Image Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast

Hello, and welcome back to Beyond the Multiverse! Today, we're checking out uncharted territory. Well, uncharted for this series at least. Up until this day, I've been covering commanders and their respective decks. This time, I'm going over the releases themselves, beginning with the many Secret Lair releases.

I hope that you, dear readers, will find this a breath of fresh air as much as it will be for me.

Staking Out the Path

For the purposes of this article, I'm grading each of the releases with the following criteria:

1. These products must be in isolation of a larger release. This means that we won't be seeing the likes of the Final Fantasy or Doctor Who drops here. This will be more like Street Fighter, etc.

2. Each drop is akin to a "Commander Starter Kit." What I mean by this is that you get a legendary creature, and then a group of cards related to that card.

3. Alternatively to #2, this could be a group of commander options in one drop. However, I will be eyeing these by the quality of the included cards instead.

Got all that? Excellent. Without further ado, let us begin with a couple of (albeit scandalous) honorable mentions.

Honorable Scandals Mentions

The Marvel Drops

Now, before anyone grabs their torches and pitchforks, hear me out. All six of these drops are great, and have a lot going for them. They all have the "Starter Kit" feel, complete with a strong commander and a suite of amazing reprints. The main reason they are here won't be relevant now, but in the future.

The Marvel releases will be stretching across multiple years, starting with Spider-Man. Chances are, we'll see The Avengers the commanders be reprinted at some point. I still remember the notorious waiting time for these drops (except Deadpool), and this proved they were exceptionally popular.

Having said all this, they're preemptively struck from the list due to them being tied to future sets.

The Orkz of Warhammer 40,000

This drop could technically be counted as being tied to a larger release. That said, I would be remiss if I didn't mention how faction-heavy this drop and each of the 40K precons are, which is something I'm going to cover next week (spoiler alert). This drop is all about Orkz; not Chaos, not Necrons, and so on.

This is another "Starter Kit" drop, this time around Zurgo Helmsmasher. Aggravated AssaultAggravated Assault is the big card in this drop, but the rest don't do Zurgo enough justice to warrant inclusion. However, be my guest if you want to run the whole drop for thematic reasons. I might give you a cookie if you do.

With the honorable mentions out of the way, we can get to the top 10.

The Final Ten

#10: What Happened to Honor Amongst Thieves?

The sole Universes Beyond entry for the Dungeons and Dragons franchise (the main sets are in an odd placement), there's six commander options here.

But, there's just one problem: With the exception of Edgin, all of them are mono-color. This predicament ensures that their home will be in the 99 a lot of the time. I guess you can make exceptions for Doric and Xenk, Paladin UnbrokenXenk, Paladin Unbroken to helm their respective decks, but you won't get much further than that.

The rest face stiff competition in their respective colors, and there's other options that do way better than them.

#9: The Miku Drops

I grouped these together because, theoretically, you can make a Miku deck using every card in each of the drops, just like with another IP I'll touch on later. You even have a five-color option in Child of Alara to use them with.

That said, the resulting deck comes with a big problem: Even if you're one of the lucky few who pulled the Snapcaster Mage as a bonus card, the 99 will be a disjointed pile of cards.

The drop that came with Feather, the RedeemedFeather, the Redeemed could be used as a starting point for that deck, but it's got off-color cards. The drop with Brago, King EternalBrago, King Eternal is more of a "Starter Kit," but with clashing themes.

In the past, I did try to make a Miku deck for this series, but the messy nature of the 99 made me put it off indefinitely. I know of one person who's done this, so more power to them. If you can make a deck work using all of the cards in the drops, then you achieved something I couldn't, and I'd congratulate you.

#8 (Tie): The Walking Dead/Street Fighter

Ah, yes, the very first Universes Beyond release, grandfathered in at its inception. I still remember my vitriolic reaction to this drop, and how much contempt I had for the product line. How far I've come indeed.

But enough reminiscing. Granted, about half of the drop is tokens (and the bonus card, which isn't a creature). That said, the commander options are certainly not bad, but Rick and Malik, Grim ManipulatorMalik, Grim Manipulator stand out as the best here. Even the former saw Legacy play last I checked. Beyond those two, nothing too spectacular.

As for Street Fighter, you cover more ground here, color combination-wise, though I'd count Vikya, Scorching StalwartVikya, Scorching Stalwart and Aisha of Sparks and SmokeAisha of Sparks and Smoke as being one commander option. I say that because of how similar they are, down to playstyle.

Also, I featured Zangief, because he reminds me that, once again, the number of Jund-colored legends in Universes Beyond is so small, and it annoys me to no end that Wizards keeps evading Jund here like Neo from The Matrix. Grrr! But, I digress. This drop does also cover a lot of archetype ground, so there's something here for everyone.

#7: Stranger Things

I remember this drop being my personal flashpoint, and the reason is part of my review. I enjoyed the friends forever mechanic, as it allowed for a limited card pool without sacrificing deckbuilding flexibility. The catch is that, within this drop alone, you can only do up to three pairings at a time.

Mind Flayer is neat, mostly because it's literally an upside-down card, but it's better served in the 99. This drop also gave us more four-color options, plus our first partner combination with all five colors. Otherwise, nothing much else to see here.

#6: Princess Bride

I'll begin this review by saying: beautiful, gorgeous artwork. My favorite art so far. Anyway, from a glance at this drop, it tells you to run Sisay, but as you go deeper, it suffers from the Miku problem.

Battle of WitsBattle of Wits is outright useless here, seeing as we can't have more than 100 cards per deck. SilenceSilence has its uses, but would feel out of place in the deck. The creatures in the drop are a pile of different effects that don't work together in a meaningful way.

That said, we do have a couple of cards worth running here.

And now for the top 5!

#5: I Gotta Let Out a Chuckle

This certainly isn't a bad drop. It's got all the makings of a "Starter Kit," even if a couple of the options don't precisely line up with Kardur's (henceforth known as Chucky for our purposes) game plan. However, if you ask me, Chucky is not really a card you want in the command zone. With him, you want the element of surprise, and having Chucky as your commander basically telegraphs your play to some degree.

I'm sure there's a better option than that, especially if we look within in-universe.

#4: Spongebob Squarepants

I covered this drop a while ago, and from what I remember, it was a bit of a pain seeing the notably weaker cards in the deck. I made the decklist in an effort to use every card in the drop (which, as it turned out, I didn't. Even then, you needed some amount of luck to get both Tithe and DismemberDismember), but the spell one could've done with a better line up.

The cards there stood out like thumbs stung by hornets. Otherwise, the three drops (one of these was basics) were a home run.

#3: Sonic the Hedgehog

Our most recent contender, as of the writing of this article, is not too shabby. Lots of interesting commander options, a good lineup for noncreatures in the form of two drops.

My only knock against this trio is that there's no commander to bring them all together (not like Sonic wanted to work with Dr. EggmanDr. Eggman, right?). As for the creatures, they're all pretty good. I covered Shadow the HedgehogShadow the Hedgehog recently, and Knuckles the EchidnaKnuckles the Echidna is good support in the 99 of most options here.

Like I said, I just wish there was an option to run them all in one place.

#2: Slimed!

Like Shadow, I did a deck for Slimer recently, but this drop really appeals to me for a number of reasons.

It's one of the better "Starter Kit" drops, and most of the cards have lots of synergies with our commander, making it run like a well-oiled machine - a point I'll get back to momentarily. Pernicious DeedPernicious Deed is the odd duck here, but even that is a pretty good card for the deck.

All around solid, but it doesn't hold a candle to our number one pick.

#1: Tomb Raider

This drop has it all: a mechanically unique commander who's very interesting, a stellar collection of reprints to get going, and a Command TowerCommand Tower to boot. As a matter of fact, Lara was my very first article here on EDHREC. I had since taken the deck apart, but it was no less fun to play.

No card in this drop is useless, and each works with the overall game plan. For the "Starter Kits," this drop is perfection incarnate. It's going to be very difficult to top this one, especially when Shadowspear and Lara herself buoy the price of this drop by themselves.

The Lairs Are No Longer Secrets

This has been my take on the top 10 Secret Lair drops for Universes Beyond. I omitted certain drops, like the Transformers ones because they didn't meet the criteria I laid out. However, if you want me to cover those, I can.

With that being said, what is your top ten? Which drop is your favorite? Am I going to get shanked for my honorable mentions? In any case, come back next time where I tackle the big releases.