MTG ditching Secret Lairs in main sets is a good thing

MTG Secret Lairs offer unique cards for collectors and exciting crossovers, but they’ll soon be kept separate from main MTG releases.

Secret Lairs allow MTG to branch out in strange and specific directions that main set releases usually wouldn’t allow.

From The Princess Bride to Jurassic Park’s Dr Ian Malcolm, Secret Lairs continues to bring offbeat and interesting designs to a select number of Magic fans.

Even before Universes Beyond started bringing large-scale crossovers to Magic, Secret Lairs allowed for card crossovers with Godzilla, Dracula, and more.

Over the holidays, MTG head designer Mark Rosewater confirmed that there are no major MTG sets currently being designed that will include additional Secret Lair cards. Secret Lair releases will remain separate from MTG premier releases for the foreseeable future.

MTG Secret Lair to be kept separate from main sets

Given the difficulty inherent in pulling recent main-set secret lairs, this change might be for the best overall. Despite the popularity of the Secret Lair X Jurassic World products, the chances of receiving one of these crossover cards in a main Lost Caverns of Ixalan booster were lower than many would have liked.

With guaranteed Jurassic World Secret Lair cards present only in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Collector Boosters, many fans felt as though they were being baited by the promise of Jurassic World cards into buying the more expensive MTG product.

Keeping MTG sets free of crossover clutter

Justyna Dura

As Universes Beyond becomes an increasingly larger part of Magic’s overall release strategy, Wizards may be looking to draw a clearer defining line between in-universe products and crossovers.

The success of Universes Beyond releases like Tales of Middle Earth and Doctor Who, and now Marvel, gives little indication that the crossovers will be stopping any time soon. With that in mind, the MTG team may be doing all they can to retain the independence of MTG’s main sets.

Allowing Secret Lairs to exist in their own space lessens the chance of MTG’s worlds and stories being too diluted by crossovers, and prevents players from fishing too much in packs they wouldn’t otherwise be concerned with.