It may be something of a meme, but the ‘announcement of an announcement’ concept is a very real strategy. For better or worse, it’s a way for companies to start building hype early, and keep fans ticking over between releases. Unsurprisingly, Wizards of the Coast has been known to try it out from time to time, and they’ve done it again just yesterday. To drum up hype for the slowly approaching Secret Lair Superdrop, Wizards announced a collaboration with Not a Wolf yesterday.
Drop Details
The announcement-of-an-announcement was put out via Not a Wolf’s Twitter account yesterday afternoon. For those unaware, Not a Wolf is the online alias of Dan Sheehan, a Writer and Comedian from Chicago. His Tweets, which were eventually adapted into a bestselling book, chronicle the life of a wolf trying to blend in with modern society.
The announcement included a short video, which went into a surprising amount of detail for something like this. It noted that the drop will feature art from six prolific Magic artists. These include Greg Staples, Johannes Voss, Kev Walker, Miranda Meeks, Sage Coffey, and Zoltan Boros. That’s a lot of collective MTG art experience, and a great start to the Not a Wolf Secret Lair drop right out of the gate.
The announcement video didn’t end there, however. It also showed off brief snapshots of the art we can expect to see in the final drop. Eight snapshots, all shown above, span different styles and different cards. You may assume there’d be one hint per card, but, according to a follow-up tweet later, the drop will contain seven cards in total.
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Quiet Speculation
Following up on the initial announcement, Not a Wolf went on to hint at the upcoming Secret Lair drop’s contents. Well, when we say hint we’re being pretty generous here as only the card types were revealed. All we know is that this as-yet-unnamed Secret Lair drop includes three creatures, one instant, one sorcery, one enchantment, and a token.
It’s likely safe to assume this is a Secret Lair drop that will be going for flavor over value for the most part. It’s also safe to assume that every card included will be a Wolf, or have something to do with Wolves.
The creatures are, surprisingly, the trickiest part of this. There aren’t a huge number of powerful, recognizable Wolves in Magic’s history. Two of the teaser images show a wolf eating at a table, which would be a great fit for the Food-dependent Wicked Wolf. The accompanying Food could also take up the token slot.
Cemetery Prowler is another great Wolf and would match up nicely with the art of the Wolf with the hand in its mouth. Immerwolf, one of the few Wolf Lords, has a solid chance of appearing here, perhaps with that striking sunset-backed artwork.
The instant, sorcery, and enchantment could all go in multiple directions. My mind immediately went to Parallel Lives for the enchantment; a powerful Commander staple with two Wolves on the original artwork. This could be the piece with the two Human characters in the forest.
For the sorcery, I think Blow Your House Down is a slam-dunk. It’s fun, it’s flavorful, and it matches the comic-style art piece with the tie-wearing Human well. Instant-wise, things are trickier. Predator’s Howl could work, however, if my guess on the Food token is off-base.
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A Hot New Take
Mark those guesses well; I’m either going to look like a genius or a fool by the time the full reveal comes around. Speculation aside though, the fact that Wizards is taking a bit of a different approach to the Not a Wolf Secret Lair drop is encouraging. Not only is it a deviation in that it mixes in multiple artists, something we see rarely, but it’s using a novel announcement structure as well.
That being said, while an announcement of an announcement can be fun to drum up additional hype, not everyone is happy. On Reddit, many players were quick to push back against this drip feed of content that lacks any real information. Given the complaints against MTG’s relentless, near-neverending, spoiler season, anger against additional announcements is hardly surprising.
As if just one announcement wasn’t enough, Wizards of the Coast is really stretching this Secret Lair drop out. Rather than releasing all the cards at once, new cards will be revealed each day from June 13th to 17th. Following this, the presumably-named-by-then Secret Lair drop will be available for sale on June 24th.
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