It’s that time of the month again, when I rant about magic. And this time I’ll be ranting about two opposite things.

Today, I want to focus on two specific things. First, I want to talk about the Dance of the Elements commander deck and how absolutely awesome it is. Then, I am going to talk a bit about Secret Lair and how weird it can be.

Dance of the Elements or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Evoke

Dance of the Elements has quickly become one of my favourite decks ever, and it’s definitely a contender for best deck of 2026. It’s 5 colours, which, for me, is a great bonus in Commander. Since its release, I don’t think there’s been a Friday night that hasn’t seen any play in my group. It is super fun and quite strong out of the box, with its only weakness being the manabase. Still, I haven’t upgraded them, and focused only on adding fun cards I own. The fun about this deck is that it can have insane turns from basically no board presence other than, maybe, Ashling itself. And Ashling is a glass cannon that is ready to go at any moment. So when you try to upgrade the deck, you need to think about how you can get more value out of the commander. In this case, your focus should be on multiplying the tokens generated, as well as the ETB triggers. In my case, Parallel Lives was in my collection, so it was a good addition to the deck. It doubles the tokens generated by evoking Elementals while Ashling is on the board, and those Elementals tend to have ETB triggers. Now, depending on what else is on your board, things can go wild quite fast. That is true, even without Parallel Lives. Evoking Cavalier of Thorns with Yarok, Mass of Mysteries, and Ashling on the board can ramp you for 10 lands on one turn. For me, doing things like that is the fun of it, win or lose. You know what else can be fun? Going somewhat infinite.

Turns out the first commander deck I ever bought and played, back in the ancient times of 2011, holds an amazing piece that goes into this deck and turns it into a serious threat. Animar, Soul of Elements, has the potential to let you play all your Elementals for free, as long as it has 4 +1/+1 counters and you have Elementals to play. Risen Reef is a simple way to get you more cards, along with Mulldrifter. Oh, and look at that. Both cards are Elementals and part of the original deck list. What a lovely coincidence. Then, of course, pulling a Chronicle of Victory from a random pack isn’t a bad idea either. But let’s say all your cool Elementals are already in the graveyard. Then, Greenwarden of Murasa is probably a very good option at that time.

But how do you win with this deck? Damage. Simple. Traditional. Damage. It’s just that you go through a journey of friendship and happiness to achieve that. And by friendship and happiness, I mean with your Elementals, because your friends will not love the deck, especially since those Elementals may come with some disruption on them. Oh, did I mention that, TECHNICALLY, this deck is considered Bracket 2? And it is, to be honest. It’s not very fast. It’s just that it has the potential to explode after turn 5. As long as you can protect your pieces, that is.

And that’s probably the closest I will ever get to writing a primer for a deck any time soon. By the way, this is the current state of the deck.

Secret Lair is not for Everything

This year was the first time I actually ordered something through Secret Lair. Actually, I made two orders. The first order was one of the Fallout packs released in January. The other one was the Dandân deck. My experience with these two drops feels different. These drops were released a month and a half apart. The Fallout order hasn’t even shipped yet, while the Dandân deck will probably arrive on Monday. I think sometime in 2025, I came across a Reddit thread where people were discussing the issue with FOMO of Secret Lair. I remember a comment mentioning that when Secret Lair was first introduced was not first-come, first-served. Instead, when something was released, you could purchase it, and then the appropriate amount of product would be produced. However, there were a lot of complaints regarding delivery times with this model. So the model was changed to the current one, where there is a set amount of product, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. The funniest part was that people from Europe said they saw no difference in delivery time.

Now, the above story is anecdotal, and I cannot confirm it. Especially since recently, WotC said the reason they cannot use the previous model is that it disrupts the already strained production line. And let’s take that statement as true, since I agree that production is strained, especially in 2026 with 7 sets and god knows how many Secret Lair releases. My question is simple. Should all the products that are planned as a Secret Lair release really be a Secret Lair release? I saw a lot of frustration and disappointment from people who wanted the Dandân deck and couldn’t get it, because the way the store and waiting line work is problematic and because of scalpers. I saw people posting screenshots of the deck on eBay at 2 or 3 times the price, only a couple of hours after the release of the deck. Am I surprised about it? Not really. But I am very surprised at how shortsighted WotC is. Sure, they sold all of the decks, so they didn’t lose any money. But there are people out there who are disappointed and cannot give 2 times the price of an already expensive deck. Will they stop spending money on the game? Probably not. Is this the moment when they think proxying is a partial solution to their problem? Probably yes. Is that bad for the hobby? Probably no. Can it cut into the profit margins of WotC? I don’t know, because the FOMO model works in favour of the companies using it. Even if people decide to proxy a deck that is coming out through Secret Lair, scalpers will buy out all the product.

So what’s my solution? I don’t really have a solution. This is a topic that is discussed all the time, and I don’t see any major changes coming soon. I am just asking if it’s worth throwing everything into Secret Lair releases. Dandân was a very special case. It is a format that was born from the community, and, in my opinion, it should have been a retail product so more people could check out the format. Unfortunately, it’s not Commander, so there can’t be multiple different products each year, and that is another reason I believe it was a Secret Lair.

That’s all, folks

And this is where I must end today’s rant. Apologies for ending this on a negative note. I just want to see cool products back on the shelves of stores that played a huge role in getting Magic where it is now. I want people to try new decks and new formats all the time because they should be easily available. Anyway, I must get ready for Commander Night soon. Next time, we may be seeing some new decks.

And until next time, have fun!