Yes, dear reader, this is a third superdrop in a six-week period, and there is no sign that this train is slowing down. We were expecting a Superdrop to go with the TMNT set, and here we go with six more sets of cards. 

So let’s talk about the specifics of the superdrop, what the use rates are, and what’s worth buying when it’s available in a week and a half on March 2.

Some overall info: We’re thankfully at the $30 nonfoil/$40 foil price point for these, and there’s no land drop here to compete with the Pizza lands in that bundle. There is no listed promo for this Drop, and the bundle discount is $10 for the all-foil or all-nonfoil, or $20 for the all-in-one drop. Very low discount, but we’re proving to them that we don’t care about discounts. 

For these cards, I’ll be listing the EDHREC number (please remember that EDHREC is useful but tilted towards precons, and the folks who upload their deck are only a small % of the playing population) and the value of any special versions of the card that already exist.

Baylen, the Haymaker (24k as Commander, #22 over last two years, plus 23k as card, raised foil $375)

Felidar Retreat (221k, showcase foil $4)

Master of Ceremonies (42k, promo foil $27)

Second Harvest (179k, SLD foil $11)

Sunforger (68k, pack foils $10-$35)

As always, we get a Lair with a good commander and some of its favorite accessories. This is a decent drop, but nothing is screaming at me. Baylen is a combo commander, very good no matter what direction you go. Don’t be fooled by Master of Ceremonies’ foil price, the nonfoil is still $10 but it is in pretty limited supply and group hugging like this isn’t always a popular strategy. The Second Harvest SLD printing had a dog on it, so that price is a little bumped too.

Loxodon Gatekeeper (7k decks, pack foil $10)

Sakashima’s Student (36k decks, all nonfoils $32 or so)

Throat Slitter (30k decks, pack foil $25)

Guttersnipe (241k decks, promo foil $3)

This Lair looks super cool, but financially, I think this is a trap. Only Guttersnipe has special versions already, and Gatekeeper is from OG Ravnica, and Throat Slitter hasn’t been foil since Betrayers of Kamigawa. That’s two cards from 2005, a long time to build up demand and for foils to drain out. Sakashima’s Student is the headliner, good as a clone, but this was a Jumpstart card then on the List and never put into large quantities. I am leery of this Lair, especially at double the copies of the other Lairs.

Settle the Wreckage (37k, pack foil $6)

Mental Misstep (227k decks, SLD foil $160, promo $175)

Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni (44k decks, BLB Showcase $11)

Anger (255k decks, SLD foil $9)

Chord of Calling (197k decks, SLD foil $13)

No one cares about Settle, and the three mid-tier cards are intriguing, but aren’t going to light up the world or grow quickly in price. So the question is, how big can this Mental Misstep get, especially as it’s super-banned in Modern and Legacy? The first SLD printing was more than three years ago, in the old era of Secret Lairs printed to demand, and it’s just kept going up ever since. The good news is that it just has to hold at less than half of the other version’s printing to be worth it, so I think this is worth buying.

Deepglow Skate (70k decks, SLD foil $6)

Pirated Copy (14k decks, pack nonfoil $20)

Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar (23k as partner, 101k as card, etched foil $16)

Hardened Scales (369k decks, two showcase foils at $5)

Triumph of the Hordes (99k decks, SLD foil $31)

Another case of ‘is one card worth it’ and I have to say I don’t hate the Lair. Four acceptable cards and then the Triumph, which has the original in New Phyrexia, then a List printing, then the Fortnite copies. Very low quantities over the years, and this is probably going to be worth it, but I am pretty ambivalent about this Lair. 

Delver of Secrets (3k decks, SLD foil $5)

Higure, the Still Wind (21k decks, SLD foil $30)

Species Specialist (40k decks, pack nonfoil $10)

Rampaging Baloths (262k decks, pack foils $5-$15)

Triskelion (28k decks, borderless foil 50¢)

Higure is a great card if you’re doing Ninja/Changeling things, but between the mediocre cards and the art, this is a Lair I’m avoiding. If I get the chance at some cheap Higure copies during Dump Week, I’m in, but I’ve been burned on 80’s nostalgia before and I don’t feel the need to go too wild here. 

So the only Lair I’m actively into is The Last Ronin, so that I can get some Mental Missteps. The rest I can give or take, and honestly, after the last couple Lairs that had a lot more for me to like and the chance to buy TMNT product soon, I think I’m going to skip most of this drop. I don’t expect it the majority to sell out, if the quantities are similar to the last couple drops. My exception is that I’ll try to get some of the Ronin Lairs, and just those, for the fervor when that one sells out. 

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this Lair and my plan, so don’t hesitate to reach out, especially on the ProTrader Discord. 

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.

This week, we were given a leak of the five face commanders for the Secrets of Strixhaven decks, and it’s the five characters we know, in the color pairs that are both doing it different yet can still feel the same. We don’t know the stated theme of the decks, and we don’t know what’s in the decks, but the reveal has already caused some spikes and now I want to look at some potential includes. 

Generally speaking, I’d want to wait for the decks to come out before buying, but you may proceed with caution. Reprints aren’t impossible, and even if you have a fancy version, the players might not come out to get your shiny copy. (case in point: foil Flourishing Defenses)

Let’s talk about some Commanders!

Dina, Essence Brewer

Sacrifice! Counters! Black and green does its thing! You can build around either ability and have a grand time.

Kami of Whispered Hopes (promo foil $8) – The Kami both gives you more counters and is a really great target for those counters from Dina’s ability. Should be high on the inclusion list.

Ophiomancer (mh3 foil $1.50) – When you’re doing a lot of sacrificing, you want lots of fodder, and ol’ Ophio has always been great at that. 

Erebos, Bleak-Hearted (Showcase foil $4.50) – Another card that complements Dina nicely, allowing you to get the extra card every time, and Dina’s ability offsets the life loss.

Branching Evolution (PIP EA Surge $13) – If you’re doing the counters thing, do it more.

The Earth Crystal (Borderless Foil $16) – Your deck might have more black cards, but it’s likely you’ll want the bonus counters no matter what.

Commander Planeswalker! Let’s go looking at the passive, because the Spirits don’t get haste, nor do they keep the abilities. Plus there aren’t a lot of good RW spirits to build around. 

Quintorious, Loremaster (MAT special foil $0.50) – There’s a boatload of these on TCGPlayer, and I’m not sure the commander is good enough to get people excited. However, there might be a brick play here, buying them up for two bits and selling to a buylist for $1.50 each.

Squee, Goblin Nabob (MYB2 foil $20) – There’s a Secret Lair foil from the advent calendar that you might want instead, but the Future Sight frame is cool and much, much rarer. Squee is a great setup card for QHC if it stays in play, which is not a given.

Containment Construct (NEO foil $2) – If you’re discarding with the ability, why not get the token too?

Emeria, the Sky Ruin (nonfoils $19) – If you can get enough plains, you get the creature back plus a token!

Sephiroth, Fallen Hero (EA $4) – Make tokens, modify the tokens, keep the loop going. I don’t need much excuse to spec on Final Fantasy cards, either. 

Any Phoenix, any Disturb card, any Escape card, all of these do the thing that Quintorious wants to do, so take your pick. 

I have a Zaxara deck, so I’m well used to broken X spells. To start, you’re going to want lots of +1/+1 counter enablers, but the real meat of the deck is sweet X spells. 

Elementalist’s Palette (EA $5) – I’m hoping for a sweet foil version of this card soon, as if you get it to trigger twice, it gets out of hand real fast.

Unbound Flourishing (SLD foil $15) – Really, all of Calling All Hydra Heads is tempting, but this is the best card for Zimone out of the Lair.

Springleaf Parade (EA $6) – James clued me in to this card, and it does so much that you want to do. X spells often make tokens, and now you get mana out of them!

Doppelgang (FEA $1.50) – It’s a ridiculous mana cost, but this can do things no other card can do. Remember you only get to keep one copy if you pick a legendary creature.

Sporoocyst (Surge Foil $8) – One thing about these decks is that they are super hungry for mana. Getting even two lands off of this is a big help.

Nexos (regular $5) – These and the Surge Foil got bought out hard when Zimone was spoiled, so there might not be a lot of profit left, but if the deck takes off this is an absolutely absurd card. 

Killian will play very similar to Eriette of the Charmed Apple, and we’ve already seen Nurgle’s Rot spike thanks to the new Killian. However, you want to do two things: replay enchantments and have creatures attack with your enchantments on them. It’s plenty possible for you to focus on one aspect of the other, but really, Eriette does it much better. Killian gives one goad trigger, and then maybe you can get something good going on your side too. 

Gift of Immortality (pack foil $14) – This should be a top include for Killian, letting you put the commander and the enchantment into play over and over again. There’s a moment of vulnerability, but exile removal will also make you sad, so you won’t get away with it too much.

Greater Auramancy (WOT anime nonfoil $23) – I think the foils at $60 are tempting, and it won’t take much to move the confetti foils up a good bit, but I am staking a claim on these giving you the best return. It’s pretty easy to imagine these going to $50, whereas the foil doubling to $100 or the confetti hitting $200 is much more difficult. 

Eye of Nidhogg (FEA $2) – There’s a lot of enchantments that give a creature goaded status, and those are all worthy includes, but this one keeps coming back, giving you more cards! Plus there’s not all that many copies on TCG.

Rootha is a tough sell. There’s a lot of cards that will give you tokens for casting a spell, like Chrome Host Seedshark or Manaform Hellkite. Rootha has to be in play at the beginning of combat, with the spell already cast this turn. Casting more than one doesn’t even help you, as you only get one token.

Arcane Bombardment (FEA $6) – It’s convoluted, but it’s got a lot of potential.

Fires of Invention (FEA $2) – I don’t think a lot of Commander players are willing to give up playing on opponents’ turns, but there’s not a lot of cheap ways to start casting spells for free.

Galvanoth (pack foil $1) – Really the perfect complement to Rootha, giving you freebies all over the place.

River Song’s Diary (FEA Surge $3.50) – Someone bought a dozen of these this week, and I think it’s related to Rootha because it’s pretty easy to set up. 

Submerge (The List nonfoils $3.50) – Have Rootha in play, cast free spell, attack for 5 flying. Seems good.

Big Score/Pirate’s Pillage/Unexpected Windfall (bulk) – Three cards that do the same thing, but you need six mana. Cast the spell, get treasures, cast the commander, get a 4/4 flying haste. Not terrible.

Again, these are all specs that could be good, but I want to wait till the decklists are revealed before going deep. Happy building!

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 seven sets coming in 2026, there’s going to be a lot of times I say these words: It’s time to do some math! 

That’s right, Lorwyn Eclipsed is about to be released, and we need to do some arithmetic in order to figure out how likely it is that Collector Boosters will contain what we want.

So strap on a calculator, kids, and let’s get into it!

In running these numbers, I’m just using Wizards’ released information about the makeup of Collector Booster packs. The focus is on those CBs, because that’s where the best stuff will be. There’s a tiny chance of these showing up in Play Boosters, but generally, don’t waste your time with those if you like to crack packs. 

First off, let’s talk about nonfoil cards. 

It’s not every set where Wizards puts two nonfoils in the CBs this way, but when they do, it leads to a LOT of nonfoils entering the market. Especially the rares of each type, you’re at just over 83% of these slots having rares. Definitely could lead to some bricks being bought down the line, depending on the cards. 

Even with the double-up on the slot, you’re still looking at ten boxes of CBs to get that one fetchland in particular. Pretty tough pull, as nonfoils go.I’d look for these to be a little bit pricier than expected.

The foil slot, as always, has the best stuff:

The official MSRP of a CB pack is $27, so that’s what I’m using for my estimates.

In case you missed the bit in the article about collecting this set, we’re done getting Japanese-language Fracture Foils in English-language CBs. Those will only be found in the Japanese-language CBs. This is phrased as a permanent change, but we’ll see if that holds. 

As for the cards in this slot, we’re not seeing anything too wildly rare. Everything can be had in under 200 packs, which is pretty good for this sort of thing. If you’re expecting the mega-rares of the recent Universes Beyond sets, well, this won’t be as difficult.

With the shift in Fracture Foils, now we’ve got an interesting case. We know precisely what the ratio is of regular foil to Fracture Foil, it’s 9:1 and that means the expectation is that if a Fracture Foil costs $100, then the regular foil should be $11. To put another way, according to the math, nine regular foils should add up to the price of one Fracture Foil. 

The problem here is that we don’t know what the demand will look like, and if the Fracture Foil collectors was to go ham, they will, and throw the ratio all out of whack. As an example, let’s look at the Japan Showcase of Bloodthirsty Conqueror. The regular foil is right at $100, and the Fracture Foil is just about three times that much. (both of those are in English, for the record.)

Blessed few of the Fracture Foils currently have a ratio near 9:1, but that’s with the JPN versions getting opened. We’ll have to keep an eye on where the prices end up. 

The Special Guests part of this is about in line with other sets too. Specific cards are usually between 150-200 packs, and that’s what we’ve got here. There will be some excellent targets among the foils, I think, but the truly interesting case will be the nonfoils. Those are only found in the Play Boosters, and you’re 1 in 55 to get a SPG card. Since there’s 20 options, that means it’ll take 1,100 Play Boosters to get one particular nonfoil. 

Using Wizards’ MSRP, we can see that the cost in Play Boosters will be just over six grand, and that’s roughly $900 more than it’ll cost to open a foil version. It’s rare enough for the foils and nonfoils to be close in price, much less have the nonfoil as costing more. I’ll be watching to see if there’s deals to be had early, but this is another case where collectors might end up pushing the price to illogical levels.

The final point that jumps out at me is that 62.8% of the CBs opened will have a Rare FEA, a Foil Rare Fable Frame, or a Foil Rare Borderless card. They have a vested interest in keeping mythics at a lower drop rate, but if you add in the 10% of SPGs, now you’re talking about only 1 in 4 Collector Boosters having a foil mythic, and that’s a bit of a change from previous sets. It remains to be seen if that’ll damage the finances of those mythics, but really, it’ll be all about Commander demand. 

Last but not least, let’s talk about the Double Rainbow Foil Serialized Bitterblossom Bearer. I’ve made a table to show some of the likely drop rates, and how they contribute revenue for Wizards.

($250 is our estimated distributor buy price, or what Wizards makes when they sell the boxes to a distributor)

For a little context, Lord of the Rings Holiday edition was at 1.5 million packs, and the main summer set was 3.3 million. We’re estimating this is closer to Edge of Eternities’ print run, which was probably in the realm of 2 to 2.5 million packs. So I’m giving the estimate of about 1 in 5,000 Collector Boosters to snag a serialized card.

I want to repeat, this is an estimate. If you get me some solid data on how many Collector Boosters Wizards makes for a set, I’d love to have that piece of information.

I hope these charts are helpful as you decide what to buy and what to open. If you have questions or concerns, I’m happy to talk about the specifics on social media or in the ProTrader Discord. Good luck with your packs!

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.

Secret Lairs have been one of the most profitable parts of Magic finance this year. The combination of certain reprints and unique cards, plus the system for giving them out, has been ripe for big markups and fast gains. 

However, not everything Secret Lair has been equally profitable, and there are also examples where the psychology (or foolishness) really come into play. For more than a few Lairs, it’s not about the cards, but the item itself, the collectability. So let’s get into some examples, and see where we can gain some insights for future drops.

I’ve written before about what we want from a Secret Lair, but there have proven to be some additional layers. The biggest one, and the one that we can’t effectively plan for, is the quantity printed/does the Lair sell out. There’s some folks who can extract a number from the Secret Lair site and figure out when the Low Stock notice goes up, but that’s not always reliable info and even knowing the number doesn’t guarantee that a lower number sells out. 

The recent Playstation drop has some great examples of the two ways a Lair can go. Of the seven drops, three of them have sold out. Two sold out the first morning, and Horizon took a couple weeks to drain out completely. The ones that sold out, Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima and God of War: Greek, all have impressive jumps in the sealed prices and for the singles, but a lot of the attention on the singles has gone to the mechanically unique cards. The other four drops, though, are languishing on the site, and will likely be available for some time to come. 

Interestingly, during Dump Week for this drop, you could get some deals. The cheapest copy of God of War: Norse, which didn’t sell out and is still on the site for $50, sold a lot of copies for under $45 and some even just above $40. Now there could have been high shipping costs added on, that’s a game people like to play, but it also reflects that folks likely bought bundles and were dumping the ones that had the lowest prices. 

For these more recent Lairs, the singles are keeping up with the sealed prices, but there’s more than a few Lairs where the prices just do not add up, and you should always take a beat and check on that when you want a whole Lair. Case in point is Stranger Things, which thanks to Netflix is having a bump in the number of Lairs sold, but let’s look at what is going on. The individual foil cards add up to $85, and that includes a $10 foil Clue token. The sealed package is going for $150 right now, and there’s no mystery bonus card goosing the value of sealed Lairs too. 

My guess is that it’s collectors at work, people who want to have the entire set and don’t care about paying extra. It’s anyone’s guess if the sealed set will be opened, but as long as folks are buying, does it matter? I sold my last sealed for $120 last month, and with the series finale coming on New Year’s Eve, I’d recommend selling any lingering copies before then. Interest is back up, but this is it. The kids originally put on the cards are now college students!

Mainly, though, we want to pay attention to the Lairs that sell out. That leads to instant profits, and in this era where Heroic Intervention is going to get four printings in a year (Final Fantasy SLD, Spider-Man Bonus, Avatar Bonus, and Marvel Super Heroes x3!) I’m less and less interested in holding special printings for a long time. There’s too much churn, and money to be made, in fast flips, but again, only if you’re accurately picking Secret Lairs. If you buy everything then you’re going to have a lot of product that takes a long time to sell.

One thing that I’m not seeing when it comes to sealed vs. singles is bonus cards making a big difference. The Final Fantasy Lairs have wonderful bonuses in the pitch Elementals, and those Lairs aren’t super juiced. Same thing for Sonic, Spongebob, and others. Heck, even the original serialized, the reverse Viscera Seer, isn’t enough to keep the price of the Phyrexian Praetors drop high. 

Another non-factor (and likely a future article) is language. We’ve seen this trend over time, where the Japan Showcase cards in foil and fracture foil command much lower prices than the English versions, but non-English versions of cards are almost all worth less in the modern day, or at least for modern cards. Lairs with two languages, such as Final Fantasy or Hatsune Miku, demonstrate a big gap in what people will pay for the same art but a different language. Final Fantasy Game Over, as an example, has ENG foil sealed at $90 and sealed JPN for $40 on TCGPlayer. That doesn’t include the problem James and I have talked about, where for singles in Japanese you have to choose that filter. These are different listings, and similar prices can be found on eBay as well. 

Final Fantasy Lairs have access to the five elementals in both languages, and even those bonus drops have a big price gap too. Bonuses are a nice thing to have, but clearly, people aren’t interested in digging for lottery tickets.

So to wrap it up: Pay attention to the gap between single and sealed Lairs, resell the ones that sold out as fast as you can, and don’t expect bonuses to carry the weight for you. 

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.