The 10 Toys Worth Hunting at DesignerCon 2026

LAS VEGAS

DesignerCon does not run a lottery. Seven hundred vendors open their booths at The Expo at World Market Center this weekend, and every exclusive on the floor is first come, first served — which means the show is won or lost before the doors open, by whoever made the better list. This is that list: the ten pieces worth planning a route around when DesignerCon 2026 opens Friday, November 13.

The mechanics are simple and unforgiving. Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. is VIP-only — the first window, and the one where the top of this board will move. VIP badges get in an hour early again on Saturday. Everybody else starts at 10. Prices and edition sizes below are printed only where the makers have published them; where a number has not been published, the entry says so, because a guessed edition size is how a collector overpays a flipper by noon. Previously's DesignerCon preview has the whole show around this list — the Japan-only programs, the badges, the parties.

1. Labubu Vijftien — How2Work

Start where the line will be. Kasing Lung's Labubu is the biggest commercial force designer toys have right now, and the Vijftien is built specifically for this floor: the figure wears the green top and blue pants of Vincent, DesignerCon's own mascot, and holds a pan-fried pork bun like it just came off a cart. A show-exclusive Labubu dressed as the show itself is as close as this convention gets to a guaranteed Friday-night sellout.

The hunt: $250 at Booth 2001 (How2Work). Edition size not published — the show's own advice applies here most of all: ask how many they have.

2. Poker Special — Nervape × ChaosSui

The top of the price board. At $1,500, the Poker Special is the most expensive piece on DesignerCon's official exclusives list — two figures wrapped head to toe in playing-card suits, spades and crowns, which in Las Vegas reads less like a theme and more like a home game. Collaborations at this tier are bought by people who already know the names; Nervape and ChaosSui are counting on exactly that.

The hunt: $1,500 at Booth 2020. Edition size not published, and at this price the edition size is the whole decision — ask before you admire.

3. Inuyasha MIA — Shabon Lee Toy

Anime is the other gravity well on this floor, and Shabon Lee Toy's Inuyasha MIA is its strongest single piece: Inuyasha rebuilt as a round, white-maned desk figure — red robe, prayer beads, cat ears, and a glare that survives the shrinking. The studio has been showing this one from every angle for weeks, which usually means the following is already built before the doors open.

The hunt: $300 at Booth 1804. Edition size not published.

4. El Campeon Colors Edition — Pezcado

The trophy piece. El Campeon is eight inches of boxer with both gloves raised, and the Colors Edition treatment — a red-orange translucent fade in the official art — makes it the one figure on this list that reads from across an aisle. No blind box, no chase math: one champion, one price, and a shelf that looks finished the moment it lands.

The hunt: $255 at Booth TH18. Edition size not published.

5. Imperial Lotus Dragon — Scott Tolleson × Palmstreet

Scott Tolleson created Vincent, the mascot on this year's key art — DesignerCon royalty by any honest accounting, and a past Designer Toy Awards Artist of the Year. His Lotus Dragon, one of his signature vinyl pieces, returns this weekend shrunk into resin as a blind box: eleven colorways, 1,215 boxes in total, and 25 hand-embellished one-of-one pieces hidden inside the run. It is also the rare grail on this list with a second door — Palmstreet sells it at its booth and live on its app during the show.

The hunt: $65 a box, $360 for a case of six, at the Palmstreet booth (Booth 939) and on the Palmstreet app. Edition: 1,215 pieces across 11 colorways, including the 25 one-of-ones.

6. Kid Woeski — Black Book Toy

The Japanese-vinyl pick. Black Book Toy is a Tokyo maker with real street-culture credentials, and Kid Woeski — a panda in a red cap and sneakers, scowling like the booth owes him money — carries that sofubi attitude in a figure you can hold in one hand. If your shelf leans Tokyo, this is the booth you build the route around.

The hunt: $140 at Booth 1717. Edition size not published.

7. From Earth — 5thTurtle × Plastic Pizza

The smallest numbered run on this list, and it is not close. From Earth is 5thTurtle's first blind-box collection — Dreamer and Deadpetal, a skull-faced astronaut and his flower-headed counterpart, travelling the universe introducing themselves. Six regular designs at 100 pieces each makes 600 boxes; sixty more artist one-of-ones, from HotActor, Revise D, Arman Kendrick and TJP, bring the entire run to 660. When a full production run fits in a closet, Friday night is not a suggestion.

The hunt: $65 a box, $360 a case, at the Palmstreet booth and on the app. Edition: 660 pieces total. The figures come apart — magnetic, removable components, glow-in-the-dark details — so the colorway is not the only variable in the box.

8. Tail & Feathers Series 2 — Revise D × Plastic Pizza

The sequel with a receipt. Series 1 of Tail & Feathers debuted at DesignerCon Pasadena in June and built the audience; Series 2 brings Le Raton and Beanie Bird back across ten designs — Hide & Seek, Heart Attack, Dirty Money, Ink'd, Sewer Ooze — at 200 pieces each, with glow-in-the-dark work throughout. Another 200 artist editions, including hand-made one-of-ones and signed pieces, sit on top of the regular run.

The hunt: $65 a box, $360 a case, at the Palmstreet booth and on the app. Edition: 2,200 pieces total — the deepest run of the three Palmstreet boxes, which makes it the one most likely to survive into Saturday.

9. Rebel Bear Alter Ego — ChaoSweet

The debut to root for. ChaoSweet is exhibiting at DesignerCon for the first time, and the Rebel Bear Alter Ego is the piece carrying the introduction — one bear, two faces, the art showing both sides of the flip. At $75 it is also the most accessible exclusive on this board: the piece a new collector can actually buy on a first lap, from the maker, while the maker is standing there.

The hunt: $75 at Booth 1622. Edition size not published.

10. Son of Krawju — Tolzar Toys

Every DesignerCon list needs the small-booth monster, and this is it: a red kaiju-crab vinyl from Tolzar Toys, sculpted dense enough to look carved rather than molded. Pieces like this are the argument for the whole convention — a character that did not exist on your shelf last week, from a maker most of the floor will walk past on their way to the Labubu line.

The hunt: $150 at Booth TG02. Edition size not published.

The rest of the board

Two names sit just off the ranking because the ranking runs on receipts. CarTuned's two convention exclusives — a '59 Chevy Impala lowrider and a '91 Acura NSX wearing number 26 — put die-cast car money on the same floor as the vinyl, and both are confirmed DesignerCon-only sales at the CarTuned booth. But the brand has not published prices or edition sizes, so they get a paragraph instead of a number; ask at the booth, and get there before the lowrider crowd does. The Japan-only headline programs — Ultraman's 60th, the Kamen Rider TOEI ART FES stop, MEDICOM TOY's 30th — are covered in the preview linked above, and Previously's drops guide tracks the wider board. The official exclusives list is still growing into show week; check it again before Friday, and then go stand in the right line.