New Magic: The Gathering Secret Lair Cards Revealed At MagicCon

Secret Lair drops have become some of Magic: The Gathering’s most popular products, with previously released cards–some seeing reprints for the first time in years–featuring unique art from acclaimed artists around the world. MagicCon Philadelphia shined a spotlight on the project, with some behind-the-scenes commentary as well as a few looks at what’s to come.

Four new cards were revealed during the hour-long panel, with all of them scheduled to appear together in a future drop. Each card showcases a different planeswalker–Ugin, The Ineffable; Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord; Sarkhan, Dragonsoul; and Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God–as if they were “compleated,” or the MTG term of being turned into one of the evil Phyrexians.

The drop will be the first time a Secret Lair is made available at local game stores, as opposed to the Secret Lair which had exclusively offered drops in the past. Emily Floyd, senior business manager for Wizards Of The Coast, said during the panel that the website experience “is just not the same as walking into a store,” and this drop is designed to be “one more way to get players into stores.”

The panel also featured senior creative art director Tom Jenkot who spoke about how Secret Lair compares to the “Booster Fun” variants found in card packs, where he said that ideas are “interchangeable, where things that don’t fit into one can become part of the other.” Previous Secret Lair artists Justine Jones and Wizard of Barge also joined the panel, where they spoke of their experiences with the Secret Lair project.

The panel ended with brief teases for future drops, which featured multiple pieces of artwork being shown to those in attendance. No specifics were given on the artwork, only that they would feature on cards in future Secret Lair drops.

After the panel, we caught up with Justine Jones to get more information about working with the Secret Lair team and getting her artwork on an official Magic: The Gathering card. We spoke about the first time she was ever approached about her art, how she made her style work on the cards, and what MTG creatures she’d like to draw next.

The Secret Lair Winter Superdrop 2023 is happening now on the official Secret Lair website, including drops themed around snakes, a “90s binder” style of art, and five previously released Phyrexian-themed cards written in Phyrexian font. The newly-revealed drop with Ugin, Sorin, Sarkhan, and Nicol Bolas was not given an official release date.

MagicCon was filled with new MTG information, which included a first look at the next expansion March Of The Machine with over 20 cards revealed. Right after the convention ended, Wizards Of The Coast announced first details on two sets coming this summer: Commander Legends and Lord Of The Rings: Tales From Middle-earth.

This interview was conducted in-person and edited for clarity.

GameSpot: Take us back to the first time you were ever pitched to draw a Magic: The Gathering card. What was your initial reaction?

Justine Jones: [WOTC chief of staff] Jess Lanzillo reached out to me. I knew they were familiar with my work, I knew she had a few prints of mine, but I never expected her to ask me to work on a Magic card. She said they were doing a series of cards called Secret Lair, and she asked if I could do a certain amount of cards in a certain amount of time, something like three cards in less than a month. In my mind I was like “no, I can’t do that,” but out loud I said “sure, I can do that” because I can’t say no to that opportunity.

I didn’t know anything about what my cards were going to be when I said yes, but then afterward I received the commissions for the three cards (The Ur-Dragon, Sliver Overlord, and Reaper King) and that was when Mari Hall became my art director. She looked at some of my older work and asked if I could use colors from certain older pieces of mine in these cards.

Honestly, I was still really weirded out. I asked her, “you’ve seen my art before, right?” In my mind I was wondering if I could try and do things in the normal Magic style, and I don’t really do stuff like that, so it was causing me a lot of anxiety. Mari was like “no, we want these completely in your style, we just want you to do what you do.”

At one point she said, “you know, we just had those Yoshitaka Amano cards, and people loved those,” and I’m like “well, I’m not Yoshitaka Amano, he’s an art god, and I’m just me.” It is really cool to be in the same art library as him though, and they really encouraged me to do things in my own art style.

Did you try to approach the cards using methods for drawing you’d used previously, or since this was a whole new project, did you try a different approach?

I mostly just drew the cards the way that I would draw them. I definitely look at the old art and it does influence what I do; For example, when I drew Shivan Dragon, I definitely wanted to pull ideas from that old art. With the Ur-Dragon though, I didn’t take much from the original art for my version because the styles are so different, the only thing I could do was my own thing. The only thing Wizards said was I had to make sure it had a really long horn on its nose, as that’s a very important part of its look.

That’s how it works for every card I’ve drawn; I’ll get a list of a few distinct things, but then I’ll be allowed to do whatever I want. With Sliver Overlord, I tried to completely change it into my style, but it has a certain pattern on its stomach that I was told I had to keep, which was really difficult to work into my style. I’m drawing this gross, weird creature, and then it has this colorful stomach with little design on it, which felt weird but I got it to work. But yeah, most of the time my direction is “do whatever I want, but just be sure to include a few iconic details.”

Do you prefer to draw creatures, or would you consider drawing more humanoid forms?

I love drawing creatures, but for the [Commander Legends: Battle For] Baldur’s Gate cards I did mostly humanoids. I grew up drawing humans–I was really into comics like X-Men, that’s how I learned to read and draw–and I can draw people, but I just have more fun drawing monsters.

If I’m drawing something like a wizard in an elaborate cloak where I can make a lot of elaborate design details, I love that, but sometimes I get bored just drawing a human. I look at humans all day, I don’t look at dragons all day, so I find more creativity in dragons.

Is there a particular type of creature in Magic: The Gathering you’d like to tackle for a future project?

I’d love to do more dragons, but I’d also like to do some MTG-specific humans or magic users. The Baldur’s Gate cards were humanoids, but they were D&D characters–specifically from the new game Baldur’s Gate 3–and technically not Magic characters.

Also, one of the questions during the panel mentioned fungus, and I’d really like to draw weird, blobby fungus. I’d love to draw bears, or goblins, honestly any weird creature at all.

When you first received this commission, as a former player, how concerned were you in regards to fan expectation?

I was very nervous about how my stuff would be received, I really thought people would say “what is this garbage?” I just remember thinking as a kid that the coolest thing you could do was have your art as a foil Magic card, so the fact that I have that now is just crazy.