Crazy as it seems, it’s almost April. This means that soon all the brands will be bringing up their latest fake products and attempts to make the kids laugh. To the credit of Magic the Gathering, at least their April Fool’s jokes are products one can buy. This time around, it seems that Wizards of the Coast is giving the punchline away early – and this new Deadpool Secret Lair drop probably should have stayed fake.
To recap: on March 17th, 2026, content creator Taalia Vess posted a previously unknown Secret Lair featuring Marvel’s Merc With A Mouth. This isn’t the first time Wade Wilson has appeared in Magic. In fact, last year’s April Fools drop featured a mechanically unique and flavorfully annoying card for him. In this drop, there are no brand-new cards. Instead, the featured cards are reprints, completely mutilated by Deadpool.
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The Deadpool Secret Lair drop just feels off.
The joke? That Magic sometimes prints cards that are functionally similar. It’s a longstanding observation within the community – that’s where calling cards strictly worse/better comes from. In this upcoming Lair, Deadpool “fixes” some of these cards by scribbling and drawing all over them, making them into other similar cards. For example, Tormenting Voice gets turned into Thrill of Possibility, because those two cards have the same effect and mana value, but play at different timings.
Sure, Magic players grab a random common card and scribble out all the words from time to time to make a quick test card or proxy for a Commander game. But there’s something pretty cringy about Wizards themselves doing it. For one, most of these cards don’t move the needle in terms of excitement – Secret Lair remains a Sol Ring factory first and foremost. For two, printing effectively two cards on one card, like this, raises questions about readability.
These Lightning Greaves are the chief offender. In addition to using the text of Swiftfoot Boots, the art is a take on Swiftfoot Boots and not Greaves. There’s a good chance that a player is going to look at this card and think it’s the original card and not the one Deadpool “fixed.”
Lightning Greaves | 2 Colorless Mana
Artifact – Equipment
Equipped creature has haste and shroud. (It can’t be the target of spells or abilities. It can attack and Tap no matter when it came under your control.)
Equip 0 Mana (Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery.)
Swiftfoot Boots | 2 Colorless Mana
Artifact – Equipment
Equipped creature has hexproof and haste. (It can’t be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control. It can attack and Tap no matter when it came under your control.)
Equip 1 Colorless Mana (Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery.)
Yes, these two cards are very similar and are often run together in Commander decks. But they are different cards, not just because Lightning Greaves’s equip cost is free. Shroud gives total protection from targeting effects, including those controlled by the target’s owner. Hexproof, which Swiftfoot Boots provides, still allows players to target their own creature. Both have applications, but as any Commander player who’s had to move Greaves around between creatures to use their other spells can tell you, it does make a difference.
Readability of cards has been a community topic for some time in the age of Secret Lairs and Collector Boosters. As WOTC continues to push the boundaries of what a Magic card looks like, the placement of card text has definitely become extremely flexible. This allows for cool but complex renditions of cards, like this vibrant Saruman of Many Colors from Tales of Middle-Earth:
Saruman of Many Colors | 3 Colorless Mana, 1 White Mana, 1 Blue Mana, 1 Black Mana
Legendary Creature – Avatar Wizard
Ward—Discard an enchantment, instant, or sorcery card.
Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, each opponent mills two cards. When one or more cards are milled this way, exile the target enchantment, instant, or sorcery card with equal or lesser mana value than that spell from an opponent’s graveyard. Copy the exiled card. You may cast the copy without paying its mana cost.
5/4
This example is pretty extreme, but it does drive home the point of some cards requiring a second or third look to actually grasp what they do. That can be frustrating, but at least cards like this look radically different from other versions. A player can at least tell there’s something notable and worth a longer look across the table. Deadpool’s “fixed” cards are ugly enough to maybe have the same effect, but there’s a bit of trolling that comes from that difference, being that it looks like another already well-known card.
Trolling is pretty much the goal of this drop anyway, as is often the case with the April Fools’ lair. Humor is subjective, and surely there are plenty of players excited to frustrate their friends by playing a Mountain that is actually an Island. But the whole thing is low-hanging fruit for Deadpool, honestly. It’s a surface-level reading of a character that reads him just as a character meant to annoy the ever-loving hell out of everyone.
Compared to the original Deadpool cards, it’s a major drop-off in quality. The original leveraged flavor text to highlight more than just Deadpool’s capacity to be annoying, choosing humor that falls more into sarcasm and punchlines. The art and card selection highlighted Deadpool’s powers, personal likes, and when it is actually appropriate to be a bit groan–worthy. Meanwhile, this drop is Deadpool, but how a cosplayer doesn’t know what a boundary is, views him. Given that Universes Beyond is best when it adapts with care, this is a real disappointment.
At the time of writing, Wizards of the Coast hasn’t said whether or not this is going to drop on April Fools ‘ Day, but it’s likely there’s no way to stick these back in the oven. As the community continues to rag on the Spider-Man set from last year, another Marvel dud would not be ideal for Wizards of the Coast. Hopefully, June’s Marvel Super Heroes can turn things around, because this Lair isn’t it.
Images via Taalia Vess.
