Yesterday, Wizards of the Coast had one of the worst Secret Lair product launches in the brand’s history. Thanks to technical issues, this sale was delayed for around 90 minutes, while the purchasable supply only lasted 40 minutes. Unsurprisingly, this caused tons of MTG players to miss out on buying The Zeta Set, causing immense frustration online.
As much as Secret Lair drops quickly selling out aren’t anything new, the delays made this Chaos Vault drop uniquely terrible. Things were so bad, in fact, that Wizards of the Coast has now officially apologized for how bad it went. While this is definitely a step in the right direction, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that this apology will actually solve anything…
A Sorry State of Affairs
“For everyone that showed up for today’s Chaos Vault sale of The Zeta Set—it was a disaster. There’s no other way to say it. We’re incredibly sorry for the experience, and we’re trying to get to the bottom of it.”
Wizards of the Coast
Continuing the trend of Wizards being more transparent about Secret Lair, this formal apology is a welcome sight to see. Realistically, though, it changes absolutely nothing about the truly awful sale, and there’s little hope for the future. At best, there’s a brief mention that Wizards “are going to try and make this right,” but it’s unclear what that really means.
For now, all we really know is that Wizards will be going back over the sale to figure out what actually happened. Hopefully, this will lead to improvements in the future, at the very least, especially since Wizards seems keen to report their findings once possible. Technically, this is good news, especially if sales are better going forward, but the fact this happened at all is outrageous.
Realistically, this is hardly the first time that a Secret Lair drop has been in high demand. Ever since the switch to limited-run printing, we’ve had drops, even entire Superdrops, selling out in under an hour. With this in mind, you’d really hope that Wizards is better about handling this kind of thing, not to mention being better at predicting demand.
Since this is frustratingly nothing new, on social media, MTG players weren’t exactly receptive to this apology. Many felt like this was just Wizards trying to save face ahead of the Masters of the Universe Superdrop, while others were just tired.
Ultimately, all we can really do for now is wait until Wizards comes back and reports their findings in another update. Hopefully, when this does happen, there will be some kind of genuine solution, like a print-to-demand redo of the sale. Sadly, as much as this might feel like the right thing to do, I wouldn’t expect anything until an announcement happens.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew, and our MTG Rocks Podcast!