Why Are Secret Lairs So Popular?
General forum
Posted on Dec. 10, 2022, 10:10 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
I have lamented about how WotC has discontinued numerous product lines, such as Duel Decks, Premium Decks, From the Vault, Commander Collection, and Signature Spellbook, but Secret Lairs show no signs of ending, at any time, soon, which really annoys me, because of how they function.
Why are Secret Lairs so popular compared to the previous product lines? Why is WotC so heavily supporting it, when they have discontinued other product lines? What does everyone else say about this?
TheOfficialCreator says... #3
I think it's partially because Secret Lairs simultaneously fill the positions that were previously filled by those product lines while giving them a unified market name to stand behind.
True, Secret Lairs aren't playable out of the box like Duel Decks or Premium Decks are, but I'm not entirely sure that the draw of pre-playable decks is even worth it in an environment where new Commander decks are created for every Standard set.
I'm not saying this is my preference or even a smart economic decision, but it seems like the reasoning for what Hasbro is doing with MTG. I've quite enjoyed a couple of the Secret Lairs that have come out, and I think that's the draw of them; they appeal very strongly to a smaller group of people.
The Pride Secret Lair, the Bird Secret Lair, and the Yargle Day Secret Lair have been some of my favorites thus far. The others I could care more about, but I understand why they exist, and I'm glad they do for those who want to buy them.
Obviously, the Yargle Day Secret Lair was incredibly low-value, but the Pride Secret Lair in general had decent value with its inclusion of Mana Confluence, and the Bird Secret Lair had things like Birds of Paradise. And the special arts can be worth the low relative value to some people, which I assume is the justification for them being priced the way they are.
December 10, 2022 10:26 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #4
It's probably because the Professor has been saying "buy singles!" for years now, and Wizards wants in on that :P
December 10, 2022 11:17 a.m.
RiotRunner789 says... #5
Generally, because, even ignoring the different art, the secret layers have better value than buying the same cards on the secondary market.
Every secret layer is either a slight bargain or a substantial one. WOTC knows what their doing and as long as they keep making them worth it, secret layer will remain popular.
December 10, 2022 11:28 a.m.
shadow63 and TheOfficialCreator are both right. They are a money maker that fill the positions of multiple separate products that needed to be marketed and distributed to LGS's.
December 10, 2022 1:07 p.m.
As I said on a prior thread of yours, it is because Secret Lairs allow Wizards to sell directly to the customer a (generally) print to demand product. That means there is not a reseller jacking up prices based on the secondary market value of cards (many SLs have a “street value” far in excess of their sale price). It also means folks who want it do not need to worry about it selling out, as everyone who orders in the time window will have product printed for them.
On top of that, because they are print to demand and highly profitable, Wizards can afford to pay for some unique art and take risks with the art and design. After all, if cereal box design cards (a current SL) didn’t sell well in a print to order by LGSes, then they would have wasted money making product that does not move. By printing the amount ordered, they know exactly how much to print and can guarantee even less popular, more risky art will not be overprinted. This, in turn, means collectors who like the weird styles will be more inclined to buy than they would of a more traditional art and style of the other products.
December 10, 2022 1:38 p.m. Edited.
FormOverFunction says... #8
While I’m not a fan of the secret lairs, they do formalize a market for something similar to altered art cards. Many players would probably be willing to pay for a sol ring that looks like Dr Strange’s weird portal-ring-thinger but are not willing to venture into the Wild West of hiring an artist through the internet. It’s not a perfect match (you don’t get to make a request for the cool idea you have for an altered card) but it gives you a level of personalization that was otherwise unavailable. It makes sense, and people do benefit, but I still don’t like it. Side note: I still want a Teferi's Puzzle Box altered to look like the puzzlebox from Hellraiser for my Torture deck... but I don’t want to attempt to hire a stranger to paint on an approximately 10 dollar card for a couple hundred dollars without a guarantee that it ends up looking like what I want it to (which is impossible). Additional side note: it will never cease to be hilarious to me how people hated how Homelands had multiple art versions for cards and now there’s almost no way to keep track of what set a card is even from.
December 10, 2022 6:24 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #9
shadow63, that is exactly what I think about this subject, as well.
RiotRunner789, have you seen the prices of some Secret Lairs? I would not at all say that they are bargains.
Caerwyn, that is exactly why I do not like Secret Lairs; WotC is being greedy; plain and simple.
December 10, 2022 6:40 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #10
DemonDragonJ I'm not going to go as far as RiotRunner789 did and say that all lairs are a deal to some degree. But it is pretty easy to get a deal by buying Lairs.
The first time I ever bought Lairs was for the Shockland bundle where you got 15 shocks (2 of each allied and 1 of each enemy) for $120. Even taking the cheapest printing of each, buying those Shocks would cost $188. A savings of 33%.
My next purchase was for the Special Guest: Jen Bartel and Phyrexian Praetors Complete ones. Bloom Tender has caught a reprint since then, so the Jen Bartel Lair is only worth $9 buying cheapest printings, though Lair printings are still worth $43 and at the time Bloom Tender by itself was a $44. Praetors cheapest printing is a total of $53. So I am still up $2 total and up $40 if you use the going rate of the printings I have.
Rhystic Study by itself still pays for the entire Arcane Lair. Which has a couple of other $5+ cards in it. There are many more examples of this. I buy Lairs when the EV is over the price or when the art is too good to ignore. Nothing against my LGS. I buy supplies from them and singles when they have ones I want. I buy at least 2 pre-release kits every set because pre-release runs into when I take my boy to go play commander, so we do that instead. But if there is a good value to be had I will get a Lair.
This isn't even factoring in the bonus cards. I have spent about $600 on lairs over the last 18 months and am up about $2000 in value because of some extraordinary luck and selling cards at the right time. And this includes taking losses on some Lairs because the artist series ones are often phenomenal.
December 10, 2022 8:07 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #11
Gidgetimer, I acknowledge that some Secret Lairs have amazing artwork, but I wish that they were available the same way as are all other products, and I especially wish that they were available indefinitely, since them being available for only a certain amount of time is a shameless marketing tactic by WotC.
December 10, 2022 10:16 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #12
Absolutely 0 MtG products are available indefinitely. I agree that the initial 24-48 hour model for Secret Lairs was exploitative of FOMO. Now Lairs are available for a minimum of a week and most commonly for a month. This doesn't count limited editions like the Magic 30 Countdown Lair, but if it doesn't follow the "time boxed to demand" model I don't really consider it a Lair despite it being sold through that site. And this happens all the time with products that aren't direct-to-consumer. I wanted a Mystery Booster: Retail Exclusive box but no where ever had them in stock. It was an extremely limited availability product, despite "not being limited print run". I want all of the 40K decks. I have seen exactly 0 despite checking big box stores any time I am in them and my LGS every weekend. Strixhaven was the set that was out when I bought the Shocks. It also is no longer being produced.
You asked why Secret Lairs are popular and why they are being better supported. You may have valid reasons for not liking the product. However; your feelings on the product are moot in consideration of the questions asked. Despite buying a good number of Lairs, I'm not a fan of certain practices regarding them either.
They are popular because:
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Higher secondary market value than price. WoTC are doing their best to pretend like they don't know that some cards have higher secondary market value than others so as to not get Magic classified as gambling. Special "limited" printings gives them an out to pretend like the reason I was willing to pay $120 for 15 Shocks is for collector's value, not because even normal printings are worth 10-40x as much as other rares from the same sets.
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There is value in the limited printings for customization to "bling" a deck. Magic players like for their decks to feel special and a Secret Lair printing allows for a card that is different than the standard card without having to commission an alter. Secret Lair arts are also tournament legal, and strictly speaking full art swap alters are not.
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Despite the window to buy being smaller than a standard legal set, there are no availability problems. If you want to buy the Lair, you get to buy the Lair. There is no hunting around to find it available somewhere. There is no holding off to try to get it closer to what you would like to spend because price gouging on the secondary market. You pay $30 or $40 and get your 3-8 cards. You know what you are getting and what the price is.
Wizard likes Lairs because:
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Every single unit printed is sold. By selling them before printing them Wizards knows how many to make and don't have 10,000 copies of a product that no one wants.
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Direct to consumer means a higher % of sales price goes directly to them.
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Specifically with the Universes Beyond Lairs they get to try out card designs on an extremely small scale.
December 10, 2022 11:11 p.m.
Ive been fortunate to have my wife get me two of the Drops. The tattoo one, and the pathways.
I enjoy the artsof both and i will at least give a glimpse at the newest omes as they drop to see what WoTC comes up with.
They aren't for everyone but they dp appeal for some and those are the ones WoTC is aiming for.
December 11, 2022 10:10 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #14
Another thing I wanted to mention was that my favorite SLs (though I haven’t bought any) have been artist-related. The closest I ever came to buying a SL was the Bob Ross lands, and these Frazetta cards are almost as tempting. Two of my favorite non-MtG artists! But I’m a sucker for the art-end of things in MtG, so that’s only a small slice of reasoning for the popularity. I think Gidgetimer laid it out pretty well.
December 11, 2022 12:59 p.m.
...There are Frank Frazetta cards? This melts my classic fantasy loving heart : )
December 11, 2022 4:41 p.m.
DoomNoodle says... #16
The artist series have been wonderful for highlighting those individuals within the community so for that I highly commend WotC for that! Not every lair is desired by you but is to another. So long as they stay as reprints it's fine by me. If they dive to deep into the mechanically unique cards issues could arise. They did so well with the Godzilla and Dracula cards (I love those) but the walking Dead, transformers ,Warhammer and stranger things(even though they kinda rectified those with the list inclusions during SNC) are horrible for the game as a whole when looked through story and lore. I love some of the IP's but makes them hard to reprint into other sets leading to scarcity and eventual price hikes when synergies are later found or made.
TL:DR reprints with new art cool! Mechanically unique cards bad! Stop that! Bad wizards!
December 11, 2022 4:47 p.m.
Dagnabbit !! Niko9 you beat me to the response on FormOverFunction. I saw those Frazetta cards & was tempted... That is saying alot for me because I am neither an alt. art or SL guy. I REALLY have to have my SL's seem like magic cards to me. As a big time old school pulp reading dude the Frazetta stuff really tickles me. This is the original scantily clad barbarian swinging a broadsword 1-handed, while laughing, while holding an, also, scantily clad damsel on his other arm :)
I honestly wish there was a more (direct from WoTC) way for me to just buy singles of my basic printings without the Extra-Mega-Bigass-Fries
December 11, 2022 11:15 p.m.
Gleeock Exactly! I've only bought one SL, and am taking a magic break, but neither of these things might stop me on this one : ) His art was so perfect for the original Conan series and they were some of my favorite books as a kid for so many reasons. Modern fantasy never quite hit the same level of world mystery that Howard had, and the cover art always just sparked your imagination. And, to this day, I try to throw "lithe" into writing things, just because everyone and everything was described as lithe in Conan and I thought it was a funny description.
December 12, 2022 9:17 a.m.
Niko9 The lithe dumptruck pulled away from the quarry.
Like that? :)
December 12, 2022 10:25 a.m.
Niko9 I am trying to work on getting back into a more lithe figure so that I could be described as having a 'panther's grace' & showing 'thews' tensing in exertion with a 'grim smile' :)
Gosh, he did love "lithe".
That art sparked the imagination so much for sure, same with all the John Carter stuff. The last time I saw art that did that for me was Marvel's: 'Weird World' or 'Black Science'
Also taking a magic break, sortof, just a couple of singles with a new release & none of the chase stuff for me.
December 12, 2022 12:31 p.m.
Abaques Ha! It works for everything : ) The dumptruck could also lithely pull away from the quarry. Or the driver could sit back in the seat, his lithe driving muscles making it an easy, if somewhat rippley, ride away from the quarry.
...And now I feel like this is just Over The Top fanfic, in the best possible way : )
December 12, 2022 12:38 p.m.
Gleeock Panther's grace is also such a good one : ) He definitely described people as felinesque a ton. But jokes aside, one of the things I really appreciated about Howard's Conan was that there was so much magic in the world but the main character understood it less than anyone else. He just kinda dealt with it and moved on. It really felt like anything could happen at any time and there really was no need for explanations, and that's still so fresh today, or especially today where fantasy writing will spend so, so long explaining every little thing.
I will definitely check out the Marvel stuff, thanks for the tip! Sometimes I really appreciate how clean modern art looks, but part of me really misses the old oil paint stuff. I mean, one of my favorite magic cards is the original Stasis Like, it's so weird, but I also just love it.
December 12, 2022 12:44 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #23
Niko9 I’m 100% on the same page: much of the modern magic card art is WAY too perfect. Anything more perfect than Pentagram of the Ages is sort of suspect lol
December 12, 2022 5:18 p.m.
That's part of the magic of them, where you see a random spell & you think "what's going on here?". I love myself some Earnest Fellowship :)
Conan's way of moseying on is pretty amazing. He is the same way with weapons too, never too attached to the bling. Quintessential: "rolling stone gathers no moss". Probably why I like King Conan a little bit less, though he still gets the wanderlust.
The world was awesome for all that oddball primal transition to it too. I loved how random Picts would worship everything as a god. It was especially great when there would be a random ancient Tyrannosaurus Rex that turned out to be their god.
shadow63 says... #2
Because wotc makes stupid profit margins off them
December 10, 2022 10:19 a.m.