The Draft Archetypes of MTG Reality Fracture

Threshold is a classic mechanic dating back to some of Magic's earliest expansions. When you have seven or more cards in your graveyard, the Threshold abilities of each of your cards activate, providing a bursy of power to help you finish off your opponent in the late game.

Cards like Void Extrapolator and Theorix Metamage demonstrate the intended strategy nicely. Their prepare abilities mill cards from your deck. This loads your graveyard up with creatures to reanimate and spells to flashback. They also both have a threshold ability, meaning that the milling which they enable helps them become stronger later in the game.

Several colour pairs in RealityFracture utilise the graveyard as a resource, so cards that help you fill it up, and cards that reanimate and recast spells from it will be incredibly useful.

You don't have to win games of Magic through combat damage. Sometimes a bit of Stinging Vitriol can be just as damaging as some Grizzly Bears. Black and Red cards in Reality Fracture reward you for dealing as much noncombat damage to the opponent as possible.

This noncombat damage can come in the form of spells, like No Admittance, or the abilities of creatures like Screeching Soulbreaker. Either way, once you've pushed that damage through, it will enable several of your creatures, from Whiplash Wordsmith to Master of Barbs.

If you're looking to burn your opponent's life total down to nothing, then make sure to sleeve up some red and black cards.

Historically, green has always had the game's biggest creatures, and also the best ability to generate mana rapidly in order to cast them quickly. Red, meanwhile, is one of the colours with the most built in artifact synergies.

In Reality Fracture, these two strengths come together, with several cards (including Woodwork Prodigy and Konstrari Improviser) generating Heartwood tokens, artifacts that can be tapped to generate either red or green mana, which help you build up and cast the set's biggest creatures.

With enough Heartwood tokens in play, you'll be able to demolish your opponent by summoning out a game ending threat like Craterclaw Colossus.

Given that there are several aggro archetypes in Reality Fracture, being able to gain life will help stabilise you and give you some breathing room against particularly aggressive opponents.

Just loading up on life gain cards won't win you any games, though, you also need payoffs to turn your healing into trouble for the opposition. That's where cards like Titanbones, Towering Heart, and Enlightened Confidant come into the picture, as they provide the offensive muscle you need to compliment the healing that you'll be receiving.

In the warped realm of the Echoverse, where Reality Fracture takes place, the line between life and death isn't always clear cut. The White and Black cards of this expansion can deal death to creatures belonging to your opponent, while also dragging your own creatures back from the grave to fight once more.

From cards like Blessed Ghoul, which refuse to stay dead, to Vindicitive Triumph, which ensures that your opponent's creatures won't stay on the battlefield, white and black decks aim to win the long game. They've got all of the tools necessary to destroy the opposition, while also keeping their controller well defended by regularly reanimating dead creatures.

Red and blue are THE colour pair for players looking to blast out a barrage of instants and sorceries. This is just as true in Reality Fracture as it was in Final Fantasy, or Foundations, or any of the other sets where this theme has been present.

Cards with prowess become stronger the more noncreature spells that you cast. Red and Blue have a deep selection of prowess creatures. From one drops like Pompous Battlemage, to massive flying ogres like Ruric Thar, Biomagus.

By combining these creatures with a suite of low cost instant and sorcery spells like unsummon, and Blazing Crescendo you'll get to enjoy some big blowout turns, where you dish out some real damage.

The abilities trample and deathtouch are deadly when used together. Deathtouch causes creatures to destroy anything fighting them as soon as they deal even a single point of damage, whilst trample causes any excess damage that a creature deals in a fight to carry over and harm the opponent.

In Reality Fracture, black and green rely on this trick to slip as much damage past blockers as possible. Hunter's Axe can grant either of the abilities to the creature wielding it, whilst other cards like Rampart Hunter and Ghalta the Unstoppable. By bringing these two keywords together, you can ensure that your opponent will never be able to effectively block your attacks again.

Kit your creatures out in equipment, and pump them up with +1/+1 counters in order to close out the game as quickly as possible. It may not be complex or innovative, but it can certainly be effective when played correctly.

Get your creatures ready to fight as quickly as possible. Samut, Hazoret's Champion grants all of your creatures haste, enabling them to attack from the moment they hit the battlefield. Mabel, Valley Hero puts +1/+1 counters on creatures that enter play.

Combining several effects like these, along with a selection of efficient one and two drops, will give you all of the momentum that you need to quickly end the game.

Empower Jace is the most novel new mechanic introduced in Reality Fracture. We wrote an entire article explaining it. Blue and Green are the colour pair dedicated to this novel new play style, They contain the most cards that create Jace planeswalker tokens, alongside support cards that grow stronger while you control a Jace planeswalker.

Show your opponent the true strength of Jace's Machinations by granting your Jace planeswalker new abilities using enchantments like Way of the Cryomancer or Way of the Wildspeaker. Then keep your planeswalker safe by summoning vigilante creatures that can attack, while also guarding it.

If you're lucky enough, you may even be able to rewrite reality by sliding a copy of The Theorist, Jace Beleren into your deck.

Reality Fracture may not release until October 2nd, but it is available to preorder from Magic Madhouse right now. For more updates on the future of Magic: the Gathering, as well as other TCGs off all kinds, make sure that you subscribe to the Magic Madhouse newsletter at the bottom of this page, and that you follow us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.