Initially teased in early May, the release of the Cats are the Best Secret Lair Superdrop is now only a few weeks away. If you’re a furry feline fan, this Superdrop has all the fix-ins, including a multitude of Garfield-themed drops. Now, it appears that a few more drops from this collection are being revealed. Sadly, while they have some gorgeous art, the reprint value is lacking.
Cats Are the Best: Vanessa Stockard
Revealed this afternoon on the Secret Lair Twitter page, the Vanessa Stockard Secret Lair offers some of the best art for the entire drop. While the same adorable puffball features in five different cards, one card’s reprint value is far beyond the rest.
Reverent Mantra is, by far, the big card of this Secret Lair drop. Seeing its first reprint ever after its debut in Mercadian Masques 27 years ago, Reverant Mantra is essentially a free spell that can give your board protection from a color. The card can thwart popular Commander board wipes like Blasphemous Act, making its $20 price tag easily justifiable. That said, given that much of this card’s value is also tied to scarcity, this Reverent Mantra may bring the card’s price down in the short term.
Sadly, the rest of the Vanessa Stockard reprints aren’t much to write home about. Court of Grace is the second-best thing here, demanding $2.72 at the absolute minimum. While Queen Marchesa barely breaks a dollar at $1.10, Windborn Muse and Ruinous Ultimatum settle for a measly $0.41 and $0.83, respectively.
While there isn’t much hope for Windborn Muse, Queen Marchesa and Ruinous Ultimatum will likely have a significant premium attached. Despite having a long list of reprints, both of these cards are quite popular in Commander. Queen Marchesa is in the top 100 Commanders of the last two years, and sees play in over 186,000 decks according to EDHREC.
To support this, existing premium variants of Queen Marchesa and Ruinous Ultimatum are quite expensive. Demanding $16.30 and $13.65, respectively, this adds another layer of interest to the Vanessa Stockard Secret Lair. Without premiums, however, the Vanessa Stockard Secret Lair offers a total reprint value of about $25.07, which isn’t quite worth the cost of entry.
Cats Are the Best: Simzart
If one new Secret Lair Artist drop wasn’t enough, Simzart’s new drop offers even more gorgeous artwork in exchange for a poor value proposition. This time, Boseiju, Who Shelters All is the big reprint of the collection, making your instants and sorceries uncounterable at a steep life cost. Notably, the card has a Secret Lair appearance already retailing for $14.97, basically in a dead tie for the card’s cheapest variant.
Despite being printed as an uncommon in a recent set, Witch Enchanter is the second-most expensive card at $2.72, and it has massive premium potential. The real value of this card is its MDFC nature, allowing players to use it as both a land and as an answer to artifacts and enchantments. Throw blink strategies into the mix, and it’s no wonder this card sees play in over 300,000 Commander decks, according to EDHREC.
Sheltered by Ghosts, a removal spell that doubles as an attractive buff, is in a similar space. Retailing for $1.16, this enchantment is surprisingly popular in Commander, seeing play in over 97,000 different decks. The card’s original Duskmourn printing was also really recent, allowing the enchantment to see play in Standard decks like Selesnya Landfall.
Wayfarer’s Bauble, a ramp card that sees play in 632,000 Commander decks, tells a similar story, with premium variants going for as much as $8. The card offers non-green Commander decks with some fast ramp, fixing your colors in the process. That said, thanks to an insane number of reprints, Wayfarer’s Bauble’s reprint value isn’t even worth $0.50.
Considering all of the other cards available, Spirit of the Hearth seems like a real outlier. Seeing little play in any format, this card’s $0.45 reprint value makes it the least exciting card in the Simzart drop. The overall reprint value available totals at $19.66, meaning that both of these drops are more about their art than their substance.
Art-Driven Demand
Despite their low reprint values, many MTG players seem excited to grab both of these superdrops, and it’s no wonder why. Many of the cards being reprinted are getting some of their first premium variants ever, drawn by some of MTG’s most popular artists. Thanks to this, there’s a good chance that these Secret Lairs will be more valuable than expected.
While the reprint value might scare some players away, it will be very difficult to know just how popular these Secret Lairs will be. This also means that predicting demand might be difficult, so lower levels of supply are very possible. If you want to give yourself the best chance of picking up these Secret Lairs, jumping into the pre-queue at 8:00 AM PST on June 15th is your best bet.
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