Chris aka Chicago Style Gaming

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@Reversalwizrd @MTGSecretLair Last I saw they won’t ship til mid April. I cannot wait to get my foily dragons 🔥

Has anyone Roll for initiative Lairs shipped yet!?? @MTGSecretLair

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. It has been an honor serving under @POTUS and @DNIGabbard and leading the professionals at NCTC. May God bless America.

@HispanicattheD5 Yeah I just don’t understand why all these years later we still don’t have a lottery system. WotC could put sign up for a lottery out as part of their marketing ploy to gauge hype and demand when they announce a Lair (even if they don’t spoil its contents). That would fix a lot.

@ChiStyleGaming God We also talked about this with Mythic Edition, then blew up about the Ugin BS with the borderless arts Its a repeating cycle of Hasbro using WotC to screw the community to make up for their other downfalls It is stupid and screws players

What makes this video so impactful to me personally is that we were saying the EXACT same thing about Baldur's Gate and the 30th Anniversary Countdown Kit Secret Lair in 2022, and things still haven't changed! To Saffron's point, Hasbro/WotC are telling us it isn't broken.

How many Secret Lairs have sold out in 27 min or less since Print to Demand returned? Not many, but that’s not why people are upset. Folks are upset that WotC has done nothing to address the poor experience despite it happening for years (since Mythic Edition was a thing).

@SanguisWorm @MarkyMarkout It’s a non issue, sure, but it’s also ignorant to think it wouldn’t be easy to implement a lottery system which solves literally every complaint the community has with SL in general. The point here is WotC is a smart company and it isn’t broken for them so no point to fix it.

@MarkyMarkout @ChiStyleGaming Huh? I don’t care if large-scale scalping is happening, I’m saying you agree that the intentional SL sales strategy of WotC incentivizes scalping, and they’re fine with that. I should have clarified that I meant the point about WotC’s priorities, not the number of scalpers.

@drackoex Yeah lottery system is the only way to do it right but WotC chooses to be a tech backward company still 🤷🏻‍♂️

@ChiStyleGaming Guest check out needs to go. Its how people are able to multi queue using incognito windows VR etc. I used it to get my 1, but i had 7 queues pop in time to purchase, and offered to any friends that wanted one. Its a bad system.

I could care less how it all plays out but WotC could take literally 2 days to improve the experience for everyone by simply introducing a lottery system for ALL Lairs. They can release the Lair as a spoiler season just like new sets. Open a lottery application step. And then based on sign up in the lottery they know demand and can select winners accordingly OR surprise make everyone a winner if they have more supply than demand. But they’re a smart Product Management team so they do it their way and it is what it is.

@jarevarado @TopShelfGGN @ChiStyleGaming Well it was more like it’s a cool product with good art and reprints, as well as a pre constructed deck that would make learning easy. And if I didn’t like it then I have a bunch of good art cards I can use elsewhere. Plus it’s not much cheaper to buy a deck out right

@george_gone Very similar experiences yeah

@ChiStyleGaming Isn’t this the same problem as Mythic Edition which led to the creation of Secret Lair in the first place?

@andimjaviert I can't recall now which 2-3 I tried with a couple years ago and didn't get through but it happened more than once and I remember thinking "fool me once..."

@ChiStyleGaming Yeah, I agree. I haven't gone in a queue yet. It feels like if there's a lair I'm interested in, there's no way I'll be able to snag the ones I want since they sell out

It’s crazy to me how the few good ones are always limited stock to the point where they sellout in 30 min or less but the rest are usually still available days later

@andimjaviert Yeah I don't find the queue worth the time personally... very rare a Lair is so appealing I am willing to put up with that experience. Kudos to the people who do I guess.

@ChiStyleGaming The only SLs I've gotten are charity print-to-demand lairs (NALAC, Sheldon's Spellbook). I don't know why they didn't increase stock or go print to demand for a product that should've had at least 10k units, instead of the rumored 6k

@mattbag00 Someone in my comments said perhaps the rest of stock is available for Command Fests and Cons and that's a great take I hope is right... just hope it is at the original price and not the new markup.

@ChiStyleGaming I thought they would pull this with 10k stock. Low risk high reward for them. And if the vocal party asks for more they can release again

@poserifik Hope so

@ChiStyleGaming Would not be surprised if the dandan decks are available at the cons. It was first a secret lair event.

@CapSep How many other Lairs have sold out within 30 min in the past 4 years?

@ChiStyleGaming are you telling me the bad ones people dont want dont sell out as quickly as the good ones people do??

@GLg115222 @MattWolfgang

I think nobody was really buying it. It was also interesting that it just disappeared one day along with a bunch of other drops and with those drops they stopped discounting unsold drops altogether. None of the current unsold drops are discounted, where before they'd get a small discount eventually. Stuff like this really bothers me about Wizards and has led to me just not enjoying supporting them.

@xav_moss Lottery system... drawn a week or two before the release date of the Lair. Simplifies the experience, removes the queue entirely, and makes the collectibility feel real. As is, the process feels like a second rate version of chasing Pokemon product.

@ChiStyleGaming How else would it work?? The really popular ones sell out quickly because people are buying them, the unpopular ones don't because they aren't.

@KeiruKeiruRNG Would be so much better if they just did a lottery system like Riftbound so people don't have to go through the feel bad of warping their day-to-day schedule just to get wrecked by the queue

@ChiStyleGaming Didn't even realize this was dropping today. Maybe for the best. Sounds like even if I had woken up early for this, it was a complete crapshoot.

@ferro_man 6K is truly nothing in the grand scheme… these will be worth a lot because they’re effectively collectors items now at that 6K rate

@ChiStyleGaming Rumor was that they only had 6,000 to sell today

Honestly running a side business selling cards for ~18 years has definitely warped my view of the game. Unfortunately, if you let the cardboard also serve as your currency it totally changes the perspective.