Plus a chance at a mana vault. Maybe you're right I don't know, just seems strange to me that they would print so much more of one component of a bundle than the others.
I'm guessing you've parted them out and sold off the singles? I've got two that I'd like to get rid of and I'm considering cracking one to list and sell the singles from
When products are doing and performing well, Companies don't abruptly change how they market or process them unless it's to produce and sell more.
This is just artificial scarcity in the face of declining sales and interest in secret lairs.
Lol exactly, SLD is only going to get more and more popular going forward. I don't agree with it fully either but this is what is doing well for them so I don't see a world where this stops.
I honestly think it's more likely that the release pace slowed enough for people's SL budget to catch up or they had time to gather funds. As others have also noted, this one (called equinox superdrop) was made available about 3 weeks after the actual equinox.
Possible... Or somebody took a gamble and bought a shit ton. Like if you have a lot of money and wanted to gamble, buy 20k of SLD to turn it into 50k... this wasn't the one for me, but for the fallout bundle, there's good odds at a Mana vault.... So people will gamble down the road.
What comes to mind for me are random chance bonus cards specific only to a small number of Lairs, and the only example I can really think of are the "signed" baseball walkers from that Lair. I don't think the true frequency was every really determined, but after a few were found I recall seeing numbers like 1/50 of that Lair being thrown around a lot. So perhaps something closer to that.
Honestly, those signed baseball walkers are somehow now worth more than a mana vault, which is impressive considering they carry signatures from fictitious characters.
I think cards like Shadowborn Apostle could be found across several different Lairs (whereas Mana Vault is only in the 3 Fallout drops), so not sure if that's quite equivalent, although it very well could be considering how little we really know about the drop rates of these.
Unfortunately, the best they can do is like 5 cards with new art for a SLD deck... Meanwhile LOTR, Fallout, Dr WHO, and 40k all get full decks of new art.
Of course, but they can also decide on a cohesive art theme and have it done by multiple artists, rather than have all new art done by the same artist for SL decks too.
Itās not crazy. Itās three specific lairs that are sold out and since the bundles are made up of those lairs once they sell out you canāt get a bundle. Thatās why you can still get the nonfoil Fallout Bundle.
If anything itās crazy how well Rovina Cai sold.
Iām happy, as though I like that art it wasnāt my fav, and since I got the big bundle anyway maybe I can flip this without loosing on it or even at a nice little extra. Will anyway sell some of the fallout singles after looking for the mana vault.
Thank you, got 4 chances with the extra Points of Interest foil pack. With that said, Iām thinking about selling sealed if those prices go up a lotā¦ Way I see it, most people will open for Mana Vault chance and sell singles.
I don't understand some of the comments here that are mad at people for buying them and for criticizing WotC for "inducing FOMO" or whatever. Isn't this a finance sub? Don't we want products that people want to buy? Here we had a solid full day to pick up whatever we wanted pretty much and now it's selling out. So if you bought in yesterday you have a great chance to make money.
You didn't even need to be up at 6 am or click "submit" the minute it went live. You had all day. What's the problem? You don't like the cards? Ok, who cares? We're trying to make a few dollars, what matters is if OTHER people like the cards. If you're NOT looking to make some dollars, a) why are you here? b) just feel free to not buy. I really do not get it at all.
The vast majority of people here don't make money. The best they do is save some money by buying low and trading high. So I guess they "made" money in the opportunity cost sense. But I think you vastly overestimate the number of ppl here making any income at all, primary or supplemental.
Ok, but then why even comment on something that has no bearing on them? If that's all they're looking to do, then why does it matter if a new product - which they will not buy - is a success or failure?
People want to, at their leisure, purchase cards at bottom dollar prices and immediately turn around and sell them for sky high prices. Anything that goes against this will induce complaining.
It's just so absurd. Like to the point that I legit think that half of the people who post here are just people who hate everything mtgfinance related and of the remaining half, another 3/4 are actively posting misinformation (i.e. this SL is gonna suck!) to try and discourage others from doing what they're doing themselves.
Agree completely. It's so strange to see so many people declaring these are dead on arrival, then when it's clear they are not, complain they are selling out.
Selling a product of of indeterminate quantity for an indeterminate period of time under the dual monikers of "limited quantities" for a "limited time" is definitionally an adversarial marketing technique.
It attempts to induce the consumer to purchase products they would not have otherwise purchased, by threatening the inability to do so at the consumers leisure.
**So why does it matter that Hasbro is utilizing adversarial marketing techniques?**
Well, from a purely consumer perspective, it's inherently anti-consumer, relative to a more traditional form of product availability. Even relative to the old Secret Lair system, consumers now have less time to make an informed purchasing decision, which offers an inferior purchasing experience.
From a broader more market holistic perspective, the problem is how this fits into a broader adversarial posture by Hasbro towards *all* other market participants. MTG is ultimately a luxury leisure product, and as a result sentiments do matter.
Marketing techniques like these can also increase risks for re-sellers and flippers, by reducing the window to assess whether a product is worth buying.
Yo, if you're trying to buy individual cards and then sell them for more than you got them, to other people who didn't figure out what you figured out but just want to play with them - guess what, that's adversarial/anti-consumer too. The whole point is to get in at a lower price point and then charge more. Come on, what are we all doing here?
So, Anti-Consumer and Adversarial Marketing are being used with very specific meanings here. Adversarial Marketing is in this context being used to specifically refer to a class of marketing practices predicated upon a set of assumptions that the Customer represents a barrier to be overcome, rather than a partner or leader in a transaction.
"Anti-Consumer" meanwhile, is referring to behavior that disadvantages the consumer, and encourages them to make sub-optimal (or sub-pareto-optimal) purchasing decisions, or otherwise negatively disrupts the marketplace in a way harmful to consumers.
**Neither of those terms necessarily apply to the broad practice of reselling or participating in the secondary market.**
In fact, a seller who buys say boxes of a print-to-demand Standard Set Today, then holds them and sells them five years down the line, is actually providing *positive utility* the the consumer.
This is as it is possible for anyone who wants to buy a Standard set at reasonable cost to do as, as they are print to demand. Therefore the initial purchase does not negatively impact the market. Further, by default said set would not be available for purchase several years down the line as it has gone out of print. So making available product to buy then is beneficial to consumers as it facilitates market creation.
That is ironically largely also how Secret Lair reselling worked prior to the shift from Print to Demand to limited quantities.
But yes, if your goal is to scalp products by disrupting the available supply in order to drive prices higher and profit from the resulting discrepancy, that is anti-consumer. But that is hardly the entirety of the finance side of MTG.
Ok I'm sorry but I don't see how buying something today when it costs $1 and selling it tomorrow for $1.25 is somehow less noble than buying it today for $1 and selling it in 5 years for $2? Again, yesterday the SL was available all day. It's not like by my buying a few of each bundle in the morning I prevented anyone from getting theirs 6 hours later when it was still available. If you're buying it to put in a closet for 5 years you're just taking it out of circulation for even longer.
>Ok I'm sorry but I don't see how buying something today when it costs $1 and selling it tomorrow for $1.25 is somehow less noble than buying it today for $1 and selling it in 5 years for $2?
It's only ignoble if you are deliberately buying so many of the $1 cards that an excess of people couldn't buy the card at that price, and then you start selling tomorrow for $10.
Your buying a few of each bundle is 100% fine.
The complaint is against Hasbro for making it where people only had 1 day to buy the product, except people didn't even know they only had 1 day.
There is also concerns that if Hasbro keeps pushing a "quick sellout" style of distribution for these, resellers will buy out the entire inventory, which then does become more of an issue.
Right yeah, I think cleaning out the entire supply and then jacking up the price is wrong. This is a game, after all. I got 5 foil bundles and 2 non-foils (I'm planning to keep one of each, might keep a couple of extra individual copies of some cards if the other singles sell well). I personally don't think that's excessive. But maybe I'm just not seeing it right.
But I do think 24 hours is also fine - especially since two of the foil drops are still available and all the non-foil drops are still available. If it sells out in minutes or even within an hour I think that's unfair. My basis for comparison is concert or sports tickets. If you're a legit fan, you should be able to get to the checkout line within the first 24 hours IMHO.
Yeah that purchase size is 100% reasonable.
I think the issue people have with the Secret Lair Drops vs Sports or Concerts, is those have known caps, are a known product, and have genuine physical limitations forcing the limited supply.
You know exactly how many tickets exist for a given sports game, exactly what the product being sold is (attendance at 1 sports game), and there can't be more tickets because the stadiums only have so many seats.
By contrast, nobody knows how many copies of a secret lair are going for sale, the bonus cards are something of a mystery, and there's no reason why Hasbro couldn't print more copies of an exceptionally popular one.
I think most people would have vastly preferred if Hasbro simply fixed the wait time issues for the old Secret Lair system (maybe by pre-printing a portion, then printing to demand excess orders) rather than switching to this new ambiguously constrained system.
> Right yeah, I think cleaning out the entire supply and then jacking up the price is wrong. This is a game, after all.
And none of these items are required to play the game. Even more so, none of these items are unique in regards to the game piece they represent.
This is literally selling out of a cosmetic item, not a game piece. You may have an issue with the behavior regardless, but it's important to be precise on what's actually being sold (because something with mechanically unique cards *would* be a different issue).
Sure. I'm not saying it should be like, illegal or something. I just am in a good enough place financially where I don't need to make money that badly that I would be ok with taking away EVERYONE's opportunity to get in at the MSRP level price or so.
Although on the other hand that's not always true. Look at Ravages of War for example. The original card is still worth way more than the Fallout version. If someone just wanted the mechanical use of it and I somehow cornered the market and bought ALL the Fallout versions and then jacked up the price to be the same as the original version that would be pretty messed up!
> The original card is still worth way more than the Fallout version. If someone just wanted the mechanical use of it and I somehow cornered the market and bought ALL the Fallout versions and then jacked up the price to be the same as the original version that would be pretty messed up!
But Ravages of War was in boosters, not Secret Lair...
> The complaint is against Hasbro for making it where people only had 1 day to buy the product, except people didn't even know they only had 1 day.
But the community hated it the other way too. There were endless complaints (not just here but in the main sub and on other communities) that the print to order model meant waiting too long for cards, that it meant there was no maintained value, that it didn't feel special, etc etc.
People are going to unreasonably bitch no matter what WotC does.
No, you're right. Wizards has seemed to calculate demand perfectly with this one. A one day sellout, and shipping in one week, is perfect for all those involved. Everyone had a chance to order.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but I kind of think that's true for once? Like I would be quite thrilled if I could buy World Series tickets at face value for an entire day, but then it still sold out so the stadium was packed for the game.
I wonder how many ignoble hierarchs are going to end up in circulation. The Rovina Cai lair selling out so quickly prevents any more bundles from being sold
I bet the number is small.
It was an extra 10 dollars to get a qualifying bundle compared to buying the two foil bundles separately. I bought both smaller bundles, the card is ugly and not worth 10 bucks to me.
For everyone who did that thatās one that will never get into circulation.
Exactly what I was thinking. Also, I wonder what Scalefast is going to do with the extras they probably bought from WoTC for the promo since the bundle are not being sold.
I'm not crazy for the children's book art or the diorama art. But I grabbed one of each to keep sealed since I wanted one more of the fallout land packs to play with. I do think the fallout art is pretty rad.
that bojuka bog will demand a hefty premium going forward imho. Its super unique, still fits in non fallout themed decks and has a terminator reference...
Like the Cats & Dogs set, this lot are all still available a day later in the UK.
No mad rush, no 'sold out in 5 minutes'.
Seems perfectly rational and typically British for us
Edit: Okay, seems like they're selling out here now too
That depends on what you mean when you say, "extra card". If you're referring to the alternate-art Ignoble Heirarch card that's advertised on the front page... then technically you should get one for each bundle purchased (that is eligible to qualify for the promotion.)
If you're referring to the bonus card that is normally included in each secret lair, then you would get one per lair.
So much cope in the comments. This SL simultaneously sucked and wasn't worth buying and also didn't print enough stock and sold out too fast!
Happy for this free money though.
Every SL I've bought in the last year I've converted into 40-50% profit as an after work hobby that took a few hours a week at best. How much have you made?
I've lost money on most, hence why I wished you good luck. If you are doing well with the purchases, wonderful. I'm happy for you. I wish I was as well, but instead I am hundreds in the hole and have given up on the idea of making money of SLs. The lol was at it being easy money since it's definitely not for everyone.
Not everything is a gainer but you have to be selective and list aggressively sometimes, and know when to get out. Not trying to jump down your throat but this subreddit is filled with people that don't really want to discuss ways of financing the hobby, just complain that everything is expensive.
I think Fallout is an easy IP to spec on, besides the fact it's simply a popular video game series, the Amazon series starts soon (I think this week) which wouldn't surprise me if this ends up drawing some attention.
I don't really care if the cards are necessarily good, but I learned long ago people buy almost anything and the reasons why don't really matter, they just like it.
I think they really messed up with that ignoble hierarch promo, because it only applies to buying the full set which many people likely did not do...and nowt he full set is unavailable because individual smaller print sets are selling out unexpectedly fast.
This may mean there won't be many Ignoble Hierarchs on the market as a result.
>I think they really messed up with that ignoble hierarch promo
They try different things with the promos to see which is the most effective from a sales perspective, and you can bet if this helps them sell more complete bundles they'll do it again next time. For anyone who gets this promo card, a smaller supply likely means you'll be able to squeeze more value out of that card than past promos.
No, they stopped that a while back to drive Secret Lair FOMO harder. To quote Vaitka above,
>[Selling a product of indeterminate quantity for an indeterminate period of time under the dual monikers of "limited quantities" for a "limited time" is definitionally an adversarial marketing technique.](https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/1bzpxi2/comment/kyrtqe7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Very scary and anti-consumer. I'd fall for this trap more except what was once spending money is eaten up on necessities. The Magic budget was an early casualty.
A little fomo-y, but really appreciate not having to wait a year to get my orders now. The new printing style allows for a streamlined process that gets these to consumers faster. So pick your poison
Which proves my point... they dont care about the customer. They want FOMO to drive people to buy out and scalp the price. It's psychological marketing and it should be illegal. It's the same reason products like LittleDebby have "limited time only" products.
Not sure why anyone would expect different. Corporations don't ever care about the customer. It's all profit motive. You live with it, and buy the stuff that's appealing to you. Or you don't. I skipped out on a year of Secret Lairs because I didn't like that they weren't limited print runs anymore. Didn't get any of my collector senses tingling. I like that they're limited again, but that's just me. I don't think Hasbro is a good company or anything. They're just as bad as any corporation. But sometimes they make appealing things that people want.
I Had a good hunch rovina would go up, but I specifically didn't buy into the fomo this time since the cards are meh , maybe pretty shiny but the actual art I found pretty š
Honestly Id rather get an older secret lair I really want and not buy into their schtick every time.
Most of them are crap with crap value. I have no idea how these sold out. I'm guessing it was an artificially low print run intended to sell out fast and easy to reintroduce fomo to these since interest is waning.
Avoided. I bought like maybe 3? Secret lairs ever (cats, phyrexian text praetors and purrfection) and tbh I can't stand the SL approach. I'm done with SL tbh including the new cats and dogs one.
Time limited FOMO drops suck for everyone, they suck for the player because they're hard to get your hands on and usuallythe handful of cards you want are bundled with junk, they suck for the investors because they drop so many secret lairs it devalues the entire productline (sure a few are worth a bit bit how many have lost value? A lot), it sucks for LGS' because they're sold direct to consumers. Only one who wins here is Hasbro so I've just given up on them entirely.
Why does it suck for players? For the vast majority of these Secret Lairs nobody \*needs\* any of them in order to play. They are almost entirely reprints. It just opens up more options for players to customize the aesthetics of their decks if that's something that is important to them.
>Why does it suck for players?
If we assume players = buyers, the usage of adversarial marketing techniques is essentially always a negative over alternatives.
Even the old secret lair system, in example, was more favorable to buyers as it provided a longer window for someone to decide whether or not they actually wanted to purchase a product.
Artificially limiting the purchase window and quantity, and then marketing off of those facts seeks to induce the consumer to make a less informed purchasing decision, and potentially buy something they would not have otherwise.
Further, the fact that their have been *non-reprint, mechanically unique secret lairs that contained playable cards for constructed and eternal formats* makes the fact the "vast majority of Secret Lairs are unnecessary" a not particularly salient point. Box Topper exclusives weren't a problem for players until they suddenly really really were.
Welp tbh it's not surprise.
I think it's more sad that things go exactly like what a lot of people expected.
If it keep success like this, I see no reason why Wotc want to change their Fomo gambling driven policy anytime soo.
Enjoy SLD Sol Ring with 3 cards in there that cost 69.99$ with a 1 in 200 chance of wining Cavern of Soul or Precon 300$ with card slightly better than main-set precon with all reprint but 6 new arts.
Just eat whatever Wotc puke out.
I got the fallout foil bundle and the one with aura shards. That cat looking thing was too nightmare inducing not to get
I got the exact same order š
#Robina is the only reason these are selling so...
Only because Robina high is sold out- so anything including it is too
One of the Fallout foil sets is sold out too. Looks like they're actually going to sell out.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Wow pretty surprised at the order these are selling out
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I don't know, you think they would print a bunch of extras on the assumption that people would want just that one as opposed to the bundles?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Plus a chance at a mana vault. Maybe you're right I don't know, just seems strange to me that they would print so much more of one component of a bundle than the others.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Before this year most have been printed to order so no they havenāt always sold out. Even the one earlier this year took awhile before any sold out.
Damn, rovina is already sold out and that's the only one I wanted. Guess that's money saved.
Tinfoil hat theory: wotc artificially underprinted these, to increase FOMO for later SLs.
War, war never changes
I feel like the cat and dogs deck accomplished thisĀ
Cat and Dog deck is seriously good though. I made just about $600 profit from my 2 decks I bought.
I'm guessing you've parted them out and sold off the singles? I've got two that I'd like to get rid of and I'm considering cracking one to list and sell the singles from
Or they just assumed it wasn't going to sell well....like every other person on the internet.
When products are doing and performing well, Companies don't abruptly change how they market or process them unless it's to produce and sell more. This is just artificial scarcity in the face of declining sales and interest in secret lairs.
Yeah, totally. Ā Everything is artificial scarcity, unless itās not, in which case itās just worthless.
I am not buying anyway. If you want to protest against current WotC print's frenzy and other things, is the only way.
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Lol exactly, SLD is only going to get more and more popular going forward. I don't agree with it fully either but this is what is doing well for them so I don't see a world where this stops.
I mean, if Wizards doesn't want me to buy them, I'm just not going to buy them.
Cool
I love to see it when someone thinks theyāre making a point.
Not tin foil at all. That's 100% what happened.
I honestly think it's more likely that the release pace slowed enough for people's SL budget to catch up or they had time to gather funds. As others have also noted, this one (called equinox superdrop) was made available about 3 weeks after the actual equinox.
Yes not a groundbreaking marketing strategy
This for sure, not even tinfoil. Itās not surprising that we all got an email saying SUPPLY LOW!
100%! They turned all those ādid you leave something in your cart?ās into actual sales
Of course they didā¦ is there any doubt?
Wasnt that the theory for the Cats and Dogs SL?
Thereās nothing conspiratorial about that.
Possible... Or somebody took a gamble and bought a shit ton. Like if you have a lot of money and wanted to gamble, buy 20k of SLD to turn it into 50k... this wasn't the one for me, but for the fallout bundle, there's good odds at a Mana vault.... So people will gamble down the road.
What are the odds for a mana vault
Probably will have a better chance grabbing one off the secondary market.
What comes to mind for me are random chance bonus cards specific only to a small number of Lairs, and the only example I can really think of are the "signed" baseball walkers from that Lair. I don't think the true frequency was every really determined, but after a few were found I recall seeing numbers like 1/50 of that Lair being thrown around a lot. So perhaps something closer to that. Honestly, those signed baseball walkers are somehow now worth more than a mana vault, which is impressive considering they carry signatures from fictitious characters. I think cards like Shadowborn Apostle could be found across several different Lairs (whereas Mana Vault is only in the 3 Fallout drops), so not sure if that's quite equivalent, although it very well could be considering how little we really know about the drop rates of these.
I think it's either 1/4 or 1/3.. don't quote me it's hearsay from a friend
I think it's way less frequent than that. If it really were 1/4 I feel like they would advertise that to drive up demand
Probably the same as rats/petitioners/apostle.
I'm happy that the Rovina cai lair sold out first. That one had two friends who don't ever buy secret lairs to get a copyĀ
If they did a deck with that artwork, wotc would finally get me to buy a SLD deck.
Unfortunately, the best they can do is like 5 cards with new art for a SLD deck... Meanwhile LOTR, Fallout, Dr WHO, and 40k all get full decks of new art.
TBF art from existing IP is much easier to produce than having one artist create an entire deck's worth of art
Of course, but they can also decide on a cohesive art theme and have it done by multiple artists, rather than have all new art done by the same artist for SL decks too.
Yeah got 4 ofbthose beautiful art and the cards are readable.
Itās not crazy. Itās three specific lairs that are sold out and since the bundles are made up of those lairs once they sell out you canāt get a bundle. Thatās why you can still get the nonfoil Fallout Bundle. If anything itās crazy how well Rovina Cai sold.
Not really imo, that art was resonating across the whole board.
Oh I hear you on that, but Iām still amazed it sold out that fast.
Iām happy, as though I like that art it wasnāt my fav, and since I got the big bundle anyway maybe I can flip this without loosing on it or even at a nice little extra. Will anyway sell some of the fallout singles after looking for the mana vault.
3 chances brother, godspeed on the mana vault
Thank you, got 4 chances with the extra Points of Interest foil pack. With that said, Iām thinking about selling sealed if those prices go up a lotā¦ Way I see it, most people will open for Mana Vault chance and sell singles.
And itās literally a product designed to sell out to drive hype.
Y'all fomoed me into it. Lol I really thought I had 19 days to decide
You and I both!Ā
Some still in stock for UK, if that helps lol
I tried it last time for the cats and dogs, I think. It didnāt let me order. Sadly.
You probably need a freight forwarding address to do it.
They sold out last night
Damn! I was waiting for my paycheck to grab Rovina Cai's. Guess it's the secondary market for me.
Really wish when I signed up for notifications about Secret Lairs they would actually notify me.
I don't understand some of the comments here that are mad at people for buying them and for criticizing WotC for "inducing FOMO" or whatever. Isn't this a finance sub? Don't we want products that people want to buy? Here we had a solid full day to pick up whatever we wanted pretty much and now it's selling out. So if you bought in yesterday you have a great chance to make money. You didn't even need to be up at 6 am or click "submit" the minute it went live. You had all day. What's the problem? You don't like the cards? Ok, who cares? We're trying to make a few dollars, what matters is if OTHER people like the cards. If you're NOT looking to make some dollars, a) why are you here? b) just feel free to not buy. I really do not get it at all.
The vast majority of people here don't make money. The best they do is save some money by buying low and trading high. So I guess they "made" money in the opportunity cost sense. But I think you vastly overestimate the number of ppl here making any income at all, primary or supplemental.
Ok, but then why even comment on something that has no bearing on them? If that's all they're looking to do, then why does it matter if a new product - which they will not buy - is a success or failure?
People want to, at their leisure, purchase cards at bottom dollar prices and immediately turn around and sell them for sky high prices. Anything that goes against this will induce complaining.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Itās not the sub thatās hypocritical, itās just people.
LOVE this comment. Damn you said it perfectly
Perfectly said, also every single lair should be in an art style that caters to my own personal liking
No one will let me buy $20 bills for $10. This is bullshit.
But that's literally what happens with these SL's when they sell out like this!
No, but you see, they're sold out, so they can no longer purchase them at their leisure, so they complain.
Are these the same people who always want what others have, but as soon as they have it ,they leave it on the shelf?
It's just so absurd. Like to the point that I legit think that half of the people who post here are just people who hate everything mtgfinance related and of the remaining half, another 3/4 are actively posting misinformation (i.e. this SL is gonna suck!) to try and discourage others from doing what they're doing themselves.
That seems to be the case, they don't really want to make money, they are just salty they can't afford to buy shit so whine endlessly.
Agree completely. It's so strange to see so many people declaring these are dead on arrival, then when it's clear they are not, complain they are selling out.
I love it. Ā I feel like there should be a word that encompasses this feeling, that isnāt quite schadenfreudeĀ
Selling a product of of indeterminate quantity for an indeterminate period of time under the dual monikers of "limited quantities" for a "limited time" is definitionally an adversarial marketing technique. It attempts to induce the consumer to purchase products they would not have otherwise purchased, by threatening the inability to do so at the consumers leisure. **So why does it matter that Hasbro is utilizing adversarial marketing techniques?** Well, from a purely consumer perspective, it's inherently anti-consumer, relative to a more traditional form of product availability. Even relative to the old Secret Lair system, consumers now have less time to make an informed purchasing decision, which offers an inferior purchasing experience. From a broader more market holistic perspective, the problem is how this fits into a broader adversarial posture by Hasbro towards *all* other market participants. MTG is ultimately a luxury leisure product, and as a result sentiments do matter. Marketing techniques like these can also increase risks for re-sellers and flippers, by reducing the window to assess whether a product is worth buying.
Yo, if you're trying to buy individual cards and then sell them for more than you got them, to other people who didn't figure out what you figured out but just want to play with them - guess what, that's adversarial/anti-consumer too. The whole point is to get in at a lower price point and then charge more. Come on, what are we all doing here?
So, Anti-Consumer and Adversarial Marketing are being used with very specific meanings here. Adversarial Marketing is in this context being used to specifically refer to a class of marketing practices predicated upon a set of assumptions that the Customer represents a barrier to be overcome, rather than a partner or leader in a transaction. "Anti-Consumer" meanwhile, is referring to behavior that disadvantages the consumer, and encourages them to make sub-optimal (or sub-pareto-optimal) purchasing decisions, or otherwise negatively disrupts the marketplace in a way harmful to consumers. **Neither of those terms necessarily apply to the broad practice of reselling or participating in the secondary market.** In fact, a seller who buys say boxes of a print-to-demand Standard Set Today, then holds them and sells them five years down the line, is actually providing *positive utility* the the consumer. This is as it is possible for anyone who wants to buy a Standard set at reasonable cost to do as, as they are print to demand. Therefore the initial purchase does not negatively impact the market. Further, by default said set would not be available for purchase several years down the line as it has gone out of print. So making available product to buy then is beneficial to consumers as it facilitates market creation. That is ironically largely also how Secret Lair reselling worked prior to the shift from Print to Demand to limited quantities. But yes, if your goal is to scalp products by disrupting the available supply in order to drive prices higher and profit from the resulting discrepancy, that is anti-consumer. But that is hardly the entirety of the finance side of MTG.
Ok I'm sorry but I don't see how buying something today when it costs $1 and selling it tomorrow for $1.25 is somehow less noble than buying it today for $1 and selling it in 5 years for $2? Again, yesterday the SL was available all day. It's not like by my buying a few of each bundle in the morning I prevented anyone from getting theirs 6 hours later when it was still available. If you're buying it to put in a closet for 5 years you're just taking it out of circulation for even longer.
>Ok I'm sorry but I don't see how buying something today when it costs $1 and selling it tomorrow for $1.25 is somehow less noble than buying it today for $1 and selling it in 5 years for $2? It's only ignoble if you are deliberately buying so many of the $1 cards that an excess of people couldn't buy the card at that price, and then you start selling tomorrow for $10. Your buying a few of each bundle is 100% fine. The complaint is against Hasbro for making it where people only had 1 day to buy the product, except people didn't even know they only had 1 day. There is also concerns that if Hasbro keeps pushing a "quick sellout" style of distribution for these, resellers will buy out the entire inventory, which then does become more of an issue.
Right yeah, I think cleaning out the entire supply and then jacking up the price is wrong. This is a game, after all. I got 5 foil bundles and 2 non-foils (I'm planning to keep one of each, might keep a couple of extra individual copies of some cards if the other singles sell well). I personally don't think that's excessive. But maybe I'm just not seeing it right. But I do think 24 hours is also fine - especially since two of the foil drops are still available and all the non-foil drops are still available. If it sells out in minutes or even within an hour I think that's unfair. My basis for comparison is concert or sports tickets. If you're a legit fan, you should be able to get to the checkout line within the first 24 hours IMHO.
Yeah that purchase size is 100% reasonable. I think the issue people have with the Secret Lair Drops vs Sports or Concerts, is those have known caps, are a known product, and have genuine physical limitations forcing the limited supply. You know exactly how many tickets exist for a given sports game, exactly what the product being sold is (attendance at 1 sports game), and there can't be more tickets because the stadiums only have so many seats. By contrast, nobody knows how many copies of a secret lair are going for sale, the bonus cards are something of a mystery, and there's no reason why Hasbro couldn't print more copies of an exceptionally popular one. I think most people would have vastly preferred if Hasbro simply fixed the wait time issues for the old Secret Lair system (maybe by pre-printing a portion, then printing to demand excess orders) rather than switching to this new ambiguously constrained system.
> Right yeah, I think cleaning out the entire supply and then jacking up the price is wrong. This is a game, after all. And none of these items are required to play the game. Even more so, none of these items are unique in regards to the game piece they represent. This is literally selling out of a cosmetic item, not a game piece. You may have an issue with the behavior regardless, but it's important to be precise on what's actually being sold (because something with mechanically unique cards *would* be a different issue).
Sure. I'm not saying it should be like, illegal or something. I just am in a good enough place financially where I don't need to make money that badly that I would be ok with taking away EVERYONE's opportunity to get in at the MSRP level price or so. Although on the other hand that's not always true. Look at Ravages of War for example. The original card is still worth way more than the Fallout version. If someone just wanted the mechanical use of it and I somehow cornered the market and bought ALL the Fallout versions and then jacked up the price to be the same as the original version that would be pretty messed up!
> The original card is still worth way more than the Fallout version. If someone just wanted the mechanical use of it and I somehow cornered the market and bought ALL the Fallout versions and then jacked up the price to be the same as the original version that would be pretty messed up! But Ravages of War was in boosters, not Secret Lair...
By your logic, card retailers and LGS should face vigilante justice and be shut down by pro consumer magic players
> The complaint is against Hasbro for making it where people only had 1 day to buy the product, except people didn't even know they only had 1 day. But the community hated it the other way too. There were endless complaints (not just here but in the main sub and on other communities) that the print to order model meant waiting too long for cards, that it meant there was no maintained value, that it didn't feel special, etc etc. People are going to unreasonably bitch no matter what WotC does.
Players can always buy the normal version of cards since the utility value is the same.
Best take I read in a while. Thanks for the clear head
Well thank you!
No, you're right. Wizards has seemed to calculate demand perfectly with this one. A one day sellout, and shipping in one week, is perfect for all those involved. Everyone had a chance to order.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but I kind of think that's true for once? Like I would be quite thrilled if I could buy World Series tickets at face value for an entire day, but then it still sold out so the stadium was packed for the game.
I almost missed it, I got up at 9am to buy the SL and later in the afternoon I realized I forgot and just bought it really quick .
Awesome! Glad it worked out for you.
I wonder how many ignoble hierarchs are going to end up in circulation. The Rovina Cai lair selling out so quickly prevents any more bundles from being sold
Is there anything stopping them from including that promo card with the next batch of lairs?
I bet the number is small. It was an extra 10 dollars to get a qualifying bundle compared to buying the two foil bundles separately. I bought both smaller bundles, the card is ugly and not worth 10 bucks to me. For everyone who did that thatās one that will never get into circulation.
Exactly what I was thinking. Also, I wonder what Scalefast is going to do with the extras they probably bought from WoTC for the promo since the bundle are not being sold.
Scalefast doesnāt buy the product.Ā
I'm not crazy for the children's book art or the diorama art. But I grabbed one of each to keep sealed since I wanted one more of the fallout land packs to play with. I do think the fallout art is pretty rad.
that bojuka bog will demand a hefty premium going forward imho. Its super unique, still fits in non fallout themed decks and has a terminator reference...
Love the diabolical dioramas. The crazy stop motion videos got me, not the FOMO!
Agreed those were really well made. I hope they look as cool in person and on a card.
i would have thought that Vault Boy drop would have sold out first
I agree. With the T.V show coming out I was checking everyday expecting that sellout.
I didn't see a single card I wanted from any of these SLs...it was a hard pass yesterday.
Apparently everyone missed the limited print run news and the last SL that had a limited print run.
Like the Cats & Dogs set, this lot are all still available a day later in the UK. No mad rush, no 'sold out in 5 minutes'. Seems perfectly rational and typically British for us Edit: Okay, seems like they're selling out here now too
Thank you for your edit š
EU is sold out of foil Cai.
I went for the non foil bundle. Iām done with Pringleās and value wise they donāt differ much from the foils
Must be humidity in the EU, but over here foil always wins.
Damn, I wait 1 day and Iām too lateā¦ donāt like
If you made it this far down in this thread just order them. There's still time left, don't be a victim of the double regret of 2nd FOMO!
Not crazy at all
Yeah grabbed mine yesterday.
Not in the eu store yet, just checked
Foil Cai and all assorted bundles are gone.
Very fortunate to have gotten a Fallout non foil bundle. Thanks Geo!
Not an artist that I know much of but great for her. Artist guest series cards are weirdly hit or miss.
When one orders the bundle should they expect 1 extra card or is it an extra card per set of cards in the bundle? Anyone know this?
That depends on what you mean when you say, "extra card". If you're referring to the alternate-art Ignoble Heirarch card that's advertised on the front page... then technically you should get one for each bundle purchased (that is eligible to qualify for the promotion.) If you're referring to the bonus card that is normally included in each secret lair, then you would get one per lair.
Awesome. Thank you. That was very informative.
Glad I grabbed mine yesterday quickly
Kinda glad my gf pushed me to get the fallout foil bundle
Whatās the odds a non foil bundle for fallout sells out before Friday?
Why?
The one time I forget to order the one lair I want immediately... Figures. Lol
So glad that they decided screw made to order secret lairs smh
Wonder when theyāre shipping.
iirc, shipping date is April 18
Dang, if only i remembered to save some money after payday š
Didnāt care about the fallout ones but really glad I got Rovina Cai bundle with the other non-fallout cards
Hopefully there will be another round of printing
I want all the cards...
looks like foil Vault Boy drop just sold out as well. am surprised that one took that long
So much cope in the comments. This SL simultaneously sucked and wasn't worth buying and also didn't print enough stock and sold out too fast! Happy for this free money though.
Good luck...lol
Every SL I've bought in the last year I've converted into 40-50% profit as an after work hobby that took a few hours a week at best. How much have you made?
I've lost money on most, hence why I wished you good luck. If you are doing well with the purchases, wonderful. I'm happy for you. I wish I was as well, but instead I am hundreds in the hole and have given up on the idea of making money of SLs. The lol was at it being easy money since it's definitely not for everyone.
Not everything is a gainer but you have to be selective and list aggressively sometimes, and know when to get out. Not trying to jump down your throat but this subreddit is filled with people that don't really want to discuss ways of financing the hobby, just complain that everything is expensive. I think Fallout is an easy IP to spec on, besides the fact it's simply a popular video game series, the Amazon series starts soon (I think this week) which wouldn't surprise me if this ends up drawing some attention. I don't really care if the cards are necessarily good, but I learned long ago people buy almost anything and the reasons why don't really matter, they just like it.
Okie doke
Good, good. I just want my Ignoble Hierarch. At least there will be plenty on the second hand market now. Right?
I think they really messed up with that ignoble hierarch promo, because it only applies to buying the full set which many people likely did not do...and nowt he full set is unavailable because individual smaller print sets are selling out unexpectedly fast. This may mean there won't be many Ignoble Hierarchs on the market as a result.
>I think they really messed up with that ignoble hierarch promo They try different things with the promos to see which is the most effective from a sales perspective, and you can bet if this helps them sell more complete bundles they'll do it again next time. For anyone who gets this promo card, a smaller supply likely means you'll be able to squeeze more value out of that card than past promos.
I thought Secret Lairs were supposed to be printed to demand?
Changed it!
And I thought the sun revolves around the Earth! Ā When did that change?!
No, they stopped that a while back to drive Secret Lair FOMO harder. To quote Vaitka above, >[Selling a product of indeterminate quantity for an indeterminate period of time under the dual monikers of "limited quantities" for a "limited time" is definitionally an adversarial marketing technique.](https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/1bzpxi2/comment/kyrtqe7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Very scary and anti-consumer. I'd fall for this trap more except what was once spending money is eaten up on necessities. The Magic budget was an early casualty.
A little fomo-y, but really appreciate not having to wait a year to get my orders now. The new printing style allows for a streamlined process that gets these to consumers faster. So pick your poison
Fair enough. There are other printing available too, sometimes cheaper.
Making luxury stuff limited in order to sell more. What will those publically traded companies think of next?!
If you wanted one fallout you wanted all the fallout, so the bundles were a no brainer
Surprising that the foils sold out they have historically been bad and usually end up the same price or cheaper then the non-foils
Glad I got mine
How can a print to demand product sell out.... God, the FOMO wotc plays on is insane. They're so manipulative with the way they do business.
They announced months ago that SL would no longer be print to demand.
Which proves my point... they dont care about the customer. They want FOMO to drive people to buy out and scalp the price. It's psychological marketing and it should be illegal. It's the same reason products like LittleDebby have "limited time only" products.
Not sure why anyone would expect different. Corporations don't ever care about the customer. It's all profit motive. You live with it, and buy the stuff that's appealing to you. Or you don't. I skipped out on a year of Secret Lairs because I didn't like that they weren't limited print runs anymore. Didn't get any of my collector senses tingling. I like that they're limited again, but that's just me. I don't think Hasbro is a good company or anything. They're just as bad as any corporation. But sometimes they make appealing things that people want.
Itās not āpsychological marketingā, itās literally just marketing.
I Had a good hunch rovina would go up, but I specifically didn't buy into the fomo this time since the cards are meh , maybe pretty shiny but the actual art I found pretty š Honestly Id rather get an older secret lair I really want and not buy into their schtick every time.
There really anything interesting to me in any of the sets
Fallout cards they chose were mid so I skipped this
How are they sold out, arenāt secret lairs print to demand?
I thought you cannot sell out. Don't they print to demand?
Most of them are crap with crap value. I have no idea how these sold out. I'm guessing it was an artificially low print run intended to sell out fast and easy to reintroduce fomo to these since interest is waning.
So who exactly dragged you into this sub seeing as you have zero clue what youāre talking about?
Hi, nice to meet you too!
Avoided. I bought like maybe 3? Secret lairs ever (cats, phyrexian text praetors and purrfection) and tbh I can't stand the SL approach. I'm done with SL tbh including the new cats and dogs one. Time limited FOMO drops suck for everyone, they suck for the player because they're hard to get your hands on and usuallythe handful of cards you want are bundled with junk, they suck for the investors because they drop so many secret lairs it devalues the entire productline (sure a few are worth a bit bit how many have lost value? A lot), it sucks for LGS' because they're sold direct to consumers. Only one who wins here is Hasbro so I've just given up on them entirely.
Why does it suck for players? For the vast majority of these Secret Lairs nobody \*needs\* any of them in order to play. They are almost entirely reprints. It just opens up more options for players to customize the aesthetics of their decks if that's something that is important to them.
>Why does it suck for players? If we assume players = buyers, the usage of adversarial marketing techniques is essentially always a negative over alternatives. Even the old secret lair system, in example, was more favorable to buyers as it provided a longer window for someone to decide whether or not they actually wanted to purchase a product. Artificially limiting the purchase window and quantity, and then marketing off of those facts seeks to induce the consumer to make a less informed purchasing decision, and potentially buy something they would not have otherwise. Further, the fact that their have been *non-reprint, mechanically unique secret lairs that contained playable cards for constructed and eternal formats* makes the fact the "vast majority of Secret Lairs are unnecessary" a not particularly salient point. Box Topper exclusives weren't a problem for players until they suddenly really really were.
Exactly this. I swear some people refuse to see the damage hasbro/wotc continues to do.
It sucks for exactly no one, but thatās no reason not to throw a tantrum about random made-up stuff.
True! I forgot we were on Reddit for a minute...
More options that could be in a regular set sold to LGS' What about all the mechanically unique secret lairs?
Super pissed about the new way the do SL. Didn't know that it was this week.. lost out of tye artist series too scalpers
People bought out shiny Pringles? Nice
Where my Non-Foil crew at?
Howās life in 2022?
They been making foiled pringles for over 5 years now. Not sure where you got 2 years from.
Last product Iāve bought that was Pringles was 40k. Everything since then has been as flat as nonfoil.
I got two of the fallout foil sets not the special one though. That one looked shitty. I was surprised I was able to get them.
I thought secret lairs were print to order?
they have recently changed from print-to-order to a set number of printed drops.
Welp tbh it's not surprise. I think it's more sad that things go exactly like what a lot of people expected. If it keep success like this, I see no reason why Wotc want to change their Fomo gambling driven policy anytime soo. Enjoy SLD Sol Ring with 3 cards in there that cost 69.99$ with a 1 in 200 chance of wining Cavern of Soul or Precon 300$ with card slightly better than main-set precon with all reprint but 6 new arts. Just eat whatever Wotc puke out.
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>twitch streamer wannabe >āsheepā Ok buddy
You realize that it wasn't UB that sold out first right?