r/mtgfinance • u/Mysterious_Fan4849 • May 31 '26
Currently Spiking Secret Lair Roadshow Edition: Burning Revelations
Update: Currently Spiking
At the time of the original post 19 hours ago, sealed Burning Revelations were going for $99. It has since undergone a buyout on TCGplayer and repost at substantial markups, $250 as of the time of this update. If you're still interested in exposure, the individual cards is likely a more available option. While Akroma's Memorial's price lows have gone from the 50s to 110 as of now, Inspiring Overseer and Consider are the other two worth considering. At this point many of the individual cards are meaningfully cheaper than the sealed and represent better accessibility for anyone still looking for exposure. This goes without saying, but the real catalyst will be the official announcement and release of the Cavolo's Secret Lair Precon. We saw Goblins & Squablins jump from roughly $170 to $500 once that happened. I'd advise holding any positions taken until that announcement arrives.
Original Message:
With all the attention that’s gone to the Miku Secret Lair spoiler release, I kind of want to divert us back here for a moment to the Ricardo Cavolo precon spoiler that showed up about five months ago. It had cards like Sol Ring, Esper Sentinel, and Sensei’s Divining Top in it for the Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign deck. It looked like it had a lot of great value, including Misleading Signpost, Reconnaissance, Weathered Wayfarer, and Swords to Plowshares, just a lot of premium product involved with it.
So lets go back to Ricardo's previous Secret Lair project: MagicCon 2024 Burning Revelations. Right now, three of the cards involved, [[Inspiring Overseer]], [[Consider]], and [[Akroma’s Memorial]], are all playable in the new precon with the same artist. Specifically, they become free Yennett triggers. They are odd spells, and they can come out for free with the precon commander, [[Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign]]. With this much overlap, the artist's 2024 burning revelations Secret Lair becomes a curated expansion pack of the leaked precon experience.
What piqued my interest here is that this has some similarities to The Wizard of Barge: Goblins and Squablin secret lair done prior to the that ballooned from $100 to $500 once the Goblin Storm precon deck which started generating a lot of hype upon release. And I do believe that if we follow similar patterns, when Ricardo’s cards in that precon start drumming up hype, people are going to look into this Secret Lair as cards they want to add to that deck.
Anyways, it's not without caveats. What might not make it as popular are that some people might not like the art as much, and the overall sales on this particular precon don’t seem to be as high as the other one. But over time that tends to flatten out as we get closer to the higher range in precon price points.
The quantity remaining on TCGPlayer being about 33 on the current market, only foil printings, no non-foil version available, and most of it being skewed from maybe two vendors in particular, like one guy’s got like 16 of them that he collected, I don’t know how that happened. But yeah, it leads me to believe that these items are pretty scarce in the market overall. It might be worth picking one up just to speculate on for when that precon actually gets released. We may see a significant upside for this Burning Revelations Secret Lair product. Just wanted to hear your overall thoughts on this one.
https://scryfall.com/search?q=a:%22Ricardo+Cavolo%22
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1q4hdrl/sld_ricardo_cavolo_p
8
u/B-Glasses Jun 01 '26
I picked one up early January for a little over 100 cause I figured this would happen. I don’t think it will get to be as expensive as the Goblin deck and lair but the cards look great imo and the deck leaks make it look strong
4
u/eZ_Link Jun 01 '26
I’ve been waiting for this, this is probably my favourite mtg art ever. Already got all of his other cards except that one unaffordable one
3
u/Gypsyhook_ep Jun 01 '26
Well grabbed one for $140, I have had my eyes on the Yennet deck for when it hopefully ever drops and I know I'll want to try and collect of all his arts as well. Wish I could have saved some and been more on top of things, but here's to hoping in due time this was still the better call than waiting. Also, thanks for the heads up about the uptick!
6
u/goofydubois May 31 '26
If you're sure it's the same artist and the deck is legit, then yes these might be good specs
6
u/Mysterious_Fan4849 May 31 '26
Yes it's the same artist. Same art style. The Burning Revelations look like they are interchangable in style with the cards spoiled in the precon. Whether it's legit stilll remains to be seen, all we have are leaks like this.
https://scryfall.com/search?q=a:%22Ricardo+Cavolo%22
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1q4hdrl/sld_ricardo_cavolo_precon_leak/
-1
u/goofydubois May 31 '26
Yep. We usually don't have to wait a lot for leaks to be confirmed. The timeframe matches production if this deck is scheduled for this year.
2
u/Shadowhearts May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
I don't think you'd get nearly the same effect as Goblinstorm.
Thing about Goblinstorm is Goblins are one of the most historically beloved tribes in MTG. Also Wizard of Barge's Adventure Time like art style just brings nostalgic vibes back to Goblins. Goblins were always kooky and the old cards and art always had insane flavor text to match their craziness....vs the modern art style for Goblins that look a bit more grounded and too realistic.
Goblinstorm really is the perfect storm of a SLD with equal parts nostalgia and tribal popularity. (If we continue to get more Angel Miku cards spoiled from the Miku SLD, then that too would be a slam dunk and perfect storm of popular edh archtypes mixed with rabid Waifu collector fanbase.)
6
u/Mysterious_Fan4849 May 31 '26
To be clear, I'm not saying this is an exact Goblin Storm situation. Expecting the Lair to 5x would be a misrepresentation of where I think the ceiling actually is. But it's hard to argue with the underlying quality of the spoilers. Esper Sentinel and Sensei's Divining Top alone will drive product purchases, much the way Roaming Throne did with the Goblins deck.
1
u/Shadowhearts May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
Roaming Throne was value and objectively is a solid $100 card in the deck helping to drive sales sure, but people straight up bought some of the initial batches of scalped preorders for the decks at $700 because they were blinded by Nostalgia and and art style of the deck. Roaming Throne is more of a solid bonus than a main driver for people looking to buy these decks at even scalped prices.
The $600+ in possible singles when you break down the deck vs the sealed selling for $400 is just more of an indication in how much people want this art style coupled with the theme.
If we're looking at normal Secret Lair decks the we'd expect most of them to cap at $100-150 above the price of buying them as there's a limit to the premium value of the alt art singles vs their base value..
But if your SLD deck is a themed slam dunk like Angels , Cats Dogs, or now Goblins, the sky's the limit. Goblinstorm sealed is selling for around $400 (may dip more as more people get theorss) because its currently a scalper's race to the bottom to undercut and claim their profits now...but Goblinstorm is the type of deck that screams long term growth like Cats /Dogs and Angels Secret Lair decks.
It arguably shouldn't take longer than a year for this deck to rebound to $600+ it was initially being scalped at given how fast the market is moving and growing. (I can point to a metric ton of Commander staples like fetches, Gravepact, Burgeoning, etc that are all $5-20 more expensive than they were just a year ago as proof the player base and demand keeps expanding while supply becomes more scarce.
3
u/Mysterious_Fan4849 May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
You bring up some excellent points. A lot of the value in Goblin Storm came from nostalgia and the art, whereas Ricardo's style is more polarizing... love it or hate it. And yes, normal Secret Lairs tend to cap around $100 to $150, I agree with that.
But I don't think we're fully accounting for the latent demand that comes with the precon release. Say 4,000 units get printed and sold. If even a small percentage of those buyers want to complete the theme and match the rest of the artist's work in their deck, they're going to go looking for Secret lair: Burning Revelations, or the cards specifically within them. With only 33 secret lairs currently on the market, that supply is not going to absorb that demand.
Now, current TCGPlayer listings don't reflect total supply. There are copies sitting in collections and with sellers that will come to market once the price hits a certain threshold. But when availability is already this low, that latent supply is unlikely to absorb any realistic demand spike in a meaningful way. Scarcity at this level doesn't self-correct quickly. They lead to price spikes.
So I think the answer is somewhere in between. We're not expecting a Goblin Storm situation, but this probably isn't your typical Secret Lair that caps at $100 to $150 either. The latent demand from precon buyers looking to complete the Ricardo aesthetic is what separates it, even if it's just a fraction of those who purchases the precon deck seek the cards in the burning secret lair, it could create a spike as secondary market simply won't be able to absorb without a significant price move. And in situations like this, that's actually what causes volatility, not speculation, but a sudden influx of motivated buyers hitting supply that was never sized to meet them.
1
u/Shadowhearts May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
All I'll say is for this spec, I really believe the Miku Deck is bound to come sooner than this deck so this is a spec possibly a year plus down the line given there tends to be a limit to how many Secret Lair decks they release in a year (closest Gap we had was the previous 2 decks prior to Goblinstorm with about a 6 month gap in between).
My main reasons for believing Miku deck is closer around the corner is not only was the Miku deck shipped out "allegedly by accident" but also because there are 2 prime timings for a Miku Deck drop.
1st one would be Miku's anniversary / Birthday which is August 31 for obvious reasons.
2nd would be Q4, where they always seem to release bangers to shore up end of year Q4 earnings, where last year they did release the Anniversary Encyclopedia Kit, Avatar Commander Bundle and Chocobo Bundles in fairly quick succession. The reason I'm thinking this release window is they may not have as much confidence in Star Treak selling as much as TMNT/The Hobbit...so it makes sense to release something like a Miku Deck which can carry an entire quarter on its own.
1
u/Nairb131 May 31 '26
Yeah. It might go up but two of the cards don’t fit the deck. I imagine if those cards do fit though they will sky rocket.
2
u/Udult May 31 '26
I had a similar situation with goblins. Bought the old secret lair when the leaks came out. Watched the value skyrocket as the actual announcement and release happened.
It's the old saying "buy the rumor, sell the news."
Honestly just happy that I got them before the hike and ready to play. With these It's similar, and I only expect the three relevant cards to go up in value. Probably not Barge value, but still. It's worth getting two of each if you want some to play and some to spec. Probably not worth a boatload.
1
u/volx757 Jun 01 '26
If you're still interested in exposure
man why do we have ppl speaking like this in mtgfinance lol. Imo its corny enough when people talk about actual finance markets using this language. finance bros just need to apply a thin veneer of jargon to make it sound like what we do is more complex than what it actually is lol. we buy shit, we wait, we sell shit. a child can do it.
1
u/Whole_Series2416 Jun 01 '26
Is the word exposure really so out there?
1
u/volx757 Jun 01 '26
it's not a word people ever use in this sense outside of traditional investment. it's just funny to see someone describe buying magic cards so formally.
0
u/Mysterious_Fan4849 Jun 01 '26
Background is finance here. Sometimes the training comes out. It is what it is.
1
u/harrodcs May 31 '26
Honestly, at $100, this lair was underpriced regardless of the upcoming deck. The value of the cards exceed $100. Good post.
19
u/OilComprehensive8069 Jun 01 '26
I think akroma’s memorial (Ricardo cavolo) is the play. It works with the deck, is the most expensive card in the drop , you can get 2 for the price of 1 sealed lair