Reality Scramble MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 4 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost4
RarityRare
TypeSorcery
Abilities Retrace

Key Takeaways

  1. Reality Scramble reshuffles permanents, potentially upgrading them, thus revamping gameplay strategies.
  2. As an instant, it offers strategic advantages with surprise battlefield adaptations.
  3. Despite its higher cost and discard requirement, it fosters board state disruption.

Text of card

Put target permanent you own on the bottom of your library. Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card that shares a card type with that permanent. Put that card onto the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. Retrace (You may cast this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs.)


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Reality Scramble offers a unique twist to card advantage by reshuffling an owned permanent into the library and revealing cards from the top until a permanent of the same type is obtained. This process can flip through unnecessary cards and potentially land a more useful permanent for the current board situation.

Resource Acceleration: While not directly granting mana, the reconfiguration of resources that Reality Scramble provides can be tantamount to acceleration. By replacing a less impactful permanent with a potentially more powerful one, you can quickly gain the upper hand and by using tokens or redundant permanents as the reordering fodder, you optimize resource utilization efficiently.

Instant Speed: Reality Scramble can be cast at instant speed, allowing flexible play during either player’s turn. This unpredictability can be a strategic asset, catching opponents off guard by introducing surprise elements to the battlefield or by adapting to changes in game state as they unfold.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Reality Scramble comes with the stipulation that you must discard a card to activate its Retrace ability. This can be a setback especially if you’re already behind and need to maintain card advantage to stay in the game.

Specific Mana Cost: Locked into a precise mana combination, Reality Scramble requires both generic and red mana to cast. This can pose deckbuilding restrictions, confining the card’s inclusion to red-centric or compatible multicolor strategies.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Priced at four mana, including double red, Reality Scramble’s cost is on the steeper side. When you’re managing your mana resources, you may find that there are alternative cards with lower mana demands that yield similar or improved board states.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Reality Scramble offers a unique twist to your game by allowing you to shake things up with its “put back and reveal” mechanism. Useful in decks that rely on permanents, it ensures your gameplay remains unpredictable and adaptive.

Combo Potential: The card’s capability to potentially upgrade your permanents taps into numerous combo opportunities. Players can engineer their decks to maximize value by fetching key pieces at crucial moments during a match.

Meta-Relevance: Due to its capacity to disrupt stable board states and provide deck-manipulation options, Reality Scramble holds its ground in various meta scenarios. It aligns well with strategies that aim to outpace control decks or outmaneuver agile combo opponents.


How to beat Reality Scramble

Unraveling the perplexity of Reality Scramble’s effect in a Magic: The Gathering match can be quite the strategic challenge. This red sorcery allows players to ‘rearrange’ their board by shuffling a permanent back into their library and then revealing cards from the top until they reveal the one with the same type, which then goes directly onto the battlefield. This can potentially lead to some sudden and significant shifts in the state of play.

To counteract this capricious card, players should prioritize interaction with instant speed spells that can disrupt the sorcery before it resolves. Counterspells are a clear choice here, particularly those that can target spells that have no target like Disallow, or ones that can negate any spell like Negate. Control decks using these tools can keep Reality Scramble from ever taking effect. Another strategy is to deplete the resources that fuel Reality Scramble’s Retrace ability, perhaps through discard mechanics or by applying pressure to control your opponent’s graveyard. Graveyard hate cards like Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void can be instrumental in hampering this strategy.

In essence, understanding the core mechanics of Reality Scramble and maintaining a responsive hand equipped with versatile counters or graveyard management can tilt the scales in your favor, ensuring that your opponent’s attempts to reconfigure reality fall flat.


BurnMana Recommendations

Tapping into the dynamic essence of Reality Scramble can markedly enhance your MTG gameplay. As you weave this card into your red-centered or multicolored deck, remember its strength lies not only in reshuffling the present board but also in leveraging the element of surprise. It can be a formidable tool for shifting the tide of a match, flipping a mundane situation to one of game-changing potential. To fully harness the card’s power, consider how it synergistically fits with your overall strategy and be mindful of when to deploy its retrace ability for maximum effect. Curious about optimizing your deck’s performance and mastering the art of on-the-fly adaptation? Come forth, delve deeper into strategic card choices, and elevate your game to new heights with us.


Cards like Reality Scramble

Reality Scramble brings a distinct twist to the roster of red spells in Magic: The Gathering. This unique card allows players to reconfigure their battlefield in unexpected ways. Resembling cards like Indomitable Creativity, Reality Scramble requires you to shuffle a permanent you own into your library then reveals cards from the top until a card of the same type is revealed to put onto the battlefield. However, unlike Indomitable Creativity, which can target multiple permanents and can affect opponents, Reality Scramble is focused solely on your own permanents and adds the iterative possibility by allowing a card to be put back from your graveyard to the bottom of your library to be reused.

The playful chaos of Polymorph is also mirrored in Reality Scramble, trading in creatures for a potentially more powerful or useful one from your deck. But while Polymorph strictly focuses on creatures, Reality Scramble’s flexible nature can target artifacts, creatures, or even lands. Chaos Warp, another comparable card, also reroutes the direction of the game by shifting a permanent into something new, but it does so in a more unpredictable and instant manner, without the guarantee of type-consistency that Reality Scramble offers.

Therefore, Reality Scramble takes a commendable spot among red transformational spells in Magic: The Gathering for those who enjoy a touch of unpredictability and the potential for a dramatic change in the flow of the game.

Indomitable Creativity - MTG Card versions
Polymorph - MTG Card versions
Chaos Warp - MTG Card versions
Indomitable Creativity - Aether Revolt (AER)
Polymorph - Mirage (MIR)
Chaos Warp - Commander 2011 (CMD)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Reality Scramble MTG card by a specific set like Treasure Chest and Commander 2018, 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 Scramble and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Reality Scramble Magic the Gathering card was released in 4 different sets between 2016-11-16 and 2019-11-07. Illustrated by Simon Dominic.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12016-11-16Treasure ChestPZ2 707232015normalblackSimon Dominic
22018-08-09Commander 2018C18 252015normalblackSimon Dominic
32019-11-07Mystery BoosterMB1 10342015normalblackSimon Dominic
42020-09-26The ListPLST C18-252015normalblackSimon Dominic

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Reality Scramble has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
OathbreakerLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal

Rules and information

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

DateText
2018-07-13 Casting a card by using its retrace ability works just like casting any other spell, with two exceptions: You’re casting it from your graveyard rather than your hand, and you must discard a land card in addition to any other costs.
2018-07-13 Casting a card with retrace from your graveyard follows the normal timing rules for its card type.
2018-07-13 In most cases, at least one card in your library (the card you put on the bottom of your library) will share a card type with the target permanent. However, in some unusual situations, no cards in your library share a card type with the permanent (perhaps because the permanent was a token or its types were changed). In that case, you’ll reveal your entire library, put nothing onto the battlefield, and put the cards back in a random order.
2018-07-13 Reality Scramble can target any permanent you own, including those another player controls. A token’s owner is the player who created it.
2018-07-13 The target permanent’s last known existence on the battlefield is checked to determine its types.
2018-07-13 When a retrace card you cast from your graveyard resolves or is countered, it’s put back into your graveyard. You may use the retrace ability to cast it again. If it’s your turn, you may do so before any other player may take actions to try to remove it from your graveyard.
2018-07-13 You’ll stop as soon as you reveal a card that shares any card types with the target permanent. For example, if the target permanent is an artifact creature, you’ll stop as soon as you reveal a card that’s an artifact or a creature.

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