Yesterday, a bizarre new series of reprints was revealed, mimicking Magic’s test print cards from the earliest days of the game’s history. Outside of The Zeta Set’s name, however, nothing was known about this extremely bizarre MTG product. Today, we not only have answers to our burning questions but also a series of exciting reprints, with a $150 card being revealed.
MTG The Zeta Set
Containing 121 or 138 different reprints, as suggested by different sources, The Zeta Set is available to players in 7-card booster packs for $19.92 a pop. With each pack containing 3 commons, 2 uncommons, a wild card, and a rare/mythic, this is a wacky and extremely controversial departure from the Secret Lair we know.
On the plus side, the booster pack element has given Secret Lair an opportunity for some absolutely massive reprints, with Chrome Mox leading the way. Banned in Modern, Historic, and Brawl, this $150 fast mana piece is extremely popular in Legacy and Commander, where it can see play practically anywhere.
While nothing else that’s been revealed so far quite rivals Chrome Mox, there are a ton of other home run reprints for Commander and cEDH players alike. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, for instance, is worth around $54, and sees widespread play in Commander, Pioneer, and Modern. Similarly, Mana Echoes at $56 and Sensei’s Divining Top at $40 are massive home runs in The Zeta Set for Commander Players
At $17, Land Tax is also quite popular in Commander, helping you hit all of your land drops while doubling as a card advantage engine. If you’re trying to find creatures instead of lands, a $12 Imperial Recruiter reprint can help, especially if you flicker it to unlock some massive combo potential. For Vivi Ornitier players looking to combo off, the $21 Quicksilver Elemental is yet another strong, yet niche, reprint.
Affinity players, in particular, seem to be getting quite a few strong reprints, like the $50 Mycosynth Golem, which can dump your entire hand into play. While Golem doesn’t see a ton of competitive play, Legacy Affinity players instead have a $11 Clown Car reprint to look forward to.
Decent Hits
While not every booster pack can be a winner, The Zeta Set does have a fair few midrange MTG hits that can help recoup some of your pack’s value. Birds of Paradise, Animate Dead, and Pyroblast, which all see tons of play across MTG’s various formats, are great examples of this at $9, $6, and $4.50, respectively. Even if these aren’t the most exciting hits, finding a home for these cards should be extremely easy.
Notably, cards like Life From the Loam have a decent secondary market value of $5, but are extremely niche in their uses. The same is true for the $5 Price of Progress, which really only sees play in Legacy burn, or Commander lifegain card Vito, Thorn of Dusk Rose at $9.90.
Thanks to this set’s strangeness, Wizards of the Coast has also used The Zeta Set to reprint some desirable, offbeat cards in this set, like the $7 black counterspell Imp’s Mischief. Similarly, the extremely popular $3.50 An Offer You Can’t Refuse, which can act as both a counterspell and a ritual depending on the situation, is being reprinted here.
Interestingly, many of these midrange value cards, like Mother of Runes, Windfall, and the aforementioned Clown Car, are actually uncommons, giving these The Zeta Set packs value outside of their rare slot. With this in mind, it seems quite easy to recoup the $19.92 asking price of these packs, but not every hit is a good one.
The Bad
While the new MTG The Zeta Set spoilers have revealed a fair few new stronger hits, the vast majority of cards in this Secret Lair, like any Booster Pack, are cards you really don’t want to see. On the plus side, a vast majority of these, like Sengir Vampire, Llanowar Elves, and Spell Pierce, are all commons, ensuring that players have a good chance of hitting something strong in their rare/mythic slot.
That said, thanks to lots of partial reveals, there are a fair few cards, like Lightning Bolt, Pyrokinesis, and Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, whose rarities are currently unknown. Considering that none of these cards have a reprint value over $3, they would be disasters to open in the rare slot.
While there are still plenty of The Zeta Set reprints to see, the sheer amount of value this set offers makes a $19.92 booster pack look like a fair deal. Unfortunately, even if that’s the case, demand might be a major problem for this product. With The Zeta Set releasing on September 2nd in a Chaos Vault, there’s a chance it might sell out exceptionally quickly. Given Wizards has recently embraced print to demand again, we can only hope this doesn’t happen.
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