At 1:15PM Eastern Time my inbox received an electronic mail titled, “Early Bird Badges ON SALE NOW for MagicCon: Las Vegas!” from the suspect but probably legitimate sender known as magic@magic.wizards.com.
At 1:31PM Eastern Time the official @mtgfestivals.com account on BlueSky published a post with the text, “The Storm has blown away our first batch of badges! Black Lotus VIP Badges are officially SOLD OUT!”
Well that sure was fast.
The badges initially were made available at a price of $900, which included an early bird discount of 10% off the list price of $1,000, which is what the cost of badges will be once the early bird discount ends.
Black Lotus VIP Badges include a lot of perks all listed here:
It’s unknown at this time how many badges were in the first batch, and whether or not there will be a second batch made available during the early bird window. As of the time this is being written, Wizards of the Coast has not yet responded to our inquiry about the availability of future Black Lotus VIP badges for MagicCon: Las Vegas 2025.
Today was also the day that content creators learned whether or not their applications for creator badges for MagicCon: Las Vegas were approved. Around the same time on social media many creators started sharing images of their own official graphic to promote the early bird ticket availability on their social media channels. Some of those were posted ahead of when the queue to purchase passes went live.
Wizards had announced yesterday on social media (but not via email campaign to the same distribution list) that badges would be going on sale today at 10am Pacific time.
Update: At 2:21pm Eastern it was announced that Legendary VIP badges had also sold out. This time without the implication of a “first batch.” This reinforces the FAQ page and the Buy Badges page information that there are no more VIP passes available at all. At this point one has to wonder if any badges will still be available after the early bird window.
We will add more to this story as it develops.
Rich Stein (He/Him) has been playing and collecting card games since he picked up his first couple of Ice Age starter decks in 1995 and has been writing about Magic since 2012.