Starting in 2020,Magic: The Gatheringreleased special Secret Lairs where the proceeds of the drop are donated to the Extra Life charity. Unlike other Secret Lairs, the Extra Life Secret Lairs are all print to demand, so you’ll always be able to obtain the drop so long as you order them in time.
All of the Extra Life Secret Lairs include at least four cards and generally include some kind of bonus card as well. With one exception, they have all been reskins of existing cards with new art, as opposed to cards that are mechanically unique in any way.
5Ponies: The Galloping 2 - Extra Life 2023
Complete The My Little Pony Collection
Ponies: The Galloping 2 is a sequel to the original (which was another charity drop that pre-dates the Secret Lair line), featuring silver border My Little Pony cards. All of the cards in this drop are mechanically unique and complement the cards released in the original drop to feature all the main characters of the show.
Hasbro owns both Magic and My Little Pony, making the crossover an easy choice. Prior to this drop’s release, you couldn’t properly usePrincess Twilight Sparkle in the original setof cards since it didn’t include four of the five cards you needed for its effect.
While the drop itself is fun, especially for fans of the show, the downside is the cards aren’t actually legal for use anywhere. Their silver border and acorn stamp show that they cannot be used in any legal play. Since they are most associated with the Commander format, you’re able to potentially use them in that format if you “rule zero” it, asking your playgroup if it’s okay to play with them. In this case, you’d be able to use them due to the casual nature of Commander.
4Extra Life 2021
Children’s Art Brought To Life
Extra Life 2021 is the first drop that gave you two of the same card. The gimmick of this drop was that children were given the task of drawing various creatures, and those drawings were given to proper Wizard of the Coast artists who drew the cards in the usual Magic quality. Many of the cards are staples, giving you two copies of the card to work with as opposed to one, making it easier to have consistent art for your decks.
This drop is special in that it features the first card drawn by Magic head designer Mark Rosewater, which is legal for use in several formats. While he had previously drawn cards for Unsanctionedand Mystery Booster, those are only playable in those formats. So, if you want a piece of history, you’re able to use Questing Phelddagrif in your Commander decks.
The idea of the drop is cute and has some fantastic results in the art. However, the cards themselves are rather low value with the exception of Craterhoof Behemoth. Luckily, a lot of them are staples in certain decks, especially Mulldrifter which sees play in multiple formats, themost popular being Pauper.
3Pixel Perfect - Extra Life 2024
Take Down Nicol Bolas
For the 2024 Extra Life drop, Magic took a book out of retro video games and displayed a story of Fblthp fighting Nicol Bolas while being guided by Ajani Goldmane. It’s the most experimental Extra Life drop, using untraditional card borders, unlike previous Extra Life drops (though nothing new for Secret Lairs themselves). The art is heavily inspired by old 8-bit games like Mega Man.
Most of the cards in the drop are reacting to something your opponent is doing, such as tapping lands (Mana Geyser) or countering a spell they are casting (Fierce Guardianship). This plays into the nature of the story of the drop, trying to take down a ‘big bad.’
The cards featured in the drop are all fantastic, and even the lowest-value card, Lightning Bolt, is a staple in every format it’s legal in. Fierce Guardianship alone isworth the value of the drop, making it not just high-value overall, but also a lovely love letter to retro video games.
2Extra Life 2022
Double The Staples
Extra Life 2022 was a sequel drop to Extra Life 2021, utilizing the same gimmick of children drawing creatures and Wizards using their catalog of artists to bring them to life as if they were proper Magic cards. Like the prior drop, the bonus card features art done by Mark Roserwater, this time for Maro (a nickname that Mark Rosewater often goes by).
As with Extra Life 2021, Extra Life 2022 features two copies of every card included in the drop. This gives you extra copies, something that is especially nice with this drop in particular due to the higher-than-average number of staples included in it.
Birds of Paradise and Sliver Legion areboth high-value cards, so having two of them in one drop gives you more than enough to get a lot of value out of it. While only Birds of Paradise is a generic staple, the rest of the cards are staples in their dedicated decks (Lathliss in Dragonsand Sliver Legion in Slivers).
1Extra Life 2020
The One That Started It All
The very first Extra Life Secret Lair is also the best one by a fairly wide margin. The art all features characters interacting with youth and family with iconic characters like Teferi with his daughter Niambi and Ajani with a group of young Leonin appearing.
The only unexciting part of this drop is the bonus card. Rather than a new card with a similar theme, it uses a stained glass planeswalker, which are bonus cards used in a variety of Secret Lairs, making them an unnoteworthy inclusion.
All of the cards included in the Extra Life 2020 drop are fantastic and staples across multiple formats. Their value is very high due to how playable they are, seeing play in Modern, Commander, and Pioneer, to name a few.
