Magic: The Gathering’s Secret Lair December Superdrop Includes Transformers, Cereal, And Shrooms

Quick Links

• Transformers: One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall

• Transformers: Optimus Prime Vs. Megatron

• Transformers: Roll Out Or Rise Up

• Just Add Milk

• Artist Series: Aleksi Briclot

• Wizards Of The Street

• Time Trouble 2

• The Meaning Of Life, Maybe

• The Art Of Frank Frazetta

• Welcome To The Fungal

• Special Guest: Kozyndan – The Lands

• Special Guest: Kozyndan – Another Story

• Bundles

• Promo Card: DJ Scarab God

Magic: The Gathering’s next Secret Lair Superdrop begins next week, bringing with it the inevitable follow-up to The Brothers’ War’s Transformers crossover cards, the art of legendary fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, and some very tasty-looking cereal.

Like most Secret Lair superdrops, these will only be available for a limited time – from December 5, 2022 to January 6, 2023 – and only through the official Secret Lair site. Once the sale has ended, they will never be available again. Here’s everything coming in the 12 drops that make up the final Superdrop of the year.

Transformers: One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall

The first of three Transformers-related drops bundle together five full-art basic lands that showcase scenes from around the Transformers’ home planet, Cybertron.

Much like the other Transformers cards, these also feature the return of the metal-looking finish we recently saw in the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks, albeit with a slightly raised saturation to match the slightly more cheerful Transformers aesthetic.

A long-running criticism of basic land Secret Lairs has been that there aren’t enough copies to kit out a deck with all the same art. However, while Wizards hasn’t confirmed it will be offering it for this drop yet, previous basic land releases also included a code to redeem them in MTG Arena where you’re free to use as many copies of each land as you like.

One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall will cost $29.99 for the regular edition, and $39.99 for a standard foil version.

Transformers: Optimus Prime Vs. Megatron

The second Transformers drop pits the series’ two most famous names against each other as the fight over the powerful device known as The AllSpark.

Unlike the Brothers’ War Transformers cards, which were mechanically unique, these three are reprints of existing cards. To really nail the Transformers aesthetic, each one is a double-sided card, with one side showcasing Optimus Prime or Megatron’s robot form, and the other their vehicle mode. Meanwhile, the AllSpark’s art becomes zoomed in, allowing the three to fit side-by-side to make a panoramic image.

Art side, these three cards all see a decent amount of play in formats like Commander. Blightsteel Colossus in particular is noteworthy for being one of the scariest creatures in the game, thanks to being both indestructible and having infect – an easy way to blast an opponent from the game by just dealing ten damage to them.

Transformers: Roll Out Or Rise Up

The final Transformers drop is a bit more game-piece-dense than the other two, thanks to it including reprints of six cards that all see some play.

Dramatic Reversal sticks out as the big winner of this, serving as one half of the game’s most famous infinite combo when combined with Isochron Scepter. Greater Good is also a great card draw spell, and Fabricate – although having had multiple reprints recently – is always a good tutor to have in any artifact-heavy deck.

Though none of the cards here stick out as absolute game-definers, none of them are unplayably bad, either. The regular edition will cost $29.99, while the foil comes in at $39.99.

Just Add Milk

Secret Lair has done lots of odd art styles over the years, but Just Add Milk takes unexpected inspiration from, of all things, cereal boxes.

The drop turns three of Magic’s best-known legendary creatures into tasty-sounding cereal, with Ulamog, The Ceaseless Hunger being “devoid of flavor”, the Stompy-licious Ghalta, Primal Hunger; and Etali, The Primal Storm encouraging you to share with your friends.

Each card is double-sided, with most of its key rules text appearing as the nutritional information alongside the usual puzzles and games you find on cereal boxes. It’s a really cool art treatment, although it does raise further questions about why this is legal for play in organised events and the recent 30th Anniversary Edition cards and their non-standard backings are not.

Just Add Milk comes in at the regular price of $29.99 for a regular edition, and $39.99 for foil. Considering Ulamog on its own is worth more than that, this is one of the better-valued drops in this collection.

Artist Series: Aleksi Briclot

Aleksi Briclot is one of Magic’s longest-serving artists, perhaps best-known for his work on the first art of the “Lorwyn Five” – the first-ever Planeswalker cards released for the game. Since then, he’s had a number of famous cards to his name, like Borborygmos Enraged, Hellkite Tyrant, Kozilek, the Great Distortion; Primeval Titan, and Venser, Shaper Savant.

For this drop, Briclot has explored one of Magic’s big bads, the Eldrazi. Across four cards – Thought-Knot Seer, Inquisition of Kozilek, Reality Smasher, and Eldrazi Temple – he’s showcased the ruinous power of the Eldrazi in horrific detail.

Unfortunately, though the art is incredible, the value is lacking here. The most valuable card is Eldrazi Temple, which is only worth around $5 through the secondary market. This is one you want to buy if you’re a fan of Briclot’s art, rather than hoping to snag a bargain.

Wizards Of The Street

Martin Ontiveros is back, having just made his MTG debut in the recent 30th Anniversary Countdown Kit. In his unmistakable style are four creature cards – all of which are particularly popular in the Commander format.

Baral, Chief of Compliance; Spellseeker, Magus of the Wheel, and Kess, Dissident Mage make up the drop, with cartoony, almost tattoo-esque art. Not only do they share an artist, all four fit together nicely in a graveyard-centric spellslingers deck, with Magus of the Wheel filling up your graveyard with instants and sorceries for Kess to use. Spellseeker can tutor up spells, while Baral lowers the cost of everything you play.

We don’t often see a drop so cohesive in both its artistic and mechanical designs, which makes this one much more interesting than it may look at first. Wizards of the Street will set you back $29.99 for a regular edition, and $39.99 for foil.

Time Trouble 2

One of last year’s most popular drops was Teferi’s Time Trouble, a collection of cards reprinted in the older card frame that has recently returned in The Brothers’ War. One of the big hits of it was the idea of ‘retro Planeswalkers’, which reimagined what Planeswalkers would’ve looked like had they appeared ten years earlier – crowded text box and all.

Time Trouble 2 takes that idea and expands it with three more retro Planeswalkers: Narset, Parter of Veils; Nissa, Who Shakes The World; and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. All three are in the upper tiers of Planeswalkers, with Narset particularly infamous for preventing your opponent from drawing any extra cards. Combine it with a wheel like Windfall or Wheel of Fortune, and you’ve suddenly made them throw away their entire hand with no way to draw more cards in their place.

Time Trouble 2 costs $29.99 for a regular edition, and $39.99 for foil.

The Meaning Of Life, Maybe

Ori Toor is an artist working out of Tel Aviv who is known for this idiosyncratic process. His skips any preparatory sketches and never goes into art knowing the final outcome. Instead, his art is largely improvised, resulting in psychedelic, abstract pieces full of flat colours and weird shapes.

The Meaning Of Life, Maybe is Toor’s take on five cards: Forced Fruition, Future Sight, Mental Misstep, Mind’s Dilation, and Well Of Lost Dreams. Each one has some of the most out-there art Magic has ever seen, with equally bizarre flavour text to match, such as Mental Misstep’s merely being “Paws.”

The cards offered here are pretty good, with Forced Fruition being the biggest hit of the bunch. Mind’s Dilation and Mental Misstep are also around $8 each to buy individually, while the other two are, admittedly, under $1 apiece.

The Art Of Frank Frazetta

Before his death in 2010, Frank Frazetta was a legend in fantasy illustration. He’s in multiple halls of fame for his work across comics, album covers, and movie posters, and is known for his highly textured, painterly style.

In collaboration with his estate, these five cards include some of his best-known art. Field Marshal, Temporal Manipulation, Dark Ritual, Midnight Reaper, and Seize The Day may not be the biggest a best-known card of all time, but they’re hardly the worst, either. Dark Ritual is a solid early-game mana boost for black decks, and Temporal Manipulation has had very few reprints over the years, keeping its cost still around $25. Seize The Day had a Secret Lair appearance only last year in the Heads I Win, Tales You Lose Commander deck, but it’s still a solid pick for combat-heavy decks wanting to swing out twice in a turn.

The Art Of Frank Frazetta will also be $29.99 for a regular edition, and $39.99 for foil.

Welcome To The Fungal

We’ve had psychedelic-themed Secret Lairs before, but none have played quite as hard into the Magic Mushrooms angle as much as Welcome To The Fungal, thanks to its five fungus-inspired cards.

Abundant Growth is a great ramping enchantment, Mycoloth can print out Saproling tokens (one of which is included in the drop); Slimefoot, The Stowaway punishes your opponents for killing your Saprolings, and Ghave, Guru of Spores is a terrifyingly powerful combo piece that uses counters to produce potentially infinite creatures.

The art is vibrant, and adequately mind-melting for a drop all about psychedelic fungus. The regular version is $29.99, while the foil is $39.99.

Special Guest: Kozyndan – The Lands

The first of two drops featuring special guest artist duo Kozyndan, this one features five full-art basic lands. The art is simultaneously whimsical and slightly threatening, showing off gigantic sea monsters on the Island, mounted warriors on the Planes, and an unnerving bayou on the Swamp.

Consisting of one copy of each of the five basic lands; like the Transformers lands, it hasn’t yet been revealed whether this will include a code to redeem the lands on MTG Arena, however it is incredibly likely as there hasn’t been a land drop that hasn’t included it so far.

Kozyndan – The Lands costs $29.99 for a regular, and $39.99 for foil.

Special Guest: Kozyndan – Another Story

The final drop has a marked Japanese feel to it, with five cards given a traditional illustration look that feels almost like something we would’ve seen around the launch of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty.

Each card in the drop is a one-mana spell, with multi-format staples Rapid Hybridization and Llanowar Elves, and Serra Ascendant joined by the also-popular Demonic Consultation (which is so good it was banned in Legacy) and Winds of Change.

Out of all the drops, this is by far the most valuable, with three of the five cards worth over $10. If there’s one drop you buy in the entire Superdrop, this is the one that combines artistic flair, powerful cards, and a high reprint value.

Bundles

As with all Superdrops, there are a series of bundles that group together some or all of the drops in a single purchase.

Unfortunately, Transformers continues the trend of Universes Beyond crossovers not being included in the wider bundles. The Transformers Bundle includes one copy of all three drops, with the regular costing $88.99, and the foil $118.99.

For the rest of the drops, the Big Non-Foil includes one copy of each non-Transformers drop for $268.99. Meanwhile, the foil edition comes in at $358.99. Oddly, there isn’t a ‘complete’ bundle for this Superdrop, something that has been offered in previous months.

Promo Card: DJ Scarab God

A new introduction to Secret Lair is a special card you’ll receive a copy of for every $200 you spend. DJ Scarab God isn’t included in any other drop, although you will receive further copies of it for every $200 you spend – only $800 for a full playset!

Scarab God is known as one of the most oppressive Zombie-tribal commanders in the format. With psychedelic art by Barely Human, this depiction of it hyping up a club of Zombies may slightly reduce the fear the table feels when it comes into play – but only slightly.

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