I know we’re all eagerly tripping over ourselves with Modern Horizons 3 previews, but those are incomplete as yet and so I don’t want to move in too hard on things yet, especially because there’s four whole Commander decks (with premium versions!) that are going to smash people trying to spec on things right now. I want to avoid that pitfall, and focus for a moment on a set that has gotten to my sweet spot of six months old: The Lost Caverns of Ixalan.

Some of these cards have been mentioned in the ProTrader Discord, some have been picks on MTG Fast Finance, but they are solid value and have had time to reach bottom. From here, I’m expecting some solid growth, because they are already popular in at least one format (mostly Commander) and there’s always potential for Standard play in the next two years.

Two caveats before we begin: One, the reprint risk is very real, even for stuff that just came out six months ago. Special Guests and Secret Lairs can happen at any time, so don’t get complacent. Two, EDHREC data is useful, but not perfect. I doubt EDHREC even has 5% of all Commander players, so if a card has low EDHREC stats but high prices, there’s clearly unseen forces at work, namely kitchen table players or LGS folks who don’t bother listing decks there.

Dinosaurs are always going to be popular, from a Commander standpoint. Pantlaza has been built an impressive number of times, and will keep being built thanks to the synergies present in the tribe. The art calls back to every kid who liked the giant lizards, and while I don’t think many of the individual cards are going to grow rapidly, I expect to see all of them slowly creeping up on a very long-term scale.

Roaming Throne (showcase foil $30) – 130k decks on EDHREC easily takes the top spot for non-reprint cards, at nearly three times the inclusion rate of anything else. It’s really the perfect Commander card, as it’s good with Kindred strategies of any type or color, or good as a way to double up what your Commander does. It’s a rare, and should see a reprint eventually, but I think we’ve got a while to go before that arrives. You should definitely get personal copies now, and I expect the borderless foils to be $50 by the end of the year.

Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar (showcase foil $7) – Sometimes, uncommons lead the way to second place: 47k decks, plus another 1200 as commander. This gives players two things they love: peace of mind on your turn, plus card draw if you get in hits with non-base-stats. Commander players are really into this card, as evidenced by the price, which reflects the casual demand and cEDH need alike. Turns out, in a highly interactive format like cEDH, that first ability is exceedingly powerful.

Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation (showcase foil $23) – The foil is up $4 since the start of the year, and has really cool art to go with an absolutely bonkers ability and a very stubborn presence on the board. TCG has a few Japanese-language foils available for under $15, if you want to get in a little cheaper, but I expect this to grow very well over time. 

Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant (borderless foil $17) – Ghalta’s newest version might not be done falling, but this price has been stable for a couple months now. As a Dinosaur, it’s got the guarantee built in for that set of decks but it’s also just a very good card to ramp into. I’ve seen someone use a Quicksilver Amulet to plop this in early and smash the board, I’ve also seen it be a great reanimation target. No wrong answers, people!

Thousand-Moons Smithy (FEA $3) – Breya, Etherium Shaper is coming back with new printings and I think we’re going to get a whole lot of people building awesome artifact decks. This particular card is easy to transform, and once it’s a land it’s much harder to get rid of. Being able to staple a Construct onto just about anything you cast is a big deal, and while you can’t easily get two a turn, you’ll adapt. This is a card who found its floor early: the FEA versions were under $2 at the beginning of the year so the creeping upward has already begun.

Bonehoard Dragon (Borderless foil $14) – Amazing with Obeka, this is just great value any way you play it. I’ve got it in my Ur-Dragon deck, meaning that I think it’s one of the 40 best Dragons ever printed. The value is undeniable, and if there’s ever a good red creature deck during its time in Standard, this will pop off with extreme force. Nonfoils are up $4 since March, a good sign for things to come.

Inti, Seneschal of the Sun (Showcase foil $3.50) – Inti’s numbers on EDHREC are middling, but this is a card good enough for the Vintage Cube, indicating how ridiculous it is as an aggressive attacker. Mass removal has gotten far too good for aggro players lately, because we’re living in a time of Inti into Anim Pakal and those decks aren’t tearing up Standard. Yet. Inti’s price hasn’t stabilized quite yet, but if the meta shifts into something more aggro, this will easily pop to $10. Watch carefully.

Chimil, the Inner Sun (regular nonfoil $16) – At nearly 30,000 decks on EDHREC, this has two things Commander players love: safety and card advantage. Not every deck can make use of both (If you like X spells, this is not your bag) but those that can, do with glee. The borderless foils are $70, showing us that players love having this effect in a sweet frame. Regular frame foils should trend upwards too, but I like getting in on the lowest price possible on these and riding the wave upwards. 

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

The Secret Lair has sold out the Hatsune Miku drops, but that’s it. The Seedborn Muses and the big bundles are no longer available either. 

What’s that mean for the leftover cards, and what does it mean for the things that sold out? Let’s look at some examples and get into some plans for the sold and the unsold.

The Spring Superdrop still has most of its stock available. The Hatsune Miku portion sold out in under six hours, in both languages and both finishes, but everything else is available. If no one wants it, why should we care? It’s been on sale for days now, so are these relevant at all?

Clearly, that’s a yes. One of the conditions that can lead to a Secret Lair drop becoming expensive is to pick up on the drops that no one else wants. It’s not a guarantee, by any means. We have obvious examples in the Equinox Drop, that contained cards which sold out fast (everything Fallout) and things which did not (Diabolical Dioramas and Phoebe Wahl) and their value is currently directly related to the availability.

Frankly, this is a good sign. I liked these Lairs in the $40 range for foils, and picking up a couple more in the $30 range for foils is worthwhile. The core concept I want to keep in mind is not the immediate price, the reactionary price. Right now, people are selling in a hurry, either because they didn’t have the liquidity to be more patient or because they want to stockpile cash for Modern Horizons 3. 

I’m personally not rebuying more of the sealed Lairs at the moment, as I’ve still got plenty from the bundles I bought, but the singles from those Lairs are looking tasty indeed, with supply near maximum and we know that there’s less of this stuff out there than there is for the Fallout cards or the Rowena Cai drops. All of the drops have dropped in price, as is standard practice right after all of the orders arrive. If you have some (as I do) just be patient. 

The current arrangement of Secret Lairs, where it’s pre-printed to a certain quantity and sold out after that, is an important metric. We don’t know exact numbers, but we know which sell out and which don’t. Therefore we know when some are rarer than others. 

Before, when Lairs were printed to order, we didn’t have any basis for comparison and we also knew that people had a month to decide what they wanted to buy. For many folks, they saw the early return on Lairs and decided to buy in after the early wave of expensive sales. That has led to a larger inventory of people who bought in with visions of profit and who are now stuck.

But these new Lairs, that are pre-printed and available only to a certain quantity, are different. Yes, there’s a long time for people to decide that they want in, but with demonstrably less being bought, I’m more optimistic about prices eventually rising.

To put another way: The old model of print-to-demand has filled many a storage shelf with overstock items, but with pre-printed Lairs not selling out, there will be a lot less of those items on shelves. Barring reprints, or new cards making cards go wild, the stock should run out that sooner and the prices increase sooner.

Now, let’s talk about the Lairs that sell out. First of all, the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is a well-documented phenomenon with humans, and it’s why the assorted Hatsune Miku Lairs are preselling for over double the original $40 if you look on eBay or other platforms. A few overexcited people are buying frantically because they HAVE TO HAVE the Miku cards or they are devoutly hoping that these resell for $140+. 

I remain plenty confident that the Miku drops are going to pay off well, and $100 would be difficult to argue with. That’s a solid $40+ after taxes and fees, a profit margin I’d take every time. I’d probably keep one or two back, though, because now that we know each of the drops will sell out, there will be significant pressure on the earliest drop, as collectors go for the entire set. 

We can also presume that similar things will happen for the next three Hatsune Miku drops. If one of the drops was going to underperform, it would have been this one, that had absolutely one of the weakest batches of cards I’ve ever seen in a drop. The character, though, and the collectability of the cards, put the demand into overdrive and sold everything out before dinnertime.

It’s a pretty safe bet that even a set of Hatsune Miku lands would do equally well, and that’s been the most disliked Drops of all. Once they finished with the Astrology lands (I’m presuming they did, I really don’t care about that) I don’t think they’ve gone back to the basic land drops at all. Thank goodness. 

As we saw with the last drop, there’s some carryover effects from Hatsune Miku selling out so fast. The first thing to sell out was actually the Seedborn Muse, indicating that more large amounts were being purchased than had happened in previous Superdrops. Even that should have been slowed down some because the limit on this Superdrop, for anything, was five units.

So with a stricter limit on purchases, there was a whole lot of increments of $200 being bought. Wizards knows what the previous purchase patterns were, and likely based the number of Seedborns on that data, which proved to be a bit short of the demand.

Hatsune Miku drops were listed as sold out within half an hour of the Seedborns being sold out. (For the U.S. anyway. EU, Asia, Australia had both for a few hours longer but their allocations all got sold too.) This also means that the larger bundles, and the larger discounts, were out of play as well. The discount on the bundles was only about 13-15%, but that’s a better rate than what’s left now. The Outlaws bundles are both less than 10% off right now, making a buy for the dregs that much less appealing.

On the next drop, it’s reasonable to think similar factors will be at play. We might get more of the special addition, and slightly higher quantities of the Miku drop, as they make more money off of us, but the next ones selling out seems like a certainty given current conditions.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

In the never-ending quest to reduce wallets and bank accounts to cinders, Wizards is giving us the Spring 2024 Superdrop this coming Monday. We know the contents of those drops, and while there might be another one (suspiciously, we don’t have an Artist Series/Spotlight drop, or an all-lands drop), we do have a lot of information and can make some determinations ahead of time.

Remember, these are no longer print-to-demand. Wizards has already made as many as they are going to make (so they say) and they want to ship these relatively soon. Drops can and do sell out, as we saw with the Beauty of the Beasts drop in Winter and almost all of the recent Equinox drop.

Limited-run cards, a fear of missing out, and speculators aplenty: it’s a recipe for potential profits. Let’s take a look at the drops we know about, and figure out what is worth planning to buy.

Be warned, there’s two unknowns to tread carefully on. First, there could be additional drops coming, and I can’t do anything about total unknowns. Two, we don’t know what the bundle discount will be, and those price reductions can play a big part in potential pricing. If there’s no additional drops, and there’s a 20% discount on an all-foil bundle, that puts the average price to $32 plus tax, which is much more attractive.

Now, the drops!

Hatsune Miku (volume 1 of 4)

Shelter Chandra’s Ignition as “Miku’s Spark” Harmonize Azusa, Lost but Seeking as “Miku, Lost but Singing” Feather, the Redeemed as “Miku, the Renowned” Inspiring Vantage

If you don’t know who this is (and I didn’t) then here’s the summary, courtesy of Wizards: “Hatsune Miku is a music software developed by Crypton Future Media, INC., which enables anyone to make their computer sing by entering lyrics and melodies. As a massive number of users created music using the software and posted their works on the Internet, Hatsune Miku quickly evolved into a cultural phenomenon. Since then, Hatsune Miku has gained much attention as a character, involved in many fields such as merchandising and live performance as a virtual singer. Now her popularity has spread across the globe.”

Yes, this is a completely virtual being, made and programmed by a company. However, this is a big enough phenomenon to stage concert tours with big audiences, and has been a thing since 2009. Yes, Hatsune Miku is older than Innistrad. There was also a collaboration done during the time of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, in case you forgot!

It needs to be said that it’s okay if this is not your fandom, not your cup of tea, not your preferred type of music. Secret Lair/Universes Beyond is going to try a lot of things, and will have a wide range of successes and failures. 

I am confident this will be the first drop to sell out, for two reasons. 

First of all, this is a bigger fanbase than you think it is, and they love collectibles. That alone will be enough to get me to buy a couple, but there’s an added wrinkle. We’ve been told that there will be a total of four Hatsune Miku drops, spread out across 2024. That means we’ll have four drops’ worth of time (close to the end of the year) to build up demand, and when that last drop arrives, people are going to want the whole set, the perfect time to have an extra couple copies of volume one.

Clearly, the cards are not valuable. Azusa is the only one close to it at $4, with a few sweet copies. Harmonize is a Cube staple, and is in 178,000 Commander decks, though there’s several special versions including a textless Player Rewards. None of those are over $5. The value, though, isn’t the cards but who’s on them and the collectibility therein. 

Sans Mercy

Torment of Hailfire (111k decks, $20 basic, $45 foil) Ruination Mogix, God of Slaughter Doom Blade Massacre

This drop is 100% predicated on the value of a special frame Torment of Hailfire. The basic nonfoil is $20, and the foil is $45. There’s been no reprints or special versions, so this one has fantastic potential. In a year, I won’t be shocked if it’s $75. The other cards are niche, and while regular Mogis is nearly $10 and the other Secret Lair version is $20, I don’t think this version will hold much value at all.

Poker Face

Professional Face-Breaker ($8-$12) Rankle, Master of Pranks Jaxis, the Troublemaker Goblin King Coffin Queen ($10, no reprints since Tempest)

This has a lot of potential. Rankle has very wide price range, with FEA versions from original Eldraine being nearly $30 and the recent Commander reprints being under a dollar. This is the first version with different art, and it’s a very unique look too. Both Jaxis and the Queen should rebound on prices, and Face-Breaker is a must-have in Treasure decks.

All told, the card choices plus the unique look makes this a drop I believe in, and I will get a couple copies. 

Wanted!

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet ($8 nonfoil, $17 foil, was on The List once) Magda, Brazen Outlaw Dack Fayden Greasefang, Okiba Boss

All the value here is on Kalitas’ first major reprint and while that’s not a terrible plan, the rest of these are not exciting. We also know that the Wanted! frames from Thunder Junction aren’t mega-price-increasing, so these probably won’t see any big increases from any of these cards. I might not get this bundle, unless the big discount is worth it.

Outlaw Anthology Vol 1: Rebellious Renegades

Tezzeret, the Seeker 50k decks, has SL from 2022 Griselbrand, banned, but $8, with Liliana SL Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker Grenzo, Havoc Raiser

This drop is intriguing. Tezzeret and Griselbanned both have a previous drop on their record, so we know those prices can rebound. Unexciting but likely to be solid IF they can both go another two years without reprints. I also personally hate the weathered edges on these. The Creepshow drop has this, and I really don’t like how I can’t tell if a card has edge damage.

Outlaw Anthology Vol 2: Sinister Scoundrels

Karona, False God ($2/$73 split, no reprints since Scourge in 2003) Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger (45k decks, several reprints, $6) Korvold, Fae-Cursed King (14k decks as commander, #21 all time) Memnarch ($8/$27 split, FTV and Archenemy copies, 12k decks total)

Now this drop has a lot of potential and should do very well. Korvold has been a top Commander basically since he came on the scene in Throne of Eldraine. It’s easy to see why: great color combination, there’s boatloads of ways to abuse his draw trigger, and Wizards has been making more and more sacrifice tokens: Treasures, Clues, Maps, Junk, Blood, etc. 

Vorinclex will be $5 forever now, with this reprint. He’s got oodles of frames to choose from, and while there’s plenty of decks that play the card, there’s also a whole lot of copies out there. Karona is terrifying in any 5-color Kindred deck, but rewards you very well for building the right deck. Memnarch hasn’t been a factor despite the Commander formula of ‘get mana do crimes’ goes off. There’s just easier ways to win nowadays. Still, this should be worth a few dollars as well, making this drop solid all around and worth my budget.

Goblingram

Brash Taunter (75k decks, nothing over $3) Goblin Chieftain (currently available for $3 nonfoil/$7-8 foil) Goblin Ringleader (bulk, but FNM is $8 and APO foil is $35) Mogg War Marshal Goblin Welder (nothing under $15)

In a lot of ways, this is like the Hatsune Miku drop. This might not be for you, and that’s okay–the people who like it will LOVE it. All of these are solid Goblin inclusions if you like the tribe, and there’s been enough casual interest over the years to make sure that these are useful. Welder has never had a different frame (though there is a Judge foil at $55+) and the rest are good cards for the archetype. You’re allowed to think the frame is silly, but the cards are worthwhile and the drop should be a good bet to grow nicely.

If I were to rank the drops based on my expectations of future profit, it would be in this order:

1. Hatsune Miku vol. 1
2. Sans Mercy
3. Outlaws vol. 2
4. Goblingram
5. Poker Face
6. Outlaws vol. 1
7. Wanted!

The bonus card to this drop, well, it’s a doozy:

You’ll get one of these for every $200 you spend, and this is easily the best SL inclusion card they’ve done so far. Seedborn is a casual all-star, useful in regular and cEDH alike, and a card that demands you get it off the table before someone else goes too wild.

Seedborn’s original foils from Legions are near $200, and while there’s some 8th and 9th edition foils that some purists will like, this version should easily hit $50. If not immediately, it won’t take long.

As a result, I’m exceedingly likely to buy in on some foil bundles. Last time, it was six drops for $210 (instead of $240). With seven, I’m expecting something in the range of $240 instead of $280, about 15% off. If I know I’m getting five drops I feel good about plus the Seedborn, I want in. I’d prefer to leave out the Outlaws vol. 1, as that’s my least favorite of the Drops, but basically getting that one for free feels good too. I’m pretty sure I’ll be buying two or three bundles on Monday.

Disagree with my rankings or plans? Feel free to come tell me, on Twitter or on the ProTrader Discord. 

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

We’re getting a new superdrop on May 13, just about a week away. We know two of the drops, and there’s presumably more coming. This is right on the heels of the Fallout drop, which was right after Sheldon’s drop and the one before that, and the one before that…

The core idea is that these Lairs are going to keep coming, especially with most of them being limited in quantities. We have a lot of historical data for Secret Lairs at this point, and I want to solidify what we know and see if there’s trends we can identify. With that information, perhaps we can figure out if we want to buy the upcoming Lairs.

Let’s start off with a big thing: We don’t know exactly how many of each Secret Lair get sold. Wizards knows, but they don’t want to tell us. Foil versions tend to appreciate faster, because Commander players and collectors like shiny things, but there’s more than a few lairs where the nonfoils grew faster in price because less people bought them. I think this concept comes into play a lot with Secret Lairs: If they aren’t immediately/obviously popular, then vendors and speculators (like us) won’t buy it. That means as players discover the cards, there’s less in circulation. 

A great example of this is City Styles. None of these cards by themselves are rare, and they were not bought in large quantities (apparently). But as time passed, thee value kept creeping up, and we all wish we’d bought more of these.

Another trait that might push prices is exclusivity. Being Magic-Con only hasn’t pushed up the price of the Li’l Giri Saves The Day edition, but Burning Revelations is pricey for the sealed edition. Likewise, there’s some three-days-only editions, like Extra Life, that have flamed out pretty badly.

There are some traits that don’t guarantee a high price, and chief among those is age. Reaper King was from the first batch of Secret Lairs released, and it’s still $5 even though the other two cards, The Ur-Dragon and The First Sliver, have gone up-up-up. Just being old, without being popular, isn’t enough to guarantee a raise in prices.

Another category that has generally not done well is lands. There are a few exceptions, but the drops that are ‘here’s a set of basics with sweet art’ usually aren’t big gainers. The pixel snow lands are probably the biggest growth in value, but there’s lots of dropped lands that just landed like a rock and stayed there. 

Some of the Artist Series has gone up in price, but the majority hasn’t. Much depends on which cards they were asked to highlight. Also, the Artist Series has almost always been in the regular frame, and that’s just a travesty. The Fallout drop was the first time that every drop had at least a borderless frame going on. Likewise, a fun theme won’t save lackluster cards, as we saw in the LOTR drops that featured the Bakshi film images. 

The collaboration drops have been a mixed bag. The first one, with The Walking Dead, has taken a very long time to grow in price, even with Rick, Steadfast Leader being a ridiculous boon and an expensive card for Human decks of any flavor. Street Fighter is still at $60 plus shipping, despite a great IP, unique and interesting cards, and being several years old. Stranger Things has had much more success, but there’s been seasons released after the drop came out and every time, that tends to trigger a spike. Hang on for the final season, it might get wild. I’m waiting to see if the new Dr. Who episodes with the Fifteenth Doctor cause that card (only available in a Drop, not a Commander deck or Collector Booster) to jump. 

Unique frames tend to get there. We’ve had some amazing frames that have gone nowhere immediately, but over time, and even with reprints they get to be among the most expensive versions of a card. For example, the Dreadbore that is in the ‘Party Hard, Shred Harder’ drop is $4, when regular versions are under a quarter. The MSCHF drop is a great example of this, though the sealed drop is still available under $70 for having very unique looks. Almost all of the ‘movie poster’ themes did well too, as an example of things that they will likely go back to. 

One of the traits that, amazingly, does guarantee a high price is having cute animals. Every drop with adorable pets on it has performed well, including the full 100-card deck. Special lands, reprint versions, you name it. This applies even to cards that have a low price in the regular version. Qasali Slingers, for example, has two versions under $4 but the Secret Lair version is over $20. 

Unsurprisingly, a drop full of staples tends to do well. Through the Wormhole has nearly tripled since it was available in December, and that’s a drop with Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Command Tower, Thought Vessel, and Lightning Greaves. Mega-Staples, but with sweet art and an even sweeter Galaxy Foil treatment. 

Finally, let’s talk for a moment about what was probably the best-selling Drop (until, I’m wagering, Sheldon’s Spellbook, but I have no data on that): the Phyrexian Praetors. We found out quickly that these had the mirror-image, serialized Viscera Seer in them, and demand went nuts early, then settled down when everyone got theirs, then bumped up a bit around March of the Machine, and after that, has done nothing but slide downwards. Even now, almost three years later, there’s still around 150 copies of the drop, sealed, available on TCGPlayer and oodles of the singles available from when people went nuts trying to find Seers. All kinds of cautionary tales in those cards, people.

So…what’s the tl:dr here?

I want to buy Secret Lairs that have one or more (preferably a lot!) of the following traits:

1. Other people aren’t buying
2. Does neat things with the frame, borderless at least
3. Has a unique foiling look
4. Includes super-popular Commander staples
5. Art has cute cats/dogs

Conversely, I want to avoid:

1. Overly niche cards (kindred drops like Creepshow or Calling all Hydra Heads)
2. Land sets
3. Terrible art choices (Extra Life 2021 has TWO Craterhoof Behemoths and yet sealed is under $60)
4. Regular Frame cards

This list isn’t comprehensive, and you’ll find exceptions to these rules, but it’s a good summary of where I am and what I’m doing. For disclosure’s sake, my last two Secret Lair purchases were 10x of Sheldon’s Spellbook (#2 and #4 above) and 3x of the full Foil bundle, plus an extra 4x of Rovina Cai in foil (#2, #3, #4). Hope that helps!

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.