After Wizards of the Coast debuted art and cards from The Hobbit set, they jumped right into their next in-universe set, Reality Fracture. In the set, Jace Beleren now seeks to reshape the Multiverse into his ideal vision. As Mark Rosewater, head designer of Magic: The Gathering, mentioned, this is his “what if?” set that fans have been asking for.
Fans will be seeing some of their favorite characters from the past, but in a new “what if” format. One of the examples they shared was Chandra, who has always been a red character, but in Jace’s new vision is now blue. This set will bring back all five original planeswalkers, each with their “what if” version. Rosewater shared that this will not change the color pie. Blue will still act like blue, black like black , and so on.
Something neat that Magic is doing is that each pack of cards will contain both the original version of the character and the “what if.” This will give new players an opportunity to learn about the originals. “There are so many Easter eggs in this set,” Mark Rosewater said. “If you are a fan of Magic’s past, you will have a lot of fun with this set.”
In Jace’s multiverse, he is also creating his own version of Strixhaven, and there will also be new color combinations of the schools. The one that most stood out to me is Vigorbloom, a school that uses plants to heal. They didn’t preview any cards, but they did show off some art for the Greenhouse Propagator. They aren’t just using plants to heal others but also doing experiments on themselves. After looking at the art (see below), I am getting big Annihilation and hell, even Troll 2 vibes of body horror.
One card we got to take a look at that is definitely delivering horror vibes is Bloodline Recollector — a Vampire Warlock with the prepared instant spell Ancestral Craving, the what if of Ancestral Recall prepared spell from Secrets of Strixhaven. This vampire comes in regular, borderless, and serialized cards.
We are still in the early days of learning more about Reality Fracture, which releases on Oct 2, 2026 and as more MTG horror elements are announced, we'll be on top of it.
