Upcoming ‘Magic: The Gathering’ X ‘SpongeBob Squarepants’ Secret Lair Drop Is Everything That’s Wrong With Modern Pop-Culture
Ever since Wizards of the Coast announced that they would be opening up their wildly popular Magic: The Gathering trading card game and allowing for third-party IPs to get their own unique sets, its player base has been torn as to whether or not the move was overall beneficial or detrimental to the game’s identity – and unfortunately for those in the former camp, the latter just got the best evidence to their argument with the recent reveal of the upcoming SpongeBob SquarePants Secret Lair Drop release.
First announced in October 2024, the upcoming limited edition set was fully unveiled on March 9th courtesy of an exclusive preview provided by Collider, as made possible thanks to a direct partnership between the outlet and WotC.
Divided into three separate packages according to card type, the SpongeBob SquarePants set will present players with no original cards, but rather 18 themed reprints of already-existing cards (as was done with the previous Godzilla crossovers), including:
SpongeBob SquarePants: Internet Sensation (Instants/Sorcery)
- Counterspell
- Daze
- Inevitable Betrayal
- Force of Despair
- Night’s Whisper
- and a Food token
SpongeBob SquarePants: Lands Under The Sea
- Exactly what it says on the tin, this collection features one basic land of each respective type – Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest – all adorned with a view of one of Bikini Bottom’s most scenic locations.
SpongeBob SquarePants: Legends of Bikini Bottom (Creatures):
- Plantkon, Tiny Tyrant (Skrelv, Defector Mite)
- Mr. Krabs, Penny Pincher (Charix, the Raging Isle)
- Squidward, Sarcastic Snob (Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar)
- Gary, the Snail (Toxrill, the Corrosive)
- Sandy Cheeks, Martial Astroanut (Taski, Bearer of Secrets)
- Patrick Star (Barktooth Warbeard)
- SpongeBob SquarePants (Jodah, the Unifier)
Now, before moving on, I want to take a moment to offer a bit of clarification to the reader: Personally, I hold no bias or ill will towards any of the base concepts at play here.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite: Not only do I actively play MtG myself and purchase many of the Universes Beyond releases – one of my best decks is themed around their recent Hatsune Miku drops, I love annoying my table with Captain America’s unique ‘Throw and Catch’ mechanic, and you better believe I’m eagerly eating up every bit of news related to the upcoming Spider-Man and Final Fantasy sets – but I also hold extremely fond memories of SpongeBob SquarePants Seasons original three-season-a-movie run, which I actively watched when I was younger.
I say all this not to peacock, puff my chest, or dismiss players who completely hate the idea of Universes Beyond – I completely understand how the appearances of someone like Ash Williams, Yuffie Kisaragi, or Craig Boone can break he game’s immersion and make it feel more like an embarassing ‘Funko Pop!’-style consumer whale trap than a serious game, and that’s to say nothing of the effects their releases have had on the game’s economy.
Rather, I say this so that you can understand that when I say this release is everything wrong with modern entertainment culture, I’m not just offhand dismissing something because ‘I don’t like it’ – I’m truly trying to communicate that this set feels spiritually terrible. Not in the religious sense, but in the ‘this feels like a betrayal of the human spirit’ sense.
Okay, okay, admittedly, that last descriptor may have been a bit hefty – but honestly, it’s not wholly off-base.
Setting aside the Lands Under The Sea package, which does at least feature new illustrations depicting Gary the Snail visiting such locales as Rock Bottom and the Jellyfish Fields, take a look at the visuals used on each of the cards.
Instead of new art, no matter how amazing or absolutely terrifying it may be, both the Internet Sensation and Legends of Bikini Bottom drops feature new vector images made not just from various episode frames, but in the case of the former, from those specific frames which have since gone on to become internet memes.
As such, rather than these sets feeling at all like they’re celebrating SpongeBob SquarePants‘ actual history, they come off as lazy and cynical cash-grabs, their sole purpose meant to exploit the emotional connection one might feel to seeing recognizable imagery in the hopes of scoring a quick buck.
But more than the ‘How do you do fellow kids’ nature of basing an entire set around internet memes or the laziness of just rehashing already-produced art, perhaps what really leaves this entire affair feeling so skeevy is the fact that it exists as yet another instance of Nickelodeon exploiting the IP following the death of its late creator Stephen Hillenburg, who was himself opposed to the idea of his creation turning into yet another mass merchandise slop factory.
Speaking with The New York Times‘ David Edelstein ahead of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie‘s 2004 theatrical release, on the topic of his creation now adorning a multitude of items in various shopping catalogs, Hillenburg opined, “At first it’s both weird and flattering, and then after a while you get tired of seeing it.”
“It loses preciousness after a while,” he added. “One night I was really beat, we worked really late and went to get food at some takeout place. And I leaned over against this gumball machine, just exhausted, and there was a SpongeBob looking back at me. And it’s just, like, ‘Oh, brother.'”
Further, the film’s co-director Sherm Cohen recalled that when the first SpongeBob SquarePants merchandise began rolling out, “Stephen looked grim. He said, “‘My biggest nightmare is that I’m going to be at the beach one day, and one of these dolls is going to wash up on the shore like garbage.’ Being a marine biologist who also surfs, he doesn’t want to be responsible for bringing a glut of garbage into the world.”
A piece of limited edition crossover merch aimed exclusively at adult collectors, its entire appeal based on the audiences’ recognition of childhood visuals and exploitative existence only made possible by the fact that its original creator is no longer around to actively protest its production (and Hell, the fact that the memes featured on the Internet Sensations cards are even popular isn’t due to Nickelodeon’s own efforts, but rather the guerilla-grass-roots-style of internet culture.
Like I said – Wizards of the Coast’s SpongeBob SquarePants Secret Lair drop is everything wrong with the modern ‘consoomer’ culture.
All in all, if you’re able to ignore either my cynicism, your own, or that of other players, you can pick-up all three SpongeBob SquarePants releases beginning at 9AM PST exclusively on Wizards’ Secret Lair site, with regular print sets retailing for $30 USD and foil ones going for a slightly higher $40.
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