The flood of card previews continued today at MagicCon Minneapolis at the I’ve Got a Secret (Lair) panel, where Wizards of the Coast revealed the second Secret Lair-exclusive pre-constructed Commander deck: “From Cute to Brute.”
Don’t miss our coverage of the weekend’s other news: Standard is moving to a three-year rotation cycle, plus Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, Commander Masters, and Wilds of Eldraine previews!
As the name would imply, “From Cute to Brute” features a ton of double-faced cards—47!—that transform from cute on the front brute on the back. Wizards showed off five such cards today, with the front of each card illustrated by Nana Qi and the back illustrated by GODMACHINE, all of which will come in a traditional foil treatment.
The first card, Esika, God of the Tree, will be the face card of the deck. Its back side, The Prismatic Bridge, has a mana cost with all five colors in it, allowing “From Cute to Brute” to contain double-faced cards from any color in it.
Take a look at the four figures in The Prismatic Bridge and you’ll see the “brute” sides of the other four cards, starting with Bloodline Keeper’s back face, Lord of Lineage, on the far left.
Moving left to right, next is Ormendahl, Profane Prince, which is the back face of Westvale Abbey.
Just behind and to the right of Ormendahl is Nicol Bolas, the Arisen, the back face, Nicol Bolas, the Ravager.
Finally, on the far right, is Archangel Avacyn’s back face, Avacyn, the Purifier.
Aside from those five cards, the other 95 will be non-foil, including 42 double-faced reprints and 53 single-faced reprints. There will also be 15 double-faced tokens and five double-faced display cards.
Secret Lair “From Cute to Brute” Commander will be available starting Monday, May 8, 2023 at 12 PM Eastern. It will cost $150, will be limited to five copies per person, and is only printed in English.
“From Cute to Brute” Will Ship Immediately
The previous Secret Lair-exclusive Commander deck, “Heads I Win, Tails You Lose,” was extremely popular and was beset by production delays. The deck was available for sale starting in November 2021 with a ship date of July 7, 2022, but some customers had to wait until the Fall of 2022 to receive their deck.
Wizards is taking a very different approach with “From Cute to Brute”—all of the copies of this deck have already been printed and are ready to ship. “This deck exists. It is ready. It is printed right now,” Wizards said during the panel. “When you order on Monday, it will ship basically immediately.”
As a result, “From Cute to Brute” will be a limited-quantity product, meaning that Wizards will not be printing the deck to demand. “I can’t say how many are printed total,” said senior business manager for Secret Lair, Emily Floyd. “But any time we’re planning out a Secret Lair, we try to predict and math it out so that people who want to get it can get their hands on it.”
More Secret Lair Commander Decks Are On the Way!
During the Q&A portion of the panel, Wizards revealed that “From Cute to Brute” is the first “of a series of Commander decks we’re releasing this year.” Unfortunately the couldn’t say more—not even how many more decks there will be—but stay tuned for that news!