New Fallout Secret Lair Alert! Is Magic: The Gathering's Equinox 2024 Superdrop Worth It To Buy? 

I am giving away tons of unopened Secret Lairs from the past on my next Whatnot stream, this Tuesday, April 23 at 3:00pm Pacific! Just go to www.whatnot.com/invite/tolariancollege and get a $15 credit to spend on anything on Whatnot!

I feel like the special secret lair was a missed opportunity. We could have had a Sorcery, Planeswalker, Enchantment, Creature, Instant, Artifact and Land instead of the mismatch of cards starting with the correct letter

SL leaving print of demand has saved me soooo much money. thank you wotc for not taking my money.

Make the NEW SECRET LAIR ALERT T-shirt already.

I'm not gonna lie to you, The floating head waiting there on screen made me think it was going to wait patiently until the professor finished speaking, and then Prof would go "You may proceed" and it would continue the "new secret lair alert!" meme.

WOTC doesn’t care that limited stock means less players get to use the cards. A dollar from a scalper is worth the same as a dollar from a player to them, and the FOMO just adds more fuel to the fire. I’m seriously dreading the Final Fantasy Secret Lairs next year if they’re released under this system. (But then again if they sell out instantly that’s less money for me to spend lol)

The problem with banking on FOMO is that it has minimal returns. It can work at the start but the more things you miss the less you care about trying in the first place. Eventually you just stop caring and bothering.

He forgot to mention the biggest reason fallout sold: There is a very rare chance you get a fallout art themed mana vault. Insane that now even secret lairs involve card gambling.

Not only did they sell out super quickly, Wizards also sent out email blasts warning of LOW STOCK REMAINING just to further push people to buy it ASAP.

Was super excited for the Rovina Cai drop. Was sold out by day 3 when I went to go buy it. Edit.Turns out it was sold out day one. Truly a miserable system.

If I remember right, the Rovina Cai Artist Series sold out in *hours*, not days. This is a terrible change.

NEW SECRET LAIR ALERT. PS. Love the academic got in on the kick starter and it's been the best deck box I've ever had in my 14 years of playing. Thank you for making it.

Too bad half of these are sold out already, i really hate this limited stock BS

Hasbro: We need Wizards to exceed profits every single year (so we can balance our bugdet around it) Also Hasbro: Lets limit these products to maybe half of what we could have sold under the old model. That will surely raise our margins.

I know they have business reasons for doing the limited print run, but the benefits of print-to-demand are very real. I think an interesting compromise would be to make the foil versions limited, and the standard print-to-demand. That would serve to make the foils more exclusive, which was the original intent of "premium versions", while also not locking people out for not taking a morning off work to refresh-camp a product page.

With the new system, me and my boyfriend have to pay close attention to upcoming secret lair news so that we don't miss out on things we want. We do set aside time on the first hour they go live to make sure we get what we want. But the most important part of our process is taking a deep breath, and really looking at what's being offered. We had so much fun opening the fallout collector packs that we were sort of riding that high into these secret lairs and wanted to get all of the fallout ones. But when I took a second to really look objectively, I found I had no interest in the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. secret lair. There's not a reason I needed to have those cards in the fallout art style. And instead, I found I really liked the diabolical diorama and the tarot card art even if they weren't incredibly "valuable." So I do agree with you. This system is horrible. Because while I can take a minute to soothe my feelings of FOMO and make decisions based off of what I truly want, not everyone else can. Although I'm doing fine getting the lairs I want, I much preferred the previous system. The thing I've despised the most about the new system is the scalping community and how it was impacted by the Angels deck. I really took my time deciding if I wanted the Angels deck. And decided to go ahead and order it. A few days later it was sold out. As I anxiously waited for my new deck with excitement, I saw SO MANY VIDEOS talking about how terrible the deck was, how it would need SO MANY upgrades. And I found that discouraging. When it finally arrived, I had an absolute blast playing it. I loved the art and love the deck. Well I guess everyone changed their minds because suddenly Angels was in hot demand. And the deck is still crazy high in the second hand market. Because of the unexpected turn around of the Angels deck, I see many secret lairs being panick-bought by resellers who missed the bag by not taking Angels seriously. And all it's doing is keeping people who want lairs out of their hands, but the lairs aren't ever going to have to resell power that angels has. So there's a weird stand off in the second hand market of scalpers trying their luck to make absurd profit, and normal people not getting to enjoy these cards

The art in the tarot set is absolutely incredible - woulda been worth it if not sold out😂

I was actually for once gonna buy the Rovina Cai secret lair, because I thought that the art style is just that gorgeous and even if it's not worth the price, I figured I'd go for style over profit card wise. Buuuuut it was sold out, so I guess I'm not doing that then. Sigh.

Secret Lair should remain as the Timeboxed to demand model. They pretty much roughed out all of the kinks with shipping

This will only get worse. By the time the Final Fantasy secret lair drops it'll require you to camp the website for even a shot at the secret lairs as more and more scalpers catch wind and start botting the website. The goal is to eventually concentrate fomo to the point where people can only choose to buy instantly or miss, with no time to deliberate. It'll be worse than the 1-day drop when secret lairs first started.

As a lover of the Fallout universe and MTG for me it was less about the financial value than the art. I kept checking the website and once it was up I purchased the one bundle for every Fallout Card. It might have been an impulsive buy, considering I didn't take a proper look at the artwork. But since it was announced that there'll be 3 Sets, I was more surprised by the fact that there are even more secret lairs than the ones with Fallout Art. I kept enough money aside to purchase this bundle of three sets and I'm really excited to receive it in may! I must agree with the prof, that it's a less enjoyable way of purchasing secret lairs and as someone who struggles a lot mentally under these kinds of market mechanisms and pressure, I too am not sure on how I think about the future of secret lairs. Thank you for the great video as always, prof! 😊

New Secret Lair alert! and oh .... almost everything is sold out already. Yeah WoTC.... This is a good model..... Welp if you want phoebe wahl's showcase or the diabolical dioramas than I guess you still have a shot. Dont worry WoTC you can use underhanded tactics like FOMO and encourage scalpers.

Wizards releasing the Fallout mana vault chase card in these likely means scalpers scooped up as many as they could. Can't wait for all secret lairs to be sold out instantly and then resold for at least twice the price.

Value be damned, the amazing art from Phoebe Wahl is getting me to finally build an Alela deck.

A quick check on completed Ebay sales shows that every single Fallout Secret Lair is selling for at minimum twice what the retail price is. WOTC continues to burn bridges for short term profit gains with no care for long term sustainability.

I honestly figured you were just taking the week off for your birthday so dropping the video on Wednesday was a surprise.

The Rovina Cai foil secret lair sold out in 10 hours! Did manage to get the non-foil one before that sold out, too!

What the hell Prof?!?!!! My favorite thing about your Secret Lair videos is the full sequence of floating heads screaming secret lair alert Please bring it back!! 🙏

My boyfriend’s first CEDH deck was Inalla, and that’s still his favorite deck. He bought the precon and has upgraded it over the years and continues to upgrade it. He has put so much work and love (and money lol) into making that deck amazing and perfect for him. We were out for dinner on our first vacation together when they announced it, and he was already so happy and excited but that announcement made the night even more wonderful. He’d been waiting for an Inalla reprint for a long time. I knew in that moment that I had to get this foil set for him. His package arrived this past Friday, a day early from what the tracking said, and the look on his face was priceless. So, while it might not be financially worth it, it was worth every penny and more just to see him filled with that much joy. ☺️💞

I love the lip quiver and extra blinking on the new secret lair sellout alert face lol

Gotta love the Professor for his honesty

I simply LOVE how the professor is always so consumer oriented

yes i ordered the Stax Fallout in foil and i am considering the faerie one really just because of the artwork. i adore it

I follow these drops and honestly I hesitated due to the low financial value but I was most excited about the Art style of Rovina Cai. When I made up my mind to get it, it was the first one sold out. More glad for the artist then me bummed for missing out.

Luckily I haven't been interested in any of the lairs for about a year at this point, but there will come a point where they'll make a lair I want and I'll try to buy it 10 minutes after release and fail. I know it.

I just got the phoebe wahl one delivered today. I knew the card value wasn't there but I really liked the art.

Awesome video as always. I would have liked to have still heard your gradings on the sell outs. Maybe because I picked up one before they sold out or maybe because I just enjoy your gradings I don't know.

The Phoebe Wahl art is going straight into my commander decks

I got two of the foil chai secret lairs because I loved the art and I use the cards in multiple decks. I also picked up a walls one because I loved the art and I was blessed with a relentless rats bonus card from it!

When ever they announced Mana Vault being included as a special possible card is what drove the fomo, it was going to sell out after that no doubt.

Love the Phoebe Wahl art so much. I bought the non-Fallout SL despite knowing the value wasn’t really there

I got all of the ones that sold out before they sold out. I didn't buy them as soon as they went on sale, but I did pick them up the first day. Hopefully, they will continue to fine tune the process and increase the supply on the next batch of Secret Lairs.

Got all 3 of the fallout lairs, was talking to my friend about how I liked the fallout art and he sent me the link to the lair and after briefly looking at the art got them. I didn't even know about the secret lair before he sent the link to it 😅

I was pretty excited for the Cai drop. Added it to my cart and was waiting for payday. Gone by then. Sapped any excitement or interest in future drops immediately.

"...and I can no longer tell if that's a good or bad thing" pretty much sums up my feelings on mtg lately

Surreal. I definitely tweeted Gavin about trying tarot style art for secret liars earlier in the year.

I was lucky enough to get the vault boy edition foil before it sold out, most of the others were already gone by the time I got home from work and could order

Bought the only one i was intrested which was the stax cards in foil lol. Love the new system since shipping issues are basically gone and my cards hold value instead of the market being flooded.

I had the opportunity to buy all of the secret lairs. I didn't because there were no good "wow" have to buy packages and no value. I really loved the Rovina Cai art, but by the time I went back after weighing the need for the cards it was sold out. Which is fine. I don't need two more Arcane signets, no matter how pretty they are. (For those of you don't know, the mystery SL card is an alternate art Arcane Signet.)

Love that all of the ones I would have bought are sold out well before I even knew they existed. I'd have bought Points of Interest, and the Artist Series: Rovina Cai. What a great move, Wizards, moving from print on demand to standard stock, now I just will never end up buying another Secret Lair ever again. If I wanted to, I won't even be able to. Just driving me towards making proxy versions of these cards even harder.

I was thinking about grabbing that science deck. could grab the fallout reliquary Tower and throw that in there, since it does have thought vessel. redundancy win.

I started checking the storefront on the equinox to see what the sales were. Of course, the drop didn't actually drop until well AFTER the equinox, so all the valuable lairs were sold out by the time I got there.

I didn't realise the secret lair this time was a limited release. So while I was figuring out what I wanted to buy and how much to spend, they all got sold out. So I agree with your take on this failure of an outcome for the secret lair and how it was handled.

I managed to pick up a nonfoil super bundle the day after the drop came out. I should have nabbed two because I plan on giving a couple of the Rovina Cai cards to a friend for his birthday.

So I did get the Inalla one because I love the art style, and because so far, secret lair arcane signets seem to hold value despite the availability of a basic version. I don’t hate the new strategy but I’m also someone who can check them out the day they release and am invested enough in the game/market to generally know what the value may be. I buy about one lair from every 1.5 drop events, picking my purchases based on a mix of my own appreciation of the art and trying to snag value cards. I also buy on behalf of my playgroup to save on shipping. I regret missing the original cats drop (I picked Bitterblossom from that batch) but otherwise I enjoy the product.

I nabbed a foil points of interest for my mothman deck. I wanted to have as many fallout related cards as possible and that seemed to fit the best. I got super lucky

I only ordered the Rovinia Cai secret lair since the art is insane, but i also know that’s partially because i literally logged in during my lunch break at work the second it went live to order it. While i like getting secret lairs sooner, id much rather go back to print to demand so everyone could get the secret lairs they wanted

I like some of it. I’ve already received my SLD I ordered on the day. I wish your videos came out before the day so I could make better decisions-I guess it’s not possible. Now I have to do my own research but such is life.

Proff has me second-guessing ordering this secret lair, but I wanted the winter orb from this set😅

I got the three artist drops. I loved the tarot and fairies art so got them for art value (which I put at an A+} not financial. Then I added the diorama drop because it got me over the free shipping and only cost 10 bucks when you took away the cost of shipping from it. I agree the limited production is a bad thing. As far as value, I never really care about the finance side. To me secret lair drops are chances to get pieces of very cool art to play with. If I love the art and use the cards I'll get it every time.

I will say Faerie Artisans is a fantastic card and it was over $20 just a few years ago do to no reprints and they have reprinted it about three times and it is now extremely available its still a really fun card.

Never got a Secret Lair before the change and definitely not getting one after. It’ll be gone before I even make the decision to get it. People don’t care about their Secret Lair taking a long time to ship if they’re actually able to purchase it without worrying it’ll be sold out.

Having just made an Inalla deck within the last 6 months, I was stoked to see her get a reprint with this brighter, stylized artwork. Given print variation, I figured at some point I'd be able to find a copy of the 2017 version that was bright enough to where I could see everything going on in the artwork, alas, every copy I've found to this day is just as dark as the last. I of course was late to the party and missed the Rovina Cai sale as so many others did. Naturally, I go on TCG player and find that the normal printing is selling for $100 USD while the foil versions are selling for $125 USD. Nothing has taken the wind from my sails faster...

I purchased an Aether Vial print. Artist did an amazing job but I'm not racing a scalper.

I bought the stop motion ones for the derp aura shards and really liked the design.

I did manage to buy 4 non-foil bundles, but that was more to have them to trade or sell to friends in case they wanted to mull it over or if FOMO hit them. Only ones I wanted was the Fallout lairs, because Vault Boy is iconic

I actually ordered one of the non sold out packs with the weird artworks for Fiend Artisan and Aura Shards (rest is bonus). Either using them or selling them. None of the fallout packs had any cards I wanted to use and they sold out so fast.

my partner picked up a couple on the monday they released while i was at work, I think the change is /fine/ though it was nicer being able to think on it more before grabbing, luckily it was pretty obvious (at least this time) as we buy by art styles instead of value

Picked up diabolic diorama and stax secret lairs. Was honestly expecting everything to be sold out by the time i decided to pick something up,(was about 3 days after release) maybe they upped the printed quantities? Would prefer they be print to demand so everyone who wants em can get em.

I want that reflecting pool so bad. Guess I'll be looking for a second-hand copy eventually.

Love Fallout and was hoping to pick these up and didnt know i had to be on top of it day one to have a chance at getting it for retail. Love me some limited run products so people can buy them all out with the intentions of reselling for much more.

For the record, the foil aether vial is currently listed as pre-sale on TCGplayer for 79.99 each.

While these lairs mostly aren’t great, I do like the commander deck starter kit a few of these had going on. Having a commander and some decent to good cards in the deck with the same aesthetic is really cool

I really liked the look of the Rovina Cai Secret Lair and considered picking it up. I ALMOST impulse bought it when it was available, but couldn't swallow the $10 shipping. For non-foil that's $40 for 4 cards including an arcane signet. Honestly if shipping really costs $10 they need to change their packaging. I suspect the actual reason shipping is $10 is so that they convince people to spend $100 to get to free shipping.

As a person who doesn't closely follow magic releases, I think I would've got the Tarot set. Such evoking art, I just wish there had been a bigger window

I don't like the new system, but I did get the foil fallout bundle. I usually punch all the prints into a folder on tcg player before deciding what to buy. Usually, most recent printings and foil availability first. Not every SL is worth the price but shouldn't be afraid to buy what you think is cool!

I actually got the foil vault boy set. It should be delivered tomorrow according to ups anyway. I'm super excited to build a staxx deck with it and play it only once. Lol

all that with mentioning the mana vault that was a 1 in 3 chance for the secret card for the fallout drops

The fairy collection is beautiful.

secret lair products got me into magic, i became interested in the junji ito secret lair as someone who had never played the hobby, i wasnt sure about the value even for that drop back then, but now that ive picked all of them up as singles i regret not buying it back then. i own a few other single secret lair cards as well as the compleated planeswalkers and the hydra secret lair from last year which i got at my LGS because they were just sitting on the shelf for almost a year and i really wanted the Sorin. since getting into the hobby i look very closely at each drop, since there are quite a few that i missed out on before i was a player that i fear ill miss now. usually, however, the case is that every secret lair ive been interested in has such horrible reprint value that id rather just buy a plain boring copy from my lgs...along with 20+ other cards for the price of a typical non-foil secret lair, because ultimately its about playing the game. drip always comes secondary to me so it often comes down to just buying as many budgets singles as i can afford and then any extra money left over goes toward cracking packs from the latest set and proxying the high power or never reprinted cards that i need. in a world where i have to think "wow i wish i could own a few playsets of fetchlands" its really really hard to spend $30+ on 4 cards valued at $10 for foil standard printings...

I got a pack of Rovina Cai in foil before it sold out DAY 1!

at 5:53 there is a single frame of arcane signet instaid of sword of the armist

Back in 2020, I purchased the Thalia Secret Lair because I was inspired to make a mono white budget Death & Taxes deck after watching SaffronOlive & Pleasantkenobi pilot such decks.

Wow! I love all these new arts to go into my proxy collection!

First time secret lair buyer here, I was checking the site everyday for this drop just cause I wanted any and all Fallout cards, because everything MTG Fallout is sold out or extremely expensive.. I did secure them the morning they dropped, but dang, I low key hated that stress just to secure some cardboard.

Even tho financial value is low, I still picked up the Phoebe Wahl secret lair. I prefersonally love the art and can't wait to put the new copies of Alela, Swords, and Dockside into my Alela artifacts and enchantment deck.

I brought 2 of the 3 Fallout ones. I wanted the one with Lightning Bolt, and the other one is most likely to have Mana Crypt as the bonus card.

I got up to purchase the secret lairs right when they went on sale, but I got sidetracked and forgot, but I remembered in the evening and was able to order them all no problem. I do wish these were print to demand though, people want the cards, just print enough of them for everyone who wants them.

I really wanted to get the tarot like ones. They are so pretty! They sold out far to quick before pay day 😢😢

i actually am glad that Diabolical Dioramas wasnt sold out on this one. I love puppetry and the artworks are great - and i just happen to have a Karador deck, which is also one of my beloved favorites. but i guess i just lucked out. the new limited stock policy just sucks and seems to serve only wizards and greedy scalpers

i really wanted the rovina seret lair but it sold out the first day. i did manage to get a couple of the others though

I hate the fomo I really do but this, with the fallout secret lairs, I've finally purchased my first one. The only way I was able to get them was in the bundle for all three and I had been keeping my eyes open and ear to the ground for anything fallout mtg related and even signed up for the emailing list.

I was able to order the fallout pack in time. I do like the art for them and I hope to include them in my decks.

Correct me if I am wrong but wasn't this the initial model for secret lairs with the walking dead? Eitherway the only lairs I have purchased were the praetors, stranger things and the secret lair with sword of truth and justice. But that one soured me on them even more so I have just opted out entirely.

I can't wait to get the new Secret Lair,: text only, double sided edition basic lands. $149.99 couldn't be more well spent.

I got the bundle of the Fallout secret lairs in foil for the free shipping. I like to build decks with constraints, so the Fallout decks will ONLY contain cards with Fallout art. I am excited to add these cards to my fallout commanders and I plan on keeping them for pod-play. They're fun to play with each other, just like the Warhammer decks were.

I’m surprised there was no mention of the extra gauging that was caused by the chance of pulling a mana vault from one of the Fallout SL….

I didn't know the Tarot secret lair was even available yet I just thought this super drop was all the fallout cards. I really wanted 3/4 cards in that tarot style they're gorgeous.

I pre-ordered the non foil Fallout secret layer cards (mainly because of pringling), though when I pre-ordered the cards, I was able to see which cards I was buying on the mtg site

I’m a fan of the limited print version run as I no longer have to wait 6+ months to receive a product I ordered.