Magic: The Gathering’s Reality Fracture set closes a saga in some style, with alternate-reality versions of iconic characters from Magic’s past, and it’s likely to go down as one of the best sets of a very busy 2026 schedule.

Despite the sheer volume of great cards, however, Wizards of the Coast only designed a single preconstructed deck for Commander players, the same as it did for this year’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set.

We asked Gavin Verhey, Game Designer on Magic: The Gathering, why we only got one precon - and how he feels about its power level.

“We tend to run into problems when we release two Commander decks, and one is vastly more exciting than the other,” Verhey admitted (this year’s Lorwyn Eclipsed was the last set to introduce a pair of precons).

“For example, stores end up with one on shelves while the other evaporates immediately. So we did talk about this, but it was harder to imagine [a deck] much cooler than the Jace Echoverse deck,” he added, pointing to Multiverse Reforged.

“So, instead, we decided we'd make one deck and give it some extra resources like new cards and a splashy theme with a four-color identity.”

Having played a few games with Multiverse Reforged, splashy might be selling it short. The deck is packed with great cards, both alternate versions of legendary creatures from Magic’s past (The Ur-Sphinx, for example), plus a powerful Planeswalker Commander in Jace himself.

As with Turtle Power, it feels a lot like it can be taken apart and rebuilt in a bunch of different ways, but Verhey confirms that the Wizards of the Coast team sees it as a powerhouse right out of the box.

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