Despite the immense excitement that Secret Lair products create, they remain incredibly controversial. Since Magic decided to move Secret Lairs to limited print run products, they’ve both sold extremely well and have been difficult to get a hold of. This has consistently caused complaints, especially as scalpers have ruined sales time and time again. Despite this, it hasn’t all been awful.
All of this was originally done to improve shipping times for new Secret Lair products. For the most part, this has been successful, but apparently even pre-printing isn’t immune from problems. Unfortunately, it seems that wonky foils aren’t the only issue for MTG players, as a new Secret Lair delay has just been announced.
New Secret Lair Delay
Today, Wizards of the Coast announced that some Secret Lair products have been delayed. Unhelpfully, this announcement didn’t say what products have been delayed or whether the delayed products have even been released yet. Despite this glaring omission, Wizards was bizarrely transparent about how it happened.
In their statement, Wizards blamed “inconsistencies with a raw material component used in our production process.” While this component has been replaced, it reportedly caused a ripple effect that has been delaying things ever since. Apparently, Wizards is “working hard to get caught up,” but no timeline was presented for this.
For all we know, the new Secret Lair delays could take anywhere between weeks and months. Hell, we’ve seen Secret Lair products take over a year to ship before, but hopefully this delay isn’t nearly that bad. Still, this bizarre lack of information isn’t very helpful to Secret Lair fans and purchasers.
After announcing this delay, Wizards of the Coast revealed that a few options are available to MTG players affected by this issue. For starters, players can just do nothing, and Wizards will eventually send their order whenever it’s ready. Alternatively, any affected order can be modified to “swap or remove the affected item.”
Once again, there’s no information about what swaps are being offered in Wizards’ surprisingly cryptic announcement. Considering Secret Lair drops are limited-run, presumably you won’t be able to choose any sold-out drops for swaps. Hopefully, more information will be provided by email, but even that’s unclear. If neither of those options appeals, MTG players are also able to request a full refund if they don’t want to wait for an indeterminate amount of time.
Puzzling Printing
While delays happening are undeniably frustrating, at the end of the day, they can happen on occasion. Magic: The Gathering is a physical trading card game, after all, and printing problems can happen to anyone. Despite this, the move to the limited-run printing model was meant to fix this exact problem.
Back in January of 2024, Wizards of the Coast stated that limited-run Secret Lair drops would be pre-printed. This allowed for the fastest shipping possible, as Wizards could ship orders as soon as they were made. Miraculously, this system actually worked rather well, as some Secret Lair drops were delivered in days, rather than months.
Now, from the weird wording of Wizards of the Coast’s statement, it seems this system has changed. If Secret Lair drops that have already been sold are being delayed, then clearly they’re not pre-printed and ready to go anymore. Alternatively, Wizards’ announcement is referring to future Secret Lair drops, like the MTG x PlayStation Superdrop, but that isn’t made clear.
Whatever the case, pre-printing should have allowed time to solve this issue. If a Secret Lair drop isn’t ready, it simply shouldn’t be announced, released, and sold. This might seem like a big ask, but it feels like the bare minimum considering all the problems we’ve been putting up with.
Although the limited-run printing model has increased shipping speed, it has caused serious problems elsewhere. Since 2024, Secret Lair drops selling out in a matter of minutes or hours has become the norm. Understandably, this is incredibly frustrating for anyone who can’t queue up for hours on their Monday while at work.
A Better Tomorrow
To make matters worse, Wizards of the Coast has already figured out the solution to the Secret Lair shipping problem. The hybrid shipping model, used for charity drops, offers the best of both worlds with none of the drawbacks. A limited quantity is printed to demand, allowing for speedy shipping, while orders after a point are printed to order at a later date.
Unfortunately, Wizards has yet to adopt this system for every Secret Lair drop so far. Considering it’s been almost two years since the change to the limited-run model, it’s unlikely things will change soon. Thanks to this, we’re stuck with the unusual limited-run pre-printing that might not actually be pre-printed.
Looking ahead, we can sadly only hope that Secret Lair delays like this one become less common in the future. Wizards have already stated they’ve fixed the production problem, so hopefully things are looking good in that regard. Still, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
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