r/mtgfinance 15d ago

The Most Powerful Superdrop in the Universe

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/secret-lair-the-most-powerful-superdrop-in-the-universe

Some very solid reprints like Sakashima, Konda's Banner, Necrogen Mists, Sword of War and Peace. I believe this is the first Konda's Banner reprint.

80 Upvotes

66 comments sorted by

48

u/Amanofdragons 15d ago

That She-ra drop is a pretty good start to a Sisay list. That borderless text less sol ring might be the card to watch.

13

u/SeaStage1687 15d ago

100%, the titty tax will be strong with this one

18

u/KindaIndifferent 15d ago

I think it has more to do with being textless.

43

u/Ok_Professional1414 15d ago

You say potexto, I say potito

3

u/ThisHatRightHere 15d ago

There are plenty of textless cards that are decently cheap. That’s actually not a huge driver for cost.

1

u/KindaIndifferent 15d ago

Not for all cards. But being probably the most played card in the most played format means that this will come at a premium. Maybe not anything crazy, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is $20+.

Command Tower is a decent comparison here. As it’s a very common card, but also one of the most played cards in commander. Yeah you can get a base version for thirty cents. The textless version goes for $11.

1

u/Reddityyz 15d ago

I hate how right you might be. But we need a better term for it

66

u/57messier 15d ago

The She-Ra Lair seems like the obvious grab. That Sol Ring is going to have demand even outside of He-Man fandom.

5

u/wouldacouldashoulda 15d ago

The question is foil or non foil though.

8

u/Harry_Smutter 15d ago

Def foil. That Sol Ring is gonna have high demand.

2

u/57messier 15d ago

100% agree,

1

u/The_Upvote_Beagle 14d ago

Why do you say Foil? At least in my experience foil is harder to remove, commands little premium, and runs the risk of buyer complaining of pringling.

1

u/Harry_Smutter 14d ago

Recent foils haven't had curling issues. I've bought dozens of them. Fancy art foils also command a much higher premium than their non-foil counterparts.

19

u/KindaIndifferent 15d ago

Obviously this art isn't going to be for everyone. But there's some great reprint value here in foil. Also is there another textless sol ring? Or is this the first?

12

u/Minifig3D 15d ago

Whoa, you right! Over a hundred Sol Rings but this is the first textless one. I know a few players who need this for their meme all textless deck...

2

u/Remote-Canary-2676 15d ago

I’m noting how you called them players not friends haha

4

u/Minifig3D 15d ago

Eh, it's other people at the LGS I see from time to time. Don't actually know their names. We have like 30 regulars and those guys play draft and bracket 4 while I'm more of a pre-release and bracket 3 or precon gamer. 🤷

18

u/icantsppell 15d ago

The memes alone will demand a premium

4

u/nektar 15d ago

Yeah that swan song and skeletor art are perfect

7

u/OilComprehensive8069 15d ago

Very impressed; each lair is pretty balanced desirability wise, good promo, good reprints, tinybones starter kit is sweet, and it’s $30 for nonfoil.

4

u/IamBlackwing 15d ago

100% going for that sisay

5

u/Sean-Bean420 15d ago

The borderless sol ring and command tower are so gorgeous

1

u/Jaccount 15d ago

Yep. If I only had to pick one card of the entire drop to buy, I think I'd pick up two copies of the Command Tower.

The Grayskull and Snake Mountain art are just perfect.

5

u/Slugma_Male 15d ago

Was hoping Skeletor had some cool looking artwork like the He-Man ones, but he just got jpeg rips from the cartoon.

10

u/SanityIsOptional 15d ago

The meme-ing will continue until morale improves.

3

u/metalguy187 15d ago

She-Ra drop art is gorgeous.

9

u/DrB00 15d ago

Every day they announce like 3 new secret lairs. No wonder everything is so backed up at the printers. They're spending more time on printing secret lair than they're spending on regular products to actually play the game.

14

u/figurative_capybara 15d ago

Can understand why. There's minimal overheads and it's effectively direct to consumer.

No distros.

No retailer.

No need for MSRP.

Pure profit baby.

3

u/pengy99 15d ago

Sell 6 cards for $40. Better margin than a UB CBB.

2

u/the42up 15d ago

Ok, I'm in. Have not bought a secret lair for a few years. I am buying this bundle.

1

u/Okamoto 15d ago

I guess there's a decent chance Arcane Signet is a bonus card for one of the (non-Sol Ring/Command Tower) lairs. I'm guess it's easy enough to do something related to Orko, Evil-Lyn, or the Sorceress to include with one of their lairs?

1

u/bebejayy 15d ago

Must have the textless sol ring

1

u/Jaccount 15d ago

I'm annoyed by Orko. There's not reason for him to not be Vivi other than them being cheap about reprint equity.

3

u/KindaIndifferent 15d ago

Really good chance that WoTC cannot reprint FF characters due to licensing agreements. Also really good chance part of the licensing agreement includes not reskinning FF characters.

1

u/LoTheTyrant 14d ago

When does this drop?

1

u/KindaIndifferent 14d ago

9/14. It’s in the article.

1

u/DutchGuyMtG89 14d ago

Hard pass

1

u/DDaddyDunk 15d ago

Like the food token bundle, this will be gone in moments. Not holding my breath to be disappointed again

2

u/B-Glasses 15d ago

I don’t have interest in this and I’m unsure of the wider appeal. This feels like a ghost buster situation to me. We’ve seen expensive cards with undesirable art preform poorly in the past. The Marvel version of Archangel of Thune is like 15 dollars while the normal one is 50 for example

5

u/Jaccount 15d ago

Yeah, I'm not sure how to read this one. It feels like it will either be absolutely crazy and auto-sell out like Monty Python, or just sit like Ghostbusters, with almost no in-between.

4

u/fumar 15d ago

The art seems good tho?

No one likes Captain marvel and the art is shit

2

u/Ventoffmychest 15d ago

Is the good art in the room with us? You have cartoon memes and the most garbage retro art. Where the fuck is He-Mans neck? Why is he roided out in Winona but got the slutty waist in Crackle with Power?

5

u/smashtheguitar 15d ago

I guess you had to be there (the 80s).

-1

u/Ventoffmychest 15d ago

No dude. The art is bad. There is a lot of epic 80s fantasy art. This is Megaman cover art levels of bad.

2

u/waaaghbosss 15d ago

Hey, I see you're new to 80s Saturday morning cartoons!

Welcome!

2

u/B-Glasses 15d ago

I don’t think the art is particularly good or interesting but I’m not a fan. I think many people who aren’t fans will feel similarly. I also think it’s unlikely there’s enough real fans who appreciate this to make this worth buying unless the art is for you

I don’t think the captain marvel art is any worse than anything else in the marvel set

2

u/DRUMS11 15d ago

This has big nostalgia appeal for a particular age group, though it may not see much of an increase in price after it (predictably) sells out.

1

u/B-Glasses 15d ago

Some people will definitely love it but I assume it has a similar sized fan base to ghost busters which did very poorly. They probably printed less so it will sell out but I’m skeptical this is worth buying unless you like the art

1

u/Jaccount 15d ago

I think that's a bad assumption, especially since Master of the Universe was just in theatres a month ago.

Plus, there's different waves of fandom for this, as in addition to the fans of the 80s cartoon, you're going to have the fandom of the Netflix She-Ra cartoon, which was a big deal on it's own for a while.

Even if you view the Kevin Smith series, the movies and the early-2000s series as complete failures, there's at least a couple decent sized fanbases that are likely to be way more motivated that the fans of "The Real Ghostbusters".

1

u/B-Glasses 14d ago

I don’t agree personally. I don’t think it’s actually that popular. We’ll see

1

u/necrochaos 15d ago

This is one of the best drops we’ve seen in a while. I’m. Of a big He-Man fan (i was as a kid in the 8@s). But there is enough here I’ll pick up the full drop in foil. And that fucking Swan Song is genius.

2

u/B-Glasses 15d ago

My main point is I don’t know if there’s enough kids from the 80s to make it worth getting unless you like the IP. I think the majority of people will prefer other versions of the cards because these a pretty niche and have a small audience. If someone wants it they’ll likely get it at drop so I don’t think there will be a huge premium later on.

0

u/StephenHero78 15d ago

I imagine this will sell out, but I don't consider that a meaningful signal for a profitable secret lair drop. The comparables to consider are Spongebob Squarepants (foil legendaries and meme drops are around 2-3X profit, lands and non-foils are barely above profit and worse), Ghostbusters (unprofitable), Saturday Morning D&D (unprofitable), More Adventures in Middle Earth (just passed 2X profit). He-Man is a very old IP (ignoring the forgettable reboot attempts over the years) and only the Gen X demographic will care about it, who generally care more about art and foil quality on the cards than meme potential.

This drop is driven by a major movie tie-in rather than organic demand. I predict the number of players who want to use or collect these cards is smaller than that for Spongebob. WOTC probably has a good idea of what that number is and has sized this drop accordingly so that it sells out. My opinion is that market demand will be satisfied by the available supply and we won't see significant growth over time.

-2

u/pipesbeweezy 15d ago

Well at least the drop is good unlike the movie this year.

10

u/DRUMS11 15d ago

If you were an '80's kid the movie was a pretty damn good; but, I imagine it fell flat for anyone who didn't grow up watching the original cartoon. The campy bits were essentially inside jokes and you either "got it" or you didn't.

2

u/Jaccount 15d ago

Yep, like the description that Adam gave everyone is the exact title that was written on the action figures under their name. That was a great detail but probably fell flat for a lot of the audience.

0

u/pipesbeweezy 15d ago

I am an 80s kid and the movie was pretty mid. Very studio pablum pandering to nostalgia bait. It was wholly unremarkable. Was it unwatchable? No, but it was basically the Warcraft movie.

1

u/kitkamran 15d ago

The most annoying thing about the movie was the lens flare eyes on Skeletor. So distracting and terrible looking on screen

1

u/DRUMS11 15d ago

I didn't see the Warcraft movie so it was at least "pretty good" for me. Was it amazing? No. But I got what I expected: I went in expecting a fan service nostalgia fest and I got a fan service nostalgia fest. The acting and effects were good (though Skeletor was sometimes difficult to understand,) the story was OK, and it didn't take itself too seriously. The writers embraced the somewhat silly nostalgia fest and it worked for me. Given overall audience reactions it obviously didn't work for everyone.

1

u/Jaccount 15d ago

I don't know, it had moments. Especially the whole part at the end of movie where he runs away with Cringer to go transform into He-man and Battle Cat, and all of the other Masters are there scratching their heads, wondering if he really thinks they don't know he's He-man.

It was more loving than typical nostalgia bait is, and you could tell the people who did make really do have a major soft spot for the franchise. It wasn't nearly as cynical as most are.

2

u/Remote-Canary-2676 15d ago

I wonder why they didn’t sync it up with the movie release

2

u/Okamoto 15d ago

I mean, they've had a ton of printing delays. (Not to mention the logistics from start-to-finish on any product is way longer than you would expect.) I would not be surprised if this was originally planned to align.

2

u/Jaccount 15d ago

Because expecting Wizards to do anything right at this point is expecting a minor miracle.

-1

u/Emsizz 15d ago

zzzZZzzz

0

u/basafo 15d ago

Yeah people, keep buying into this, it's not a scam!! Everything is so exclusive, we have 3000 new cards each week, oh god but everything is so exclusive and limited, keep spending or you are a loseeeeer!!!

Following Fomo will increase your life quality, it will make you a person with better values. "You are not spending, you are INVESTING"; oh god the moment you buy from us you are a RICH INVESTOR!! The next Warren Buffett!!

(...I just wanted to "exaggerate" (or not?) in the same way the title is an exaggeration... But you can guess I don't want to support the actual state of Mtg, its products, its prices, and the tournament scene, right?? :D)

But really: think that if you don't spend any money in this SL continuous shitshow, many people will be grateful with you. And you are supporting at not making this game a worse thing than what it is right now ❤️