The Camp Totally Safe Secret Lair Superdrop has proven itself a bit of an anomaly so far. Despite offering great value drops, some at discounted rates, this round hasn’t flown off the shelves immediately like other recent offerings have. At time of writing every drop within it other than the Foil Peach Momoko offering is still available for purchase, a full four days after release. Today, MTG players started to get their Lairs delivered, and a Ghostbusters Bonus Card was revealed.
Strange drop in sales aside, this latest round of Secret Lairs has been as strong as ever, and this new Bonus Card continues that trend. If you’re a fan of Ghostbusters or the memey side of Magic, then this one will make you very happy indeed.
No Plan, Just 18 Power
- Mana Value: 3BBG
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 18/6
- Card Text: N/A.
Yargle and Multani is a truly hilarious choice for an MTG x Ghostbusters Secret Lair Bonus Card. Players quickly latched onto Yargle, Glutton of Urborg when it was first printed back in Dominaria. He became a bit of a meme in the community, thanks to his humorous name and bizarre vanilla stats. When March of the Machine rolled around, Yargle and Multani pushed the joke to new heights.
The card makes a perfect match for the legendary Stay Puft scene from Ghostbusters, then. This was a final comedic coup de grace at the end of the original film, and representing it with one of Magic’s funniest cards feels more than appropriate. The art here is top-notch, and the lack of rules text on Yargle and Multani leaves room for some of the iconic dialogue from the scene instead.
Generally when we look at Secret Lair Bonus Cards, we look through the lens of financial value. That’s because of certain high-profile Bonus Cards (Mana Vault, Snapcaster Mage) pushing expectations up. In reality, Bonus Cards should be fun extras and nothing else. They should be a nice little treat alongside the drop, not a card that totally eclipses the others included. Looked at through this lens, Yargle and Multani looks a lot more attractive.
The bottom line here is that this card, even in a version as fun as this, is never going to be worth serious money. Standard copies go for around $1-2 right now. Even though the card does see some play, which we’ll get into shortly, the fact that it’s a rare from a current Standard set throttles the price somewhat.
Meme Or Dream?
Yargle and Multani is the kind of card that casual players are drawn to like catnip. 18 power! That’s such a big number! It’s actually the most power on a nontoken, non Un-set creature in all of Magic. One unblocked swing with it is enough to reduce an opponent to two life. Or 22, in Commander. Because of this, and the comedy value that comes from running such an absurd vanilla creature, Yargle and Multani is actually fairly popular in Commander. According to EDHRec, over 5,000 players run the card as their Commander. This is largely in Voltron brews, which makes sense given how well 18 power plays with keywords.
Commander aside, this ridiculous card has actually seen some play in serious formats, too. Most notably in Modern, as an alternative combo piece in Goryo’s Vengeance variants. These decks typically play game-ending legends like Emrakul and Atraxa, dumping them early and reanimating them for an easy win with their namesake card. Since Goryo’s Vengeance grants Haste, it can reanimate Yargle and Multani for an 18-point swing. Given how common Shock lands and Fetch lands are in Modern this should generally be enough for a kill. The card also combos with Cragganwick Cremator for a potential 18 damage burst from hand, if you plan things out well.
Will this surprising level of play have any effect on the price of this Bonus Card? I highly doubt it. Goryo’s Vengeance is a mid-tier deck at best, and the optimal version doesn’t even run the Yargle and Multani package. This is great news for the card’s intended audience, however. Specifically: Ghostbusters fans who want one of the franchise’s most iconic monsters in their Commander deck.
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