Reality Fracture Prerelease Went Well Despite Allocation Issues Say Store Owners

In a recent poll to Wizards Play Network members, nearly 80 percent of respondents say that the Reality Fracture prerelease was a "very positive" experience.

"Great set and such a fun limited environment with fantastic alternate versions of some fan favorites, says Max Hirneisen, owner of Symbiote Collectibles in West Reading, Pen.  "We had so many players so happy with this set and we have had higher then expected attendance for both our events we run so far!! Looking forward to our collector boosters to land but otherwise perfect release."

A number of the store owners, though, reported that they didn't get all of their Reality Fracture products in time to sell them during prerelease weekend.  Some stores were on the verge of cancelling their prerelease events altogether because product was at risk of not arriving on time at all.

"I got half as many kits as I usually get and had to cancel and entire day of events," claims Jessi Collins of Valkyrie's Vault in Brownsburg, Ind.  "These delays are untenable and I fear they are becoming the new norm.

She wasn't alone.

"We barely got our product in time. It arrived at our distributor Monday night— and our allocation was garbage," says Ian Struckhoff, owner of The Fourth Place in Hanover, NH.  "Please stop wasting print capacity on sets nobody wants until we can get back to normal for regular sets."
 
Despite the product allocation issues, though, most of the prerelease events nationwide seemed to go well overall.  WPN member Glen Seymour believes it's because Reality Fracture is an "in universe" (that is, non-Universes Beyond) set.
 
"This year, every in universe set had better attendance than universe beyond sets," he says.  "The Hobbit was good because Magic and D&D owe a lot of their DNA to Tolkien. While universe beyond sets attract people from other fandoms, the majority of the ones I've seen don't stay around long."
 
Daniel Crabtree, who runs Magic events around the Joplin, Mo., area puts it plainly: "More in universe sets please."