This past weekend, one of MTG’s most hyped events of the year took place. Known as Gen Con, this popular convention showcased multiple exciting events, including the incredible Secret Lair Showdown. The Secret Lair Showdown is a cool event that offers an exclusive Dark Ritual card to first place.
This card is only given out to victors of Secret Lair Showdown events at a handful of conventions during the year. As such, it is extremely sought after and worth a ton of money. In fact, supposedly, the card sold on-site at Gen Con for a whopping $48,000!
Unfortunately, the event itself was mired with controversy as one player in top four ended up getting disqualified. While we don’t have all the information about what transpired, we do have a statement from the player in question, which created a lot of uproar in the MTG community. To understand why so many players are up in arms, it’s important to look at how the Secret Lair Showdown event is structured and discuss what led to the disqualification in the first place.
A Brief Background
The Secret Lair Showdown events were scheduled to run at various Magic Cons throughout 2024. Players that participate start by competing in the Secret Lair Showdown Qualifiers. These preliminary events are run in single elimination fashion, with a cut to top 8. The top 8 players in each of four Qualifiers move on to the Secret Lair Showdown Championship event itself, which is a 32-player single elimination event.
As many players have pointed out, the prize support is outrageously top-heavy at the Secret Lair Showdown. Playing in a Secret Lair Qualifier costs a lot of money by itself, and the prize support is in the form of booster packs and Secret Lair products. Then, if you manage to earn a slot and play in the Secret Lair Showdown Championship, you are guaranteed to win only a Secret Lair product and the associated Murktide Regent promo for your troubles unless you win it all.
As such, the difference in prize support between 32nd place and 2nd place is pretty minimal all things considered. On the flip side, given how rare the Dark Ritual promo is, the difference in prizes between 1st place and 2nd place is absolutely enormous.
At the same time, players were disincentivized from “splitting” prize money from selling the Dark Ritual in any capacity, as this would likely be viewed as collusion and result in penalties being handed out. This alone led to frustration within the MTG community regarding the tournament prize structure. Some players felt that Wizards of the Coast giving nearly all the prize support to the winners of the final match while simultaneously cracking down on splits was a really poor idea.
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The Disqualification
When news came out the Julian (a competitor that would be moving into the top four of the Secret Lair Showdown Championship) got disqualified, this only made players question the rules associated with splitting even more. According to Julian in the statement he released, many players had agreed to “swapping equity” with each other prior to the start of the event. This essentially means that some players agreed that they would chop some of the money from the Dark Ritual sale after the event if they won.
This isn’t too uncommon of a practice at competitive events among friends. However, discussions of such a topic during the event can be problematic. This leads us to the disqualification that took place. Based on Julian’s statement, a friend of his that wasn’t in the event asked a question about splitting equity if Julian were to win. Supposedly, Julian had not agreed to any split of any kind, neither before the event nor when his friend came over to ask.
However, a judge had reportedly overheard the conversation after top eight matches had concluded and decided to issue Julian a match loss for collusion or bribery. In a single elimination event, this essentially functioned as a disqualification. The head judge of the event shut down any chance of an appeal to change the outcome of the decision.
There does not seem to be a ton of other information to go off of other than Julian’s recollection and a brief confirmation from another witness. So, it’s worth keeping an eye out for any new communications in the near future.
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Player Reaction
Julian’s post garnered a ton of attention. Many players were extremely upset with how the situation was handled, assuming Julian’s statement was completely accurate. They felt that the match loss was unjustified, especially given that the outcome involves losing out on the potential to win a ton of money. Some players were quick to bring up the fact that there have been other controversial judge decisions recently, too, suggesting that the system needs an overhaul.
Beyond just the disqualification at hand, though, the events that transpired created additional uproar on the Secret Lair Showdown Championship prize structure. Some people mentioned that splits have been widely discussed in previous Secret Lair tournaments this year, which may have led to an overcorrection in this instance.
Others pointed out that these conversations were bound to happen and that the players shouldn’t be villainized for poor prize structure.
With another Secret Lair Showdown taking place at Magic Con Las Vegas in October, it’ll be interesting to see if any changes in policy take place.
