A new Magic: The Gathering Secret Lair superdrop has arrived, and wow is it BAD. There are some cool art styles here, but the reprint value is the worst I can remember. Was the cancelled Monster Hunter drop even this poor?
To help you decide which Lairs you might want to pick up when the collection releases on April 27, I've analysed each one, and ranked them all by card value.
Obviously, this can only be so helpful. Secret Lair cards fluctuate wildly on the secondary market, and the final market price will depend on both how desirable the cards are, and how popular their treatments are.
Still, we like to see the reprint value at least coming close to the $29.99 price tag that Wizards is charging for these ($39.99 in foils).
And as you'll see, most of these Secret Lairs fall woefully short of the mark…
8. Return to the Mystical Archive
- Duty Beyond Death - $0.35 Nonfoil / $0.40 Foil
- Spell Pierce - $0.30 Nonfoil / $0.40 Foil
- Zombify - $0.30 Nonfoil / $0.30 Foil
- Abrade - $0.25 Nonfoil / $0.25 Foil
- Shared Roots - $1.40 Nonfoil / $2.10 Foil
- Total - $2.60 Nonfoil / $3.45 Foil
This first card collection is seriously disappointing. In case you're not aware, what Wizards has done here is take the art it already commissioned for five of the Japanese Mystical Archive cards and bundled them into an English SL. You can find the same cards with the same art in a collector booster, but if you want them with English rules text, you'll have to shell out for this batch.
But the company didn't pick cards that anyone would actually want. The value here is atrocious; I genuinely am not sure if I've ever seen worse. And what really stings is there were so many good Mystical Archive cards they could have chosen!
Which is why I'm ranking this below even the basic lands lair…
7. Secret Lair x My Little Pony: The Lands of Equestria
- 2x Plains
- 2x Island
- 2x Swamp
- 2x Mountain
- 2x Forest
We don't need a value breakdown on ten lands, and there's not much to say about 'em - they're pretty, I guess?
But it's worth noting that this continues a trend set in February of including two copies of each basic in these land lairs. If this is the new standard, then that's some much-needed progress. Hooray! Now could we maybe stretch it to five?
6. Notebook Genius
- Lier, Disciple of the Drowned - $1.05 Nonfoil / $4.10 Foil
- Bloodghast - $2.05 Nonfoil / $2.35 Foil
- Storm-Kiln Artist - $2.45 Nonfoil / $3.60 Foil
- Anhelo, the Painter - $0.50 Nonfoil / $1.50 Foil
- Total: $6.05 Nonfoil / $11.55 Foil
The art is charming, the text hard to read, but at under $7 card value, I wouldn't recommend this one unless you're especially enamoured with the style.
It seems particularly weird that there are only four cards in this drop. Often when that happens, it's because there's a big ticket item or two in the lair, but as you can see, that definitely isn't the case here.
5. Omens of Chaos
- Abrupt Decay - $1.40 Nonfoil / $2.65 Foil
- Batwing Brune - $6 Nonfoil / $40 Foil
- Chance for Glory - $1.80 Nonfoil / $25 Foil
- Counterflux - $0.55 Nonfoil / $2.55 Foil
- Growth Spiral - $0.30 Nonfoil / $1.40 Foil
Total: $10.05 Nonfoil / $71.60 Foil
Here's one for you Vorthoses (Vorthosi?)! This SL depicts the characters from Seanan McGuire's Omens of Chaos book (check out our interview with the author), and while it'd be sweet to see them depicted as legendary characters, I guess for now we'll have to make do with one spell for each college.
I have to say, I do have a soft spot for this drop. The traditional Magic-y art is very nice, and these cards are all pretty playable, but there's nothing rare or valuable here.
Things get a lot better when we consider the foils, as both Batwing Brune and Chance for Glory haven't been reprinted post-Wilds of Eldraine, when Collector Boosters came in and made foils far less prestigious.
4. The Eyes Have It
- Counterbalance - $5.65 Nonfoil / $21.40 Foil
- Gitaxian Probe - $4.10 Nonfoil / $30 Foil
- Opt - $0.25 Nonfoil / $0.45 Foil
- Otherworldly Gaze - $0.25 Nonfoil / $0.65 Foil
- Baleful Strix - $1.25 Nonfoil / $6.65 Foil
- Total: $11.50 Nonfoil / $59.15 Foil
We could have had Abhorrent Oculus in the eye lair, but instead it's yet another Opt.
I'm used to these spell-heavy blue Secret Lairs being pretty rubbish, value-wise, and while this one is no exception, the Back to School superdrop is just so bad overall that even with a card value of just $11.50, this still comes in at the midpoint.
This is another drop where there's a serious discrepancy between the foil and nonfoil values. That's because Counterbalance is an old, old card with a rarer foil, and Baleful Strix has seen umpteen reprints, but mainly in precon decks.
3. Mahō Gakuin Seishun Hakusho - 魔法学院青春白書
- Rule of Law - $0.55 Nonfoil / $1.50 Foil
- Thought Scour - $0.45 Nonfoil / $0.55 Foil
- Time Stretch - $3.30 Nonfoil / $4 Foil
- Stinging Study - $7.65 Nonfoil / First Foil
- Notion Thief - $1.65 Nonfoil / $7 Foil
- Total: $13.60 Nonfoil / $20.70 Foil*
WotC has brought in Japanese artists from manga and other TCGs to create some of the most faithful anime-inspired cards Magic has ever printed. Seriously, these look like stills from a non-existent slice-of-life Strixhaven show.
It's good art, and the cards are at least playable (stax players can pick up Rule of Law and Notion Thief) but once again, it's not a good drop from a monetary perspective, with only Stinging Study worth more than five bucks.
*I've added the nonfoil price for Stinging Study to the foil total, which I admit doesn't make much sense. This seems slightly more sensible to me than just leaving it off and making the foil version seem worse than it is.
2. Secret Lair x Dwarf Fortress: Create New World
Secret Rendezvous - $0.30 Nonfoil / $0.40 Foil
Rune-Scarred Demon - $0.65 Nonfoil / $1.40 Foil
Terror of the Peaks - $30 Nonfoil / $33 Foil
Communal Brewing - $0.50 Nonfoil / First Foil
Rogue's Passage - $0.40 Nonfoil / $1.45 Foil
Total: $31.85 Nonfoil / $36.75 Foil*
This looked like yet another dismal drop until I spotted Terror of the Peak amidst the dross. Can't believe I didn't recognize it from the art! I anticipate this collection being… polarizing to say the least.
If you played enough ASCII games like Dwarf Fortress or Cataclysm DDA you might actually be able to see the beautiful scenes these squiggly shapes are meant to represent. For the rest of you, I imagine you'd quite like your cards to have some actual pictures.
At any rate, the premium dragon card Terror of the Peaks makes this the first lair of the bunch that's clearly worth the price of admission - if you can get behind this rather niche theme.
1. Secret Lair x My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Generous Gift - $1.05 Nonfoil / $1.50 Foil
Reconnaissance Mission - $5.80 Nonfoil / $6.05 Foil
Radiate - $5.30 Nonfoil / $34 Foil
Defense of the Heart - $23 Nonfoil / $43 Foil
Arcane Signet - $0.50 Nonfoil / $2 Foil
Sol Ring - $1.55 Nonfoil / $1.90 Foil
Total: $37.20 Nonfoil / $88.45 Foil
Not the first My Little Pony cards, but the first that aren't silver-bordered, Friendship is Magic is the clear winner of the superdrop. The value mostly comes from Defense of the Heart, a powerful-but-slow creature-cheating tutor that can end a game if no one deals with it swiftly.
Radiate is also worth mentioning. Since this card hasn't had a reprint since its release in 2002, foils are super hard to come by.
On top of that, I should say that the Secret Lair versions of affordable commander staples tend to do well on the secondary market if the treatment is popular. Take Arcane Signet, for instance. A cheap card with a million reprints, but various SL copies range from $9.50 to $50. People are sometimes willing to pay more for nice exclusive versions of those ubiquitous cards that go into any EDH deck.
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