Update: Several hours after this article was published, the artist posted a second message via his Instagram Story clarifying that he wasn’t actually encouraging Magic: The Gathering players to bootleg the deck. Instead, he encouraged frustrated fans to wait until the price on the second-hand market drops rather than pay a five-times markup for the Goblin Storm deck. Our original article continues below.
Magic: The Gathering is an amazing game with its good share of controversies, but few have been as prominent in recent years as the Secret Lair issue. Initially conceived as a cool product for collectors, Secret Lair drops quickly became the target for scalpers taking advantage of the scarcity of the product, leaving most fans without the chance of buying one — even if one of those fans is the artist behind the Secret Lair drop.
Dakota Cates, aka Wizard of Barge, is the popular artist behind Magic‘s latest Secret Lair Commander Deck drop, Goblin Storm. The product immediately caught the eye of players and collectors both, because of the great value of the cards packed in and the amazing art that Cates is known for. Predictably, the Secret Lair was sold out within minutes of being online. Shortly after, the product was on sale on eBay and other platforms for exorbitant prices. Unfortunately, it’s a common pattern for Secret Lair drops, but this time the artist himself chimed in on the situation.
In a post on the r/MTG subreddit, Cates shared his disappointment with how the drop was handled. He tried to buy a Secret Lair because, believe it or not, Wizards only sent him one, and it sold out while it was in his cart. Cates then revealed how much this product meant to him as a way to get more people, especially his fans, into Magic. “We promoted the deck around me as the artist,” Cates wrote, “and I did everything they’d let me to prioritize my fan base, many of which were planning to get into Magic via this deck.” The artist contacted Wizards of the Coast to ask to put more copies into circulation, but he’s well aware that the plea will fall on deaf ears.
Earlier this year, Secret Lair senior director Lindsey Bartell confirmed that there are no plans for Secret Lair to return to a print-to-demand policy. Bartell mentioned both printing and stocking issues and players’ frustration over the long waiting time to get the product as a reason, but considering the massive backlash from the community every time a Secret Lair sells out, it’s hard to imagine that players wouldn’t advocate for a return to the earlier policy.
The current state of affairs seems to benefit only scalpers who hoard the rare products to resell them at much higher prices. Cates also shared another post on this subject on Instagram (shared on X by user @azanlodi), inviting people to “bootleg the entire deck rather than pay these scalper prices.” He ended with a cry of “Goblins are for the people!” Considering that this Secret Lair is being resold at prices as high as $750, it’s hard to disagree.
Reactions under the MTG Secret Lair X account post are also pretty vocal, with plenty of swearing, cursing, and pointing pitchforks at Wizards. Hopeful buyers of the product are reporting all sorts of issues, mostly concerning the inefficiency of the pre-queue system and being unable to buy the drop despite putting it in their cart, just as it happened with Cates.
If the past is any indication, it’s unlikely that Wizards of the Coast will take any measures to prevent this from happening in the future. Perhaps the artist being vocal about it will encourage the company to consider a different approach, so bravo to Cates for that. Long live the goblin revolution.