At 12:00 PM EST today, the Secret Lair Secret Scare Superdrop was unleashed upon the world. Considering the multitude of Universes Beyond crossovers available, this Secret Lair sale probably went about as well as most players were expecting. With so much high-demand items on the docket, the sale was an absolute disaster. After extremely fast sellouts and freezing checkout pages, players are demanding for a change.
Another Awful Experience
Another Secret Lair Superdrop sale has come and gone. Some of the less popular Secret Lairs from the Secret Scare Superdrop are still available, but all of the best drops sold out hours ago. Despite the demand for some Universes Beyond crossovers being expectedly high, it wasn’t the first drop to sell out.
That honor instead goes to the Kieran Yanner Artist Series, which had an incredible reprint value. Thanks to reprinting Demonic Tutor with stunning artwork, this Secret Lair ended up selling out just half an hour after the Secret Lair sale started. This may not seem too bad, but a very small number of players who wanted to acquire this Secret Lair actually managed to purchase it. Despite some players lining up seconds after the Secret Scare sale went live, they were still unable to grab the Kieran Yanner Secret Lair.
We’ve seen some Secret Lair sales like this before, but the Kieran Yanner Secret Lair takes the cake. It’s not uncommon for players who are a bit slow on the draw to miss out on some drops, but lining up at 12 sharp and missing your desired product is absolutely ridiculous. There’s no way to ensure that players can get their desired product from the source anymore.
To make things worse, many players also reported a high possibility of another exploit being involved. Line times would jump in length multiple times throughout the sale, which were quickly followed by multiple items selling out. According to Wizards of the Coast, these time jumps were implemented “as inventory levels decrease to avoid oversell.” Notably, there is some chatter about how previous line jump exploits were not fixed for this sale. These exploits, if true, allow groups of scalpers to completely avoid the queue and ignore the two-per-order limit.
While there’s no proof that the wait time increases were caused by a line jump exploit, it’s one of the few explanations that accounts for the phenomenon, and has already occurred in a past sale. This, coupled with heavy reports of checkout screens freezing for the entire 10-minute sales period, made many MTG players give up on purchasing the Secret Lairs altogether.
Further supporting scalper speculation, a ton of Kieran Yanner Secret Lairs are still available for purchase… so long as you’re willing to pay scalper premiums. Multiple copies of the most sought-after Secret Lairs on secondary sites for massive markups. It’s clear that the 2-per-customer limit is not stopping scalpers from getting what they want, and players are paying for it.
Players Already Know What the Solution Is
Outcry is common after any of the recent Secret Lair sales, but the Kieran Yanner Secret Lair drop seems to have angered players more than usual. Due to this, a large number of players are calling for a return to the abandoned print-to-demand model. This, in theory, solves the poor customer service experience and ensures that everyone who wants the Secret Lair will obtain it. While this is the ideal solution for players, Wizards of the Coast has no reason to fix anything. People are lining up as early as possible to purchase their products, and they’re selling out in record time.
The only way to convince Wizards of the Coast to change their ways is to vote with your wallet. We’ve seen positive change with past MTG products due to this. A lot of failed experiments, like the Aftermath sets, and Innistrad: Double Feature, were discontinued due to a lack of sales. Sending customer feedback can help Wizards of the Coast can help steer the ship in a better direction once they’re convinced change is needed, but until money begins to talk, we’re stuck here.
There are a lot of other changes Wizards of the Coast could make, like stopping whatever caused wait times to spike for many MTG players mid-queue. Unfortunately, as long as players continue to line up and Secret Lairs sell out, there’s no true incentive for Wizards of the Coast to make any adjustments.
Even More Demand Coming
As bad as the Secret Scare sale went, we have an even more daunting superdrop on the horizon. While this Secret Lair superdrop proved to be incredibly popular, there were no mechanically unique cards included. The opposite is true for the upcoming PlayStation Secret Lair superdrop.
With mechanically unique cards available in every single Secret Lair, demand might be absolutely ludicrous for this sale. Wizards of the Coast will be providing Secret Lairs to local game stores in an effort to help increase the supply for these mechanically unique cards, but this is unlikely to have a significant impact on the disparity between supply and demand.
That said, Wizards of the Coast has occasionally gotten these sales right. The Sonic Secret Lair drop with mechanically unique cards, for example, didn’t sell out during the initial sales rush, allowing a lot more players to grab the cards to use in their decks. This suggests that Wizards of the Coast will predict massive demand for this upcoming sale and can ramp up supply to meet it.
While there is some hope, players have been let down time and time again. We can only hope that Wizards of the Coast gets the next sale right, but history is stacked against them.
Stick with us at mtgrocks.com: the best place for Magic: The Gathering coverage!