Secret Lair Drop Series: The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead is a drop of cards in the Secret Lair product range and a continuation of the Secret Lair Drop Series. It became available for pre-order purchase from the Wizards of the Coast webshop secretlair.wizards.com from October 4th through October 12th, 2020. The price was $49.99. It retroactively also became part of the Universes Beyond product line.
==Description==
This set is a tie-in with The Walking Dead franchise, which includes a comic book series, television series, web series, films, novels, video games, and various other media such as audiobooks and soundtracks. It features a post-apocalyptic world where the undead, known as walkers, have taken over. Entertainment One, the producing company of The Walking Dead, is owned by Hasbro. Hasbro is also the owner of Wizards of the Coast.
With this drop, the premise of only reprints with alternate art for Secret Lairs was abandoned. Mark Heggen revealed that R&D viewed Secret Lair platform as a product - testing grounds platform that let them try things they couldn't do in normal products. 
The foil cards included in this very special Secret Lair drop are completely new to Magic, depicting iconic characters of the long-running and critically acclaimed TV series. These are mechanically unique cards that are legal in Eternal formats. Each of the cards have mechanics that are inspired by either the characters or the elements of The Walking Dead universe that they represent. This drop also comes with five Zombie tokens, each an important walker from the show, and one Treasure token. 
When you ordered the Secret Lair Drop, you'd also get a single-use code that added the same cards from the physical product to your Magic Online account.
===Card list===
Drop 	Card number	Card/Token	Artist 	Notes
The Walking Dead	143 	 	Jake Murray 	Portrays the likeness of Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes.
The Walking Dead	144 	 	Romana Kendelic	Portrays the likeness of Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon.
The Walking Dead	145 	 	Paolo Puggioni 	Portrays the likeness of Steven Yuen as Glenn Rhee.
The Walking Dead	146 	 	Romana Kendelic	Portrays the likeness of Danai Gurira as Michonne.
The Walking Dead	147 	 	Jake Murray 	Portrays the likeness of Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan.
The Walking Dead	148 	 	Dave Allsop 	2/2 Zombie token creature"Bicycle Girl". Quote by Rick Grimes.
The Walking Dead	149 	 	Josh Hass 	2/2 Zombie token creature"Well Walker". Quote by Dale Horvath.
The Walking Dead	150 	 	Devin Platts 	2/2 Zombie token creature"Blade Walker". Quote by Glenn Rhee.
The Walking Dead	151 	 	Nils Hamm 	2/2 Zombie token creature"Winslow". Quote by Jadis
The Walking Dead	152 	 	Dave Allsop 	2/2 Zombie token creature"Metal Head". Quote by Eugene Porter
The Walking Dead	153 	 	Jason Felix 	Artifact tokenDepicts Rick's badge and hat
===Walker===
Daryl's and Michonne's cards referred to "Walker tokens" in their rules text, without defining what a Walker is. Although clearly intended to be a black 2/2 zombie named Walker, this initially wasn't covered by the Comprehensive Rules. This was rectified in the Kaldheim update.
====Rules====
===Bonus card===
In contrast to most of the other Secret Lair drops so far, this product didn't contain one of the 36 stained-glass War of the Spark planeswalkers as a bonus card. It was replaced by a legendary artifact called (Negan's weapon of choice) with art by Jason Felix. It is numbered #581 (it is numbered in sequence with the stained-glass walkers and the white-border Tibalt from Secret Lair Drop Series: April Fools).
===Controversy===
The fact that the set features unique cards instead of reprints (like the Secret Lair series originally was envisioned), garnered a lot of criticism. People argued that the cards should have been silver-bordered or that the double-naming technique used for the Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths Box Toppers should have been used. In response, Wizards of the Coast argued that the Magic version (same card mechanically, but with a Magic name and art) could be printed in any number of future products. Many fans called for the Commander Rules Committee to ban the cards in Commander in protest, but the Committee declined, stating that such a decision would not make sense for new players in the long run.
Even though the reaction among the fans was very negative, the Walking Dead was the best selling drop, luring in buyers from outside of the Magic world. This prompted the company to keep on experimenting in this realm, and leading to the set becoming part of the the Universes Beyond-series.
When WotC announced in June 2021 that they would do canon versions of Universes Beyond Secret Lairs, The Walking Dead was excluded. However, implementing something similar wasn't off the table in the future. In October 2021, Wizards of the Coast reversed their stance on this and decided that they would apply this to The Walking Dead as well. They would eventually appear in the 2023 Wilds of Eldraine Set Boosters.
==References==