Quick answer
Reality Fracture offers several very different commander projects. Choose Vraska for noncreature spells and artifact creatures, Pia for enchantment access, Geist for spell discounts, Ghalta for combat, or Liliana for graveyard development. Pick the game pattern before choosing the surrounding cards.
Which new commanders this review compares
This article reviews new legendary creatures from the tabletop Reality Fracture main set, FRA, released October 2, 2026. It is dated October 25. The FRC Commander product is a separate card pool, and the set also contains reprinted legends that are not new commanders. Star Trek is an upcoming November 13 release at this review date, so its preview legends are outside this released-set shortlist. A future review should identify its own set and date clearly.
The choices below are not a tournament ranking. They are starting points with distinct deckbuilding demands. A commander that supplies a precise resource can be easier to build around than a broadly powerful card that still needs an expensive support package. A low mana value can make a commander easier to recast, while additional colors can expand the available cards and make the mana base more demanding. Both costs belong in the decision.
A legal commander identity also limits every card in the deck. A new version of a familiar character can have different colors from an older version. Use the actual card you selected rather than the character name as a shortcut. The blue Samut discussed here is not the red Samut, and neither inherits the colors or abilities of a different Samut card. That is especially important in a set built around alternate versions of established characters.
Choose the play pattern first
Vraska, Soul of Stone
Jeskai artifact spells
Build a creature board through noncreature casts and decide whether the tokens are chiefly attackers, later mana, or sacrifice material.
Pia, Aether Ascetic
Mono-green enchantment access
Use a creature-entry search to assemble a coherent enchantment plan while keeping enough independent cards to function between searches.
Geist of Saint Thalia
Mono-blue noncreature engine
Discount generic costs across repeated casts, with an evasive body available for a secondary combat role.
Ghalta the Unstoppable
Mono-green power and trample
Develop one large creature to reduce the commander's casting cost, then use trample to make a wider attack more effective.
Ghalta the Immovable
Mono-white toughness combat
Use high toughness to reduce the cost and change combat damage assignment, including a plan for creatures with defender.
Liliana the Repentant
Mono-black graveyard development
Use creature or planeswalker entries to mill, with a once-per-object exhaust return as a later resource.
Samut, Tyrant of Naktamun
Mono-blue timing control
Plan instant and sorcery sequences around split second, including the ways that restriction also affects your own responses.
Samut, Hazoret's Champion
Mono-red haste
Give creatures haste from a cheap command-zone body, then supply the cards and mana the commander does not create.
Vraska, Soul of Stone: spells become artifact creatures
Vraska costs one blue, one red, and one white mana. She creates a 1/1 colorless Sculpture Treasure artifact creature when you cast a noncreature spell and gives your artifact creatures vigilance. That links three useful themes: casting noncreatures, building an artifact count, and attacking with creatures. A coherent deck can use the same spell to develop its plan and add another body rather than running two unrelated token packages.
The Treasure creatures are not ordinary noncreature Treasures. Their tap-symbol mana ability is normally restricted by summoning sickness when they are newly created. Vigilance is not haste. Once a token is old enough to attack, vigilance can let it attack and remain available to tap later, but a fresh token does not automatically refund a spell immediately. Rehearse the actual turn with legal mana sources before filling the list with spells that assume an instant refund.
Begin with noncreature spells that remain useful without Vraska: interaction, draw, and development. Add artifact and creature payoffs when the token volume supports them. The weak version of this deck has many rewards for a token board and very few spells that start a useful turn after Vraska is removed. Her accessible mana value helps, but repeated removal still increases commander tax and can expose a demanding three-color opening.
Pia, Aether Ascetic: a focused enchantment project
Pia costs two generic and one green mana. Her entry trigger offers a discard, then an enchantment search to hand if you choose to discard. In the command zone, that creates repeatable access across recasts, though each recast requires mana and another useful discard. She does not put the enchantment straight into play, so the deck must budget for both searching and casting the result.
The ability works well when creature reuse and enchantments share a purpose. Searching for an early engine, a protective piece, or a late payoff gives the commander several relevant stages. That is more coherent than assembling a toolbox of narrow enchantments while having no creature development or card replenishment. A tutor trades access for flexibility in the library; it does not by itself keep the hand full.
Choose Pia if you enjoy knowing which enchantment you need and can keep the surrounding list functional without repeated searches. Plan the first useful enchantment and the later one before adding many options. If every game leads to the same deterministic sequence, describe that honestly in the pregame conversation. A cheap commander with a library-search ability can create a more consistent experience than its modest body suggests.
Geist of Saint Thalia: generic savings add up
Geist costs one generic and one blue mana, flies, and reduces the generic cost of your noncreature spells by one. The reduction covers more than instants and sorceries, so an artifact, enchantment, or planeswalker shell can also make use of it. The commander provides a compact setup piece, but not inherent card draw, token production, or a complete finish. Those jobs still need to be supplied by the deck.
Work out the actual savings. A spell costing one generic and one blue can become blue, while a spell costing only blue does not become free. A list of many colored one-mana spells may therefore use the ability less than expected. Generic-heavy spells can make a productive sequence, but an opening hand still needs the colored sources to cast them. Do not substitute a theoretical cost reduction for a functioning mana base.
The flying body can carry equipment or connect for an effect, yet that should be a supporting plan unless the list deliberately invests in combat. Start with a mix of independent draw, interaction, and a small set of actual payoffs for repeated noncreature casts. Then evaluate which discounted cards are acceptable without the commander. If the hand becomes uncastable after a single removal spell, the discounts have encouraged too much dependence.
Ghalta the Unstoppable: power before the commander
This Ghalta costs eight generic and one green mana, with a reduction based on the greatest power among creatures you control. She has trample and gives your other creatures trample. The commander therefore rewards already having a large creature and then helps that board convert power into damage through blockers. She is more than an isolated large body, but she does not create the first creature that reduces her cost.
The reduction uses the greatest power, rather than adding every creature's power together. A board of many small bodies may provide a smaller discount than one large attacker. Commander tax is an additional cost, so calculate the complete cost with the appropriate reduction instead of declaring every recast a single green mana. The deck needs ordinary early plays that develop toward the large creature without assuming Ghalta is already present.
Choose this commander when you enjoy combat and can produce meaningful power efficiently. Keep cards that draw or interact while contributing a body, and choose a recovery plan for a sweeper. A hand filled with large creatures and no early development is not repaired merely because the commander can eventually be cheap. Trample improves a ready attack; it does not make creatures attack through summoning sickness or prevent an opponent from answering the key setup creature.
For concrete arithmetic, suppose the greatest power among your creatures is eight. The first cast starts at eight generic plus one green and can be reduced to one green. The first command-zone recast adds two generic tax, giving ten generic plus one green before the reduction, so the same eight-power board leaves a cost of two generic plus one green. If the greatest power is ten instead, it can reduce all ten generic mana, including the tax contribution, leaving one green. Recalculate when the board or tax changes.
Ghalta the Immovable: a white toughness plan
The white Ghalta costs eight generic and one white mana and reduces that cost using the greatest toughness among creatures you control. She lets your creatures attack as though they did not have defender. For creatures with toughness greater than power, she changes combat damage assignment to use toughness. These abilities can turn inexpensive high-toughness bodies into relevant attackers while using their defensive early role.
The damage change is for combat damage. It does not generally make a fight ability use toughness, because fighting is not combat damage. It also does not physically swap printed power and toughness. A spell checking a creature's power still uses power unless some other effect changes it. Keep those questions separate when choosing support cards that refer to power, toughness, fighting, or combat damage.
This deck needs enough early high-toughness creatures to support the discount, and enough draw and interaction to avoid becoming a board of bodies that cannot progress without the commander. An inexpensive defender can be useful early, but drawing several after Ghalta has become prohibitively expensive may be a weaker recovery. Choose support that can defend, provide an ability, or replace itself rather than maximizing only a toughness number.
The white Ghalta does not grant trample or another general form of evasion. A high-toughness attacker can still be blocked by a small creature, even when it assigns a large amount of damage. Decide how the deck will connect, remove blockers, or gain an advantage from attacking rather than assuming the toughness-based damage instruction forces that damage through to a player.
Liliana the Repentant: entries fill the graveyard
Liliana costs one generic and one black mana. When another creature or planeswalker you control enters, you mill two cards. Her exhaust ability costs five generic and one black mana, returns a target creature or planeswalker from your graveyard to the battlefield, and adds a +1/+1 counter to Liliana. The activation is restricted to sorcery timing and, through exhaust, can normally be used once for that object.
Milling is not drawing. It can stock a graveyard plan, but it does not put the needed land or answer into your hand. A list needs enough cards that can use its graveyard and enough ordinary draw to keep taking turns. The trigger also says another, so Liliana entering does not by itself mill two through her own ability. Your other entries provide the fuel.
Exhaust should not be treated as an unrestricted reanimation engine you can activate every turn while the same Liliana remains. If she leaves and returns, she is normally a new object, which can matter to the once-used ability, but building around repeated resets adds more pieces and vulnerabilities. Choose her when creature development and graveyard setup already overlap. Retain ways to continue playing if opponents exile the graveyard before you can use the expensive return.
The two Samuts reward different deckbuilding habits
Samut, Tyrant of Naktamun is blue and costs one generic plus one blue. She gives your instant and sorcery spells split second. That limits casting and nonmana activated abilities while those spells are on the stack, but does not make the spells uncounterable or stop triggered abilities. It can also prevent you from adding your own protective instant while your split-second spell is waiting.
Choose the blue Samut when understanding and exploiting response windows is part of the deck you want to play. Build a legal finish and independent card access rather than filling every slot with cards described only as protection. An opponent can act before your important spell is cast, and normal response opportunities return once the split-second spell leaves the stack. A change to one window is not an unanswerable turn.
Samut, Hazoret's Champion is red and costs one generic plus one red. She grants creatures you control haste. That can make new attackers or tap-ability creatures relevant sooner, but does not create cards or mana on its own. The red deck needs a sustainable resource engine and a finish that benefits from haste. Compare its desired turns with the blue version before choosing, because sharing a character name does not make these the same project.
Compare setup, recovery, and the ordinary turn
| Commander direction | What starts it | What to preserve after removal |
|---|---|---|
| Vraska artifact spells | Useful noncreature casts | Independent draw and colored mana |
| Pia enchantments | A castable search target and discard | Cards to cast and a plan between searches |
| Geist discounts | Spells with generic costs | A curve that works without the discount |
| Green Ghalta combat | A creature with meaningful power | Early development and rebuilding cards |
| White Ghalta toughness | Useful high-toughness bodies | Draw and creatures with independent abilities |
| Liliana graveyard | Other creature or planeswalker entries | Hand resources and recovery from graveyard hate |
Write an ordinary turn for the commander you like most. Include the actual lands and the spell costs left after any discount. Then remove the commander and keep playing from that position. This is a rehearsal, not a statistical win-rate test. It reveals whether the deck still has a land drop, a castable spell, or an answer when its command-zone engine is interrupted. A commander can be powerful while still asking more setup than you enjoy.
Next write the finish in plain language. Vraska might build an artifact creature attack, Ghalta might turn a large board into trample damage, and Liliana might support a graveyard-based threat plan. If you cannot explain how the early cards lead to that finish, narrow the theme before buying specialized payoffs. A collection of individually exciting new cards can be harder to play than a focused list with a modest commander.
Use the deck builder to create the initial list. Check early colored sources with the mana base calculator, and use the Commander deckbuilding checklist to keep draw, development, and interaction visible. Create a free account through My Decks to save the version. Keep notes about specific missed requirements rather than describing the whole deck as too slow after one difficult game.
New commander questions
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FAQ
Can every new planeswalker from the set be my commander?
No. A planeswalker needs specific permission, such as its own card text, rather than qualifying merely because it is legendary. Current Commander rules also permit legendary creatures, legendary Vehicles, and legendary Spacecraft with one or more power/toughness boxes. This shortlist deliberately focuses on eligible legendary creatures.
Do the alternate versions of a character share color identity?
No. Each actual card has its own color identity. A blue Samut deck uses the blue card identity, while a red Samut deck uses the red one. The name of an older version does not add its colors or abilities to your commander.
Can Vraska use a new Treasure creature for mana immediately?
Normally not without haste. The created token is a creature, and its mana ability has a tap symbol. Vigilance is a different ability and does not remove summoning sickness. Tokens controlled since your turn began can normally use that tap ability.
Does a Ghalta's discount remove commander tax?
Commander tax is included in the total casting-cost calculation, while the applicable discount reduces the appropriate generic portion. Work out the actual total on each recast rather than assuming that every casting remains one colored mana regardless of tax and the creature board.
Can white Ghalta make a creature fight with toughness?
Her stated change concerns combat damage assignment for qualifying creatures. Fighting is not combat damage, and the card does not generally replace a power check with toughness. Read the support spell and the commander separately before combining them.
Can Liliana use exhaust every turn?
Not while the same object remains and that exhaust ability has already been used, unless an effect changes the relevant permission. Leaving and returning normally creates a new object, but engineering repeated resets adds another package. The ordinary activation also requires sorcery timing and its mana cost.
Which commander is easiest to build on a small budget?
Begin with the cards you already own and a simple plan. A single-color commander can reduce color-fixing demands, but specialized engines can still be expensive. Compare the complete list and the ordinary opening turns rather than assuming the cheapest commander card makes the cheapest usable deck.