The story of the Hatsune Miku Secret Lair is turning into one hell of a saga. To begin with, the drop completely sold out within 24 hours of going on sale. After that, once players started to get their hands on it, they expressed disappointment about the included
Elvish Mystic
Elvish Mystic
{T}: Add {G}.
Bonus card. As playable as it is, this card was critiqued for visual and financial reasons.
For better or worse, this dramatic story doesn’t even end there. Earlier today, players on Reddit began sharing images of another Bonus Card for the drop; this time, the much-beloved
Snapcaster Mage
Snapcaster Mage
Flash
When this creature enters, target instant or sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback until end of turn. The flashback cost is equal to its mana cost. (You may cast that card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)
. What’s going on here? Is this a rare alternate Bonus Card in the vein of Fallout’s
Mana Vault
Mana Vault
This artifact doesn't untap during your untap step.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay {4}. If you do, untap this artifact.
At the beginning of your draw step, if this artifact is tapped, it deals 1 damage to you.
{T}: Add {C}{C}{C}.
? Just how much could a card like this be worth? Let’s dive in and find out.
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The Hatsune Mike Snapcaster Mage Bonus Card
First, let’s check out the Snapcaster Mage Bonus Card itself. The iconic blue Wizard has undergone a thematic name change, becoming Encore Electromancer instead. Hopefully, this won’t get too confusing, given the popularity of
Goblin Electromancer
Goblin Electromancer
Instant and sorcery spells you cast cost {1} less to cast.
. Other than this, the text on the card is exactly how it’s always been. Good ol’ fashioned Snapcaster Mage.
Obviously, the same can’t be said for the art. Like the rest of the Hatsune Miku Secret Lair drop, this card has received the full borderless treatment. The art comes courtesy of Raita Kazama, who has provided alternate art for
Satoru Umezawa
Satoru Umezawa
Whenever you activate a ninjutsu ability, look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order. This ability triggers only once each turn.
Each creature card in your hand has ninjutsu {2}{U}{B}.
and
Domri, Anarch of Bolas
Domri, Anarch of Bolas
Creatures you control get +1/+0.
+1: Add {R} or {G}. Creature spells you cast this turn can't be countered.
−2: Target creature you control fights target creature you don't control.
in the past. Despite seemingly being one of the artist’s first forays into the anime style, the artwork here has been quite well-received so far. Some on Reddit are even calling it the best-looking card of the drop.
In a surprising flourish, the flavor of this Bonus Card is great as well. The ‘Encore’ in the title fits with the musical theme of the drop, but also with the idea of a Bonus card in general. These cards are little extras included in larger drops, much like real encores are extra songs performed at the end of larger gigs.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this card is the fact that we haven’t seen it until now. As mentioned above, players were sharing the Elvish Mystic Bonus Card a few days ago. This disparity may indicate that this is a rare alternate Bonus Card from the drop. If this is the case, then it could end up being outlandishly expensive.
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Fame And Fortune
A big part of that is the sheer power level of Snapcaster Mage as a card. Anyone who’s played Magic for a while will know this card’s name, and for good reason. It was a major player in Innistrad Standard, and an even bigger player in Modern, for years after its original 2011 printing.
The ability to grant any instant or sorcery in your graveyard Flashback proved to be a major deal. Paired with one mana cantrips and interaction, it turned Snapcaster into a flexible, powerful threat. Flash allowed it to come in on your opponent’s turn to disrupt their plays, too. Recasting countermagic with Snapcaster was as good as it sounds, especially
Spell Snare
Spell Snare
Counter target spell with mana value 2.
or classic
Counterspell
Counterspell
Counter target spell.
.
Thanks to the huge spikes in power creep in recent sets, Modern Horizons 1 and 2 in particular, Snapcaster isn’t quite the dominant force in Modern it once was. That said, it hasn’t fallen off as hard as fellow iconic two drops
Tarmogoyf
Tarmogoyf
Tarmogoyf's power is equal to the number of card types among cards in all graveyards and its toughness is equal to that number plus 1.
and
Dark Confidant
Dark Confidant
At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose life equal to its mana value.
. Snapcaster still sees play in a wide range of top Modern decks, including Murktide Regent, Domain Zoo, and Azorius Control.
As a result, the card has managed to maintain a very solid price tag to this day. You’re looking at around $15 for a regular copy of Snapcaster right now, which is not bad at all.
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Even Secreter Lair?
This baseline price is very relevant, because, if this card does indeed turn out to be a rare alternate Bonus Card, it will be multiplied many, many times over. We’ve seen this happen before, with other rare Bonus Cards like
Persistent Petitioners
Persistent Petitioners
{1}, {T}: Target player mills a card. (They put the top card of their library into their graveyard.)
Tap four untapped Advisors you control: Target player mills twelve cards.
A deck can have any number of cards named Persistent Petitioners.
and
Shadowborn Apostle
Shadowborn Apostle
A deck can have any number of cards named Shadowborn Apostle.
{B}, Sacrifice six creatures named Shadowborn Apostle: Search your library for a Demon creature card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle.
. Although the base cards only cost around $2, the Bonus Card variants can go for hundreds.
Of course, the poster child for this phenomenon is Mana Vault. A regular copy of this classic artifact will set you back around $50. A copy of the Bonus Card version from the Fallout Secret Lair drop, on the other hand, will cost you around $1500. This absurd price is due to a nexus of factors: its scarcity, the limited nature of Secret Lair drops as a whole, its playability in older formats, and how important the card is to Magic history. Notably, these are all boxes that this new Snapcaster Mage ticks too.
Does this mean we’ll start seeing $1500 Snapcasters on TCGplayer soon? Probably not. As good as the card is, Mana Vault outpaces it in notoriety by a fair margin. That said, I could easily see this up in the $500-800 range, depending on just how rare it turns out to be. It’s a classic card, and the art style and character, as proven by the lightning-fast sell-out time of the drop, are both big draws as well.
Overall, this new Bonus Card is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s a great reprint, with some stunning art to boot. On the other, it’s a further step towards the ‘Booster pack-ification’ of Secret Lair drops, which we’ve seen a lot of recently with pricey Bonus Cards swinging the value of certain drops wildly.
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