A ton of new MTG Spider-Man spoilers were revealed yesterday. From famous villains to City Pigeons, there was a lot for fans of Marvel and Magic to be excited about… at least for cards that appear in the main set. Some cards were also revealed that will not appear in the main set, and from a reprint perspective, there’s a lot to be desired.
A Daily Bugle Secret Lair was revealed at PAX West yesterday, offering a series of new reprints redone as Daily Bugle articles. While the flavor is as good as always, the same cannot be said about the reprints themselves.
Daily Bugle Secret Lair
The Daily Bugle MTG Secret Lair offers five new reprints that look like titles to a new edition of the newspaper. Scheming Symmetry is, by far, the most valuable reprint in this Secret Lair, which is saying something. The card is quite fun in Commander too, forcing you and an opponent to Vampiric Tutor at sorcery speed. Combine this with some effects that steal the top card of an opponent’s library, Gonti, Canny Acquisitor, and you can do some cool things.
If you can break the parity, Scheming Symmetry is an absurd card. There are also numerous opportunities to use the card politically, such as requesting an opponent to look up information to address another threat at the table. Scheming Symmetry’s cheapest variant is priced at approximately $5.85 at the time of writing. This one will likely go for a bit more thanks to the artwork. It’s a decently valuable reprint for a Secret Lair. The issue with the Daily Bugle Secret Lair is the presence of other cards within it.
The Rest
While Scheming Symmetry is a decent reprint for Commander players, the rest of the cards in the Daily Bugle Secret Lair have awful reprint value. They are good cards as far as Commander goes, at least.
Blasphemous Act is one of the best board wipes in the format, and the flavor of how the card is being used in the title is absolutely hilarious. While there is plenty of opportunity to use Blasphemous Act in a wide variety of decks, it also gets a lot of reprints in Commander precons for the same reason. The card is only worth about $1.75 as a result, which isn’t passable considering the value of the rest of the cards in this Secret Lair.
Impact Tremors is next in line. The card was last printed as a common in Foundations, but thanks to its Commander popularity, it demands a $1.60 price point regardless. Any decks that create a ton of tokens can turn Impact Tremors into a win condition.
For reprint value, this card is not great. It’s not even the first time that Impact Tremors had a Secret Lair appearance, meaning that players who want to bling out their deck already have a choice.
Frantic Search and Fact or Fiction, reprint value-wise, are a step below even the last two cards. Neither of these cards breaks 50 cents thanks to multiple reprintings at low rarities across sets, but the cards themselves are strong. Frantic Search, in particular, is strong enough to be banned in Legacy. Untapping three lands basically makes Frantic Search a free Faithless Looting at instant speed, but if you have a land that can tap for at least two mana, Frantic Search also turns into a ritual effect. This amount of power basically ensures that Frantic Search will always see play somewhere but, sadly, similar to Impact Tremors, this is not the first Secret Lair appearance for this card. Fact or Fiction has notably also appeared in a past Secret Lair, meaning that players aren’t without a premium variant of the card already to bling out their decks.
A Bad Start to a Big Superdrop
The overall reprint value for the Daily Bugle Secret Lair comes out to approximately $10, which is disappointing, to say the least. Secret Lairs, at their cheapest, tend to retail for $30 for the nonfoil variants, and $40 for the foil ones. This Secret Lair drop is confirmed to be getting both treatments. Unless you’re really excited about the artwork, or want everything there is MTG and Spider-Man, this is likely a pass.
Considering the reprint value of the recent Final Fantasy Secret Lair drops, fans are pretty disappointed with the downgrade so far. Every single Final Fantasy Secret Lair had reprints that were worth more than the $30 entry fee. The first Spider-Man Secret Lair simply cannot compare. For a Universes Beyond Secret Lair dropping alongside a massive crossover, this is shocking.
While this Secret Lair isn’t great, it could be dropping alongside some more exciting choices. This is part of a larger Spider-Man Secret Lair drop. As we know from past Universes Beyond Secret Lairs, there will likely be a ton of demand for these cards. This Secret Lair could easily sell out simply for being a part of this Superdrop. If that is the case, there could be some serious premiums for these cards. More information about this Superdrop will be available in the coming days.
We also haven’t discussed the Bonus Slot for this Secret Lair. From what we’ve seen with Universes Beyond Secret Lairs lately, there tends to be some incredible chase cards in that slot for people to try and find. That will likely be the case with the Spider-Man Superdrop as well.