Wizarding World 2022 - Rumors & Discussion

[Accio Lego]

Personally, I’m going to wait to formulate my opinion on the full advent calendar until we see just what’s going on with the board game feature this year. It’s clearly rather different from the candyland like setup from last year, where the Minifigures moved along a path and none of the builds other than the spinner top did anything. This year’s seems to be penseive themed and doesn’t have any sort of path (plus A LOT more instructions), so the gameplay might actually be interesting enough to entertain more than the smallest of children this time. The spinner design has also changed, hopefully that means it’s a little better at actually spinning.

[DannyPowers]

9 minutes ago, (Insert Name Here) said:

I just wish we had some cooler builds, like more paintings, suits of armour, Weasley and Honeydukes products, stuff to fill up sets and add to mocs. Also how about house robes with scarves and hats, which would look more Christmassy?

This exactly! I thought the strengths of the past AC sets were the smaller builds that could be easily slotted into your other sets. Especially when the Yule Ball themed AC was released around the same time of the set that featured....The Yule Ball! 

Come on, that's great synergy. Folks that bought the AC would be tempted to get the set, and vice versa.

These micro build are just kind of baffling. They're not great display pieces. They're not really easy to play with. I'm just not exactly sure who they're made for.

[Accio Lego]

3 minutes ago, DannyPowers said:

These micro build are just kind of baffling. They're not great display pieces. They're not really easy to play with. I'm just not exactly sure who they're made for.

They’re made to work as part of whatever weird board game feature they’ve got going on this year, and while I’ll admit it irked me that last year’s calendar had a board game feature but didn’t really incorporate it into anything, the solution to that problem would have preferably been to just ditch the board game feature altogether. 
 

incidentally, anyone else notice that we’ve technically got 25 builds here? They spinner top must come bundled with one of the characters (Hedwig maybe? She’s pretty anemic looking as a door prize all on her lonesome)

[DannyPowers]

8 minutes ago, Accio Lego said:

They’re made to work as part of whatever weird board game feature they’ve got going on this year

I get it, but many of last year's builds worked independently of the board game. [BTW...let's be honest. This is akin to the kind of "game" you'd find on the back of a cereal box]

The cake went with Hagrid's figures really well. Griphook looked good on the bank teller's stand. The Leaky Cauldron sign was a welcome addition to Diagon. Etc etc.

[Accio Lego]

36 minutes ago, DannyPowers said:

I get it, but many of last year's builds worked independently of the board game. [BTW...let's be honest. This is akin to the kind of "game" you'd find on the back of a cereal box]

The cake went with Hagrid's figures really well. Griphook looked good on the bank teller's stand. The Leaky Cauldron sign was a welcome addition to Diagon. Etc etc.

I agree. And I think it might be a good idea for us to spam the product reviews with comments along the lines of ‘the board game doesn’t work, stop trying to force it on us and just give us a regular calendar like the other themes get’, but at the end of the day that’s the explanation for the weird format this year. 

Edited August 1, 2022 by Accio Lego

[krimimimi]

7 minutes ago, Accio Lego said:

I agree. And I think it might be a good idea for us to spam the product reviews with comments along the lines of ‘the board game doesn’t work, stop trying to force it on us and just give us a regular calendar like the other themes get’, but at the end of the day that’s the explanation for the weird format this year. 

Except it's not the board game (which I strongly dislike) per se that's the issue. Even without it, themes like Star Wars resort to high proportions of nanobuilds, and they're the chief problem with this set as far as I'm concerned. I agree with @DannyPowers, this is a step down even compared to last year's. I really miss the ACs that gave us things to flesh out our builds.

And I was so looking forward to Christmas at Grimmauld, too. 

[BrickBob Studpants]

Am I the only one who actually likes the AC? Having three builds/minifigs for each film is an amazing idea! Would‘ve been even better if DH1 also had a minifig rather than Hedwig (pretty dark when you think about it!)

Sure, some of the builds are nothing special, but I dig the minifigs and the concept

[deskp]

nice figs, I'm into this ac cause of that, the builds, don't care

 

love the updated torso on vodlemort, had been wishign for that. same with a grayscale Myrtle,

[Retro Brick Reviews]

2 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Would‘ve been even better if DH1 also had a minifig rather than Hedwig (pretty dark when you think about it!)

It's really strange that DH1 doesn't get a figure while HBP gets 2 (Snape and Slughorn). They really should have mixed the repeat Snape and replaced him with a fig representing DH1 so we could have one character per movie.

Imo Hagrid would have been the perfect choice - he would fit with the "7 Potters" builds we get for DH1, he fits the holiday vibes (much better than Snape does), and, while he is still a reprint, he's one we haven't had in a retail set since 2019, at all since 2020 with Diagon Alley.

Speaking of stuff we haven't seen since Diagon Alley, why is Hedwig not using her flying piece? It fits the scene depicted so much more, and is just such a nice piece - I don't remotely understand why they made that gorgeous piece for the 2020 sets and then just dropped it.

[THELEGOBATMAN]

Alright, so I have mixed feelings. 

The idea itself is incredible. Having a figure and two microbuilds to represent each movie is such an amazing concept, and so is the execution. Most of those builds actually look fantastic. 

But then again, this is a standalone set. You can't incorporate it into your current Harry Potter display. And since I display all my sets as a giant display piece, this Advent Calendar feels pointless to me, unlike the previous three.

[Modal]

Well we got Gringotts finally! Now everyone can stop speculating ;)

[clouette]

Came in to say that I like this AC.

IMO, the HP AC is much better than Star Wars one. We get 7 minifigures + Slughorn's head vs 5 minifigures for SW. Not everyone gotten all the minifigures already.

As long as HP gets an advent calendar every year, I'm happy!

[Tariq j]

There are some really nice builds here. Especially the microbuilds and Slughorn's chair. Though I do kind of agree with the above poster that you can't really incorporate these into existing sets. 

[Accio Lego]

17 hours ago, Retro Brick Reviews said:

It's really strange that DH1 doesn't get a figure while HBP gets 2 (Snape and Slughorn). They really should have mixed the repeat Snape and replaced him with a fig representing DH1 so we could have one character per movie.

Imo Hagrid would have been the perfect choice - he would fit with the "7 Potters" builds we get for DH1, he fits the holiday vibes (much better than Snape does), and, while he is still a reprint, he's one we haven't had in a retail set since 2019, at all since 2020 with Diagon Alley.

Speaking of stuff we haven't seen since Diagon Alley, why is Hedwig not using her flying piece? It fits the scene depicted so much more, and is just such a nice piece - I don't remotely understand why they made that gorgeous piece for the 2020 sets and then just dropped it.

According to the plate colors, Hedwig is the DH1 ‘Minifigure’ - which is a bit morbid when you think about it. 
 

I too wondered why they used the perched version of Hedwig instead of the flying one, the only thing I can think of is that the dimensions made it difficult for whatever packing machines they use to place it in the advent calendar consistently, or there where problems with it getting wedged in there and difficult to get out. The wingspan on the flying owl mold is pretty decent, that could cause any number of complications with an advent calendar format. 
 

And while flying Hedwig hasn’t appeared in a set since 2020, lego isn’t ignoring the mold. Remember, we got a recolored version in two of this year’s winter sets, and a couple of other recolors have appeared outside the theme this year as well (not to mention the unprinted gold version used for Dumbledore’s lectern last year). 

Edited August 2, 2022 by Accio Lego

[Retro Brick Reviews]

5 hours ago, Accio Lego said:

According to the plate colors, Hedwig is the DH1 ‘Minifigure’ - which is a bit morbid when you think about it. 

I know, but it's odd that she is our only figure for DH1 (and, as you said, pretty morbid as represent for THAT installment) while Half-Blood Prince gets 2 wizard minifigures - Snape and Slughorn. Since that makes for 8 overall minifigures, I was just saying that it would have made more sense for Slughorn to be the sole HBP figure, with Snape being nixed in favor of a DH1 figure so it would have one minifig for each movie instead of 1/1/1/1/1/2/0/1.

[Vindicare]

I’m a bit disappointed by the Calendar. As others have said there isn’t much usable stuff here. The mini builds are fine, just not anything really exciting or useful. The best is chair Slughorn. Minifigs are mostly good, but can Sirius please get a new face print already. The GoF paper print tile is cool as well. But this especially underwhelming when the price is $45. They were already hard to swallow at $40. They need to do better if they’re gonna charge us this kind of money. 

[Bugbot20082]

7 printed figures is a generous For an advent calendar, and they have lots of new prints and recolours which is nice. I’m very pleased to get an extra Snape to put in the SS or GP etc, he a very uceful repeat! 

Most of the builds sadly are going to get taken apart and recycled, I might use the mini bus as a toy in Zonko’s but that’s about it.
 

Future Advent calendars still have lots of potential, I would like to see them return to the specific movie/party theme and give us more new variants and C list characters etc. 

Slug Club (Could give us Cormac), Bill’s Wedding (Complimenting a small set with the tent and main characters the AC could give us Doge, Lovegood and Muriel), Hogsmeade is another theme which could have Aberforth as an exclusive etc 

im not sure where the spinner is in the AC, I can’t see a symbol for it on any day and it’s technically a 25th build. It would make economical sense for it to be packed with Hedwig, that would balance out the parts per day.

Also lol at the shop at home 360 render: Harry’s toso prints are backwards 

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by Bugbot20082

[Hoth Rebel]

New lupin from D2C has leaked on instagram. 

[BrickBob Studpants]

37 minutes ago, Hoth Rebel said:

New lupin from D2C has leaked on instagram. 

Looks good!

Now that the minifigs start leaking: I know it’s unlikely, but I still hope that epilogue Ron and Hermione will somehow be part of the minifig line-up. Omitting them would be a dumb move IMO

[Accio Lego]

On 8/2/2022 at 1:52 PM, Retro Brick Reviews said:

I know, but it's odd that she is our only figure for DH1 (and, as you said, pretty morbid as represent for THAT installment) while Half-Blood Prince gets 2 wizard minifigures - Snape and Slughorn. Since that makes for 8 overall minifigures, I was just saying that it would have made more sense for Slughorn to be the sole HBP figure, with Snape being nixed in favor of a DH1 figure so it would have one minifig for each movie instead of 1/1/1/1/1/2/0/1.

I’ll semi forgive them the inclusion of Snape instead of a new Minifigure. I get that budgets are tight, although I wish we’d gotten repeats previously confined to a single high priced set like the last three advent calendars. What’s confusing is that it would’ve been pretty easy to make Snape the DH1 figure and switch Hedwig out to a sand baseplate to make her a PS/SS ‘build’ (and therefore representing her and Harry meeting as opposed to her death). The first movie is currently underrepresented with only Harry and the Quidditch hoops, so you wouldn’t have to reshuffle anything else, HBP would just switch to the movie with less rep (OotP has 3 builds in addition to its minifig while most of the others only have 2). Literally all it would take is a couple of baseplate color changes to make things feel more evenly distributed (and a whole lot less morbid).

[BacktoBricks]

I love that he has full printing right down to his legs, but I'm hoping that's not the correct hairpiece and just one the photographer put on considering that a) it's too dark for Lupin and b) they just used the other hairpiece in the Shrieking Shack set and the inconsistencies between leg size, hairpieces, cloth piece to print etc over a few small years is already annoying, but to change within a three month window would be ridiculous.

[mirkwoodspiders]

15 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Looks good!

Now that the minifigs start leaking: I know it’s unlikely, but I still hope that epilogue Ron and Hermione will somehow be part of the minifig line-up. Omitting them would be a dumb move IMO

Oh definitely. Such a high price point, with the only possible set/scene they'd appear in, it'd be a shame and a shock if they were left out. I wouldn't put it past LEGO to make their figs a GWP polybag or something only available with the train 

[distantnemesis]

I actually like the advent calendar, I think the builds could be better but I like the minifigure selection a lot. $60 CAD is an absolutely insane price point though 

[BrickBob Studpants]

3 hours ago, mirkwoodspiders said:

Oh definitely. Such a high price point, with the only possible set/scene they'd appear in, it'd be a shame and a shock if they were left out.

Maybe they thought they‘d have to include their kids as well? In that case, I‘d gladly sacrifice all of the kids!

…don‘t use that quote out of context

[Legochaek]

The spinning top on the advent calendar is oddly dreidel shaped.