Secret Lair Superdrop Stupidity + Hasbro CEO Makes Insane Claims About MTG 

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I remember Wizards saying that "it was okay to feel overwhelmed by the quantity of products, not everything will be designed for you and you can skip some sets and pick up later when you're into it". Turns out they're making products with no one in mind and so everyone is skipping everything. It's sad to see. I'm not a hardcore player, but the destruction of flavour is really killing my taste for the game...

Villains? Villains!? Streets of New Cappena makes me feel like more of a villain than Thunder Junction. Making deals with gangsters, fetching tri lands for leyline binding, and driving around in my car full of looted corpses.

Just wear those eclipse glasses and you won't see any problems with Hasbro, Secret Lairs, or Outlaws of Markov Manor😜

It's wild how little interest these future sets hold for me, even as they push the cards into infinity. A lot of them are just... strong. They're not cool, they don't make interesting deck concepts come to mind for me, they are just really strong cards (often just better versions of previous cards). I had the most fun playing MTG back in the early 2010s. I actually prefer a lower power environment. It sucks.

The funny thing is that the new Secret Lair setup that they’re doing is actually saving me money, since I usually wait until the last few days to get any drops that I might want. But with most of the drops selling out within a couple days of release, there aren’t any that I want to spend money on by the time I make my purchases. And I also don’t feel enough FOMO to consider buying them immediately, so what ends up happening is that I’m like “oh, the drops that I was thinking about getting are sold out? Ah well, guess I’ll just hold onto this money”

Team behind making Secret Lairs: "Let us put Dockside into it!" Management: "No Problem"

No coverage about the School House Rock: Thunder Junction Secret Lair? 🎶 Thunder Junction, What's your Function?!? 🎵

My favorite part of the NPR interview is when Scott plays a Pleasant Kenobi clip in regards to laying off 1700 employees and giving himself a bonus.

The theme of thunder junction is we didn't get the rights to borderlands

Listening to this while stuck in traffic… behind a Chevy Equinox 😂

@17:31 I Can't wait for that "Magic: The Gathering; Cars 5; The Squealquel" upcoming set!!!

I admit that I assumed the plot mechanic referred to plots of land. It felt more like planting cards for later than plotting schemes.

Realistically the role token mechanic would have done a better job pushing the supposed villain theme

I still remember when the omenpaths were labeled unpredictable, random, and risky to travel without a planeswalker guide. Yet so many people (of a certain kind) had no trouble finding this plane. They started so good with Eldraine and Ixalan 🙄 they need to fire the two nutjobs in charge

I am surprised that there wasn't baral, who is like a corrupt sheriff, in thunder junction

I've never been less happy with MTG since Christopher Penises took over Hasbro. He has no idea the long-term consequences of what he's doing to LGSs, peoples collections, the lore, and overall interest players have in the game. Ixilan and Markov Manor were the first time in close to 15 years I haven't bought lots of packs of a standard set to crack just for funsies.

Gotta hate a dock tease

I would pay more for one really well produced set release once per year with a lot of hype and good release events, they've literally killed the fun with the amount of releases and cards. It's just a money grab now. All my local magic stores have closed because no one is spending money on cardboard, FNM went from 60 people or more a night in 2015-16 to none existent. Game sucks now, hasn't been truly fun since Theros block

Nintendo boss in 1924: "People will be playing with our playing cards for a hundred years!"

Came back to mtg after a couple years break and I have to say wtf bros? Now theres "collector" packs, "serialized" cards, new kinds of foils... this shit is outta hand

Good news those glasses can be bought at gas station and can help with Surge foil brightness. Bad news is they still bend like the Pringles next to the glasses.

Eclipse of the CEO's brain. But it just never ends.

It's a total eclipse of the heart

Dockside....oh, damn. Dock-Blocked

I went to a comicon on Saturday and *even there* Karpov Manor was at a 60% markdown

Markdown Manner and Blunder Junkion and up coming Doomedburrow.

Every time purp uploads, I get to be more happy I switched to printing cards off my computer

Just checking at his recent history, we can take whatever Mark Rosewater say with a grain of salt.

I find it weird that all the fallout secret lair are all in the fallout vault style and they didn’t make one with a huge emphasys on « commander » with legendary creatures in a more realistic style, maybe the gap could correspond to something like that with one or multiple Faye Dalton pieces, given what he already did (or rather copied) for other magic pieces that would correspond to the « retro » style I would assume a more realistic fallout card to look like

If they wanted a villain set, why didn't they lean more into the horror aspect associated with the wild west?

Also need to mention the pricing issue. Both of the non-foil bundles separate are $99 US each after savings, however the combined bundle with all is 209.99, which is ~10 bucks more but that bundle is eligible for the Ignoble Hierarch so I guess we are paying 10 bucks now for a promo. My post was edited when I went back and saw it was not listed as free but eligible for that bundle. Are promos typically free?

The LGS situation here is that Covid took out our first one, and when I went to draft night yesterday (first time I've played non-Commander in months, and the second time in years), everyone got an MKM promo pack just for signing up. We're not a big city that needs to house like ten pods or anything like that, and we've got people bringing their kids to play and that's wholesome, but have you ever drafted Ravnica Remastered? Because I hadn't until then, but I knew from heart that Ravnica is not actually that impressive of a plane as far as powerlevel is concerned aside from VERY choice cards in specific decks, I'm talking WotS "Block" cards is about the top of what you're gonna pull and even that includes Bulwark Giant, let alone the likes of Helium Squirter.

Anyone who takes more than a cursory glance at the set can tell it's a mess. MKM was also a soulless 'product' conceptually but at least it stuck to the central idea. OTJ doesn't even seem to be _attempting_ any kind of design elegance.

Commanderfication is killing the game. Im not interested in any product anymore

Objectively, your Thunder Junction rant is one of the greatest things ever seen on the internet…

Remember the movie cowboys and Aliens? Remember the plot? Me neither. Yah, I'm getting strong Cowboys and Aliens vibes here.

My tinfoil hat Secret Lair Theory: The actual Equinox had Sheldon's Spellbook as the SL on sale. I waited to get my Sheldon's Spellbook until the end hoping to get it along with the Fallout SLs and save on shipping. So I think the Equinox drop was pushed back to stop people from bundling the Sheldon's Spellbook with the Equinox drop forcing people to buys more Sheldon's Spellbook to save on shipping, or get charged shipping for it. A little out there for a conspiracy and probably not true, but also with the way WotC/Hasbro is going I wouldn't be shocked if its true.

(9:12) Wow, nice. At my location in Connecticut, we had about 92% of the sun covered by the moon, and I definitely went out to view it several times with my eclipse glasses.

Were they trying to do their own Kozmo, with two odd things paired together? That could have been cool if they combined the concept of Fallout with a more spaghetti western facade to it, with a lot more steam and maybe go oil/gaspunk with biopunk too. It could still happen.

I think my favorite example of silly cowboy attire in this set is art of a sphinx wearing spurs on its forelegs, like why does a sphinx need to wear spurs?? For all the horses it’s gonna ride??

Remember when innistrad was announced as this awesome themed set, and it was awesome and super flavored and had a sweet story. Pepperidge farms remembers

I want to see someone make custom mercenary tokens, but with the art based off of the Pinkertons. I don't even care if they're based off of the modern design or how they looked in western times. The ones making mercenary tokens would definitely be villains with that.

Ceo had to have a cigar and a glass of whiskey when he said this to NPR, it's the only way I can see it in my minds eye

Definitely gonna check out that Phyrexian lore video. I’m newer to the game and they seem like a very fascinating story. Also, I really enjoy you’re delivery in your lore videos, very well done

Ham fists, 2 mana artifact equipment pay 2, tap, sacrifice a food, all players lose 3 life (this artifact does not need to be equipped to activate this effect) Sacrifice equipped creature, create x food tokens where x is that creature's toughness Equip for 2 "Choke on all this flavor!"

They're not putting less EFFORT into these sets, the effort is just in the wrong DIRECTION. Titanic is full steam ahead, straight into the iceberg.

Sadly they did not have any set about villains that is currently in standard. If only they had designed such a set with way to scarce lore anyway previously that they could come back too... Maybe laying off another 500 designers will help.

Honestly I feel like they delayed it to give their Printer enough time to catch up (because they're trying to reduce turnaround).

It feels like WotC wanted to test out their AI skills and it randomly created all of the set of Thunder junction.

Ever hear of Legions and Onslaught? THAT felt more like a villain set

This idea that you don't have to keep customers happy has only opened the door for other card games.

My game store is doing super good, but it’s a larger store with three locations, but they are ordering way less sealed product than they used too. They are making the money on singles, events and other games.

Allocation devil? Sounds like something outta Mattel Hell ….. which is obviously where all Hasbro CEOs ultimately go.

Angela Kinsey said she can't believe there isn't a horror movie named "Path of Totality".

I wanted diabolical, and the artist drop. Artist drop was "sold out", so they get no money from me. I'll buy secondary market.

Chris Co cks is going to Edward Smith Hasbro directly into an iceberg, and then as soon as it starts sinking, he's going to Bruce Ismay tf out of there.

Thunder Junction is like one of the Star Trek episodes, where part of the cast is trapped on a holo deck. Oh my… 50 more legendaries? Come on…

In the end, what will ruin Magic won't be the muddled plot lines, power creep or the spurious attempts at in game politics. It will be spamming out product.

This video gave me a good chuckle when you were talking about the Thunder Junction mess. Ye-ha! 🤠

So we got a low quality who done it murder mystery, a gimmicky pew pew story that makes no sense and then coming up with a nascar theme set.

When everyone’s a villain, no one’s a villain

The missing number in the fallout secret lair is probably an special fallout secret lair for the show

Man, I’d have loved another Jeremie Solomon celestial Secret Lair. Especially if bringing back Midnight Hunt stuff.

I had hopes for the deathrace set as i liked vehicles ....

A bit off topic for video, but I was wondering your thoughts on an upcomming CCG called "Wonders of the First". I know you've touched on TCGs outside the big 3 (MAYBE 4 now with Lorcana), come and go, but the company is adamant about NOT reprinting cards ever. Like the idea? Hate the idea?

Let’s get back to the days when type 2 was number one!

A minor western feel??? EVERYONE is wearing a cowboy hat!!!

I hate ALL the card art that makes understanding the card harder! Showcase/Plot (looks like a deed claim to me too)/the washed out file folder (from KM)...almost all of the alternate art. All of them make the card harder to read...from the washed out or even semi-invisible mana symbols. It should be EASY to determine the color identity of the card in play. For my personal preference, I dislike all of the "cutesy" art cards also. However, absolutely love the extended art cards. Or at least most of them.

So most of the omen path main story sets are basically commander legends 3 low effort discount edition.

SpongeBob themed merfolk battles your Marvel Avengers tribal captain America deck! 🎉😎. Let’s Gooooooo!

Wish when they did fallout and doctor who, they actually put everything on a same color, like all of the fallout companions should be the same color as the game they came from. So i hope that happens with Skyrim 🤞

The end of the video is some A class succulent rant. Love it.

Mark-up Manor & Trunker Injunction.

Thunder Junction… Yeah it’s a hot mess… but I gotta grab a copy of insatiable avarice and ride that Gitrog 🤷🏻‍♂️ Yeehaw!

The reason it is the equinox secret lair is because you won't get them until next spring equinox!

I'm still waiting for the half dozen missing sliver secret lair cards...

They should have made cracking fetches a crime and stuff like that.

Nothing I can say A total equinox of the heart 🤡

Set theming at this point is just madlibs.

First time im interested enought in a secret lair (the inalla) and they already sold out, good job wizards

Need a return too 2-3 set release with storyline

Mtg needs to focus on making secret lairs for cards that need an updated card art. I hate inalla archmage ritualist when she came out- her robe was too dark, and it blended in with the background art. - Teysa finally got rid of the older dude standing next to her in her secret lair. - Reyhan, Anefenza, Alesha, Saskia, etc. all those could do with updated art variants. Thats the only reason I support them making secret lairs- because half the original card arts are… meh. Or there’s something just glaringly wrong with it- *cough* Olivia *cough*

The faerie SLD is so pretty, we need more faeries alternative arts 🧚💙✨

I thought the mercenaries were the heroes, not the villains. I'm confused.

Maybe Thunder Junction want players to experience as Pinkerton？

I'm not happy I'm concerned for bloomburrow now

After playing shadowverse ccg otj feels so bad next to shadowverse rivayle

Every time I see a statement from Mark Rosewater, it just reinforces my belief that he is everything wrong with Magic. It's been over 30 years and they're getting _worse_ about designing sets. He's turned everything into a joke. Every set is an Un-set.

Path Of Totality definitely sounds like it should be a magic card 😂

My LGSs all play one piece and Star Wars, magic is like…the Buick of card games

If it helps at all, from an outside perspective Thunder Junction doesn't feel Western. I only know it's western-themed cos I've been told. Surely this is the appeal they want? I would also like to say that i dont understand why. I dont really care about it being a western? Funnily enough, I didn't get into Magic cos I like old Westerns. I don't remember sitting down in 2013 and thinking "Wow this Jace guy is pretty nifty, but I really wish he had a cowboy hat and spurs".

I'm a bit dismayed at the fact that the game is being taken over with all the Universes Beyond content. Having an occasional set of cards around another IP done once or twice a year in a special small set is fine, but it feels like the game is slowly gravitating towards being like the Fortnite of the card game world, and less about telling a multiplanar journey about the worlds that many of our favorite and beloved characters came from.

I keep hearing Thunder Junction is a mess, but the set seems cracked? Probably the set I've most looked forward to since War of the Spark (Mechanically)

Hasbro has been saying the same thing for years now. They are so disconnected

Remember that Armageddon is not a crime.

It's a day Bones Rectangles

What happens when you fire all the artists and give the jobs to computer algorithms

Prof got dock blocked

Holy fuck those Ravina Kai cards might be the first secret lair ever to appeal to my artistic tastes (and as a commander and three artifacts, the colourless frame problem is still bad but not very bad this time). Could this mark a turning point for WOTC!? Or will next drop just be a return to franchise tie-ins, 80s/90s nostalgia, unreadable nonsense and the same bland fantasy realism that plagues the rest of the game? Only time will tell... And yeah Thunder Junction has been extremely disappointing from a mechanical perspective. The basic job of a mechanical theme is to make you excited to build a deck, but that means you have to care about the themes. What is there to care about in the theme of "You can make people ride these animals"? They already did "humans bonding with animals" much better in Ikoria, and that still wasn't great, and it's mechanically very similar to vehicles. It doesn't even require thinking about the balance of mounts and riders this time since animals can ride animals, which was an interesting aspect of vehicle themes. What is there to care about in the theme of "payoffs for being a criminal" when you'd have to go out of your way to not commit crimes and even a mono-white law-abiding good-guys pacifist deck will still be "committing crimes" when it plays its jail effects? What is there to care about in the theme of "Mercenary Tokens"? They're not inherently very different from other kinds of weak tokens, but in other token-oriented themes you get much more interesting payoff effects, eg populate - and Ghired, whose effect basically is populate, is in a set with no tokens worth populating. What is there to care about in the theme of "Outlaw tribal" when nearly every creature in the set is an outlaw and the ones that aren't don't have any clear mechanical reason not to be? Plot is pretty cool, but only a handful of the cards its on are interesting to be Plotted and only a handful of cards care about plotting things, so it feels kind of arbitrary which cards it has been decided you're allowed to use in this more versatile way, and outside of Junction draft it's just going to be people putting a couple of plot cards in their decks, not people making plot decks. Spree is a mechancially useful form of modal card that I'm sure we'll see used in future sets, but like plot, it's not a deck theme, every deck is going to have a few spree cards. Thunder Junction is mechanically a commander draft set, like a mediocre Baldur's Gate, where every mechanic is in every colour and your choice of synergistic legendary creature is supposed to be the source of fun by determining which subset of each mechanic you can access and what happens when you use it. Except even then it's a lot of "when you do x, draw a card", so you're not really getting different gameplay with different commanders, just faster filtering. 15 of the 33 multicoloured legendary creatures in TJ have some version of "when you do X, draw a card" on them. Quite a few of the others have some form of mana expansion or replacement, ie ramp, which is quickly becoming the other kind of bland technically-synergistic commander design. So many commanders that don't actually try to make their themes more interesting or engaging, but just grant you basic resources for doing them because every commander deck needs to be drawing a card and creating a mana source every turn or else it's slow.