Last updated on March 11, 2025
Wolverine, Best There Is | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez
A Marvel-themed Secret Lair featuring MTG cards with unique mechanics is set to be released this spring at WPN (Wizards Play Network) stores. While both non-foil and foil versions will be available through the Secret Lair website, these Magic cards will be exclusively non-foil in WPN stores.
“Due to the nature and timeline of our previews, we have not yet announced the product name,” said WPN Community Manager Nelson Brown, according to a Magic Untapped article. “But I can confirm that it will be Marvel-themed and will contain mechanically unique cards.”
Where Will This Marvel Secret Lair Be Available?
Spider-Man Promotional Art | Illustrated by Javier Charro
According to Brown, WPN stores can already preorder from WotC's authorized distributors. Redditors have done some digging around and found that most locations are listing it as “Secret Lair X Marvel 6”.
Source: Reddit
From Brown's interview, it's unclear if this Marvel Secret Lair crossover will be available only if bought in-person, or if WPN stores will be allowed to sell them online. As reported last week, starting this Spring WotC will partner with TCGplayer and have a “WPN” tag to highlight WPN sellers – this could all be part of the same initiative to allow WPN stores to sell their Secret Lair Marvel cards on the digital marketplace, but nothing has been officially confirmed just yet.
According to Brown, these Marvel x MTG cards will be available on the Secret Lair website in April, and on WPN a few weeks later.
Are These Spider-Man MTG Cards?
WotC hasn't announced the exact IP just yet (other than confirming these will be Marvel-themed cards), so bets are on. They could be related to the upcoming Spider-Man Universes Beyond crossover, or could be about any other Marvel property.
The previous Marvel Secret Lair was pretty eclectic (Storm, Force of Nature, Captain America, First Avenger, Wolverine, Best There Is, Iron Man, Titan of Innovation, and Black Panther, Wakandan King) and unconnected with Spider-Man. So these could be anything from the Fantastic Four to half a dozen Marvel villains.
If this next Marvel Secret Lair drop is similar to the previous, then these should be Commander cards and not Standard-playable – but, again, nothing has been confirmed yet.
Why Only Non-Foil?
The upcoming Marvel Secret Lair is the first of a batch of tests that WotC announced last January. As noted in their “A Secret Lair Test Is Coming to Your Local WPN Game Store” article, they are experimenting with new ways for players to access mechanically-unique Magic cards that WotC releases through Secret Lairs.
“The next time we have a drop that has mechanically unique cards in it, we're going to make a limited quantity of those non-foil drops available for WPN stores to sell directly to you,” wrote Blake Rasmussen. “Those drops will be on sale in stores while supplies last after they go on sale on the Secret Lair website, but they'll be the exact same non-foil drops you could buy on MagicSecretLair.com.“
The article doesn't specify exactly why buyers can't get foil cards via WPN, but the unstated reason seems pretty obvious: So Secret Lairs still have an edge, namely something uniquely shiny, to sell to you online.
While Supplies Last
Storm, Force of Nature | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve
Rasmussen's article makes it abundantly clear that there will be a “limited quantity” of Secret Lair drops on sale through WPN stores, “while supplies last.”
Neither Rasmussen nor Brown give any hint about how large this print run will be… but given WotC higher-ups' penchant for bragging, in front of Hasbro shareholders, about how fast these limited-supply runs dry up (not to mention that WotC is clearly pricing Universes Beyond as a premium product), it's probably a safe bet to assume that the WPN supplies won't last that long.
Then again, credit where credit is due: Less than two months after announcing that mechanically unique Secret Lair cards would also be available via WPN stores, WotC has confirmed that that's exactly what will happen in April.
Maybe a bit less foil-y than what you can get through the Secret Lair website, but WotC has kept their word this time around.
More details should be coming by early April.
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