This coming Monday, July 29th, at 9 am Pacific time, 12 pm Eastern time, and 4 pm GMT, the next Superdrop becomes available. There’s a whole lot to unpack here, and I’m going to go over all of the cards with you and determine what I want to buy and why.

Let’s get to the cards!

One caveat before we dive in: We’ve gotten no hint that there will be a Hatsune Miku drop as yet, and given that there are two big collaborations in this drop, a third would be a lot going on at once. We also don’t know if there’s a bonus card, a reward for spending X dollars, but with how popular the last drop was that didn’t include a bonus, they might have given up on that completely.

The exact dollar amounts for bundle discounts isn’t known yet, but I would be surprised if it went much over 15%, even for the biggest bundles. Wizards understands that they are selling a lot of cards, and the discounts have been slowly shrinking. The line must continue up and to the left!

For each drop, I’m going to look at the EDHREC numbers, as that’s the biggest driver for cards like these. EDHREC is a great database, even if its numbers are a little weighted towards preconstructed decks, and while it’s a small percentage of players overall it remains useful. 

MTG x Brain Dead

Brain Dead is an art group that’s done a lot of cool stuff, and they get three sets of cards here. Wurmcoil is only listed in 85k decks online, which feels low for such an iconic creature. Its cheapest version is $11, and there’s both Inventions and Serialized versions released over the years. Sphinx is $23, has a borderless version, and is in 106k decks. Kiki-Jiki is $7, and this would be the first printing that isn’t the traditional frame, though it’s not far off. He’s also got just under 80k decks, including a thousand where he’s the commander. Meteor Golem was in a SL drop in 2021, with Jen Bartel and a badass look in a borderless frame for $6, and is in 97k decks! Again, be wary of that number due to how many precons the Golem has been in, and the Goo is just filler that only the hardest-core coin flipper plays.

Sphinx, Wurmcoil, and Kiki make a decent start for the set of cards, and if the discounts are right, I might buy some of these. It doesn’t sing to me, though, and I’m being a bit more selective with buying sealed drops vs. singles these days.

Brain Dead Lands

All of these were put into one image, making me think that this is the first time they are putting two of each land into one drop. I’d be tempted by ten foil lands for $40, but ultimately I think this is a pass for me. It’s been a couple of drops since we were given lands, and I’d been hoping we were past this. The lands are great art, but there’s just so many choices for great art these days that we need something truly unusual to break through.

Brain Dead Staples

There are staples indeed (none listed at less than 400k decks), and all of these are worthwhile pickups. Four of these cards were in the ‘Through the Wormhole’ drop, and with galaxy foiling plus sweet art. The frames for the Brain Dead cards ought to look pretty cool, with the textured frame, and I’m probably going to buy a couple of this drop.

Showcase: Bloomburrow

These are neat, and I’ve learned not to overlook the power of ‘cute’ when it comes to Magic cards. None of these are cats or dogs, and a lot of the value here is predicated on Tezzeret being only available as a buy-a-box card. Because of that scarcity, he’s a $20 card but that’s going to fall pretty hard. He’s an auto-include in artifact decks that can play him, but those numbers aren’t too huge. I’m going to get singles here, instead of spending $40 or $50 on the set.

Featuring: Andrew MacLean

This is a great set of art, and I remain thankful that Wizards has listened to me as I begged for the art series to be bigger than the regular frame. So here we are, borderless cards from the gloriously beared artist of the Head Lopper series. This is the first special frame for Nirkana (34k), Terastodon (68k) and Arbor Elf (142k). Maelstrom Wanderer has a profile version in Commander Masters, is the number #199 commander all time (5400 as commander, 38k as card) and so this drop will likely have the most expensive versions of all four of these cards. 

At $40, I’m not a buyer. I’ll be looking for singles the week this lands, especially on Arbor Elf. 

MTG x Monty Python vol 1 and vol 2

I generally avoid swearing here but HOLY SHIT I did not see this coming. This is a phenomenal crossover, headlined by something which will sing to Magic boomers like me. The original pinger (as an aside, to demonstrate how powerful this ability to tap and deal damage to any target is, there’s only two of those creatures legal in Pioneer: Endbringer and Syr Carah) has a whole bit of lore about why Prodigal Sorcerer was nicknamed ‘Tim’, and it was so prevalent that it was used as a verb back in the day. 

The bonus cards, according to Reddit (and I believe it, the Monty Python drops are already on sale this weekend at SDCC) are worthwhile, and I 100% believe that this was slated to be a single Lair, but they see how Evil Dead and Princess Bride did, and decided to double their money. Can’t blame them, really.

I will be maxing out on these, and if the limit is 5 per order, I may think of telling friends to order some too. This is going to pay off, and I also expect this to be the Lair that sells out fastest. 

I would not be shocked if they went back and gave us a volume 3 or 4, given the quotable moments that didn’t get covered (Grail-shaped beacon! Huge tracts of land! Coconuts as horses! ELDERBERRIES!) because they want to get every dollar out of us and this is the way to do it.

My rankings for the drop overall:

1 and 2) Monty Python

3) Brain Dead Staples

4) Brain Dead Gallery 

5) Featuring Andrew MacLean

6) Brain Dead Lands

If they surprise us with big discounts or some awesome bonus card, I might adjust what I buy, but my plan currently is to max out on Monty Python and dabble a little in the Staples. Come chat in the Discord if you want to talk other plans!

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.

Bloomburrow is officially out in two weeks, and I want to make sure you know your odds before you start going crazy with preorder pricing. We have more than a few card variants to look for, and thankfully, we’ve got all the information we need to calculate drop rates.

So let’s get into some of the specifics for the set, and see what the numbers tell us.

First of all, The List is dead! (for now) and Special Guests are the only leftovers of a targeted reprint policy. We’ve got some others in the subsets too, but that happens in every release. Special Guest nonfoils are in Play Boosters, and foils in Collector Boosters. We’re told that for a nonfoil, you’re at a 1.5% chance to get one in any Play Booster. That’s 67 packs for any nonfoil SPG, and with ten cards, that means 667 packs to get a specific one (or 18.5 boxes). I’ll compare that to the foils in a moment.

There are three groupings of cards in Bloomburrow, outside of the expected Showcase and Extended Art cards we see in every set. First is the Courageous Critters (20 cards), the Field Notes (8 cards), and then a set of 20 Anime Art cards done by Mitsuhiro Arita. Of note, these aren’t bonus sheets but they are subsets, though they lack their own set code, like BIG and OTP were for Outlaws of Thunder Junction. 

Play Boosters can’t open any of the big money foil variants, so aside from knowing that the SPG nonfoils are tough to pull, we’ll move on. If you really want to know about a card from Play Boosters, drop me a message on Twitter or in the Discord.

The Collector Boosters have three slots at the end that are noteworthy. First, we have two slots in a row of nonfoil cards we’ll care about. Please note that the listed percentages add up to 200%, because there’s two slots.

With these percentages, it can be a little misleading, so let’s make a table. 

Set/Treatment (all nonfoils)	Percent chance for any card of that category	Percent chance for a specific card of that category	# of CBs to open one specific card from that category
Borderless Mythic Rare (5)	6.58%	1.32%	75.99
Borderless Field Notes Rare (1)	2.63%	2.63%	38.02
Borderless Field Notes Mythic (6)	7.89%	1.32%	76.05
Borderless Field Notes Mythic (1)	0.6%	0.60%	166.67
Showcase Rare (35)	92.1%	2.63%	38.00
Showcase Mythic Rare (7)	9.21%	1.32%	76.00
Borderless Planeswalker Mythic Rare (1)	1.32%	1.32%	75.76
EA Rare (13)	34.2%	2.63%	38.01
Courageous Critters Rare (12)	31.5%	2.63%	38.10
Courageous Critters Mythic Rare (8)	10.53%	1.32%	75.97
Borderless Three Tree City Rares (4)	2.63%	0.66%	152.09
Mitsuhiro Arita Lumra, Bellow of the Woods (1)	0.6%	0.60%	166.67

Please note, Wizards isn’t entirely clear about which Field Notes mythic is a standalone, or why it happened that way. I’ve reached out to those who might be able to clarify, and we’ll see if I get any answers.

And yes, you’re seeing that correctly: 9 out of 10 Collector Booster packs will have a Showcase rare in one of these two slots. While that seems like a lot, even those will require more than three boxes to get a specific Showcase nonfoil rare. 

Now, the same table for the foil options of the last slot in the Collector Booster: 

Set/Treatment (all traditional foil unless noted)	Percent chance for any card of that category	Percent chance for a specific card of that category	# of CBs to open one specific card from that category
Borderless Mythic Rare (5)	3.07%	0.61%	162.87
Borderless Field Notes Rare (1)	1.23%	1.23%	81.30
Borderless Field Notes Mythic (6)	3.68%	0.61%	163.04
Borderless Field Notes Mythic (1)	0.31%	0.31%	322.58
Showcase Rare (35)	42.95%	1.23%	81.49
Showcase Mythic Rare (7)	4.30%	0.61%	162.79
Borderless Planeswalker Mythic Rare (1)	0.61%	0.61%	163.93
EA Rare (13)	15.95%	1.23%	81.50
Courageous Critters Rare (12)	14.73%	1.23%	81.47
Courageous Critters Mythic Rare (8)	4.91%	0.61%	162.93
Borderless Three Tree City Rares (4)	1.23%	0.31%	325.20
Mitsuhiro Arita Lumra, Bellow of the Woods (1)	0.31%	0.31%	322.58
Borderless Special Guests (10)	3.07%	0.31%	325.73
Raised Foil Anime (21)	3.66%	0.17%	573.77

So two things jump out at me right away, given the data.

First of all, 573 packs to get a specific Raised Foil Anime version is pretty out there. If a box of 12 packs is $200, then you’re looking at about $9,500 of product to get one copy! In terms of past sets, a Raised Foil Chatterfang is about as difficult to pull as a Foil Vault Frame Vaultborn Tyrant. The Raised Foils are also going to have a very wide gap from the cheapest to the most expensive, so I’m expecting to see some swingy reports of the value opened. 

Second, the foil Special Guests are 325 Collector Boosters to get a specific card, while the nonfoils are 667 Play Boosters. There’s clearly a disparity in terms of the prices involved, and how much would be spent to get a single copy, but this gap is more pronounced than ever and I’m going to be keeping a special eye on these nonfoils, as they are difficult to get. 

I hope these numbers help you make decisions about what to buy and when. If you’d like to talk about my methods or conclusion, please feel free to reach out on Twitter or in 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.

Bloomburrow has a prerelease in two weeks, and the previews are flowing freely. Often I’ll take a look at all the mythics, but the big price driver is Commander.

This is the first one that made me stop and think that there was a lot of good stuff coming. Birds are already blue-white, adding red doesn’t do much, but this is token greatness. 

To be fair, we don’t know what’s in Zinnia’s deck yet, so there’s some significant reprint risk. Please keep that in mind. If you want to wait on buying these until the decklist is revealed, please feel free to be cautious.

Step 1: Make our creature spells cheaper so the Offspring is free or reduced. Cost reductions can apply to additional costs, so if we get something for 2 less, the Offspring just tags along!

Conduit of Ruin (BFZ nonfoil $11) – The Eldrazi have made this go through the roof, but it does exactly what we want in a deck like this. Offspring is free if it’s in play, and if you happened to make a token, then yes, it’s four less! Feel free to fetch up a Myr Battlesphere with it.

Medallions (Borderless foil from $7 to $20) – I am a huge proponent of this set of mana rocks, and frankly, I think they are underplayed. You can play more than one color, and it’ll reduce multicolor spells by that much mana. 

Seal of the Guildpact (Retro frame foil is bulk) – A lot of what you’re going to be doing is multicolor, and while it’s five mana, it does what you want. 

Grand Arbiter Augustin IV (SL Fallout foil $5) – People kill this blatherer on sight, because it’s annoying, but when a card is good, it gets targeted.

Monuments ($3 to $9) – Especially Oketra’s Monument, as it gets you more tokens for more goodness.

Semblance Anvil (Retro Schematic foil $2) – It’s two cards, yes, but you’re going to be doing a lot of things to make up for the disadvantage.

Urza’s Incubator (MH3 foil $10) – The regular frame foil is half the price of every other version, and with the coming emphasis on kindred decks, it’s a good a time as any to stock up.

Urza’s Filter (INV nonfoil $4) – If you’re casting and copying multicolor spells, this is your new best friend.

Step 2: The most fun things to copy are tokens that come with tokens. You’re going to be spoiled for choices, but if you want a full army to come from one creature, these are the frontrunners.

Captain of the Watch (surge foil $1.50) – A time-honored choice, as the original and the Offspring will boost the resulting army, giving you six 3/3s and a 2/2 token.

Geist-Honored Monk (INN foil $2) – You’re likely to go wide with a deck like this, so why not grab two 6/6 Monks that can get a lot bigger and four flyers?

Regal Caracal (AKH foil $5) – Amusingly, there’s not a lot of Cats or Dogs on Bloomburrow, so this is likely safe. Again, a lot of boosting each other going on here and a whole lot of lifelink too.

Wildfire Awakener (EA 50¢) – The card is fantastic as the first thing to cast or if you already have a boatload of tokens. If you’ve got haste enabled, watch out!

Riders of Rohan (Showcase Scroll foil $1) – The Dash ability is really sick here, if expensive. You will not have to return the Offspring (I think) but you’re going to get four hasty tokens each time.

Precursor Golem (bulk) – Too many printings and frames, and with some real risk, but it’s one card for seven 3/3 and one 1/1 Golems!

Step 3: Hyperdrive!

Purphoros, God of the Forge (etched foil $20) – There’s a reason that everyone with tokens plays this, and it’s because it saves you an attack step, just dealing damage directly. 

Flameshadow Conjuring (Magic Origins foil $7) – If 2 is good as an Offspring cost, then 2R to get double offspring is even better! It’s absolutely overkill, and you shouldn’t stop yourself from living the big dreams.

Warleader’s Call (Showcase foil $10) – The other versions are cheaper, but the card is very popular and very powerful.

Serra Redeemer (Foil EA $4) – Most of the 1/1 boosters are touching green, but if you want to make a lot of tokens become a lot bigger, this is a great place to start. And yes, if you Offspring this you’ll get double the counters. (The Offspring will even get a boost from the original!)

Optional: Artifact Creature builds of this Commander are going to kick a lot of butt. These colors have a lot of ways to pay you off for doing what you’d do anyway, just adding artifact synergies.

Artifact reducers (too dang many to list) – The really great thing about a Zinnia build of artifacts is the way that you can make Offspring of Etherium Sculptor and the like, going just wild on the reductions and the benefits. 

Simulacrum Synthesizer (BIG foil $28) – This especially needs mentioning because the Offspring tokens have the mana cost of the original, so if you Offspring something like a Solemn Simulacrum, you can get two Constructs to go with the two originals! I can’t wait to see how people break this card. 

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 at an interesting point in the Magic calendar. Bloomburrow previews start next week, Assassin’s Creed has just landed with a thud, and the Pro Tour was filled with combo decks trying to combo past each other. Wild times!

With that in mind, there’s some big, unanswered questions that Wizards absolutely has to come up with answers to, and those answers are going to have big financial implications too.

1) Modern bans: Which, and when?

Officially, the next set of banning announcements will be in August sometime. The official announcement on June 24 said that the next one would be ‘in August’ but clearly, everyone and their cousin, plus their best friend and the random stranger across the street, they all have decided that a ban for Nadu is coming: 

I grant you that this is a rare from a big set that’s still being opened, but Nadu decks were 20% of the PT meta, 5 of the top 8, and all of the final four players standing. This was a known deck, at least in concept, and a huge swath of players chose to join the best deck than try to beat the best deck. 

Nadu decks are not going to survive much longer in their current form. The price is dropping fast, which is the opposite of what a breakout card that won a Pro Tour should do. Wizards clearly needs to do something, but what will they do? We’ve only got a few small events’ worth of data to go one since the PT, but keep in mind that the PT decks are the result of a week or two of frenzied testing. It’s reasonable to think that we haven’t hit on the ‘best’ Nadu deck yet, but the hive mind will get there.

There are three paths forward:

1. Do nothing and let the meta sort things out for now. August is the planned banning time, so there’s no need to hurry. Let the wisdom of the group figure out answers.
2. Emergency ban on Shuko or Springheart, two of the key enablers for the deck. Endless people have compared this to the Hogaak/Bridge from Below problem, where Wizards tries to get rid of the easy/early tools for the deck. Scute Swarm and Umbral Mantle are the first things tat come to mind, or maybe we have to add Puresteel Paladin into the mix. 
3. Emergency ban on Nadu, Winged Wisdom. Does this overclock Mono-B or the Ruby Storm? Maybe ban with those too. 

I don’t know what they are going to do, only that something needs to get done.

2) When will Wizards learn that small standalone sets are not a good idea?

Assassin’s Creed is street-legal as of 7/5, and at this moment, there are six cards which are worth more than $10 in the regular, nonfoil frame. (I expect that to get lower in the days to come, but I can only work with current data.) Four of those are reprints and one is an Onslaught reprint, Cover of Darkness, that hasn’t gotten any new copies in 20+ years.

Aftermath was an unpopular product that did not sell well. Assassin’s Creed is selling, but not at the high velocities that other Universes Beyond products have had. It appears that the ideal model for these products is the Commander deck + Collector Booster model, and Wizards doesn’t seemed to have grasped that concept yet

3) A set for 5 years in standard?!!??!

More details are going to be coming about Foundations, the Standard supplement set that is due to be released November 15 and be legal in Standard until 2029, at least according to the early information we’ve been given. There’s going to be Jumpstart boosters, Play Boosters, and Collector Boosters. In addition, there’s a tier of entry-level product with known amounts and cards, to help new players get used to the paper game. 

Magic is an incredibly difficult game to learn, let alone master well enough for a Commander game. It takes a lot of practice, and a lot of dedicated folks helping you learn. I approve highly of making such a set, but why on earth would we have a Play and Collector booster tier of products for the starter set?

I have many questions about this set, but the main one is this: How are they going to release a product that does both of these things:

1. Stays available for five years
2. Keeps enough of a price for five years that vendors will buy it and players will want to open it

I genuinely don’t know how that’s accomplished. If you make it widely accessible, the value is lowered. If you have a limited run, god forbid in year three the lands in this set become expensive. I’m hopeful that there will be more information coming, but my initial thoughts are to be very very wary of this set and its design. 

4) How quickly will the next two Hatsune Miku Secret Lairs sell out?

The first was sold out in about 6 hours, maybe a little less judging by the posts in our ProTrader Discord. (I’m talking North America here, I’m aware that the EU version of the site had some product for a bit longer) The second sold out in about two hours. In a vacuum, the first set had more mediocre cards, but had better bundle pricing and bigger spending got some sweet Seedborn Muses. 

This second run had no bonus at all for bigger spenders, but had better cards (Sol Ring!) and went flying on orders. There’s no reason to think that the third and fourth drops will be immune from the same effects. The only question is if there is more of these lairs being printed. I’d give a lot to know the exact print runs for Secret Lair drops these days, but Wizards knows and they are setting the table.

I think they have most Lairs dialed in correctly. Right now, with about ten of the twenty days passed, we’re sold out of NOT A WOLF, the Miku drops, Prints of Darkness, and Da Vinci’s Designs in foil. That leaves the Julie Bell cards and the Lethal Legends, we’ll see if any of those leftovers get sold out in the last ten days. 

As I said on the cast, be ready, be logged in, and have your card ready to go. The first two went fast, and I expect the second two to go even faster now that we have the first ones selling for double the cost to buy in. 

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.