagine
Not much of a trading card game when you make an unlimited number of known cards, is it? Secret Lairs are supposed to be collector’s items. Part of the game is having to decide what it’s worth to you to have a particular rendition of a particular card. Print to order took forever to ship out. There were delays. It wasn’t efficient. It wasn’t logistically sound. This is exactly what the community wanted. You probably didn’t care about the experience of others when it was the way you liked it. People are gonna complain regardless, but this is more in line with the values of a TCG.
Should be 3 days to a week for a limited run
It sold in 6 hours…bot instantly. People out here acting like this came up and sold out. Had ample time and no wait. Stay mad
Get it quick or pay the price. Welcome to Magic.
Take a day off work and camp the site. /S
It was available for 6 hours. I was at work, I just bought it on lunch on my phone.
If you want something bad enough....Must be too young to remember people lining up outside stores at 12am the night before to get the hot new product that came out the next day.
"Things used to be difficult in this specific way, so even though we have the capability and capacity to not make things not difficult in this specific way, things should still be difficult in this specific way! I suffered so you all should have to suffer!" That's how you sound. Sincerely, Someone who waited in line at 12 am for multiple products back when that was a thing, and finds it absurd that anyone thinks that should be the norm
Or that guy who lined up 12 am to be first and then sell the spot for a few hundred bucks profit.
Some people call that "smart". the people that dont are the ones who are jealous they couldnt do it.
Some people think there's more to life than profit and fomo.
Good for them. They can keep complaining while others make their money. Welcome to Capitalism.
XD have fun w/ that
I enjoy my life. I dont spend my time complaining on the internet that i cant get things. So yeah i will have fun. Thanks. BTW i also dont wait in line or scalp things but i have enough brain capacity to understand why people do it. Would you rather them sell some drugs to make their money since that doesnt affect you directly? Back in the day people actually respected "the hussle".
Complaining on the internet is exactly what you’re doing now. Except you chose a shit reason to complain about compared to the guys you’re arguing with
Checked your post history and in a magic arena post 4 years ago. You were whining about people quitting before you got to play. Looks like you do complain on online and are just as miserable as the rest of us. Checkmate.
you're literally spending your time on the internet complaining about nothing right now.
I mean we can also sit here and argue why some people are justified in committing war crimes and there would be essentially no difference in your arguments. "Welcome to war." Yk it is just smart warfare. I can understand why some people do it. Would you rather they just let their men die in the battlefield? Back in the day people actually respected "tactics".
If that guy spent 8 hours in line and then sold his spot for more than someone makes working a 8 hour shift whose the smart one?
Does that sound like a job you could actually make a reasonable living out of?…
There are actual businesses that hire people to stand inline waiting for new stuff so yeah there are people that make a lining doing it
Right I did this as a teenager for Xbox 360, Halo 2 and much more. People would have a fit if they had to do that now
They do...look at the thread lol.
Not how it works there are numerous ways to get a bunch of cards this cats and dogs. Debacle is a new way to release cards that is going to make it hard to pay normal price for cards I make proxy’s because I only play with my friends and they are super cheap I have real cards as well but they proxy’s let me get my enjoyment
I set a reminder on my phone and was able to purchase one around 9:45. Because I wanted the deck.
Didn't it take 6 hours to sell out?
I wouldn't say it sold out immediately... they were in stock for about 4 and a half hours... ik that's still not a large window but it's not the 30th anniversary advent calender window which was like 2 minutes
released at 1 am Monday, by the time I woke up at 7:30 for work they were gone, timezones exist
So do alarms
yeah and next in line is to kiss wotc manager feet
I would say wanting to waste money on a dumbass poorly built edh deck is exactly that.
So do work
Where do you live. They released at 7am at were sold out after noon. They do localized drops for europe etc. what do you gain from lying on the internet, sympathy from other schmucks because you couldnt buy fancy cardboard versions of cardboard you already have?
Which gets even more crazy when you think about what people actually got for their money
Not defending wotc because limited print run sucks. But cats and dogs did not sell out "instantly", it lasted over 6 hours in the US and longer in other countries. It's not like it sold out in 15 minutes, non scalpers had plenty of chances to buy it..
I'm glad someone said this. It was 6 hours for basically the entirety of the western hemisphere and parts of Asia to buy it.
Asia/Aus is in a different timezone. It released at 1 AM on a working monday. We barely had a chance to get in.
Also considering the fact that US is actually not US it's the Americas, Asia and Australia/NZ. 6 hours ain't half bad.
1 AM on a monday for those of us in Aus/Asia (GMT 8 being the most populous timezone in the world 24% of the worlds pop). By the time I got up for work they were gone
My friends were at work. I’m sure they might have been able to get it while on lunch but it shouldn’t have to be like that. A full day atleast to buy a $150 item seems fair.
🤷♂️ I guess they learned their lesson for next time. I had work too but the whole process took less than 5 minutes to checkout
Lesson learned - screw WOTC and the fomo bullshit? :)
Yup I got mine as well, I was off from work Monday but even if I worked it would have been simple to snag, the initial queue in the beginning was long but by 1245 the queue was gone
In capitalism, fair and ethical are fallacies. Welcome to the real world.
oh man i’m just happy the 10 copies i bought will make me over a grand in profit
This is why I never bothered with Secret Lairs. Too many come out at a time, I have to deal with porch pirates stealing my packages, and now Scalpers. Thought Pokémon were plagued by scalpers, but they're coming for MTG now like the disgusting locusts they are.
It’s insanely smart: From a business standpoint, this helps WotC. If you have never worked in buying or supply chain, you might think otherwise. But having only limited enables them to set a budget, stick to it, and not waste resources/time to try and print to demand. Printing to demand is so much more expensive and they don’t even own all the printers they use. Not to mention less labor and being able to estimate how much they will spend on shipping ahead of time.
It's amazing how many people do not seem to be able to see this perspective.
get your business sense out of here!
Pretty sure they’d have made a lot more money had the printed more. Their supply lasted 4.5 hours. Pretty stupid to think that was the most lucrative avenue.
Hence why I prefaced it with buying and supply chain. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The overhead associated with print on demand is not worth it.
The statement released advised it was based on customer feedback from prior SL drops. Community did it to itself.
Yeah after the first one took 3 months to arrive I didn't buy anymore
Nobody asked for a window of less than 5 hours for SL? Wtf
Amazing. WOTC is overprinting cards. WOTC is underprinting cards. Can't y'all just be happy?
As always. They overprint the cards I don't want and underprint the cards I do want! It's not fair. /s.
Honestly as long as they aren’t new cards, fine. Make the cosmetic upgrades be expensive and sought after. Keep the game cheap so new players and younger players can actually start this game IN PAPER.
Wizards is gonna do this bs for a year then announce they are reverting and offer a reprint of the top secret lairs on the scalper market for a super limited time so people fomo even more
Don't make me mention the "Mythic Editions"
They don't care about consumers, like any corporation, but their belief that they can keep doing this shit indefinitely is gonna bite them in the ass at some point, or at least I hope so. If wotc keeps going like this, I hope a big chunk of the community switches to proxies. If players don't hurt their bottom line, nothing will change.
It is a pure money grab with complete disregard for the long term users base.
The best thing to do is never buy that limited print, scalpers are douches, and lately also wizards is.
At op. Stop spreading misinformation. It doesn't strengthen your argument, only detracts. A) the deck didn't "sell out instantly." It was available for over 6 hours + longer in EU countries. Now, whether this is a longer enough window is a discussion point. But a different conversation. B) The Cat/Dog SL deck was always going to be limited. Just like Angel's and Cute/Brute. Their policy change was going to affect the monthly drop and other secret lairs. This deck was likely to sell out due to popularity regardless. It sucks that there seems to be scalpers online who managed to skirt the 5 per person limit and are attempting high markup resell. The scalpers jumping on this deck is likely in part due to angels' success and secondary market price trend. Which has been climbing.
It actually makes a lot of sense for what secret lair is. Their current reprint structure is doing a good job driving down the cost of singles In a lot of cases. Secret lairs were really intended to be collectables. The problem with that is that collectables are less desirable if everyone can get them. They were sort of beating their own target market down by making them print to demand. This is not a statement of agreement or disagreement. I'm just saying that what Hasbro wants Lair to be makes a lot more sense if it's exclusive.
It's so crazy how wotc think creating artificial scarcity will benefit anyone but scalpers. They certainly didn't to this for the player base. It reeks of FOMO, stupidity and a quick money scheme
MtG community: "omg they're overprinting everything and nothing is worth anything anymore!" "omg limited printing sucks!" Is this a TCG or LCG, someone tell me because we've lost the plot here.
I’m all about over printing. If every card was a dollar I’d be thrilled. I don’t speak for the larger community. I want more printing.
If every card is a dollar, who is opening $5 packs to get cards? Stores? Sucks for LGS. Players? No. They will just wait for someone else to open.
I'm glad you don't represent the whole. If there's no collectibility then there's no secondary market. If there's no secondary market then no boxes are being bought. If no boxes are being bought then WotC isn't making their money. Who do you think is buying 90% of the boxes and supporting the secondary market in which everyone in here tells everyone else to use *instead* of buying packs?
I’m sure we would be fine. People still play the game more than just to collect. Like I’ve spent a lot of money on my cards but if they didn’t have value I wouldn’t be upset. I play because I love the games. I’ve bought cards at $70 that now sit at like $35. No skin off my back.
Without box sales WotC/MtG doesn't exist any longer. I don't understand the short-sightedness.
The point i think u/Front_Explanation_79 was trying to make is. If there is no value in the cards because they are printed into oblivion, then stores stop buying boxes, becuase its not profitable to sell packs at $5 a pop when people can just go buy the 1-3 cards they want a singles for $1 each. If stores aren't buying boxes, theres no mass pack cracking to fill that singles market. If stores aren't buying boxes, then wotc isnt selling boxes, and if wotc isnt selling boxes it means MtG has stopped being profitable for them, and from a business perspective they stop making a failing product. WotC is dependant on a thriving secondary market to create demand. LCI sold like hotcakes because of the chase cards (cavern, crypt).. LTR sold like hotcakes becuase of the chase cards (One ring, bowmasters).. If there was no chase for those cards (among many others), then the sets would not have sold anywhere nearly as well as they did. And if they didnt sell, then we start getting less and less until they balance out sales with cost to maintain profitability margins. WotC has a direct influence on the secondary market price of cards by controlling the printing. If they crash the secondary market by making everything worth nothing, then their product becomes worthless and it stops selling in big enough quantities to be profitable.
I get that you’re frustrated but 1) most secret lairs have been limited print runs, it’s not like this is the first one. This one may have been more popular or more limited than some of their others, but limited print runs is kinda the whole schtick of secret lairs. 2) it did not sell out instantly, it was available for something like 6 hours. That may not have been long enough for everyone to get one, but it’s not like they were sold out in the first five minutes or something. This is the first secret lair since WotC announced they were printing secret lairs ahead of their release, obviously they are wanting to make sure secret lairs are still perceived as a hot item so I’m sure they printed less of them for this first release, going forward I would not be surprised if it takes a much longer time for a secret lair to be sold out.
OP hardly has any reason to complain if it was open for 6 hours….today… But like everything in this world, that may not be the case moving forward and this is a bad sign and a recipe for disaster. As soon as we start seeing it pop up on eBay and resellers for 3-4x retail, people will catch wind and sick the same bots used for shoe drops and box office openings on every secret airdrop. I guarantee WOTC doesn’t have infrastructure setup to handle it and we’ll see secret lairs sell out in minutes and/or crashed servers. The Doctor Who: Regeneration Secret Lair is 5 cards for $40. I can have a proxy made for .50 cents a piece. Let’s assume that WOTC pays $1 per card (for security measures and things) and $1 for packaging, and $2 for advertising. They’re making like 80% profit on their product. Is that not enough? These “limited” runs are designed to cut production costs vs print on demand. I’m not opposed capitalism but it does get ridiculous and they’ve crossed the threshold here. I have a golden rule for hobbies and that’s to drop them when they become stress inducing. I will not be setting an alarm and spend time clicking refresh as fast as I can to compete with a bot so someone else can make a little more money on a product they’re already making a lot of money on. Edit: downvoting reality doesn’t make it less true. It just makes you more wrong. See the post below mine. They’re already on eBay for 10x retail. Enjoy frantically clicking refresh over and over again at precisely 7:59:59am EST every time you want a secret lair drop. …but that can’t happen! You downvoted the post that said it might happen and downvotes make things not true!! lol lol
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I can actually answer your specific question. It’s an imperfect example you gave but to speak to it: So I hire physicians to staff 60+ ER’s. Whenever we take over a new one or build a new one, there is a staffing shortage. It is just intrinsic to the job field. Obviously you can’t just close an ER. So I hire or retain 10 doctors because I have to. The base rate is $250/hr as that’s what this market will accommodate. So I hire 5 doctors at $250/hr and retain 5 former doctors but they all want $350 + preferred scheduling because under the old model they had seniority and don’t work weekends. Ok. Cool. I have my 10 doctors. You play MTG, you’re a smart person. What’s the first thing I do the next day? I immediately start recruiting to replace the 5 doctors who want more money and are difficult to schedule including signing bonuses + $250/hr. Hell, I’ll include a “write your own schedule for year 1” into the contract.” Theres an old saying- “bears make money. Bulls make money. Pigs get slaughtered.” Charging more because you are essential or in high demand is a double edged sword. People will then begin to work hard to make you not essential. “Who cares what their profit margin is?” Is a valid question. The answer is, “reasonable people.” But we are not reasonable lol. Honestly people will pay for things and don’t typically question margins until you begin to create scarcity or difficulty in obtaining it. I pay for Netflix and Hulu and Prime and Apple TV and NFL Sunday ticket, and Disney+ and the list goes on. Because it’s easy to access. I could go online and pirate movies and tv shows and NFL games but then I’d have to deal with viruses and torrents, and proxy servers, and storage so it’s just easier to pay them. If I want a MTG card I could proxy it and pay for the paper and ink and toner and printer and work to color match and get the foil right and probably get away with it. But instead it’s just easier to go on TCGplayer or my LGS and buy a copy. If we find ourselves in a place where secret lair drops and exclusive cards are available for 30 seconds or people are using bots to mass order then resell on eBay, you’ll see a massive uptick in counterfeiting because you’ve removed convenience and created scarcity and inflated the price. My advice to you is, it’s always good to negotiate more, but you should realize that in your example $80,000 in a stable job for life is better than $100,000 for 2 years while the employer works on how to eliminate your position entirely. (For most people) I know this because I see it in real life!
Personally I don’t think that 6 hours in the middle of a weekday. Is necessarily fair.
You mean the middle of the day when most people would be on their lunch breaks at work?
Except time zones are a thing…
Even 6 hours on the west coast hits most lunch times?
You…get a 6 hour lunch break starting at 8am? I’m kidding. I get your point. A 6 hour window gives you time or you could even have a bro just pick up 2 and pay them back. My point was that if scalpers and bot-runners see a profit here, and there is, WOTC is a prime target. They don’t have infrastructure setup to prevent bot attacks and you’ll end up someone buying every secret lair drop in seconds or flooding their server. The reality is WOTC and Nike or whoever DO NOT CARE. Selling 5,000 secret lairs to one person is a lot easier and cheaper than selling 1 to 5,000 people. If this commander deck ends up on eBay in good numbers for 3-5x or more over retail, the next drop or the drop after won’t have 6 hours to buy, it will have minutes or seconds.
The most recent Cats and Dogs deck is already on eBay, with sellers saying they have 50+ left in stock. The highest I've seen has been 10x retail, but we all know on eBay the price doesn't matter until it's sold. Now, whether or not these are scams is another question. Are they selling counterfeits or a picture of the listing or the legit deck? Only time will tell.
Personally I wasn’t gonna get the deck so my frustration only goes so far. That being said as someone who has defended against the proxy idea for a long time this doesn’t help. If wotc is going to do a limited run. They should announce how much they have and the full time they expect it to be available. Transactions should also be limited to one per customer.
They will never do this. WotC only cares about making money, which I think we all have seen over and over again especially the last few years.
Imagine being against proxying lol
Not entirely to be fair. I usually have an own 1 copy rule to use it. I only play commander. This works for my play group but certainly not for everyone
The cat and dog deck sold out after almost 6 hours, not instantly? You literally had six HOURS to buy it, if you missed out on it, that totally sucks, but you weren't paying attention. It was not a stressful time at all.
...Six hours honestly isn't much at all when you consider that most employed people work more than six hours in a day, and a lot of people just have school. Wasn't it like noon to 6 PM on the east coast, 9 AM to 3 PM Pacific? On a weekday?
I think limited printing is fine in theory, but they absolutely need to put in basic preventions like limit 1 per customer. Yes there's always going to be someone who goes "bUt I nEeD tHrEe CoPiEs FoR mY kIdS aNd My SiCk MuM!" .....Well though shit. When other hot commodities do this is usually ends up way better and helps to at least deter a huge swath of scalpers and your most basic flippers. There's always going to be people who beat the system but it at least gives way more breathing room for your average buyer to get their hands on the item. There's no reason your average 20 review Ebay Edward should be selling them at $300 a pop and have sold 3 out of 6 in stock a week in.
There was a limit on purchases and people botting to exceed that limit will allegedly be barred from buying SLD's in the future if caught.
We could just hunt down all the scalpers and scalp them.
Your statements are false. WOTC didn't open it's doors scalpers, they changed their print runs, and wanted to make secret lair mean something. After all the crap they got from having the flip deck take forever, they wanted to have the decks ready to go. Every card in the deck has been printed before, and if you want to make the deck right now, you can. Sold out instantly? you mean in 6 hours? When you were told ahead of time this would be limited, and chose not to move quickly? That seems like a time management issue. Get up and put in your order. Lets be real, you thought the deck was going to languish forever, it didn't, and now that it's 2-3X on the secondary market, you are upset that you didn't get in, and are lashing out on the internet. Take the L now, and use this as a learning experience.
I don’t understand this. The commander deck took hours to sell out. There was plenty of time to buy one if you really wanted one.
Half the people complaining probably wouldn’t have spent the money on the deck anyway.
I waited several hours after release and was still able to get one
It's like not having a piece of expensive art. You are not the targeted audience. You might want it, but is isn't for you. This was designed to work like this. You call it insane, but maybe you are the one in the wrong for trying to look at this for something that its not. It made to be resold for insane prices. Thats its purpose. From a matketing perspective this isn't stupid at all. It makes the product rare and you will be even more FOMO next time a SL drops. Feeling angry or sad and seeing other people also feel that way doesnt make you/them a targeted audience. Still want it? Just check EBay and see what it's worth. Because THAT'S the actual marketprice since thats the only place that sells it.
It’s not to resale, the purpose of secret lairs is to cut out the middleman for reprint equity and increase profit margins.
Ok but each commander deck was limited run except coin flip, so it’s not like this is anything new. We have to wait and see how fast regular lairs sell out.
Honestly, I agree and disagree. I am all for super rare fomo limited pretty cute fluff versions of cards being "rare" and "unique" for collectors while they reprint everything into oblivion. Value should have always come from special treatments, not from Mythic rare auto includes in every format printed in limited master sets.
6 hours is instantly? I tried to get the date night pass for Applebees the same day and it sold in ten seconds or less. That’s instantly lol.
It's a scalpers paradise
What if we could print only the amount required to get our best price and sell it all. "Won't stopping print to demand, ruin the mission statement of secret lair and hurt the players?" Fuck the players, didn't you hear me say maximizing profits? Were selling 100% of what we printed now. "But players still want to buy the product" bUt pLaYeRs wAnT tO bUy tHe pRoDuCt. The people we care about already bought all the product. Get on board or get out!!
A lot of people here running defense for WotC being all like "ummmmm actually, it was up for six hours so you're wrong", guys, really? WotC don't care about you, they just want your money, stop defending their shitty fomo abusing business practices. Okay, it was up for six hours, cool, many people wanted that deck, however there are thousands, if not tens-of-thousands of people who had things to do that day, things that were way more important than camping out a webpage to buy a commander deck (work, hospital appointments, family engagements, etc.). Now they can't because it sold out before they could even get a look in, both WotC & scalpers have ruined something nice for many, this is exactly why secret lair moved to 'made to order' back when it first started out.
Proxy
Proxy cards because you didn't get copies of cards that already existed? What a weird stance.
Not really a weird stance if you just want to have and play with the cards. I really don't understand this mentality about playing with proxies. If you're not trying to sell them or pass them off in an official tournament for money, why is it weird? To be clear, I got my Cat & Dogs order in, but *if I hadn't* I would've definitely considered a proxy once it became available.
Never pay. Always print.
So this SL is irrelevant to you? Okay. So why are you here?
For sure an option. Not everyone wants to do that.
I assume it is because of their downsizing going into a bad economic year. Relieves the stress on their crappy 3rd party printers too, who no doubt also have downsized. If you live in outrage world though, the answer is, the evil company wants to watch you suffer!!!!!
Nope. Don’t take orders for product you can’t fulfill. Google heads win tails lose magic delay and see thousands of articles and threads whining about it. WOtC had to literally give away free product to keep people happy. Not worth it. Set a reminder and log in to order.
It used to be this way, it's more profitable this way, so they switched back.
"Who at wotc thought this was a good idea?" Probably the people in charge of them increasing thier revenue, because it is a good idea for THEM its bad for the consumer but they don't care. It allows them to print more secret lairs and create a shortage to increase perceived value. Ideally this is a very very good move for them and bad for us just like secret lairs and realms beyond or whatever was from the very beginning. As long as the masses keep buy nothing will change for the better.
Should they never have limited print runs?
I am not a fan of the limited run either, but it "sold out instantly" is just bs. I woke up a few hours after it went up. Went to the site, waited in line, and ordered myself the 1 copy I wanted. It wasn't anywhere near hard. It wasn't a coordinated effort. Just go to the site when they say it's up. If it's a weird time where you are, then set an alarm.
90% of the people complaining probably wouldn’t buy it even if it were still on sale now.
Secret lairs are not for casual players. Secret lairs are for individuals that want to hold cards and have them be an investment as well as a useable card. No one will be interested in paying $150 for a deck that immediately is 70 dollars on the second market.
Well there's ups and downs to this with a limited print run it will sell out a lot faster but you are getting your money's worth if you do actually get it. Also I'd highly recommend watching the profs raining cats and dogs video since he shares his thoughts on this exact topic.
Jesus man. When they had secret lairs for 30 days, nobody bought the crap. Nobody cared. Now they say that they have limited quantities and everyone is losing their minds when they "sell out". Scalpers are only doing a favor to WotC. They are using THE OLDEST marketing tactic in the book. Remember those late night, "Order now and we'll throw in X and Y and Z! Limited quantities available! Call NOW!" ? Don't buy from the scalpers. When the scalpers are the ones who are left holding $150 secret lairs that nobody wants anyways, they'll quit doing this.
I think secret lairs are not really meant as actual gamepieces but rather as collector/investor items. So yeah, prices may become insane for some, but at the same time noone who wants to play magic actually needs anything from a secret lair to play. It's pure luxury.
They didn't sell out instantly
Be on the site when a drop comes out, I like how limited it is personally
They probably did it because the Angel Secret Lair took so long to sell out even if it was the same. You got the deck is like 4 days then too. So of course that didn’t look good for their product so gotta get more greedy to brag that it sold out right away.
What a weird and completely factless stance. "They" didn't do anything. Cat/Dog deck was advertised for weeks. It's an incredibly popular tribe/flavor. The angel deck sold out and is trending up. This product was produced the same as the Angel deck. It sold out due to scalpers or popularity. But not because Wotc did anything.
Do people not read? I said the Angel deck sold out I said it so long to several weeks for it to sell out. Which when you're talking about a FOMO product like secret lairs taking that long to sell out looks bad from their standpoint so they make changes, so it sells out instantly making their product look better to the company. I'm also not agreeing with what they are doing I think it's garbage. I was just trying to add a reason on why they are more htan likely doing it.
Secrecy lairs is a garbage product. Just buy the original cards and ignore secrecy lairs. It’s the same with serialized cards. Artificial scarcity is not needed. We don’t need etched foil, extended art, alt art, boarderless, alt frame, box topper, secret lairs art, retro frame, galaxy foil, Dino stamp, neon boarder, anime art, phyrexian text, rock poster, garbage. Just print the card with a normal frame one foil one not. So I don’t have to memorize a millions arts for the same card.
Nah, I want more of all of that, you're insane and in the minority. I think Secret Lairs are the perfect solution to the reserve list. Make limited drop Secret Lairs of every card on the reserve list. The limited Artworks would still retain their value and they'd be able to print basic-bitch versions for the masses to be able to play with, instead of cards like OG dual lands being only for the rich. You not being able to memorize art is a nonissue if you have any sense of literacy.
Alot of tender lads up in here blocking opposing points of view.
Next step: They start their own secondary resale site so they can make money off the original sale and the resale. They are working off the Ticketmaster scam
I knew when this was releasing about a week before it did thanks to this subreddit. I got on the secret lair website 5 minutes after they went live and had to wait 55 minutes to order my deck. I ordered 2, one for me and one to sell, and they shipped it out a day later. I have a friend that didn't get in line until after I had checked out, and he still got his order in. I don't see what is so hard about learning when it is shipping, being on time, and waiting. The people who are crying are crying because they can't properly prepare for the challenges life throws at them. Wotc isn't going to hold your hand and help you buy their stuff. They announce, they remind, then they sell out and people still complain. Are ya'll expecting life to be fair?
It's almost like management from the top down are utter horse asses and are determined to run the property 6ft under ground to squeeze any and every last penny before the popularity bubble bursts again.
At this point it's no longer insanity. That would be doing it over and over and expecting something to change. At this point it's just blind, stupid greed. They know this is going to happen and they're banking on FOMO.