When it was first leaked, MTG players went wild for the idea of a Monster Hunter Secret Lair drop. Not only is this gaming franchise hugely popular, but it seems like a perfect fit for Univerers Beyond. You’ve got iconic characters, weapons, and Monsters, of course, which could all translate to MTG perfectly.
When the Secret Lair x Monster Hunter Secret Lair drops were actually announced, however, MTG players were furious. Not only was the value absolutely atrocious, but the flavor was all over the place. It seemed like the only redeeming quality of this Secret Lair Superdrop was that it was happening at all. Even then, what we were getting felt more like an insult.
In an unprecedented move, Wizards of the Coast has listened to player feedback and taken action. For better or worse, the Monster Hunter Secret Lair Superdrop won’t release this year, as it’s been postponed indefinitely.
Back to the Drawing Board
In a new news post, Wizards of the Coast has confirmed the Secret Lair x Monster Hunter Superdrop has been postponed. Admitting it “fell short of expectations,” Wizards has now pledged to “rework this Superdrop entirely.” Right now, it’s unclear exactly what this means, but there’s definitely room for improvement.
While value is always an important point in the eyes of MTG players, flavor was the major miss here. This is especially telling in the pair of Monster-themed drops, which easily had the most potential. With stand-out designs and attack patterns, there were clear identifiers for Wizards to pick reprints around.
Sadly, most of the card choices Wizards picked simply don’t fit that flavor. Rather than looking at attacks, design, or feel, we just got a collection of big monsters with high casting costs. Disappointingly, a lot of these aren’t even fun to build around in Commander, so these reprints weren’t exactly useful.
Outside of the monsters, things didn’t exactly get any better, as the flavor mismatch continued to disappoint. As if that weren’t bad enough, this Secret Lair Superdrop had terrible value across the board. Outside of Imperial Recruiter and Grand Abolisher, the reprints are just terrible, which understandably drew major complaints.
Miraculously, things managed to get even worse when MTG players realized that the Champion of Lambholt reprint, Champion of Kotoko, was mispelled. First appearing in the original Monster Hunter, Kokoto is a town name that Wizards really shouldn’t have messed up.
Surprisingly, all the complaints have now actually done something. While it’s unclear what the future holds or who made the decision, this is absolutely fantastic news. Across social media, MTG players are already celebrating the change, even if it does mean having to wait. Looking ahead, we can only hope that what we get instead is a significant improvement.
What Will We Get?
Right now, it’s impossible to predict what Wizards of the Coast might do to fix things. From the sounds of things, Wizards is giving themselves a bit of time to get things right this time around. In the announcement, it was stated that we won’t hear about more details until “a few months” at least.
Ideally, the best way to do a Monster Hunter Secret Lair drop would be to have mechanically unique cards. While these cause their own distribution problems, they do provide the best mechanical flavor cohesion. Since Monster Hunter has no end of incredible and iconic mechanics, going down this road seems sensible, albeit a lot of work.
Going one step further, Wizards could scrap this Secret Lair altogether and just create a full MTG x Monster Hunter set. Thanks to the sheer number of games that have been released, there’s certainly no shortage of potential cards. Unfortunately, while this set could sell like hot cakes, jumping from a Secret Lair Superdrop to full release is one hell of a step.
More realistically, Wizards of the Coast is likely just going to change what reprints were picked. In theory, Wizards may use the same art for the alternative picks in order not to get bogged down with extra work. While this solution might seem like a bit of a copout, it’d definitely be better than what we got.
Ultimately, we’ll just have to wait and see what the future brings, as we can only guess right now. While we’d like to hope that these changes won’t take long, Wizards should take as much time as needed to get it right. After all, we don’t want to have the second go-around also be postponed…
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