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Wizards of the Coast desperately trying to find the least expensive cards to reprint literally every time they make anything ever:

Prof's face in the thumbnail should be the next art for Smothering Tithe.

The best secret lair would be Chains of Mephistopheles with a flowchart of what the card does.

My favorite thing about this drop is that everyone thought they reprinted Black Market Connections but sorry... its only Black Market...

The dead face at the beginning definitely made me chuckle

I think cards get the most unreadable when the words are part of the art, but I do appreciate that the hardboiled thrillers drop at least used a preset font, making it significantly more readable at a glance than many other card treatments.

Though not quite a catastrophe for me, it bears mentioning that as a new player this is how I am learning about cards like Circular Logic; as a misprint.

tbh, the "NEW SECRET LAIR ALERT" head spam is always my favorite part of secret lairs

You know this is gonna be something when the professor doesn’t mutter a single word within the first few seconds after the intro plays 😶

I feel you on the "secret lair cards are bad for gameplay" bit. I haven't bought a single secret liar personally, but I have been an MTG fan for a long time. As an artist myself, I respect all of the secret lair artworks, and some of them are truly just beyond incredible. I enjoy the ones that people seem to dislike, such as the works from Matt Jukes, the 'anime' ones (that a lot of people are mixed on) like the works of Yoji Shinkawa, Tsubonari, Riyou Kamei, and JungShan, and then the ones that are a bit more out there, like works from Dani Pendergast, Micha Huigen, Mark Riddick, Lauren YS, or Ayako Ishiguro, and even the more naturalistic painterly stuff from Frank Frazetta or Dan Frazier. All of that said... a lot of them I'd rather just have a poster of or put them in a frame and not try to jam them in an actual match of MTG. I respect what Wizards is trying to do to get more attention for artists and have super cool cards and let the artists just do their own thing, but I feel like a lot of them just don't work as Magic the Gathering cards for being played.

The abyss stared into us, and we stared back. For we are empty.

It's wild to me that the textless Cryptic Command - which I thought was pretty universally recognized as a mistake for a game piece - looks downright tame next to the layout and visual design for some of these drops. Pageantry is definitely the primary or only goal here

Huh surprised that they didn’t have a dragon secret lair for Saturday and Lunar New Year.

It would also be easier to stomach a high price tag for a middling price group of cards if they were some kind of coherent theme. I wouldn't mind (for example) Obeka being a $0.25 card in a $30 secret lair if the other cards were ones that you would play in an Obeka commander deck, especially with them all decorated in the same theme. It just doesn't make sense pairing her with Jace, Wielder of Self-Millsteries and Dire Undercurrents - not to mention Reconnaissance - instead of cards synergistic to her like Sundial of the Infinite and Final Fortune - even with spots for cheap cards like Mulldrifter and Alchemist's Gambit - that you would intentionally put in the same deck as her. Considering how the only consistent draw of Secret Lairs is the cool-looking styles, there just aren't very many secret lair sets that you would - or even can - all play in the same deck in any format, even a casual 100 card singleton, so that those styles can give your deck a unique feel on the table.

I thought Wall of Omens said Wall of Otters since it's so hard to read. I will definitely be calling it that from now on.

“Honey, what day is it?” “TCC is complaining about Secret Lairs again.” “Cool, it’s Wednesday.”

Hey, "Bilbo Baggins" by Leonard Nemoy was a cultural touchstone! You take that back!

I like the way they handle the rules text with the cereal box style art where one side is the "rule" side and the other the "art" side. It makes it a lot easier than when the text is messily crammed into the art

05:50 not to mention that you can't recognize what the card is by looks alone, since the mana cost is hidden below the artwork and the card doesn't have a colored border or any color in general.

For special arts things like the beauty of the beasts is the way to go. Pretty and unique art that is also formated like a normal magic card and is easy to read.

Secret lair alert depression

I’m yet to regret missing a secret lair. The ones I enjoyed the most so far were the pixel basic lands and the Dan Frazier retro frame rocks, but even these had the best of the bunch reserved for in person events.

Wow, there aren’t any basic lands in this. Thrilling.

Cereal 2: Electric Boogaloo.

I feel really bad that the fomo strategy worked on me. Most of what I got was not worth what I paid. I was just shocked that the Cats and Dogs deck sold out immediately but this one is still going on after two days. This is artificial scarcity at its finest, and I’m ashamed that it worked on me. I’m so sorry for contributing to this problem. Buy singles, support your LGS, and don’t feel pressured to buy anything like this secret lair drop.

I am tempted by the cereal box cards for no other reason than I have half an urge to make a cube with hundreds of DFCs and put the whole thing in clear sleeves for a cursed experience.

A consideration for the Cereal lair: I think there's a good change that Sakashima is going to be reprinted in Thunder Junction somewhere. I think Partner has a strong possibility of showing up as at least a subtheme in the set, and Sakashima is kind of an outlaw character. So I expect the "value" of this lair to very quickly evaporate when Sakashima becomes a $10 card.

That Scourge of Valkas should have been Terror of the Peaks.

Literally the first thing I said when I saw the full drop was "What's going on with card selection?". Like it's strangely bad

Prof I'm gonna be honest, I'm so disconnected from what Wizards is up to these days and so utterly fatigued by the constant barrage of Secret Lairs that I didn't even know this SuperDrop existed. Now I'm just sitting here laughing.

Personally, I like the cereal box art. I think the front side makes it pretty clear what the card is, and while I agree on the annoyance of having the pertinent text (effects, power, toughness, etc) be on the back... I'd also say that the cards in that set are fairly well known selections that only fairly new, inexperienced, or lapsed fans won't be aware of. Also, I generally like cards that try to be different than just your standard "MTG template" art style. More and more, I've found myself preferring the borderless or extended art cards over the regular prints. The thriller novel prints look dope and I'd totally play with them if I felt I needed any of those cards. I do agree on the game pieces themselves being lackluster. It all but guarantees that these cards won't hold value over time. The cards that maintain their value are usually ones that are worth playing, and most of these... they're not worth playing. That's my main point of contention with a lot of Secret Lairs, they aren't picking cards that are good enough or useful enough to warrant a print. Cards like Dueling Grounds, Mana Crypt/Vault, Edgar Markov, Triomes, Fetch Lands, Mindbreak Trap... they could all stand to be reprinted but instead they're picking junk like Scourge of Valkas? Ridiculous.

The whole reason to change to limit supply was to double capitalize on FOMO instead of just being regular FOMO.

At a Legacy weekly, I saw a somewhat newer player use Grief, see the cereal version of Ulamog, Ceaseless hunger in their opponent's hand, stare at the Reanimate in their hand, and proceed to take something else because they assumed that version of Ulamog had the shuffle clause of the old one. It might not have been correct to reanimate the Ulamog because of the deck they were playing against (Green 12 post) being easily able to search out Karakas but it still serves as an example of how the awful formatting can screw people over.

That Circular Logic is _clearly_ a callback to Portal style counter spells, like Mystic Denial. They just forgot to print the extra rules text: "Play Circular Logic only in response to another player playing a spell".

It seems to me, an added value blizzards could toss in, would be for double sided cards, a token card that would work in the deck. ESPECIALLY for foil cards, having non foil token to represent it, would make life easier for someone playing in official events.

The terrible shipping times is what sent me over the edge on this one

I agree with the assessments of all these lairs completely. They are really not worth the cost. That said...I am still dangerously close to getting the Beauty of the Beasts one because I do play 4 out of 5 od those card and I find the art so gorgeous! While still looking like magic cards! No illegible frame, no treatment that makes it look like a poster or a cereal box or anything except a magic card. That's what you usually gets my attention the most. Cards I love in beautiful new art on a good old simple magic card frame.

The prof's glorious coiffed hair compared with the clips he's chosen as heralds of secret lairs says a lot about the evolution of this problem, especially for those of us who remember the reasons why his hair was sort at that time.

Bilbo Baggins is a 70s icon!

I actually like the Cereal cards because on the back side all the text is on it and it’s decently legible.

9:48 While I 100% understand the issue of cards being unreadable, I wanted to point out that the backside of the cereal box cards *should* have all of the information you need to play those cards. Sakashima, for example, has its name, mana cost, card type, creature types, card text, and power/toughness shown on its back. If you want to play the card, you can just play with its backside face-up.

The first half of this video is the endless philosophical battle between form and function 😂

I bought the Yargle thinking it was a Yargle and Multani and only realising after that it wasn't I guess I'm building a Krarkashima deck now

NEW SECRET LAIR ALERT!!!!! 😂😂😂

ngl, I got really excited for Hard boiled Thrillers as I use like 4 of the 5 in active commader decks and I love the art, all the other drops however were easy passes

1:37 "Bold strategy Cotton. Lets see if it pays off."

I love the ongoing Kibler gag. Keep up the good work Prof!

We are watching this man descend into madness in real time, everyone. 😭😂💀

The art for the beast ones is pretty 😊 and that’s the only positive thing I have to say about these secret lairs.

These remind me of when my friend accidentally bought a secret layer card online and threw it out when it arrived because he thought it was a junk extra from the vendor instead of an actual magic card.

5:13 Ahhh, my favorite card, Wall of Otters.

“Doesn’t he look tired?…”

LOL “ITS BRIAN KIBLER!” XD Kyle Hill cameo XD

Man...I remember being so excited when Kaleidoscope Killers was released. Great new art. Traditional frames. Could actually read them...oof, been a long couple- er, four years since.

I was fully ready to drop some dough on the Winter Superdrop. I instantly put my credit card away after I looked through what they were offering.

Is this the first one of the year? Already hard to keep track. Excited for this video.

6:23 what they just give you 5 bugs back and that is it ? what a great product and quality control xD

I swear that Wall of Omens reads like Wall of Otters sometimes.

6:30 good job, editor. G O O D

I bought the just add milk set. I needed adrix and nev and sakashima anyway and I enjoy the art, I do agree the double sided thing will be the most annoying thing about them though

such a glaring misprint is really embarassing

Not to mention that Jace is on the list for Karlov manor now out. Did a sealed with two boxes and we pulled two of them.

I agree that often secret Lairs have difficult to read cardtext. I find it funny though that you bring it up with these ones in particular, some like "Keep Partying Hard, Shred Harder Than You Previously Thought Possible" are abominations when comparing them with these ones (looking online I mean, I've never bought a Secret Lair before).

The business model for secret lairs is so predatory and fucked up for so many reasons. You're being sold a fomo that will be ancient history by the time you actually receive it. With how fast Wotc turns these out, I highly doubt there are any test prints done before hand. You're being sold an idea of a card that hasn't even been printed yet. And by the time you do receive it, it's way too late to complain about any quality issues with foils, printing, or card stock. From my own personally experience, the quality for secret lairs varies dramatically and you'll never really know how the cards will turn out until your receive them. And if they're shitty pringles or something, who cares? 30 more secret lairs have dropped since you placed your order so who knows how these new ones will turn out? They're manufactured collector's items with barely any quality control and rarely any substantial value long term. All secret lairs do is stuff the secondary market with overpriced collectable skins. I wish they were more like bundles that gave you a set of cards themed around something. Like the commander collections?! That even came with their own unique art and were sold in stores?! Secret lairs are just shittier commander collections without any of the practicality.

kyle hills face plastered on a body when he said "Oh my god its brian" had no business making me laugh as hard as it did

I’d like to see a video about how the bonus card in various Lairs affects the original grade, if at all.

I actually do use a dire undercurrents signed by the artist, I discovered it one day while upgrading my wilhelt zombie precon and it felt perfect with the blue and black card draw and making opponents lose cards, I was on tcg ordering cheaper "damaged" cards, and ended up with a really cool signed copy of a very underused card, which I thought was awesome i got a cheap underused card and it happened to be signed by the original artist as I always value collectibles like that and would never have thought I would get one so cheaply and simply binned as "damaged" on tcg player

The only thing exciting about this drop is the ability to get a foil Reconnaissance

Omg! It’s Brian Kibler! 😂

You touched on everything I currently hate about Secret Lairs. I love some of the art, and am fine with the stuff I don't like, but I strongly agree that lots of these Secret Lair "cards" are really art, not usable game peices. If I can't play with someone's deck or hand my deck to another player, and they can't play because they can't read the cards, it's not a game piece. At least I can translate a card that's in Japanese or German.

krark being included with sakashima makes sense, that combo of commanders is super popular!

Amonkhet Invocations: "People say we are illegible." Secret Lairs" "Hold my beer."

Hey. Bilbo Baggins is the greatest little hobbit of them all. Best not forget that

So I used to be on board with the unreadable cards, but now I am on the side of - just print out what your complex card does for when it comes into play :) I also think some of these lesser cards are being done in treatments to try and encourage people to use them. I like when unusual low cost cards are made interesting to be honest! but I do wish they would increase the number of cards in a drop. And stop with stuff like Saturday morning cereal boxes. I do NOT want to do a maze to krarks thumbs!

I factor in the cost of shipping as well for worth, so my evaluations of each was a smidge high on just buying the original cards but not much. Having said that, yeah the only one pack worth getting non foil for me was just add milk, and maybe hard-boil. But what I've been doing on secret lairs has is looking at the bundles. Beastly Breakfast omens, comes out to a $70 value for $65 and Dark mysteries, comes out at $57 value for $65. One alright one bad. Which is pretty typical. But always keep in mind secret lair shipping is expensive, unless you spend enough. So best buy to break even including the shipping is beastly breakfast omens bundle + hard-boil, $100 value for $95 Usually the big bundles that come with everything of non foil is overpriced even with the discount, but this time around the discount was significant enough to break even. The All Savory, all non foil, comes out at a $128 value for $130. And that is without including the 6 secret foils you get, which are hit and miss but all in all still the first buy all bundle that wasn't a complete wash. I'd be curious to hear the professor's thoughts on the bundles.

At this point, I'm just numb to it all. Lorcana's been pretty fun though.

6:38 OKAY, Y'ALL KNEW WHAT YOU WERE DOING WITH THIS ONE 💀

WOTC: We can't fix the misprint cause it's already been printed. Us: Soooo we were right about going to limited quantities being bad?

I just want to add at this point that in Europe we pay an additional 5€ for each version. So 35€ non foil and 45€ foil plus 6€ shipping.

HEY NOW Nemoy bein' a weirdo is godly treasure and the comparison was ignoble!

Brian Kibler😂

The fact that the had a misprint in the rules but say they can’t fix it because it’s already printed but still won’t be shipping until March is amazing

I have a Tevesh and Jeska commander deck using the latest secret lair art. I also have the original cards sleeved in that box so we can check the wording easily if needed

I don't have a problem with the art in Secret Lairs causing an issue with readability, as long as all the game information is contained (so it is in fact a functioning magic card and not just an art card). I mean, that's why they are printed as secret lairs, and not part of the standard sets. It allows for creativity in a way that wouldn't normally be possible when using the cards as part of your deck.

Circular logic misprint might be the single best thing they could have done for that secret lair. “Sorcery speed counterspell” rings a lot better and causes more attention then “they made a meh secret lair where the art is very specific”. If I didn’t think so little of quality control I’d say it’s a marketing tactic designed to get collectors to buy it in the name of “they messed up the card and it’ll hold value in the future” (potential hold value)

It would be neat to see a retrospective of past foil SL grades based on original printing market foil value, vs what the foil SL value actually is. Maybe even compared to the non-foil SL value. Would be neat, and could be used for future foil SL valuation grading.

Sakashima is a 50 CAD in Canada and I dig the art. So that's why I got it and Twincasters is just extra. I got the black market/dire undercurrents/reconnaissance one but unfoil. Secret lair foils become hella curled when they get shipped up north.

[wipes blood from eyes] Egad, my eyeballs haven't hurt this bad since the Amonkhet Invocations

Cereal 2: Electric Boogaloo

I agree with both parts. It’s not okay to print $0.05 cards in SL, but at the same time I’m okay with buying a SL with cards hovering about where the price is. I just bought the Yoji Shinkawa one at a $5/$10 loss, but it’s fine because I really love the art.

I thought I might be tempted by the Cereal box set at first. I've just finished putting together the Krark + Kydele Build-Your-Own Precon so a cool SLD version of Krark would be nice. Plus I could definitely find a place for Sakashima in one of my other decks. But to see that it's only 4 cards made it easy to give it a pass.

Proxy the cards, it is *ALWAYS* morally justified

You want my commentary on this, so here it is. Why is anyone still buying hasbro products? How many times do they have to call you an obstacle between them and their money before you stop contributing to their slow fall into oblivion? How much worse does the paper and cardboard quantity have to get before they stop selling? How much less effort and AI generation do they need for everyone to stop buying it?

The point on the Just Add Milk (in both its original and newest iteration) is misleading IMO. The full rules text and necessary game information all exists on a single side of the card on the "backside of the box". The front of the box is primarily for display purposes and a player could very easily use the other side for play purposes.

My therapist: don't worry, soyjak professor isn't real, he can't hurt you Soyjak Professor:

I believe the quote was "Each day we stray further from God." Seems adequate here. Edit: What are the typos? I obviously missed something.

I'm glad you do these, prof. I was tempted to get the Dan Frazier signets. I kinda regret skipping them. I love the look of the hard boiled thrillers cards. I'm buying that one now! Even though it's worth slightly less than the regular versions, personally, the art is worth it for me.

Great video prof! I agree with many of your points. I’d much rather see a lot of these designs on a poster instead of a playable card, and many cards that are offered in these collections are ones I would never use. I wish we got more secret lairs like the Praetor one over any of the ones offered here.

I was honestly pretty tempted by the Hard Boiled Thrillers one, particularly for the art, but I already have the rarest of them (Reconnaissance), and I don't know if the others tempt me enough...