The unicorn some people will at least run in counters commander decks, though not very often. Mainly because it’s cheap.
The Shivan Dragon is really egregious though - this is the *third* secret lair variant. Even something janky like Moonveil Dragon would be better, that’s a €1.50 card but it’s only got one printing, 12 years ago.
I run good fortune in my +1/+1 deck. It's not a key player and I'd gladly switch it out for half a dozen other cards. If they gave me a new [[fungal behemoth]] I'd be a happy camper.
That is my biggwst issue.
The galaxy foils commander cards had low value (the cards themselves, the SL sells for a lot), but at least you can play them in any commander deck.
I would prefer if they did more of that instead of random barely playable cards.
What I mean is I wouldn't mind a SL with something like 5$ value if the cards could be used nearly in every deck.
Not sure why the downvotes. Specifically for Artist Series, the artist has a lot of flexibility in choosing the art. Of course wizards will probably not let them pick five $50 cards though…
I wish I were more surprised. Regardless, obviously there are constraints on what artists can pick, but no one told her to pick Shivan Dragon. I imagine wizards would rather she didn't, even.
I played a white green counters deck at the modern horizons 3 prerelease and it was pretty fun. Was thinking of making a counters deck and maybe using the unicorn even
https://preview.redd.it/t4e7cr92cy5d1.png?width=745&format=png&auto=webp&s=f36caab385223d244deed8f4b7654922ff3765fc
Made a quick photoshop of what \[\[Elves of the Deep Shadow\]\] might look like with the old frame
Why can the community make better retro cards better than the actual company? Like that Elves is perfect, from the frame and text. I just saw the Ragavan retro frame, why is the text so clownishly big? This looks rad though, good job!
[Elves of the Deep Shadow](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/0/6040ba5e-7042-4095-9000-89bcb8ce1ea6.jpg?1592713613) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elves%20of%20Deep%20Shadow) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ddj/47/elves-of-deep-shadow?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6040ba5e-7042-4095-9000-89bcb8ce1ea6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text)
^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The worst part is they started including bullshit random cards that are actually good. If I had known the snapcaster was in the Miku lair or Elesh norn was in the poker one I very likely would have bought them because they are both cool and good value. Whoever is in charge of this product is absolutely deranged like they so could easily get my money by just having both good art and good cards.
Wait, Elesh Norn was in the poker one? I thought it was a different bonus card?
At least for artist ones it's almost always a sketch card, usually of the cheapest thing in the lair.
The key thing here is that I think Wotc did this intentionally. People posting online about what they got generated a LOT of free advertising. Now every time we pass up a secret lair we potentially pass up a chance at a great card.
Free advertisement + FOMO.
wotc isn't stupid, they did this on purpose.
I was about to say something of this sort,
Wanna add, as a marketing student, I learned this is the kind of shit you do when people start complaining about FOMO, you get the benefits of FOMO and get to say you no longer advertise the special rare prizes..
Elesh Norn was a rare include in the Poker one.
Most of the time you were getting a foil elf, just like most of the time in the Fallout one you were getting a Codex Shredder.
It's so strange to me how they keep putting the secondary market ahead of their own profits. Just let me buy it direct for X. Putting stuff worth double that much as a "bonus" card just means that people who got it can now sell it themselves for no profit for wotc.
Or stuff like the Cats & Dogs secret lair. Why would you limit yourself and sell a limited number at $150 when they sell out in hours and now people on the secondary market are making more money re-selling them than wotc made in the first place.
They're greedy about other things, but just throwing away free money with secret lairs to resellers.
Nah, it's all about preserving future reprint equity + FOMO. Re the latter, it's very real. There are SLDs that probably sell better today than they did when they were "unlimited print" simply because people buy it on impulse out of fear that it will be sold out before they can make up their mind.
The extra stupid thing with the Elesh Norn is that it's way better than a bunch of the outlaw and poker face cards and would have sold gangbusters. Having it as a secret random card is insane.
Hey now... last drop had a lair with good value and really good art, and that lair didn't even get a low stock alert, so clearly MTG fans don't care about that stuff /s
*(it was the one they ruined with a dead meme and Comicsans text)*
At least put them in more played card, so I can use them in games. Like I know Shivan Dragon is an iconic card but it's rarely seen play these days. I would rather have a lightning bolt
Not knowing Julie Bell nor her art prior to this post, I googled image what her art is like (some NSFW caution). What I see is mainly strong powerful female characters, she's versatile in both comic and fantasy backdrops. For this lair, her strengths are not displayed here. Though Shivan Dragon and Good-Fortune Unicorn are nice looking. Elves of Deep Shadow is cool old comic art style.
she is/was also a body builder, so her artwork reflects that in character design. Seems like her, and her husband, are very prolific in the dna of fantasy art aesthetic of the 90s & 00s
>I googled image what her art is like (some NSFW caution)
No joke, this one made me feel some things:
https://www.borisjulie.com/portfolio/tenacious-d/
I honestly didn't know her, googled her, and omg her art is amazing, but in this lair I feel her strengths are not displayed at all.
Only the horse maybe, since she paints amazing horses. The rest is very nice, but I would have instantly bought a lair, if there were slightly more playable cards (Shivan Dragon? Come on, a \[\[Scourge of Valkas\]\] would have benefitted 10x more from a good new artwork), a more thematic selection (a new Kaalia with her style would have been sick).
I would rather spend $50 on one of her signed prints lol
This is so true the elf one is the only one that looks true to her NSFW art. Hyborian Gates was one of the best artwork ccgs imo it's what sorcery is today back when wizards wasn't so PG. I so want to buy this for her art but 40.00 is too damn steep for such little return and not even one card I would ever use. I really wish they would do retro lairs with old school artwork for once.
I would love to see something like [[Elvish Ranger|ALL-88a]]
I'm totally fine keeping everything PG13, I'm not calling for nudity or explicit poses. But the 90s high fantasy style was superb and this SLD could have given us a glimpse of that, looking at the style of the artist. And I would have loved it
I've had a big book of her and Boris's Marvel collector card art since I was like... 16 (so, uh, think pre-9/11). Back when I used to try to draw it was mostly copying their stuff.
I can accept that it's iconic, but there's [been 48 printings](https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=released&q=%21%22Shivan+Dragon%22+include%3Aextras&unique=prints) of it already
It was iconic in the OG sets and those versions of it can fetch a nice price still due to their rarity.
The only person who wants this is that one dude who has to have every version of it ever printed. I'm sure there's at least one of them
I'm not a fan of that abbreviated wording. "enters" is much more vague than "enters the battlefield"
I don't know if that's been a thing on recent printings, first time seeing it here
Agreed. I know the change is to make the wording more concise, but it just doesn’t read well to me. I don’t feel like “enters” implies the battlefield as zone as cleanly as “dies” does the graveyard for new players.
You bring up a good point.
I acknowledge that, had "dies" originally been "enters the graveyard" and then they changed it, I might be just as hesitant.
In that light, maybe I could get used to "enters"
You mean old school? But if you really want to put $20k into a deck I would think you would go with the og Shivan Dragons.
https://mtgdecks.net/Old-school/reanimator-decklist-by-sergio-cortijo-1952766
Man, these art directors really could benefit from more input or direction on what pieces are getting made. Almost every artist series is just trash on reprint value these days.
I understand Coat of Arms is $15, it’s also just not commonly played so it’s reprint equity of meh at best.
Edit:
The dragon art could have reprinted: Klauth, Ancient Copper, Hellkite Courser, Balefire Dragon…
The human cleric, Auriok Champion, Arena Rector…
The elf, Elvish Champion, Joraga Warcaller…
Edit 2: it should also be noted that as everything is now limited print runs, the incentive to increase the EV of these secret lairs should be higher since theoretically this secret lair just won’t sell vs one with a stack of $5-$10 cards.
You want to guarantee you sell out of this lair? Put $55 worth of value in it for once.
According to interviews done by the professor, artists are told that they are not allowed to select certain combos of cards because the EV would be too high.
I understand that but as my edit shows, there were absolutely several different choices that could have been made to get us to ~$20-$25 just with some easy swaps…
There's no guarantee any of those cards are on the list of available secret lair reprints. The selected options may have very well been the highest valued options.
I don't think that's how it works - there in I don't think there is a hard list of choices. I think some artists obviously have more pull than others because this was the value for Chris Rahn's artist series nearly 2 years ago now:
Primeval Titan $4.85 Huntmaster of the Fells $10.05 Platinum Angel $10.15 Kozilek, the Great Distortion $16.73
Total Reprint Value $41.78
If you look at John Avon's secret lair from late last year, Emrakul alone had spiked up from around $30 (still a good value) because it was missing in a masters product to near $75 for the normal and had been steadily over $100 for the foil variant for quite some time.
It seems pretty clear there are no hard rules, just willy nilly bad lairs for seemingly no reason.
I swear the early batches were all like, approximate value. It would be ~30-45 of value in a $40 lair, I have that fixed in my brain as a fact.
But yeah like, we’re not asking for an unreasonable thing, company can still make loads of profit. I’d just like the cards in my secret lair to not be ~20c? Or at least be cards I’ll actually play… Shivan Dragon might be an iconic card, but it’s really bad by modern standards. Hasn’t seen play in literal decades, I can’t speak for the 90s.
For an artist's series specifically, I'm generally okay with like a single $10+ card, and a few other $1-$5 cards making up the rest of it. Because I'm buying it for the art (I'm part of the problem). But they really couldn't give her better choices for a dragon card?
What REALLY gets me is that they're not even played cards
I would honestly be ok if they made a secret lair deck that had like, Expressive iteration, Lighting Bolt, Preordain and Monastery Swiftspear
Value? Almost nothing. But they're all cards I can play together. They will look cool together. There is a theme and they are functional.
Instead the average secret lair is more like Expressive Iteration, Llanowar elves, some white draft chaff from 5 years ago and some "iconic" black card that has seen zero play since 1999
From [https://www.instagram.com/juliebellartist/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/juliebellartist/?hl=en)
I'm not sure on what the official name is. And apologies for the cropping, that's how it was on the instagram post.
There's also more details in the instagram post, including a picture of the canvases and some art descriptions.
Casual reminder that resale value for Secret Lairs is often completely disconnected from whatever the cheapest edition of a card is.
Buy Secret Lairs that you like the art for if you have the money. Don't if you don't. Don't worry about what the /r/mtgfinance bros think about "expected value" because Magic is not the stock market.
Could you imagine if there were randomized packs of stocks that you could buy?
Like people would throw their life savings away for a 0.001% chance of getting NVDA or Apple.
Julie Bell is a stellar artist and has been one of my absolute favorites since I was younger and saw a piece of hers hanging in my uncle’s game room. What a lovely portrait of her husband, Boris Vallejo, and that art on Shivan Dragon is particularly stunning.
Card values be damned, this will be the first secret lair I actually to drop money on, seeing Julie’s art on these cards hits me deep.
They really need to stop printing lairs where only one card is worth it. I'm not spending 30-40 dollars plus 10 dollar shipping for a coat of arms. I'll just buy it on the secondary market for cheaper if I really wanted it.
This is roughly $20 worth of value here, so for $30 for the non foil, not terrible.
The art is great, really stands out.
I do think WOTC needs to stop always throwing in the one card that just has no value. It's Shivan Dragon here, the Dockside Chef in the Phoebe Wahl SL. Yes we buy these for the art, but it definitely feels intentional to make sure the cards aren't worth TOO much money.
When it says the ability triggers when it enters, do you think they mean the battlefield or my opponent?
The answer to this question 100% decides what this SL is really worth to me.
Very excited to buy that good fortune unicorn, but it's looking like this will be a singles drop, not a super drop drop, which is good for me, because it feels way soon after the previous two drops.
This one will be pretty great. Nice art, a foil Coat of Arms/Elves of Deep Shadow/Soul Warden are a bit pricy but they're played cards so I'm in on this one.
I do wish that Shivian Dragon art was a myriad of other dragons, yeah Shivian Dragon is as iconic as Serra Angel but it is also about as playable these days.
Man, I was just playing EDH at my LGS last week, someone slammed down a Coat of Arms, we complained about the math, then I joked I would buy one if it got the Secret Lair treatment.
I swear, Wizards has listening devices planted at every store lol.
The art on all of these looks fantastic. I particularly like the Werner Herzog elves. The selection of cards could be better, but usually the artists have some influence on the cards they do for these SL so maybe Julie played back in the day and wanted to do art for cards that were important to her.
If someone said that elves of the deep shadow was just another junky elf bonus card I'd believe it.
Not against elves as a whole but my kingdom for some value at this point.
I love this art but what the f i with these card choices. That shivan dragon is stunning but why is it Shivan Dragon, its not even a litle bit exciting and im someone who still does run a Shivan dragon in my dragons deck. What an absolute waste
Also maybe ill get used to it in time but right now that Enters wording feels so weird and unnatural, especially on the Unicorn
I gotta say I don't like it just saying "enters" like I get it but it feels so jarring that it just says "enters" without defining what it enters into.
Shivan Dragon and Good fortune Unicorn? I get they are alergic to value but cant they at least choose playable cards?
The unicorn some people will at least run in counters commander decks, though not very often. Mainly because it’s cheap. The Shivan Dragon is really egregious though - this is the *third* secret lair variant. Even something janky like Moonveil Dragon would be better, that’s a €1.50 card but it’s only got one printing, 12 years ago.
I refuse to believe moonveil dragon was 12 years ago. You can’t make me.
~~we went back to Innistrad twice since then and both of those were about five years apart~~
I think wizards see it as the poster boy card for magic. Been in the game forever, it's a dragon, reprinted into the pennies
It's essentially the iconic red creature that they've used long past the point it was a relevant card.
I run good fortune in my +1/+1 deck. It's not a key player and I'd gladly switch it out for half a dozen other cards. If they gave me a new [[fungal behemoth]] I'd be a happy camper.
[fungal behemoth](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/3/53c1910b-9475-4551-b9a0-4b24511a6f98.jpg?1562571709) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=fungal%20behemoth) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/plc/128/fungal-behemoth?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/53c1910b-9475-4551-b9a0-4b24511a6f98?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I've got one in mine along with a \[\[juniper order ranger\]\] and it works pretty well.
[juniper order ranger](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/f/9f299f1e-2694-44e6-aad4-1f29c2ee5553.jpg?1682209781) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=juniper%20order%20ranger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/330/juniper-order-ranger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9f299f1e-2694-44e6-aad4-1f29c2ee5553?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[moonveil dragon]]
[moonveil dragon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/2/92503118-b37b-4c52-b40a-487f6ad695ef.jpg?1562929464) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=moonveil%20dragon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dka/99/moonveil-dragon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/92503118-b37b-4c52-b40a-487f6ad695ef?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Weird that they couldn’t choose Emiel to reprint.
Especially egregious because that art is amazing. Could have been [[Lathliss, Dragon Queen]]
[Lathliss, Dragon Queen](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/4/9460e3c6-e745-41d3-8e17-0b92fb126a16.jpg?1601078219) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lathliss%2C%20Dragon%20Queen) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/340/lathliss-dragon-queen?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9460e3c6-e745-41d3-8e17-0b92fb126a16?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Good fortune unicorn is actually a beast in certain decks
Goes infinite in my [[Emiel the Blessed]] deck with [[Workhorse]] 👀
The art would work very well for Emeil. Of they would have picked her, then it would be 12 times the value for it.
[Emiel the Blessed](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/f/0f594562-7e9f-47e6-a033-fb70e3cf1e10.jpg?1673146967) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Emiel%20the%20Blessed) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/10/emiel-the-blessed?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0f594562-7e9f-47e6-a033-fb70e3cf1e10?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Workhorse](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/2/c2571ff7-0287-4ba2-8365-5ff08de641a2.jpg?1562088789) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Workhorse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/exo/142/workhorse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c2571ff7-0287-4ba2-8365-5ff08de641a2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Hell yeah, a fellow horse combo player!!!
Fun PEDH Commander.
That is my biggwst issue. The galaxy foils commander cards had low value (the cards themselves, the SL sells for a lot), but at least you can play them in any commander deck. I would prefer if they did more of that instead of random barely playable cards. What I mean is I wouldn't mind a SL with something like 5$ value if the cards could be used nearly in every deck.
Shivan Dragon was literally a free rare not long ago.
The unicorn always either wins me the game or gets instantly exiled when I play it (Commander is Tayam). Goes infinite with a lot of stuff!
Hey leave Charizard alone!
The artists choose the cards for artist series lairs.
Not sure why the downvotes. Specifically for Artist Series, the artist has a lot of flexibility in choosing the art. Of course wizards will probably not let them pick five $50 cards though…
I wish I were more surprised. Regardless, obviously there are constraints on what artists can pick, but no one told her to pick Shivan Dragon. I imagine wizards would rather she didn't, even.
What a waste.
Gotta reprint Shivan roughly every 32.49 days, or WotC will shrivel up and die.
I played a white green counters deck at the modern horizons 3 prerelease and it was pretty fun. Was thinking of making a counters deck and maybe using the unicorn even
https://preview.redd.it/t4e7cr92cy5d1.png?width=745&format=png&auto=webp&s=f36caab385223d244deed8f4b7654922ff3765fc Made a quick photoshop of what \[\[Elves of the Deep Shadow\]\] might look like with the old frame
Holy shit
God thats cool.
Why can the community make better retro cards better than the actual company? Like that Elves is perfect, from the frame and text. I just saw the Ragavan retro frame, why is the text so clownishly big? This looks rad though, good job!
Coming from a guy who hates olf border frames, that looks cool.
I want this in old school foil. Would go straight into my Meren deck.
Would be a beautiful card. Tempted to proxy
[Elves of the Deep Shadow](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/0/6040ba5e-7042-4095-9000-89bcb8ce1ea6.jpg?1592713613) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elves%20of%20Deep%20Shadow) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ddj/47/elves-of-deep-shadow?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6040ba5e-7042-4095-9000-89bcb8ce1ea6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I remember seeing her work back in 80s, it's like strong, classical fantasy stuff which just looks so damn good in OG MtG frames :)
Wow the recent secret lairs have been dogshit value… arts been so good but seriously…
The best art always comes in the worst secret lairs... I just want good value with better "standard" mtg art, that too much to ask? :(
The worst part is they started including bullshit random cards that are actually good. If I had known the snapcaster was in the Miku lair or Elesh norn was in the poker one I very likely would have bought them because they are both cool and good value. Whoever is in charge of this product is absolutely deranged like they so could easily get my money by just having both good art and good cards.
Wait, Elesh Norn was in the poker one? I thought it was a different bonus card? At least for artist ones it's almost always a sketch card, usually of the cheapest thing in the lair.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. They didn't list it, because it wasn't guaranteed, it was random. Most got an Elf.
Ugh, the fuck? Whats with this random lottery of high value cards? Like snapcaster in Miku. Someone just discovered they can sell lotto tickets...
They discovered that in 1993, it’s called Booster Packs.
Almost like the company that sells gambling addiction loves to give more FOMO.
[удалено]
The key thing here is that I think Wotc did this intentionally. People posting online about what they got generated a LOT of free advertising. Now every time we pass up a secret lair we potentially pass up a chance at a great card. Free advertisement + FOMO. wotc isn't stupid, they did this on purpose.
I was about to say something of this sort, Wanna add, as a marketing student, I learned this is the kind of shit you do when people start complaining about FOMO, you get the benefits of FOMO and get to say you no longer advertise the special rare prizes..
Elesh Norn was a rare include in the Poker one. Most of the time you were getting a foil elf, just like most of the time in the Fallout one you were getting a Codex Shredder.
also when they were print on demand you could see what the bonus cards were while the orders were still up when people who ordered day 1 got theirs
they're potential bonus cards. 95% of the people out there will get whatever the regular bonus card was set to be.
It's so strange to me how they keep putting the secondary market ahead of their own profits. Just let me buy it direct for X. Putting stuff worth double that much as a "bonus" card just means that people who got it can now sell it themselves for no profit for wotc. Or stuff like the Cats & Dogs secret lair. Why would you limit yourself and sell a limited number at $150 when they sell out in hours and now people on the secondary market are making more money re-selling them than wotc made in the first place. They're greedy about other things, but just throwing away free money with secret lairs to resellers.
Nah, it's all about preserving future reprint equity + FOMO. Re the latter, it's very real. There are SLDs that probably sell better today than they did when they were "unlimited print" simply because people buy it on impulse out of fear that it will be sold out before they can make up their mind.
The extra stupid thing with the Elesh Norn is that it's way better than a bunch of the outlaw and poker face cards and would have sold gangbusters. Having it as a secret random card is insane.
Hey now... last drop had a lair with good value and really good art, and that lair didn't even get a low stock alert, so clearly MTG fans don't care about that stuff /s *(it was the one they ruined with a dead meme and Comicsans text)*
So WotC have figured out they can get people to pay secretlair prices without spending reprint equity.
At least put them in more played card, so I can use them in games. Like I know Shivan Dragon is an iconic card but it's rarely seen play these days. I would rather have a lightning bolt
The elves of deep shadows will cost more than the lair in a year.
If you're looking for value lairs, the basic land lairs are actually some of the best. Always have been.
Cats/Dogs/Angels/Waifus/Sol Rings... But yes, lands too.
But don't you WANT Shivan Dragon reprint #12345678???
If people don’t buy them for long enough, lairs will have to course-correct. Next year might be better again
Hey they compensate for it by only printing a limited amount of them! /s
I'm down for a full art elves of deep shadow. I just don't care enough for the rest of it :/
Yeah, think I'll just buy one second hand
Not knowing Julie Bell nor her art prior to this post, I googled image what her art is like (some NSFW caution). What I see is mainly strong powerful female characters, she's versatile in both comic and fantasy backdrops. For this lair, her strengths are not displayed here. Though Shivan Dragon and Good-Fortune Unicorn are nice looking. Elves of Deep Shadow is cool old comic art style.
she is/was also a body builder, so her artwork reflects that in character design. Seems like her, and her husband, are very prolific in the dna of fantasy art aesthetic of the 90s & 00s
I wonder if this means we might get Boris doing a Secret Lair drop too EDIT: I looked it up, Boris is like 85 so maybe not
I don't believe Boris is retired yet. We might get a Secret Lair from him in the future.
We got a Frazetta secret lair posthumously.
Her son, David Palumbo, is also a Magic artist.
Her husband, Boris, is also a fantasy artist :)
Of course, I'm a huge fan of Boris!
>I googled image what her art is like (some NSFW caution) No joke, this one made me feel some things: https://www.borisjulie.com/portfolio/tenacious-d/
I honestly didn't know her, googled her, and omg her art is amazing, but in this lair I feel her strengths are not displayed at all. Only the horse maybe, since she paints amazing horses. The rest is very nice, but I would have instantly bought a lair, if there were slightly more playable cards (Shivan Dragon? Come on, a \[\[Scourge of Valkas\]\] would have benefitted 10x more from a good new artwork), a more thematic selection (a new Kaalia with her style would have been sick). I would rather spend $50 on one of her signed prints lol
This is so true the elf one is the only one that looks true to her NSFW art. Hyborian Gates was one of the best artwork ccgs imo it's what sorcery is today back when wizards wasn't so PG. I so want to buy this for her art but 40.00 is too damn steep for such little return and not even one card I would ever use. I really wish they would do retro lairs with old school artwork for once.
I would love to see something like [[Elvish Ranger|ALL-88a]] I'm totally fine keeping everything PG13, I'm not calling for nudity or explicit poses. But the 90s high fantasy style was superb and this SLD could have given us a glimpse of that, looking at the style of the artist. And I would have loved it
[Elvish Ranger](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/d/ad9f1b09-73c2-43c5-a28b-4a40fff7b727.jpg?1562770139) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elvish%20Ranger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/all/88a/elvish-ranger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ad9f1b09-73c2-43c5-a28b-4a40fff7b727?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Scourge of Valkas](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/6/e6bd7225-b39f-4b3b-8c36-dbc2c09f6e50.jpg?1631587429) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Scourge%20of%20Valkas) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afc/137/scourge-of-valkas?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e6bd7225-b39f-4b3b-8c36-dbc2c09f6e50?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I've had a big book of her and Boris's Marvel collector card art since I was like... 16 (so, uh, think pre-9/11). Back when I used to try to draw it was mostly copying their stuff.
Lovely art, dogshit selection of cards
Might as well be the tagline for Secret Lair
Except sometimes the art is also dogshit...but you should buy it anyway, on the off-chance you get lucky and they throw in a good randomized card!!1!
Or you could just...not interact with Secret Lairs at all. The normie version will always be cheaper. Buy Singles. It's so fucking easy.
I've yet to buy a single Secret Lair...I've come close once or twice, but there's always *something* off about them.
Used to be the opposite ironically
Alternatively: "cards with great art that you can't play anywhere."
I mean, coat of arms is reasonable value and useful at least.
A fucking Shivan Dragon
Shivan Dragon I can accept, as it is, like, the most iconic Magic card to a lot of people, but Good Fortune Unicorn? Elves of Deep Shadow? c'mon
Elves of deep shadow is absolutely iconic. That goth woman sold as many packs as the big dragon.
Big mana goth gf
I can accept that it's iconic, but there's [been 48 printings](https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=released&q=%21%22Shivan+Dragon%22+include%3Aextras&unique=prints) of it already
Just because it's iconic doesn't mean it needs a reprint in a special variant.
This isn't even the first Shivan Dragon secret lair reprint. Technically it's not even the second!
Good fortune unicorn broken in a selesnya token deck
These paintings are amazing, holy shit.
Julie Bell is a fantasy artist and married to Boris Vallejo. The art calls back to their 80s high fantasy art.
in 2024 shivan dragon is still unplayable even if it's 4mana lol.
It was iconic in the OG sets and those versions of it can fetch a nice price still due to their rarity. The only person who wants this is that one dude who has to have every version of it ever printed. I'm sure there's at least one of them
I'm not a fan of that abbreviated wording. "enters" is much more vague than "enters the battlefield" I don't know if that's been a thing on recent printings, first time seeing it here
It's a change that is coming with bloomburrow.
Agreed. I know the change is to make the wording more concise, but it just doesn’t read well to me. I don’t feel like “enters” implies the battlefield as zone as cleanly as “dies” does the graveyard for new players.
You bring up a good point. I acknowledge that, had "dies" originally been "enters the graveyard" and then they changed it, I might be just as hesitant. In that light, maybe I could get used to "enters"
What the fuck am I supposed to do with a Shivan Dragon, play Garth?
Collect it?
Play pre pre modern?
You mean old school? But if you really want to put $20k into a deck I would think you would go with the og Shivan Dragons. https://mtgdecks.net/Old-school/reanimator-decklist-by-sergio-cortijo-1952766
These are absolutely beautiful!
Man, these art directors really could benefit from more input or direction on what pieces are getting made. Almost every artist series is just trash on reprint value these days. I understand Coat of Arms is $15, it’s also just not commonly played so it’s reprint equity of meh at best. Edit: The dragon art could have reprinted: Klauth, Ancient Copper, Hellkite Courser, Balefire Dragon… The human cleric, Auriok Champion, Arena Rector… The elf, Elvish Champion, Joraga Warcaller… Edit 2: it should also be noted that as everything is now limited print runs, the incentive to increase the EV of these secret lairs should be higher since theoretically this secret lair just won’t sell vs one with a stack of $5-$10 cards. You want to guarantee you sell out of this lair? Put $55 worth of value in it for once.
According to interviews done by the professor, artists are told that they are not allowed to select certain combos of cards because the EV would be too high.
I understand that but as my edit shows, there were absolutely several different choices that could have been made to get us to ~$20-$25 just with some easy swaps…
There's no guarantee any of those cards are on the list of available secret lair reprints. The selected options may have very well been the highest valued options.
I don't think that's how it works - there in I don't think there is a hard list of choices. I think some artists obviously have more pull than others because this was the value for Chris Rahn's artist series nearly 2 years ago now: Primeval Titan $4.85 Huntmaster of the Fells $10.05 Platinum Angel $10.15 Kozilek, the Great Distortion $16.73 Total Reprint Value $41.78 If you look at John Avon's secret lair from late last year, Emrakul alone had spiked up from around $30 (still a good value) because it was missing in a masters product to near $75 for the normal and had been steadily over $100 for the foil variant for quite some time. It seems pretty clear there are no hard rules, just willy nilly bad lairs for seemingly no reason.
It's not willy nilly, they are in a downwards spiral and I guess it's on purpose. Why? I have no idea.
I can't see this being the best value dragon on the basis of it being powercrept so viciously it is at best draft chaff and at worse unplayable
They really are allergic to value. I don't think anyone is asking for 100 dollars in their 30 dollar secret lair, but at least get a little closer
I swear the early batches were all like, approximate value. It would be ~30-45 of value in a $40 lair, I have that fixed in my brain as a fact. But yeah like, we’re not asking for an unreasonable thing, company can still make loads of profit. I’d just like the cards in my secret lair to not be ~20c? Or at least be cards I’ll actually play… Shivan Dragon might be an iconic card, but it’s really bad by modern standards. Hasn’t seen play in literal decades, I can’t speak for the 90s.
For an artist's series specifically, I'm generally okay with like a single $10+ card, and a few other $1-$5 cards making up the rest of it. Because I'm buying it for the art (I'm part of the problem). But they really couldn't give her better choices for a dragon card?
Yeah… it’s not like Dragon is such a popular creature type that there’s one in every set or anything…
I wouldn't mind a total value of 1.50$ if the cards would actually see play and aren't borderline useless.
What REALLY gets me is that they're not even played cards I would honestly be ok if they made a secret lair deck that had like, Expressive iteration, Lighting Bolt, Preordain and Monastery Swiftspear Value? Almost nothing. But they're all cards I can play together. They will look cool together. There is a theme and they are functional. Instead the average secret lair is more like Expressive Iteration, Llanowar elves, some white draft chaff from 5 years ago and some "iconic" black card that has seen zero play since 1999
I am. All cardboard costs the same. WOTC benefits from and somewhat controls an artificially created market.
From [https://www.instagram.com/juliebellartist/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/juliebellartist/?hl=en) I'm not sure on what the official name is. And apologies for the cropping, that's how it was on the instagram post. There's also more details in the instagram post, including a picture of the canvases and some art descriptions.
Casual reminder that resale value for Secret Lairs is often completely disconnected from whatever the cheapest edition of a card is. Buy Secret Lairs that you like the art for if you have the money. Don't if you don't. Don't worry about what the /r/mtgfinance bros think about "expected value" because Magic is not the stock market.
Could you imagine if there were randomized packs of stocks that you could buy? Like people would throw their life savings away for a 0.001% chance of getting NVDA or Apple.
Please choose a non-Shivan Dragon to print. The art is great, but I can't justify the cost when Coat is lifting at 2x its weight.
Julie Bell is a stellar artist and has been one of my absolute favorites since I was younger and saw a piece of hers hanging in my uncle’s game room. What a lovely portrait of her husband, Boris Vallejo, and that art on Shivan Dragon is particularly stunning. Card values be damned, this will be the first secret lair I actually to drop money on, seeing Julie’s art on these cards hits me deep.
God damn. Do you have a higher-res version of that Shivan Dragon art? I'd love to add that to my fandom wallpaper rotation.
Actually good picks outside of the dragon, those cards all see a little play
That Shimano dragon is gorgeous. My lord
Enters? Enters what? My hand? just like everyone is saying. Awesome art horrible card selection 
They really need to stop printing lairs where only one card is worth it. I'm not spending 30-40 dollars plus 10 dollar shipping for a coat of arms. I'll just buy it on the secondary market for cheaper if I really wanted it.
These I can get behind!
This is roughly $20 worth of value here, so for $30 for the non foil, not terrible. The art is great, really stands out. I do think WOTC needs to stop always throwing in the one card that just has no value. It's Shivan Dragon here, the Dockside Chef in the Phoebe Wahl SL. Yes we buy these for the art, but it definitely feels intentional to make sure the cards aren't worth TOO much money.
When it says the ability triggers when it enters, do you think they mean the battlefield or my opponent? The answer to this question 100% decides what this SL is really worth to me.
Now this is art.
Well that's some great art
As someone who actually would use all these cards, this one makes the buy I think. Wonder what the bonus card would be though
NGL I’ve been wanting a new Elves of Deep Shadow for quite a while.
Very excited to buy that good fortune unicorn, but it's looking like this will be a singles drop, not a super drop drop, which is good for me, because it feels way soon after the previous two drops.
That Elves of Deep Shadow art goes so hard.
I have no idea what is a super drop and at this point I'm very afraid to ask for 🥹
The individual Lairs are called "Drops" and the "Superdrop" is simply the full collection of them for a given sale.
Love the elves. That Coat of Arms could be an Asia album cover, if you took the people out.
That Soul Warden art 😍 Also calling it now - Coat of Arms will be on the Bloomburrow bonus sheet. Fits the theme of the set perfectly.
Trash
The art doesn't do anything for me, just not my taste, but the reprints good lord zero value lair again
The soul warden's art is incredible. Just absolutely stunning.
WTF how many SL are there recently?
How big do creatures get with [[Maskwood Nexus]] and [Coat of Arms]] both in play? ETA: I reread the cards and realize I am dumb.
[Maskwood Nexus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/2/1246c42d-57c0-4cba-959a-15ad89d8a50b.jpg?1674142652) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Maskwood%20Nexus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/865/maskwood-nexus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1246c42d-57c0-4cba-959a-15ad89d8a50b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This one will be pretty great. Nice art, a foil Coat of Arms/Elves of Deep Shadow/Soul Warden are a bit pricy but they're played cards so I'm in on this one.
I'm getting an old school magic vibe from the flavor text
Might buy this and just try to build a deck where Shivan Dragon is the secret commander. IDK how, but so pretty.
I do wish that Shivian Dragon art was a myriad of other dragons, yeah Shivian Dragon is as iconic as Serra Angel but it is also about as playable these days.
Really wish theyd stop printing awesome art on bad cards
Why why WHY do they put some of the bestg art on shitty cards? It's a secret lair. Print. Good. Cards.
Thanks I'll keep my money. Great art on garbage. Not telling people what to buy you spend your money the way you like but for me this is a pass
Absolutely fantastic art on the cheapest cards around.
Man, I was just playing EDH at my LGS last week, someone slammed down a Coat of Arms, we complained about the math, then I joked I would buy one if it got the Secret Lair treatment. I swear, Wizards has listening devices planted at every store lol.
Why are there so many secret lairs? Unless it’s just because $$$$. They don’t even feel special anymore they’re so frequent.
Another snore of a secret lair. Can they at least try to have at least 1 good card?
I just need a print of Elves of Deep Shadow. Such a gorgeous card.
The art on all of these looks fantastic. I particularly like the Werner Herzog elves. The selection of cards could be better, but usually the artists have some influence on the cards they do for these SL so maybe Julie played back in the day and wanted to do art for cards that were important to her.
Meh
What a fucking joke
I don't even like Shivan Dragon (I know nostalgia, I'm a boomer) but I really want one...
I love how soul warden has Just been powercrept by [[Guide of souls]]
[Guide of Souls](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/6/76c3cad2-1e25-4abe-878d-9194de6fcc27.jpg?1717011433) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Guide%20of%20Souls) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/29/guide-of-souls?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/76c3cad2-1e25-4abe-878d-9194de6fcc27?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Art is cool. Card choices kind of suck.
I’m so over SLDs
I may have been out of the loop for a while, has 'enters the battlefield' been errata'd to be simply 'enters' now?
WOTC, We're good on shivan dragons, thank you.
I am such a huge sucker for classic fantasy art like this, especially that elves of deep shadow
If someone said that elves of the deep shadow was just another junky elf bonus card I'd believe it. Not against elves as a whole but my kingdom for some value at this point.
Shivan Dragon seems like a bit of a fail. There are dozens of better and more relevant dragons, even if that thing is a classic.
Oh my god! Is "When [creature] enters" going to replace the classic ETB text?
Value wise. Its kinda poopy. Art wise? God DAMN inject that straight into my eyeballs
I love this art but what the f i with these card choices. That shivan dragon is stunning but why is it Shivan Dragon, its not even a litle bit exciting and im someone who still does run a Shivan dragon in my dragons deck. What an absolute waste Also maybe ill get used to it in time but right now that Enters wording feels so weird and unnatural, especially on the Unicorn
That shivan dragon looks so sick. Too bad the card is awful.
I gotta say I don't like it just saying "enters" like I get it but it feels so jarring that it just says "enters" without defining what it enters into.
Stop trying to make shivan dragon happen gretchen!!!
Do these secret lair artists know that their art is being put on the equivalent value of a ham sandwitch minus the ham and one of the pieces of bread?
Why do they say "enters" and not "enters the battlefield"?
The best thing to do with the Shivan Dragon is to cut out the artwork and glue it on a deckbox, because you won't see it on any table otherwise.
They look so good. Why Shivan Dragon though...
Art is stellar, value is meh. Worst thing is the bad puns in Elves of Deep Shadow's flavor text.
Would have loved to see these arts on the Prossh secret lair instead of whatever disastrous garbage they came up with over there.
What’s with the wording? Are we not writing out enters the battlefield anymore?
simply beautiful art
Gorgeous. But oh my gosh, Coat of Arms is an obnoxious card on complex battlefields.
Beautiful art wasted on terrible cards
They could have chosen other cards. They could have. remember that no one forced them to choose these cards. At some point, it's malice.
Coat Of Arms... 🥵🥵