Trade Guide for Reality Fracture

Overwrite the Multiverse | Art by Pedro Correa

Friendly greetings and welcome to the Echoverse. The Cardsphere Team is pleased to announce Reality Fracture is available to trade, including cards with FRA and FRC set codes. Additionally, this release adds ten new cards to Special Guests (SPG).

I'm John Sherwood, Cardsphere's unofficial new Magic set correspondent. Join me as I peruse the latest singles and sealed products available to the best trading community in any version of reality.

Collector Booster Exclusives

You won't find these special treatments in play boosters, but you can trade them as singles on Cardsphere.

Headliner

Are you craving serial? You can't see it, but the headliner for this set has an Ancient Craving.

Legendary artist Mark Poole expands his Magic portfolio yet again; this time with a full art depiction of a Hexhaven Vampire. The ultra-premium version is a textless double rainbow foil.

As if that wasn't extra enough, Wizards of the Coast made only these 500 cards, and signified them as extra special with serial numbers.

If you're like me in the sense that you prefer reading rules text over memorizing it, then have no fear. The regular and extended art versions include the requisite text boxes for both spells on the card.

Shattered mirror cards

Several new cards in Reality Fracture feature color shifts of popular effects from previous designs. Planar Chaos was the last set to do this directly across multiple cards and colors.

Unlike Planar Chaos, which infamously broke the color pie, FRA's color shifts demonstrate handle with care approach to each color's mechanical identity.

For example, Stingcaster Mage dives into Snapcaster Mage's pool without directly copying Snappy's tricks. Haste is very appropriate for a red flashback enabler; perhaps weaker, but also not without benefits.

Instead of breaking functional design, Wizards of the Coast broke visual design with the shattered mirror borderless treatment. Five rares and eight mythic rares portray the new color shifted cards with fragments of well-known illustrations from the reimagined cards.

I love the conversion of Arclight Phoenix into Darklight Phoenix, which fills the same roles in gameplay without being exactly the same.

Foil shattered mirror cards feature a new style of foiling called facet foil. Shiny card fans should see those broken shards pop. Non-foil and facet foil shattered mirror cards are printed in English only.

Japan showcase

Art inspired by Japanese popular media returns again for Reality Fracture. This time, five of the ten display a variety of styles, and the other five follow a central theme.

The unified five are the cycle of Elder Sphinx leaders of Hexhaven's ally color schools, like Denzilore Fatehold. This cycle reminds me of the over-the-top summons commonly found in many Japanese role playing games.

Japan showcase is one of WotC's favorite tactics to sell fancy packs. The fans of anime and manga art are reliable consumers. As usual, fracture foil and non-foil versions of Japan showcase cards have different collector numbers. Make sure you select the correct one when updating your inventory and offers.

Extended Art

Once again, it's time for my set release ritual of looking for a special extended art card. In most sets, at least one extended art reveals some special detail that isn't visible on the regular printing. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case this time.

Reality Fracture has nine extended art cards, and none of the images are drastically different from their modern-framed prints. As such, I'm stretching just because I enjoy the exercise.

Pompous Battlemage has some kind of object near the right side of the image, but I can't tell what it is. Please enlighten me in the comments if you figure it out.

If you just like cards without borders, then this batch should still scratch that itch. Extended art cards may be non-foil or traditional foil.

More Booster Fun

The following treatments appear in Play Boosters and Collector Boosters in one form or another. Of course, we all know the best way to get them is directly from other users on Cardsphere.

Borderless Echoed Pairs

Another feature of Reality Fracture, echoed pairs are diametrically opposed incarnations of the same character as they appear in the original multiverse and Jace's tilted mulligan.

Does Karn, Gilded Guardian have a choice in Jace's scheme? Surely Karn, Argent Defender deserves a break from self-righteous genocidal maniacs?

Borderless editions of the echoed pairs pit the doubles against each other in a single scene, which Echoverse doppelgangers on the left. Available as non-foil and traditional foil, in all booster products.

Brain Twister Borderless

Impossibility abounds in these brain twister illustrations. From the surreal to the absurd, the artists for this collection break the mold of Standard set visual motifs.

Hall of Echoes by Serena Malyon is weird in all the right ways. I love the boggling imagery, and the card ability. Hall of Echoes is a fascinating utility land; the kind design I force into decks with juvenile hope of living a victorious dream.

A total of twenty-three cards across three rarities have brain twister versions. Available as non-foil and traditional foil, in all booster products.

Sculptor's Stronghold Showcase

Framed with a representation of Jace's tower in Hexhaven, the showcase frame for Reality Fracture offers a glimpse into a broken character's unhinged worldview.

Speaking of Magic's rogue poster child, Jace's Machinations is a perfect example of the new card frame.

Trying to follow those lines up close is futile, but the general effect looks great at arm's length. Available as non-foil and traditional foil in all booster products.

Special Guests

Reality Fracture's ten-card addition to the SPG set code includes an interesting variety of reprints. The common thread through this mixed bag is the stunning, infinite panorama by Marina Banker.

Previously, panoramas in Magic consisted of landscapes and story scenes. Banker's contribution is a stylized loop, connecting independent works with intricate lines and a prismatic transition of colors through the edges of each card.

From Eye of Ugin to Root Maze, collectors can start at any collector number and arrange these cards in numerical order to see the full image start and end at any point. Non-foil Special Guests in play boosters, and SPG traditional foils appear in collector boosters.

Borderless Portal View Lands

Secrets of Strixhaven reprinted enemy color slow lands, with a borderless portal treatment from the perspective of the normal multiverse.

Reality Fracture completes the cycle with portals from Hexhaven in the Echoverse, such as Shipwreck Marsh from Theorix to Quandrix.

Available as non-foil and traditional foil in all booster products.

Borderless Tower Basics

The tower basics take landscapes in a new direction: up. These full art basic lands present the towers of Hexhaven from top to bottom.

Available as non-foil and traditional foil in all booster products, and traditional foils are guaranteed in the Secret Lair Bundle.

Other

These cards from other sealed products are not available in booster packs.

Secret Lair Bundle Promos

Eleven cards from the main set feature art that would normally be available only through the Secret Lair system. For Reality Fracture, that system is branching out from cyberspace and coming to local game stores.

Each Bundle contains a two of the eleven promos. Hedge your bets and post an offer instead of gambling for the promo you want.

My top pick is Emrakul, the Exigent Doom. This has to be the best illustration of any Eldrazi ever. Princess Hidir perfectly blends the unknowable eldritch being with evocative imagery we can wrap our little brains around.

Commander

The Multiverse Reforged preconstructed deck for commander features eighteen new cards, and five reprints with new art. Three of those reprints are boring and predictable, but the new Akroma, Angel of Fury caught me by surprise.

As for the new cards, thirteen of them are Echoverse versions of well-known Magic creatures. One of them checks the final box for Omnath, who now has a colorless iteration as Omnath, Locus of the Void

Happy Trading!

As these new cards become reality, it's fun to consider alternate faces, places, and spells. At the same time, I'm glad to put the story for this set in the rear view. I'm glad I get to write these announcements, because it gives me an opportunity to give every set a fair shake.

Reality Fracture rocks, and I hope you're having fun with it. Tell us in the comments about your impressions of the set, your favorite new art, or the cards you're looking to collect and brew.

Join the conversation on Discord, where we have a thriving community of traders. Until next time, happy trading!