The Out Boss Is On Vacation Superdrop is shaping up to be one hell of a release for Secret Lair fans. Not only are we getting two Spongebob Squarepants drops, but there are tons of non-crossover goodies too. Between adorable Dragons and uncanny valley legends, MTG players are in for a real treat.
Thankfully, the newly revealed Tragic Romance Secret Lair drop continues this positive running trend. This new drop may only contain four cards, however, almost all of them are staples in Commander. Most of these reprints are decently valuable too, although admittedly not quite enough to break even. Nevertheless, Tragic Romance is a cohesive Secret Lair drop that’s well worth getting excited about.
Kaalia of the Vast
While Kaalia of the Vast isn’t the best reprint in the Tragic Romance Secret Lair, she’s definitely the best place to start. Originally from Commander 2011, Kaalia has received a fair few reprints over the years, most recently in Modern Horizons 3. While this latest reprint did make them Modern legal, it nevertheless caused a sizable price crash.
At the moment, you can pick up copies of Kaalia of the Vast for around $3 on the secondary market. Considering this Commander staple used to be worth $10-$12, it’s safe to say she’s fallen far. Despite this crash, Kaalia is still a great card and a very popular Commander. According to EDHREC, in fact, Kaalia is the eighth most popular Commander in the past two years.
After just a brief glance at her abilities, it’s little wonder that Kaalia of the Vast is so popular. She’s able to cheat out any Angel, Demon, or Dragon, just by attacking an opponent. Considering that Dragons, Demons, and Magic’s best Angels all tend to be rather expensive, Kaalia is a value powerhouse.
Thanks to being such a popular Commander, there’s a good chance that this version of Kaalia of the Vast will be seriously expensive. While she has had a few Showcase variants before, this is the first time Kaalia is getting a Secret Lair card. If this ends up selling for anywhere near her most expensive variant ($40), players will be in the money.
Beyond just being an interesting reprint, Kaalia also sets up the theme for this drop. Each of the cards in the Tragic Romance Secret Lair is either an Angel, Demon, or Dragon. This means they can all be played together, ideally with Kaalia at the helm.
Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
Now that Kaalia is out of the way, we can get onto the big ticket item. Clocking in at a raw reprint value of $9, Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon is a great card to see. Offering Infect-based damage, evasion, and Regenerate, Skithiryx really puts in work. Unsurprisingly, while they’re not ultra-expensive, Skithiryx is a Dragon to cheat into play with Kaalia.
While Skithiryx is a popular choice for Kaalia decks, it also works wonders in Dragon Typal and Infect-based strategies. This makes them a true staple in Commander, even if they’re not supremely expensive. For better or worse, this price was brought down fairly recently via the Multiverse Legends bonus sheet.
Thanks to being so popular in Commander, there could be a lot of demand for this new Secret Lair Skithiryx. To date, Skithiryx hasn’t really had any special chase variant, outside of the serialized Multiverse Legends card. While there’s no chance we reach that $500 price point, this Tragic Romance Secret Lair could still be expensive. Ultimately, we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens
Master of Cruelties
Dropping down in value, Master of Cruelties is only worth around $3. While this price has been kept low by their reprint in Ravnica Remastered, Master of Cruelties has never been a hugely popular card. That said, they do work well with Kaalia since she gets around Cruelties’ major downside.
Since Master of Cruelties can only attack alone, he’s really not great to just hard cast and run normally in Commander. When cheated out alongside Kaalia, however, he becomes an instant kill. Master of Cruelties sets an opponent’s health to one, and then Kaalia swings in to deal lethal damage. Even if you only get to do this once, it’s a hell of a combo.
While Master of Cruelties does see a surprising amount of Commander play thanks to this synergy, he’s only a staple within certain decks. Since Kaalia is one of those, he’s a perfect fit for the Tragic Romance Secret Lair drop. Potentially, this could lead to this new variant being rather expensive, but we’ll have to wait and see about that.
Angel of Despair
Last, and also least, we have Angel of Despair, who is really just okay. Able to destroy any permanent when entering, Angel of Despair is powerful, but massively limited by their mana cost. If only we had a way to reliably cheat them in for free…
Continuing the cohesive theme of the Tragic Romance Secret Lair, Angel of Despair works wonders alongside Kaalia. Getting to destroy any permanent for basically free is insanely value, even if you only do it once. Once on the field though, Angel of Despair isn’t too terrible, being a well-statted Flying body.
If you want, Angel of Despair does work wonders with flickering, thanks to its ability to remove basically anything. Kaalia decks, however, don’t tend to run many flicker effects, and building around Angel of Despair seems dubious at best. Still, it’s a nice card to be included within this Secret Lair, even if it’s not the most popular Commander card.
Right now, Angel of Despair is the cheapest card in the Tragic Romance Secret Lair by quite some margin. Typically, this card can be bought for around $1, or just under for the List variant. Notably, there is already a chase variant of this card, which is the Store Championships promo. Sadly, even with this promo’s fetching art, it only sells for around $2.
Surprisingly Smutty Staples
Overall, the Tragic Romance Secret Lair drop contains around $16, which really isn’t too impressive. Unless there’s a really spicy guaranteed bonus card, this drop might be a dud in terms of value. Despite this, it seems MTG players are really loving this drop, or at least enjoying the memes.
In case the name, and art, didn’t give it away, it seems Wizards made this drop for all the monster fuckers out there. Why exactly Wizards decided to do this is beyond us, but it certainly seems to be going down well. Whether all the memes will actually turn into sales, however, remains to be seen for now.
Since the Tragic Romance Secret Lair is so cohesive, it’s going to be an amazing purchase for any Kaalia fans. For everyone else, however, you’ll really have to be in the art to consider picking this one up. Due to this, it could take an age to sell out, or it might end up going incredibly quickly. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
The Tragic Romance Secret Lair is scheduled to be released on March 24th at 9 AM PT.