If you play Magic anywhere in the Des Moines metro, the weekend of September 25 is the one to circle. Reality Fracture releases everywhere on Friday, October 2, but prerelease weekend puts the set in your hands a full week early, and Jay's is running three sessions across two stores: Southside on Friday night and Saturday at noon, Ankeny on Sunday at noon. This is the set guide, the schedule, and everything a first-timer needs to know. When you're ready, reserve a seat here.
What Reality Fracture is
Wizards' tagline for the set is short: Jace's solution. Everyone's problem. Jace Beleren has decided the Multiverse is broken at the core, and instead of patching it he's building a replacement, plane by plane, in his own image. He calls it the Echoverse. The story is the close of the Metronome arc, and the card he's printed as is The Theorist, Jace Beleren.
The set's big idea follows from that. Because Jace is rewriting characters, they show up twice: once as they exist in the Multiverse, once as his version. Wizards calls these echoed pairs. Chandra, Torch of Defiance sits next to Chandra, Chill of Compliance. Ajani Resolute meets Ajani Unrelenting. Garruk, Curse Breaker meets Garruk, Veiled Butcher. There are 86 echoed-pair cards in the main set, 66 uncommon, 14 rare and 6 mythic rare, and both halves of a pair land in the same Play Booster. Every Play Booster has three echoed-pair slots, so the pool you open at prerelease is the first place anyone gets to play the two versions against each other.
The numbers: 270 cards in the main set (71 commons, 109 uncommons, 64 rares, 26 mythic rares). Play Boosters are 14 cards, Collector Boosters are 15. Set code FRA. Card previews ran September 8 through 17, the set hits MTG Arena and Magic Online on September 29, and paper release is October 2.
Mechanics you'll see in Sealed
- Empower Jace (X) is the new one. Whenever you cast a spell with it, you create a blue Jace planeswalker token with X loyalty counters, or grow the one you have. The token can use -1 to surveil 1 or -3 to draw a card. It plays like Amass, but the army is a planeswalker, and it's the mechanic the set's blue decks are built around.
- Prepare returns in a trimmed-down form: creatures that arrive with an instant or sorcery you can cast off them. Fewer moving parts than its first appearance, easier to evaluate at the table.
- Landfall and Replicate are back, alongside the usual evergreen keywords. If you've played Magic in the last few years you'll have footing from turn one.
Sealed advice that holds for every set: find your two deepest colors, count your removal, keep the curve honest, and don't splash a third color for one bomb unless the fixing is there. Our staff will help you sort a pool if it's your first time.
The chase
Collector Boosters carry Shattered Mirror versions of 5 rares and 8 mythics with a facet foil finish, plus borderless echoed pairs, the Braintwister series, the Sculptor's stronghold treatment and a Japan Showcase run. The land cycle to know is the five Portal view rare lands, and there are 15 Tower basic lands, three per type. The headline collectible is a serialized double rainbow foil Bloodline Recollector, 500 numbered copies, in under 1% of Collector Boosters. Special Guests cards replace a common in roughly 1 of every 55 Play Boosters. None of the Collector-only treatments are in the prerelease kit, but the Play Boosters you open at prerelease are the same Play Boosters that go on sale October 2.
How a prerelease works, and why it's the best first event
Every seat gets a Reality Fracture Prerelease Pack: six Play Boosters, one traditional foil promo card, a deck box and a spindown die. You open everything, build a 40-card deck from what you opened plus basic lands from the counter, and play a few short rounds against the rest of the room. Everything you open goes home with you, win or lose, and there's prize product for the players who win.
Wizards lists prerelease at the casual rules-enforcement level, and that's exactly how ours run. Nobody has a deck built in advance, nobody has seen the cards, and half the room is figuring out Empower Jace at the same time you are. If you've only played at a kitchen table, this is the easiest possible step into a store event. Tell us it's your first one at check-in and a staff member will sit with you and build the deck before round one.
Two practical things. First, install the free Magic: The Gathering Companion app and create a Wizards account before you arrive; pairings run through it, and if you add the account name when you reserve we'll have you seated in seconds. Second, arrive 15 minutes before your session for check-in and your kit. Pizza is on us, as usual.
Play it first in Des Moines and Ankeny
- Friday, September 25 at 6:30 PM at Jay's Southside, 3315 SE 14th St, Des Moines
- Saturday, September 26 at 12:00 PM at Jay's Southside, 3315 SE 14th St, Des Moines
- Sunday, September 27 at 12:00 PM at Jay's Ankeny, 613 S Ankeny Blvd, Ankeny
Entry is $30 when you reserve online and $35 at the door. Reserving holds your seat; seats are capped at every session and walk-ups get in only while there's room. If your plans change, call the store before your session and we'll move you to any open slot. Seats aren't refundable, because the kits are allocated to us in advance.
Reserve your Reality Fracture prerelease seat →
Can't make a session? Preorder the set
Play Booster boxes, Collector Boosters, the Bundle and the Multiverse Reforged Commander deck are all in our Reality Fracture collection, factory sealed from our distributor. Pre-orders are charged when they ship, and in-stock orders leave our warehouse within a business day. Or come play first, then buy the box you already know you want.
Set facts from Wizards of the Coast's "Where to Play Reality Fracture" and "Collecting Reality Fracture" articles and the official product page, with mechanic summaries cross-checked against Draftsim and TCGplayer coverage, as of September 14, 2026. Session times and pricing are Jay's own.
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