In November 2025, two US retirement funds filed an updated version of their ongoing class action lawsuit against Hasbro, alleging that Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks, former Wizards President Cynthia Williams, and Hasbro itself misled investors about the printing strategy for MTG. The suit includes claims made by an anonymous former VP of Wizards of the Coast, which lay the blame for many controversial Magic products squarely at Chris Cocks' feet, alleging that under his direction Hasbro used Magic cards as a "cash cow" and printed increasing numbers of sets "at the risk of harm to the value of the Magic brand".
The acceleration of Magic: The Gathering releases since 2019; the relentless release of Secret Lairs; price hikes on Masters booster packs; reprint sets like Innistrad: Double Feature; even the $999 Magic 30th Anniversary booster packs; this lawsuit claims they're all the result of a strategy that Cocks allegedly promoted, of "parachuting in" rapidly manufactured MTG sets to cover for lower than expected revenues elsewhere in Hasbro.
The 86-page lawsuit alleges that, "Beginning during Defendant Cocks' tenure as Wizards President" in 2016 and up until October 26 2023, "Hasbro printed ever-greater numbers of Magic sets for the purpose of generating short-term cash to make up for revenue shortfalls elsewhere within the Company". The suit's introductory section claims this "was known internally as the 'parachute' strategy" and allegedly involved "releasing specific Magic sets that could be thrown together at low cost and on short timelines for the explicit purpose of compensating for revenue shortfalls in other Hasbro divisions".
The lawsuit includes statements from several anonymous alleged Former Employees (designated as FEs) to support its claims. The main source, FE1, supposedly "served in roles related to Magic research, design, and creative direction from July 2017 to September 2021", before becoming a Wizards VP "until [they] left the Company in July 2025" . In this role, the suit says, they were part of Hasbro's Extended Leadership Team, "met regularly with and reported to [Cynthia] Williams, worked closely with other Hasbro executives including Wizards [Senior Vice President for Magic] Bill Rose and Magic Franchise Leader Ken Troop", and were "regularly briefed on discussions in executive-level meetings and board meetings by Defendant Williams and others".
FE1 alleges that "Wizards created specific Magic SKUs (i.e., sets of cards) that could be quickly manufactured and dropped into the market to make between $40 and $80 million in the event of a revenue shortfall elsewhere within the Company", something FE1 says they remember Bill Rose calling "Project Parachute".
In the early years that FE1 was aware of this practice, they allege "the 'parachute' sets were generally Masters sets", since - as reprint sets - they had "very low production costs, and could therefore be produced easily on compressed production timelines to generate revenue in quarters when the Company needed it". FE1 also claims that, although Masters' sets predated the alleged Project Parachute, "Masters sets produced as Parachute Sets also carried higher price tags".
The lawsuit notes that WotC's rate of releasing reprint sets increased dramatically during Cocks' and Williams' back to back tenures as Wizards President, from June 2016 to April 2024. Before 2016, Wizards had only released two physical Modern Masters sets, with a two year gap in between those releases. After 2016, the suit says Masters sets were printed "at a much faster clip". In 2022, the lawsuit notes that Wizards published both Innistrad: Double Feature and Double Masters 2022, which it describes as "unusually large reprint Masters sets".
According to FE1, the alleged parachuting started before Chris Cocks was CEO. The lawsuit says FE1 recalls "Hasbro's former CEO would tell Defendant Cocks that, for example, Hasbro needed $80 million in additional revenue because something else within the Company had flopped". Cocks, they allege, would then tell "Bill Rose, or FE 1 [themselves], to make new cards to 'parachute' in because the parent Company had messed up again".
FE1 asserts in the suit that "in general, Bill Rose was the conduit for all the orders given to Wizards by [Chris] Cocks regarding putting out more parachute sets of cards in specific quarters." Per the lawsuit, Cocks would allegedly "tell Rose the amount of money he needed dropped into a specific quarter or on a particular timeline, and the leadership of Magic would then have to reverse engineer a product to fulfill that order", something that FE1 described as "roadmap padding".
According to FE1, "after [Chris] Cocks became CEO, the parachute strategy of forcing Magic cards into the pipeline to make up for revenue shortfalls elsewhere was integrated into the wider business plan". They claim in the suit that, "beginning in 2019, but really hitting stride after Cocks became CEO", MTG's limited edition Secret Lair releases became a "standardized way for the company to overprint parachute Magic sets".
2022's Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate was, according to the lawsuit, another parachute set. FE1 claims that "Baldur's Gate was produced on a rushed timeline of about one year - as opposed to the two-year production timeline for most Magic sets - so that it could be released by mid-2022, and therefore move up the cadence of some of the Company's revenue for the year".
The suit supports that claim by referring to another anonymous employee, FE2, who says they were a Wizards Community Manager for Magic from August 2021 through December 2023, and allegedly "[cited] 'Commander Legends' sets like Baldur's Gate as examples of Magic sets full of reprints that could be pumped out on rushed production timelines to generate revenue when it was needed".
In the lawsuit, FE1 also describes the alleged origins of the Magic 30th set, which they assert was another parachute set. "Bill Rose came to the Magic studio in mid-2022 and said that Hasbro was 'putting out the hat' for ideas as to how the Company could generate more revenue in the fourth quarter of 2022," FE1 claims, adding that "The Magic studios were already stretched thin, but Mark Hagan, head of Secret Lair, came up with the idea for a 30th anniversary Magic set".
All told, FE1 alleges that in 2022, "parachute sets accounted for at least eighteen set releases between Masters, Secret Lair, Baldur's Gate, and the Magic 30th Set - approximately 46% of Magic sets released in 2022".
The lawsuit cites another two employees who claim to have been aware of the 'parachute' strategy: FE3, who was allegedly a "Senior Vice President at Hasbro" during the lawsuit's core 'class period' of September 2021 to October 2023, and says they "served in various other roles at the Company through a cumulative tenure of over 20 years"; and FE 5, who the suit says was "Head of Marketing for Italy from February 2021 through July 2024" and had been with the firm since 2013.
The lawsuit in question was brought by West Palm Beach Firefighters' Pension Fund and City of Miami General Employees' & Sanitation Retirement Trust, as a class action fraud lawsuit demanding a jury trial. It was filed in the New York Southern District Court. The next relevant date for the progress of the case is February 9, the deadline for defendants to file any motions to the court to dismiss the case.
Chris Cocks and Cynthia Williams are also named defendants in another current lawsuit against Hasbro, in which two shareholders allege that Cocks, Williams, and other company execs misled investors about MTG's printing strategy between 2021 and 2023. That lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island, actually references this one in its evidence, which is how we found out about it. We'll continue to report on both cases as they develop.
To discuss your favorite, or least favorite, Magic the Gathering releases of the last few years, come and join the Wargamer writing team in our Discord community. For a round-up of the best news on the site each week, make sure you're signed up to our regular newsletter.