Five mono-black cards turn Hexhaven’s horrors into manga-style artwork in Strange School, one of two new Secret Lair drops based on Reality Fracture. The other, Duality Distorted, has four long-time Magic: the Gathering illustrators revisit their earlier work with new art for different cards.
Reality Fracture centers on Jace Beleren, a long-time central character in Magic: the Gathering. After his unmaking in the Meditation Realm, fragments of Jace create a universe outside the familiar Magic Multiverse. The new Jace, known as “The Theorist,” carefully builds this Echoverse without major threats such as the Phyrexians and Eldrazi. There’s a problem with its creator, though: he lacks some crucial parts of Jace’s personality, including self-doubt and empathy.
Hexhaven is the Echoverse’s wicked counterpart to Strixhaven. Where Strixhaven is described as the delightful magical school you’d expect from fantasy literature or a card game, Hexhaven is anything but welcoming. Reality-bending magic from The Theorist has left hundreds of miles of surrounding land as magic-torn wastelands. Even the campus is sentient and surreal, a nightmare given physical form through the distortions of a funhouse mirror.
Strange School illustrates that setting in black and white, with a horror-manga style reminiscent of Junji Ito. The accompanying Wizards of the Coast image shows its five cards in this left-to-right order: Soul Spike, Sign in Blood, Ophiomancer, Bitter Ordeal, and Attrition. Nerdist’s writer praises how well the artwork conveys Hexhaven’s unsettling atmosphere.
For Duality Distorted, Wizards of the Coast asked four veteran Magic illustrators to echo their well-known past illustrations while depicting different cards. Mark Poole’s Pyroblast draws on his Counterspell artwork from Limited-Edition Alpha, a set that had recently marked its 33rd birthday.
The Wizards of the Coast image shows the four cards with a 1990s-style look. From left to right, they are Thoughtseize, Pyroblast, Tribute to the World Tree, and Desperate Ritual. In contrast to Strange School’s creepiness, Nerdist’s writer finds nostalgia and warmth in this drop, while praising the continuing creativity of Secret Lair’s illustrators.
Both drops are available through the Secret Lair Chaos Vault, individually or as part of three Secret Lair “Bundle Bundles.” The “Everything Edition” includes both new drops and the Reality Fracture Secret Lair Bundle for $234.99 USD.
