What is Magic: The Gathering’s Secret Lair

While Secret Lairs are relatively new to Magic’s illustrious 30-year history, they’ve already established themselves as a firm favourite among players and a fantastic celebration of the game. As Blake Rasmussen, Communications Director at Wizards of the Coast, puts it:

“Secret Lair is a Magic: The Gathering brand unlike anything in the history of the game. It’s a love letter for Magic fans, with eye-popping designs and never-before-seen art styles.”

Each MTG Secret Lair puts a new, stunning, and often even surprising artistic spin on well-loved cards, and sometimes on new ones too. If you love striking, limited-edition versions of iconic cards, then Secret Lairs are perfect for you, whether it’s to style out a deck or cube, or simply collect.

They represent Wizards of the Coast’s first large-scale venture into selling single cards directly to customers – skipping the traditional distribution channels of local games stores and other retailers, although often you can find the cards there too once each sale has ended.

How do Secret Lairs work?

Each Secret Lair features around 3-6 cards, usually reprints, with new art around a theme that unites all the cards within it, such as sharing a creature type, or with artwork painted by the same artist. New ‘drops’ go live through the year, often as ‘superdrops’ where multiple Secret Lairs are released at the same time, available in foil and non-foil, and as a bundle if you want them all for a discount. The drops also come with digital redemptions for Magic Online and MTG Arena, with some combination of digital copies of the cards, avatars, and/or card sleeves.

Every MTG Secret Lair is available for a limited time only (the current Winter Superdrop 2023 will be open for about two months), and once the sale is over, they’re gone for good! That said, many can be found for sale via retailers after the sale, either complete or as singles. Fortunately, while the drop is still live, there is no danger of it selling out – the vast majority of Secret Lairs are print-to-order, so if you want one, you’ll get it. It’s worth noting that you won’t get the cards immediately though, as each purchase is print to order, it can be weeks or even months from the end of the sale for it to arrive.

Secret Lairs typically cost £29.99 for non-foil and £39.99 for foil. They can often also include bonus cards, which in the past has included the stained-glass artwork of the War of the Spark planeswalkers or the super-rare horizontally mirrored Viscera Seer. Since the first drops, Wizards has thankfully reduced the amount of packaging the Secret Lairs are shipped in, reducing the amount of plastic by around 91%.

Notable Secret Lairs

Secret Lairs have taken many forms – some with several cards, some with just one, others focus on the artist, and there’s even been a whole deck! Here are some of note:

Bitterblossom Dreams

“Faeries emerge from a field of flowers, elegant and breath-taking. You are not the first to be enchanted by their beauty—nor are you the last they usher to an early grave.”

Once one of the most feared cards of all time, and today a favourite among Commander and Cube players, Bitterblossom has cemented itself in Magic’s competitive and casual history. While nothing can top the original dreamy art by Rebecca Guay, this full art version by Lena Richards comes close. The drop came with just one copy of Bitterblossom, but with four unique faerie tokens that form a full art panorama.

Eldraine Wonderland

“Snow falls softly on the enchanting plane of Eldraine. Blanketed in white, this world of tales and adventure feels just a little more magical than before.”

While I’m not the biggest fan of how Secret Lairs currently handle the sale of basic lands-based drops (what are you meant to do with just one copy per basic land type?!), these Eldraine snow-covered lands are stunning, making the fairy tale inspired plane even more enchanting. Take a look at that forest. I only wish they would give you more than just one of every basic – Wizards, please?

International Women’s Day 2020

Magic the Gathering Secret Lair products occasionally support important causes, with a proportion of sales going towards a relevant charity or organisation. In the case of the 2020 International Women’s Day drop, Wizards of the Coast donated $25 to the World Association of Girl Guides And Girl Scouts. The cards themselves are stunning – full and alternate art of five of the most powerful women in the game: Captain Sisay, Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Narset, Enlightened Master, Oona, Queen of the Fae and Saskia the Unyielding.

Artist Series: Mark Poole

In my opinion, the Art Series of the Secret Lair MTG product is one of the best recurring themes, exploring new and classic art from iconic artists from Magic’s past, as well as those from other franchises (honorary mention goes to the Special Guest: Yoji Shinkawa drop, bringing the artist behind the iconic Metal Gear Solid illustrations to MTG). Mark Poole’s art series is one of my favourites; featuring his truly iconic original paintings for Birds of Paradise, Counterspell and Howling Mine in the new border, and creating new pieces for the equally famous cards Brainstorm, Balance, and Wasteland (the last of which depicts the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, which itself was a Mark Poole work from Arabian Nights!).

Phyrexian Praetors: Compleat Edition

Purely from a value perspective, some Secret Lairs are no-brainer purchases, arguably none more than the Phyrexian Praetors: Compleat Edition. I remember when the Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite Judge Foil, written in Phyrexian, was one of the most highly sought-after cards in the game, and carried a price to match. Then, this Secret Lair came along with not only Elesh Norn in Phyrexian, but also the other four original printings of the Praetors in the villainous language too! An incredible drop featuring five of the meanest creatures in the game… but you may need Scryfall open to help you decipher them!

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose makes the list as the very first (and currently only) entire Commander deck released as a Secret Lair MTG product. Filled with foils and 10 new pieces of art across five ‘reversible’ cards, it’s based on Senior Magic Designer Gavin Verhey’s own EDH deck, led by Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom and Okaun, Eye of Chaos, with a chaotic coin-flip theme. Hopefully there will be more of these in the future, fingers crossed for a Brian Kibler’s Dragonmaster Commander Deck!

How to buy Secret Lairs

Each Magic the Gathering Secret Lair is only initially available directly from Wizards of the Coast via their Secret Lair site. After the sale ends, the Secret Lairs, and the singles within them, can often be found via local games stores and retailers. On occasion, some are made available in stores as part of WPN (Wizard Play Network) exclusives, while others have been released via other partners, such as Beadle & Grimm’s ‘Here Be Dragons’.

Universes Beyond Secret Lairs

Secret Lairs allows Magic: The Gathering to venture into spaces it never usually would, including outside of the MTG universe and into other franchises. What began with The Walking Dead Secret Lair now also includes franchises as varied as Street Fighter, Stranger Things, Godzilla, Transformers, Warhammer 40K and Arcane. Despite featuring non-magic characters, they are still Magic cards, but with a distinct card frame and a triangular holofoil stamp that indicates they’re not Magic canon.

Cards in universes beyond are typically reprints of existing Magic cards, but with new artwork and flavour. However, the controversy around Secret Lairs has been regarding new and mechanically unique cards that are only available via the Secret Lair and legal in Eternal Formats. The danger is, if one of these cards turns out to be strong, then there’s a squeeze on how many copies of it are available, given that it can only be bought in a limited edition product. Other players don’t like the idea of having to put Rick from the Walking Dead in their humans deck without the option for a Magic-canon equivalent.

To fix the issue, Wizards has announced that it will also print MTG canon versions of the mechanically unique Universes Beyond cards, typically around six months after their release, via ‘The List’ in Set Boosters. Both the canon and non-canon versions are the same card, meaning you can only play four copies in your deck (not eight) in most constructed formats, or just one in Commander. Contact us for all of your Magic: The Gathering Needs.