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Hey out there Magic players! This week we had a brand new Secret-Lair Super drop, and there’s a big stupid controversy attached. Here’s a picture you may have already seen by now.
According to the bottom stripe, a few lines of tiny text on it, and the little sparkly oval, these are Magic cards. The rest…?
Maybe the look is exactly what you were wanting for your deck concept. But I’ll pass on these ones. In my opinion, they are very hard to look at. The artwork is fine, but the layouts make it jumbled and confusing, and the monochromatic look does not help.
They also look like they could have been made at Staples a half hour before the game, and printed out in B&W to save money.
There’s a controversy attached to these cards already, even beyond the look.
This is Circular Logic, a formerly relevant Counterspell with some World Championship pedigree. Here it is in a more understandable form.
It was reprinted in 2023 in Dominaria Remastered, but originally came from the Torment expansion.
You may note, along with much of the Magic Community, that it was originally printed as an instant.
There are already plenty of great rants out there about how this card has been rendered useless by this ridiculous mistake. This latest ridiculous mistake by a company becoming known for them.
The mistake also has gone to print, and cannot be retracted. Here’s Wizards’ official announcement regarding this kerfuffle:
The version of the card Circular Logic found in the Deceptive Divination drop, part of the Secret Lair Winter Superdrop 2024, was inadvertently printed as a sorcery. The error is found in both foil and non-foil versions.
However, we assure you that you can still cast it as an instant and the Oracle rules text remains accurate.
Ouch Wizards! Very bad wizarding!
…Or is it?
While they have definitely released a statement claiming it was a mistake, just for a moment suspend your belief in this being a mistake, and look at a few details here.
- This got a lot of publicity very quickly.
- The ‘mistake’ was front and centre in the promo pics. Very easy to find.
- The secret lair drop has 5 low value cards in it. Maybe it could have used an additional angle of buyer interest
- The secret lair drop has 2 ink colours in it. Very economical.
- The Circular Logic from this drop is now a certified curiosity. It has a nickname, the ‘Sorcery-Speed Counterspell’. It’s a borderline collector’s item.
- This secret-lair was included with the Super-drop, so some people bought it no matter what. It’s very low risk for the company to include, even if it either sucks or causes controversy.
- The mistake card in question is iconic, but not currently relevant. If you could screw up any reprint, this is a really good one because it affects so few.
I don’t like to get cynical about these things, but this situation is probably going to be a net gain for Wizards. An otherwise unremarkable Secret Lair drop suddenly has the eyes of the Community on it, and speculators are left to determine whether or not this new Circular Logic is just a mistake or something to invest in.
Whether this is a mistake or not: I think all of the cards will sell.
I don’t think any aspect of this situation will prevent something like it from happening again. And again, and again. Maybe even by design. If they see a mistake like this become valuable, why not leverage the secondary market on mistake cards? Why wouldn’t they?
Wizards is constantly looking for ways to entice their customers to buy new versions of old cards. Or special versions of new cards.
If the hottest version of your favourite Counterspell is the one that says it’s a Sorcery, not an Instant, and that’s cool and valuable in the same way a sweet foil treatment or alt-art are, well then I can hardly blame the businessperson who fills that niche with products.
Maybe this is a marketing test. Try out a prominent mistake with minimal consequences. Put it in the least-enticing Secret Lair. The one that’s hard to look at and cheap to print, so the mistake can just go away if it’s not a hit.
And if it is? Well, maybe we’ll get a mistake on a big-time chase card next time. Oops, better get yours quick.
I’m just hoping we can rely on more than the little strip at the bottom, the fine-print, and the shiny oval to know what’s a Magic card, even if we’re not sure what it does.
Because the less we can look across the table and understand what our opponent is doing, the less the game is worth playing.
Conclusion
When the mistakes pile up, perspectives get muddled. It’s impossible to truly know what’s a mistake, and what’s yet another marketing angle for a company like Wizards.
It’s not really Wizards, it’s Hasbro, and it’s not really Hasbro, it’s the executives. When someone’s only goal is to make profit so the shareholders get dividends, anything and everything is expendable: quality, continuity, integrity, balance, and the future of the games we love.
Executives are often handed company stock as part of their compensation packages. It stands to reason they might have it by other means as well. Why wouldn’t they increase their own dividends? It’s common, especially for Hasbro, to fire workers rather than let those dividends decrease.
As consumers, we are caught between wanting to support the entities that make these games, and needing to rein them in before they destroy them. Before the executives just move on to some other IPO where they can again make short-term profit at the expense of the company. And us, the customers.
What can we do? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Thanks for reading!
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