Five Classified sets reached Target shelves before their own pre-orders shipped

For most of this year the way to get a new Classified Series release has been to catch the pre-order window, and if you missed it, to wait for a restock that might not come. This autumn’s wave has not gone that way. Toy Habits reported on 4 October that five of the new releases are in stock at Target for both shipping and store pickup: Malcom “Deep Six” Willoughby, the Action Joe Avalanche Response set, Dusty and Coyote Sandstorm, the Ninja Force Snake Eyes and Jinx two-pack, and the Trubble Bubble two-pack.

We read all five Target listings this morning. The prices are $42.99 for Deep Six, $42.99 for Avalanche Response, $51.99 for Dusty and Sandstorm, $59.99 for Ninja Force and $109.99 for Trubble Bubble [1]. The stock states are Toy Habits’ report rather than ours, with one exception. We read the Trubble Bubble page in full on Sunday, and it quoted shipping arriving by Wednesday 7 October, offered store pickup as ready within two hours at a nearby store, and carried Target’s own “100+ bought in last month” badge.

Two of these are sets we have already covered as hard to get. The Ninja Force two-pack went live at Target and on Hasbro Pulse at $59.99 in September, and when we checked back on 27 September both of those pre-orders had sold out, with Target showing pickup and shipping unavailable. The Trubble Bubble set we covered on 24 September at $109.99, and on 29 September we recorded that its Amazon release day had arrived with no live offer on the listing at all. Target’s Ninja Force listing now carries a street date of 4 October.

For most of this wave, the pre-order was the worse way to buy. Say that carefully, because there are Classified releases where the window really is the only shot, and the HasLab tier is one of them. But BigBadToyStore this morning still lists three of these sets as pre-orders, at the same prices Target is charging today: Deep Six at $42.99 estimated for October, Dusty and Sandstorm at $51.99 for October, and the Trubble Bubble set at $109.99 for November. The Add to Cart control is live on all three, so none of those pre-orders has fallen over. The retail stock has got there first.

Deep Six is the reason to look

Classified Series Deep Six in a sealed deep-sea diving suit with a yellow helmet and clear dome, walking an underwater sea floor with a gold trident in one hand

Deep Six is the one here collectors have been asking about longest, and the figure makes a decent case for the wait. BigBadToyStore’s listing sets him at the deluxe tier rather than as a standard single, and you can see where that goes. The helmet is a yellow shell with a clear dome over a head you can actually see, corrugated hoses run from the collar down through both shoulders, and the armour alternates white and grey panels with yellow chevrons across the chest! The gold trident is in the box, and so is a harpoon launcher, an alternate head and a sculpted skull.

At $42.99 he is level with the Avalanche Response set as the cheapest way in, and Avalanche Response is the one of the five that is not a pre-order anywhere. BigBadToyStore has the Action Joe cold-weather release in stock at $42.99 with Add to Cart live, read this morning, which makes it the only one of the five you can have from either shop without waiting on a ship estimate.

Dusty brings the coyote

Classified Series Dusty in desert camo standing beside Sandstorm the coyote in a canyon diorama

Dusty and Sandstorm at $51.99 is this season’s figure-and-animal release, and Sandstorm is a full sculpt rather than a token: four legs, articulation at the shoulders and hips, and a sand and grey coat beside Dusty’s desert camo. Dusty himself comes with the beret and the scarf, and a coiled rope sculpted across the front of the vest.

The expensive one buys two vehicles

The G.I. Joe Varmint ATV with Snake Eyes riding it, and the Cobra Stealth Flight Pod with its red canopy and the Stealth Viper seated inside, both on a white background

At $109.99 the Snake Eyes and Varmint ATV versus Stealth Viper and Cobra Stealth Flight Pod set is the one to weigh up. It is two figures and two vehicles, and most of what makes it unusual sits on the Cobra side. The Flight Pod is a one-seat flyer with a red canopy over a boxy rear assembly, a forward cannon and side-mounted missiles. The Varmint ATV is a good quad bike and it is still a quad bike.

Snake Eyes comes in grey and olive drab with a green visor, not the all-black version most shelves already carry, and he is the second Snake Eyes in this group alongside the Ninja Force release.

None of this makes the next pre-order window safe to skip. But when a Classified set sells out on the day it opens, the shelf is now worth checking before the aftermarket is.

[1] Prices read on Target’s own product listings on 5 October 2026. Retail prices move without notice; the figure on the page at the time of reading is the one that counts.

Sources

Product photography: Hasbro, via the BigBadToyStore product listings.