We’ve had an interesting blip in terms of Secret Lair drops and how quickly they sell out. Last week, on Sept. 30th, the Camp Totally Safe superdrop went on sale, and unusually for a lair of this quality, the cards contained within didn’t sell out right away. 

So today I want to look at other drops which didn’t sell out and where their prices are, to determine how worried I should be about the purchases I made, and also see if there’s lessons to be learned for future Lairs.

Interestingly, we had some disruptions in the expected order of what sells out and when. This was the third Hatsune Miku drop, and the first two each sold out in a matter of hours. This one took a week for the English-language foils to sell out. 

Momoko sold out in a day, the Showcase: Duskmourn foils sold out in five days, then EN Foil Miku in six days, and only recently did the EN nonfoils sell out. I felt good about those three Lairs when I wrote about the entire drop on the 27th, but Miku taking a week is the most notable part of all of this. 

So what happened?

There’s a combination of potential factors at work here, and it’s difficult to say from outside Wizards which is strongest. First of all, I imagine it’s been long enough since the first Miku drop happened in May that Wizards has been able to get extra product ready for sale. Every person who buys a Miku lair after it sells out is a buyer that Wizards could have made money from. I would not be surprised to learn that Wizards printed a lot more of this third lair as opposed to the first, and I would expect the last one to be similar in terms of the amount they prepared.

To be clear, I don’t have any data on this, just logical suppositions. They want to sell the maximum amount of cardboard, and lead/production times being what they are, it’s plenty reasonable to think that when the first one sold out so fast, they immediately moved to make sure the later Lairs would have more product for sale. 

I don’t really buy the arguments that this drop is weaker than the other Miku lairs. The first one is just abysmal in terms of card choices and prices, and it still sold out at a ridiculous rate. This set of planeswalkers isn’t as strong as the second drop, which had a Sol Ring and a Collected Company, but this fandom/IP doesn’t require expensive cards to get their collector interest up.

There is a case to be made that we’re getting a bit fatigued on the rate of cards coming out, and that the ‘average’ player doesn’t have money to spend on these. I’m inclined to agree–but I think that the majority of Magic players don’t know about Secret Lair stuff at all, at least not until they see the cards. If you own a local store, or maintain a display case of cards for a store, you should keep Secret Lair cards obvious and visible for all the people who had no idea this was a thing. 

I can believe that there were a few less people able to spend money right now, and combined with the extra supply, meant that Miku took a long time to sell out. Indeed, it’s still available in the Japanese, both foils and nonfoils. 

The two drops that sold out before that, I imagine those were based on estimates of previous Lairs of such types. The semi-abstract nature of Peach Momoko might have turned some people off, but their work on Marvel properties more than made up for it. The Showcase is stocked with value, having the Voidwalker and the Metamorph, in addition to the Cat/Oven combo. I think there’s still value in the nonfoil, especially for tournament copies of Voidwalker and Cat/Oven, but personally, I’m reaching my limit for money I’m putting in. 

(For the record, I’m still on the ‘repackage all four Miku drops into one eBay sale’ plan once the fourth drop reaches us. I haven’t resold any of those cards yet)

One more thing comes to mind: I bought other lairs here that haven’t sold out, and I want to think about the most recent non-sold-out lairs, and do some comparisons. Please keep in mind these are most-recent-first, and none have had more than a few months to gain any value from people opening the product. 

Featuring: Andrew Mclean – $30 – Good cards, good art, just needs time.

Li’l Legends – sold out FIAB – $20! – As the add-on for the Festival in a Box, people are selling this for whatever they can get. It’s bonus money after selling the Mystery Booster box. Plus, these cards are either uninspired individually or they already have some special versions out there.

Showcase Bloomburrow – $40 – Cute, but nothing outstanding. Sorin should eventually pop

Brain dead: creatures – $30

Brain dead: lands – $50

Brain Dead: staples – $40

I’m impressed at the lands, and the rest will get there too. The foiling plus the printed texture really stands out, even when double-sleeved.

Featuring: Julie Bell – $30 – I feel good about this long-term, being such gorgeous art.

Prints of Darkness – $50 – This is going to pop off eventually, just from the cards’ popularity.

Assassin’s Creed: Lethal Legends – $60 – I wasn’t expecting this to do so well so quickly, but Ramses, Assassin Lord has spiked hard since the Assassin’s Creed set came out.

Da Vinci’s Designs – $50 – Super unique look, good cards with no other special versions, I like where this is going.

NOT A WOLF: $50 – Should go up very slowly until the next batch of Werewolves comes out, at which point it will spike most impressively.

Poker Faces – $30 – One of the sets that tells us not to get too abstract.

Goblingram – $30 – Good joke, decent cards, popular tribe, mediocre sales.

Showcase: Outlaws of Thunder Junction – $20 – With a guaranteed Norin, the Wary at $9 retail, the rest of these cards are a steal.

Sinister Scoundrels – $40 

Rebellious Renegades – $40

Both of these are likely to stagnate for a while, though the Elesh Norn has had so very many special versions at this point.

sAnS mErCy – $40 – I’m one of the people that isn’t turned off by the font, but this should have an upward trajectory until some other special version of Torment of Hailfire comes out.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) 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 co-host of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

The set has been on Arena for a couple of weeks, live on TCGPlayer for a week, and Duskmourn:House of Horror has a lot going on. The Fractured Foils are as rare as expected, the Leylines are caught between useless and broken, and the rest of us are just trying to keep up with the world-encompassing demon. 

We’ve had some cards take an early loss and then recover, so let’s talk about the price movements that are happening, and the ones that haven’t happened yet. Remember, most cards are on the fall right now, but depending on the demand, we’re going to get lots of them going crazy eventually.

Abhorrent Oculus (low price of $8, current price of $28) – There’s two things that should have been a sign for this card. First, we know that there’s a whole deck based around making Murktide Regent cost UU to cast, which lines up nicely with the Oculus. Second, being three mana means that Unearth is in play, and that’s a peanut-butter-plus-chocolate combination if ever there was one. We have other ways to cheat with this card, but it creates its own army quickly, replaces itself, and fuels more graveyard silliness. 

I expect this to settle down some from the current price, but the factors are there to make this card seriously expensive for some time to come.

Valgavoth, Terror Eater (low of $19, current $24) – A lot of attention is on the group slug version of Valgavoth, but this is an impressively irritating card for reanimation or even semi-fair Cabal Coffers decks. You make them pay a steep cost to get rid of it, and if they don’t you’re swinging life totals by 18 every attack. On top of that, your newly gained life allows you to replay the things that died! 

Razorkin Needlehead (low of $2.50, up to $14, currently $10) – We’ve been pretty bullish on this card both for Standard and for Commander, as it’s really easy to have this one card deal 15-20 points of damage in a single game. We’re programmed to draw as many cards as possible, for good reason, and this demands removal, which is a good thing. If you bought in early, as we pointed out in the Discord, then you should be looking to exit soon.

Overlord of the Hauntwoods (low of $15, up to $25, now $20) – This is making a splash in the Domain decks for Standard, as well as being a popular Commander card. I’d like it more if the land token had hexproof, but there’s not a lot of drawbacks to the bonus land. I think this will fall back down to $15 or lower unless it starts getting adopted in a lot more decks. 

Duskmourn has also given us some cards that I want to pay attention to in the longer-term, both for bannings and for future use:

Leyline of Resonance (started $15, now $4) – The Leyline is responsible for some truly ridiculous wins in Standard right now. We’ve got two one-mana spells that give +3/+0 and have a bonus beyond that, to go with multiple creatures that benefit from being targeted, and more than one ‘when this dies, deal damage equal to its power’ creature. Plus the entire deck is cheap in wildcards and cash price, which means it’s infesting all of the BO1 queues right now. The deck also runs Witch’s Mark, which is a fantastic way to discard two, draw four when Leyline is out. 

A lot of people online are calling for the Leyline to be banned, especially because it’s hideously busted in multiples. The next B/R announcement is December 16, and if Leyline stays unbanned, I expect it to start to grow in price. I also think Turn Inside Out has real potential to be a $3 common eventually, given the things it does for the decks that run it. 

The Verge Lands (started $10, now in $4-$7 range) – Untapped dual lands are the business, and since this is the first printing, all five of these are on my radar as long-term specs. I’m hoping the BR and the UW lands especially get cheap, but alongside the Surveil lands, these represent an easy way to have two of two colors open on turn two, which is not true in lots of formats. 

Fear of Missing Out (Started $12, now $3) – Extra-combat cards are never to be sneezed at, and this one comes with several things that make the card desirable. It’s cheap, it can work quickly, and it can put a game away. The only thing holding it back is that it needs to be attacking, and something like Enduring Courage can make this a terrifying topdeck. It’s been a long time since we had such an easy second combat, though, so when this gets super cheap I’ll be wanting a brick.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) 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 co-host of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

With Duskmourn: House of Horror fully revealed, there’s a lot to talk about. We’ve got new Commanders, new mechanics, and a whole lot of interest. We’ve got just about two months until Foundations is out, and while I’ll be curious to see who switches over on packs, I think Duskmourn will end up like Bloomburrow, getting an abbreviated time on its own in the spotlight. 

So with that in mind, I want to look at some of the cards that I think have real potential to go up from their preorder prices, and which I want to stay the hell away from.

Two caveats before we get into the numbers: First, there’s still two weeks till the official release, and that will include a few days where it’s Arena legal. Prereleases haven’t happened yet, and not every store or company can do preorder pricing. These are not licked-in numbers. Second, almost everything drops from preorder prices, and while I’ll explain my logic, these are swings at the fences. Be kind.

Duskmourn Commander Cards – In a Collector Booster, you’ll have a slot just for the DSC cards, and 81.9% of the times, you’ll open one of the 27 nonfoil EA cards.That gives you a roughly 3% chance to open a specific card you want, or an average of 33 Collector Boosters to snag the one you desire.These will be one of the easiest pulls from CBs.

Notably, the five DSC rooms are only available by buying and opening a sealed Commander deck, they don’t show up in the Collector Boosters at all. If any of those five cards get popular, watch out as they will climb in price quite quickly.

Ancient Cellarspawn (current preorder price $10, and $12 for EA versions)

This is one of my picks for the set, but I can’t recommend getting in at this price. There are a lot of decks that can use this, including everything that wants to pay life, to pitch, to Plot, and to Cascade. Legacy would love this card, especially pitching a Force of Will and adding 5 damage to the opponent. There’s only a couple of Commander decks that can play this with Cascade (Abbadon, Yidris) but free spells is a mechanic that Wizards has been leaning on. 

It’s even got me thinking that I’d add it to The Ur-Dragon, but really, adding one damage to my Dragon spells isn’t worth it.

It’s preordering for $10-$12, but the EA price should come down some and in a few weeks I’ll be ready to buy. 

Sadistic Shell Game ($4.50 EA/$8 regular) – The TCG prices are heavily skewed based off of who’s allowed to post preorder pricing. Folks who preorder are the ones who want the card ASAP, don’t care what it costs, and upgrade every deck with every set. It’s a lot of work and a lot of money, but that’s where we are at. 

The Shell Game is a fantastic card, and as a player used to casting Druid of Purification, let me tell you that this mechanic is busted as hell. If you’re the Archenemy, they will band together and all pick a creature that’s worthless, then you get the one that needs to go. If it’s still more free-for-all, the Game is even better because they pick first! It’s a lot of fun and you should play this card in most of your decks. The EA pricing is tempting but I’m going to be patient for a bit. It’ll drop, but not too far. The Druid is up over $6.

Duskmourn Main Set 

First of all, I think the Japanese-art Enduring cards are set to go off. We’ve got the confluence of three things Magic players have been shown to love: sweet foiling, cute animals, and hyper-rare drop rates. I did the math for you last week, but in English Collector Boosters, it’s going to take you approximately 1,428 CB packs to get just one Fractured Foil English language Enduring Courage. 

The Japanese-language versions are tougher pulls in English packs, but easier in Japanese packs. I don’t have enough information to know if that balances out yet. My inclination is that the Japanese-language cards will be priced less, even in Fractured Foil, but it won’t be too huge a gap.

The other Fractured Foil cards have potential, but cute animals are their own category in Magic. Please keep in mind that the English versions are the same degree of difficulty as the Textured Foils from OTP, but these look a lot more distinct.

Hedge Shredder feels like the card that the casual player will push up and up. That ability goes into so many decks, and will feel utterly broken in whichever deck gets it into play. I think that the demand and the combos will push the card back up to the $15 range soon, up from its current levels around $7 for the basics. So yes, I’m picking this to be the needle in the haystack, the card that rises above its preorder, or bounces quickly back up. If you get your personal copies in the $7 range I think you’re going to feel very good in a month.

Meathook Massacre II is not a supremely broken card. It is a good card, but the combination of mana cost and mana type make it difficult to use. I like the ability, and as a four mana enchantment it’s actually got a lot of utility. It’s definitely not one of the five best cards in the set, and the price will fall.

Exorcise foils should be a pretty good long-term card, as a premium piece of removal that will never be lacking for targets. I don’t like getting in right now at these prices but once the big operations have opened up their product, this is a great target to be an expensive uncommon.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) 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 co-host of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

We’re six months past the release of Murders at Karlov Manor, and that’s the timeframe at which we can be pretty confident that supply has hit maximum and attention is pretty low 

This is the time that I want to get into speculating on cards from this set (and its Commander subset, plus the Cluedo cards) and so let’s go over the things that have the best chance of paying us off in the future.

When I’m looking at a whole set, I want to start with cross-format staples, then Commander cards, then Constructed cards, and basically nothing after that. For MKM, there’s a clear place to start.

Surveil Lands (Borderless foil $17-$40, regular frame $9-$17) – These lands are all over the place since rotation, and have jumped in price basically since release. If you got in early, you’re looking at double-ups, at least to start with. 

Notably, though, we’re looking at the next set of Triomes. It didn’t take long for Modern players to add a one-of Triome to decks, as an additional target for fetchlands, but giving the fetchable lands a surveil trigger, that’s exceedingly powerful. 

As a result, I don’t think we’re done with this growth, but I’m expecting a trickle rather than a roar from here out. These lands have two years left in Standard, and they are worthy additions to every Commander and Modern deck that can run them. I don’t think these will grow enough to be good specs, but I would definitely get your personal copies now, rather than wait till they are $5 more. (No, I don’t think a card that goes from $10 to $15 in a year is a good spec. Allow me to link you a classic by Travis Allen that explains this concept, still very relevant a decade later)

Archdruid’s Charm (Foil EA $10) – Interestingly, the most popular card from MKM on EDHREC is Demand Answers, but I don’t want to spec on commons that way, though it’s a very good version of this effect. The Charm is the #3 card from the set, after the UB Surveil land, and makes for a great spec target. It’s been registered in 48,000 decks online, and big green decks will always be a thing in Commander. These are three very good abilities, and while there’s still a lot of vendors left, the card cannot be overlooked.

Wizards has started a cycle here, too. We’ve got Archmage’s Charm, and now Archdruid’s Charm, so presumably we’ll get the other three colors eventually. When the cycle is complete, I fully expect a Secret Lair drop for the set, but for now, I think this is a fantastic spec to hit $20-$25 in the next 12 months. 

Warleader’s Call (Foil Showcase $8.50) – Being in 36k decks already is impressive, and what it does is two things that boros decks tend to want. First, you want a way to buff everything that you have, and boom, here’s a three-mana Anthem effect. Combine that with a way to kill your opponent when you spew tokens onto the board, and you’re off to the races. We know this is a good ability to have, in the permanent type that is the most difficult to remove.

I think this has great potential both as a Standard card, as Bloomburrow gave some really amazing aggro effects, and in Commander. The Standard decks currently using it are rarely at a four-of, but I’m content with 2-3 copies showing up frequently.

Case of the Locked Hothouse (pack foil $6.50) – I like that it’s in 29k decks, and it’s what every green player wants to do. This effect exists in a lot of creatures, but the enchantment being harder to remove makes it so much better. Seven lands is pretty easy to do in the majority of green decks, and then you’re off to valuetown. 

The other appealing thing here is that Sagas are just reprinted less than other cards. It requires a different size of art and so we don’t get as many Secret Lair or other variations. Dodging the reprint risk (at least until Return to Return to Ravnica) makes me feel better about this.

Forensic Gadgeteer (Foil Dossier $3) – The combo potential is very high here, and it can combo in two different ways, both with the Clue synergies and with the reduction in costs. We’ve got another version of this card in Sai, Master Thopterist, and the most premium version of that is over $6. I like where this could go, but the hard part is that the investment may be locked up for quite a while. 

Pick your Poison (Foils $2) – There’s no reason for these foils to be this cheap when it’s played in as many sideboards as this is. It’s a very popular answer to The One Ring, and it was also a fun way to answer Vein Ripper in Pioneer. The recent bannings make that use-case less appealing, but it’s still a useful and flexible card. If you want to wait and see if it’s still popular in sideboards post-banning, I won’t argue.

Slime Against Humanity (Foils $3) – Purely, this is a play based on what has gone before. When a card rewards the playing of many in a row like this, the price gets high. Depending on the deck, the reprint can torpedo the value, but the great news here is that this card synergizes really well with two very popular themes: tokens and +1/+1 counters. This is a great card in a long list of strategies, and while there’s a lot of foils out there right now, they get bought in big clumps. Get a clump for yourself.

Crime Novelist (Foils $1) – Finally, let’s talk about a card that got a LOT of attention early on and now has dropped in the attention rankings. The ‘token artifacts’ method of cards has exploded in the last couple years, and the Novelist loves every bit of this. Adding additional mana after a Food, Clue, or Treasure sacrifice is something a lot of decks can’t pass up, and this will synergize with lots of cards that have yet to see print. Purely speculative, yes, but it’s already the #6 nonland card from the set. 

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) 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 co-host of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.