Last updated on September 3, 2026
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth | Illustration by MSCHF
If you tried to get your hands on the new Zeta Secret Lair, you may have been stopped dead in your tracks by technical issues despite queuing, leading to you being unable to get your hands on the set. This is something that's happened for high demand secret lairs before, but this time it was so bad that Wizards of the Coast had to issue an apology.
Apology Statement
Wizards of the Coast put out a statement yesterday stating the following:
“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.”
Self admission of culpability is one thing, but calling it a disaster themselves really illustrates how terrible this sale really was. They go on to say this:
“We are in the process of investigating exactly what went so very wrong and will share more as soon as we're able to untangle the mess and understand the root cause—be it an internal systems issue or external tampering.”
This is also very telling, as it's clear that Wizards of the Coast doesn't understand what went wrong. Normally with these things, it's a simple matter of too many people on the site, or too many scalpers getting their hands on the product first. Not a desirable outcome for the end consumer, but technically not a failure on Wizards of the Coast's end of things. This is different, as it seems like there were real issues with the site preventing people from successfully ordering the product that would otherwise be able to.
And again, this issue is still not solved. The apology message ends as follows:
“We're continuing to investigate what happened today and it may take a little while to fully get our heads around it. For everyone who participated in what can only be described as a frustrating and disappointing experience, whether you made it through the queue or not, we are going to try and make this right. Once we have a better sense of orders that actually got through, failed orders that we can track, and everything in between, we'll come back and share as much as we can.”
source: magic.wizards.com
I suppose we should all be on the look out for another announcement, but this is not a good look for Wizards of the Coast, and I don't imagine that MSCHF, their collaborator on this set, is happy with this result either.
Scalping
The effect of this is a temporarily reduced supply since only a fraction of the orders seemed to have been received, and thus the price on the secondary market will be inflated for the time being. However, this brings into focus the other unmentioned issue with this secret lair drop, as it's an issue with every secret lair: Scalpers.
The way this set is structured is a little unorthodox for a secret lair, having random cards in 7-card packs. Some have pointed out that scalpers are selling these packs by the dozen online, asking for upwards of $625 USD, which is an absolutely ludicrous mark up, but I suppose that's the point. Because of the way these products are printed and released, they're perfect targets to be exploited by scalpers for resale, and it doesn't seem like this issue is going to be addressed by Wizards of the Coast any time soon.
Wrap Up
Feather, the Redeemed | Illustration by Yuko Shimizu
Hopefully Wizards of the Coast learns from this debacle. They are capable of more organized releases that can get products directly to consumers rather than forcing people to go through scalpers. The recent Hatsune Miku secret lair used a 24-hour order window, in which any orders in that time would be printed to demand, meaning everyone who wanted the product and ordered in that window got it. This seems to be a system that works, and hopefully future secret lair products will follow something closer to this model, rather than the first come first served free-for-alls we've gotten so far.
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7 Comments
I got put in a paused state saying technical issues. I used the link on the page to browse and it suddenly said sold out. Yet I was still on hold!!! When it finally started my basket was empty. This happened to me before with the monty python set. Furious
I worked 16 hours the night before, and was going in for 12 hours that day. Stayed up just to order. Sat for 32 minutes in the queue, an hour and a half on hold, then 2 minutes to order, and…sold out. Pretty shit use of my morning.
I’m one of the many frustrated players, with terrible user xp. The secret lair site was pretty much a blank page for the longest part of the day (I’m in France) with no info on it.
I signed up (with my email address) to get information on when the secret lair would drop, never got anything.
And then the whole debacle, you think manages to order some boosters, then you wait 2 hours to learn that no you didn’t get any.
How can such a popular secret lair have been handled so poorly. Why so little stock? Like your article says, that only favors scalpers. The Miku secret lair with a time window is definitely the way to go…
Wizards does not care and won’t do anything to make it right want to know why??? Cause they got paid!! This isn’t the first time a disaster has happened and guess what…… they did it again!! I was inline the sec it turned with an item in the cart and stayed on the whole time over an hr and a half only to be told sold out!! Bleep you secret lair I’m done!!! To hell with your apology.
yeah, its a solved problem. just open up an order window, let me put in for the packs, and get it to me whenever. these cards are cool but not “the price of new car parts” cool.
Yes, this was the worst experience yet I’ve had trying to get in on a SL. I enjoy playing with the cards! Period! I’m not in it for the cardboard stock market. I enjoy supporting the artists and unique printings available in SLs. I thought I’d give it a try on this one, with low expectations of course as the last several SLs I tried, I didn’t get, including DanDan. Oh well. I get on the computer, wait a million years…(or it feels like it)…and get….NOTHING! Then only to see the cards on secondary markets for major $$$. This time I got on, got put in line eventually, only to get the pause message, then a 404 screen! I tried again, to get put in line again….saw another pause message that lasted literally 2 1/2 hours before it changed and updated (I thought it broke all together but left it up). I then finally saw my time tick down after another 1+ wait…then proceed to the checkout screen but instead got another 404 screen of death. wow. No words. I should have taken screen shots or kept a record…but I just said **it. I’m over it. whatever woc…you guys only seem to care about putting out the fomo for scalpers and those with tons of money and don’t care about those who just want to play the game and enjoy the art. It’s frustrating to show up for commander night to find myself in a pod across from “that player” that has their deck filled out with every impossible to get card, SL, shiny chase card, etc. that I can’t afford or get for a bizilion bucks on ebay. I just want to play, but end up in a cycle of playing power struggle against “those” pretty decks built by the owner with deep pockets to go get the stuff you woc have made impossible to get for the regular person. This is making people quit the game and the love/spirit all together. Phew….rant done.
I waited over three hours after getting my 4 packs added to my cart and when I finally got through the line wait my cart was empty. I put my order in at 9 and after 12 nothing for my time. Frustrating
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