Thalia in regular print costs about $7, so you are getting at least $28 value for a $30 product with a full playset.
It's tempting to look at Lair based on current value. Thalia has already dropped to $5 for NM copies on TCG in advance of this printing. Foils can now be found for around $10. This set is doubling the number of printings/versions from 4 to 8, so should expect to see significant drops in existing inventory as a result even with a limited print run - especially given the heads up to anyone interested in buying.
Encourage anyone thinking about Lairs in terms of current market value to go back and look at card prices before and after printings. Similar to other reprints existing cards take a huge beating with these things.
comparing foil printings from orginal set with printing from sl is like comparing apples to oranges. regular foils are special printings of a card so there are multiple versions of varying scarcity. printing from sl has only one version. it does not matter that it is shiny. it is still the most common printing from specific set.
people trying to compare regular foil to sl are the proof that wotcs attempts to increase percieved value are working. which is sad to see. it means that they can push further this line of product with artificialy increased value instead of providing actual reprints. at this pricepoint this do not decrease financial barrier to entry into the game. it also does not provide sufficient amount of reprints, for this particular card it does, but not for many others that are needed for non-standard formats.
regarding the artwork it looks great but i thought thalia had blonde hair not yellow. this color looks a bit weird to me.
So far we're at one per month, for four consecutive months.
It definitely hasn't been one a month. December we had 7 different ones, January there was one, February there was five (but I'll count it as one per the theme), and March we already have two confirmed. In total that's 15 (or 10 if you want to count Theros) in 4 months. Either way one is average more than three a month and the other is two and a half. Honestly, as someone that hasn't wanted to buy any of these so far, it's a bit much, product wise.
I'm betting that many or most of us, as gamers, also have a budget for video games hard-baked into our monthly allowance. That's what, $60? It seems to me that all of the grumbling here boils down to "I can't own everything, but I want to." And that's okay, that's a perfectly human emotion to possess, but at the end of the day all Wizards is truly guilty of is offering consumers more options. Do I buy that video game, or the Secret Lair? Do I buy Secret Lairs or wait for that next booster box to go on pre-order? Those are questions we're forced to answer, as adults, on a daily basis.
You may have a point with some not getting everything they desire, but I do think it's more wallet fatigue or just getting tired of all of these products they are pumping out. There was already enough products last year and this year there are even more coming forward, between normal Standard sets, a couple supplementary sets a year, a few random products here or there they had enough, but now we add in Secret Lairs, Commander Green, extra commander decks, brawl decks, theme packs, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few more.
Honestly, at this point I'm more looking for a reason to buy the product. I'll buy a fat pack of each set, maybe a few boosters, and get singles every so often, and I'll get Commander decks, but that's about it for me. Right now Wizards really has to sell me the set and why I should buy it, and with more and more products coming out they need to try much harder to try and get me to relinquish my cash and when some continued product lines are getting worse (like Commander is with poor reprints the last few years) it really just makes me comfortable knowing I will keep more of my money.
I was counting each round of drops as a single release, since they're usually themed, and the announcements are observably cohesive. You may recall that the December drops were all winter or holiday related. You may similarly recall that not too long ago Wizards was promoting special Mythic Editions to coincide with a given set's release; those, to my mind, were prohibitively exorbitant investments, but not altogether different from a complete set of 5-7 SL drops. Here, at least, you can buy them individually. That deserves some modicum of credit, I think.
Lots of words on this thread. In other news I made a big batch of chili yesterday and am getting great reviews from all the coworkers I fed. The sun is shining, the snow is melting and I can finally go outside w/o a coat. For once my dog didn't track mud around the house nor did he pee on the floor this morning. All in all life's not that bad. If Zombieland taught us anything it's to enjoy the little things.
"Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products"
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
Why would you continue to participate in a hobby you’ve been unable to derive value in going on 9 years?
If that is not someone trying to expulse somebody from a community I dont know what it is. But I will answer you smart ass. I like the rules of the game. I played the game a long time ago I even have some dual lands. But now I cant play because nobody plays magic anymore in my city. The fact that I like the game does not mean that I will endorsee their stupid decisions. None of the product you name has tournament value. I dont want subpar cards I want the real thing to play with real people. If anything you are the living proof of why real people does not care about magic because its community is toxic. But hey at least you make honour to your nickname you are a real SonofaBith75.
Strong card =/= strong character. Your obvious desire for worthwhile value from an SL drop and conception of what constitutes feminine empowerment are vastly at odds with each other.
Any Liliana Vess > thaly of I dont know what. You are escaping the fact that you are comparing one of the most important planeswalker with a creature. Now lets talk about what constitutes Liliana feminine empowerment. She started from a creature to became one of the most important characters of magic history and is pivotal to its novels stories thats empowerment. To top it off her planeswalker cards are not just addendum chaff. In the womens scret lair the only one that really feel right was capitan sisay of the weatherlight. Not puting one of the lilianas makes that product pandering and defeats the purposed inclusion.
I was counting each round of drops as a single release, since they're usually themed, and the announcements are observably cohesive. You may recall that the December drops were all winter or holiday related.
I don't consider them released at the same time as individually they did not release at the same time.
The December Lairs were definitely not all winter and/or holiday themed. The only one that comes close to that is Eldraine Wonderland (the snow land one.)
You may similarly recall that not too long ago Wizards was promoting special Mythic Editions to coincide with a given set's release; those, to my mind, were prohibitively exorbitant investments, but not altogether different from a complete set of 5-7 SL drops. Here, at least, you can buy them individually. That deserves some modicum of credit, I think.
Honestly, I don't believe the Mythic Editions would have gone over much better if you could buy them in smaller bundles, but that's my opinion on that.
I like it... I just got the goblins playset. I like those too. I think these Secret Lairs are awesome, but I don't see why people feel so compelled into buying all the cards. There's a ton of cards from the Secret Lairs I'm not buying, but I feel that somebody else may like those cards more and they should have the option to buy it.
I think anybody feeling that wizards shouldn't be doing this, they should sit back, save your money and buy something you like to buy. If cardshops are having an issues, then don't stock them.
Wizards is going to keep on pushing secret lair cards because they are trying to attract more new and bring old players to the game.
Normally, I would never buy Goblin Lackey, I have a playset of them already... but these new Secret Lairs version is so awesome looking that I needed to get a complete playset. I would hope they have more Goblins in similar art... But that's my thoughts
Putting aside the presumption here that your assertions are correct, is Thalia not an example of a strong female character?
Not to be a troll but I've never understood why people care about her as a character. In original Innistrad she could have been replaced with any Sue, John, or Nancy and in Shadows she just killed angels which didn't really solve the problem at hand. In both cases planeswalkers were the real driving force of the plot. She reminds me of Indiana Jones in Raiders sure she does some stuff but the plot moves with or without her in the picture.
If you don't care about the people living on the plane then this is correct. Otherwise, it's so far off that I question whether you've read the story for Shadows.
Thalia was the beacon of hope for the world that was going mad. She roamed the plains telling everyone that the protection and threat of Avacyn were gone and gave them a method of fighting back against the encroaching darkness. Certainly, the plot went just fine elsewhere but the plane and its people were focused on Thalia.
Maybe to a point, I've stopped caring for the humans and the remaining forces of good on Innistrad. I find it hard to accept that a society that was having troubles facing vampires suddenly got good and could take on Angels that they needed to protect them from said vampires. So basically your saying we should show accolades for a meh character who gives hope to a group of even more meh characters. Their entire plot b storyline was based around killing angels who were just as much victims in Shadows as the humans because their actions were not entirely their own. The entirety of the shadows story had two goals to put a pin in the eldrazi story and make innistrad scary again and in my opinion, it made the forces of good seem vastly stupid.
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Embrace the dark you call a home,
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise
Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone
The December Lairs were definitely not all winter and/or holiday themed. The only one that comes close to that is Eldraine Wonderland (the snow land one.)
Again, they were announced cohesively, which somewhat obviates the complaints about WotC being predatory because of last minute reveals. We knew in advance that there were several drops, with themes to match their holiday inspired contents, even if those contents were not 1-to-1 with Judeo-Christian mythological tropes. Just look at the names.
Honestly, I don't believe the Mythic Editions would have gone over much better if you could buy them in smaller bundles, but that's my opinion on that.
Maybe, I honestly can't speak for anyone besides myself. I liked the contents of the Mythic Editions, but I certainly didn't need them enough to spend that kind of money. The only one I genuinely feel that I missed out on was Jace / Ugin, which would have been an instant pickup for just one or both of those cards.
Putting aside the presumption here that your assertions are correct, is Thalia not an example of a strong female character?
Not to be a troll but I've never understood why people care about her as a character. In original Innistrad she could have been replaced with any Sue, John, or Nancy and in Shadows she just killed angels which didn't really solve the problem at hand. In both cases planeswalkers were the real driving force of the plot. She reminds me of Indiana Jones in Raiders sure she does some stuff but the plot moves with or without her in the picture.
If you don't care about the people living on the plane then this is correct. Otherwise, it's so far off that I question whether you've read the story for Shadows.
Thalia was the beacon of hope for the world that was going mad. She roamed the plains telling everyone that the protection and threat of Avacyn were gone and gave them a method of fighting back against the encroaching darkness. Certainly, the plot went just fine elsewhere but the plane and its people were focused on Thalia.
Maybe to a point, I've stopped caring for the humans and the remaining forces of good on Innistrad. I find it hard to accept that a society that was having troubles facing vampires suddenly got good and could take on Angels that they needed to protect them from said vampires. So basically your saying we should show accolades for a meh character who gives hope to a group of even more meh characters. Their entire plot b storyline was based around killing angels who were just as much victims in Shadows as the humans because their actions were not entirely their own. The entirety of the shadows story had two goals to put a pin in the eldrazi story and make innistrad scary again and in my opinion, it made the forces of good seem vastly stupid.
If your going to sum up the entire B plot and humans killing Angel's then you have completely misunderstood the B plot and should give it another read. The B plot was about uniting the denizens of Innistrad against Emrakul which is why the climactic avengers style fight had all 5 forces present. Vmpires, werewolfs, Zombies, Spirits and Humans. Thalia was the one who united Human and Spirit which is why she is so important. If you see the entire populace of Innistraf and Meh then you can't reasonably discuss their importance.
"Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products"
Who exactly are you asking the questions of?
Is someone forcing you to buy this stuff? What exactly are you trying to do? Force a company to make some changes to cater to you by posting aggressively about it in a forum they don't read to people who don't have any control over them? Are you and your aggressive cohort trying to drum up popular support for a change.org petition here by calling people sheep or pigeons or whatever until they agree with you? Am I a brainless minion of wotc for daring to challenge you?
I’m personally of the opinion that I love seeing WotC release as much of these they see fit to release. So eventually they’ll do hit on something I’ll buy a Lair for. I’m probably not going to buy very many of the many Secret Lairs they do plan on releasing to us under the current model, and that’s perfectly fine.
This argument that WotC tone it down so completionists can afford every single drop is rather silly.
I’ve already bought a box of Kaleidoscope Killers and can’t wait to see what’s next in this pipeline.
Putting aside the presumption here that your assertions are correct, is Thalia not an example of a strong female character?
Not to be a troll but I've never understood why people care about her as a character. In original Innistrad she could have been replaced with any Sue, John, or Nancy and in Shadows she just killed angels which didn't really solve the problem at hand. In both cases planeswalkers were the real driving force of the plot. She reminds me of Indiana Jones in Raiders sure she does some stuff but the plot moves with or without her in the picture.
If you don't care about the people living on the plane then this is correct. Otherwise, it's so far off that I question whether you've read the story for Shadows.
Thalia was the beacon of hope for the world that was going mad. She roamed the plains telling everyone that the protection and threat of Avacyn were gone and gave them a method of fighting back against the encroaching darkness. Certainly, the plot went just fine elsewhere but the plane and its people were focused on Thalia.
Maybe to a point, I've stopped caring for the humans and the remaining forces of good on Innistrad. I find it hard to accept that a society that was having troubles facing vampires suddenly got good and could take on Angels that they needed to protect them from said vampires. So basically your saying we should show accolades for a meh character who gives hope to a group of even more meh characters. Their entire plot b storyline was based around killing angels who were just as much victims in Shadows as the humans because their actions were not entirely their own. The entirety of the shadows story had two goals to put a pin in the eldrazi story and make innistrad scary again and in my opinion, it made the forces of good seem vastly stupid.
If your going to sum up the entire B plot and humans killing Angel's then you have completely misunderstood the B plot and should give it another read. The B plot was about uniting the denizens of Innistrad against Emrakul which is why the climactic avengers style fight had all 5 forces present. Vmpires, werewolfs, Zombies, Spirits and Humans. Thalia was the one who united Human and Spirit which is why she is so important. If you see the entire populace of Innistraf and Meh then you can't reasonably discuss their importance.
Well I guess we will have to agree to disagree lol. I'm just saying I'm not a big fan of the humans of Innistrad or really a whole lot of what happened in Shadows in general. And I think I can discuss their lack of importance as them being meh is directly tied to it, but you're entitled to your opinion.
Private Mod Note
():
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Embrace the dark you call a home,
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise
Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone
Do you think we will get one stained-glass planeswalker again with the coming Lairs? (Women's Day and Thalia)
I'm not sure if all of them have been available with the past drops.
Again, they were announced cohesively, which somewhat obviates the complaints about WotC being predatory because of last minute reveals. We knew in advance that there were several drops, with themes to match their holiday inspired contents, even if those contents were not 1-to-1 with Judeo-Christian mythological tropes. Just look at the names.
I am looking at the names and still no with the holiday them. Nothing about OMG Kitties, Kaleidoscope Killers, <explosion sounds>, Restless in Peace, Bitterblossom Dreams, Seeing Visions, or Eldraine Wonderland even give an inkling to a holiday them. Outside of snowlands the art doesn't even say "this is holiday themed."
Again, just because they were announced at the same time doesn't mean they were released at the same time. The first and the last were off by a week from each other. That's definitely not "at the same time."
Maybe, I honestly can't speak for anyone besides myself. I liked the contents of the Mythic Editions, but I certainly didn't need them enough to spend that kind of money. The only one I genuinely feel that I missed out on was Jace / Ugin, which would have been an instant pickup for just one or both of those cards.
I like what was in it too, but definitely no way I'm paying that kind of money like that for the game right now.
Again, they were announced cohesively, which somewhat obviates the complaints about WotC being predatory because of last minute reveals. We knew in advance that there were several drops, with themes to match their holiday inspired contents, even if those contents were not 1-to-1 with Judeo-Christian mythological tropes. Just look at the names.
I am looking at the names and still no with the holiday them. Nothing about OMG Kitties, Kaleidoscope Killers, <explosion sounds>, Restless in Peace, Bitterblossom Dreams, Seeing Visions, or Eldraine Wonderland even give an inkling to a holiday them. Outside of snowlands the art doesn't even say "this is holiday themed."
Again, just because they were announced at the same time doesn't mean they were released at the same time. The first and the last were off by a week from each other. That's definitely not "at the same time."
Maybe, I honestly can't speak for anyone besides myself. I liked the contents of the Mythic Editions, but I certainly didn't need them enough to spend that kind of money. The only one I genuinely feel that I missed out on was Jace / Ugin, which would have been an instant pickup for just one or both of those cards.
I like what was in it too, but definitely no way I'm paying that kind of money like that for the game right now.
Some of the references are a little more oblique, others are patently obvious.
Bitterblossom Dreams: White Christmas (first lyric).
Eldraine Wonderland: Winter Wonderland.
Restless in Peace: Sleep in heavenly peace (Silent Night).
Seeing Visions: Visions of sugarplums (The Night Before Christmas).
<explosion sounds>: This is the only one I'm at a loss for. Presumably fireworks, but that's not a strong tradition anywhere that I've been in the US. Could also be a cheeky reference to some of the more violently oriented Christmas films (Die Hard, Home Alone).
Kaleidoscope Killers: Christmas lights; they come in virtually every color combination these days.
OMG KITTIES!: Kitties / puppies as a Christmas morning gift, especially for exuberant children, are a common trope.
people trying to compare regular foil to sl are the proof that wotcs attempts to increase percieved value are working. which is sad to see. it means that they can push further this line of product with artificialy increased value instead of providing actual reprints. at this pricepoint this do not decrease financial barrier to entry into the game. it also does not provide sufficient amount of reprints, for this particular card it does, but not for many others that are needed for non-standard formats.
regarding the artwork it looks great but i thought thalia had blonde hair not yellow. this color looks a bit weird to me.
I was counting each round of drops as a single release, since they're usually themed, and the announcements are observably cohesive. You may recall that the December drops were all winter or holiday related. You may similarly recall that not too long ago Wizards was promoting special Mythic Editions to coincide with a given set's release; those, to my mind, were prohibitively exorbitant investments, but not altogether different from a complete set of 5-7 SL drops. Here, at least, you can buy them individually. That deserves some modicum of credit, I think.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
I think that's a disingenuous representation of the conversation being had.
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#BLM
#DefundThePolice
If that is not someone trying to expulse somebody from a community I dont know what it is. But I will answer you smart ass. I like the rules of the game. I played the game a long time ago I even have some dual lands. But now I cant play because nobody plays magic anymore in my city. The fact that I like the game does not mean that I will endorsee their stupid decisions. None of the product you name has tournament value. I dont want subpar cards I want the real thing to play with real people. If anything you are the living proof of why real people does not care about magic because its community is toxic. But hey at least you make honour to your nickname you are a real SonofaBith75.
Any Liliana Vess > thaly of I dont know what. You are escaping the fact that you are comparing one of the most important planeswalker with a creature. Now lets talk about what constitutes Liliana feminine empowerment. She started from a creature to became one of the most important characters of magic history and is pivotal to its novels stories thats empowerment. To top it off her planeswalker cards are not just addendum chaff. In the womens scret lair the only one that really feel right was capitan sisay of the weatherlight. Not puting one of the lilianas makes that product pandering and defeats the purposed inclusion.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
I don't consider them released at the same time as individually they did not release at the same time.
The December Lairs were definitely not all winter and/or holiday themed. The only one that comes close to that is Eldraine Wonderland (the snow land one.)
Honestly, I don't believe the Mythic Editions would have gone over much better if you could buy them in smaller bundles, but that's my opinion on that.
I think anybody feeling that wizards shouldn't be doing this, they should sit back, save your money and buy something you like to buy. If cardshops are having an issues, then don't stock them.
Wizards is going to keep on pushing secret lair cards because they are trying to attract more new and bring old players to the game.
Normally, I would never buy Goblin Lackey, I have a playset of them already... but these new Secret Lairs version is so awesome looking that I needed to get a complete playset. I would hope they have more Goblins in similar art... But that's my thoughts
Maybe to a point, I've stopped caring for the humans and the remaining forces of good on Innistrad. I find it hard to accept that a society that was having troubles facing vampires suddenly got good and could take on Angels that they needed to protect them from said vampires. So basically your saying we should show accolades for a meh character who gives hope to a group of even more meh characters. Their entire plot b storyline was based around killing angels who were just as much victims in Shadows as the humans because their actions were not entirely their own. The entirety of the shadows story had two goals to put a pin in the eldrazi story and make innistrad scary again and in my opinion, it made the forces of good seem vastly stupid.
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise
Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone
Again, they were announced cohesively, which somewhat obviates the complaints about WotC being predatory because of last minute reveals. We knew in advance that there were several drops, with themes to match their holiday inspired contents, even if those contents were not 1-to-1 with Judeo-Christian mythological tropes. Just look at the names.
Maybe, I honestly can't speak for anyone besides myself. I liked the contents of the Mythic Editions, but I certainly didn't need them enough to spend that kind of money. The only one I genuinely feel that I missed out on was Jace / Ugin, which would have been an instant pickup for just one or both of those cards.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
Who exactly are you asking the questions of?
Is someone forcing you to buy this stuff? What exactly are you trying to do? Force a company to make some changes to cater to you by posting aggressively about it in a forum they don't read to people who don't have any control over them? Are you and your aggressive cohort trying to drum up popular support for a change.org petition here by calling people sheep or pigeons or whatever until they agree with you? Am I a brainless minion of wotc for daring to challenge you?
Who are we asking questions?
This argument that WotC tone it down so completionists can afford every single drop is rather silly.
I’ve already bought a box of Kaleidoscope Killers and can’t wait to see what’s next in this pipeline.
Well I guess we will have to agree to disagree lol. I'm just saying I'm not a big fan of the humans of Innistrad or really a whole lot of what happened in Shadows in general. And I think I can discuss their lack of importance as them being meh is directly tied to it, but you're entitled to your opinion.
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise
Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone
I'm not sure if all of them have been available with the past drops.
I am looking at the names and still no with the holiday them. Nothing about OMG Kitties, Kaleidoscope Killers, <explosion sounds>, Restless in Peace, Bitterblossom Dreams, Seeing Visions, or Eldraine Wonderland even give an inkling to a holiday them. Outside of snowlands the art doesn't even say "this is holiday themed."
Again, just because they were announced at the same time doesn't mean they were released at the same time. The first and the last were off by a week from each other. That's definitely not "at the same time."
I like what was in it too, but definitely no way I'm paying that kind of money like that for the game right now.
Some of the references are a little more oblique, others are patently obvious.
Bitterblossom Dreams: White Christmas (first lyric).
Eldraine Wonderland: Winter Wonderland.
Restless in Peace: Sleep in heavenly peace (Silent Night).
Seeing Visions: Visions of sugarplums (The Night Before Christmas).
<explosion sounds>: This is the only one I'm at a loss for. Presumably fireworks, but that's not a strong tradition anywhere that I've been in the US. Could also be a cheeky reference to some of the more violently oriented Christmas films (Die Hard, Home Alone).
Kaleidoscope Killers: Christmas lights; they come in virtually every color combination these days.
OMG KITTIES!: Kitties / puppies as a Christmas morning gift, especially for exuberant children, are a common trope.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice