D&D (2024) They are starting to sell MtG Secret Lairs on D&D Beyond as a hint that a D&D 50th Anniversay Secret Lair/s is coming.

[Stormonu]

The nice thing about the 3 hardcover MtG X D&D books was that they used the 5 colors really only for factions / deities rather than trying to force alignment onto it or twice D&D alignment and elementals into the 5 colors.

The 5 colors are useful as an organizational principle, and these are settings that are less about good vs evil, law vs chaos, but that doesn't mean that the Temple of Heliod isn't Lawful and Good aligned.

It worked well for Theros and I didn't mind it so much in Ravnica, but I was left scratching my head with what to do with magic in Strixhaven - I still couldn't tell you the names of any of the "colleges" (well, save maybe Silverquill?). I'm just too inured to my schools of magic, I suppose.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Bloomburrow seems to be designed to be added later in D&D multiverse. Innistrand can work as a spin-off of Ravenloft, with the adventage to be a bigger space would allow fights between supernatural factions, vampire clans, werebeast tribes, fae courts.. it is too soon to give an opinion about Duskmourn because we know nothing about the lore but I suspect they want it to be easy to be added to D&D multiverse. Maybe it is used like a plane to be a "weekend in the hell" adventure.

Innistrad could be unlocked in DMGuild. What is the risk?

I wonder if there are other worlds in the "wildspace" of Ravnica and if these are more focused to farming to send food to the "capital".

* I believed D&D Beyond only sold digital content.

 

[Marandahir]

Bloomburrow seems to be designed to be added later in D&D multiverse. Innistrand can work as a spin-off of Ravenloft, with the adventage to be a bigger space would allow fights between supernatural factions, vampire clans, werebeast tribes, fae courts.. it is too soon to give an opinion about Duskmourn because we know nothing about the lore but I suspect they want it to be easy to be added to D&D multiverse. Maybe it is used like a plane to be a "weekend in the hell" adventure.

Innistrad could be unlocked in DMGuild. What is the risk?

I wonder if there are other worlds in the "wildspace" of Ravnica and if these are more focused to farming to send food to the "capital".

* I believed D&D Beyond only sold digital content.

The risk is that Hasbro don't own the DM's Guild; they license their properties to DriveThru, who takes a cut of the sales (in addition to the indie creators on the Guild taking their own fair cut). This was set up in part because Hasbro didn't own D&D Beyond at the time. They identified the best content and commissioned those creators to become Guild Adepts or else highlighted their works in Dragon+ (another digital venture that was shut down once Hasbro got their hands on DDB; they overlap too much in function). For a long time, people begged for various content that was on D&D Beyond to be put on the Guild and vice versa, but WotC said the licensing was too complicated. Now see what's happening? They're elevating some of the best (well, in their opinion best) 3rd party content to be purchasable directly via D&D Beyond.

There's just no benefit to WotC to release Innistrad to DM's Guild. It lets DriveThru start to get a bite at content created with WotC's IP. They're testing the waters to jump ship and move everything over to a D&D Beyond & in-house Virtual Tabletop experience to get as many and as big bites of the pie as possible.

 

[Marandahir]

It worked well for Theros and I didn't mind it so much in Ravnica, but I was left scratching my head with what to do with magic in Strixhaven - I still couldn't tell you the names of any of the "colleges" (well, save maybe Silverquill?). I'm just too inured to my schools of magic, I suppose.

The other 4 are Lorehold, Prismari, Quandrix, and Witherbloom.

I thought it was pretty awesome in Strixhaven. History and Archeology and Anthropology and Treasure Hunting; Arts, Dance, Music, and Explosions; Maths and Physics and Philosophy of Science; Politics, Drama, Rhetoric, Literature, and Writing; and Biology, Ecology, Medicine, and Necromancy!

I though each college explored a full area of study, at least in the tropes, and both shows positive and negative or at least extreme contrasting philosophical takes on the college. This was developed out of using the opposing colours, but they had to bend the colours a little bit to fit the tropes of the Magic School (specifically bent with Lorehold – White/Red is almost always Paladin on a Warpath).

 

[Henadic Theologian]

NOT AT ALL. Have you played Scorn? Do you like THE BACKROOMS?
Duskmourn seems to scratch that horror itch in a very different way from Innistrad. I'd love a Duskmourn book. It also wouldn't conflict with Ravenloft for its niche space, if ported to D&D.

Don't really like Backrooms, too sterile, no style, but I like the simular endless Ikea. Also like haunted houses. And enchantment creature sets. Got some spoilers and it looks cool AF.

 

[Meech17]

I'd maybe describe it as crowdfunding a limited run print of cards?

I'm out of touch - what's a Secret Lair in MtG?

Kind of... There was a point in time where they were print-to-order.

So they put up the listing for one month or whatever and any number of people could order a set, and then a couple weeks/months later they would ship. It was very much like Kickstarter or other crowdfunding then. They've since quit doing this however.

Price is going to vary. Sometimes it's a very good deal. Typically a Secret Lair is 4-5 cards, for $30, or $40 for the foiled version. Sometimes the value is easy to determine right from the get-go. It might be a card that has not been reprinted in a long time, and the price has gone up, so it ends up being a good deal. There are super drops where there will be more cards, or collections of multiple Secret Lairs for higher prices, and they've even done entire decks, but the standard offering is the bundle of 4-5 cards for $30-$40.

Sometimes it looks like a better deal than it is. There will be a card included that has a high market price, but it's not because it's a sought after card, but really it's some weird card, that was only ever printed once, and there just isn't much supply available for it.

I'm on the fence about Secret Lairs. They are usually great showcases for the artists involved.. They are also often usually aimed at the Commander Format, which is a singleton game mode, where your deck is made up of 100, unique cards. (As compared to traditional constructed MTG formats where you use 60 card decks, made up of multiple copies of core cards.) Commander is often considered a format for self expression and the special art is desirable for that effect.

Here's a fun example. I'm sorry I can't post images because I'm at work. Maybe I'll come back and edit this on my phone where the mean old IT people can't block me from goofing off.

There's an Artist who goes by Wizard of Barge. They make some really fun art that I'm a big fan of. They were given a Secret Lair called Goblin & Squabblin'. As you'd expect it's all Goblin themed. It included 5 cards. I'll write up below the price you can purchase all of these cards for on the secondary market, going off of TCGPlayer.com pricing. They are (maybe?) the largest market for TCG cards online in the US. Many LGSs use them to set their own singles prices. I'll post the cheapest non-secret lair printing I could find, and then what you can buy the secret lair version for, second hand.

Shatter Gang Brothers:

• Regular Market Price: $0.20
• Wizard of Barge Secret Lair: $3

Goblin Matron:

• Reg: $0.15
• SL: $15

Goblin Lackey:

• Reg: $15
• SL: $20

Goblin Recruiter:

• Reg: $7
• SL: $19

Muxus, Goblin Grandee:

• Reg: $8
• SL: $26

So if you just wanted all of these cards on their own, it'd run you around ~$30, which is what the SL originally cost. So ultimately, not a bad deal.. It's also worth noting, prior to this printing, some of these prices were probably a little higher. Muxus for instance is a card that was only ever printed in one set, and he is a decent choice to be the commander of a Goblin Themed Commander deck. So at it's peak, that card was worth about $13-14, and the SL printing essentially doubled the supply of these cards and drove that price down.

For the argument as to whether or not they're whale bait.. I can't really say that they aren't. It's a hot product, in limited supply that is almost guaranteed to go up in value. They are available for limited windows of time to drive maximum FOMO. If you browse places like Facebook Market Place you can often find people selling a bunch of Secret Lairs still in the sealed cardboard envelopes they ship in. Obviously these people purchased them with the intention of flipping them. I don't particularly like the speculation/investment side of Magic. I look at it as a game first, and hate how expensive some of these cards can get.

Another issue with Secret Lairs is that they bypass Game Stores. WOTC sells them direct, and now apparently through D&DBeyond. Game Stores are the backbone of paper magic, and if WOTC continues to find ways to carve bigger pieces of the pie out for themselves leaving the LGSs and the players as the ones picking at crumbs, we'll continue to see declines in paper magic. It's already to the point where no one plays Standard in paper any more. I put together a standard deck, but there's no where I can play it within a half hour drive, and I live in a major metro area with quite a few game stores in that radius.

So Ultimately I'm torn. I like the fact that they act as artist showcases.. I like that they can be used as tools to reprint needed cards. I like that they are themed, and can be used as inspiration for building fun commander decks. I don't like they way they are sold and monetized however. They should go back to print to demand, they shouldn't be afraid to re-print popular SLs, and they need to find a way to rope gamestores into the ecosystem.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It worked well for Theros and I didn't mind it so much in Ravnica, but I was left scratching my head with what to do with magic in Strixhaven - I still couldn't tell you the names of any of the "colleges" (well, save maybe Silverquill?). I'm just too inured to my schools of magic, I suppose.

From everything that's I've read and heard, Strixhaven just seems like a terrible fit for D&D from a campaign perspective. Seems like it would have worked better as a place to visit, or somewhere caster PCs might have come from or been trained at.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The risk is that Hasbro don't own the DM's Guild; they license their properties to DriveThru, who takes a cut of the sales (in addition to the indie creators on the Guild taking their own fair cut). This was set up in part because Hasbro didn't own D&D Beyond at the time. They identified the best content and commissioned those creators to become Guild Adepts or else highlighted their works in Dragon+ (another digital venture that was shut down once Hasbro got their hands on DDB; they overlap too much in function). For a long time, people begged for various content that was on D&D Beyond to be put on the Guild and vice versa, but WotC said the licensing was too complicated. Now see what's happening? They're elevating some of the best (well, in their opinion best) 3rd party content to be purchasable directly via D&D Beyond.

There's just no benefit to WotC to release Innistrad to DM's Guild. It lets DriveThru start to get a bite at content created with WotC's IP. They're testing the waters to jump ship and move everything over to a D&D Beyond & in-house Virtual Tabletop experience to get as many and as big bites of the pie as possible.

So you're saying the large bite WotC gets out of fan-created content on DMsGuild is still not enough for them?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Duskmourn seems something like "the mother of all haunted houses". The style of the Backrooms is different, more bizarre and inhuman, you can't understand what is that.

Wasn't Hasbro the owner of DMGuild? Even like this the fan-created content may be good for the brand because new ideas can arrive with a low risk for the company. WotC hasn't to worry because certain players wanted the update of some crunch content, for example the incarnum or the martial adept classes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Duskmourn seems something like "the mother of all haunted houses". The style of the Backrooms is different, more bizarre and inhuman, you can't understand what is that.

Wasn't Hasbro the owner of DMGuild? Even like this the fan-created content may be good for the brand because new ideas can arrive with a low risk for the company. WotC hasn't to worry because certain players wanted the update of some crunch content, for example the incarnum or the martial adept classes.

That would imply that WotC spares any concern for players who want things out of D&D that the company considers to be niche.