‘Magic: The Gathering’ Secret Lair Brings ‘怪異学校 — Strange School’ And ‘Duality Distorted’ To ‘Reality Fracture’

Welcome to the table,

Magic: The Gathering, aside from a brief stint on a sled hockey team, has been my “sport” for the vast majority of my life. I remember starting to play sometime around 1993 when the older kids at Boy Scouts (you know, the ones with band shirts who were only there because their dads were really, really into camping and guns and stuff) taught me to play.

Our gun-collecting, military-minded outdoor enthusiast parents stood in a circle and complained about how disappointing we were because we liked things like art history and theater. Meanwhile, I was learning the finer points of mana distribution, Crystal Rods, and Dark Rituals from kids who would leave the second they got their learner’s permit or the opportunity to go live with their mom and her new boyfriend.

As someone who has never been able to play sports (save for a brief stint on a disabled players’ sled hockey team), Magic was very much like D&D for me. I had the ability to sit at a table and do something with other people that I could actually be good at without needing to walk up stairs, or hit a ball, or … walk.

Local gaming shops were inaccessible and some shop owners were less than enlightened. I stopped playing for a handful of years, since there was nowhere I could go to comfortably get cards or play the game without having to compete with Target scalpers or a horde of unaccompanied children who seemed to be dropped off at gaming shops like some kind of twisted version of daycare.

Recently, though, I have had the opportunity, thanks to my pals over at Wizards of the Coast, to check out the new set Reality Fracture, and I have to say it has been a ton of fun to explore.

I will have more Reality Fracture coverage for you very soon, as I am diving into all sorts of things from this truly astonishing set, but as time is of the essence when it comes to Secret Lair drops, I wanted to jump into two new Reality Fracture Drops so you would be dialed in.

The two new Secret Lair drops are inspired by Reality Fracture and are called 怪異学校 — Strange School and Duality Distorted.

I have been told that, starting with Reality Fracture, every Magic Multiverse set will feature a Secret Lair Bundle that combines exciting cards from the new set with flair unique to Secret Lair.

To celebrate its debut, the Reality Fracture Secret Lair Bundle is getting bundles of its own. The Reality Fracture Secret Lair Bundle remains the same across all three “Bundle Bundle” editions, while the included drops are available in non-foil, foil, or both.

怪異学校 — Strange School

Reality Fracture reimagines Secrets of Strixhaven‘s breezy school vibes into the sinister Hexhaven. It’s only right that Secret Lair leans way into this mood shift with 怪異学校 — Strange School. Featuring some really spooky manga-inspired art for mono-black players like myself.

The drop will have 1 Attrition, 1 Bitter Ordeal, 1 Ophiomancer, 1 Sign in Blood, and 1 Soul Spike.

This drop oozes style, and while I lean towards the more classic horror vibes of my mono-black rat deck, I can totally see these making a player who values aesthetic and “cool” factor at the table very happy.

Duality Distorted

Now Duality Distorted may be one of the coolest things I have ever seen in MTG. When I got news of this drop, I texted my partner, who I subject to all kinds of pop-culture gaming information because they are my person and for some reason never seem to mind too much when I freak out about something that really excites me … and Duality Distorted really excited me!

Duality Distorted pays tribute to some really rad classic Magic cards with a Secret Lair twist. It does this by enlisting four long-time Magic artists to pay homage to their classic illustrations with cards that shift from their original mana color.

Mark Poole‘s Pyroblast is an epic nod to his iconic Counterspell art from Limited-Edition Alpha. So you can get an idea of why this is so rad, check out Counterspell below, and you can compare how Poole was able to do a reality-altered version of this card thirty-some years later.

Now, my favorite card in this drop is called Desperate Ritual, a play on one of my all-time favorite cards, Dark Ritual.

This card, by artist Sandra Everingham, reimagines Dark Ritual with Red Mana and the energy showcased being Lightning and Flame rather than something more ghostly and plague-like in the original mono-black version. 

Duality Distorted comes with 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Desperate Ritual, 1 Pyroblast, and 1 Tribute to the World Tree.

Now both of these drops will be available exclusively through the Secret Lair Chaos Vault. Both drops will also be available as part of three Reality Fracture Secret Lair “Bundle Bundle” editions.

You are going to want to go sign up for these over at Secret Lair so that when they go up, you get the notification because you could miss them otherwise.

Until next time, I want more of these kinds of things so badly. There are some really rad alternative versions of entities I know and love in MTG that have been shifted about in Reality Fracture. Seeing these classic cards I grew up with get new mana colors with alternative art that is close enough to the same really showcases the shift; it really scratches an itch in my brain.