Last updated on March 17, 2026
Dandaฬn | Illustration by Kelogsloops
Wizards of the Coast turned one beloved, player-made Magic format into an official Secret Lair this week, but this recent drop seems to have been a disappointment for MTG fansโฆ and a windfall for scalpers.
Yesterday, the Secret Lair Dandรขn deck launched through the Chaos Vault for $99.99.
Per Wizardsโ own announcement, Dandรขn is a fan-favorite format originally pioneered by Nick Floyd, built around a shared library and one โunforgettableโ blue Fish.
But rather than making it a product like a Commander precon or a Commander's Arsenal, which everybody could have bought in a store, WotC went with Secret Lair with a limited print run that sold out in less than 30 minutes.
And it took even less time than that for the product to be relisted online, for around three times as much.
Dandan Secret Lair Sells Out in Minutesโฆ
Source: Secret Lair
Plenty of Magic players clearly wanted this productโฆ but they did not get much of a chance to buy it. Multiple Reddit threads described the deck as selling out in about 30 minutes, with players in the waiting room reporting that they reached checkout only to get hit with the dreaded sold-out message anyway.
โThe fact that of all things this wasnโt print to order is super disappointing,โ wrote u/Prophet_Tehenhauin, summing up a lot of other comments in what is, by now, a recurring complaint in pretty much every successful Secret Lair. And this is for a product that was getting near universal praise: Wizards was selling a beloved grassroots format, in one self-contained product, with art so good that it was a better โbasic land lairโ than an actual basic land lair.
โฆ And Is Resold For 3x The Price
Then, to add salt to the wound, and as foretold even before the sale startedโฆ
โฆ Dandan quickly resurfacedโฆ at nearly three times the price. WotC's sold it (to lucky players) for $99.99, and now it's listed on several resellers at close to $300:
Source: TCGPlayer
Just a single copy of the titular Dandan (which you need 10 of, for a full Dandan deck!) can cost as much as $250:
Source: TCGPlayer
Scalp Attack
Smothering Tithe โ Illustration by Mark Behm
The Dandan Secret Lair was a product built around a community format that Magic players felt emotionally attached to, and it got shoved through the Secret Lair scarcity grinder.
When a product is this beloved, making it a limited scramble instead of a print-to-order release is always going to feel less like celebration and more like just โFOMO good, profits go up.โ
This was a great opportunity for WotC to make regular players, rather than scalpers, happy.
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10 Comments
Almost like WOTC doesn’t give a sh!t. EVERY SL does this (for the most part…the good ones at least). They have the ability to do better…they just don’t care to.
The donโt give a shxxt anymore, in the beginning magic was a game with out discrimination , now we have an a and b team, those who can afford it and those who can not, which are everything magic is against. Would it not be great if we the players sent WOTC a message and stop buying real cards but insted used proxies and started officials turnements with out WOTC where proxies are ok to play with, so everybody can play nomatter hov many money they have. This would actual be in the spirit that magic was all about back when it started in the 90โ. Maybe just maybe WOTC would do somthing.
Nothing new Wizards doesn’t care, product like the original marvel SL, the one with demonic tutor… Just not possible for nonscalpers amd wizards just doesn’t care. I seriously unloaded most of my stuff and started using proxies. If more people clmplained with their wallets this would not be a problem.
They are a business that is in it to make money not a grassroots group sitting around a campfire singing “Kumbaya!!”. Hasbro doesn’t care if Store X buys 2000 of X Copies of a Secret lair rather then little Danny wanting his Special Fish. Hasbro just cares they sold all X Copies of the Secret Lair. Rosewater basically confirmed this when he told us that Spiderman actually sold very well (They were looking at distributor purchasing not consumer). Just be glad they haven’t gone Ticketmaster and started Dynamic Pricing on this garbage. ๐
Not sure why this is even news….it’s sad that non scalpers will still pay the 3x bottom feeder markup. If you DON’T do this, then the scalpers will lose money and be forced to lower the price. But I know alot of you lack common sense, so GL to you! I for one will NEVER pay a bottom feeder 3x MSRP for anything LOL!
It’s news that we wish wasn’t news, let’s just put it that way.
I wish Wizards would release a product like this and when it sells out turn around and announce that they’re now making a print to order. At least that way scalpers are holding product that they can’t unload for a serious markup.
There are certainly a bunch of ways this can be done differently to get these into the hands of people who really want them.
There was a limit of 2 purchases. Hardly seems to be a scalper issue. Looks like some people bought 2 and are selling 1 to cover their costs. Scalping is not the issue. They just underestimated demand.
Is that not still scalping? Buying the extra for $99 and selling for $200-250?
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