Once again flexing maximum brand synergy, today Wizards of the Coast announced a new Secret Lair drop crossing over Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). While this is hardly the first time these adjacent brands have collaborated, for Magic players, these Lairs may be among the best offerings yet, even though they don’t add any unique cards to fight over.
Each Secret Lair in the “Roll for Initiative” Superdrop serves as a sort of starting point for a new Commander deck for player collections. This means there are some pretty exciting reprints in these Lairs instead of the occasional filler sometimes seen from the more artistic focus Secret Lair has.
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Baldur’s Gate’s Shadowheart and Gale Get A Spotlight In New D&D Secret Lair
Once again realizing that Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate should have been timed more to Baldur’s Gate III’s release, the first two drops feature party members from the award-winning game. This time around, Shadowheart and Gale get the spotlight with new art on their cards from Commander Legends and thematically relevant cards showcasing their journey.
In ‘Shadowheart’s Devotion,’ Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar is joined by three cards that greatly reflect her Sharran path in BG3. As a Commander, Shadowheart shines when creatures are sacrificed for her gain. Victimize and Black Market slot perfectly into that strategy. Meanwhile, Beseech the Queen is a powerful tutor spell to help Shadowheart ascend to victory.
Curiously, the fifth card in this Lair is Ancient Bronze Dragon, with art depicting the fight against Ansur in Act 3 of the game. It’s a welcome reprint, but players will need to pair Shadowheart with a green Background enchantment from Battle for Baldur’s Gate to use all five cards in the same deck. Though none of the green Backgrounds compliment Shadowheart’s own abilities.
Meanwhile, “Gale’s Ambition” is a fantastic showcase of the wizard’s vast talent. Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy is an excellent way to double the value of instants and sorceries, so long as you are playing enough of both. Luckily, the rest of the drop hands players exactly that.
Arcane Denial complements the potent but dangerous magic Gale contains inside him. Archmage’s Charm (featuring an extremely lustful godlike Gale) and Brainstorm are iconic and reliable instant speed spells. The last card, Personal Tutor, isn’t the most exciting tutor card in blue, but as a sorcery that searches other sorceries, it’s a clever way of making sure Gale’s own abilities are being put to use.
The new D&D Secret Lair Embraces Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, not just a video game tie-in.
Moving away from Baldur’s Gate III and to callbacks to the set Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, ‘Black Lights & Dark Dungeons’ features a vibrant heavy metal collection of cards based around Sefris of the Hidden Ways and the Dungeon mechanic.
Seasoned Dungeoneer gets the party started in the dungeon while digging for lands, and Tortured Existence puts creatures in the Graveyard for Sefris’ Dungeon venturing. Battle for Baldur’s Gate all-star Displacer Kitten rounds this out to enable entering the Battlefield combos.
Another Adventures in the Forgotten Realms favorite, Prosper, Tome-Bound, gets ‘Shadows Over Baldur’s Gate.’ This bright comic book-esque Lair includes Wild-Magic Sorcerer, a card that perfectly synergizes with Prosper’s ability to exile spells for casting later. Grim Hireling and Xorn add even more Treasure to play with, and Hireling can even turn those Treasures into the removal of even the most indestructible of threats.
Possibly the most exciting of the entire drop, the recently spiking in price Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm gets its first reprint in ‘Whispers in Candlekeep.’ This drop pairs the Temur (green/blue/red) Miirym with two powerful dragons, Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient, and Dragonborn Champion.
Klauth generates more mana to cast more dragons, and Champion draws cards when those powerful dragons hit your opponents’ life, itself included. To add insult to injury, the iconic Counterspell gets yet another variant, featuring spellbooks completely wasting away. Pick this one up if you got the Temur preconstructed deck from Tarkir: Dragonstorm last year!
But wait, there are vampires in the new D&D Secret Lair.
‘Strahd’s Descent’ brings the iconic D&D threat to the Commander pod by reskinning Strefan, Maurer Progentitor as “The Devil Strahd.” He’s flanked by must have vampire support land Voldaren Estate, reskinned as Strahd’s “Castle Ravenloft.”
End the Festivities is an incredibly efficient way to wipe small threats off the board while triggering Strahd/Stefan’s effect. Rounding out the Lair is the very exciting reprint of Bloodletter of Aclazotz as “Cast-Off Consort.” Bloodletter is an extremely powerful damage accelerant and sees play beyond Commander.
Finally, all these new starting points for Commander decks are going to need lands, and that’s where ‘Lands of the Forgotten Realms’ comes in. Containing 2 copies of each basic land, these gorgeous lands showcase various locations across the Forgotten Realms in full art and gold pin lines, culminating in the dragonhead logo of D&D.
While full art lands are hardly new or special these days, the framing and detail in these lands truly is stunning and fit with any and all of these D&D commanders.
These new Secret Lairs will be available from secretlair.wizards.com in foil ($39.99) and non-foil ($29.99) beginning February 9th. Wizards is also offering bundle collections, and as always, these limited drops are only available while supplies last.
Every Card in the D&D Secret Lair Drop
