A recurring problem with Magic: The Gathering’s Secret Lair drops, in recent times especially, is that the cards in each drop aren’t worth the $30 asking price. This makes buying a Lair a gamble, since you’re relying on secondary market markups to prop up your purchase. For the Final Fantasy Secret Lair drops, however, it seems like Wizards may have learned its lesson.
All three of these drops were revealed earlier today via Famitsu. All three are also, in a rare twist, more than worth the usual $30 Secret Lair price point. Whether you’re a fan of Final Fantasy or just need some Commander staples, there’s plenty here for you to enjoy. Wizards’ decisions around price and supply could well undo this good work, but for now, these are Secret Lairs done very, very right.
Secret Lair x Final Fantasy: Game Over
We’ll start by looking at Game Over, the least impressive of the three new drops on offer. This drop is mostly made up of board wipes, but there are a couple of curveballs in there too.
One of these curveballs is Temporal Extortion, getting its first-ever reprint here since it debuted in Planar Chaos 18 years ago. It’s a Mono-Black take on an extra turn spell: the kind of major color pie break Planar Chaos was well-known for. Due to how unique the effect is and its lack of reprints, this is the most expensive card in the drop at around $17.
In a similar boat is Praetor’s Grasp. This card has been reprinted once before, but only in another Secret Lair drop, so it doesn’t really count. It’s a great option for theft decks in Commander, letting you steal the best card straight from your strongest opponent’s deck. Copies will run you about $12 right now, so this is another great value add for the drop.
Things drop off from here. Toxic Deluge is possibly the best board wipe in Commander, but regular reprints have brought it down to around $5. Day of Judgment and Star of Extinction are much worse, falling into the ‘bulk board wipe’ category you often see represented in precons. Both of these cards are worth around $1, so they don’t add much to the overall value.
That said, we’re still looking at a total value of $36 here. That’s very solid and makes the drop worth picking up if you like the art. Assuming Wizards is sticking to $30 as a selling price, of course.
Secret Lair x Final Fantasy: Weapons
From the weakest of the Final Fantasy drops to the strongest, let’s dive into Weapons. This one’s a bit of a dark horse; on the surface, it looks pretty underwhelming, but when you dig in, it’s actually a very solid value proposition.
For starters, Sword of Truth and Justice is a $35 card right out of the gate. Pretty much all of the Swords of X and Y are fairly pricey, and this one has only had Modern Horizons Timeshift and Secret Lair reprints to soften the price. It’s a great piece in any kind of counters-matter deck, which makes it a bit of a Commander staple.
This drop also contains the infamous Umezawa’s Jitte. Banned in Modern to this day, it’s still considered one of the best Equipment cards of all time. Most agree it could probably come off the ban list now, but it does a lot of work in Commander and even sees a little play in Legacy Death and Taxes. This is a $10 card right now, and well worth the price.
From here, we see a drop-off in value, but not nearly as steep as the one in Game Over. Staff of the Storyteller is a popular $5 card, getting its first-ever reprint in this drop. Blade of Selves is sitting at $4, and Colossus Hammer is around $3. The first two are well-established Commander staples, while Hammer still sees play in its namesake deck in Modern.
Altogether, the value of this drop is around $57. That’s nearly double the usual asking price, which makes this one a very safe buy.
Secret Lair x Final Fantasy: Grimoire
Last up, we have the flashiest of the three Final Fantasy drops, Grimoire. Like Game Over, the theme here is pretty much board wipes and removal. It’s a bit boring to see the same theme twice in succession, but I can forgive it given the sheer quality of cards here.
To address the elephant in the room first, this drop comes with a copy of Cyclonic Rift. Rhystic Study aside, this is probably blue’s most infamous Game Changer for Commander. It’s an immensely powerful board wipe, and a must-play for most serious decks in the format. Copies start at $38 for this monster, making it the most valuable card across all three of these drops.
As if one Commander powerhouse wasn’t enough, Grimoire also includes a copy of Heroic Intervention. Other than Teferi’s Protection, no card really compares to this when you need to protect your board. It’s more reasonably priced now than it has been in the past, but it’s still an $11 card, and a great value add for the drop.
As with Game Over, the value really goes off a cliff from this point on. Damn is a solid Orzhov board wipe, and a decent $2 Commander card. Prismatic Ending and Lightning Bolt, however, are both essentially bulk. Copies of each can be had for around $0.50 these days, which is hardly exciting. Both see a good amount of multi-format play, mind you, which is some consolation.
Tallied up, the value on Grimoire is around $52. That puts it a bit below Weapons, but it’s still very respectable for a Secret Lair. The cards here are more broadly useful, too, so I could see this being the most popular of the three drops by far.
A Final Reveal
- Mana Value: 5
- Rarity: Promo
- Type: Artifact
- Card Text: Tap: Add three mana of any one color.
But wait, there’s more! On top of the three drops, today’s Famitsu article also revealed a shiny new Gilded Lotus promo, which will be part of the Final Fantasy Secret Lair lineup. At the time of writing, it’s unclear where exactly this card will slot in. It could be the Bonus Card for all three drops, or it could be a reward for spending over a certain threshold in the Superdrop overall.
Whatever the case, Gilded Lotus isn’t the most exciting card in the world. It sees a lot of casual Commander play, but for the most part, there are better options in the ramp slot. As a result, this is a $1 card right now. The Final Fantasy VII artwork here will definitely bump that up a bit, but don’t expect it to make you any real money.
That’s everything the Final Fantasy drops will contain. So far, no details have been given on when they’ll be on sale worldwide or how much they’ll cost. The Famitsu article does note that they’ll be available via Rakuten Books from June 10th, so we could see the Superdrop launch globally around then too.
We’re likely to hear more from Wizards in the next day or so regarding the drops, so if the cards above caught your interest, keep your eyes peeled. There’s very real potential for all three of these drops to be record-breaking sales-wise.
