Magic: The Gathering's original way of selling Secret Lairs in a 'print-to-demand' model was "untenable from a business standpoint" says the TCG's lead designer Mark Rosewater, in a recent Blogatog blog post. Not only that, it apparently led to a lot of leftover product getting destroyed.
This was revealed on May 13 in response to a question from a fan, asking about the justification for the change in sales models. Though for several years, Secret Lairs have only been available in limited numbers, with stock for the most popular card batches often selling out just hours after release, this wasn't always the case. Originally, these products were 'printed to demand', which meant anyone who placed an order within the sales window would be guaranteed a copy.
The switch from print to demand to a limited print run model in 2024 was accompanied by an article explaining how this would speed up shipping: "Drops will be pre-printed and therefore able to ship out and reach you more quickly once you've placed your order".
But, as this fan pointed out, "a decent number of recent Secret Lairs have had their distribution delayed due to "production issues", which implies that they're no longer being printed in advance of sale."
In his reply, Rosewater revealed that 'print to demand' was actually a misnomer for all but the first six months of the SL experiment.
Apparently, instead of getting the cards printed after the orders came in, most of the time Wizards was just printing "way more than we needed to guarantee we had enough to mail out".
He adds that WotC now reserves printing time a year in advance, suggesting that a true 'print to demand' model would require an incredibly long wait.
This also meant a lot of spare, unordered cards got tossed out. "That resulted in us destroying a lot of product," Mark says. Seems odd that they'd choose to destroy the cards rather than just put them back up for sale on the website, but I'm not Mr Hasbro McBusiness, so what do I know?
For more MTG news and discussion check out the Wargamer Discord.