Whether you love or hate Universes Beyond crossovers, there’s no denying how flavorful the Avatar: The Last Airbender is. The new “Bending” mechanics do a great job showcasing what each character is all about, and the artwork on the bonus sheet reprints makes you feel like you’re right there in the Avatar universe.
Despite all this, nothing quite screams flavor like Avatar’s newly revealed Secret Lair. Although he is not being vital to the plot, the Cabbage Merchant has long been a fan favorite in the series. There’s no better way to pay homage than with a bunch of thematic reprints. Unfortunately, though, the reprint choices are pretty disappointing from a financial perspective.
Chain of Vapor
By far the most intriguing reprint, as far as value is concerned, is Chain of Vapor. This card is the most efficient and versatile bounce spell ever printed. While it does come with the downside of letting your opponent potentially copy the spell, this isn’t a problem for decks like Legacy Storm that don’t play many nonland permanents of their own. It then plays an essential role out of the sideboard, answering problematic hate pieces like Deafening Silence.
As a staple of Eternal formats and cEDH alike, there’s always demand for Chain of Vapor. This has helped the card maintain a decent price tag despite being reprinted as uncommon in Commander 2016 and Mystery Booster 2. Chain of Vapor is worth roughly $6 in its cheapest, non-foil form according to TCGplayer. The bad news is that after this, there’s a serious drop-off.
Meltdown
Meltdown is another sideboard option that has a lot of appeal in Eternal formats. Decks like Izzet Delver often utilize this card in small quantities as an efficient hate piece against Mox Opal decks. For a deck with so many one-mana spells, having a clean answer to Chalice of the Void also has a lot of value.
Meltdown’s recent reprint in Modern Horizons 3 opened the door for Modern tempo shells to run the powerful sorcery, which has gained extra utility in the format since the printing of Pinnacle Emissary caused a popularity spike of Affinity decks. This did, however, kill the reprint value of the card, as players can easily purchase copies for under 25 cents.
Nature’s Claim
Nature’s Claim is a multi-format staple whose sheer efficiency and flexibility make it an all-star. One-mana instant speed answers to both artifacts and enchantments are hard to come by, and this card has absolutely no restrictions. For combo shells like Modern Basking Broodscale or Pauper Infect, letting your opponent gain four life is inconsequential. This downside is also extremely minimal in Commander, where players already start at a high life total.
Despite its constant demand, Nature’s Claim many reprints at common rarity prevent it from maintaining a high price tag. It even received a bonus sheet printing in Final Fantasy, where near mint copies hold a market value barely above 50 cents.
Putrefy
Putrefy is a bit too mana-intensive to see any meaningful competitive play. Fortunately, it makes up for this by being a versatile piece of interaction that’s perfect for Commander. Nearly every deck will have beefy targets for this spell, so it will usually trade up on mana at some point during the game.
Being an uncommon EDH staple has made it a perfect candidate for reprints in tons of precons over the years, most recently in the World Shaper Edge of Eternities Commander deck. As such, it’s not surprising that it barely cracks 10 cents in its cheapest form.
Anguished Unmaking
Anguished Unmaking is similarly inefficient, and while it did see a bit of Standard play back in Shadows Over Innistrad Standard as a catch-all answer that could remove Planeswalkers, the life loss really hurt any chances of it making a big Constructed impact. In a 40-life format like Commander, however, paying three life is negligible. The upside of being able to get rid of Indestructible Gods is huge, too.
So, it’s not shocking that this spell has also appeared in a multitude of Commander precons. As a rare, Anguished Unmaking does manage to hold a price tag near $2 nonetheless, but this still isn’t too exciting.
Total Financial Value
As a whole, Chain of Vapor’s presence isn’t enough to save this dismal card collection. All five cards combined don’t even crack $10. Considering that Secret Lair products generally sell for $29.99 in non-foil, this simply isn’t a good deal.
Of course, this Secret Lair’s flavor is through the roof. All five cards see ample play somewhere, so this could still be a worthy investment for Avatar fanatics or enfranchised MTG players looking to bling out their decks. That said, this won’t stop us from wishing some pricier, more intriguing options were featured.
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