Reality Strobe MTG Card


Reality Strobe - Future Sight
Mana cost
Converted mana cost6
RarityUncommon
TypeSorcery
Abilities Suspend
Released2007-05-04
Set symbol
Set nameFuture Sight
Set codeFUT
Number43
Frame2003
Layoutnormal
Borderblack
Illustred byDan Scott

Key Takeaways

  1. Reality Strobe provides card advantage through its repeatable bounce effect and buyback mechanic.
  2. Its specific mana cost and high investment can be restrictive for multicolor or fast-paced decks.
  3. Versatile and meta-relevant, the card’s combo potential and tempo disruption are significant advantages.

Text of card

Return target permanent to its owner's hand. Remove Reality Strobe from the game with three time counters on it. Suspend 3— (Rather than play this card from your hand, you may pay and remove it from the game with three time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, play it without paying its mana cost.)


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Reality Strobe offers a unique type of card advantage through its buyback mechanic. This allows players to repeatedly bounce nonland permanents every third turn, potentially disrupting opponents’ strategies while maintaining hand parity.

Resource Acceleration: Reality Strobe can effectively serve as a form of resource acceleration. Over time, it can limit the resources an opponent has available by consistently returning their key permanents to their hand, thereby slowing down their game plan and preserving your tempo.

Instant Speed: While Reality Strobe is a sorcery, it interacts well with cards that allow you to cast sorceries at instant speed. In such scenarios, it pairs nicely with instant speed enablers, giving you the flexibility to surprise your opponent during their turn by bouncing their freshly played threats or other nonland permanents.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Reality Strobe doesn’t directly require a discard, its rebound effect means it’s effectively taken out of circulation for a couple of turns. This might constrain your play options, especially if your strategy relies on a diverse set of spells.

Specific Mana Cost: Reality Strobe demands a precise mana alignment—two blue and three of any color—making it somewhat restrictive. This can be a stumbling block for multicolor decks that might not consistently generate the necessary blue mana.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost of five mana, Reality Strobe is a significant investment, especially when your board state doesn’t necessarily benefit immediately. In fast-paced games, dedicating such resources to a single spell may not be the most efficient move, particularly when lower-cost alternatives are available.


Reasons to Include Reality Strobe in Your Collection

Versatility: Reality Strobe is a unique card that offers a flexible approach to gameplay. Many decks can incorporate Reality Strobe for its bounce effect, providing players with a consistent means of returning permanents to their opponent’s hand. Its suspend feature allows for strategic planning, making it a dynamic card in both aggressive and controlling decks.

Combo Potential: This card possesses intriguing combo potential in decks that manipulate time counters or benefit from casting spells without paying their mana cost through various mechanics like cascade. Reality Strobe can become a cornerstone in a deck focused on suspend synergies or for reuse in combinations with mechanics like proliferate to accelerate the suspension countdown.

Meta-Relevance: The card’s relevance in the meta can be situational, but in environments where tempo plays are key to outmaneuvering opponents, Reality Strobe shines. It can repeatedly handle problematic nonland permanents, which might give the upper hand in a meta with heavy reliance on certain key permanents or in formats where tempo disruption is vital to success.


How to beat

Reality Strobe is a blue sorcery that stands out in the world of Magic: The Gathering for its unique mechanic—suspension. With the ability to return to the player’s hand periodically, this card can be a persistent threat. To overcome this repetitive nuisance, players must focus on disrupting the suspension mechanic or preventing the card from returning to the battlefield.

Counterspells are your first line of defense, negating Reality Strobe before it even has a chance to set its recurrence in motion. Should the card be suspended, consider employing removal spells that specifically target suspended cards. Alternatively, effects that force the opponent to shuffle their library can be effective, as they disrupt suspended cards’ eventual return to the game. Artifact removal can also come in handy if your opponent relies on cards like Aether Vial to cheat in suspended cards.

Taming the Reality Strobe involves preemptive action and a strategic response to suspension. Stay ahead of the curve, and don’t let the ebb and flow of this card’s existence outpace your ability to control the game. Keep a close eye on timing and resource management, ensuring the Reality Strobe’s effect is little more than a mere blip in your path to victory.


BurnMana Recommendations

Become a savvier MTG player with a comprehensive understanding of Reality Strobe’s pros and cons. Understanding how this card’s buyback and recurring ability can impact your game is paramount to mastering your deck strategy. Should you weave this spell into the heart of your gameplay or keep it aside for specific matchups? Delve deeper into its strategic uses, examine alternative cards, and learn how to counteract your opponents’ game-changing spells. Enhance your knowledge and stay one step ahead. Curious about advanced tactics and the best deck synergies? Explore our insights and let your MTG prowess flourish!


Cards like Reality Strobe

Reality Strobe is an intriguing blue sorcery from Magic the Gathering that embodies the mechanic of recurrence with its rebound ability. It stands alongside similar cards like Capsize, which also allows players to repetitively bounce nonland permanents back to their owner’s hand. Unlike Reality Strobe, Capsize offers the flexibility of an instant speed and the buyback option, making it a mainstay in control decks.

Temporal Adept is another card that offers perpetual control over the board by returning target permanents to the hand, but requires untapping and is limited to once per turn. This limitation contrasts with Reality Strobe’s broader impact each time it recurs from exile every third turn, potentially dealing with multiple threats over the course of a game. Echoing Truth should also be considered for its ability to bounce multiple copies of a nonland permanent at once, although it lacks the recurring nature of Reality Strobe.

Every card has its niche in Magic the Gathering, and Reality Strobe carves out its own by combining the power of recurring bounce effects with the strategic planning of exile and rebound. Players who value the ebb and flow of returning threats and setting up for future turns will find Reality Strobe to be akin but uniquely advantageous in their arsenals.

Capsize - MTG Card versions
Temporal Adept - MTG Card versions
Echoing Truth - MTG Card versions
Capsize - Tempest (TMP)
Temporal Adept - Urza's Destiny (UDS)
Echoing Truth - Darksteel (DST)

Cards similar to Reality Strobe by color, type and mana cost

Amnesia - MTG Card versions
Cultural Exchange - MTG Card versions
Echo of Eons - MTG Card versions
Cosmic Epiphany - MTG Card versions
Mind's Desire - MTG Card versions
Rise from the Tides - MTG Card versions
Cut Your Losses - MTG Card versions
Time Spiral - MTG Card versions
Inspiring Refrain - MTG Card versions
Flow of Ideas - MTG Card versions
Tunnel Vision - MTG Card versions
Govern the Guildless - MTG Card versions
Mass Polymorph - MTG Card versions
Mindculling - MTG Card versions
Stolen Identity - MTG Card versions
Spelltwine - MTG Card versions
Rise of Eagles - MTG Card versions
Upheaval - MTG Card versions
Set Adrift - MTG Card versions
Crush of Tentacles - MTG Card versions
Amnesia - Masters Edition (ME1)
Cultural Exchange - Odyssey (ODY)
Echo of Eons - Modern Horizons (MH1)
Cosmic Epiphany - Dominaria United (DMU)
Mind's Desire - Strixhaven Mystical Archive (STA)
Rise from the Tides - Game Night 2019 (GN2)
Cut Your Losses - Streets of New Capenna (SNC)
Time Spiral - Magic Online Promos (PRM)
Inspiring Refrain - Doctor Who (WHO)
Flow of Ideas - Shadowmoor (SHM)
Tunnel Vision - Ravnica: City of Guilds (RAV)
Govern the Guildless - Dissension (DIS)
Mass Polymorph - The List (PLST)
Mindculling - New Phyrexia (NPH)
Stolen Identity - New Capenna Commander (NCC)
Spelltwine - Commander 2017 (C17)
Rise of Eagles - Journey into Nyx (JOU)
Upheaval - Modern Horizons 2 (MH2)
Set Adrift - Khans of Tarkir (KTK)
Crush of Tentacles - Oath of the Gatewatch (OGW)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Reality Strobe MTG card by a specific set like Future Sight, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Reality Strobe and other MTG cards:

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Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Reality Strobe has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal
PennyLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Reality Strobe card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

DateText
2021-06-18 As the second triggered ability resolves, you must cast the card if able. You must do so even if it requires targets and the only legal targets are ones that you really don’t want to target. Timing permissions based on the card’s type are ignored.
2021-06-18 Cards exiled with suspend are exiled face up.
2021-06-18 Exiling a card with suspend isn’t casting that card. This action doesn’t use the stack and can’t be responded to.
2021-06-18 If an effect refers to a “suspended card,” that means a card that (1) has suspend, (2) is in exile, and (3) has one or more time counters on it.
2021-06-18 If the card has in its mana cost, you must choose 0 as the value of X when casting it without paying its mana cost.
2021-06-18 If the first triggered ability of suspend (the one that removes time counters) is countered, no time counter is removed. The ability will trigger again at the beginning of the card’s owner’s next upkeep.
2021-06-18 If the second triggered ability is countered, the card can’t be cast. It remains exiled with no time counters on it, and it’s no longer suspended.
2021-06-18 If the spell requires any targets, those targets are chosen when the spell is finally cast, not when it’s exiled.
2021-06-18 If you can’t cast the card, perhaps because there are no legal targets available, it remains exiled with no time counters on it, and it’s no longer suspended.
2021-06-18 If you cast a card “without paying its mana cost,” such as with suspend, you can’t choose to cast it for any alternative costs. You can, however, pay additional costs. If the card has any mandatory additional costs, you must pay those if you want to cast the card.
2021-06-18 Suspend is a keyword that represents three abilities. The first is a static ability that allows you to exile the card from your hand with the specified number of time counters (the number before the dash) on it by paying its suspend cost (listed after the dash). The second is a triggered ability that removes a time counter from the suspended card at the beginning of each of your upkeeps. The third is a triggered ability that causes you to cast the card when the last time counter is removed. If you cast a creature spell this way, it gains haste until you lose control of that creature (or, in rare cases, you lose control of the creature spell while it’s on the stack).
2021-06-18 The mana value of a spell cast without paying its mana cost is determined by its mana cost, even though that cost wasn’t paid.
2021-06-18 When the last time counter is removed, the second triggered ability of suspend (the one that lets you cast the card) triggers. It doesn’t matter why the last time counter was removed or what effect removed it.
2021-06-18 You are never forced to activate mana abilities to pay costs, so if there is a mandatory additional mana cost (such as from Thalia, Guardian of Thraben), you can decline to activate mana abilities to pay for it and hence fail to cast the suspended card, leaving it in exile.
2021-06-18 You can exile a card in your hand using suspend any time you could cast that card. Consider its card type, any effects that modify when you could cast it (such as flash) and any other effects that stop you from casting it (such as from Meddling Mage’s ability) to determine if and when you can do this. Whether you could actually complete all steps in casting the card is irrelevant. For example, you can exile a card with suspend that has no mana cost or that requires a target even if no legal targets are available at that time.

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