We’ve had an interesting blip in terms of Secret Lair drops and how quickly they sell out. Last week, on Sept. 30th, the Camp Totally Safe superdrop went on sale, and unusually for a lair of this quality, the cards contained within didn’t sell out right away. 

So today I want to look at other drops which didn’t sell out and where their prices are, to determine how worried I should be about the purchases I made, and also see if there’s lessons to be learned for future Lairs.

Interestingly, we had some disruptions in the expected order of what sells out and when. This was the third Hatsune Miku drop, and the first two each sold out in a matter of hours. This one took a week for the English-language foils to sell out. 

Momoko sold out in a day, the Showcase: Duskmourn foils sold out in five days, then EN Foil Miku in six days, and only recently did the EN nonfoils sell out. I felt good about those three Lairs when I wrote about the entire drop on the 27th, but Miku taking a week is the most notable part of all of this. 

So what happened?

There’s a combination of potential factors at work here, and it’s difficult to say from outside Wizards which is strongest. First of all, I imagine it’s been long enough since the first Miku drop happened in May that Wizards has been able to get extra product ready for sale. Every person who buys a Miku lair after it sells out is a buyer that Wizards could have made money from. I would not be surprised to learn that Wizards printed a lot more of this third lair as opposed to the first, and I would expect the last one to be similar in terms of the amount they prepared.

To be clear, I don’t have any data on this, just logical suppositions. They want to sell the maximum amount of cardboard, and lead/production times being what they are, it’s plenty reasonable to think that when the first one sold out so fast, they immediately moved to make sure the later Lairs would have more product for sale. 

I don’t really buy the arguments that this drop is weaker than the other Miku lairs. The first one is just abysmal in terms of card choices and prices, and it still sold out at a ridiculous rate. This set of planeswalkers isn’t as strong as the second drop, which had a Sol Ring and a Collected Company, but this fandom/IP doesn’t require expensive cards to get their collector interest up.

There is a case to be made that we’re getting a bit fatigued on the rate of cards coming out, and that the ‘average’ player doesn’t have money to spend on these. I’m inclined to agree–but I think that the majority of Magic players don’t know about Secret Lair stuff at all, at least not until they see the cards. If you own a local store, or maintain a display case of cards for a store, you should keep Secret Lair cards obvious and visible for all the people who had no idea this was a thing. 

I can believe that there were a few less people able to spend money right now, and combined with the extra supply, meant that Miku took a long time to sell out. Indeed, it’s still available in the Japanese, both foils and nonfoils. 

The two drops that sold out before that, I imagine those were based on estimates of previous Lairs of such types. The semi-abstract nature of Peach Momoko might have turned some people off, but their work on Marvel properties more than made up for it. The Showcase is stocked with value, having the Voidwalker and the Metamorph, in addition to the Cat/Oven combo. I think there’s still value in the nonfoil, especially for tournament copies of Voidwalker and Cat/Oven, but personally, I’m reaching my limit for money I’m putting in. 

(For the record, I’m still on the ‘repackage all four Miku drops into one eBay sale’ plan once the fourth drop reaches us. I haven’t resold any of those cards yet)

One more thing comes to mind: I bought other lairs here that haven’t sold out, and I want to think about the most recent non-sold-out lairs, and do some comparisons. Please keep in mind these are most-recent-first, and none have had more than a few months to gain any value from people opening the product. 

Featuring: Andrew Mclean – $30 – Good cards, good art, just needs time.

Li’l Legends – sold out FIAB – $20! – As the add-on for the Festival in a Box, people are selling this for whatever they can get. It’s bonus money after selling the Mystery Booster box. Plus, these cards are either uninspired individually or they already have some special versions out there.

Showcase Bloomburrow – $40 – Cute, but nothing outstanding. Sorin should eventually pop

Brain dead: creatures – $30

Brain dead: lands – $50

Brain Dead: staples – $40

I’m impressed at the lands, and the rest will get there too. The foiling plus the printed texture really stands out, even when double-sleeved.

Featuring: Julie Bell – $30 – I feel good about this long-term, being such gorgeous art.

Prints of Darkness – $50 – This is going to pop off eventually, just from the cards’ popularity.

Assassin’s Creed: Lethal Legends – $60 – I wasn’t expecting this to do so well so quickly, but Ramses, Assassin Lord has spiked hard since the Assassin’s Creed set came out.

Da Vinci’s Designs – $50 – Super unique look, good cards with no other special versions, I like where this is going.

NOT A WOLF: $50 – Should go up very slowly until the next batch of Werewolves comes out, at which point it will spike most impressively.

Poker Faces – $30 – One of the sets that tells us not to get too abstract.

Goblingram – $30 – Good joke, decent cards, popular tribe, mediocre sales.

Showcase: Outlaws of Thunder Junction – $20 – With a guaranteed Norin, the Wary at $9 retail, the rest of these cards are a steal.

Sinister Scoundrels – $40 

Rebellious Renegades – $40

Both of these are likely to stagnate for a while, though the Elesh Norn has had so very many special versions at this point.

sAnS mErCy – $40 – I’m one of the people that isn’t turned off by the font, but this should have an upward trajectory until some other special version of Torment of Hailfire comes out.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.