Magic: The Gathering Is Officially Countering Scalpers With New Crossover

Magic: The Gathering has been on an absolute roll lately when it comes to offering high-quality collaborations, with both the upcoming Universes Beyond sets and Secret Lair drops selling like hotcakes among new players and long-time fans alike. While these collaborative efforts have released some of MTG's coolest Secret Lair cards yet, the limited sale format hasn't been exempt from the massive number of complaints fans have thrown at the concept.

Relying on both limited-time exclusivity and small-scale drops that sell out within days, hours, or even minutes for certain sets, Secret Lairs have become a hot topic of debate within the MTG community. Thankfully, despite a few recent disasters with players unable to get a hold of highly-anticipated releases like the Goblin Storm deck, MTG's latest collaboration effort not only looks absolutely gorgeous, but it also directly addresses the biggest problem with the Secret Lair format.

As announced on the official Wizards of the Coast blog, MTG is receiving yet another crossover with the Vocaloid Hatsune Miku, which is promising to blow the previous offerings out of the water with an entire deck themed after the digital musician that drops on August 10. While the 110-card release has plenty to look forward to in its own right, it's the details surrounding the Secret Lair deck's made-to-order pre-orders that have players more excited than ever.

Rather than the typical limited supply of past Secret Lair collaborations, the Hatsune Miku-themed deck is experimenting with a 24-hour made-to-order period, where any deck purchased between August 10, 9:00 AM PST and August 11, 8:59 AM PST will be fulfilled and delivered, regardless of how many decks are sold.

Although this isn't the first time Secret Lairs hasn't been tied to the standard limited supply we've come to expect, it's still an incredibly rare sight to see, which Universes Beyond collaboration manager Matthew Hodgins himself went on to say is a part of experimentation that is directly in response to a rising number of complaints from fans.

Citing the recent release of the Goblin Storm commander deck, which saw a massive influx of scalpers and delivery problems associated with the limited drop, the Hatsune Miku deck will be the first of many preconstructed Secret Lair decks to incorporate the 24-hour safety window. While WOTC has also pointed out that this change is purely experimental and could be changed in the future, the positive effects of the decision have already been readily apparent.

With scalped early access products losing hundreds of dollars in value, combined with players universally praising the decision for making Secret Lair's finally accessible again, there have even been plenty of requests for rerunning past Secret Lair decks with the same grace period.

Even putting scalpers aside, the specific launch times and short supply often prevent countless more players from buying the set that simply aren't available at the release time. Making matters even more disappointing is how exciting recent Secret Lair sets have been for Magic: The Gathering fans with unique art and crossovers; the experimental change will give players everywhere an even chance of purchasing the premium products for themselves, regardless of their individual schedules.