New MTG Graveyard Deck Puts 9 Power into Play on Turn 2 Thanks to Reality Fracture

During spoiler season, many Reality Fracture cards received a ton of Constructed hype. Now, after just a few days of these new tools being tournament-legal, we’re quickly seeing those gems have an immediate impact. Darklight Phoenix, in particular, is creating a lot of new, successful brews, like this neat Modern Sacrifice shell that boasts a 5-0 League finish.

Setting Up an Overwhelming Board State

The main goal behind this Jund Sacrifice shell is to resurrect multiple copies of Darklight Phoenix from the graveyard, then ride them to victory. Naturally, your first step towards executing this game plan is to get Phoenixes into the graveyard, which Buried Alive Buried Alive Search your library for up to three creature cards, put them into your graveyard, then shuffle. pulls off effortlessly. You also have access to Mill effects like Stitcher’s Supplier Stitcher’s Supplier When this creature enters or dies, mill three cards. (Put the top three cards of your library into your graveyard.) and Malevolent Rumble Malevolent Rumble Reveal the top four cards of your library. You may put a permanent card from among them into your hand. Put the rest into your graveyard. Create a 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn creature token with "Sacrifice this token: Add {C}." to further help the cause.

Once you have a stocked graveyard, it’s surprisingly easy to trigger each Phoenix’s return. Simply sacrificing any of your puny black creatures to Flare of Malice Flare of Malice You may sacrifice a nontoken black creature rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Each opponent sacrifices a creature or planeswalker with the greatest mana value among creatures and planeswalkers they control. or Bone Shards Bone Shards As an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice a creature or discard a card.
Destroy target creature or planeswalker. gets the job done while setting the opponent back. With Buried Alive, Flare of Malice, and Greedy Freebooter Greedy Freebooter When this creature dies, scry 1 and create a Treasure token. (To scry 1, look at the top card of your library. You may put that card on the bottom. A Treasure token is an artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.") in your opening hand, you can reanimate three Phoenixes as early as turn two!

Even if your opponent has no creatures in play to target, however, Goblin Bombardment Goblin Bombardment Sacrifice a creature: This enchantment deals 1 damage to any target. can sacrifice two of your creatures easily. A single copy of Bloodghast Bloodghast This creature can't block.
This creature has haste as long as an opponent has 10 or less life.
Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, you may return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield. also does the trick, as long as you have a land to bring it back.

While things admittedly get a bit tougher without a repeatable sacrifice outlet, Phyrexian Tower Phyrexian Tower {T}: Add {C}.
{T}, Sacrifice a creature: Add {B}{B}. gets you halfway there, as does sacrificing an Eldrazi Spawn token. Notably, the extra mana from Tower and Eldrazi Spawns also helps you hard-cast any copies of Phoenix you draw. In really grindy games, even sacrificing Eyetwitch Eyetwitch Flying
When this creature dies, learn. (You may reveal a Lesson card you own from outside the game and put it into your hand, or discard a card to draw a card.) to Tower to turbo out Decorum Dissertation Decorum Dissertation Target player draws two cards and loses 2 life.
Paradigm (Then exile this spell. After you first resolve a spell with this name, you may cast a copy of it from exile without paying its mana cost at the beginning of each of your first main phases.) can help you dominate the long game.

Versatile Yet Fragile

Ultimately, much of this brew’s long-term appeal comes from its flexible approach from matchup to matchup. Unsurprisingly, with access to so much cheap removal, your position against creature decks is quite favorable. Bombardment completely demolishes Ocelot Pride Ocelot Pride First strike, lifelink
Ascend (If you control ten or more permanents, you get the city's blessing for the rest of the game.)
At the beginning of your end step, if you gained life this turn, create a 1/1 white Cat creature token. Then if you have the city's blessing, for each token you control that entered this turn, create a token that's a copy of it. out of Boros Energy, while Flare of Malice takes care of beefy creatures like Quantum Riddler Quantum Riddler Flying
When this creature enters, draw a card.
As long as you have one or fewer cards in hand, if you would draw one or more cards, you draw that many cards plus one instead.
Warp {1}{U} out of Esper Blink. The latter even gets around Kappa Cannoneer Kappa Cannoneer Improvise (Your artifacts can help cast this spell. Each artifact you tap after you're done activating mana abilities pays for {1}.)
Ward {4}
Whenever this creature or another artifact you control enters, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature. It can't be blocked this turn. ‘s brutal Ward ability when facing Affinity.

Yet Bloodghast and Darklight Phoenix’s resilience also makes it tough for removal-heavy decks to win the long game. While exile-based removal like Solitude Solitude Flash
Lifelink
When this creature enters, exile up to one other target creature. That creature's controller gains life equal to its power.
Evoke—Exile a white card from your hand. can in theory keep Phoenix in check, any sacrifice outlet negates this issue.

Unfortunately, as powerful as this deck is once its engine gets going, hate cards can keep it from ever getting off the ground. Surgical Extraction, for example, threatens to remove all copies of Phoenix post-Buried Alive for free. Rest in Peace Rest in Peace When this enchantment enters, exile all graveyards.
If a card or token would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead. is even worse to play against, since it shuts off all of your death triggers. This means you can’t even use Eyetwitch’s trigger to search for Origin of Metalbending Origin of Metalbending Choose one —
• Destroy target artifact or enchantment.
• Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. It gains indestructible until end of turn. (Damage and effects that say "destroy" don't destroy it.) .

Still, in metagames where graveyard hate isn’t running rampant, this archetype has all the power it needs to combat a diverse field. Darklight Phoenix is undoubtedly a sweet card, and it’ll be interesting to see if the card lives up to the hype down the line.

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