Magic: The Gathering’s next set is the world-bending Reality Fracture, which centers around an alternate universe with twisted mirror versions of many the game’s characters (available for preorder at Amazon). We’ve got an exclusive look at two new cards from the set, and while they are a little less twisted than others, they are both pivotal to the story that plays out (so here’s a spoiler warning if you were waiting to read that first).
The first card is a key object in Reality Fracture: The Echoverse Fulcrum. This Mythic Rare legendary artifact is meant to merge universes together, but its functional effect is a board wipe with a little bit of card selection attached.
Colorless cards have had plenty of conditional board wipes like this before, but to my eyes, the low initial mana cost and immediate benefit of drawing and then discarding a card could make this one more broadly useful in a format like Commander. Five mana to activate its ability and only at sorcery speed are both real drawbacks, but that’s easier to stomach when you’ve already gotten something (admittedly minor) out of it.
The other card we are revealing depicts the final moments of Reality Fracture’s hero-turned-villain, Jace. Vraska’s Final Mercy is a Rare sorcery that can either be a removal spell or effectively draw you two cards as it either strikes down or builds up Jace himself.
The first mode’s most immediate parallel is Infernal Grasp, which also destroys a creature at the cost of two life. There are some important differences, though: Vraska’s Final Mercy also hits planeswalkers, but it is severely hampered by being a sorcery instead of an instant, and the mana cost is much more demanding with two black pips.
The second mode’s easiest point of comparison is probably Night’s Whisper, though there are caveats here as well. In addition to the same mana cost difference, the Empower Jace mechanic means you are only able to draw one card the turn you play this and the other on your next turn. It also gives you the flexibility of giving a big boost of loyalty to your Jace token for other shenanigans, and the ability to Surveil if you want to that instead of draw, but not drawing two cards right away is quite rough.
So while it’s arguably worse versions of two similar cards stapled together, it’s not one to fully count out when it comes to stuff like Draft or Sealed, because having options is always powerful in Limited formats like that. My guess is that this card, like The Echoverse Fulcrum, won’t make a ton of waves outside them, but it is an interesting design all the same – and the story moment it depicts makes it quite a flavorful one.
Reality Fracture arrives on MTG Arena on September 29, followed by its tabletop release on October 2, with pre-release events kicking off on September 25. This is the capstone to a story that’s been building for multiple years now, and the last Magic-themed set before it goes back to Universes Beyond with a Star Trek expansion later this year.
Tom Marks
Associate Reviews Director
Tom Marks is IGN’s Associate Reviews Director for games. He loves card games, puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and lots more.