This morning Wizards of the Coast put a new Magic: The Gathering product up for sale with an unexpected twist. The “Prints Charming” Secret Lair drop contains four reprinted cards with pretty excellent new art – but rather than simply telling us how much it costs, it was given five different non-foil store listings and five more for the foil version, each with a different price ranging from $10 all the way up to $50. The product description on all of them is careful to point out the following: “The only difference between listings is the price. Higher-priced listings do not include anything extra.”
This, by my estimation as someone who has been playing Magic since the 90s and literally wrote the announcement for the very first Secret Lair, is pretty lame. Taken graciously, it’s a goofy marketing stunt meant to do something silly and get folk talking about it, but it nevertheless leaves those who arrived too late with a very sour taste in their mouth. A more pessimistic reading would be that WOTC is price testing what people are willing to pay for a Secret Lair drop in broad daylight, shedding even the thinnest veneer that may be hiding the capitalist hunger a lawsuit recently alleged is designed specifically to hide shortfalls in other parts of Hasbro’s business.
The reaction amongst the Magic community has been muddled. Some were confused. Some very generously assumed the higher price points were to bait automated scalper bots into spending more while real people could snag a more affordable version – an argument that doesn’t exactly hold water when you consider that they could just make them all cheaper if that was the desire. And some were just angry, either because the cheapest versions sold out so fast, or because they similarly see this as bold-faced market research in cardboard form.
I actually really love the idea of Wizards of the Coast’s Secret Lair line overall. Directly selling small drops of thematically linked cards with cool and unique art treatments is quite fun, and often comes at little-to-no cost for those who just want to ignore it. Being able to give Kratos or Aloy their own cards without the production lift a larger product would require is a neat tool in WOTC’s toolbelt. The “Chaos Vault” moniker this latest one was released under intentionally pushes the envelope even further with weird, off-schedule ideas and one-offs that are explicitly meant to experiment. I dig that!
But that does not mean Secret Lair is free from criticism. Most pressing here, folk (myself included) were already displeased by WOTC’s 2024 decision to move these drops from a “print to demand” model to one with limited and undisclosed quantities. The former system meant anyone who wanted a certain drop could get it within a specific timeframe, while the latter has historically meant you need to get in line right when a popular drop arrives in order to have a chance at purchasing it – something you can’t do if you, say, have work or school at the same time.
So, given there is already anxiety around the availability of Secret Lairs, one that got almost no pre-promotion offering an early bird discount (alongside the option to pay WOTC more money) is understandably frustrating. It’s the sort of thing that independent creators admittedly do with their products from time to time without drawing any ire, rewarding their most dedicated fans while also providing a way to support them even further for those who want to. But for a multibillion-dollar corporation to do it is not endearing in the same way – it comes across more like profit analysis wearing a sign around its neck that reads “it’s just a prank, bro.”
Much to my dismay, both the lowest and highest priced versions of Prints Charming sold out the quickest, either lending some credence to the “ha ha stupid bots” theory or offering evidence that “speaking with your wallet” is and will always be a doomed suggestion. The standard Secret Lair pricing of $30 for non-foil and $40 for foil lasted much longer than the others, so it seems likely the “stock” for those versions was intentionally the largest of all the options. But even if that does make this one big stunt, or even a cute way to subsidize a few discounted drops through folk who are willing to spend a little more, the ultimate result is still that a majority of players feel like they are the ones left holding the proverbial bag.
I don’t know, maybe I am yelling at the clouds. The card-selling company is experimenting with how much money it can sell its cards for. This should not be a shock, nor am I surprised to see Prints Charming sell out within hours (the art is really excellent, even if its total reprint value of around $5 is not). But the quiet part is being said louder than usual here. The teacher has handed us a test, and I fear what the results will be. The theme of this drop is cards that speed up your green resource production, and if that’s not as on the nose as naming your giant evil space station the Death Star, I don’t know what is.
Tom Marks is IGN’s Associate Reviews Director and local MTG Cube obssessive. He loves puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and lots more.
