万智牌 Reality Fracture：一个时代的终结

Magic: The Gathering - Reality Fracture - End of an Era

The multiverse has been shattered at the hands of ‘The Theorist’, a fragment of the once powerful Mind Mage Jace Beleren. A manifestation of Jace’s logic, The Theorist seeks to erase all suffering by using the Echoverse, his own creation that sought to correct what he saw as flaws in reality, to overwrite the multiverse. Thus, the stage is set for one of the most dramatic waves of in-universe Magic: The Gathering for quite a while.

Player2 were fortunate enough to receive 12 Play Boosters through which to explore this set, which revisits and introduces a number of mechanics and concepts. You can see the cards we pulled over on our Instagram, all of which were returned to their individual booster packs to get a Sealed Deck 1v1 match happening. From the first pack, the Echoed Pairs stood out, as much for their artwork as the impact of seeing two cards so closely related and yet as occasionally at such odds back-to-back in a booster.

Representing the most extreme examples of duality in the multiverse, each booster contains an Echoed Pair which in some cases juxtaposes a ‘good’ version of a Creature with a ‘bad’ version or instead shows a ‘what if?’ take on the character, but can also embody Enchantments, Spells or Planeswalkers. Take the 12 examples we amassed from our Boosters, which come from an overall pool of 43. Some like Teyo, Lightshield Expert and Teyo, Diamondblade Mage are in direct opposition on the colour wheel, while others like Gallia, Tragic Host and Gallia, The Merrymaker are instead a slight shift around it. Rounding out each Booster is a third card representing half of another ‘Echoed Pair’, letting players chase some sets across boosters. Thematically, it can be fun to include a pair that works in a deck, or when drafting see the other aspect appear in an opponents deck, but it’s hard to say whether the gameplay effect is anything significant – I suspect Echoeds Pairs are an engaging way for the designers to explore theme rather than something revolutionary for any formats.

The other standout feature of Reality Fracture is the ubiquity of Jace Belleren, embodied by the new ‘Empower Jace’ keyword/mechanic which is the first instance in the history of Magic where players can create a Jace Planeswalker Token. When triggered, players first check if they have a Jace Token to Empower – if not, they create one – and then assign it a designated number of Loyalty counters. It’s possible to have multiple Tokens and then choose how to distribute the Loyalty tokens which can be spent at a rate of 1 or 3 to Scry or Draw respectively. Presumably WotC have plans to include this mechanic in future sets, adapated for the storyline or mechanics as it would be a bit strange to make it a ‘one and done’ inclusion.

Although we only explored Play Boosters for this piece, the Reality Fracture wave is comprised of a large range of products including the ‘Multiverse Reforged’ Yore-Tiller WUBR Commander Deck, Standard Bundle, Collector Boosters, Secret Lair Bundle and Draft Night Kit. For speculators and collectors, Shattered Mirror cards (most notably those with the Facet Foil finish) and the numbered Bloodline Recollector Chase are prime targets, with the Shattered Mirror cards especially bringing a stylish homage aspect to the card art. Appearing in limited quantities, these designs give a glimpse through the multiverse using the motif of a ‘shattered mirror’ to house a view of the original card on which the Echoverse version is based. While these are going to be best appreciated by longtime Magic fans for whom the referred artwork is instantly recognisable, the effect itself is one that I personally find very compelling, moreso when viewing the Facet Foil editions, though I wasn’t quite lucky enough to pull one from our supplied product and had to make do with online imagery supplied by Wizards. With Reality Fracture the final in-universe set before the sweeping booster changes announced kick in next February, it gives Reality Fracture the interesting position of being the final set for which pauper players can get foil treatment cards from Play Boosters and could show some longevity purely for that fact.

While every Magic wave is going to be someone’s first, as a culmination of years of storytelling and mechanical development Reality Fracture may be a daunting entry point. I’d probably consider the previous Marvel Super Heroes wave, with its Jumpstart focused Beginner Box, or one of the five recently released monocolour Foundations Commander Decks for those preferring to avoid any Universes Beyond products and save some money given their competitive price point.

Magic: The Gathering Reality Fracture products were kindly supplied by Wizards of the Coast for review purposes.

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