Leaked Secret Lair Offers Expensive Versions of Mediocre Cards

Last updated on August 8, 2025

Mulldrifter | Illustration by Eric Fortune

Secret Lair has been known to be pretty hit or miss in the past, and not in a 1:1 ratio either. For every truly great Secret Lair drop, there are two or three others that just leave people asking “Why?” And it looks like we've got another one of those drops on the way.

Reddit user Copernicus1981 posted what appears to be a leaked Secret Lair drop, including its admittedly beautiful but questionable contents.

“Inked” Secret Lair Drop

Copernicus1981 was gracious enough to provide actually legible pics of the leaked cards, though what they revealed has left people mostly scratching their heads. The “Inked” drop contains the following cards:

• Mulldrifter
• Crypt Ghast
• Deathrite Shaman
• Ice-Fang Coatl
• Burnished Hart

All of the art is done by viral tattoo artist Virginia Elwood, and honestly, the art is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The skeletal Crypt Ghast is a weird choice for an art series based on tattoos, but all the others are appropriately tatted up, and the individual cards look great. Which is the drop's only saving grace, because the card quality is something else entirely.

Some quick table napkin math will show you that this drop's not worth it at all from a financial perspective, assuming it's priced the same way most Secret Lairs are priced ($30-40 for nonfoil copies, $40-50 for foils, with this particular drop coming in rainbow foil). Here's what you'd spend if you bought there cards as singles right now (using rough averages across multiple versions of cards):

• Mulldrifter — $0.50
• Crypt Ghast — $9.00
• Deathrite Shaman — $6.00
• Ice-Fang Coatl — $1.00
• Burnished Hart — $0.10

That adds up to about $16, which is on the embarrassing end of value for a Secret Lair drop. Notably, Mulldrifter, Deathrite Shaman, and Ice-Fang Coatl all already have existing Secret Lair alternate versions, so the card selection's not even all that unique. Crypt Ghast is a good hit, but not enough to save this drop.

The Saving Grace

Ancient Copper Dragon | Illustration by Antonio Jose Manzanedo

As with all Secret Lairs, there are a couple hidden things that could always turn an otherwise lackluster drop on its heels.

First off, the bonus card. There's always one in every drop, sometimes it's consistent from envelope to envelope, and sometimes there's a chance at getting an ultra-rare Secret Lair bonus card. We obviously don't know what that card is for the Inked drop yet, but if it turns out every copy comes with, say, a particularly tatted up Ancient Copper Dragon, then suddenly the drop starts to look way more appealing.

Second, the foiling treatment is sometimes desirable enough to collectors that they're willing to pay a premium on some of their favorite cards. There's no way people are waiting at launch to get a swagged out Burnished Hart, but these should sell at a slightly higher rate than their counterparts already on the market.

And for the Inked drop specifically, there's that Deathrite Shaman worth taking note of. The card is known to be in a constant state of flux around Banned and Restricted announcements, specifically for Modern/Legacy. Wizards hasn't pulled the plug on Deathrite Shaman yet, but every time a banlist announcement for these formats gets scheduled, people start vacuuming up the Deathrite Shamans in the hopes it'll be unbanned and they'll cash in. This happened in March of this year already, when Shamans rose to $10-20 a pop in anticipation of an upcoming Modern announcement (the card was ultimately left banned). So, if Deathrite ever goes free, the Inked Secret Lair has that much more appeal. But barring that unlikely scenario, this looks like a dud, which is a shame given the spectacular art on display.