The Best Reality Fracture Cards for Your 99, Ranked

The best Reality Fracture card for your 99 is Samut, Tyrant of Naktamun: two mana, and every instant and sorcery you cast resolves before anyone at the table can respond. The $35 planeswalker is second, and the two cards we would buy first cost less than $2 each.

This list is for the 99, not the command zone. The legends that lead a deck are ranked in our Reality Fracture commander rankings, and a few cards appear in both places because they do different jobs in each.

Three questions decide the order. How many decks can run it: a card for any blue deck beats a card for one archetype, and a colorless card beats both. What the text is worth against three opponents: a clause that says "each opponent" is worth three times what it reads, and a body that can't survive one rotation of the table is worth less than it reads. And what it costs this week: prices are TCGplayer market at the time of writing, and they will move. Every card in the set is on the Reality Fracture set page.

Samut, Tyrant of Naktamun is a 2/1 for whose only line of text gives your instants and sorceries split second: while one of them is on the stack, nobody can cast a spell or activate an ability that isn't a mana ability. In the 99 that means your board wipe, your wheel, your tutor and your Cyclonic Rift all resolve, through three hands of counterspells at once. Our pod holds a lot of blue. In one recorded game a Living Death met a Scatter to the Winds; with Samut on that side of the table, the counter is never cast.

Two limits. She has to be on the battlefield, and a 2/1 at a table that reads cards does not live through a turn cycle, so cast her the turn you mean to use her. And split second locks you out too: no responding to your own spell, no stacking two of them. Paste your list into the Combo Finder and count how many of your lines run through instants and sorceries, because those are the pieces she protects. We ranked her fourth as a commander. In the 99 she is first, at about $10.

The Theorist, Jace Beleren costs , enters with three loyalty, and draws you a card at the beginning of each opponent's draw step. At a four-player table that is three cards per rotation with no tax to pay and no decision for the table, which is exactly the out Rhystic Study gives them. The −2 reads "for each opponent": up to one artifact or creature from each of three players back to hand, and tokens bounced this way are gone for good.

The honest part is the loyalty. Three is one attack, so the +1 Illusion is a chump blocker before it is anything else, and the card pays off only if the table lets a planeswalker live through three combat steps. At $35 he is the most expensive card here, and the price is the whole reason he isn't first.

Lich's Relic costs , and when it enters you may pay to destroy up to one creature or planeswalker each opponent controls. At four players that is three kills for three total mana, and the Equipment stays behind to give +2/+1 for an equip cost of . The "up to" is the politics dial: skip the player you need next turn, or hit all three best creatures and accept that you have just become the archenemy. Every black deck wants this, and at about $1.60 it is the best rate in the set.

Karn, Argent Defender is a colorless 1/3 for : artifacts and creatures entering the battlefield don't cause abilities to trigger. That is Torpor Orb with a body and artifact coverage, and it is symmetrical, so it belongs in decks that don't need their own enters-the-battlefield triggers. At our table the card it answers is Craterhoof Behemoth. The winner's own comment credits the Hoof in at least eight of our pod's recorded wins this year, including a 97-damage swing. Under Karn, Craterhoof enters as a 5/5 with haste and nothing else.

It also switches off three cards on this list: Lich's Relic's trigger, Pia's tutor, and the value Flickering Hound is there to repeat. The catch is the 1/3 body, because the Hoof player knows exactly which creature to remove before the big turn. About a dollar, and it goes in any deck.

Emrakul, the Exigent Doom is a 12/12 flying trampler for that untaps all your lands when you cast it and carries ward that costs three permanents. The line that earns it a slot outside Eldrazi decks is the second one: for you exile it from your hand, a land of yours taps for until you cast Emrakul from exile, and you can cast it from exile whenever the mana is there. On turn three it is ramp from an activated ability no counterspell can touch; on turn ten it is the finisher, and the untap leaves your mana open to protect it.

Our colorless Eldrazi deck, Zhulodok, is 3-17 across twenty recorded games, and the pilot's note after one of those losses, the same game the Living Death got countered in, was that a couple of the twelve-drops should come out. This is the top-end card that fixes that note. About $22, colorless, and fifth only because ten mana is still ten mana at a table that wins on turn seven.

Hexhaven Invigorator is a 6/6 with vigilance for , and whenever it is dealt damage you may search for up to that many lands and put them onto the battlefield tapped. Four green pips make it a mono-green or heavy-green card, which is why it sits sixth and not second. At a four-player table nobody blocks it and nobody attacks into it, so it swings for six every turn and still blocks while the table pretends it isn't there. The line to plan for: a Blasphemous Act deals it 13 damage, the trigger resolves after it dies, and you fetch up to thirteen lands into a landfall deck. About $33, the priciest card on the list.

Tomik, Izzet Sparkmage is a 1/2 with prowess for : whenever a source you control would deal noncombat damage to an opponent or their permanent, it deals one more. Each opponent is a separate damage event, so Impact Tremors deals 2 to each of them per creature instead of 1, which is six damage per token at a four-player table instead of three. Impact Tremors has drained our table before; in one recorded win it is the winner's entire explanation. Tomik halves that clock, and he turns every burn spell into removal that hits one point harder. About $1.40 for an uncommon.

Flickering Hound is a 2/2 for : whenever you cast a creature spell, exile up to one other creature you control and return it. Every creature you cast becomes a second trigger from the best creature already on your board, and because it triggers on cast, the flicker happens even if the spell is countered. It returns the creature under its owner's control, so never flicker the one you stole. It is a white-blink-only card at $8.50, the priciest rare here, which is why it sits eighth, and Karn across the table ends the plan.

Geist of Saint Thalia is a 1/2 flier for that makes your noncreature spells cost less. At four players the discount matters most on interaction: three opponents' turns to hold mana through, and every counterspell and removal spell a mana cheaper is one more you can hold up. It is an uncommon, about $2, and it goes in any blue deck with twenty-plus noncreature spells; a storm deck builds around it, which is why it made the commander rankings too.

Pia, Aether Ascetic is a 2/2 for : when it enters, you may discard a card to search for an enchantment and put it in your hand. For an enchantress deck that is a green tutor with a body attached, and our pod runs two of those decks. It is an enters-the-battlefield trigger, so Karn shuts it off, and it is narrow, which is why it is last. About $1.25.

• Multiply by Zero () sets a creature's base power and toughness to 0/0, which kills indestructible things. Blightsteel Colossus has closed two of our recorded games; this is black's cheapest answer to it.
• Wrath of the Bloodmane (, less if you control a legendary creature) is 4 damage to a creature or planeswalker for two mana whenever your commander is out. It is a common.
• Enlightened Confidant () is a lifelink 2/1 that surveils at your end step when you gained life and keeps the card if it is cheap enough. Lifegain decks finally have a two-drop that draws.
• Rise of the Deathbringer () is an instant-speed −3/−3 to every creature, or draw equal to your biggest creature's power.
• Eye of Jace () surveils every upkeep and turns into 2 damage to each opponent once your graveyard hits seven cards. Self-mill decks have no reason to skip it.
• The five Innistrad: Midnight Hunt slow lands are back at rare for two-color mana bases: Deserted Beach, Haunted Ridge, Overgrown Farmland, Rockfall Vale and Shipwreck Marsh.

Lich's Relic and Karn first: together they cost less than a booster, and both go in more decks than anything else here. Samut next if your pod holds counterspells; if it doesn't, she is a two-mana 2/1 and you can skip her. Jace and the Invigorator are the two to test before you pay for, and the way to test a card is to record the games it was in. In a four-player pod 25% is break-even, and our pod's real win rates show how few decks clear it; a new card either moves that number or it doesn't. Everything else confirmed about the set is in our Reality Fracture release guide.