Over the years, Secret Lair products have become a huge point of emphasis for Wizards of the Coast. From premier sets to various Universes Beyond designs, there are tons of different themes that Secret Lairs can focus on. Sometimes, we’ll even have the opportunity to pick up some thematically off-the-wall packages such as Planeswalkers being portrayed as baseball cards.
One of the more unique Secret Lair designs in the last year has been Secret Lairs focused on cereal! Surprisingly, we’ve had not just one, but two of these flavorful drops. The Just Add Milk: Second Helping product was recently released as part of the Winter 2024 Superdrop. The sale for The Winter Superdrop began on February 5th and it’s still ongoing now.
Even though this Superdrop is rather recent, we are already starting to find out some of the new bonus cards. The first to make its way out of the woodwork comes alongside the Just Add Milk: Second Helping product. So let’s start by going over exactly what these bonus cards are and what this drop’s bonus card is.
Variations of Bonus Cards
Bonus cards are neat little inclusions that add a neat element to Secret Lair products. When players choose to purchase individual Secret Lairs, they can know ahead of time the contents of their package. That is, except for the bonus card. The bonus cards are typically kept secret until players are shipped their other Secret Lair cards.
In many cases, by the time players discovered the bonus card was for a specific Secret Lair, that drop was no longer on sale. In this sense, bonus cards added a bit of mystery to each product. As we will see later, however, the Just Add Milk: Second Helping Secret Lair doesn’t follow this trend.
Most Secret Lair bonus cards aren’t worth a big sum of money. For instance, the various Elves associated with the Secretversary Secret Lair were mostly common and uncommon cards with minimal reprint value. Occasionally, should the stars align, players could open unique bonus cards with a rather limited supply in circulation.
The various Persistent Petitioners bonus cards, given their low supply, are all worth a decent amount of money. Persistent Petitioners #595, in particular, goes for a whopping $345 according to TCGPlayer market price! Unfortunately, this almost certainly will not be the case for the Just Add Milk: Second Helping Secret Lair bonus card. For better or worse, this Secret Lair drop’s bonus card should be appearing 100% of the time.
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Coveted Jewel Bonus Card
With that out of the way, it’s time to take a look at the newly discovered bonus card in question. This Coveted Jewel variant comes with an intriguing treatment that makes it look like a box topper you might cut out of a cereal box to claim a prize. This is a rather flavorful design for a cereal-themed Secret Lair, in more ways than one!
Coveted Jewel is an incredibly powerful card when built around. For six mana, getting to draw three cards and end up with a mana rock that taps for three mana of any color is quite strong. You can even use that mana right away, providing a sort of rebate on its steep casting cost. The problem is that if you ever let a Creature come through unblocked, you have to give up the Coveted Jewel to your opponent and let them draw a bunch of cards.
In multiplayer Commander games, this can be used as a fun tool that incentivizes attacking a specific player. Where this card really shines, though, is in Vintage. While six mana is a lot, in a format with Moxen, Grim Monolith, and Mishra’s Workshop, it’s not unreasonable to cast the card in the first couple of turns and reap the rewards. Not to mention, Creature-heavy decks aren’t the most prevalent in Vintage, and you can sometimes use Tinker or Paradoxical Outcome to make sure your opponents don’t get to steal it.
All that being said, the card is still a relatively cheap rare all things considered. It’s been reprinted in a multitude of Commander sets over the past few years. It currently sits at about 50 cents in its cheapest traditional form. Luckily, even without crazy reprint value, the bonus card’s interesting artwork and treatment could help raise its price a bit if demand is high enough.
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A Strange Circumstance
As mentioned, up to this point, players typically wouldn’t know a Secret Lair’s associated bonus card before the Secret Lair in question would be unavailable for purchase. However, 2024 marked a major turning point in how Wizards of the Coast began handling Secret Lairs. Instead of using a print-to-demand model, Secret Lairs now follows a limited-print-run structure. The primary goal of this change was to speed up the shipping process.
Unsurprisingly, this change had a negative effect on availability. This was felt worryingly quickly as the Everything on the Menu bundle from the Winter 2024 Superdrop sold out after just four days. This happened even in spite of the fact that the overall value of the Secret Lair wasn’t super impressive. Notably, while multiple other bundles and individual Secret Lairs are no longer available at this point, the Just Add Milk: Second Helping Secret Lair is still there for purchase.
While the lack of availability is obviously a problem, there is a silver lining. Despite the skepticism, this Bonus Card confirms that shipping speeds have dramatically improved. Thanks to this, players who are interested in picking up this unique Coveted Jewled can do so.
Unfortunately, at the moment it’s unclear how often a similar scenario may happen moving forward, but this is certainly a trend worth keeping an eye out for. The Winter 2024 Superdrop sale ends in just over four days, so if Coveted Jewel’s inclusion pushes you over the edge, make sure to act fast!
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