A New Secret Lair Superdrop Announcement Lands

To the surprise of many, a new Secret Lair Superdrop was announced out of nowhere this past Monday. Typically there's some build-up on social media for these, but Wizards forewent that and opted to simply drop an article outright this time around. This revealed the Ultimate Pencil Superdrop, featuring five all-new Secret Lair drops in addition to the previously announced Everyone's Invited Commander preconstructed deck. Every order will come with a special Secret Lair-themed pencil, hence the name of the Superdrop.

The five main lairs include two themed around renowned Seattle music station KEXP (including live music venue basic lands), one featuring Bob's Burgers' original character designer Jay Howell, and two more centered around various famous burn spells. Perhaps the most controversial of these are the new raised foils in the Mono-Red Secret Lair EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE and vroooOOOMMMMMM! These raised foil lairs cost $99.99 for a set of cards generally not viewed as particularly expensive cards, making many question the necessity of these. You can find out the full details of this Superdrop here.

Additionally, as noted above, Wizards released the full details behind the Everyone's Invited Commander deck. Previously assumed to release on April 14th due to marketing images for the previous Superdrop, this one finally goes on sale with the Ultimate Pencil Superdrop on May 12 and is going for a whopping $199.99 this time around. You can find the full contents of the deck and further details on the release here.

Final Fantasy Already Magic's Best-Selling Set

Yes, you read that headline right. Last week saw Hasbro's quarterly earnings call where they announced that Magic: the Gathering - Final Fantasy was already the best selling Magic set of all time. How can this be when the set hasn't even been released yet? These numbers likely reflect the numbers at the distributor, since they're the ones who buy from Hasbro/Wizards and then sell to retailers around the world in turn. This combined with high preorder sales in a broad scope is likely showing that it's already the number one set of all time. Talk about exciting!

Magic: the Gathering - Final Fantasy previews officially kick off next Saturday during PAX East, so make sure you keep your eyes peeled as previews begin trickling in!

Magic Online Announces MTGO Spellgrounds

For many, Magic Online can prove to be a rather tough nut to crack. The UI is somewhat dated compared to MTG Arena and it's difficult for newer players to acquire collections and jump into games with the ease that one might on Arena. To help ease players in - as well as provide new experiences to veteran players - Magic Online announced in their Weekly Announcements this week that MTGO Spellgrounds would be launching on May 5.

What is MTGO Spellgrounds? It's a gauntlet-style event taking place between Monday and Wednesday of most weeks with free entry. This will allow players to sample formats with a variety of decks with little to no stress. If you want something with very low stakes, you can alternatively pay a small number of play points or event tickets and try to win some play points back. This both provides an entry point for newer players as well as gives experienced players a way to try the event out without worrying about players dropping matches willy nilly.

The first week starting this next week will feature Legacy as the format of choice, followed by Standard on the week of May 12. Be sure to check out the MTGO Weekly Announcements article for all the details.

Decklist of the Week

Izzet Prowess | TDM Standard | Jelco Bodewes, 1st place European Regional Championship

• Creatures (8)
• 4 Monastery Swiftspear
• 4 Slickshot Show-Off

• Instants (15)
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 2 Into the Flood Maw
• 4 Burst Lightning
• 4 Monstrous Rage
• 4 Opt

• Sorceries (8)
• 4 Sleight of Hand
• 4 Stock Up

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Stormchaser's Talent

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Cori-Steel Cutter

• Lands (21)
• 4 Island
• 4 Mountain
• 1 Thundering Falls
• 4 Riverpyre Verge
• 4 Shivan Reef
• 4 Spirebluff Canal

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The talk of the competitive scene going into the first Standard Regional Championship of the season has been Izzet Prowess. If you're not playing it, you'd better be prepared for it. Regardless of how prepared for it players might've been, the deck still put three copies in the top four. Additionally, according to Frank Karsten's data, it boasted a whopping 55.8% win rate across the event. Jelco Bodewes took the above list to first place, qualifying for the Pro Tour and Worlds in the process. Congratulations!

Paige Smith

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