Reality Fracture Mechanics Breakdown

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Empower Jace

Empower Jace N works as follows:

First, check whether you control a Jace planeswalker token. If you don’t, first create a blue Jace planeswalker token with 0 loyalty. It has two loyalty abilities: “−1: Surveil 1” and “−3: Draw a card.” Then put N loyalty counters on a Jace planeswalker token you control.

If you control multiple Jace tokens, choose one of them to receive the loyalty counters.

Empower Jace only checks for a “Jace planeswalker token”. This is a type-based check, so besides Jace tokens previously created by another Empower Jace, Jace tokens created in other ways also satisfy the condition. (For example, a copy of a permanent, or the copies created by the abilities of Jace, Cunning Castaway and Jace, Mirror Mage.)

Because the mechanic is so similar to Amass, many players jokingly call this ability “Amass Jace”.

Heartwood Token

The Heartwood token is a token newly defined in this set. Its characteristics are:

A Heartwood token is a red and green artifact token with “{T}: Add {R} or {G}.”

Even though the Heartwood token is printed with a colorless artifact frame, according to its rules text it is still a red and green artifact.

Prepare

Prepare is a mechanic that appeared not long ago in Secrets of Strixhaven, and this time it returns as a key mechanic of the set.

Each Prepare card has two card frames. The left side of the rules text box holds the creature card’s own abilities, and the right side is its Prepare spell, which has its own name, cost, type, and rules text box.

A permanent can become prepared in some way. Whenever such a permanent becomes prepared, a copy of its Prepare spell is created in exile, and that copy stays in exile until any of the following happens:

• 1. You cast this Prepare spell from exile.
• 2. The prepared permanent leaves the battlefield.
• 3. The prepared permanent becomes unprepared, which some cards can cause.

If 2 or 3 happens and you haven’t yet cast the copy of the Prepare spell from exile, the copy disappears.

Casting a Prepare spell is just like casting a normal instant or sorcery spell: you need to pay the specified cost and follow the timing rules for that type of spell.

If you cast the Prepare spell from exile, the corresponding prepared permanent becomes unprepared. If a permanent is already prepared, it can’t become prepared again, which means a permanent can create at most one copy of a Prepare spell in exile.

If player A controls a prepared permanent and player B later gains control of that permanent, then player B is the one who can cast the corresponding Prepare spell from exile.

A Prepare card has only the characteristics of its permanent side in every zone. Taking the pictured Prepare cards as an example, they are only creature cards in every zone. If you use an effect that searches your library for a creature card, you can find them, but if you use an effect that searches for an instant or sorcery card, you can’t find them, because these cards don’t have the instant or sorcery card type.