Released October 2026

Reality Fracture

Provisional guide from preview-season sources — official Comprehensive Rules text for these mechanics hasn't been published yet. This page is upgraded to fully verified rule quotes when the rules go live.

What's New

🧠Empower JaceNEW

Put loyalty counters on a Jace planeswalker token you control — or make one first, then load it up.

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Empower Jace starts with a check: do you control a Jace planeswalker token? If yes, put the specified number of loyalty counters on it.
If you don't control one, you create the predefined blue Jace planeswalker token first. It enters with 0 loyalty, and the counters go on it just after it enters.
The token has exactly two loyalty abilities: −1: Surveil 1 and −3: Draw a card. There is no ultimate.
Nontoken Jace planeswalkers don't count. A Jace card on the battlefield won't satisfy the check and won't receive the counters.
A token that's a copy of another Jace planeswalker does count as a Jace planeswalker token for this check.
The Jace tokens aren't legendary, so if you make extras by other means the legend rule won't force you to bin any — and if you control more than one, you choose which one gets the counters.

Can opponents respond to the token being created or the counters going on?	No — empower Jace is a keyword action performed while a spell or ability resolves. Opponents have to answer the spell or ability itself, before it resolves.
When can I empower Jace?	Whenever you can cast or activate the thing that says it. A sorcery like Protege's Awakening is sorcery speed; an instant or an activated ability follows its own timing.
Won't a Jace token with 0 loyalty die immediately?	No. The token enters with 0 loyalty and the counters are placed on it just after it enters, all within the same resolution.
Is there a limit on how often I can do this?	No inherent limit — you can empower Jace as many times as spells and abilities telling you to do so resolve.

📖 Official rule text

Card text: (Put X loyalty counters on a Jace token you control. If you don't control one, first create a blue Jace planeswalker token with "−1: Surveil 1" and "−3: Draw a card.")

Likely interactions

🪞 Token copy

You don't have to have gotten your Jace token from empower Jace. A token that's a copy of another Jace planeswalker counts, so the next empower Jace just stacks loyalty onto it instead of making a new one.

⚡ Legend rule

The predefined Jace tokens are not legendary, so multiple copies can coexist on your battlefield if you produce them some other way — empower Jace itself will still only ever add counters once you control one.

📈 Proliferate

Empower Jace uses ordinary loyalty counters, which looks like clean proliferate fuel — but the exact interaction isn't spelled out in the preview material, so confirm it before you build around it.

⚖️ Ask the Judge →

⚡ Doubling effects

Effects that double token creation or counter placement intersect with empower Jace in two different places — the token creation step and the counter step — and the mechanic isn't in the Comprehensive Rules yet.

⚖️ Ask the Judge →

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🪵Heartwood TokensNEW

A new predefined token: a red and green artifact that taps for red or green mana and sticks around.

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Each Heartwood token is a red and green artifact token with "{T}: Add {R} or {G}" — colored, not colorless, despite being an artifact.
You tap it for mana; there's no sacrifice in the cost, so it keeps producing turn after turn rather than cashing out like a Treasure.
It's an artifact, so it feeds artifact-count payoffs — Aerid Konstrari is WotC's own example of a card that cares about both the mana and the artifact count.
It is not a land: creating one doesn't use your land drop, and it answers to artifact removal rather than land removal.
Heads up on printing: early printings use the colorless artifact frame, but the token is red and green per its reminder text.
As predefined tokens, any card that tells you to create a Heartwood token makes this exact object — same text every time.

Can opponents respond to me tapping a Heartwood token for mana?	No — it's a mana ability, so it doesn't use the stack and can't be responded to.
When can I activate it?	Any time you have priority, or whenever you're asked to pay a cost — mana ability timing, effectively instant speed.
How many times per turn can I use one?	Once per untap — the ability requires tapping the token, so it's limited by the token being untapped.
Does creating one cost me my land drop?	No. Heartwood is an artifact token, not a land.

📖 Official rule text

Card text: (Heartwood is a red and green artifact token with "{T}: Add {R} or {G}.")

Likely interactions

⚡ Artifact sweepers

Because Heartwood tokens are artifacts, mass artifact removal such as Shatterstorm or Vandalblast wipes out your mana base permanently — land destruction, meanwhile, ignores them entirely.

⚡ Artifact count

They're not just ramp. Every Heartwood token you keep on the battlefield adds to the number of artifacts you control, which is exactly what cards like Aerid Konstrari are built to reward.

⚡ Token doublers

Effects that duplicate token creation look like an obvious multiplier on Heartwood ramp, but that combination is community reading rather than published rules text at preview time.

⚖️ Ask the Judge →

⚡ Color identity

A colored artifact token raises the usual Commander question about what its colors mean for deck construction and for effects that care about permanent colors — worth confirming rather than assuming.

⚖️ Ask the Judge →

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What's Returning

📜PrepareRETURNING

A creature with an inset spell: when it becomes prepared, a copy of that spell waits in exile for you to cast.

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Preparation cards have a two-part frame: the creature's name, mana cost, type line, power, toughness, and abilities, plus an inset prepare spell with its own name, mana cost, type line, and rules text.
In every zone the card is just the creature card. You can tutor for it as a creature; you can't find it when searching for a sorcery, no matter what the inset spell says.
You never cast the prepare spell itself — when the permanent becomes prepared, a copy of the prepare spell appears in exile, and you may cast that copy.
The copy leaves in three ways: you cast it, the prepared permanent leaves the battlefield, or it becomes unprepared. In the last two cases the copy simply ceases to exist.
Casting the copy makes the permanent unprepared. Some creatures, like Stingerquill Voxmancer, have their own way to become prepared again turn after turn; others need outside help.
A permanent can't become prepared while it's already prepared, so you can never bank two copies of the same prepare spell in exile at once.
If another player gains control of your prepared creature, that player is the one who can cast the copy from exile — not you.

Does casting the exiled copy use the stack?	Yes. It's a normal cast — you put it on the stack, choose targets, pay costs, and opponents can respond.
When can I cast the copy?	It follows the prepare spell's own card type — an instant prepare spell can be cast at instant speed, a sorcery one only at sorcery speed.
How many prepare spells can one creature give me?	One at a time. Cast it (or lose it) before that creature can become prepared again.
What happens if I never cast the exiled copy?	Nothing good — it vanishes the moment the prepared permanent leaves the battlefield or becomes unprepared.

Likely interactions

⚡ Control change

Prepared travels with the permanent. If an opponent steals your prepared creature, they get to cast the copy sitting in exile, and you're left with nothing.

🔄 Flicker

Blinking a prepared creature takes it off the battlefield, and the article is clear that a copy in exile ceases to exist when that happens — but whether the returning creature gives you a fresh copy depends on how it becomes prepared again.

⚖️ Ask the Judge →

☠️ Countered

Casting the copy already makes the creature unprepared, so a Counterspell on the copy looks like it costs you the spell entirely with nothing to re-cast — confirm before you walk into open mana.

⚖️ Ask the Judge →

⚡ Naming effects

Cards that name a card, like Nevermore, raise the question of which name matters — the creature's or the prepare spell's — and the answer decides whether the exiled copy can still be cast.

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Set Timeline

Secrets of Strixhaven