Wizards of the Coast has announced that its next Secret Lair event will be an unusual crossover with AMC's The Walking Dead. From October 4th to 12th, players can pre-order a set of limited-edition, unique Magic cards with exclusive art that depicts TWD's cast of characters.

The cards are said to bring "unique gameplay and text," so this won't simply be a batch of relabeled standard Magic cards with TWD characters instead of angels or wizards. (Which is a shame, as Daryl Dixon would make a great Llanowar Elf.) The cards will even be tournament-legal in Magic's Legacy, Vintage, and Commander formats.

RELATED: New Trailer Reveals The Walking Dead Spin-Off World Beyond

Wizards of the Coast calls its monthly-ish Secret Lair events the "best worst-kept secret" in Magic. Each pack of cards in a Secret Lair is a single print run of cards based on a particular theme, with alternate art provided by either new artists, or returning Magic artists working in different ways. Previous Secret Lairs have included curated groups of cards with themes like cats, dogs, slimes, and International Women's Day.

The Walking Dead-themed Secret Lair is scheduled to open for pre-order on October 4th, which is intended to coincide with the start of AMC's "We are the Walking Dead Weekend," a three-hour event that includes the long-delayed finale to TWD's tenth season, the premiere of the new TWD spinoff World Beyond, and a new episode of Talking Dead. One of the topics of discussion on Talking Dead will be the TWD Secret Lair, which includes an unboxing and preview of the included cards.

The actual cards in TWD's Secret Lair are planned to be revealed one at a time over the next few weeks, leading up to the night of the 4th, although one card will be kept a secret until such time as fans are able to buy the set and discover it for themselves.

This is a relatively rare event for Magic, which doesn't do a lot of official crossovers. A previous Secret Lair event in May was a collaboration with the Toho Corporation themed around Godzilla, which carried on from Godzilla's appearances in the new 2020 Magic set Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths. The "Godzilla Lands" pack contained a new set of Magic's five basic land cards, with Japanese text and kaiju-themed illustrations.

Wizards of the Coast also produced a promotional set of three Magic cards last October that were based on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, with all proceeds from it going to the Seattle Children's Hospital via Extra Life. There are also three cards created for the HasCon fan convention in 2017 that feature a Nerf gun, Grimlock from the Transformers franchise, and a d20-themed "Sword of Dungeons & Dragons" artifact. Unlike the TWD set, all six cards are silver-bordered, which indicates they aren't tournament-legal and are just for fun.

This is only the second real crossover for The Walking Dead as a franchise, which usually keeps to itself. Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan is a DLC character for Tekken 7, however, which is still kind of weird to contemplate a year later. Of course, with the TWD-themed Secret Lair, this offers the very real possibility that some of the big names in TWD's cast might end up as legendary creatures in Magic. As the play conceit of Magic is that players are powerful dimension-spanning wizards who summon monsters and allies to do battle with each other, this opens up the beautiful possibility that, somewhere in the world, a game of Magic will involve Michonne vs. Mechagodzilla. What a time to be alive.

The Walking Dead-themed Secret Lair will be available for pre-order on October 4th for US$49.99.

MORE: The Walking Dead Ending With an Expanded Season, Spin-Off to Follow

Source: Wizards of the Coast