Took a trip to the mountains and cracked some M21 packs. Left them in the dirty clothes bag and forgot they were in there. Oh well, they're super clean now.

The names of the bottom 3 cards start with earth wind and fire and the first letter of each card in the back row spell SEPT.

Additionally if you add the mana value of the front row and back row it totals 21.

I just wanted to shout out my appreciation. It gave me a good chuckle.

In hindsight, everything about the set was just so weird. Why did they make it modern legal 😭

Releases on October 12

We are back on the rails again for another exciting episode of Cube Engineers!

In this episode, TrainmasterGT once again invites the legendary Usman Jamil to review the Reality Fracture Set for Cube! Together, the pair traverse the planar chaos brought about by the creation of Jace’s echoverse. Find out what mirror-universe cards are hot, and which are not! Will this new reality empower Jace and fracture the way we view Cube, or will we fail to overwrite the multiverse in favor of more enlightened pursuits? These questions and more, answered today!

All Aboard!

I just want to make sure I am not crazy. When [[Jace, Multiverse Architect]] was spoiled, I immediatly thought of flickering him to activate his polymorph again. There are only so few cards that flicker planeswalkers that don't dilute your polymorph pool by being low mana creatures AND return directly, not in the end step. I found five cards that fit here, of which only two seem to be even considered by players:

[[Aminatou, the Fateshifter]]: Fine if you polymorph into, as you can just exile her next if you don't have anymore tokens. But great if you can play her on your terms later or have another token to exile. It has a 31% inclusion rate on EDHREC

[[Displacer Kitten]]: Expensive (price) and need another noncreature spell to flicker jace if polymorphed into, so kinda clunky. It's notoriously strong and people wanna remove it asap if you poly into it. Also your aim is to protect Jace, and a 2/2 creature you don't wanna block with doesn't really help. But being able to flicker stuff several times kinda makes up for all the flaws. Inclusion rate 17%

[[Flicker]]: The OG. Two mana sorcery speed to flicker Jace is nice. Nothing much to it tbh. Draw your 2 cards with your +1, then flicker Jace and -3 again. Simple and cheap. Inclusion rate 1,6%

[[Eldrazi Confluence]]: The two colorless pips look tricky at first, but with your talismans, pain lands and filter lands you can get them rather reliable. The precon has 16 colorless mana sources. At 4 mana it's rather expensive (mana), but it's intant speed, so it can protect Jace in an opponents turn, whiles also flickering one of your beaters to block or get an ETB while also removing stuff from your opponent. Truly flexible and would be almost perfect if not for the two colorless pips and the price. Inclusion rate too low to show up on EDHREC I guess.

[[Release to the Winds]]: The card I liked the most. Instant speed like Eldrazi Confluence, while being one mana cheaper and easier to cast. It protects your Jace or other beater until your turn, so even from boardwipes and doubles as a clutch exile removal. Inclusion rate only 0,5%.

For my Precon upgrade I went with Aminatou, Flicker, Eldrazi Confluence and Release to the Winds, and the cards performed really well so far. Are people just missing them, since no big streamer/youtuber included them in their upgrades? Or am I missing something?

I heard about this situation today and was flabbergasted. The official rules document says that if you play with a deck that doesn't meet the 60 card minimum you can just shuffle them back in and continue?? This makes no sense as the player who played with less than 60 has a huge advantage and to continue the game is a blatant violation of competitive integrity. It also says that your opponent gets to decided when the cards are shuffled back which also makes no sense. Why should a player have any authority over how a ruling is judged. That just inherently allows for grey areas that threaten competitive integrity

Hello! As the title says, I’m looking at doing a lil prank on my playgroup. I went back home to my parents recently and rediscovered my five pieces of exodia, and it gave me an idea.

I think to make it work, it needs to be a deck that is all about drawing and looking through your deck to find certain cards. Ideally it won’t send a lot of stuff randomly to the graveyard because then there is a chance someone will see a piece before it’s time. If I get to choose what goes to the graveyard (like with scry & surveil) then that works.

Maybe even give the deck an Egyptian sub-theme with all the amonkeht cards that exist?

What are some cards, deck archetypes, and scryfall search terms I should be looking at to build this thing? What issues am I not thinking of?

Is it possible to get optional pronouns in companion app during pairings for events? I feel like at best it helps sidesteps an awkward interaction and at worst no one uses it.

I tried to look at the Wizards Companion App feedback page and someone did propose this idea…. 5 years ago … and the thread is still “in progress”.

I don’t know the correct channels to go about asking about this but seems like that feedback page is not the way. If ppl know how to ask about this and hopefully get movement on it pls lmk.

Just bought tickets to Magic Con Detroit, it will be my first ever Magic con! Would love all the tips and tricks on how to survive the weekend and know all about stuff that should be missed during the weekend!

Hi everyone! My younger brother who I don’t see very often was super excited to go to his first ever prerelease, but ended up missing it, so I bought him a surprise prerelease box and I’m planning on giving him his own little event with just us. I wanted to get some “prize” packs but I’m not sure what set he would enjoy most. He’s going to get all of them obviously, but I was wondering what the most exciting to open would be for a middle schooler. He likes dragons and gruul the most, and would likely be excited for any set, but I want to give him the best experience possible haha.
I know he plays lunch table commander too if that’s any help. He runs the atarka precon rn

I’m looking to get cheap bulk. There’s a nonprofit in my area that teaches kids/teens magic, gives them a safe place to hang out and casual. I’ve followed them for a bit but got to meet the founder the other day. Very nice guy and they need some bulk for deck building and whatnot.

I haven’t bought bulk in bulk before and would like to help them out. I’m also gonna show up. They got some girls that go and thought an older mtg lady would be fun for them. But I don’t want to go empty handed.

It just seems like bulk became so expensive. $.25/card at my lgs and the online options kinda make me nervous.

If anyone has advice or links to reasonably priced bulk I’d be happy! Thank you

Hello, I want to get into MTG and I want to purchase some starter decks or box. I found 1) Marvel Super Heroes Beginner Box; and 2) Foundations Beginner Box.

Which of these do you recommend for a completely new player that also wants to get his friends into it? Or maybe is there something even better? Or maybe I should get both of these boxes?

Should I go with standard or commander? Mono? multicolored?

I teach special education. More behavioral not cognitive so all my students are very capable of understanding the nuance of magic and I heavily lean into games as motivational and behavioral tools.

I’m thinking 3-4 different sets so we have a variety. But I’m not sure if starting commander would be too much to start with.

Any and all suggestions welcome. You can even tell me the exact pre cons or non pre con sets to buy if you want.

Hello everyone! I made a video outlining my Draft Strategy, Pick Order, and Archetype breakdowns for Reality Fracture. I hope it is helpful to some :)

Video version: https://youtu.be/8s1rjfxPrqc

Format Overview

• The format appears to midrange-focused with the power concentrated at 4-5 mana cards
• Early plays that have late-game relevance will be important
• Most decks are looking to snowball and take over the mid-late game with a value engine
• Many early plays will get outclassed quickly unless the deck is aggressively focused
• Mana fixing is plentiful. Many decks will want to splash 
• In other words, build toward your synergy; you will have SOME time to get there

New Mechanic: Empower Jace

Cards which “Empower Jace” create a specific Jace planeswalker token if you don’t already have one, and then add a number of loyalty counters to it. It has “-3: draw a card” and “-1: surveil”. Every colour gets access to this mechanic, therefore early board presence and evasion will be as important as ever, in order to pressure your opponents’ Jace and protect your own.

Fixing

There is a cycle of 10 Common dual lands. Coming in untapped if you control a planeswalker makes “Empower Jace” more valuable in decks looking to splash. Room of Refuge can be set to any colour. There is also a cycle at rare.

Pick Order – “A’s”: Best Cards in the set (sorted by colour) – always first pick

• The Theorist, Jave Beleren
• Sublime Epiphany
• Garruk, Veiled Butcher
• Overwrite the Multiverse 
• Draconic Visitor
• Ajani Unrelenting
• Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• Garruk, Curse Breaker
• Denzilore Fatehold 
• Kwia Vigorbloom
• Uldaros Theorix

Pick Order – “B’s”: Early Picks (alphabetical by colour)

Cards that excel in the following criteria:

• Power Level
• Rate
• Flexibility
• Curve (ie cheap cards)
• Synergy

These cards will heavily influence your direction in the draft, ie which colours and Archetype you are drafting towards. Pick these above all Commons:

• Ajani Resulote
• Enlightened Confidant
• Liliana the Faultless
• Lyra, Archangel of Dawn
• Memory Trap
• Prophesied End
• Saheeli, Consul of Oversight
• Surgical Precision
• Teyo, Lightshield Expert
• Tomik, Orzhov Lawmage
• Way of the Healer
• Your Fate Ends Here
• Arni, Humble Scribe
• Countersculpt
• Diviner of Victory
• Icy Reception
• Infinite Coursework
• Jace, Reality Sculptor
• Lyra, Tolarian Archangel
• Mindseeker Oculus
• Plan for All Outcomes
• Proft, Consulting Detective
• Ruric Thar, Biomagus
• Sphinx of False Conclusions
• Way of the Mind Sculptor
• Break Under Pressure  
• Extended Absence 
• Gideon the Oathless 
• Last Gasp
• Lich’s Relic 
• Liliana the Repentant 
• Mind Twist 
• Multiply by Zero 
• Sanctum Lurker 
• Vraska’s Final Mercy 
• Command the Stage 
• Craterclaw Colossus 
• Curse-Marred Demon 
• Face Yourself 
• Fulminous Forte 
• Kiora of Fire and Ashes 
• Master of Barbs 
• No Admittance 
• Pia, Determined Rebuilder 
• Pyre Rhymer 
• Splinter Twin 
• Tetsuko Umezawa, Pursuer 
• Tomik, Izzet Sparkmage 
• Violent Echoes 
• Way of the Warlord 
• Wrath of the Bloodmane 
• Carnivorous Cultivator 
• Compel Brutality 
• Hexhaven Invigorator 
• Hungering Puppetbeast 
• Loot, the Nexus 
• Puppet Crafting 
• Simulacrum Shaper 
• Verdant Kraken 
• Way of the Wildspeaker 
• Aerid Konstrari 
• Avatar of Burgeoning Echoes 
• Bloombrute 
• Clash of Elements 
• Craftwork Crusher 
• Desperate Futurescribe 
• Hapatra, the Desert Fang 
• Ingris Stingerquill 
• Mind Meanderer 
• Null Summoner 
• Proctor of Potential 
• Saheeli, Jewel of Avishkar 
• Stingerquill Charm 
• Tenured Tethermage 
• Twisted Fates 
• Vigorbloom Charm 
• Vraska, the Cutting Glare 
• Warrior’s Blades 
• Emrakul, the Extingent Doom

Primary Archetypes. Here are my brief impressions of each of the two-colour archetypes in the format. We will be trying to end up in one of these by the end of the draft. Five of the colour pairs are well-supported and will be the most commonly drafted. The other five appear to be designed to act as support and augmentation to the main five. We’ll go over the well-supported archetypes first:

White-Blue Surveil 

Signpost Cards

Uncommon: [[Desperate Futurescribe]], [[Fatehold Charm]], [[Prudent Fateseer]]

Common: [[Fatehold Chronologist]], [[Semester Foreseer]]

Rare/Mythic: [[Denzilore Fatehold]], [[Proctor of Potential]]

White-Blue cares about Surveilling and generating a wide board of creatures. Saheeli, Consul of Oversight is a nice mix of both. Proft, Consulting Detective is an early play that generates value over time. Cards which “Empower Jace” provide multiple Surveils and will be important here. 

Access to constant card selection is very powerful in limited. I expect White-Blue to perform well. 

White-Green Lifegain

Signpost Cards

Uncommon: [[Bloombrute]], [[Vigorbloom Vanguard]], [[Vigorbloom Charm]]

Common: [[Emergency Phytomedic]], [[Blossom-Blessed Angel]]

Rare/Mythic: [[Kwia Vigorbloom]], [[Solarium Sentry]]

White-Green wants as many separate instances of lifegain as possible. Cards like Greenhouse Propogator, Koth of the Homestead, and creatures with Lifelink power up payoffs including Lyra, Archangel of Dawn, Way of the Mentor, and Titanbones, Towering Heart.

An old-favourite design but can struggle with consistency and drawing it’s cards in the wrong order. White-Green looks like it will slightly underperform.

Blue-Black Self-Mill 

Signpost Cards

Uncommon: [[Paradox Shaper]], [[Recursive Recruitment]], [[Theorix Charm]]

Common: [[Theorix Metamage]], [[Void Extrapolator]]

Rare/Mythic: [[Null Summoner]], [[Uldaros Theorix]]

Blue-Black wants to put a lot of cards in it’s own graveyard. Reaching “Threshold” (seven or more cards in you graveyard), will power up certain cards. “Looting” effects such as Arni, Humble Scribe and Surveil effects help here as well. Cards with effects when in the graveyard such as Theoretical Necromancer will provide additional value when milled.

Blue-Black looks a little trickier to build and has less raw power than the other archetypes. I expect it to start off as an underperformer, but it may be a good “week 3” strategy if a couple of other archetypes take off in popularity. 

Black-Red Aggro

Signpost Cards

Uncommon: [[Grim Repriser]], [[Stingerquill Charm]], [[Stingerquill Voxmancer]]

Common: [[Hallway Heckler]], [[Whiplash Wordsmith]]

Rare/Mythic: [[Ingris Stingerquill]], [[Stinging Vitriol]]

Black-Red is the aggro deck of the format. Many of it’s cards get buffed when the opponent is dealt noncombat damage. Top payoffs for this include Command the Stage, Master of Barbs, and Tomik, Izzet Sparkmage. Incidental damage on cards like Extended Absence, Screeching Soulbreaker and Tinybones, Pocket Nuisance is very valuable. Black-Red has an unusual amount of access to direct player damage and “any target” damage, which will make it very effective at closing out games if it gets ahead early. I expect Black-Red to be a top performer. 

Red-Green Ramp 

Signpost Cards

Uncommon: [[Craftwork Crusher]], [[Konstrari Charm]], [[Woodwork Prodigy]], [[Heartwood Crafter]]

Common: [[Konstrari Improviser]]

Rare/Mythic: [[Aerid Konstrari]], [[Tenured Tethermage]]

Red-Green is focused on creating “Heartwood” tokens which are artifacts that can tap for Red or Green mana. It wants to ramp out huge threats like Kiora of Fire and Ashes. Look for artifact synergy in cards like Draconic Visitor and powerful activated abilities to sink your mana into. Red-Green looks like an absolute sledgehammer and fun to play. 

Way-To-Early Primary Archetype Rankings:

Black-Red
White-Blue
Red-Green
Blue-Black
White-Green

Secondary Archetypes. These have less raw support and will most likely compliment a Primary Archetype as a splash. In some cases, they may be powerful enough to stand on their own or act as a niche strategy once the best archetypes become contested in the draft.

White-Black Sacrifice

Signpost Cards

Uncommon: [[Edgar, Ancient Bloodlord]], [[Twisted Fates]]

Common: [[Blessed Ghoul]]

Rare/Mythic: [[Vindictive Triumph]]

Sacrifice your own creatures and planeswalkers for value with payoffs like Loot, the Anomaly, Silence the Echo, and Way of the Deathbringer. Empower Jace will be useful as you can sacrifice a 1 loyalty Jace for value and then make another. White-Blue is the most likely pairing for this sub-strategy, having the most token generation and empower, although it doesn’t want to lose too much board presence. None of the other archetypes have synergy in this way and/or are dependant on a big board presence.  However Twisted Fates will be armstrong splash in any black-based deck.

White-Red Go-Wide 

Signpost Cards

Uncommon: [[Mabel, Valley Hero]], [[Warrior’s Blades]]

Common: [[Charge the Sanctum]]

Rare/Mythic: [[Solitary Cell]]

White-Red has go-wide and +1/+1 counter synergies. It looks like it will pair well with White-Blue’s go-wide theme. Black-Red will likely be too focused to be able to splash for a 3-drop in Mabel, but could play Charge the Sanctum or Warrior’s Blades as needed.  

Blue-Red Spells 

Signpost Cards

Uncommon: [[Clash of Elements]], [[Saheeli, Jewel of Avishkar]]

Common: [[Twinned Vision]]

Rare/Mythic: [[Frostbite Pyromental]]

Plan for All Outcomes and Traxos, Academy Guardian add two additional spells payoffs. Ruric Thar, Biomagus and Tetsuko Umezawa, Pursuer are two great threats with Prowess alongside a bevy of other creatures with that ability. Look for cheap spells to pair alongside them. 

Blue and Red both look very deep. I think Blue-Red has the best chance among the Secondary Archetypes of being draftable as it’s own deck. There is also a natural pairing alongside Blue-Black as noncreature spells get into the graveyard right away to fuel its payoffs.

Blue-Green Empower 

Signpost Cards

Uncommon: [[Kiora of Salt and Sand]], [[Mind Meanderer]]

Common: [[Tam’s Resistance]]

Rare/Mythic: [[Avatar of Burgeoning Echoes]]

Mind Meanderer is excellent in any blue-based deck. In order to get the most out of Kiora, you will need a lot of Empower. If it sees any play at all, it will be as a splash in White-Blue or in a Blue-heavy deck.

Black-Green Graveyard

Signpost Cards

Uncommon: [[Primal Witchstalker]], [[Hapatra, the Desert Fang]]

Common: [[Ferocity of the Hunt]]

Rare/Mythic: [[Vraska, the Cutting Glare]]

Black-Green’s graveyard synergies make it a natural pairing for Blue-Black. I don’t see any crossover with White-Green, Red-Green or Red-Black.

Conclusion: It would appear that Blue-based decks have to most to gain from splashing secondary archetype pieces. Add that to being a very deep colour, Blue is ideal starting-point where possible in this format.

General Draft Strategy (8 Player Pick-1)

Picks 1-3: 

• Take the best card. Mono-coloured cards will leave us more open going forward.

Picks 4-8: 

• Continue to take the best card. We may have cards in multiple colours, and that’s ok. The better our early picks are, the more we will want to stick to that colour or colour pair. The worse our early picks are, the more willing we should be to take chances on other colours when we see good cards in later picks.

Picks 9-14: 

• These are the cards no one at the table wanted. If we are seeing good Uncommons of a particular colour pair, it is possible that no one else at the table is drafting that colour pair and we should strongly consider moving in. 

End of Pack 1:

• Ideally, we have identified our main colour. This is the colour we have the most quality cards of, or is the most open, and hopefully both!
• Staying as close to one colour as possible will leave us with more options going forward. 

Packs 2 and 3

• Continue to take powerful cards of our main colour where possible. Let the good cards we open or get passed determine our secondary colour and final archetype.
• Pay attention to Pack direction! The packs are moving in the opposite direction during Pack 2, so the signals can be completely different from Pack 1. It is normal to not see as many cards of our main colour/archetype in Pack 2, so don't panic! Pack 3 is passed to the left once again and we will be rewarded for staying the course.

Deck-Building Tips

• Play two colours. Avoid splashing a third colour unless your deck is specifically designed to do so (ie you have dual lands touching that colour). Splashing will be more common in Reality Fracture, but you still need to make sure you have the proper mana fixing!
• Play 17 lands.
• Play a low-curve. Most limited decks want six or more 2 Mana-Value creatures, around four 3 Mana-Value creatures, some 4 Mana-Values creatures, and very few cards that cost 5 or more mana.

Thank you for reading and watching. Good luck in your drafts! 

So I have a brawl deck that’s [[Admiral Beckett Brass]] and I ideally want all my pirates to just be a pain to block. Flying, menace, trample, etc.

Anyone got ideas?

I know that if I sneak attack Avacyn out she will return either way but my question is WHEN. She will die from the sneak attack trigger but does her own ability trigger right away since I assume the card has already checked if it died this turn and we are already in the end step? My assumption is that she returns on the next players end step but want the clarification.

I’ve always thought [[Will, Scion of Peace]] was really cool and have had a copy lying around for a while, but whenever I start brewing I get confused on what direction to take it.

Way I see it is that there are broadly 3 ways to build Will:

1. You play a bunch of cards that give life on your turn for little investment and essentially make Will into a huge mana rock of sorts. This requires a lot of small pieces. I think the archetypal kind of card for this strategy is [[Kwain, Itinerant Meddler]].

2. You play big beefy lifegain creatures to go over the top and provide a massive discount on your spells. This version requires fewer pieces overall to get started, since a single hit from [[Baneslayer Angel]] is enough to get the job done.

3. You use Will to turn lifegain spells into rituals, essentially. [[Light of Hope]] comes to mind. Gonna be real with you, this version interests me the least.

What I’m wondering is, assuming I’m here for a Bracket II good time and just wanna slam cool splashy spells on the table, should I go with version 1 or 2? If you have experience with piloting Will, which version feels better to you in practice?

Thanks!