The sales process for Magic’s long-awaited Marvel Secret Lair drops was, unfortunately, a bit of a disaster. Many players struggled to secure orders due to the huge demand. On top of this, an exploit was discovered that allowed people to skip the digital queue, which exacerbated things. In a bit of good news for those planning to buy Secret Lair products in the future, it appears this queue skip bug has now been fixed. Because the timing lines up with the underwhelming 20 Ways to Win drop, however, many players are less than thrilled.
The Secret Lair Queue Skip Bug
Now some of you may be wondering “What Secret Lair queue skip bug?” right about now. That’s perfectly understandable as if you’re not wired into the comings and goings of each new drop, you may have missed it. It’s an interesting issue to delve into, even now that it’s been fixed.
Basically, this bug allowed players to bypass the usual queue system you enter once you’ve chosen the Secret Lair products you want to purchase. Instead of waiting up to four hours and potentially losing out on your purchase, they could skip right to checkout and lock yours in right away.
Players reported multiple ways to accomplish this. Some involved pasting a link to the checkout page into your search bar, and some involved deliberately stopping the page from loading as it transitioned from checkout to queue. There were also time-based approaches, where you could log in early and complete checkout before most players had access.
This Reddit thread by imatt3690 explains the technical side of the problem well. Basically, it all comes down to the system Wizards uses, and its approach to server interactions. A lot of the important processes in a Secret Lair sale were handled client-side, which made everything vulnerable to interruptions and exploits.
As of this week’s 20 Ways to Win Secret Lair drop, it appears this issue has been fixed. Yesterday imatt3690 posted a follow-up noting that Wizards has introduced validation systems that prevent the previous exploits from working. They also noticed a reduction in queue times as well, which has long been a problem with Secret Lair sales. Of course, as many cynical players pointed out, this could also be down to the low popularity of this new drop.
A Bittersweet Reaction
At the time of writing, the 20 Ways to Win Secret Lair deck is still available to order. Given that the Marvel drops sold out in just a few hours, this is a pretty huge difference. Clearly, this drop is much less popular than those that preceded it. For that reason, less technical issues aren’t as much of a revelation as it would be otherwise.
“Well… mostly it’s because all the hype for a ‘Marvel product’ isn’t an issue in this drop, so a lot less ppl/scalpers are trying to get this SLD.”
Montillos
Admittedly, this isn’t a totally fair comparison. The 20 Ways to Win deck costs $149.99, whereas the Marvel drops only cost $29.99, or $39.99 in foil. Those were also tied to a beloved brand and featured exclusive, never-seen-before cards. In comparison, the deck offers what TrickyAudin refers to as “a random assortment of cards.” Honda_slaps took it even further, claiming that the product “genuinely sucks ass.”
“Glad they’ve fixed it. But also, I don’t think there was much risk of this one selling out particularly quickly given it’s very janky.”
Sleeqb7
Because of this perception of the new drop, we’re left in a bit of a strange position. Obviously, it’s great that the Secret Lair queue skip bug has been fixed, but it really would’ve been better if players were able to properly purchase the hyper-popular Marvel drops instead. It’s also hard to tell if there’ll still be problems with popular drops in the future. We’ve had painless Secret Lair experiences for undesirable drops before, and this could just be a repeat of that.
The mixed reaction from the player base is understandable in this context. Players are happy that progress has been made, but still wary of future issues. Despite being a five-year-old product line at this point, Wizards still manages to encounter issues with most Secret Lair sales even now. Hopefully, this bug fix is a step in the right direction, and sales are smoother from here on out. We likely won’t know until next year, of course.
