My Reality Fracture Prerelease

I went to my very first Magic the Gathering (MtG) Prerelease Event. Now I'm making it your problem by telling you all about it!

What's a MtG Prerelease Event?

It's another way for Wizards of the Coast (WotC) to gin up hype for a new expansion set. Folks register, show up, and get to play with the new cards a week before the official release. Then the participants post the new cards on social media and folks who didn't make it to the event get excited.

Yes, I'm aware that I'm perpetuating the cycle.


How's it structured?

Folks check in and receive a Prerelease Kit. Each kit contains six play booster packs, a foil rare card, a spindown life counter (it looks like a twenty-sided die, but the numbers aren't randomized), and a box to hold everything in. As these are official events sanctioned by WotC, they are administrated using the Magic Companion app. I'd recommend having the app installed and logging in before walking in the door. Then everybody gets settled and waits for the official start time.

After this point, "fifty minutes" is the magic phrase.

Things begin with cracking packs and building decks. Players have fifty minutes to complete this process. Players can only use cards from their Prerelease Kit. Minimum deck size is forty cards. There is no maximum deck size, but it is recommended to stick close to the minimum. It makes the deck more consistent. Only four copies of a given card can be included, basic lands being the only exception. Basic lands are unlimited and a basic land station is provided by the venue.

Fifty minutes goes fast. Remember that these are unfamiliar cards from a brand new set. Reading and figuring them out takes a significant amount of time. Players need to spot synergies and combinations. All those family chaos draft nights came in handy as the deck construction rules are basically the same.

Play consists of three rounds. Opponents are determined by official MtG software run by the venue. Each round is fifty minutes long. Players must win two out of three games to win the round. Draws and incomplete games don't count. If a game is still in progress when time is called, the judge gives the players five turns to finish.

After all three rounds, players collect their winnings. Many venues award a "pity pack" of one play booster for participating. Players also receive one play booster for each round won.


How'd it go?

I played seven games in my three rounds. Two rounds won, one lost. Beginner's luck!

Reality Fracture has a reputation as a planeswalker heavy set. Curiously, I didn't pull a single planeswalker card aside from Jace tokens from my Prerelease Kit. I asked my opponents about it as we played. One of them pulled a Chandra. That's one planeswalker out of four players and twenty four booster packs.

Folks say that Prerelease Events are good ways to learn a new set. I now understand why. I'll retain a solid memory of every card my opponents used to bludgeon me for some time to come.

Things did run late. No gaming event in my experience sticks to the schedule. I'd recommend budgeting extra time beyond the expected four hour minimum.

Had a great time. Would go to another one for a comparable price. Four hours of entertainment and a stack of cardboard isn't bad for forty bucks.

Getting Back Into Magic After a Brief (30 Year) Hiatus

Sorry about the lack of updates, y'all. The gambling addiction that menaced my youth has resurfaced to threaten the sanity and finances of my current self. I speak, of course, of Magic the Gathering (MtG). And I have my own flesh and blood to blame!

Let's back up a bit.

The first boosters I bought since Homelands. Photo taken back in February.

"A planes walking wizard! Prepare to duel!"
"Stay thy hand! I wish only to parley."
"Okay. Sure. What do you want to talk about?"
"Where am I? I awakened to find myself in this strange, yet familiar place."
"What's the last thing you remember?"
"The Dark. The fall of empires. An age of ice. Homelands. I ended up frozen in a glacier."
"Wow. You've been out of the game for a long time. At least thirty years."
"WHAT?!"

I'm coming back to MtG after a thirty year gap. And processing the past three decades of the game's developments - it's a lot.

I lay the blame on two of my children and my wife. One of my sons expressed interest in the Final Fantasy expansion. My daughter bought him a Final Fantasy starter set for Christmas. I pulled my thirty year old collection out of storage to show it to him. Then I looked into what was out there for MtG and made the mistake of mentioning the existence of the Doctor Who expansion to my wife.

My wife is a lifelong Doctor Who fan.

And then the buying frenzy started. We've sent way too much money to Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and stores that sell their products.

Of course, I'm overstating things for comedic effect. I take full responsibility for my part in our family's MtG antics. I'm just not taking all the blame.

We've implemented a budget to keep the MtG spending under control. One thing I've done personally is curb the number of boosters I've been buying. Boosters are fine if the goal is to bulk out a collection, but they're a gamble if the goal is getting a specific card. Buying the particular card needed for a deck gets to the point much more efficiently. Something else I'm doing is looking for deals on booster bundles and pre-release packs. It's still a gamble, but it's cheaper than buying the boosters individually.


"Help me get my bearings. What's the latest expansion?"
"In universe, that would be Secrets of Strixhaven. The current one is a Universes Beyond product."
"Universes Beyond?"
"WotC started releasing products not set in Dominaria or any other in-setting plane awhile back."
"You mean like Arabian Nights?"
"More like licensed properties."
"Licenses carefully curated to fit into the existing Magic setting?"
"No."
"Can you give me an example?"
"The current Universes Beyond product is Marvel Superheroes."
"Like Marvel Comics?"
"Yes, although there are movies now."
"..."
"It's set in New York City."
"Okay. What about the one before that?
"Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles."
"Are you fucking serious?"
"Also set in New York City."
"TMNT's still around? They were overexposed thirty years ago!"
"What can I say? What goes around, comes around?"

I'm not a fan of every IP featured in Universe Beyond (UB). There are some I like and others I have no interest in, but I don't begrudge others the joy they feel when they see their favorites on cardboard. I feel the same joy when I see my favorites on MtG cards.

And, let's face it, UB isn't going anywhere as long as it makes Hasbro's investors money.


"Walk with me, my Commander pod is meeting up in the next town."
"Commander? Is that another game like Magic?"
"Oh, yeah. I should explain formats."

There's a bunch of different ways to play MtG these days. I'm not going through a complete list, because it's a long one. Let's focus on the ones I've actually played.

My main focus is Commander due to its social aspect. Basically it's casual multiplayer MtG with some modified rules. Commander started off as Elder Dragon Highlander, a game developed to kill time in between tournament rounds. WotC made it an official format awhile back and now it can't be put back in the bottle. The feel is similar to a board game. Perfect for a beer and pretzels night when a TTRPG session gets cancelled.

We've also played Draft as a way to justify all the boosters we've been buying. Everybody shows up with three booster packs, opens them, passes them around picking cards, tries to make a functioning deck with the resulting pile of cardboard (adding basic lands as necessary), pairs off, and plays. Dueling like this is closer to my old MtG days. My son is far better at it than I am.

Limited is also fun. It uses Jumpstart booster packs made for purpose. Each player buys two Jumpstart packs, opens them, shuffles them together, pairs off, and plays. Quick and easy. All it takes is money, but Jumpstart boosters offer more cardboard for fewer dollars.


"What happened to all the flavor text on the cards?"
"Officially, the Magic's increasing complexity demands that explaining what the card does gets priority over presenting lore."
"That seems reasonable."
"Personally, I think it's because worldbuilding doesn't make money."

Buckle up! It's rant time!

Not putting flavor text on cards does more damage to Magic's story than anything else, including UB. A player can easily go through an expansion with little idea of what happened in universe. Most of the story is told on the MtG site. Secrets of Strixhaven was the first set in years to be featured in a novel. Other than that, fans are left to hunt down the story.

Mark Rosewater's explanation that the space is needed for rules text is reasonable for mechanically complex pieces. But the nth reprint of a straightforward card? A quote, a short description, or tiny vignette sheds a ray of light into what's happening in a set.

The decades-long move away from flavor text puts much of the burden on the art. Returning characters are easily recognizable thanks to the work of the artists, but new ones need to be important enough to warrant their own cards for us to learn their names. The art alone can't provide the context needed to justify an Old West setting. The artists did a beautiful job with Aetherdrift, but players were left bewildered at the presence of car races in their fantasy setting. And players might not realize why the set symbol for Edge of Eternities is a black hole without knowing the lore.

With flavor text, reading the card explains the setting. It's not a substitute for longer texts that offer more detail, but it plays its own small role in conveying the story.


"Black Lotus still unbelievably expensive?"
"Oh, yeah."

It's somehow comforting to know that the Power Nine will always be out of reach of the vast majority of us.


"WotC spent awhile kicking itself in the tender bits and otherwise self-sabotaging the image it presents to its own customer base. Much of it involved D&D, but there have been plenty of mishaps involving Magic. More misprints. Delays in shipping exclusive products like Secret Lair."
"Secret Lair?"
"Limited availability cardboard. Exclusive to the MtG site. People get up early just to get a place in the virtual line. WotC typically runs out of stock while folks are still waiting to check out with one in their cart."
"Fucking late stage capitalism."
"Yeah. There was also the Pinkerton thing awhile back. That really stood out."
"The Pinkertons? Those union busting thugs who commit thuggery for corporate money and never meet a civil right they wouldn't trample? Those Pinkertons?"
"The very same. Oh, and speaking of union busting..."
"SON OF A..."

WotC can't seem to resist stepping on rakes. There seems to be a PR incident ranging from "black eye" to "disaster" once a quarter, at least.

I've spent years despising WotC over Dungeons & Dragons. Now I get to sneer with contempt at them for a completely different set of reasons.


"Oh, they have spacecraft now."
"Like in Star Trek?"
"Oh, that doesn't come out until November."

Edge of Eternities is one of my favorite sets and I'm looking forward to the Star Trek expansion. Yes, spacecraft don't fit the fantasy vibe. Don't care.