Recently, Wizards of the Coast has rather worryingly been taking away suitable sources for reprints. Masters Sets have gone the way of the dodo, and bonus sheets are getting rarer and rarer nowadays. Sadly, this leaves Secret Lair drops as one of the few remaining avenues for non-Standard legal reprints, which isn’t ideal.
Since Secret Lair drops are limited run, good reprints often end up causing more problems than they’re worth. Sadly, this feels especially true for the Secret Lair Countdown Kit: An Encyclopedia of Magic that’s being teased right now. As more and more exciting high-value cards get revealed, bizarrely, the worse things are looking.
Phyrexian Altar Reprint?
Taking to Bluesky last night, Wizards teased yet another card from the latest Secret Lair Countdown Kit. From its altar-y and sacrifice-themed artwork, expecting a reprint of Phyrexian Altar definitely isn’t outlandish. That said, there are a few cards with similar vibes like Sacrifice and Tourach’s Canticle, so it’s not set in stone.
For better or worse, one detail within the post’s caption rules these other options out entirely. Like all An Encyclopedia of Magic, this new reprint represents one letter of the alphabet, which helps narrow things down. Due to the capitalization in the post’s caption, it looks like this reprint takes the spot of the letter “P.”
“ok so maybe we’re just a little bit Proud of this one.” – Wizards of the Coast
Technically, even this clue doesn’t confirm we’re getting a reprint of Phyrexian Altar. It could be a reprint of something like Priest of the Forgotten Gods, for instance. That said, everything about this tease is screaming Phyrexian Altar, and MTG players across social media are convinced it’s exactly that.
$60 of Stellar Value
At the moment, the cheapest copy of Phyrexian Altar costs around $58. Most other printings, however, start at $62, with the one borderless printing going for $66. To date, this iconic card has only been reprinted four times, the latest of which comes from The List, which is now defunct.
Beyond just getting four reprints, each version of Phyrexian Altar has been at rare, so there’s a good amount of supply around. This supply, however, is contending with an obscene amount of demand, entirely from Commander. According to EDHREC, this card sees play within over 258,000 Commander decks, making it a true staple.
Thanks to providing an unrestricted sacrifice effect, one which produces mana, no less, Phyrexian Altar is an auto-include for any sacrifice-themed deck. Similarly, most decks that care about the graveyard, or have an abundance of tokens, will also want a copy of this card. This makes it perfect in Aristocrats decks, as well as with Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver, Edgar Markov, and even Krenko, Mob Boss.
Thanks to seeing such widespread play, Phyrexian Altar is more than worth its current $60 price tag. This new Secret Lair variant, however, could easily be worth significantly more. While it does have a Borderless variant, Phyrexian Altar doesn’t have a true chase printing. The new Secret Lair Countdown Kit seems poised to fill this void, but it certainly won’t be cheap.
Too Good for Secret Lair
On social media, once the teased card was deduced, MTG players were immediately concerned. A $60 is almost a third of the entire cost of the Countdown Kit: An Encyclopedia of Magic. Depending on supply, this single card could easily cost $100, making purchasing it seem like a no-brainer.
As if this one card wasn’t exciting enough, Urza’s Saga was also recently teased for this Secret Lair product. Being a true multi-format staple, this reprint could end up being even more expensive, making this product even more enticing. Notably, however, the last Countdown Kit also had a few pricy cards, so this is technically nothing new, but it’s definitely still concerning.
Sadly, while this will be good news for some players, it’s also fantastic news for scalpers. Not only does this product look poised to offer positive value, but there’s bound to be tons of interest surrounding it. This seems to make it the perfect storm for scalpers to take advantage of, or at least that’s the expectation.
Right now, there’s no telling how widely the Secret Lair Countdown Kit: An Encyclopedia of Magic will be printed. If Wizards decides to make it rare or for whatever reason, then scalpers could run riot, forcing up prices dramatically. Should there be enough supply to make this product accessible to everyone, however, then scalpers hopefully shouldn’t make that much difference.
Sadly, past precedent doesn’t help us much here, as previous Secret Lair products have gone either way. Past Festival in a Box products, for instance, have sold out almost instantly in some releases, while others took a while to sell. Ultimately, we’ll just have to hope that Wizards pre-printed enough supply to stop this sale from being awful.
The Waiting Game
Unfortunately, we won’t find out how much supply there is until the sale starts on November 3rd, 2025. Before then, we’ve still got 20 more cards to be spoiled or teased, although some may be kept under wraps. Thankfully, in the meantime, we do have the MTG x PlayStation Superdrop being released to tide us over.
Worryingly, while this upcoming Secret Lair Superdrop does look exciting, it’ll likely be plagued by the same issues and scalpers. Hopefully, Wizards will print enough of this Superdrop so this isn’t an issue, but that remains to be seen. Ideally, if this sale does go well, it’ll be a good sign for the Countdown Kit: An Encyclopedia of Magic. Ultimately, we won’t know for sure until either sale starts, so we’ve just got to wait for now.
Stick with us at mtgrocks.com: the best place for Magic: The Gathering coverage!