Secret Lair Bonus Cards have always been fairly hit or miss. Even early on, some players were opening up random bulk Elves while others got rare Relentless Rats variants with prices in the hundreds of dollars. You’d think these discrepancies would get better over time, but in fact, the opposite seems to be true. Case in point: the Bonus Cards for the Brain Dead Secret Lair drops. Players weren’t expecting much at this point, but to choose a 5-cent common with countless reprints as one of the bonus cards? That really feels like it’s pushing it.
The Brain Dead Lands Bonus Card
The common in question is Evolving Wilds. Thanks to a post on the official Brain Dead Instagram account, it’s been revealed as the Bonus Card for the Brain Dead Lands drop. This card needs no introduction. It’s been a part of pretty much every Commander precon printed in Magic’s history, and it’s rarely been out of Standard in recent years. Unfortunately, it’s also rarely a good choice in either of those formats.
While fixing is great, and thinning your deck is nice, having the land you grab come in tapped is a major downside. That alone would probably tank the card’s price, but it’s also been printed about 600 times. Okay, only 69 times, actually, but it certainly feels like 600. Most recent products include a reprint of this card, and as a result, its price is about $0.05 on average.
This actually applies to a lot of the flashier variants too. Only the Surge Foil versions from Doctor Who and Fallout, as well as a couple of rare promos, command any kind of serious price tag. Even then, you’re looking at $3-5 max. Even if this new Brain Dead Bonus Card version lands in that same ballpark, it’s still not particularly exciting for players.
What’s extra strange is that the art for this card is so open that it could’ve been used for something much more valuable. Imagine this was a Prismatic Vista instead of Evolving Wilds. With art like this and the cool alternate frame, a new version of that staple land would’ve killed it. Instead, we got a boring piece of draft chaff that might be worth a booster someday. Uninspiring stuff.
Slight Improvement For Staples
The Brain Dead Staples drop doesn’t fare much better in the Bonus Cards department. Thanks to Jackson Tattoos on Instagram, we now know that the Bonus Card for this drop is the Chaos Warp above. This is a card with an interesting history. For a time, it was an absolute staple in red decks in Commander. Thanks to the tuck rule, it could shuffle opposing Commanders into their owner’s decks, effectively taking them out of the game.
These days, you can choose to put your Commander into the Command Zone if it would be shuffled away like this, so Chaos Warp is a lot less valuable. That’s reflected in its price tag, which is around $0.50 to $2 right now. There are a few exceptions to this, of course. The Jeff Goldblum variant from the Jurassic Park Secret Lair is around $16. Next after that is the Japanese Strixhaven Mystical Archive printing, which goes for around $8. There are a few alternate-art versions at $3 in between, but for the most part, this is not an expensive card.
I don’t foresee this new version being an exception to that rule. The Brain Dead Secret Lair drops in general are very divisive on the visuals front. Something as out-there as this will have its fans, certainly, but it likely won’t have enough demand to justify a high price tag. I’d predict this lands somewhere around $3-5, so again not hugely exciting. At least this is playable in Commander, however, making it a better pick than Evolving Wilds at least.
A Recurring Problem
Unfortunately, these dud Bonus Cards are part of a wider trend. For the last few Secret Lair superdrops, the Bonus Cards have been equally underwhelming. Cards like Elvish Mystic and Kezzerdrix have been occupying slots that really should’ve gone to better cards.
Now, in some cases, this happens. Some players got a Snapcaster Mage with their Hatsune Miku drop instead of the Mystic, and some players got an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite instead of a generic Elf in the Thunder Junction Showcase drop. These are all rare variants, however, and far from guaranteed. In most cases, players will get one of the duds above as their Bonus Card instead.
This isn’t a new issue. In fact, the worst example so far was seen back in April, when some lucky players were opening a Fallout Mana Vault rather than Codex Shredder or Wastes. This hit-or-miss approach is frustrating for players since it manipulates buying habits in a sinister way.
If all Secret Lair Bonus Cards were fun, inexpensive extras then that’d be fine. If they were all exciting, valuable additions then that would be fine too. But a mix of both baits players into buying hoping for the latter, only to receive the former most of the time. It’s an underhanded tactic, to put it briefly.
Moving forward, I hope WotC picks a lane when it comes to Secret Lair Bonus Cards and sticks to it. Given how well they’re selling, however, I doubt they’ll change course at this point.
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