Just wanted to complete th trifecta. I'm a pokemon player but ive played MTG and YuGiOh. I just prefer both the theme and mechanics of Pokemon. I can also understand why some people prefer the other TCGs as well. I just want the gaming community to be an open and warm place for everyone. Especially since a corporations interests is the bottom line its up to us to help ensure our fellow players feel welcome and try to help keep the corporations in line.
God, right? I just stumbled upon this channel this week and I'd love to hear him talk about the atrocity that is Secret Lair Walking Dead. Actually quit MTG over it until they prove theyre reversing course, which i don't see happening.
This is why commander is the best. I can do what I want, when I want. No one can incriminate me for playing my jank. Secret lair won’t touch commander that much, so I’m ok if I see one once in a blue moon. Or should I say blood moon
@@themonsterlegend3709 Commander is one of the few formats where the cards are legal. They're aimed at commander players in particular who bond to characters and represent themselves with them as commanders.
Well yeah, some number of those should be swamps, and ideally most of them are cool nonbasics so you can still play magic if you don't start with a hunt or your opponent is playing blue.
@@lava2istrue Because Creeping Tar Pit beat down is a necessity in a format with Spell Pierce. Also, Mystic Sanctuary is too good to NOT play when your entire game plan revolves around 1 instant or sorcery. Also Also, it's hilarious to include a full set of unnecessary shocks, fetches, and fastlands in a deck that empirically DOES NOT need them, because why NOT turn the $5 meme-deck into a thousand dollar monstrosity, with no discernible benefit? I dunno, maybe I'm just unusually susceptible to finding humor in unnecessary expenditure? Like, sure buying Taigas when the price dropped earlier this year was a good idea, but I'm slotting them into a tribal boar deck to make it marginally easier to floop pigs, so...
It was them acknowledging the secondary market exists in the sheer fact that the production cost of that product is literally pennies and the price for it is sitting around $400. They are trying to skirt around that fact by saying "there is no msrp" but they are in fact Influencing the recommended price by under printing the shit out of it. Originally said each wpn store could order 10 if they want yeah try more like 3 at max if that. That's not to mention the bullshit of double masters costing something like 350-450 a box for reprints and a $100 booster pack that has 12 fucking basic lands in it! These are square bits of card stock why the fuck are they charging the price of a next gen console for a single fucking box. Hell double masters is priced so badly most normal plays cant even justify paying for a single draft of the set which is ridiculous.
@@craterdestroyer3604 yeah jund in modern runs around 1400 about half the cost comes from fetchlands needing 4 copies of each and such which wizards just sold a single copy of 5 of the 10 of em for 400 instead of actually the damn things so they arent 60+ a piece.
The best way to explain MtG Secret Lairs and Collector Boosters is this: "Fuck the future playerbase, fuck the average current playerbase, we want whales and only whales. We want a tiny boost of money right now, instead of the incredibly large amount of money that would be generated by growing the game and expanding the playerbase." The secondary market is killing Magic, and Wizards refuses to publicly acknowledge its existence. They clearly know the secondary market exists since they keep making these extremely overpriced products and never reprinting any expensive card in a meaningful way, yet Wizards also does not ever publicly say the secondary market exists. They would rather bow to the whining of the "investors", "collectors", speculative buyers, hoarders, and whales that all _don't even play the game_ . Wizards would rather see the game die than expand the playerbase of any of the formats.
To be honest, Secret Lairs are generally alright. Several of them are well below market price, and they're great for getting people into older formats (30 bucks for a foil play set of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben with special art? nice). "Secret Lair Ultimate Edition" was just a fucking scam, though.
Actually... WOTC only cares for the MPL and only the MPL. And since the MPL is 100% digital, every card they print is actually just fan service. And as long people pay 5.95 for a booster pack, why would they stop doing so?
I've heard it theorized that WotC can't/isn't supposed to recognize the existence of the secondary market, cuz then it'd be easier for legislators to classify sealed product as gambling. ...Which is all well and good, but this Secret Lair thing is going quite a bit overboard on feigning corporate ignorance.
„Nobody is putting like 55 Islands in a Deck..“ you sir havent heard of the „treasure hunt - thassas oracle combo“ which is a deck with exactly 55 islands, 4 treasure hunt and 1 thassas oracle. :D
The most consumer-friendly products I've seen were the Force of Will starter decks, which had full playsets of every card, with half the deck being foil. I'd purchase two copies, make an all-foil deck and give the second deck to my friend.
Yeay today is just one copy of every card is foil, but yeay playset from every card + today you got the duol magic stone, so yeay i buy everytime the starterdecks.
@@downsjmmyjones101 Even simply the decision to move the 'mana' cards to their own side deck solves so many issues. You're never flooded, starved or have useless cards in your hand.
By the by, the “trust value” you refer to is an economic principle called goodwill, and for many companies can be considered a market, just like what they profit in with cash. WotC is starting to head down a road where they trade off one for the other, but once goodwill runs out, thats the point where you start losing a customer base.
Wotc's doing a weird balancing act of some _amazing_ sets for getting much needed reprints (M21, Jumpstart, Mystery Booster) but then Simultaneously follow it up with stuff like Secret Lair Ultimate Edition or Double Masters' price point.
@@flametitan100 - The problem is that they're holding fetch lands specifically hostage in doing so. Imo, the secret lairs (the online ones) are overall a good thing - they act as a _MADE TO ORDER_ reprint run that can offer reprints of either expensive cards at a lower value (Bitterblossom), or as just aesthetically unique reprints that appeal to some people (cats, certain artists, etc). As much as "it's not for you" is a meme in the MTG community, this product is a good example of that, but applied in a positive way: you don't _NEED_ the secret lairs, they're entirely optional and you can only get the ones that personally interest you if you want. They play into one of the biggest factors of the game: self expression. Even the $100 VIP booster I'm personally ok with. Like, nothing in it is unique to them and also necessary to play the game. You can get a foil, masterpiece edition extended art Expedition Map for like, $60 or so maybe, or you could get... the normal one for probably like, $0.50 after its reprint in the same set. It's cosmetics, who cares. But the fetch lands one? That's gatekeeping _necessary_ game pieces, not just a unique printing of something otherwise readily available.
@@KingBobXVI Oh definitely. I don't disagree with you (though I think VIP Boosters being $100 is a blatantly obvious price hike for the sake of milking the consumer base for all it's worth, the _idea_ of bling oriented boosters is not something I dislike)
I love Magic and am a judge, but I can recognize that Magic's killing itself. Jesper Myrfors, the old-school Magic artist and the game's first art director, said a few years ago (paraphrased) that mechanically unique promos are a sign of metastasized cancer in a game, because it means that they've gone bankrupt of ideas and have resorted to whaling to keep the lights on; as such, it was something they decided early on that they would never do. Now never's here. :(
When yugioh did a 50$ version of this, atleast they added a playmat, a deck box and 100 sleeves. So you are technically buying the playmat the deck box and sleeves and you get 12 promos ''for free'', most people bought the product for the promos but you cant say you felt cheated, you really did get around 50$ worth of stuff.
In regards to YGO structure decks: Yeah, you are forced to buy three to make the deck you want. But you know what? You just spent $30 to make a deck. It may not win a YCS, but it's actually playable. Might take a win at locals. That's gotta be one of the best ways to get right into the game. Makes me want to quit buying magic sealed product and go back to YGO.
At release, Salamangreat was literally 3 structure decks and a handful or staples (Lady Debug, Thanos dragon, Impermanence/Veiler etc.) and you had a tier 1/2 deck. Similar cases with Chaos Dragons, Cyber Dragons, Zombies and Dinosaurs (not as good as Salamangreat but many of the cards are still played competitively today)
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the pony cards. They aren't tournament legal, and the majority of their cost was directly donated to charity. I also think there's nothing INHERENTLY wrong with the secret lairs, as being able to pay a premium for cool art seems like fair play. The problem is that they're not ALSO providing meaningful reprints. I don't think anyone would be complaining about the $200 land set if you could find non-premium versions of the card in standard packs.
@@ccggenius the problem that people have with the secret layers is that it allows wotc to ignore the need for reprints by sending them out in those limited time offers that show to have some errors and shipment is costly for some people and they just fill the sets with trash this way
@@ccggenius Yeah wouldn't care nearly as much about the Ultimate secret lair set, if not for the fact that those lands haven't been reprinted in years and the cheapest is pushing $30 on secondary market and the most expensive is pushing over $60 iirc.
The thing about Konami is you know the big Secret Rares that win tournaments will always be reprinted within 3-6 months in lower rarities. If you can be patient you can get your Ghost Ogres etc. for like $10-$15 instead of the $70-80 on the secondary market. That and there is always a cheaper alternative card you can add to your deck that provides a similar function. That and they always bring out new supports for older archetypes to keep them fresh. I mean Red-Eyes which has been around since the beginning just got a massive reprint of it's archetype and a new support card (Red-Eyes Black Dragoon). WotC always bothered me with their reprints. They never really do them and it makes getting into the game super frustrating. Especially if you don't understand the format. Still a super fun game! But, really annoying.
Magic reprinting can be described very simply: Only worthless cards get reprinted. Over 50$? Too bad, no more reprints. Under 1$? Reprint in every 3rd set.
Basically to me, you need to ask "If the secondary market did not exist, would this be a fair deal to our players?" In the case of Secret Lair Ultimate, NO, GOD NO.
Yugioh also uses their decks to reprint hard to find, high value cards. A key card still played today, Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, is a key example of this. For a year and a half Ash Blossom was one of the most expensive cards on the secondary market pushing $80-$100 a copy, despite being reprinted twice within a year. This is because like the search lands they were staple cards that every player wanted of they wanted to be competitive, but unlike the search lands there was no guarantee to get the card and it was always a rare pull. Then came the structure deck soulburner which saw the cards guaranteed printing. The card was so valuable that the structure deck flew off store shelves as that card alone would sell for more than the cost of the structure deck. It didn't hurt that the structure deck was also set to be one of the most competitive cores for the next few months. This is a rare case but there are often common reprints of competatove cards in structure decks which let's budget players get ahold of key cards for the competitive format.
"what could possible be in the Secret Lair UItimate Edition that costs $400? could it be booster packs? a set of all the previous Secret Lairs?" me, a MTG player who phases in and out of the game: "wait...is it just a fancy box or something?" "it contains 5 cards, 5 fetchlands to be precise" me: bruh...
ah remember when secret lairs were only reprints, those were the days I literally had to buy a Bloomburrow Starter Kit to get one card which I wanted to be my commander, thankfully I only had to pay £10 and could use multiple cards from it, but it still… sucked. The singles cost more than the kit.
This reminds me of how Fantasy Flight Games made their card games. In their early games like Netrunner, the starter set had some cards that were 1 of and some that were 2 and 3 of, so you had to buy multiple starter sets if you wanted a playset of all the cards. But in their later games, their starter sets all had 1 copy of each card, which I think was a good move for two reasons: they can include a better variety of cards, and players don't feel like they're buying any trash when they buy multiple starter sets.
Imagine if Wizards actually printed standard legal intro decks for each set that had playable rares and uncommons. Not even like high value rares, but maybe a few playable decent rares and uncommons that are actually playable. The current intro decks are meant to be played for casual players, but you could still throw in a few value uncommons that only get to $1-$3 dollars because so many decks run them. Just a very synergistic casual deck with some standard staples at uncommon and maybe a rare or two.
Are Magic Trial Decks really only for casuals? In Yugioh there are Starter Decks which are that way too, but with a lot of Staples. Then we have structure decks which cost the Same and with 3 copies of then you often times got a Tier 2 Deck, sometimes T1 and one time it was even the best Deck xD
MrWarptime there were more recent ones but they're still not great. One had fires of invention in and that's banned in standard, where these are supposed to be played
MTG Betrayers of Kamigawa: Rats Nest preconstructed deck. I remember that deck being sold out everywhere I looked on its release, because umezawa's jitte was in it and that single card was worth more than the deck.
Cardfight Vanguard has done a great job at structure decks currently. You can buy 1 trial deck and have a decent amount of staples. They are also doing reprints of expensive staple cards, be it only 1 per deck. But it dilutes the market a bit.
Love the video, definitely gonna check out more. I will say, as a magic player, if the box topper for a booster box was an oversized card like they do for commander products, I would never try and get a box topper ever again haha. From what I know, most people just throw those oversized cards out, or toss them in a shoebox to forget about.
It's funny hearing about WotC's dropping "trust value" two years ago. It's at an all-time low now. Just in the past year they've done a simply absurd amount of anti-consumer things. Really just confirms that they couldn't give less of a shit about the players and LGSs.
Could do what Universus does with preorder Player's Kits. They're like $500. You can only pre order them. But you get 6 boxes of the set, and a copy of every single Rare and Ultra Rare from the set, in addition to whatever you pull. It also sets you up in a way that tells you "Buy this and you don't need to buy anything else from this set". I've got one for My Hero Academia preordered.
At the time of release they were WAY worth their money, but now its been out a while the prices of all the cards have dropped. Saryuja was a £28 card but now its like £2.
@HettGutt it wasn't that bad, true half the cards we wouldn't use, and tbh what made its value were the big cards like saryuja that had a price tag on them that were holding up the rest of the box, and when Dude came out all the prices got clapped to a couple of dollars / pounds so it wasn't really worth it but for budget players like me who at the time couldn't buy a £15 card (no income at age 14) it was a blessing
12:42 I know you don't like Cardfight Vanguard, but since the rotation, Cardfight Vanguard Trial decks have been one of the best. Because they come with playsets of all exclusives (1 foil, and 3 nonfoil). They are basically ready to play, even though you still have to buy the support from the main booster pack.
Yup, even the most comparable product for MtG is 30$ per deck and then you still need to buy at least 2. Probably a good representation of the ratio in general.
In the defense of the 2021-early 2023 era of Secret Lair, you didn't buy them to play the game (in general). You bought them either to get flashy versions of your favorite cards or to sell to people who wanted flashy versions of their cards for a premium. They were also all printed to order, meaning that it's not going to be that someone snipes a copy before you can. In some cases, staple cards like he said were even printed in secret lairs for less then what they were retailing at in secondary markets, lowering the monetary bar of entry to higher-level play. It did feel bad to know that once they were done selling, you'd likely have to get it from the secondary market, but it still felt extremely special to be able to "get in" with the rest of the playerbase and have some exclusive cards of your own.
just to expand on fetchland history, there are 10, 5 are cheap the others are not. The expensive ones are in the Ultimate Lair. Both sets were printed in normal sets, except the cheap ones were printed in 2 sets, ultimate lair was only 1 standard set. They got reprinted in a Masters reprint set, which was great but annoying because normal sets are $4 per pack, but these were 8-10 dollars.We've been begging for a long time to get these reprinted. WOTC said fetches will never be reprinted in standard because it makes for terrible viewing experiences for tournaments due to too much shuffling. Ridiculous, considering standard format that would be plagued by this (because fetches are legal everywhere else) is only streamed through the online client, MTG Arena. Shuffling happens in less than a second on Arena lol WOTC further insults the player base in an interview posted on UA-cam, where they try to squirm and answer why this Ultimate lair is hundreds of dollars for 5 cards when other lairs with 5 cards are much cheaper. These aren't even FOIL. I'm so upset as you can see, lol Great video as always.
And let's not forget that Fabled Passage acts as a fetchland for the sake of discussion and is not just considered fine by Wizards but worthy of reprint in less than a year off from the original release. It is only 4 copies per deck as opposed to the possible 8+ copies of fetchlands, but they are doing nothing to actually remove shuffling from standard by having Fabled Passage around.
Did you guys never watch or play during khans of tarkir standard? Pro tours and grand prix events took so much longer to complete due to people shuffling every other turn, and at pro tour level you're expected to do a full shuffle, not just a quick one, to reduce cheating. The fetchlands definitely need reprinting, but not in standard, its just not necessary for that format.
@@Indyj2003 My point is more that they make the claim no fetchlands but then print what is in all regards a budget fetchland. It is just one set in the deck but going back and looking at the PT KTK top 8, that isn't much different from what was going on then with the full power fetchlands. So what Fabled Passage does to round times isn't that different from what full power fetches would do based on that referenced standard meta save for Passage doesn't go in aggro decks. That format also looked incredibly grindy based on the top 8, so that could have helped lead to longer games as well. Side note, I'm a mostly modern and EDH player so the amount of shuffling that could normally occur in a standard game would probably not even register to me, so that may bias me about any shuffling that any style of fetches would bring.
@@Indyj2003 Did you just completely miss my point where tournaments that are streamed are on MTG Arena if they're standard? The shuffle problem is nonexistent now
Fetches would still be cancer. There is a reason fetchlands were banned right of the gate in Pioneer. Doesn't excuse the fact that they could be reprinted in other non-standard sets
Overpriced product might as well be the eighth sin, because it plagues even "successful" TCGs. It's probably the sole reason they don't become mainstream like online games, because even basic monetization schemes ask every player to gamble or profit off of someone else's gambling. Most people acknowledge that asking hundreds from a single player for a chance at a few months of competitive play is unfair to put it nicely.
>we'll have to see if anything good ever comes of these secret lairs >Hasbro prints Secret Lair Walking Dead, killing all remaining faith the playerbase had
the reprint issue is dependent on whether you have the reprint or not Reprints are good for new/budget players to get competitive (Which is also good for the competitive player because it means more competitive players to attend tournaments) If you have the card that's about to get reprinted you'll lose on your "investment" if you were planning on selling the card down the road
$30 bucks for a solid deck is honestly pretty nice, especially when compared to the top meta decks which are often upwards of $150. I can’t really say that structure decks don’t have much filler tho. It kinda depends on the deck, but both the sacred beasts and mechanized madness have a LOT of filler. Salads, shaddoll and rokket have a lot of good cards and are definitely worth the money and the number of good cards that I own purely because of structure decks is insane. Starter decks however... (Edit) This is basically the only reason I got back into yugioh after a 5 year hiatus.
Since this video, Final Fantasy has done what they're calling the Anniversary Collection. They took the most meta-defining and otherwise staple cards of the first 5 years of the game, and reprinted them all in duplicate or triplicate quantities in a $50 box. No packs, no gimmicks, no glitz and glam. Just a box with a great value for new, returning, or isolated players. It also comes with a fully playable deck out of the box with a few unique cards in it, further increasing the value. It's an amazing way to get into the game, or get up to speed, or just get staple reprints you need more of.
@@HalianTheProtogen I would actually love it if the entire game switched to that format. It would make the occasional insane text wall effects so much easier to read. Plus I love being able to see more detail in the art.
Look as player with low income. My feeling is price to value matters. I quite mtg and several other games for 1 reason or another. Returning to a game after a period of time is not an option. It costs to much. Tins as you call um. Bad. What companies should make and keep available is what I want to call. CATCH UPS. What comes inside like for mtg 2 copies of 6 cards that are the most used uncommons 2 of the most used rare. Your lands. A pack of basic single color sleeves (60-75). A box for 60-75 sleeves cards. This can cost 30 dollars. This way hey I want back in. Heres some money and now I have the cards to place mid field at the weekly game shop. What they got now is ok i sold my house and the wife's car and i have to go to the after market market wait 2 weeks go to the game shop and place mid field. Look old cards from old sets will retain their value. A mox will still keep its value. If I cant afford the ALPHA mox my not buying one doesnt help it. However me getting a 20 catch up that has a reprint new art or special border will not hurt the original but it allows me to play with those who do have the original and those with the money will still want it for bragging rights. Getting into or returning to a game especially if you local game shop tournament is your only means of playing should not cost so much it turns you away
that Dark World/Under World deck in Yu-gi-oh where you had to buy the structure deck 3 times in order to have a top tier deck just fits this situation perfectly.
Dark world, dinosaurs, Salamangreat, Rokkets, Shaddolls, Monarchs, pendulum magician and ABC come to mind for really good structure decks that could compete at the times of release. Though admittedly the ABC one was filled with a large amount of kaiba shit nobody wanted
@HettGutt That becomes fairly obvious to anyone who bought 3 of any structure deck; its nigh unplayable with just the 3 structure decks. I listed structure decks that, with 3 of, you could get a quick, mostly built viable deck core that you would then build into the deck you want. The comment I replied to mentioned 3 SDs but I didnt
Guy walks into our local Wizards of the Coast Shop. Buys 3 of the then Latest Yu-Gi-Oh Structure deck (I don't recall which 😅) Opens them in-store. Takes out the 3 cover cards and a few other super rares etc. Hands the remaining decks to 3 kids nearby for free. Leaves.
In regards to pre-built decks and deck exclusives, I feel like vanguard does it pretty well. After the reboot 3 years ago, all of the trial decks have had all the cards at 3-4 copies including the "main" cards that you will often use even when upgrading it with cards from packs. The only "1 of's" in the decks are foil versions of cards that have another 3 non foil copies so you only need to buy multiple decks if you want to have a max shiny version.
@@Kohdok I guess I forgot to say "the main cards that are exclusive to the deck". The draw sentinels can also be pulled from certain pack sets, though I will say they really need to reprint them more often in the base sets for new players who weren't playing when the first release was.
Vanguard's V series trial decks have been perfect then, since you only need 1 to get 4 copies of almost every card, i think it's just 3 copies of 1 card to make room for the starter. Except for starter deck 9 since they throw 1 copy of the draw trigger perfect guard.
Kiiinda gets shot down by the special cards put into the decks at random. Heaven forbid you want to try to collect those. Hope you don't lose-a-lot trying to hunt down that Liselotte.
Okay, hear me out: Special booster packs with all the cards of a particular archetype (or at least the new prints) in one set. For example a "Blue Eyes" archetype set in Yu-Gi-Oh , black in Magic, or "Kagero" cards in Vanguard all in their own unique booster sets. For example in Vanguard if the Granblue clan gets new support make it ~35 cards just for them, and have them in one massive jumbo pack for ~$25 maybe. Just cycle through all clans/archetypes ~5 at a time and you've a fairly solid fix.
Yugioh have been more or less doing this for years. Every year they release a side set that revolves around 3 archetypes often with a mixture of new cards and reprints. Psy-Frames, Nekroz, Sky Strikers, Eldlich and Adamancipator debuted in such sets and were close to fully playable from those packs alone.
@@gpmradirgy8953 and Legendary duelist sets give decent chances to get reprints and new support for old strategies (the decent pull odds is debatable with shit like Magicians souls and the hero stuff)
Would love to see a perspective on the recent MTG "secret lair x walking dead" fiasco from someone not heavily invested. My primary format is what is targeted by the printing. Secret lair x walking dead cards are mechanically unique unlike the other secret lairs.
I feel like vanguard should have been brought up here. For an average player you only need one deck to play the game decently, unlike yugioh we’re the game is barely playable with one starter deck. Now sure the addition of trigger sentinel is the only contradiction as the deck only comes with one, but I will note that vanguard does this a lot, in g they would give 2 sentinels, and it was later changed to 4 in the v series. Considering how the decks have gotten more and more complete (ie, only needing to buy one) it’s most likely that trigger sentinels will be more available going forward. There are chase foils in the starter decks, but they aren’t necessary for play, they add incentives for collectors to get the decks, but ultimately don’t really matter since you get everything you need in the deck. Furthermore, the amount of trash has significantly dropped, the amount of vanillas in a deck has decreased, and the amount of cards that synergies with the deck, and cards from the next set have gotten better. This was definitely not the case with og vanguard, where the decks came with very limited plays. Also I would like to add, the extra booster sets narrow down the amount of different clans you can get, which makes them great for adding specific cards into your deck.
But they've still integrated a system designed to remove the hard cap on how many decks you would need to buy. If you're a big enough fan of the archetype to buy the deck, it is very likely you would be the sort to be sorely tempted to hunt for the premium deck cards. At least with Yugioh there's an end in sight. I'm checking ebay and at least one seller is trying to offload a ton of sets of just the Bermuda△ deck cards leftover from promo hunting. Even if you do supposedly need just one deck, that is clearly not what Bushiroad intends with the promo inserts. Frankly, this even outweighs the one-of Trigger Sentinels which are otherwise RR's from one set, because at least there you can stop at 4.
Bermuda Triangle is the worst example of this IMO. Bushiroad does not care and will make stupid bullcrap stuff just for them. They even got an anime based around the clan! Even then Bushi has started to do reprint sets more often, for example the Festival Collection is literally just a box full of Draw PG and staple cards, 2 for every clan, which was very much needed considering some Draw PG’s are going for upwards of $20. And if you can’t afford them but also don’t want to spent valuable G1 space for the G1 PG’s? Crit Sentinels, that’s what! Granted they likely will be pricy for Protect clans that don’t care about not having main deck Pg’s due to Protect 1 being a Pg anyway but for Accel and Force Clans it’ll be a good budget option.
You know, I wrote something similar about a decade ago regarding collector's editions of video games. People with money are willing to pay $150-$300 or more for a game/series/director they love. But at the same time, that collector's edition needs to have an appropriate value proposition. A good statue, memorabilia that nods to the to game/universe, stuff that's really cool and shows you're a superfan. The MK9 collector's edition with the bookends, art book, and a couple "klassic skins" is a great example of this. On the other hand, Mass Effect 3's collector's edition including the From Ashes DLC (which was required to be able to play with Protheans in your party, something that didn't require additional DLC in the prior games) is an example of doing it wrong. It's all about, like you said, making the price a reasonable value proposition and properly accessible for those who want it.
The worst offender for deck exclusives was the Score Dragon Ball Z game. The starter decks had 1 of I think 8 or 10 exclusive personality cards and the decks themselves all contained the same cards
Wow. Ethical product design is important. It is something I have been thinking. I thought about having an ethical aproach to products, and that can help me stand out from the competition. I like to have big bang for the buck. There are a bunch of cards at a low and reasonable price. I would like to be generous about it. One part of being humane is to have all the cards be guaranteed. No randomized funny business. If I did put out products it would be more like the big boxes of cards. It is like the products shown in this video. I haven't figured pricing exactly so I will give guesstimates. A big player starter set would have two decks of cards plus storing and playing paraphernalia. That can be about $20. A smaller box that just has a deck can be about $10. There can be an alternative to booster packs. There can be small packs of guaranteed cards. There can be 30 cards for about $5. That is a very good deal. From watching this video, I see how one can mess these products up. Coercing a customer to buy multiple copies of a tin or set box is wrong. That is messed up. If I was going to do a product like that, I would have dropped four copies of each exclusive card in there. That is reasonable. I would have dropped whatever number of copies was needed for good game play. O_O $400 for a fancy box with five fancy lands. Oh my gosh! Seriously?! No! Bad! Bad Wizards of the Coast! This is so exploitative of whales. It is so obnoxious with the way it panders to whales and milks them dry. Even if fetch lands are a big deal in the market, that is still a rediculous ripoff. I know what I would do. There are ten guilds of Ravnica. Each has a color pair that is the basis of a fancy land. Lands are important in a deck, so having four copies of a special land is a given. So I would put out a box of ten lands with four copies each. The box would have 40 cards and it would be $10 or a little less. That would be better. That would be reasonalble. Maybe there can be different boxes for that. There would be a fetchlands box. There would also be a shock lands box, a life gain lands box, a scry lands box and so forth. There can be a box of guild gate lands for Ravnica. In this box, I would throw in four copies of Gateway Plaza. That would be so nice and generous as a bonus. If I was going to cater to the whales, I would wants to go all out. I would pull no punches. I got an idea of collector sets. That would be cool. Here is how they work. Oh you dropped about $100 for my cards. That is so nice of you. You deserve to have the full experience. Here is all of the cards of a set with four copies each. They are all guaranteed. You have the whole set for your collection. You can play with the cards to your hearts desire. Your welcome. :) Now that would be a worthy product for the whales. Since I don't do booster packs, I can't do set boxes with them stuffed in. So the collector sets is a nice alternative.
The throne of eldraine brawl decks had the guarantee of the specific face cards, like korvold, but then you could pull them from the collector boosters which helped the availability to some degree
So, as someone designing a card game of my own. I was thinking of having the starter decks coming with complete playsets of all the included cards, instead of one off's. My idea is that the more niche or specific a card the rarer it is, so you build a deck around whatever rare card you have. And the most common cards can be played in almost any deck. So you want as many copies as possible...
Closest thing Pokemon did to the Secret Lairs was a 100 dollar XY Premium box, that came with about 15 full art pokemon/supporters we hadn't received yet, 2 packs, a deck box and 2 sets of sleeves, 2 sets of dice, and a full metal coin, so at least you had some stuff you could play the game with. Arguably still a bad value since most of those cards were already rotated-only the Regirock EX was still commonly played in standard at the time-but most of the cards in it were still played in expanded to some degree.
So here's my opinion on WOTC right now. WOTC realized after years of normalizing expensive products like Masters sets and shit like Commander Anthology that not only would people still buy it, but it didn't matter the price. The obvious next step in a capitalist system is to find where the "limit" actually is. So far they're at the point where people are about to be paying $100 for a single booster pack or $350 for 4. They realized $400 for just 5 guaranteed cards that don't even look that cool in a giant box will not sell, however with random chance they are finding that they can push that boundary to the next level. They can justify the practice as ethical by making cheaper products that contain cheaper versions of the same cards and keep going until the whales finally tell them to fuck off. My guess is the final straw will be $1000 for a booster box of a future product, regardless of the EV. I might be super off with that estimate but I feel like they can get away with it if they market it in just the right way. ALSO I'M BUYING A VIP DOUBLE MASTERS BOOSTER BOX I WANNA SEE HOW FAR THIS TRAIN CAN GO
A friend and I were talking about creating a card game for funsies and I thought I'd revisit binging this excellent series from the beginning. When you got to the part about WotC and erosion of trust, I laughed and laughed and laughed and then I wept and needed a few moments of silence.
That Secret Lair Ultimate Edition goes for over $400...that is...if you can find one at your local LGS. Also, I read reports from other players that their Secret Liars were arriving miscut, or under some other kind of factory error. I get producing overseas is cheaper but level with me Hasbro, train your people to spot factory errors. Other companies reprint staples. Your pride is blinding you from doing what your customers want. And remember, pride goeth before the fall.
Planeswalker decks suck anyway. Every card in them is intentional powered down to the point of being unplayable. When I was starting out in Magic, my friends expressly told me to not buy them.
@Jay Morales Dude the sleeves are worth more than any of the crap cards in the deck so don't waste good sleeves on them. Secondly, I played one once with a friend and it's the least fun I've ever had with Magic. It turns into a big fucking one sided slog fest typically where whoever plays their shitty duel deck Planeswalker first basically wins. Otherwise you play a bunch of chump shit and a few vanilla creatures. It isn't even "casual" gameplay, it's fucking torture.
To add insult to injury, the cards aren't even foil and it wasn't even the full set of 10. Hasbro and WotC took a major "L" with that one and the VIP/Collectors boosters aren't helping their situation.
I think it's because he already said enough about YGO. If there wasn't a limit like that he would have only compared MtG and Pokemon. Aka the worst and the best in this topic. What WotC does tiptoeing the gambling line. Pokemon is actually fair, Konami might milk it's player base but compared to WotC they are pretty fair.
I like the Transformers TCG model, where theme decks and booster box promos focus on niche strategies that ask for dedicated deckbuilding, rather than being powerful staples.
my biggest problem with structure decks in yugioh, is that they only print enough for everyone to buy 1 so they sell out immediately because everyone buys 3
when you said 400 i genuinely thought the real price was 40 and you said the wrong number, in yugioh they printed a guaranteed set of somewhere around 40 staple cards (and a few bad cards ik the set list is 56) for $40
The secret lair he mentions would, in ygo equivalence to today, be a Droplet, a Pot of Prosperity, a Nibiru, a Secret Ash, and Lightning Storm from recent megatin Sound like a fair price now?
Maybe the box topper could be alternate art of a common or uncommon popular card. Instead of being a card that you need 4 boxes to get a playset, it's a card you can get a playset in maybe 1 or 2 boxes, and that topper is just one option to bling your deck.
Any chance you will do an episode on the Walking Dead MTG cards? Interesting intersection between humane design and licensing. Not sure if you have covered it already
Question for Kohdok, What is a good max number of cards to make your game say if you are developing one? Example, I am making one for fun "or working on one..." and I have thought about between 50 - 60 cards makes up a standard deck.
This was a game for WoTC, they sent the Ultimate Edition to LGSes, the only one they did this for, then "leaked" an "MSRP" of $160 knowing LGSes would jack up the price to $300-$400, in a trick to try and show that buying Secret Lairs from them saves them money, because people were complaining that Secret Lairs could only be bought on the WoTC website instead of at their Store.
Isn't the point of the pre-made decks are so new players can jump right into the game without having to buy random acks and try to make a new deck from the pulls? If you are going to buy a pre-made just for a few select cards that is on you. I did it and I knew I was getting trash that was just the price I paid to get a specific card.
The best promos are swag cards. Not cards good in the meta but just ones that are cool to own. Alt art and/or alt foils are great for this. I honestly get sick of promos that are amazing because they’re difficult to obtain. It’s weird spending so much on a card that usually isn’t shiny and usually is guaranteed if you went to an event or got a box or whatever. Just make the promos bling versions of popular cards and everyone will be happy. It’s not really hard.
@@thepigeonsofthepacificnort2268 Magic printed a crossover product with Walking Dead. Mechanically unique cards, legal in a few formats, that have non-magic the gathering characters/flavor. This is bad for several reasons, 1)Opening the door to the game being chock full of other IP cards that kills the flavor, 2) Forcing players to buy an expensive luxury product in a limited time or never being able to own the cards (Magic says maybe someday they'll reprint them, unlikely). 3) opening the door to printing mechanically unique cards you have to buy directly for your deck, changing the game from a TCG/CCG into a pay-to-win card game 4) If 3 happens, the secondary market dies completely, pissing off collectors and people who use the cards for Prestige/small stakes stocks. And, at that point, theyd have also driven off their average players, decimating the game. 5) This is something the specifically promised they would never do again after a previous instance, and MTG has said before they can't break promises because they could be taken to court over it (this is justification for them not reprinting certain very old cards). This all sets aside the other problems Secret Lairs have had and continue to have: Too much different product, Limited time sales sparking FOMO, Bad Customer support, horribly curled foils, damaged product, incredibly late (6months) product, chance of tilting their hand and revealing they acknowledge the secondary market by charging different values which would result in MTG (and possibly all TCGs) being subject to gambling laws. The funny thing? They could have avoided this misstep in two easy ways that they've already done. Make the cards silver-bordered (aka, not legal in any sanctioned format, just kitchen table fun), or make them "alternate" cards, with a real MTG card name under the Walking Dead character name that the card is guaranteed to be printed as or have been printed as previously or concurrently. They did this in the last major set Ikoria by having Godzilla versions of many of the cards in the set, plus a mechanically unique Box topper that came with the guarentee that the 'real' version of the card would be coming out in an already scheduled product. Both of these are things they've done in this past year. If you'd like to know more/hear more opinions, I recommend Tolarian Community College, Commander's Quarters, or Pleasant Kenobi's videos on the subject (roughly in that order).
I kinda like the idea of a commander oversize card for a buy a box. (Im a commander player). I do need to note that a buy a box and a box topper are different. Box toppers have only been in two sets to date. Ps i refuse to buy secret lair
Regarding the yu gi oh decks they are reprinting cards that players need and rare cards that needs a reprint. That is why you have to buy three decks not to make a deck but to get reprints so you can sell the reprints. Yu gi oh he have been doing great by putting staple cards in the structure decks so people with low entry can have decent cards to start with
@@Zanji1234 to be fair a yugioh structure deck is 10 dollars. So if you want a playset, you just buy 3 decks. Could they print 30 dollar structure decks with full playsets? Yes, but then people who want try a deck might pass on it, or people who like deck build would have less work
YuGiOh made a box of 56 cards, Duel Devastator, you buy the box and you get the same 56 cards, the box itself its a bit pricey, but if you really want to get into the game, you should buy 3 of. Since all the cards are generic, they are good as staples or side deck/board, and almost any deck you make is going to have cards from that box, so its a really solid investment. Pluse the box can fill a lot of cards.
Duel Devastator isnt good, half the cards in there are filler outdated stuff. The other half is the good stuff but that point, buying the singles of the good half is cheaper then buying one box.
It was a much better value upon launch to be fair, but these days just buying 1 is enough or buying players of what you want. But again, it was a genuine plus if you bought it on release
My impression is that the Secret Lairs are for the secondary market/MTG Finance people and to do some polemical stuff (like this) that will get publicity. Possibly it also helps the special art they are commissioning that they will use later for a lower cost version. What you were talking about with an ethical version of this they actually used to do with Intro decks but I think they just weren't exciting enough for people. They changed Intro decks to planeswalkers that are generally better designed but have special planeswalkers and planeswalker searching cards. These are worse cards, so for example if there is a Dovin in the set the Dovin planeswalker deck card will be like...2 to 3 mana more expensive to cast with less exciting abilities. This is actually a good thing because they won't become artificially scarce from collectors buying them up, or reselling them without the value card. Also I think planeswalkers are just cool to little kids, and they are humanoid at least. The intro decks were always like...a big dragon or demon or something, a junk rare that I don't think anyone would identify with; even if it is a cool fantasy thing. They had "Event decks" which were supposed to be an out-of-the-box FNM experience but those were a bit hit and miss power level and design wise. They currently have "Challenger Decks" that are basically bad versions of standard decks that are in the Meta. This is probably the closest in effect to what you're talking about. (all this I'm talking about playing in paper and not really acknowledging Arena which you can essentially play for free). Honestly I think anyone trying to get into the game to play constructed is borrowing cards for tournaments or kinda structuring their life around trading for cards.. Also drafting is way funner and cheaper anyway :). I think most people actually buying these drops are trying to hold them to sell later or blinging out their commander decks. Personally, the draft and then put your exciting chaf into your EDH deck was how I approached MTG. I tried to play standard but it evolves so fast the next week you play a deck the meta has totally changed. All that being said...Wizards is trying to extract so much money out of people it gets kind of dizzying and intimidating. Anyway thanks for the great content!
The big cool thing about Yugioh is that you can Buy 3 of a structure deck, and have all the cards you legitimately need for that deck and are ready for tournaments for 30$. That's pretty cool.
I love how Digimon is handling decks. 95% of the cards inside are unique, new cards, and the only reprints are usually alternate arts. You get only new stuff, it's seriously awesome
The one thing I love about the Pokemon starter decks/ theme decks is they have their own format for unaltered deck lists. You can pick up a theme deck and play against any other theme deck printed and with few exceptions they've remained really well balanced over the years. My lugia deck still pulled wins against Zician and Cinderrace last week when I played. Unfortunately Planeswalker decks for magic have no such format and with very few exceptions have no cards that are relevant to standard or any other format.
the only ethical way to sell a collectible card game is to do what fantasy flight does and just sell people play sets of the entire set. although the core sets still don't contain full play sets because even fantasy flight chooses greed over goodwill to their players sometimes.
Pokemon has usually made good products. It's been getting more expensive lately but that is probably due to competitive play seeing a huge increase since the introduction of money prizes. Btw tapu lele, shaymin ex and now dedenne gx have been used / needed as 4 ofs, although fortunately on a limited number of decks that made the most of them >.
Hi! I was to say something that maybe you already consider but you let it go in the first place but. Don’t you consider the accessibility of powerful cards a sin for a starting TCG? Think about it, what is the best way for a card game designer to sell it’s game? For me i think is to make the staples accessibles so they can play their cards more fluid. But if at the very start the staples are hard to get access... only the ones who drop their wallets are the ones who can obtain and the others will be frustrated and some of them will start to sell their cards.
I love how this series has brought people from all tcgs to one place,feels like meeting people from different cultures and give a a sense of community
I only play MTG, but I love seeing all the other games available and their IPs.
@@KingBobXVI yeah I got what you say, I only play Ygo
I only play yugioh but I've had interest in Magic, pokemon and vanguard
Just wanted to complete th trifecta. I'm a pokemon player but ive played MTG and YuGiOh. I just prefer both the theme and mechanics of Pokemon. I can also understand why some people prefer the other TCGs as well. I just want the gaming community to be an open and warm place for everyone. Especially since a corporations interests is the bottom line its up to us to help ensure our fellow players feel welcome and try to help keep the corporations in line.
I play bakugan so many magic people
Note to Self: If I ever make a card game, the "box toppers" should be some kind of cool alternate art of good/rare cards that are already in the set.
remember when the worst secret lair was hated just because it cost 80$ for a card and not because they were printing entirely new designs
God, right? I just stumbled upon this channel this week and I'd love to hear him talk about the atrocity that is Secret Lair Walking Dead. Actually quit MTG over it until they prove theyre reversing course, which i don't see happening.
@@TheKingNaesala I'll play through untap.in, but yeah i won't be spending money on MtG ever again...
This is why commander is the best. I can do what I want, when I want. No one can incriminate me for playing my jank. Secret lair won’t touch commander that much, so I’m ok if I see one once in a blue moon. Or should I say blood moon
@@themonsterlegend3709 yeah, it's that and Modern I play online
@@themonsterlegend3709 Commander is one of the few formats where the cards are legal. They're aimed at commander players in particular who bond to characters and represent themselves with them as commanders.
12:11 Kohdok: "No ones going to be putting 55 islands in their deck" Treasure Hunt players: "Right... no one would do that..."
Well yeah, some number of those should be swamps, and ideally most of them are cool nonbasics so you can still play magic if you don't start with a hunt or your opponent is playing blue.
ccggenius12 dude, it’s a treasure hunt deck. Why the fugg are you trying to “play” magic for?
@@lava2istrue Because Creeping Tar Pit beat down is a necessity in a format with Spell Pierce. Also, Mystic Sanctuary is too good to NOT play when your entire game plan revolves around 1 instant or sorcery.
Also Also, it's hilarious to include a full set of unnecessary shocks, fetches, and fastlands in a deck that empirically DOES NOT need them, because why NOT turn the $5 meme-deck into a thousand dollar monstrosity, with no discernible benefit?
I dunno, maybe I'm just unusually susceptible to finding humor in unnecessary expenditure? Like, sure buying Taigas when the price dropped earlier this year was a good idea, but I'm slotting them into a tribal boar deck to make it marginally easier to floop pigs, so...
Trolls exists they play all land decks but only in arena on weekends, whats up with that?
Cue the mtg legacy/vintage lands players
Secret Lair fetch lands was basically WotC admitting they profit off the secondary market
It was them acknowledging the secondary market exists in the sheer fact that the production cost of that product is literally pennies and the price for it is sitting around $400. They are trying to skirt around that fact by saying "there is no msrp" but they are in fact Influencing the recommended price by under printing the shit out of it. Originally said each wpn store could order 10 if they want yeah try more like 3 at max if that.
That's not to mention the bullshit of double masters costing something like 350-450 a box for reprints and a $100 booster pack that has 12 fucking basic lands in it! These are square bits of card stock why the fuck are they charging the price of a next gen console for a single fucking box.
Hell double masters is priced so badly most normal plays cant even justify paying for a single draft of the set which is ridiculous.
@@Cinomod6066 ha do you know how much a tier 1.yugioh deck costs right now
@@craterdestroyer3604 well their 1 modern decks for mtg range from 800 ish to 1400 . . .
@@Cinomod6066 yeah ok the tier 1 right now maxes at 1200 in Yu-Gi-Oh for now I guess
@@craterdestroyer3604 yeah jund in modern runs around 1400 about half the cost comes from fetchlands needing 4 copies of each and such which wizards just sold a single copy of 5 of the 10 of em for 400 instead of actually the damn things so they arent 60+ a piece.
The secondary market would like to know your location
The best way to explain MtG Secret Lairs and Collector Boosters is this: "Fuck the future playerbase, fuck the average current playerbase, we want whales and only whales. We want a tiny boost of money right now, instead of the incredibly large amount of money that would be generated by growing the game and expanding the playerbase."
The secondary market is killing Magic, and Wizards refuses to publicly acknowledge its existence. They clearly know the secondary market exists since they keep making these extremely overpriced products and never reprinting any expensive card in a meaningful way, yet Wizards also does not ever publicly say the secondary market exists. They would rather bow to the whining of the "investors", "collectors", speculative buyers, hoarders, and whales that all _don't even play the game_ . Wizards would rather see the game die than expand the playerbase of any of the formats.
To be honest, Secret Lairs are generally alright. Several of them are well below market price, and they're great for getting people into older formats (30 bucks for a foil play set of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben with special art? nice). "Secret Lair Ultimate Edition" was just a fucking scam, though.
Actually... WOTC only cares for the MPL and only the MPL. And since the MPL is 100% digital, every card they print is actually just fan service. And as long people pay 5.95 for a booster pack, why would they stop doing so?
@@TheOnlyBootlegger Generally alright? They have terrible card stock and QC on Secret Lairs.
I've heard it theorized that WotC can't/isn't supposed to recognize the existence of the secondary market, cuz then it'd be easier for legislators to classify sealed product as gambling.
...Which is all well and good, but this Secret Lair thing is going quite a bit overboard on feigning corporate ignorance.
Its more of a fuck u players who play older formats. Its pioneer standars or commander.
„Nobody is putting like 55 Islands in a Deck..“ you sir havent heard of the „treasure hunt - thassas oracle combo“ which is a deck with exactly 55 islands, 4 treasure hunt and 1 thassas oracle.
:D
you probaly need to add some deck searches to make it do able
Don't you lose if you hit oracle too early?
@@ykl1277 Yeah. It is a slot machine deck. You win or you lose based on luck and your opponent not playing control or disruption.
Or zombie infestation/treasure hunt
@@TheFiretiger true
The most consumer-friendly products I've seen were the Force of Will starter decks, which had full playsets of every card, with half the deck being foil. I'd purchase two copies, make an all-foil deck and give the second deck to my friend.
Yeay today is just one copy of every card is foil, but yeay playset from every card + today you got the duol magic stone, so yeay i buy everytime the starterdecks.
I'm a Magic player but Force of Will just does so many things right.
@@downsjmmyjones101 Even simply the decision to move the 'mana' cards to their own side deck solves so many issues. You're never flooded, starved or have useless cards in your hand.
@@tzera_rhuon yeah, too bad they screw up the format balancing aspect. I love FOW, but it only a shell of it former self now
By the by, the “trust value” you refer to is an economic principle called goodwill, and for many companies can be considered a market, just like what they profit in with cash. WotC is starting to head down a road where they trade off one for the other, but once goodwill runs out, thats the point where you start losing a customer base.
Wotc's doing a weird balancing act of some _amazing_ sets for getting much needed reprints (M21, Jumpstart, Mystery Booster) but then Simultaneously follow it up with stuff like Secret Lair Ultimate Edition or Double Masters' price point.
@@flametitan100 - The problem is that they're holding fetch lands specifically hostage in doing so.
Imo, the secret lairs (the online ones) are overall a good thing - they act as a _MADE TO ORDER_ reprint run that can offer reprints of either expensive cards at a lower value (Bitterblossom), or as just aesthetically unique reprints that appeal to some people (cats, certain artists, etc). As much as "it's not for you" is a meme in the MTG community, this product is a good example of that, but applied in a positive way: you don't _NEED_ the secret lairs, they're entirely optional and you can only get the ones that personally interest you if you want. They play into one of the biggest factors of the game: self expression.
Even the $100 VIP booster I'm personally ok with. Like, nothing in it is unique to them and also necessary to play the game. You can get a foil, masterpiece edition extended art Expedition Map for like, $60 or so maybe, or you could get... the normal one for probably like, $0.50 after its reprint in the same set. It's cosmetics, who cares.
But the fetch lands one? That's gatekeeping _necessary_ game pieces, not just a unique printing of something otherwise readily available.
@@KingBobXVI Oh definitely. I don't disagree with you (though I think VIP Boosters being $100 is a blatantly obvious price hike for the sake of milking the consumer base for all it's worth, the _idea_ of bling oriented boosters is not something I dislike)
I love Magic and am a judge, but I can recognize that Magic's killing itself. Jesper Myrfors, the old-school Magic artist and the game's first art director, said a few years ago (paraphrased) that mechanically unique promos are a sign of metastasized cancer in a game, because it means that they've gone bankrupt of ideas and have resorted to whaling to keep the lights on; as such, it was something they decided early on that they would never do. Now never's here. :(
When yugioh did a 50$ version of this, atleast they added a playmat, a deck box and 100 sleeves. So you are technically buying the playmat the deck box and sleeves and you get 12 promos ''for free'', most people bought the product for the promos but you cant say you felt cheated, you really did get around 50$ worth of stuff.
What product was that?
@@amazedalloy 25th anniversary
@@Serjohn I think you mean 20th
But also, sounds more like the Noble Knights thingy with the ugliest rarity imaginable
The thing about Magic planeswalker decks is that they've admitted they design the cards to be weaker than booster packs and stuff.
Yeah, no one gives a shit about deck-exclusive cards, the entire point makes no sense.
Yep. I regret buying one, they're almost 100% trash cards.
In regards to YGO structure decks:
Yeah, you are forced to buy three to make the deck you want. But you know what? You just spent $30 to make a deck. It may not win a YCS, but it's actually playable. Might take a win at locals. That's gotta be one of the best ways to get right into the game.
Makes me want to quit buying magic sealed product and go back to YGO.
Buy salamangreat and you might just win a ycs. On release atleast.
At release, Salamangreat was literally 3 structure decks and a handful or staples (Lady Debug, Thanos dragon, Impermanence/Veiler etc.) and you had a tier 1/2 deck. Similar cases with Chaos Dragons, Cyber Dragons, Zombies and Dinosaurs (not as good as Salamangreat but many of the cards are still played competitively today)
@@the_bat_turtle best example is the monarch structure deck
domain monarchs was literally 50€ for the maindeck and won the NAWCQ
Can't you do the same with challenger decks for the same price?
Lol the My little pony Magic cards
Uh and yes, Hasbro made Konami look incredibly generous with how they handle reprints
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the pony cards. They aren't tournament legal, and the majority of their cost was directly donated to charity. I also think there's nothing INHERENTLY wrong with the secret lairs, as being able to pay a premium for cool art seems like fair play. The problem is that they're not ALSO providing meaningful reprints. I don't think anyone would be complaining about the $200 land set if you could find non-premium versions of the card in standard packs.
@@ccggenius the problem that people have with the secret layers is that it allows wotc to ignore the need for reprints by sending them out in those limited time offers that show to have some errors and shipment is costly for some people and they just fill the sets with trash this way
@@ccggenius Yeah wouldn't care nearly as much about the Ultimate secret lair set, if not for the fact that those lands haven't been reprinted in years and the cheapest is pushing $30 on secondary market and the most expensive is pushing over $60 iirc.
@@feritperliare2890 That is literally what I said, but with worse grammar...
The thing about Konami is you know the big Secret Rares that win tournaments will always be reprinted within 3-6 months in lower rarities. If you can be patient you can get your Ghost Ogres etc. for like $10-$15 instead of the $70-80 on the secondary market. That and there is always a cheaper alternative card you can add to your deck that provides a similar function. That and they always bring out new supports for older archetypes to keep them fresh. I mean Red-Eyes which has been around since the beginning just got a massive reprint of it's archetype and a new support card (Red-Eyes Black Dragoon).
WotC always bothered me with their reprints. They never really do them and it makes getting into the game super frustrating. Especially if you don't understand the format. Still a super fun game! But, really annoying.
Magic reprinting can be described very simply:
Only worthless cards get reprinted.
Over 50$? Too bad, no more reprints. Under 1$? Reprint in every 3rd set.
Basically to me, you need to ask "If the secondary market did not exist, would this be a fair deal to our players?"
In the case of Secret Lair Ultimate, NO, GOD NO.
Yugioh also uses their decks to reprint hard to find, high value cards. A key card still played today, Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, is a key example of this. For a year and a half Ash Blossom was one of the most expensive cards on the secondary market pushing $80-$100 a copy, despite being reprinted twice within a year. This is because like the search lands they were staple cards that every player wanted of they wanted to be competitive, but unlike the search lands there was no guarantee to get the card and it was always a rare pull.
Then came the structure deck soulburner which saw the cards guaranteed printing. The card was so valuable that the structure deck flew off store shelves as that card alone would sell for more than the cost of the structure deck. It didn't hurt that the structure deck was also set to be one of the most competitive cores for the next few months.
This is a rare case but there are often common reprints of competatove cards in structure decks which let's budget players get ahold of key cards for the competitive format.
"what could possible be in the Secret Lair UItimate Edition that costs $400? could it be booster packs? a set of all the previous Secret Lairs?"
me, a MTG player who phases in and out of the game: "wait...is it just a fancy box or something?"
"it contains 5 cards, 5 fetchlands to be precise"
me: bruh...
ah remember when secret lairs were only reprints, those were the days
I literally had to buy a Bloomburrow Starter Kit to get one card which I wanted to be my commander, thankfully I only had to pay £10 and could use multiple cards from it, but it still… sucked. The singles cost more than the kit.
4:13 just wait until he hears about how Wizards of the Coast commemorated Magic's 30TH ANNIVERSARY 😠
This reminds me of how Fantasy Flight Games made their card games. In their early games like Netrunner, the starter set had some cards that were 1 of and some that were 2 and 3 of, so you had to buy multiple starter sets if you wanted a playset of all the cards. But in their later games, their starter sets all had 1 copy of each card, which I think was a good move for two reasons: they can include a better variety of cards, and players don't feel like they're buying any trash when they buy multiple starter sets.
Imagine if Wizards actually printed standard legal intro decks for each set that had playable rares and uncommons. Not even like high value rares, but maybe a few playable decent rares and uncommons that are actually playable. The current intro decks are meant to be played for casual players, but you could still throw in a few value uncommons that only get to $1-$3 dollars because so many decks run them. Just a very synergistic casual deck with some standard staples at uncommon and maybe a rare or two.
Twas my understanding that was the concept of the Brawl Deck.
Are Magic Trial Decks really only for casuals? In Yugioh there are Starter Decks which are that way too, but with a lot of Staples. Then we have structure decks which cost the Same and with 3 copies of then you often times got a Tier 2 Deck, sometimes T1 and one time it was even the best Deck xD
At some point they had Challenge decks, which were actually pretty good. The last ones I remember still had Kaladesh and Amonket in the format though.
MrWarptime there were more recent ones but they're still not great. One had fires of invention in and that's banned in standard, where these are supposed to be played
@@MrWarptime There were new ones for THB standard. I think they lacked critical staples, e.g. only one of Brazen Borrower.
MTG Betrayers of Kamigawa: Rats Nest preconstructed deck. I remember that deck being sold out everywhere I looked on its release, because umezawa's jitte was in it and that single card was worth more than the deck.
The DGM and KTK event decks.
Cardfight Vanguard has done a great job at structure decks currently. You can buy 1 trial deck and have a decent amount of staples. They are also doing reprints of expensive staple cards, be it only 1 per deck. But it dilutes the market a bit.
Love the video, definitely gonna check out more. I will say, as a magic player, if the box topper for a booster box was an oversized card like they do for commander products, I would never try and get a box topper ever again haha. From what I know, most people just throw those oversized cards out, or toss them in a shoebox to forget about.
Kal-El-Fornia yeah that's what I do most of the time lol
Nobody tell him about the Legacy mana base.
A yes, lands starting at ~200$. Good times. And i am just counting the *cheapest* print.
Oh yeah. I bought 3 Underground Seas when they were like $250 each. We're doing okay right now with that investment.
It's funny hearing about WotC's dropping "trust value" two years ago. It's at an all-time low now. Just in the past year they've done a simply absurd amount of anti-consumer things. Really just confirms that they couldn't give less of a shit about the players and LGSs.
Could do what Universus does with preorder Player's Kits. They're like $500. You can only pre order them. But you get 6 boxes of the set, and a copy of every single Rare and Ultra Rare from the set, in addition to whatever you pull. It also sets you up in a way that tells you "Buy this and you don't need to buy anything else from this set". I've got one for My Hero Academia preordered.
Duel Devastator in Yugioh and the Trainers Toolkit are amazing examples. They’re easily worth their value in cards
Duel Devastator is filled with half good cards and half outdated cards even on release. Its just better to buy the relevant singles from it.
At the time of release they were WAY worth their money, but now its been out a while the prices of all the cards have dropped. Saryuja was a £28 card but now its like £2.
@HettGutt it wasn't that bad, true half the cards we wouldn't use, and tbh what made its value were the big cards like saryuja that had a price tag on them that were holding up the rest of the box, and when Dude came out all the prices got clapped to a couple of dollars / pounds so it wasn't really worth it but for budget players like me who at the time couldn't buy a £15 card (no income at age 14) it was a blessing
12:42 I know you don't like Cardfight Vanguard, but since the rotation, Cardfight Vanguard Trial decks have been one of the best. Because they come with playsets of all exclusives (1 foil, and 3 nonfoil). They are basically ready to play, even though you still have to buy the support from the main booster pack.
Also with Yugioh the structure and starter decks are $10 each so getting 3 for $30 isn’t that bad.
Yup, even the most comparable product for MtG is 30$ per deck and then you still need to buy at least 2. Probably a good representation of the ratio in general.
If they had decent cards, then sure.
@@cyberdragonzekrom6790 I was gonna say: the TCG deck products tend to not get a lot of the busted support in the OCG counterparts.
In the defense of the 2021-early 2023 era of Secret Lair, you didn't buy them to play the game (in general). You bought them either to get flashy versions of your favorite cards or to sell to people who wanted flashy versions of their cards for a premium. They were also all printed to order, meaning that it's not going to be that someone snipes a copy before you can. In some cases, staple cards like he said were even printed in secret lairs for less then what they were retailing at in secondary markets, lowering the monetary bar of entry to higher-level play. It did feel bad to know that once they were done selling, you'd likely have to get it from the secondary market, but it still felt extremely special to be able to "get in" with the rest of the playerbase and have some exclusive cards of your own.
just to expand on fetchland history, there are 10, 5 are cheap the others are not. The expensive ones are in the Ultimate Lair. Both sets were printed in normal sets, except the cheap ones were printed in 2 sets, ultimate lair was only 1 standard set. They got reprinted in a Masters reprint set, which was great but annoying because normal sets are $4 per pack, but these were 8-10 dollars.We've been begging for a long time to get these reprinted. WOTC said fetches will never be reprinted in standard because it makes for terrible viewing experiences for tournaments due to too much shuffling. Ridiculous, considering standard format that would be plagued by this (because fetches are legal everywhere else) is only streamed through the online client, MTG Arena. Shuffling happens in less than a second on Arena lol WOTC further insults the player base in an interview posted on UA-cam, where they try to squirm and answer why this Ultimate lair is hundreds of dollars for 5 cards when other lairs with 5 cards are much cheaper. These aren't even FOIL. I'm so upset as you can see, lol Great video as always.
And let's not forget that Fabled Passage acts as a fetchland for the sake of discussion and is not just considered fine by Wizards but worthy of reprint in less than a year off from the original release. It is only 4 copies per deck as opposed to the possible 8+ copies of fetchlands, but they are doing nothing to actually remove shuffling from standard by having Fabled Passage around.
Did you guys never watch or play during khans of tarkir standard? Pro tours and grand prix events took so much longer to complete due to people shuffling every other turn, and at pro tour level you're expected to do a full shuffle, not just a quick one, to reduce cheating.
The fetchlands definitely need reprinting, but not in standard, its just not necessary for that format.
@@Indyj2003 My point is more that they make the claim no fetchlands but then print what is in all regards a budget fetchland. It is just one set in the deck but going back and looking at the PT KTK top 8, that isn't much different from what was going on then with the full power fetchlands. So what Fabled Passage does to round times isn't that different from what full power fetches would do based on that referenced standard meta save for Passage doesn't go in aggro decks. That format also looked incredibly grindy based on the top 8, so that could have helped lead to longer games as well.
Side note, I'm a mostly modern and EDH player so the amount of shuffling that could normally occur in a standard game would probably not even register to me, so that may bias me about any shuffling that any style of fetches would bring.
@@Indyj2003 Did you just completely miss my point where tournaments that are streamed are on MTG Arena if they're standard? The shuffle problem is nonexistent now
Fetches would still be cancer. There is a reason fetchlands were banned right of the gate in Pioneer. Doesn't excuse the fact that they could be reprinted in other non-standard sets
Overpriced product might as well be the eighth sin, because it plagues even "successful" TCGs. It's probably the sole reason they don't become mainstream like online games, because even basic monetization schemes ask every player to gamble or profit off of someone else's gambling. Most people acknowledge that asking hundreds from a single player for a chance at a few months of competitive play is unfair to put it nicely.
>we'll have to see if anything good ever comes of these secret lairs
>Hasbro prints Secret Lair Walking Dead, killing all remaining faith the playerbase had
Yu-gi-oh structure decks: so how bout them *reprints*
reprints are good unless all you care about is money.
Yu-Gi-Oh has no set rotation.
the reprint issue is dependent on whether you have the reprint or not
Reprints are good for new/budget players to get competitive (Which is also good for the competitive player because it means more competitive players to attend tournaments)
If you have the card that's about to get reprinted you'll lose on your "investment" if you were planning on selling the card down the road
$30 bucks for a solid deck is honestly pretty nice, especially when compared to the top meta decks which are often upwards of $150. I can’t really say that structure decks don’t have much filler tho. It kinda depends on the deck, but both the sacred beasts and mechanized madness have a LOT of filler. Salads, shaddoll and rokket have a lot of good cards and are definitely worth the money and the number of good cards that I own purely because of structure decks is insane. Starter decks however...
(Edit) This is basically the only reason I got back into yugioh after a 5 year hiatus.
@Omar Valentini I haven't played YGO in about 4-5 yrs Shaddoll's are meta again? Thats awesome, what's chaos dragons looking like these days?
Since this video, Final Fantasy has done what they're calling the Anniversary Collection.
They took the most meta-defining and otherwise staple cards of the first 5 years of the game, and reprinted them all in duplicate or triplicate quantities in a $50 box. No packs, no gimmicks, no glitz and glam. Just a box with a great value for new, returning, or isolated players. It also comes with a fully playable deck out of the box with a few unique cards in it, further increasing the value.
It's an amazing way to get into the game, or get up to speed, or just get staple reprints you need more of.
In my experience, no one ever wants the oversized commander cards.
You could put it in a portrait!
I love them, keep them in my binders in the pockets.
Hi, I'm no-one. Bring back the oversized commanders, and start printing other cards in 3½”×5” too. Please D:
@@HalianTheProtogen I would actually love it if the entire game switched to that format. It would make the occasional insane text wall effects so much easier to read. Plus I love being able to see more detail in the art.
@@KertaDrake
Look as player with low income.
My feeling is price to value matters.
I quite mtg and several other games for 1 reason or another.
Returning to a game after a period of time is not an option. It costs to much.
Tins as you call um. Bad.
What companies should make and keep available is what I want to call.
CATCH UPS. What comes inside like for mtg 2 copies of 6 cards that are the most used uncommons 2 of the most used rare. Your lands. A pack of basic single color sleeves (60-75). A box for 60-75 sleeves cards. This can cost 30 dollars.
This way hey I want back in. Heres some money and now I have the cards to place mid field at the weekly game shop.
What they got now is ok i sold my house and the wife's car and i have to go to the after market market wait 2 weeks go to the game shop and place mid field.
Look old cards from old sets will retain their value. A mox will still keep its value. If I cant afford the ALPHA mox my not buying one doesnt help it. However me getting a 20 catch up that has a reprint new art or special border will not hurt the original but it allows me to play with those who do have the original and those with the money will still want it for bragging rights.
Getting into or returning to a game especially if you local game shop tournament is your only means of playing should not cost so much it turns you away
that Dark World/Under World deck in Yu-gi-oh where you had to buy the structure deck 3 times in order to have a top tier deck just fits this situation perfectly.
Dark world, dinosaurs, Salamangreat, Rokkets, Shaddolls, Monarchs, pendulum magician and ABC come to mind for really good structure decks that could compete at the times of release. Though admittedly the ABC one was filled with a large amount of kaiba shit nobody wanted
@HettGutt That becomes fairly obvious to anyone who bought 3 of any structure deck; its nigh unplayable with just the 3 structure decks. I listed structure decks that, with 3 of, you could get a quick, mostly built viable deck core that you would then build into the deck you want. The comment I replied to mentioned 3 SDs but I didnt
Guy walks into our local Wizards of the Coast Shop. Buys 3 of the then Latest Yu-Gi-Oh Structure deck (I don't recall which 😅)
Opens them in-store. Takes out the 3 cover cards and a few other super rares etc. Hands the remaining decks to 3 kids nearby for free. Leaves.
In regards to pre-built decks and deck exclusives, I feel like vanguard does it pretty well. After the reboot 3 years ago, all of the trial decks have had all the cards at 3-4 copies including the "main" cards that you will often use even when upgrading it with cards from packs. The only "1 of's" in the decks are foil versions of cards that have another 3 non foil copies so you only need to buy multiple decks if you want to have a max shiny version.
>Sentinel Trigger has joined the chat.
@@Kohdok I guess I forgot to say "the main cards that are exclusive to the deck". The draw sentinels can also be pulled from certain pack sets, though I will say they really need to reprint them more often in the base sets for new players who weren't playing when the first release was.
Haha, this video has aged well. 30th Anniversary Edition anybody? Random Proxies for 1000 Dollar!
My first thought, like the finest of wines 😂
Vanguard's V series trial decks have been perfect then, since you only need 1 to get 4 copies of almost every card, i think it's just 3 copies of 1 card to make room for the starter. Except for starter deck 9 since they throw 1 copy of the draw trigger perfect guard.
Kiiinda gets shot down by the special cards put into the decks at random. Heaven forbid you want to try to collect those. Hope you don't lose-a-lot trying to hunt down that Liselotte.
@@Kohdok Bermuda is the biggest blemish on Vanguard lmao
@@Kohdok do you ever wanne talk about buddy fight X,triple D or ACE
@@Kohdok that extra cards are just extras, you already got 4 liselottes from buying one
@@Kohdok cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/V_Trial_Deck_08:_Schokolade_Melody read the card list again.
Okay, hear me out:
Special booster packs with all the cards of a particular archetype (or at least the new prints) in one set. For example a "Blue Eyes" archetype set in Yu-Gi-Oh , black in Magic, or "Kagero" cards in Vanguard all in their own unique booster sets. For example in Vanguard if the Granblue clan gets new support make it ~35 cards just for them, and have them in one massive jumbo pack for ~$25 maybe. Just cycle through all clans/archetypes ~5 at a time and you've a fairly solid fix.
Yugioh have been more or less doing this for years. Every year they release a side set that revolves around 3 archetypes often with a mixture of new cards and reprints. Psy-Frames, Nekroz, Sky Strikers, Eldlich and Adamancipator debuted in such sets and were close to fully playable from those packs alone.
@@gpmradirgy8953 and Legendary duelist sets give decent chances to get reprints and new support for old strategies (the decent pull odds is debatable with shit like Magicians souls and the hero stuff)
A long video, and only 3 days after the last one? It's too good to be true!
This video was before Secret Lair TWD.
Thats the problem with Magic, people hate the products and/or prices but still buy them
Would love to see a perspective on the recent MTG "secret lair x walking dead" fiasco from someone not heavily invested. My primary format is what is targeted by the printing.
Secret lair x walking dead cards are mechanically unique unlike the other secret lairs.
I feel like vanguard should have been brought up here. For an average player you only need one deck to play the game decently, unlike yugioh we’re the game is barely playable with one starter deck. Now sure the addition of trigger sentinel is the only contradiction as the deck only comes with one, but I will note that vanguard does this a lot, in g they would give 2 sentinels, and it was later changed to 4 in the v series. Considering how the decks have gotten more and more complete (ie, only needing to buy one) it’s most likely that trigger sentinels will be more available going forward.
There are chase foils in the starter decks, but they aren’t necessary for play, they add incentives for collectors to get the decks, but ultimately don’t really matter since you get everything you need in the deck.
Furthermore, the amount of trash has significantly dropped, the amount of vanillas in a deck has decreased, and the amount of cards that synergies with the deck, and cards from the next set have gotten better. This was definitely not the case with og vanguard, where the decks came with very limited plays.
Also I would like to add, the extra booster sets narrow down the amount of different clans you can get, which makes them great for adding specific cards into your deck.
But they've still integrated a system designed to remove the hard cap on how many decks you would need to buy. If you're a big enough fan of the archetype to buy the deck, it is very likely you would be the sort to be sorely tempted to hunt for the premium deck cards. At least with Yugioh there's an end in sight. I'm checking ebay and at least one seller is trying to offload a ton of sets of just the Bermuda△ deck cards leftover from promo hunting.
Even if you do supposedly need just one deck, that is clearly not what Bushiroad intends with the promo inserts. Frankly, this even outweighs the one-of Trigger Sentinels which are otherwise RR's from one set, because at least there you can stop at 4.
you still need to buy 4 for a set of draw pgs
Bermuda Triangle is the worst example of this IMO. Bushiroad does not care and will make stupid bullcrap stuff just for them.
They even got an anime based around the clan!
Even then Bushi has started to do reprint sets more often, for example the Festival Collection is literally just a box full of Draw PG and staple cards, 2 for every clan, which was very much needed considering some Draw PG’s are going for upwards of $20.
And if you can’t afford them but also don’t want to spent valuable G1 space for the G1 PG’s? Crit Sentinels, that’s what! Granted they likely will be pricy for Protect clans that don’t care about not having main deck Pg’s due to Protect 1 being a Pg anyway but for Accel and Force Clans it’ll be a good budget option.
But how much r those decks? A Yugioh structure deck is only $10, so buying 3 still isn’t very much.
@@jamesallmon7756 one vanguard trial deck is roughly 15 dollars
4:23 Kohdok:" a copy of Black Lotus"
Wizards of The Coast: "Those thoughts are best forgotten"
You know, I wrote something similar about a decade ago regarding collector's editions of video games. People with money are willing to pay $150-$300 or more for a game/series/director they love. But at the same time, that collector's edition needs to have an appropriate value proposition. A good statue, memorabilia that nods to the to game/universe, stuff that's really cool and shows you're a superfan. The MK9 collector's edition with the bookends, art book, and a couple "klassic skins" is a great example of this. On the other hand, Mass Effect 3's collector's edition including the From Ashes DLC (which was required to be able to play with Protheans in your party, something that didn't require additional DLC in the prior games) is an example of doing it wrong. It's all about, like you said, making the price a reasonable value proposition and properly accessible for those who want it.
The worst offender for deck exclusives was the Score Dragon Ball Z game. The starter decks had 1 of I think 8 or 10 exclusive personality cards and the decks themselves all contained the same cards
Wow. Ethical product design is important. It is something I have been thinking. I thought about having an ethical aproach to products, and that can help me stand out from the competition. I like to have big bang for the buck. There are a bunch of cards at a low and reasonable price. I would like to be generous about it. One part of being humane is to have all the cards be guaranteed. No randomized funny business. If I did put out products it would be more like the big boxes of cards. It is like the products shown in this video. I haven't figured pricing exactly so I will give guesstimates. A big player starter set would have two decks of cards plus storing and playing paraphernalia. That can be about $20. A smaller box that just has a deck can be about $10. There can be an alternative to booster packs. There can be small packs of guaranteed cards. There can be 30 cards for about $5. That is a very good deal. From watching this video, I see how one can mess these products up. Coercing a customer to buy multiple copies of a tin or set box is wrong. That is messed up. If I was going to do a product like that, I would have dropped four copies of each exclusive card in there. That is reasonable. I would have dropped whatever number of copies was needed for good game play.
O_O $400 for a fancy box with five fancy lands. Oh my gosh! Seriously?! No! Bad! Bad Wizards of the Coast! This is so exploitative of whales. It is so obnoxious with the way it panders to whales and milks them dry. Even if fetch lands are a big deal in the market, that is still a rediculous ripoff. I know what I would do. There are ten guilds of Ravnica. Each has a color pair that is the basis of a fancy land. Lands are important in a deck, so having four copies of a special land is a given. So I would put out a box of ten lands with four copies each. The box would have 40 cards and it would be $10 or a little less. That would be better. That would be reasonalble. Maybe there can be different boxes for that. There would be a fetchlands box. There would also be a shock lands box, a life gain lands box, a scry lands box and so forth. There can be a box of guild gate lands for Ravnica. In this box, I would throw in four copies of Gateway Plaza. That would be so nice and generous as a bonus. If I was going to cater to the whales, I would wants to go all out. I would pull no punches. I got an idea of collector sets. That would be cool. Here is how they work. Oh you dropped about $100 for my cards. That is so nice of you. You deserve to have the full experience. Here is all of the cards of a set with four copies each. They are all guaranteed. You have the whole set for your collection. You can play with the cards to your hearts desire. Your welcome. :) Now that would be a worthy product for the whales. Since I don't do booster packs, I can't do set boxes with them stuffed in. So the collector sets is a nice alternative.
The throne of eldraine brawl decks had the guarantee of the specific face cards, like korvold, but then you could pull them from the collector boosters which helped the availability to some degree
So, as someone designing a card game of my own. I was thinking of having the starter decks coming with complete playsets of all the included cards, instead of one off's.
My idea is that the more niche or specific a card the rarer it is, so you build a deck around whatever rare card you have.
And the most common cards can be played in almost any deck. So you want as many copies as possible...
“Nobody is gonna put 55 islands in their deck”
*laughs in Treasure Hunt*
Closest thing Pokemon did to the Secret Lairs was a 100 dollar XY Premium box, that came with about 15 full art pokemon/supporters we hadn't received yet, 2 packs, a deck box and 2 sets of sleeves, 2 sets of dice, and a full metal coin, so at least you had some stuff you could play the game with. Arguably still a bad value since most of those cards were already rotated-only the Regirock EX was still commonly played in standard at the time-but most of the cards in it were still played in expanded to some degree.
So here's my opinion on WOTC right now. WOTC realized after years of normalizing expensive products like Masters sets and shit like Commander Anthology that not only would people still buy it, but it didn't matter the price. The obvious next step in a capitalist system is to find where the "limit" actually is. So far they're at the point where people are about to be paying $100 for a single booster pack or $350 for 4. They realized $400 for just 5 guaranteed cards that don't even look that cool in a giant box will not sell, however with random chance they are finding that they can push that boundary to the next level. They can justify the practice as ethical by making cheaper products that contain cheaper versions of the same cards and keep going until the whales finally tell them to fuck off. My guess is the final straw will be $1000 for a booster box of a future product, regardless of the EV. I might be super off with that estimate but I feel like they can get away with it if they market it in just the right way.
ALSO I'M BUYING A VIP DOUBLE MASTERS BOOSTER BOX I WANNA SEE HOW FAR THIS TRAIN CAN GO
A friend and I were talking about creating a card game for funsies and I thought I'd revisit binging this excellent series from the beginning.
When you got to the part about WotC and erosion of trust, I laughed and laughed and laughed and then I wept and needed a few moments of silence.
That Secret Lair Ultimate Edition goes for over $400...that is...if you can find one at your local LGS. Also, I read reports from other players that their Secret Liars were arriving miscut, or under some other kind of factory error.
I get producing overseas is cheaper but level with me Hasbro, train your people to spot factory errors. Other companies reprint staples. Your pride is blinding you from doing what your customers want. And remember, pride goeth before the fall.
Planeswalker decks suck anyway. Every card in them is intentional powered down to the point of being unplayable. When I was starting out in Magic, my friends expressly told me to not buy them.
@Jay Morales true but I would rather play challenger decks against each other or unstable or game nights or ...
@Jay Morales Dude the sleeves are worth more than any of the crap cards in the deck so don't waste good sleeves on them.
Secondly, I played one once with a friend and it's the least fun I've ever had with Magic. It turns into a big fucking one sided slog fest typically where whoever plays their shitty duel deck Planeswalker first basically wins. Otherwise you play a bunch of chump shit and a few vanilla creatures. It isn't even "casual" gameplay, it's fucking torture.
To add insult to injury, the cards aren't even foil and it wasn't even the full set of 10. Hasbro and WotC took a major "L" with that one and the VIP/Collectors boosters aren't helping their situation.
why is noone talking about the yugioh megatins? They have been really good so far, the gold sarc tins were actually insane
I think it's because he already said enough about YGO. If there wasn't a limit like that he would have only compared MtG and Pokemon. Aka the worst and the best in this topic.
What WotC does tiptoeing the gambling line. Pokemon is actually fair, Konami might milk it's player base but compared to WotC they are pretty fair.
Two out of the three exclusive promos alone were more impactful than several recent banlists.
@HettGutt I dunno man I pulled a Masquerena AND an Apollousa out of 2 tins.
2020 Tins were ass. 2021 Tins are looking like Mega-ass.
@@chronovac You do realize that:
A. You got INSANELY lucky, and
B. You still effectively paid $40 for 2 cards, yes?
I like the Transformers TCG model, where theme decks and booster box promos focus on niche strategies that ask for dedicated deckbuilding, rather than being powerful staples.
my biggest problem with structure decks in yugioh, is that they only print enough for everyone to buy 1 so they sell out immediately because everyone buys 3
Don't forget that wizards are gona to release a "VIP" pack of 40 cards for 100 bucks
when you said 400 i genuinely thought the real price was 40 and you said the wrong number, in yugioh they printed a guaranteed set of somewhere around 40 staple cards (and a few bad cards ik the set list is 56) for $40
The secret lair he mentions would, in ygo equivalence to today, be a Droplet, a Pot of Prosperity, a Nibiru, a Secret Ash, and Lightning Storm from recent megatin
Sound like a fair price now?
This aged like wine. Isnt that right MTG?
Ooow, how far we've fallen since this video
i came from a future where we have MTG Secret Lair cards with mecanic exclusive cards
And they’re lore-breaking crossover cards to boot.
I'd love to see his reaction to the $100 booster packs of Magic cards for Double Masters VIP
Tolarian CC summed it up pretty well. It's $100 for a pack that's 1/3rd basic lands. pretty self-explanatory.
Magic is starting to get on my nerves.😑
I’m here from the future. It gets worse.
@@sadnibba4070 You don't say?😑
Joshua Sinclair we were so young and naive 😔
@@sadnibba4070 yeah I agree
Maybe the box topper could be alternate art of a common or uncommon popular card. Instead of being a card that you need 4 boxes to get a playset, it's a card you can get a playset in maybe 1 or 2 boxes, and that topper is just one option to bling your deck.
my favorite "tin" is ygos duel devastator, that shit was almost a comically good deal
Any chance you will do an episode on the Walking Dead MTG cards? Interesting intersection between humane design and licensing. Not sure if you have covered it already
the japanese version of yugioh does the same structure decks but instead of buying multiple, there's little booster packs designed for them
Do you mean the little addition pack with 5 cards that the TCG just adds to the main deck instead of separating?
The only time that was done in the TCG was with the Zexal starter deck, where you could pull cards like dark hole or Kuraz
Question for Kohdok, What is a good max number of cards to make your game say if you are developing one?
Example, I am making one for fun "or working on one..." and I have thought about between 50 - 60 cards makes up a standard deck.
6:26 Did this man just say _nish?_
All Muricans have major trouble saying/pronouncing the word “niche” 😂
The ultra ball analogy deserves a chef’s kiss.
This was a game for WoTC, they sent the Ultimate Edition to LGSes, the only one they did this for, then "leaked" an "MSRP" of $160 knowing LGSes would jack up the price to $300-$400, in a trick to try and show that buying Secret Lairs from them saves them money, because people were complaining that Secret Lairs could only be bought on the WoTC website instead of at their Store.
Isn't the point of the pre-made decks are so new players can jump right into the game without having to buy random acks and try to make a new deck from the pulls?
If you are going to buy a pre-made just for a few select cards that is on you. I did it and I knew I was getting trash that was just the price I paid to get a specific card.
The best promos are swag cards. Not cards good in the meta but just ones that are cool to own. Alt art and/or alt foils are great for this. I honestly get sick of promos that are amazing because they’re difficult to obtain. It’s weird spending so much on a card that usually isn’t shiny and usually is guaranteed if you went to an event or got a box or whatever. Just make the promos bling versions of popular cards and everyone will be happy. It’s not really hard.
It's so surreal looking at this after the walking dead and universes beyond, we really didn't know how good we had it
I almost want to make a TCG just to do things the right way and avoid the sins. But yeah that's not my field lmao
Same
In terms of magic the gathering's trust value, this video hasnt aged well.
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@@thepigeonsofthepacificnort2268 Magic printed a crossover product with Walking Dead. Mechanically unique cards, legal in a few formats, that have non-magic the gathering characters/flavor. This is bad for several reasons, 1)Opening the door to the game being chock full of other IP cards that kills the flavor, 2) Forcing players to buy an expensive luxury product in a limited time or never being able to own the cards (Magic says maybe someday they'll reprint them, unlikely). 3) opening the door to printing mechanically unique cards you have to buy directly for your deck, changing the game from a TCG/CCG into a pay-to-win card game 4) If 3 happens, the secondary market dies completely, pissing off collectors and people who use the cards for Prestige/small stakes stocks. And, at that point, theyd have also driven off their average players, decimating the game. 5) This is something the specifically promised they would never do again after a previous instance, and MTG has said before they can't break promises because they could be taken to court over it (this is justification for them not reprinting certain very old cards).
This all sets aside the other problems Secret Lairs have had and continue to have: Too much different product, Limited time sales sparking FOMO, Bad Customer support, horribly curled foils, damaged product, incredibly late (6months) product, chance of tilting their hand and revealing they acknowledge the secondary market by charging different values which would result in MTG (and possibly all TCGs) being subject to gambling laws.
The funny thing? They could have avoided this misstep in two easy ways that they've already done. Make the cards silver-bordered (aka, not legal in any sanctioned format, just kitchen table fun), or make them "alternate" cards, with a real MTG card name under the Walking Dead character name that the card is guaranteed to be printed as or have been printed as previously or concurrently. They did this in the last major set Ikoria by having Godzilla versions of many of the cards in the set, plus a mechanically unique Box topper that came with the guarentee that the 'real' version of the card would be coming out in an already scheduled product. Both of these are things they've done in this past year.
If you'd like to know more/hear more opinions, I recommend Tolarian Community College, Commander's Quarters, or Pleasant Kenobi's videos on the subject (roughly in that order).
Somewhat amusing that UA-cam suggested this video again after the SL The Walking Dead debacle.
I kinda like the idea of a commander oversize card for a buy a box. (Im a commander player). I do need to note that a buy a box and a box topper are different. Box toppers have only been in two sets to date. Ps i refuse to buy secret lair
Regarding the yu gi oh decks they are reprinting cards that players need and rare cards that needs a reprint. That is why you have to buy three decks not to make a deck but to get reprints so you can sell the reprints. Yu gi oh he have been doing great by putting staple cards in the structure decks so people with low entry can have decent cards to start with
still the idea of printing a "Structre Deck" and only include singles of the Boss monster and other cards is just... stupid.
@@Zanji1234 That's more of a lore reason as most characters only played 1 copy of each card per deck.
@@Zanji1234 to be fair a yugioh structure deck is 10 dollars. So if you want a playset, you just buy 3 decks. Could they print 30 dollar structure decks with full playsets? Yes, but then people who want try a deck might pass on it, or people who like deck build would have less work
@jvalex18 its... $30, not that much for a perfectly playable TCG deck. Not really for the money exclusively, just a design choice
Yugioh special editions are done now, there won't be another one released again.
YuGiOh made a box of 56 cards, Duel Devastator, you buy the box and you get the same 56 cards, the box itself its a bit pricey, but if you really want to get into the game, you should buy 3 of.
Since all the cards are generic, they are good as staples or side deck/board, and almost any deck you make is going to have cards from that box, so its a really solid investment. Pluse the box can fill a lot of cards.
dont. Just buy the singles in lower rarity lol
Duel Devastator isnt good, half the cards in there are filler outdated stuff. The other half is the good stuff but that point, buying the singles of the good half is cheaper then buying one box.
It was a much better value upon launch to be fair, but these days just buying 1 is enough or buying players of what you want. But again, it was a genuine plus if you bought it on release
My impression is that the Secret Lairs are for the secondary market/MTG Finance people and to do some polemical stuff (like this) that will get publicity. Possibly it also helps the special art they are commissioning that they will use later for a lower cost version. What you were talking about with an ethical version of this they actually used to do with Intro decks but I think they just weren't exciting enough for people. They changed Intro decks to planeswalkers that are generally better designed but have special planeswalkers and planeswalker searching cards. These are worse cards, so for example if there is a Dovin in the set the Dovin planeswalker deck card will be like...2 to 3 mana more expensive to cast with less exciting abilities. This is actually a good thing because they won't become artificially scarce from collectors buying them up, or reselling them without the value card. Also I think planeswalkers are just cool to little kids, and they are humanoid at least. The intro decks were always like...a big dragon or demon or something, a junk rare that I don't think anyone would identify with; even if it is a cool fantasy thing.
They had "Event decks" which were supposed to be an out-of-the-box FNM experience but those were a bit hit and miss power level and design wise. They currently have "Challenger Decks" that are basically bad versions of standard decks that are in the Meta. This is probably the closest in effect to what you're talking about.
(all this I'm talking about playing in paper and not really acknowledging Arena which you can essentially play for free). Honestly I think anyone trying to get into the game to play constructed is borrowing cards for tournaments or kinda structuring their life around trading for cards.. Also drafting is way funner and cheaper anyway :). I think most people actually buying these drops are trying to hold them to sell later or blinging out their commander decks. Personally, the draft and then put your exciting chaf into your EDH deck was how I approached MTG. I tried to play standard but it evolves so fast the next week you play a deck the meta has totally changed.
All that being said...Wizards is trying to extract so much money out of people it gets kind of dizzying and intimidating.
Anyway thanks for the great content!
The big cool thing about Yugioh is that you can Buy 3 of a structure deck, and have all the cards you legitimately need for that deck and are ready for tournaments for 30$. That's pretty cool.
I love how Digimon is handling decks. 95% of the cards inside are unique, new cards, and the only reprints are usually alternate arts. You get only new stuff, it's seriously awesome
The one thing I love about the Pokemon starter decks/ theme decks is they have their own format for unaltered deck lists. You can pick up a theme deck and play against any other theme deck printed and with few exceptions they've remained really well balanced over the years. My lugia deck still pulled wins against Zician and Cinderrace last week when I played. Unfortunately Planeswalker decks for magic have no such format and with very few exceptions have no cards that are relevant to standard or any other format.
In my experience the Tins usually have exclusive cards, not alternates or reprints.
the only ethical way to sell a collectible card game is to do what fantasy flight does and just sell people play sets of the entire set. although the core sets still don't contain full play sets because even fantasy flight chooses greed over goodwill to their players sometimes.
It not call a collectible card game if thats the case.
That's not a collectible card game
Great to see that Notch has picked up UA-cam
Pokemon has usually made good products. It's been getting more expensive lately but that is probably due to competitive play seeing a huge increase since the introduction of money prizes. Btw tapu lele, shaymin ex and now dedenne gx have been used / needed as 4 ofs, although fortunately on a limited number of decks that made the most of them >.
Hi! I was to say something that maybe you already consider but you let it go in the first place but.
Don’t you consider the accessibility of powerful cards a sin for a starting TCG?
Think about it, what is the best way for a card game designer to sell it’s game? For me i think is to make the staples accessibles so they can play their cards more fluid.
But if at the very start the staples are hard to get access... only the ones who drop their wallets are the ones who can obtain and the others will be frustrated and some of them will start to sell their cards.