Quick Hits

• Reality Fracture prerelease weekend is a smash. Mark Rosewater's inbox is flooded with love — one player spent all afternoon upgrading Commander decks with prerelease pulls — but the capstone set's short runway (barely a month before the next release) is drawing complaints. MaRo's response: scheduling has many factors, and WotC doesn't have the freedom to space sets equidistantly.
• Tarmogoyf is back in Standard. MTGGoldfish's first Reality Fracture deck tech is Boomer Jund, and yes — "it's seriously been so long since we've seen Tarmogoyf in Standard action."
• Empower is built to return. MaRo says the mechanic was designed to allow future "Empower Character" cards (fans are already chanting for Chandra), and the rules support multiple empower mechanics in one set — though he's skeptical that happens outside a high-complexity set like Modern Horizons.
• Zeta is now legal in Pauper on MTGO — Joe Dyer covers the legalization and what it means for the format.
• Today's Secret Lair Chaos Vault drop: The Oddlands — five special versions, one per basic land type, each containing 10 copies of its respective basic. Sold Monday, September 28th.

Set News

The prerelease aftermath thread says it all: "Oops All Jaces indeed" — expect a deck box full of Jace tokens by the end of the set period. Player energy is high across the board, with one prereleaser telling MaRo that Emrakul finally being freed from the moon and getting a new card was the highlight of their night.

Two-Headed Giant players, take note: a reported judge ruling on Jace, Reality Sculptor's second ability found that opponents can target the other head to dodge the effect — worth reading before your next 2HG night.

For the collectors: one token hunter pulled a 2/1 white Insect with flying + 1/1 white Warrior token from a Collector Booster that isn't showing up on market sites, and asked WotC for an official per-set token list. MaRo is passing the request along, but notes the cost-to-audience math is the hurdle.

Commander Corner

EDHREC's writers are already deep in Reality Fracture, spotlighting the cards going into their own decks — Ingris Stingerquill among them — calling the set's remixed, re-color-identitied takes on recent cards genuinely exciting. Their Hexhaven Invigorator piece is effusive: "Lands, any lands, equal to the damage dealt? That's actually nuts, and it's a four-drop!"

On the budget side, MTGGoldfish's Tomer has quick and cheap upgrades for the Foundations Commander precons. And Draftsim's listicle machine keeps churning: the 25 best Infect commanders, all 46 leaves-the-battlefield triggers worth knowing, the 15 best Dimir combos, and — for the patient farmers — a full Stardew Valley-themed Commander deck guide.

Competitive Scene

Beyond Boomer Jund's Tarmogoyf nostalgia trip, the Pauper world got a shake-up: Zeta cards are legal on MTGO, and Joe Dyer runs down the format implications. If you're eyeing a sealed RCQ for the first time, there's a good primer thread on what to expect logistically — and what winning actually gets you.

Limited & Draft

The prerelease war stories are already legendary: one player high-fived Rescue Girl for providing the tenth mana to hard-cast Emrakul, then resetting their black Liliana's exhaust to reanimate her when she died. MaRo's verdict: "High fives to be applied."

Meanwhile, the basic landcyclers are earning universal praise as elegant set-skeleton design — big-mana commons that nobody plays in Constructed anyway now pull double duty as fixing. And a fair warning for Arena grinders: Jace tokens are creating genuinely puzzling board states — one player expects to run out the timer just thinking through the lines. MaRo isn't sure whether WotC tracks how often that happens.

Finance & Market

The Oddlands hit the Chaos Vault today as five special versions tied to a Commander deck launch. And an overdue plea gathering steam: players in the Philippines are asking for direct Secret Lair shipping, citing a large, active community stuck paying steep markups.

Design & Lore

Design talk this weekend was all Empower, all the time. Beyond the repeatable-character news above, MaRo confirmed multiple empower mechanics in one set are rules-legal — "Empower Jace" alongside "Empower planeswalker," say — but would likely wait for Modern Horizons-tier complexity. On why Tam isn't a planeswalker in Reality Fracture: she wasn't one for most of the story, future planeswalker Tams are on the table, and the set was "already high on planeswalkers." And no, we won't get distinct Aberration Jace tokens — that story element came long after vision design.

For the history buffs, MaRo pointed questioners to his two-part "Planeswalk on the Wild Side" design retrospective, and dropped a spicy clarification on Mana Drain and mana burn: mana burn existed at the time but wasn't actually a major drawback — the original designers just might have thought it was.

Closer, because Mondays: a lucky player met Brandon Sanderson at a local con and got their Davriel cards from Children of the Nameless signed — proxy of the Arena-only card included. Windmill slam.