That's a lot of assumptions based off of a rumor started by a hypothetical survey that you heard about second hand. But sure.
Well, damn, guess you got me there. This is the "only talk about verified things and don't assume anything" forum. Thanks for showing me the error of my ways. I will correct this grave mistake in the future.
Meh, it also feels like they do more and more of these each year. This year being behind doesn't mean much since these typically drop in batches. I'm sure once actual details of this arrive it'll be easier to evaluate.
That early access is worth quite a bit. If I can get the product to resell before others, it sells for more. Reselling SLs is already pretty profitable overall,and pretty easy, especially in the days immediately following the first deliveries.
That's assuming you get the product first and not just "Get to order the product first, with everything shipping at once." I also wasn't assuming purchasing for turning purposes, but I suppose that's on me.
They certainly create more product every year, as I've listed in another thread, but Secret Lairs have only been around since 2019. 2020 is the best data we can work off of, and we're already a third of the way through the year. Theros Stargazing and Secret Lair Drop: Smitten were comparable sets of five, as are Secret Lair: International Women's Day and Secret Lair: Black is Magic (being more charity based drops). But by this point last year, we'd also had the Year of the Rat, and Thalia. If Strixhaven only gets one Secret Lair, it'll be comparable to the Godzilla Lands Secret Lair.
You also made me curious again, so let’s toss in some extra math. I bought one Secret Lair in 2020. Assuming my receipt is correct, it cost 5 dollars to ship to me. I’m in the Midwest, so it probably costs more to ship to the East Coast, but I can only work with the information I have.
Assuming that every box costs 5 dollars to ship, with a 10% discount, I would need to buy 18 Secret Lairs to exceed the cost of the Subscription. Specifically going off of my list: Year of the Rat through non-foil Happy Yargle Day!, purchasing both foil and non-foil, gets me to $150 in discounts and free shipping.
From foil "Happy Yargle Day!" onwards, the savings add up to $110.
EDIT: Missed 3 places where shipping could have been added, upping the savings at the end from $95 to $110.
This is all assuming that the shipping, early access, and merch are worth $0
I did explicitly say in that final paragraph that free shipping would likely drive that price closer to the cost of the subscription.
Early Access may as well be $0, however. Unless WotC decides that early access is also the only access for a product they've been printing to demand, which, hey, they could do.
I didn't see anything in the thread about merch, so, I don't know. Did it specify that the merch would be free, or is it just something unique that you get to buy if you have a subscription?
EDIT: To be clear, I was also specifically responding to the idea that the 10% discount alone was worth the price of admission, like you said earlier.
I was curious how much you’d “save” with the 10% off, so I took a look at 2020 as a base.
Here are the sets available during that time period, as well as their price and the number of cards included:
Year of the Rat; $39.99; 8 cards
Theros Stargazing Volumes I-V; $39.99 each or $149.99 for all five; between 3 and 15 cards
International Women’s Day; $49.99; 5 cards
Thalia – Beyond the Helvault; $29.99; 4 cards
April Fools; $0.00; 4 cards (only game stores could get these, but those were gifts too)
The Godzilla Lands; $29.99; 5 cards
*Full Sleeves: The Tattoo Pack; $29.99; 5 cards
*Can You Feel with a Heart of Steel?; $39.99; 3 cards
*The Path Not Traveled; $39.99; 4 cards
*Mountain, Go; $29.99; 4 cards
*Ornithological Studies; $29.99; 5 cards
(* These sets were part of the Summer Superdrop, and thus could be combined for $169.95, which gives 1 random fetch land from the Secret Lair Ultimate Edition)
Prime Slime; $29.99; 5 cards
Every Dog Has Its Day; $29.99 (non-foil), or $39.99 (foil); 4 cards
Happy Yargle Day!; $29.99 (non-foil), or $39.99 (foil); 5 cards
Showcase: Zendikar Revisited; $29.99 (non-foil), or $39.99 (foil); 5 cards
(** These sets were part of the Secret Lair Secretversary, and thus could be bundled in one of three ways: $99.99 for all non-foil sets; $139.99 for all foil sets; $229.99 for all sets)
So, to get absolutely everything from the 2020 Secret Lairs, bundling where possible and not accounting for taxes and shipping, you spend $1,049.81. This nets you 156 cards, in a mix of foils and non-foils, and not counting “secrets” like the Stained-Glass Planeswalkers.
If you weren’t getting both version of the sets available in foil and non-foil, this lowers to either $899.83 (for foils) or $839.83 (for non-foils) and 123 cards.
Now, we don’t know exactly what WotC is going to do as far as the subscription goes. They could choose to bundle things up, or they could choose to do it individually. They may charge for both foil and non-foil, or they may just leave it at one. They may force subscribers to buy everything, or they may allow you to skip on Secret Lairs you don’t want. We don’t know.
Let’s assume the worst: signing up for this charges you the highest amount I listed. It bundles some together, but double dips on foils and non-foils.
A 10% discount saves you…$104.98.
Assuming the 4 “subscriber only” secret lairs cost $39.99 a piece, that 10% discount jumps up to…$120.98.
Now, to be excessively fair, free shipping will likely drive those numbers a little closer to the cost of the subscription. But as it stands, paying $149 ($12.42 a month) for a 10% discount does not pay for itself. Not unless WotC prints more Secret Lairs this year than they did last year, and signs aren’t looking great there. By this time last year, we’d already had 2 more Secret Lairs than the current count.
Every product is limited run. Standard sets rotate out and, depending on demand, spike in price. Even the commander precons often double in value after only 1 or 2 years. People feel the same thing over not being able to buy Urza's Sage singles as they do over the supposed FOMO of SL; "how dare you not print what I want, Wizards, at an affordable price."
The scale is a bit different though and that, unfortunately, matters. Something that gets printed for a year straight in multiple languages, in stores everywhere, with a chance to be reprinted any time that world is revisited or a new set comes out, has a significantly larger pool than a set printed to demand, with that demand only noted during a week or weekend, only in English, and only shipped to one part of the world.
It's akin to the Reserved List. We don't know for sure yet that it is, because they haven't really said one way or the other if any of this will be reprinted, but the smaller the quantity of available cards, the quicker and easier it is to get priced out down the line.
And I totally get that there are a lot of Magic players who complain about Wizards not printing to their specific needs or price range, and it can get massively annoying, but that's them literally talking about how they missed out, even on the secondary market.
It's the same reason LGS's will buy up singles that seem like they'll be of value from pre-releases (or at least did, I haven't been to any in a while, for uh, obvious reasons.)
Fair point, but I think it's a bit different with a limited run product, versus something they have a full print run of. Plus there's the whole "any normal card has a chance to be reprinted" but there's even less guarantee we'll ever see these variants ever again.
I’m still confused as to how people believe FOMO is a thing that exists with an extensive secondary market. Besides, with these types of subscription models you can usually buy in after they announce something you like or want; you don’t have to subscribe blindly in the off chance something you’d be interested in drops later in the year.
Whether you like it or not, vote with your wallets.
I think the FOMO here is less about "I won't be able to get it" and more "If I change my mind later and want it, how much more money will I have to spend."
As someone trying to backfill some Pokémon games I missed, I really wish I'd gotten some games earlier, for example.
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Well, damn, guess you got me there. This is the "only talk about verified things and don't assume anything" forum. Thanks for showing me the error of my ways. I will correct this grave mistake in the future.
That's assuming you get the product first and not just "Get to order the product first, with everything shipping at once." I also wasn't assuming purchasing for turning purposes, but I suppose that's on me.
They certainly create more product every year, as I've listed in another thread, but Secret Lairs have only been around since 2019. 2020 is the best data we can work off of, and we're already a third of the way through the year. Theros Stargazing and Secret Lair Drop: Smitten were comparable sets of five, as are Secret Lair: International Women's Day and Secret Lair: Black is Magic (being more charity based drops). But by this point last year, we'd also had the Year of the Rat, and Thalia. If Strixhaven only gets one Secret Lair, it'll be comparable to the Godzilla Lands Secret Lair.
You also made me curious again, so let’s toss in some extra math. I bought one Secret Lair in 2020. Assuming my receipt is correct, it cost 5 dollars to ship to me. I’m in the Midwest, so it probably costs more to ship to the East Coast, but I can only work with the information I have.
Assuming that every box costs 5 dollars to ship, with a 10% discount, I would need to buy 18 Secret Lairs to exceed the cost of the Subscription. Specifically going off of my list: Year of the Rat through non-foil Happy Yargle Day!, purchasing both foil and non-foil, gets me to $150 in discounts and free shipping.
From foil "Happy Yargle Day!" onwards, the savings add up to $110.
EDIT: Missed 3 places where shipping could have been added, upping the savings at the end from $95 to $110.
I did explicitly say in that final paragraph that free shipping would likely drive that price closer to the cost of the subscription.
Early Access may as well be $0, however. Unless WotC decides that early access is also the only access for a product they've been printing to demand, which, hey, they could do.
I didn't see anything in the thread about merch, so, I don't know. Did it specify that the merch would be free, or is it just something unique that you get to buy if you have a subscription?
EDIT: To be clear, I was also specifically responding to the idea that the 10% discount alone was worth the price of admission, like you said earlier.
Here are the sets available during that time period, as well as their price and the number of cards included:
If you weren’t getting both version of the sets available in foil and non-foil, this lowers to either $899.83 (for foils) or $839.83 (for non-foils) and 123 cards.
Now, we don’t know exactly what WotC is going to do as far as the subscription goes. They could choose to bundle things up, or they could choose to do it individually. They may charge for both foil and non-foil, or they may just leave it at one. They may force subscribers to buy everything, or they may allow you to skip on Secret Lairs you don’t want. We don’t know.
Let’s assume the worst: signing up for this charges you the highest amount I listed. It bundles some together, but double dips on foils and non-foils.
A 10% discount saves you…$104.98.
Assuming the 4 “subscriber only” secret lairs cost $39.99 a piece, that 10% discount jumps up to…$120.98.
Now, to be excessively fair, free shipping will likely drive those numbers a little closer to the cost of the subscription. But as it stands, paying $149 ($12.42 a month) for a 10% discount does not pay for itself. Not unless WotC prints more Secret Lairs this year than they did last year, and signs aren’t looking great there. By this time last year, we’d already had 2 more Secret Lairs than the current count.
The scale is a bit different though and that, unfortunately, matters. Something that gets printed for a year straight in multiple languages, in stores everywhere, with a chance to be reprinted any time that world is revisited or a new set comes out, has a significantly larger pool than a set printed to demand, with that demand only noted during a week or weekend, only in English, and only shipped to one part of the world.
It's akin to the Reserved List. We don't know for sure yet that it is, because they haven't really said one way or the other if any of this will be reprinted, but the smaller the quantity of available cards, the quicker and easier it is to get priced out down the line.
And I totally get that there are a lot of Magic players who complain about Wizards not printing to their specific needs or price range, and it can get massively annoying, but that's them literally talking about how they missed out, even on the secondary market.
It's the same reason LGS's will buy up singles that seem like they'll be of value from pre-releases (or at least did, I haven't been to any in a while, for uh, obvious reasons.)
Fair point, but I think it's a bit different with a limited run product, versus something they have a full print run of. Plus there's the whole "any normal card has a chance to be reprinted" but there's even less guarantee we'll ever see these variants ever again.
I think the FOMO here is less about "I won't be able to get it" and more "If I change my mind later and want it, how much more money will I have to spend."
As someone trying to backfill some Pokémon games I missed, I really wish I'd gotten some games earlier, for example.