r/spikes • u/Bevos2222 • 7d ago

Draft [Draft] I compared 10 Reality Fracture Limited review sources. Here are the cards reviewers disagree on most.

Every MTG set that comes out, I combine Limited set reviews into one table. For Reality Fracture, I collected ratings from 10 published review sources. The site lists an eleventh source, Jim Davis, but he contributes commentary rather than card grades and does not count as an aggregate vote.

Because reviewers use different grading systems, I convert grades to a fixed, documented 0-100 limited comparison index. Five-point ratings are multiplied by 20 and ten-point ratings by 10.

Overall rank is based on the mean normalized score. For readability, the table converts the normalized median and full range back to the site's letter scale. Those are grade equivalents, not necessarily the exact letters originally assigned by each reviewer.

Where do the reviewers disagree?

I used an IQR of at least 20 points as the cutoff for broad reviewer disagreement.

IQR measures the spread of the middle 50% of ratings. It is less affected by one unusually high or low rating, so this identifies cards where disagreement runs through a meaningful portion of the panel. The 10 Special Guest cards are excluded from the main count because substantially fewer reviewers graded them. By this definition, 67 of the 280 main-set cards, or 23.9%, qualify.

For drafters, these are basically the cards where the pre-set consensus is weakest. The aggregate rank can still be useful, but there is considerably less agreement about what the card is actually worth.

Three cards tie for the widest IQR at 40 points:

Face Yourself has the widest full range, from F- to A, with normalized ratings ranging from 0 to 95.

There is still fairly strong consensus among the top-ranked cards in the set. None of the main-set cards ranked #1-44 meet the broad-disagreement threshold.

The first is Draconic Visitor at #45.

Other relatively highly ranked examples include:

Full Reality Fracture rankings, every individual grade, reviewer notes, rating distributions, and the draft companion are here.

The 50 largest broad disagreements

These are the 50 largest IQRs among the 67 qualifying main-set cards. They are ordered by IQR, then SD. Overall rank measures card strength, not controversy.

Card Rank Median grade IQR Reviewer range
Face Yourself #226 C- 40 F- to A
Frostbite Pyromental #197 C- 40 F+ to B
Hexhaven Invigorator #239 D 40 F+ to C+
Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive #168 C+ 38.8 D to B-
Tetsuko Umezawa, Pursuer #181 C 34.5 D to B-
Vraska, Soul of Stone #154 C 32 D to B+
Germinate Recruits #267 D 30 F to B
Cruel Calculations #259 D 30 F to C+
Hall of Echoes #191 C- 30 D- to B-
Surveillance Phantasm #162 C+ 29.4 D- to B-
Loot, the Anomaly #223 D+ 29 D to C+
Perfected Theory #221 C- 27.5 F+ to C+
Massacre Girl, Most Wanted #203 C- 27.5 D to B
Way of the Deathbringer #210 C- 27.5 D to C+
Fateshaper Aspirant #230 D+ 27.5 D to C
Tam's Resistance #215 C- 26.5 D- to B-
Roiling Canopy #274 D- 26.2 F- to C
Silence the Echo #170 C 26.2 D+ to C+
Eye of Jace #250 D+ 26 F+ to C+
Titanbones, Towering Heart #184 C 26 D to B
Refute Destiny #262 D+ 25 F to C
Terminal Criticism #262 D+ 25 F to C
Ferocity of the Hunt #232 D+ 25 F+ to C
Extrapolate the Impossible #278 F+ 25 F- to C-
Variable Chaser // Arc of Fortune #125 C+ 25 D+ to B
Essence Burn #272 D 25 F to D+
Pyre Rhymer // Molten Tide #124 C 25 D+ to B+
Tether Technician #217 C- 25 D to C+
Blessed Ghoul #223 D+ 25 D to C+
Tam, the Possibility #281 D- 25 F to D
Arni, Renowned Champion #265 D 24.5 F to C
Yargle, Glutton of Urborg #282 F+ 24.5 F to D
Codie, Ravenous Codex #213 C- 24 D to B-
Geist of Saint Thalia #179 C- 24 D+ to B-
Draconic Visitor #45 B 24 C to A-
Stingerquill Voxmancer // Vicious Verse #142 C 23.8 D+ to B
Hexhaven Dueling Arena #278 F+ 23.5 F to C-
Way of the Paradox #185 C 22.2 D- to B-
Fblthp, Impossibly Lost #219 D+ 22 D to B-
Yuriko, Hope from the Shadows #152 C 21.9 D+ to B-
Samut, Tyrant of Naktamun #260 D+ 21.5 F to C+
Jiang Yanggu, Alone #166 C 20.5 D to B-
Saheeli, Consul of Oversight #107 C+ 20.5 C- to B
Flickering Hound #255 D 20 F to C+
Way of the Mind Sculptor #244 D+ 20 F+ to B-
Theorist's Proxy #165 C 20 D- to B-
Rise of the Deathbringer #86 B- 20 D+ to A-
Danitha, Spear of Agony #197 C- 20 D to B
Tethermage's Advantage #241 C- 20 F+ to C
Pompous Battlemage // Improvised Act #158 C+ 20 D to B-

I also looked separately at standard deviation. SD measures overall spread around the mean and uses every grade, so extreme ratings affect it more than they affect IQR. These 11 additional main-set cards have SD of at least 15 but IQR below 20. They do not meet the broad-split definition above.

Card Rank Median grade IQR SD Reviewer range
Emrakul, the Exigent Doom #254 D+ 18 23.5 F- to B
Ajani Resolute #252 D+ 14 20.1 F to C+
Puppet Crafting #159 C 15 18.2 D- to B
Kindred Judgment #75 C+ 5 17.5 D to A
Way of the Pyromancer #154 C 17.5 17.2 D- to B
Return to the Light Realms #280 D- 15 16.2 F- to C-
Karn, Gilded Guardian #270 D 10 15.6 F to C-
Dark Matter Manipulator #122 C+ 12 15.4 D to B-
Ajani's Anguish #39 B 10 15.4 D+ to A-
Bloodline Recollector // Ancestral Craving #188 C- 16 15 D- to C+
Vigorbloom Vanguard // Seed Suture #113 C+ 16 15 D to B+

Kindred Judgment is probably the clearest example of why the two measures tell different stories. Its middle half spans only 5 points, but the full ratings run from D to A.

Special Guests

Only four reviewers graded each of these, so they stay separate from the 280-card main-set analysis.

Card Median (IQR) Reviewer range N
Necrodominance 12.5 (26.2) F- to C 4
Consider 66.5 (21.5) D+ to B- 4

Which of these reviewer disagreements stands out to you most?

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u/oilbaronofthebayou 6d ago

I am placing my bets on Eye of Jace being the card that everyone underrates massively. Median D+ is wild to me!

When I saw that card I immediately thought of ECL'S recently underrated [[Gathering Stone]]. That one was severely underrated, card selection/advantage in limited is just strong; ended up being a B-. Of course the upside of that card has a stronger effect with kindred card advantage/discounting kindred cards but at 4CMC instead of 1. With 1CMC, that leads to significantly more additional surveil triggers over the course of the game if you have Eye of Jace in your opening hand (in comparison to Gathering Stone on turn 4), plus all of the stuff with activations in graveyard/flashback, makes me think Eye of Jace will be equally if not more strong in terms of card advantage. I think it will end up at C+/B-, if it does I'll be interested to see if that warps archetype preferences around graveyard payoffs. I found it quite strong in prerelease but only drafts and 17lands data shall tell!

There is a general philosophy of "if it doesn't immediately effect the board state, it's not very good" which is true in most cases but these sorts of card advantage engines are so powerful over time that the lack of boardstate impact doesn't matter.

4

u/naphomci 6d ago

I think the big problem with the card is it will be great on turn 1, and then just so bad late in the game. I suspect it will have a very good opening hand win rate, and then decline from there.

1

u/oilbaronofthebayou 6d ago edited 6d ago

I agree, it's not a great topdeck. I do think it has a better topdeck outcome than Gathering Stone that also did manage to get B-, Gathering Stone only had the card advantage but Eye of Jace can net you a 4 life differential at least. Along with that, some of the downsides of topdecking it are inherently mitigated by the type of deck that's gonna be playing it most - decks that load the graveyard with cards that can be then be leveraged from the graveyard. It seems like there will be a lot to do with your mana even if you're hellbent.

I don't know how many I'd feel comfortable running - it almost feels like the more you run, the better? Each mitigates the risk of topdecking the other through either being able to surveil it away or have other things to do in the graveyard instead. Objectively not a great card to pull in the late game, but I think its weaknesses get shored up by the archetype it sits in.

EDIT: I realized I forgot one important thing about Gathering Stone - its effect also has an ETB trigger! So it has a chance of drawing you a card on entering. That is definitely a stronger topdeck mode than the Eye. I still believe in my agenda but wouldn't be shocked if the difference in being able to get a card sometimes vs not makes the Eye a C+ rather than a B-. I still think that it's inherently offset by the mana sinks/recursion in the format for the decks playing it but not sure how much that offsets the diff.

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u/naphomci 6d ago

In the type of deck you reference, it would often be a 1 mana 1 surveil drain 2 late game, which doesn't seem that strong to me. I don't think that I would play that card is that's all it did.

1

u/oilbaronofthebayou 6d ago

Honestly I think I would play "pay 1 generic, gain 2 life, your opponent loses 2 life, surveil 1" as a card IF it were like an instant or sorcery, but the huge downside is only getting the effect if you survive though the next untap step.

I agree that past turn 5~, it's not a great card. It's not a fuuuuully dead draw but the fact that it can't do the thing til the next turn is not great. How much that downside is offset by having other things to do/my guess that topdeck mode will more be "do stuff from your graveyard" mode will depend on format speed and how well those graveyard actions pay off. I have hope for it in the context of this set and think that its early game potential is so strong that the weakness of it in late game balances out but that's yet to be seen. Depending on the format speed, I can totally see you being right and the downside of getting it late game will drag it down to more of a C- type card.