Secrets of Strixhaven was such an insanely fun set. With a wide array of mechanics and so many fun ways to build decks, it was a cracking limited set, which had heaps of fun cards for Constructed. Well, with Reality Fracture, they have taken what worked with Strihaven, and made it so much more! If you don’t want to read all my words below, then let’s make it simple, this set rules!
What is fracturing?
Reality is, hence the title! The legendary planeswalker Jace has decided to make the world a better place. He does this by making a new reality in an attempt to remove the bad things in the multiverse and change some of the negative aspects of people. And of course, this horrifying concept doesn’t go quite right.
The problem is, he locked away components of his mind so he could ensure that every action is logical and makes the most sense, as opposed to emotional decisions. This means the decisions that get made are pure logic, and if you have met anyone that likes to put logic above all else, well they can miss the point. Jace keeps doing Jace things and he tries to make his new universe a reality, and many, many people try to stop this.
It’s a cool story, and I highly recommend you read it. But if the story isn’t your jam, the most obvious thing this show is reflected in cards is the new versions of iconic characters. Take the fiery and impulsive Chandra. She has a planeswalker card, which represents Chandra, Torch of Defiance. This one is our usual Chandra doing normal red things like burn abilities and mana making. There is also a card called Chandra, Chill of Compliance. Here she is from Jace’s Echoverse and is a blue planeswalker instead. This is a fun way to experience our characters on a set that makes the story so much more compelling.
What’s it like to play?
The major new mechanic is something called Empower Jace. This is similar to Amass Goblins from The Hobbit, where if you don’t have a Jace Planeswalker token, you make one, and its power becomes whatever the number is. If you already have one, you uptick the power of the token by the number.
This is a fun mechanic as heaps of people wind up with these mini planeswalkers. Other cards also allow you to give planeswalkers new abilities, and so this goes nicely with the Jace tokens, but also the other pile of Planeswalkers in the set.
The other new thing is a Heartwood token, which some cards create. That is an artifact that taps for Gruul mana. As if green needed any more ramp.
Aside from those, we have returning mechanics. My favourite of these is prepared, which was introduced in Secrets of Strixhaven. Here you cast a creature, but it has an additional spell attached. Some enter prepared, others prepare when you meet a condition. When the condition is met, you can cast the spell, as long as the creature is still on the battlefield. This was so much fun in strixhaven, and it’s so much fun here.
From a draft perspective, this one is a banger. All ten archetypes are here, and they are designed well to allow flexibility and synergy. The card pool is deep, and again flexible, meaning cards can be great. Or even good enough, in multiple scenarios. Annoyingly, the Reality Fracture season isn’t as long as we are close to Star Trek, because I want to draft this one for months!
Every booster has fracture pair slots. So every single booster does have a pair of alternate characters in them. When this is something like a Mythic planeswalker, it feels great! It does mean that in picking one draft, if you don’t get handed a whole pair, then one of the half pairs in the colours is playing. It adds some weird signals, but also can throw you off if a pack has two halves. So it’s a fun wrinkle to the best way to play magic!
The art!
This set is an absolute banger. The normal card art varies from fantastic to excellent, and then there is the alternate art. In general, the full art cards look amazing, and when you have paired cards, they have shared art, so that the lack of border makes them look like a cracking miniscene. When you open one of these arts in the pair slot it is so satisfying to have the full picture.
The special guests for this set are absolutely stunning and do feel like they belong in a Secret Lair. The card values vary from cheap to Eye Of Ugin expensive, and best of all they merge to make a ten-card scene. It’s a cracker!
The best alternate art treatment is the Shattered Mirror art. Here you have a stunning design, with what looks like large shards of a mirror showing an alternative version of the character. You can get these in play boosters or with extra dope foiling in the Collector boosters, and I adore these!
Then, as usual, the collector boosters offer a slim chance at a serialized card. This one is a textless Bloodline Recollector. The Collector Boosters also include the chance for Japanese Showcases, which I always love, and these are no different. The Emrakul art looks especially awesome.
How can you buy Reality Fracture?
Now this one is weird, because right now, down under, you can get play boosters, and that’s about it. There were issues sending products to Oceania for release, meaning most prereleases got pushed out a week. Some stores have their Fractured Reality bundles which include nine boosters, a promo, lands, a spin down dice, and a hard box.
Collector Boosters have started to appear in stores and should be in one near you any day now, and there is an upcoming special bundle called the Secret Lair bundle. This one will have six normal boosters, two collector boosters, and two promo cards from the set with alternate art. These promos vary from weird to stunning.
There is also a commander deck for the set called Multiverse Reforged. This is a four-colour commander deck headlined by Jace. I haven’t played with it yet, but it looks like an interesting mess of cards. Heaps of great value in the deck, but it looks like it could be a bit disjointed to play. But this is me guessing. I will certainly pick one up, and if it’s not too fun to play, will break it apart for other decks. Other disjointed Commander precons have been fun to play, so we will see.
It’s a bit annoying that the products haven’t hit the shelves yet, because this set rules! A new line of commander decks with the Foundations branding has hit the shelves, and they are mono-colour decks at a shockingly reasonable $60. They give new players the bones to build something bigger and better, but they play well out of the box. Which is perfect for a new starter as their price and playing style are excellent.
Should you check out Magic: Reality Fracture?
I thought Secrets of Strixhaven was going to be my favourite in-universe set this year. But based on my playing with these cards so far, this could be it. References to old cards are great for older players, but are accessible to new players. The mechanics are fun as hell, and the weird pack collation caused by the fractured pair slot makes boosters fun to open, and fun and weird draft plays.
I can’t wait to get my hands on some of the other products from the set, because this could be the best set to play and open in a LONG time.
Reality Fracture is an incredible set. A twisted setting, really fun mechanics, throwbacks for old players, heaps of stuff for new players, and so much fun to play!
Draft Reality Fracture while you can! You will not regret it!
