Reality Fracture: The Cards Worth Sleeving
Two new mechanics, a common that wants a whole deck to itself, and two frogs with no rules text. Our picks from the newest set.
By We Geek Together3 min read
We've been listing Reality Fracture singles as they come in, so we've read most of the set more than once by now. The chase mythics will get plenty of coverage elsewhere. This list is the cheaper cards we kept picking up to read again, plus two frogs.
Two mechanics you'll need to know first
Empower Jace. When a card says "empower Jace 2," you put two loyalty counters on a Jace token you control. If you don't have one, you make one first: a blue Jace planeswalker token that can surveil 1 for one loyalty or draw a card for three. The upshot is that your first empower card creates a planeswalker and every later one feeds it. Protege's Awakening is the simplest version, four mana to empower Jace 6 and draw a card.
Prepared. Some creatures have a second spell printed on the card and enter "prepared." While the creature is prepared you can cast a copy of that spell, and then it stops being prepared. Fatehold Chronologist is a 1/2 flyer for two mana that carries a spell called Peer Review around with it.
The cards
Sphinx's Approach
It's an instant that draws two cards for three mana, and plenty of decks would play that with no extra text. But you're allowed any number of copies in a deck, and after you draw you can exile this one plus four more from your graveyard to pull a Sphinx out of your library and put it straight onto the battlefield. It's a common. Somebody at your table is going to build the thirty-copy deck, and it might as well be you.
Overgrown Farmland
A green-white land that enters untapped if you control two or more other lands. In practice that means it's tapped on turns one and two and fine for the rest of the game. Haunted Ridge is the same land in black-red. Both are reprints that Commander players already lean on, and EDHREC has each of them in its top 500.
Frostbite Pyromental
Three mana gets you a 4/4 with trample and haste that draws two cards when it connects with a player. You have to sacrifice it at end of turn. So the usual result is four damage and two cards for three mana, which we'd pay for a sorcery. And since it's a creature card, a deck that returns creatures from the graveyard can do it again.
Thalia, the Survivor
Thalia has always made noncreature spells cost one more. This version only taxes your opponents, and it comes on a 3/4 body with lifelink for four mana. She's legendary, so she can lead a deck. We like her more as one of the 99 in a white creature deck, where she slows down whoever's casting the most spells at the table.
Gideon's Memorial
A two-mana legendary artifact with a lot of text. Your creature tokens get +1/+0 and vigilance. It taps for any color, but only to cast planeswalkers. And if you draw it when you don't need it, you can pay two and discard it to deal 4 damage to an attacking or blocking creature. Token decks want the first ability and planeswalker decks want the second. We haven't seen a deck that wants both yet.
Vigorbloom Charm
Two mana, instant, green-white, pick one of three. You can give one of your permanents hexproof and indestructible until end of turn, which gets it through a board wipe. You can draw a card and gain 3 life. Or you can put a +1/+1 counter on your creature and have it fight one of theirs. We'd expect to use the first mode most.
Yargle, Glutton of Urborg
A legendary Frog Spirit. Five mana, 9/3, and the text box is empty. He's joined in this set by Yargle, Goliath of Otaria, who is blue and 3/9. Neither of them is good. People build Yargle Commander decks anyway and have a great time with them.
Everything else from the set
These are the Reality Fracture singles we have right now, priciest first. Most are a quarter.
Reality Fracture singles in stock
If you'd rather crack packs, sealed product is on the Reality Fracture page.
Keep reading
All stories
Reality FractureYour First Sealed Deck: A Guide From the League Tables
Forty cards, seventeen lands, two colors. How to turn a pile of packs into a deck that wins, in the order we'd build it, with examples from Reality Fracture.
Best CardsEight Commander Staples for Pocket Change
Eight of the most-played cards in Commander that were sitting in our singles binder, most of them for under a dollar.
CommanderThe 10-10-10 Rule: Build a Commander Deck That Works
Ten cards that make mana, ten that draw, ten that answer problems. Start there and the deck does its thing a lot more often.
The singles
Now flip through the whole binder.
1016 cards in stock. Search by name or filter by color, type, format and what the card does.
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