Wizards of the Coast’s latest Secret Lair drop, which had unique Magic: The Gathering cards featuring Marvel characters like Iron Man, Storm, and Wolverine, sold out within five hours of going on sale on November 4. Customers report a miserable experience marred by hours-long queues, website crashes, and an exploit that let some people skip the line entirely.
This isn’t the first MTG Secret Lair to sell out quickly, and website issues are also nothing new, but this time fans seem particularly irate. A perfect storm of problems brewed this especially negative reaction, with hundreds leaving comments on social media, and numerous Magic: The Gathering content creators speaking out against the current Secret Lair system.
This time, all the usual pain points were present, and then some. As we’ve come to expect, the cards sold out immediately, wait times were horrendous, the sales website handled the traffic badly, and scalpers were immediately offering the cards on eBay for hundreds of dollars.
But on top of that, a link was passed around which allowed those waiting in line to skip the queue entirely and go straight to checkout. These aren’t just unsubstantiated rumors either – major community figures like Amazonian have said they used this exploit.
What is also souring fans on Secret Lairs is that it’s becoming increasingly clear that (at least some of) this is the intended experience as far as Wizards of the Coast is concerned. It’s been almost a year since the company switched to the current model from its more consumer-friendly print to demand policy, yet the process has not gotten any better.
Even more telling is that in a recent investor call, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks boasted that each Marvel Secret Lair ‘mini-set’ was expected “to immediately sell out”. So it sounds like Wizards planned to produce way less stock than there were interested buyers.
The poorly handled sale of this Secret Lair is particularly upsetting for fans because the cards on offer were particularly desirable. Not only is this a popular crossover, each Marvel Secret Lair had a unique, exclusive card featuring a well-loved superhero. While it’s possible a later Marvel product might reprint them, right now the SL cards aren’t available anywhere else (unless you ahem proxy them).
The immediate sell-out of the Secret Lairs was what Wizards of the Coast expected and desired, but it remains to be seen if the backlash here will be strong enough to have any effect on future drops.
For more great content, check out the recently revealed MTG release schedule, to find out about all the upcoming Magic: The Gathering sets in 2025.
Source: Wargamer
