Thanks to HelloFresh for sponsoring today's video. Go to strms.net/hellofresh_tolariancommunity, use my code TCCMAY10, and receive 10 free meals + free dessert for life while subscription is active.
Please do Tovolar vs. The Most Dangerous Gamer vs. your preferred dungeon commander deck vs. your preferred sticker commander from Unfinity (there's 4 of them) as a SUaP episode. Obviously the rule is each player keeps track of the day/night, attractions, dungeon progress, and stickers/ticket counters respectively.
Hey professor, in your sponsorship segment you said "everyone needs to eat!" But does that not include the employees of Hello Fresh? By taking their money and promoting them you stand with their illegal union busting and worker abuse practices. And severe underpaying of workers.
As a Yu-Gi-Oh player, the concept of stickers has been one of the funniest things I've seen Magic do. Like I'm thinking about how a sticker could make like Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring or Infinite Impermanence searchable. What a nutty thing stickers were!
Stickers were not at all that powerful. The only one that was played was a goblin that gave you 4 red mana typically for a net positive of 2. So it was not an effect that hasn't existed before.
Stickers were great in draft. You could "Animate Object" to take an inanimate object IN REAL LIFE, put a name, power/toughness, ability, and/or art sticker on it, then put it onto the battlefield under your control. You could have a real can of soup be your biggest threat
@@lucatdcat8720Love that, also as a YGO player, you guys should cherish it because the old Japanese men running YGO are too scared to take risk, we get 1-4 funny cards per set while you guys get an entire box of it
"There is value in making things beyond just the highest number of sales or views". And that is exactly where I paused the video to hit the thumbs up button. I've been subscribed to this channel for many years, and even though I've drifted away from MTG as a hobby I still watch The Professor's videos because I love how much he obviously cares about this game. I remember some of his earlier videos where he talked about the impact MTG had on his life, and I truly appreciate what he has done.
Game companies nowadays focus so much on getting as many casual customers as possible that they completely forget that a handful of diehard fans are worth more than dozens, if not hundreds, of once-in-a-while impulse buyers
Whats funny about all this is to me the community did do exactly what wizards asked of us. Take Un sets seirously. Wizards asked us "do you want to put stickers on your cards and bring an 'attractions' deck to game night? And the entire community responded with... no not really." When its silvet bordered, its all about the fun value. The question is "do you wanna fuck around and play something weird?" Not "what is the tactitical value of this sticker?"
I swear Wizards is the only company in the world that in the span of a year can go "We don't have the technology to print un-set cards and have them be playable in commander, but not legal in eternal formats" and then proceed to make a major announcement whereby they keep those same cards playable in commander and not legal in eternal formats
Data point of one, I was one of those players that had a great time playing Unhinged and Unstable that completely ignored Unfinity because it WASN'T silver border.
I play some games with my extended family every now and then. We still play 1v1 games, 60 cards whatever we can scrap together and many of our decks have silver-bordered cards to be funny. I tried building a janky attractions deck but had to scrap it cause it wasn't fun. All it did was slow down gameplay and add unnecessary complexity.
I also couldn't really see it being fun if it wasn't silver border. Former LL1 Judge from APAC who has given up on magic completely. Sold my duals off last year to get into rollerblading instead.
I skipped it altogether because of the stickers. I was heartbroken, because Un-sets are fun and I love that the game doesn't take itself too seriously... but I'm not buying fucking stickers.
7:09 - I can confirm that I have NEVER clicked on a shuffle up and play video, (holds zero interest for me to watch other people play Magic, much like I don't watch videos of other people playing video games) but I do click on almost every review, banning, or otherwise "opinion" video you put out. So yeah, these types of videos absolutely have value.
The shuffle up and play videos are great because the player interactions and banter. I can't stand watching tournament style stuff but commander gameplay is fantastic. Profs most recent video (Spice8Rack, Sam from Rhystic Studies and Numot) is a perfect example. I don't closely follow the turn by turn plays but I love having it on while I'm sorting or brewing a new deck.
0:14 YES YES YES. FINALLY SOMEONE SAID IT. I always considered that the level of polish in mechanics in Unstable to be top quality and it actually breaks my heart that the entire set is dismissed as "hur hur, silver border, not really cards"
@@GreatTeacherKashi I honestly think that most of the Unstable cards would have worked as black border. Hell, even Mark Rosewater laments that he printed Krark's Other Thumb in silver border.
@@GreatTeacherKashi I, too, have an un-cube (heavily weighted toward Unstable to support the parasitic mechanics of Contraptions and Host/Augment, but with some cards from Unglued, Unhinged, and Unsanctioned), and it makes for fantastically crazy games. So much fun.
@@GreatTeacherKashi I also built one but, as we played I tryed to "update" it with consparcy and unfinity, but the polish on unstable is unmached so I plan on turing it back into a unstable set cube
Unstable is the only Un- set I ever got. The most fun with Magic I had, ridiculous antics and got people playing Magic that didn't normally play. Good times.
I really liked Unsanctioned. It was like a wackier version of those jumpstart boosters. Slap two half-decks together and play. Perfect thing to break out on a casual game night.
As a dealer, and seeing the current direction of wizards, I think they need to take a mindset a bit closer to that of a casino. Slots by multitudes makes more money than live games (cards etc), yet the casino isn't filled with only slots. Why? Because the live games brings people in who end up playing slots while waiting for a table, taking a break etc. Conversely people playing slots also sometimes come to live games to take a break, but still have something to play. To me the bonus sets are/were like this. It gave a reasonable break from the current sets to play something fun, silly, and different, while also letting me play magic without getting burned out as easily as its happening now adays. I couldn't get enough of Unstable with how well crafted it was, and yet I only drafted infinity a couple times before having my fill of fun. Unstable was so amazing, Im slowly working on building up a large enough collection, that I can have a cube that realistically emulates what it was like opening packs.
I'm debating making homemade paper "packs" to draft my unstable collection with. I might also include the couple highlights I liked from Unfinity and some Unsanctioned stuff.
Even if you look at theme parks, there's variety in what is out there. There are rides for little kids, there is an arcade, there are spins, loops, water rides, go karts, petting zoos, tons of things to get people in the door outside of "this ride is 4% faster and 3% taller than last year's ride".
@@nopinions yup, though I guess what I was referring to is more in line with the "loss leader" business idea (though in this case still making a profit just less on one) where you have a more appealing product thats meant to bring people in, even if you don't make as much or any profit (like the old welcome decks) with the plan of earning more over the longer term by increasing your sales around that product. I.e you lose $5 on ever welcome deck given away, but in the long term off the people who join thanks to them, say 50% for example, If you make even $20 off them you have now made double the money it cost you for the welcome decks, and more than likely that person is now going to be a repeat customer who gives that $20 not just once, but many times over through out the years. The issue with alot of businesses now adays is they look too short term, and end up damaging alot of their long term momentum, profits, product etc.
Good take. Plus, the argument that people stop buying Un-sets doesn't hold water, because they never were a print-to-demand product. They will never have the same kind of profit margin as a Masters set, but if future ones are able to keep up Unstable level quality, they will always sell out. Which is the best thing you can hope for when you make toys with no inherent value.
Had you not made that Mr. House "precon" video, I probably would've sat on the Caesar precon and been sad about it for a lot longer. But it is now one of the most fun decks I've played since getting into Magic less than a year ago. So thank you for that. It got me to break away from feeling like cohesive flavor/theme was necessary, and just make something for the sake of goofy bullshit fun.
I used to have a Urza, Academy Headmaster deck (with him as the Commander) from Unstable, it was a fun time as random was the game. The one card I now advocate for to be commander legal is Krark's Other Thumb as there are plenty of dice rolling cards in the format currently and it wouldn't be that concerning to have another card to join in the pot.
I've let Goblin bookie and Earl of squirrel get played. They're fun even though they technically cause "rules problems." I'm against anything that requires me to do stuff, Like Enter the Dungeon. Also against cards that are overpowered/cause headaches like necro-impotence or Rules Lawyer.
@@morenfin Earl should have been made black-border tbh. I’m not wholly against black border in silver border sets (technically we got a black border reprint with the goblin from future sight lol) but they need to be rare and sparing. Like a commander that’s fun but otherwise operates within normal rules or something like krark’s other thumb that could synergize with real mechanics like dice rolling. Perhaps those mechanics were too far down the pipeline and the D&D set too far on the horizon to get ahead of, but since it was literally Krark’s other thumb it should have been made black border or at least erratad as such when the d&d set came out!
That was notably the CRC not WotC that did that. But laurelkeeper is correct: there are some silver-border/acorn cards that do not fit in the rules and cannot be made legal beyond a limited time promotion like that.
I'm so far disconnected from MtG play that I legitimately didn't know Unfinity wasn't silver border. It seems so obvious to me that it should have been from the start.
The majority of cards in the set were not legal. The cards that were allowed in competitive play didn't typically do anything crazy like have you wear a hat or count fire extinguishers. Surprised stickers and attractions made it through, though I honestly feel like the community overreacted about them.
The funny thing is that it WAS silver border from the start, but they made the decision to denote some as black border at the last minute. There are a bunch of errors with cards being printed the wrong way, too, so you have to look online to know for sure what's even legal.
@@eewweeppkk It does seem like people have a tendency to have very strong feelings about MTG cards that may not be all that rational. I feel similarly about that Izzet companion otter that got pre-release banned in EDH. I understand it was a unique capability for decks that include red and blue, but was it really that good though? I mean the EDH ban list has historically been very loose and there is some absolutely busted stuff that never has been banned. In my opinion the amount of criticism that card got was vastly out of proportion to how much it would have actually impacted the game.
@@FearOgre Who cares? Is it really that strong? Would it break the game? EDH was built around doing weird janky stuff. People talk about "auto-includes" all the time.
The legacy legal argument never made any sense. Like prof said, they control the formats, they control what is allowed, they have reference Commander specific elements on cards. Day zero they could have banned sticker/attraction mechanics just like they banned ante cards and now have done.
This is a piece of misinformation I hear a lot, so here's Mark Rosewater's response to the question. A body outside of Wizards, the Commander Rules Committee, determines set legality for the format. If we made a set not legal in eternal formats, the cards wouldn’t be legal in Commander. Yes, we could technically make it legal in eternal formats and then ban all the cards in Legacy, but we don’t like to use the ban list in that way.
@@laurelkeeperThis is why I propose a holo stamp (like the acorn) that means a card is only legal in 3+ player formats and limited. WotC is not controlling the legality of what cards get banned or are legal In Commander (the CRC can still ban any card they want to), but they have an avenue to print a card that could be legal in Commander that cannot impact 1v1 eternal formats.
@@laurelkeeper Are they now all banned in Commander due to being banned in Legacy and Vintage? If yes, then that argument holds weight. If not, then WOTC is kinda making it up. They can just talk to the Commander community and go "Hey, wanna do this?" and if no, then don't bother. If anything, that saves them money on designing, palytesting, and printing these cards.
@@laurelkeeperthat is an absolutely false statement from Mark Rosewater. *Historically* the commander list of legal cards was "everything legal in vintage with XYZ extra bans on top" but that banlist setup was ditched in 2020. (Specifically, when Vintage banned Lurrus but Commander chose not to) Unfinity being released in 2022 means commander had already been working with a completely seperate banlist from vintage for over two years at that point - they absolutely had the mechanisms in place to just ban the cards in vintage and legacy out the gate.
7:22 That's long term thinking. That doesn't work for large corporations who need to show share holders massive growth every single quarter. Business needs to achieve the impossible, massive financial growth infinitely. Businesses at their size can't consider customers until after they've considered shareholders, which means customers get the short end of the stick
Loved to see the Discord mention, as I've been playing a hybrid voltron/toolbox deck using Nightmare Moon from the original MLP silver border cards with my pod for a while now. Some of these silver border cards are genuinely engaging to play with with and againat and fit into the EDH gameflow very naturally, and I'd love to see more of these cards become a regular sight in the format.
Yeah, as I noted in your other video about the stickers, there’s already a precedent of making “legalized” versions of Un-set cards (like The Cheese Stands Alone -> Barren Glory), which let the freedom of design in those sets contribute to legal play without the Un-sets’ tone conflicting with everything else. Unfinity completely threw that out the window, plus the issues with being forced to play with it as mentioned. Plus the stickers are a pain in the butt to deal with.
Hope you see this Prof, thanks for making those lower view deck guide videos. I love them and really appreciate their existence, they're some of your most evergreen content. I'd love to see you revisit some of your early deckbuilding guides like building mana bases for different numbers of colors.
I love the stickers in extremely specific formats. Mostly I use it in my old “Type 4” deck. It allowed me to make really unique cards to speed up the game easily and without significant modifications. I used them to make a card that can’t be countered, or removed in anyway. It deals 1 damage to everyone each round. It basically adds a ticking clock to the game.
A TCC Build Your Own Precon that includes silver-border/un-cards cards, pun named cards, and goofy art would be a light-hearted and fun idea and video that I personally would really enjoy!
A friend of mine runs a rule-0 Discord, Lord of Disharmony deck, and it always gets laughs and excitement. He bought a little receipt-paper heat printer that bluetooths to his phone, so he can print out the card he pulls up through a scryfall random. It's always really fun to play against.
I've always loved the Un-sets, and one of the things that made me sad about sets before Unfinity is that, at least in the circles I inhabited, silver border cards were seen as "not real Magic cards" and thus rejected even for casual play. The lack of middle ground was frustrating - I wanted to play with these cards! - and making Unfinity partially legal for competitive play felt like it might be the solution to that. Maybe the *right* solution was just to find a new play group :(
in my experience, often players would still soft-ban unfinity mechanics in playgroups (i haven't had a chance to play with Stickers in my Emiel deck) , so it didn't even really help much with that anyway. ;.;
I like that not only views/money drives you, I love that you make videos that do add to the collective value of the subject matter as you say. Thank you professor! ❤
I have a wubrg die rolling commander deck with garth that has an attraction focus and my playgroup and I love it. We HATE stickers and banned them in our play group. They are way to absurd and obnoxious. I agree with all if it being banned in sixty card formats however.
You still can :) There are online vendors that sell the booster boxes online. You can buy the specific singles you want. And if you aren't turned off by it you can proxy the cards at home. I grew up super poor and I drew my own MTG cards so I could play with my brothers :)
Get some friends together, print off some proxies, and have a draft. Prof is 100% correct that Unstable was incredibly fun. I never drafter Unglued, because I was too young and poor to actually spend money on cards at the time, but Unhinged was great as well.
I played Unstable with my playgroup and it was an absolute blast!! It was one of the first times we had all drafted together and it opened our eyes to how deep and fun and weird that magic as capable of being! And with that, I’m going to build a cube for my playgroup, and I’m definitely putting in a couple cards from the silver bordered world that fit the draft themes as a little surprise for them. I have a relationship with them such that I know for a fact that they would love that small addition.
Heya Prof! also happy to see stickers being gone for now also since I'm here early, I saw your double booster box opening earlier in the week and I hope you aren't feeling too burnt out! 1M subs is almost on the horizon and as someone whose been here since around 50k I'm happy to say that nobody out there is more deserving to spearhead the mtg content creator community than yourself. Treat yourself well and I hope to see many more videos in the future from you!
The original ban list for that Un-Set was ridiculous, it didn't have "cut target card into pieces" type cards on it, but also banned totally reasonable stuff, and importantly didn't re-legalise unproblematic cards from old un-sets.
I love the theme of the set, I got commander decks with space family goblinson or captain rex nebula. But the thing that kills the un-finity set is the stickers and atracctions been legal in competetive formats.
I wish they just reprinted on demand long time staple booster boxes like unstable, and the definitive booster boxes. Just let those sets never retire. It would be so nice for new fans to experience the best experiences of the past.
12:05 The only thing to add here- cards that say "This card can be your commander" are still legal in Legacy and Vintage. It's not a rules text that indicates only EDH legality!
I adore Unfinity and other Unsets, but I really, really think that stickers being Legacy legal was a massive misstep. It inherently makes the game less accessible, since Unfinity was only printed in English. Cards like Saw in Half, Magar of the Magic Strings, or Comet, Stellar Pup are easily reprintable, but stickers are hard to reprint in other languages. Honestly, if "Mind" Goblin wasn't printed, we really wouldn't have this issue imo, but since it's the poster child of stickers, it's a huge stain on how people will see stickers in Commander for sure. I think that the blanket ban of stickers and attractions was a good decision, but the reputation that they've gotten will probably make decks utilizing them elicit a few groans from the Commander table.
I’m so lucky I got to experience a few of these drafts, such a fun time. Crazy to think that’s when wizards was making better decisions and my LgS was always packed. Neither true today
Mr House Attraction or Dice Roller deck seems really fun, I hope you make the list. Theres lots of neat D6 cards, and the Fallout Bobbleheads could make for a silly (but fun!) alternate win con. Cards within the D&D set mostly use D20s but theres a few cards that give functionally the Advantage mechanic from D&D letting you roll twice, or reward you when any die (d6 or d20) is rolled. I always felt the Attraction mechanic should have been the black border (or non acorn, blech) mechanic as it doesnt seem too outrageous vs Dungeon Initiative etc
Un sets are my favorite sets. I loved Unfinity. The galaxy foils are beautiful, especially the lands. It brought us the galaxy's bestest boy, Comet. It all should've been silver bordered though. Maybe a bonus sheet for cards that work mechanically with black bordered sets, but stickers never should've been legal outside silver border. I really hope we get more Um sets in the future , they're so much fun.
(8:48) I love Baron Von Count and made a Commander deck with him. Even got a few wins by ticking down his doom counter to the opponent's demise, including one where I was at 8 poison counters and sure to die to poison on the next turn, but I cast just enough spells with the right numbers to "destroy target player" with Baron Von Count and take the victory! Also, there was one night fairly recently where a player brought a Squirrel deck that included a few Un-set Squirrels, and I was totally fine with that. It ended up being quite the hilarious match with tons of Squirrel tokens being added to the battlefield under everyone's control. And yeah, I totally agree that stickers and attractions should never have been eternal legal in the first place. Furthermore, they should've kept the iconic silver border for the non-legal cards too.
Yeah, I'm doing a Party Box style shared deck and finding I'm using A Lot of the silver border goblin cards, which don't actually feel that crazy in modern magic design
it's like Jim Sterling has been saying for years-companies don't just want SOME of the money, they want ALL of the money and Hasbro like many gaming companies wants to have more "growth" each year despite how unsustainable it is.
As for the “value” videos, here is a channel viewer that does not watch any shuffle up and play but always here for the explanatory, news and update videos, like this one! Thanks for keeping them up!!
I actually like attractions, but stickers, I’m happy they will never be back because I do not want to have to tediously put stickers on my cards, I don’t need an urza with infect 😂
I’m in process making my partner her first custom commander deck with attractions, just waiting for the rest of the cards to arrive. Super stoked to see it in action. Stickers I can see getting annoying but I don’t really see why attractions are getting lumped in with this hate.
Thank you for making this video ❤️. We are still stuck with this stuff in cEDH and every time I see that damn Goblin and remember I didn't bring stickers I want to scream. The design is so painfully shortsighted.
I liked stickers and attractions. Especially in undrafts and un-commander. Them being black border is weird, but they should have been commander only if anything.
I really enjoyed playing with Attractions in Legacy. It was a lot of fun and was not hard to keep track of with the extra deck and Saga like timing. I do not see any reason for the Attraction banning. People are just mad/unhappy that new stuff was added. Dont really understand the hate for it. I also did not have any problem with Stickers but I can kinda understand as they are different online/paper.
Monkey's Paw moment for me i actually wished *some* silver bordered cards were eternal legal and applauded when they announced that some cards from Unfinity would be legal little did i know that it would be one of the most annoying and poorly designed mechanics that would make the jump to black border.... and now thanks to that, we may not see another un-set ever again
on the issue of tracking game pieces and complexity, I think It comes down to us when brewing to really ask ourselves if its worth it to add a card that bring in an extra game piece only because said card is good. I'd rather have another goblin or a synergy piece in my goblin deck before adding ___Goblin just because I don't think carrying around the sticker sheets is worth it. Same thing with day and night, innitiative, etc. I will absolutely add those mechanics if thats the whole theme of the deck, as in, a dungeon deck, or say Vadrick and day and night (this one is a bit extra because he's an astronomer, day and night also hits as extra flavour.) But I've been refraining more and more to add those cards willy nilly, just for my own sanity.
That was the logic behind it but the reality shows that nerds Will be carring around any sort of nonsense if it means they get the ever SO slightly higher chance of winning.
Watching this video reminded me of a comment that MaRo made in an interview on GLHF: Talking about the design of a specific mechanic he liked that was largely ignored by the player base, the lesson he learned was that players needed to “trip over the fun”, basically be forced into engaging with product and mechanics. Hadn’t connected that comment to Unfinity’s sudden format legality, but this essay suddenly makes that comment very prescient of the design mentality at WotC.
I’ve always love Unsets, getting a sneak peak into what RnD is working on and the zany antics in the cards was always fun. I loved battlebond especially for commander, the co-operative cards are fun politicing.
Yeah, it’s them trying to basically force their legality in a format they’re not supposed to have any control over that I personally don’t like. That, and I really do dislike the silliness factor.
"There is no way to make cards legal in Commander but not Legacy." Yes there is. There always has been. A silver border card is legal in *casual formats.* Commander is a *casual format.* Quod erat demonstrandum. Or has that detail been forgotten by both Wizards and the community at large, that Commander was a format about using your bulk and embracing weird ideas rather than having to keep up with every new release to ensure your deck is optimized and efficient?
I really enjoy Unfinity, and I love my Attractions Commander decks. Banning in competitive doesn’t matter to me. But as someone who works in theme parks it was so fun to get a set based around all the nonsense in my life.
The main issue was the edh rules committee did not make silver border cards legal when they should have. I think if they honestly legalized silver bordered cards And then banned the problematic ones EDH would be in a better place.
EDH rules are just suggestions. Nobody's stopping your table from playing silver bordered cards if your playgroup wants to. You don't need an official rule from the rules committee to say those are legal. Large swaths of EDH playgroups already have house rules on cards they want or don't want to play with.
@@BananaBanditos That's not what i'm saying. Most random groups go by the ban & legality list. Sure, if you have a usual group you can easily play silver border. But I think the casual format should have full access to the casual cards, which would also have an effect on cEDH. I love cEDH but I honestly think it needs a big injection of not taking itself so seriously. The silver border cards just being legal would have a huge effect all around.
12:05 or more specifically 12:35 "This card is legal in commander" may not allow for its later banning due to CR 101.1, so that's a whole new potential can of worms. A new keyword related to deckbuilding (only include in the deck if you have a commander, a mashup of Lieutenant and Partner in a way) might have worked.
It is such an unfortunate thing how the stigma over silver border cards is not only gonna remain prominent, but was the main primary reason why WotC experimented with getting rid of them to begin them. They were intended for casual fans, but at the same time, said casual fans were the ones who wanted the least of it because "it is just a joke". The desire from casuals trying to follow banlists and competitive mindset specifically designed for tournament players is the bane of each and every card game in the social media era, and why playing these games prior their boom was a much bigger, better experience: WE, players created the experience we wanted with friends, and we had fun in our own way. It was more of a tool to design, to create. Nowadays? People just buy a Commander Precon and never do anything with it.
Data Point of One: I was a player who ignored silver sets but picked up Unfinity because it looked better, had more interesting themes, and was fun while also teaching core mechanics of MtG to new players. I still don't think stickers or attractions shouldve ever been legal outside of Un
12:08 No, there's not. Card legality is determined by printing, not by mechanic. "This card can be your commander" is not a legality change, it is a mechanical change which Wizards has control over. They do NOT have control over Commander legality. It's their game, but not their format.
@@amethystrose3480 She's not banned in commander though so I don't think you have to worry about that and I doubt that the stickers and attractions will be banned in commander.
@@amethystrose3480 Yeah I can see why. Now if the RC decides to ban it then you can get scared but thats still some time before they do their next quarterly thing.
as someone who for several years ran a contraptions deck as part of my Yorion blink shenangans (you get to blink all your contraptions and assemble them onto the next sproket so they all triggere every turn) Silver border can be a real blast except for the complexity issues of a second deck
Unstable is my absolute favorite draft experience ever. The spread of mechanics across the colors was executed beautifully, and pretty much anything you draft works. I made an Unstable Wizards Tower (great format invented by Wizards in Theros) and it keeps some of that fun.
Excited to watch, really wish they would reprint unstable and make some of its mechanics black border. The combi creatures were amazing! Glad the stickers were banned though, super annoying to use, kinda fun to play with/against but overall negatively impacted the experience in my oppinion
Glad to see Tolarian Winds becoming more frequent again! We’ve been treated to it a couple times now in the past couple weeks, I had honestly wondered if they were being discontinued before the last one came out
WotC could have also just did a subset of Unfinity like they've been doing with these newer sets, that are only legal in Commander... "Commander: Unfinity" "Commander: Wilds of Eldraine" "Commander: Outlaws of Thunder Junction" I don't know why they couldn't just do that and make just those cards black border while the rest are silver border like a more traditional unset card that's not meant to be played with any other format other than itself and other unsets.
@@andrewwang7699 I don't think you understood what I said. I said the un-set should have been silver-bordered by default, EXCEPT for the commander-specific cards part of the commander subset of the un-set. That way the commander cards are legal by default while the main set isn't.
@@legobumb I mean, is that not what WOTC did (replacing silver border with acorn)? Like, the "not-silver-border/acorn" cards are the UNF cards that were deemed to be acceptable for eternal (ie: commander) play. (i think there's a Rosewater quote about them trying to to make any non-acorn cards of legacy/vintage power level). It feels like your disagreement is with what cards WOTC decided were cards were "commander-acceptable"?
-Company makes a good product. -People buy it because it's good. -Company makes a follow-up optimized for profit at the expense of quality. -People don't buy it because it's bad. -Company cancels the product line.
I agree that stickers are a bit odd and I don't enjoy, but attractions are quite fun in commander. I run an attraction deck with my pals and it's a lot of fun and chaos.
Limited Infinity... Man, I haven't heard that in a long, long time. I remember playing that back in high school on break with the seniors who had the deck for it.
@@goreobsessed2308 this is a normal function of capitalism. The only way to prevent this from happening is to put more guardrails up switch to a different economic system.
This is why the guard rails have to be put up by the fed, not by the companies themselves. Businesses have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders due to a really shitty supreme court ruling.
I actually played with Discord as my commander yesterday and it was a really fun and goofy time! Not something to do everytime but to bring out every once in a while.
What you're suggesting is essentially the delegitimization of authority and anarchist revolution against it. I'm all for it, but I might have a few recommendations of other places to apply this concept.
Player at my LGS love it when I both play uncards and/ or play my Cedh attractions deck. We even force people to be fine with proxy as long as they can be read. its a game for fun
Any mechanic that requires you to bring a side deck of stickers/attractions/cards even if you don't play the cards that use them is dumb. Let's say someone creates a token copy of Spinnerette, Arachnobat under my control. I have no attraction deck with me (why would i, my deck isnt built around it). Now the ETB of it doesnt work for me. Same goes for ___ Goblin.
@@SimonS188 actually there was a rule in the MTR that if you were asked to place a sticker on a permanent, you’d go click the link and get 3 sticker sheets. Stickers are much more in line with Dungeons then Attractions, and when we got Dungeons with AFR, it was a matter of “when” we got something like Contraptions in Black Boarder. There are valid complaints about not liking or wanting attractions or stickers in the game, but needing to have the sheets is not one of them.
@@ZakanaHachihaCBC it kinda does make stickers worse, because stickers travel between public zones, so even if you generate the stickers on a site, you need to keep track of the sticker when the goblin dies, but not when its bounced, you need to put a different sticker if it comes back into play again and now keep track of that different sticker Attractions were a tad more streamlined, still had their drawbacks like copying one breaking the game if you don't have an Attraction deck yourself
I think having black border cards in unfinity would have been totally fine if it was handled better. If they would have kept the silver border for non-legal cards instead of the acorn as well as keeping stickers/attractions out of legacy to begin with I don't think anyone would have had a problem. Everyone wins.
Things like "rip this card up" and "Open a booster" I think are fine personally, as long as you're not expecting people to use them. They're funny jokes to make, and they're nice options to have for people who really do want to use them, and the expectation can just be that most people will read them, have a laugh, and then not put them in a deck.
I Have my own Mr. House deck and I like to use some of the Un Dice rolling cards in it. Nothing silly, just stuff like Goblin Bookie and Inhumaniac. I always ask if people are okay with it and have not had any complaints yet. It would be awesome to see a commander legal stamp on some of these.
Thanks to HelloFresh for sponsoring today's video. Go to strms.net/hellofresh_tolariancommunity, use my code TCCMAY10, and receive 10 free meals + free dessert for life while subscription is active.
Hi Prof, just wanted to chime in and say HelloFresh has a history of union busting and anti-labor positions and actions.
Looks like you need to remake the "Everything you need to know..." video, with the sticker portion gone.
Hey prof I won something in your whatnot stream a little while ago and I'm having trouble with the shipping do you think you could help
Please do Tovolar vs. The Most Dangerous Gamer vs. your preferred dungeon commander deck vs. your preferred sticker commander from Unfinity (there's 4 of them) as a SUaP episode. Obviously the rule is each player keeps track of the day/night, attractions, dungeon progress, and stickers/ticket counters respectively.
Hey professor, in your sponsorship segment you said "everyone needs to eat!" But does that not include the employees of Hello Fresh? By taking their money and promoting them you stand with their illegal union busting and worker abuse practices. And severe underpaying of workers.
As a Yu-Gi-Oh player, the concept of stickers has been one of the funniest things I've seen Magic do. Like I'm thinking about how a sticker could make like Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring or Infinite Impermanence searchable. What a nutty thing stickers were!
Un sets are wacky as heck in general. Stickers aren't really that special.
The problem was them being black-border or legal in "all" formats.
Stickers were not at all that powerful. The only one that was played was a goblin that gave you 4 red mana typically for a net positive of 2. So it was not an effect that hasn't existed before.
Stickers were great in draft. You could "Animate Object" to take an inanimate object IN REAL LIFE, put a name, power/toughness, ability, and/or art sticker on it, then put it onto the battlefield under your control. You could have a real can of soup be your biggest threat
@@lucatdcat8720Love that, also as a YGO player, you guys should cherish it because the old Japanese men running YGO are too scared to take risk, we get 1-4 funny cards per set while you guys get an entire box of it
Heheh, have you tried normal summoning tour guide, summoning sangan, linking into anything and searching ash? It's real funny
The Acorn misprints was so bad! I opened a pack with two copies of the same card, one in foil with an oval sticker, and one regular with an acorn
“Mismanagement by Wizards of the Coast” is a phrase I’ve become all too familiar with used to hearing unfortunately.
Still mad about Heroscape, even its return won't allow me to forgive them
The last few years have been a constant train of disasters.
"There is value in making things beyond just the highest number of sales or views". And that is exactly where I paused the video to hit the thumbs up button. I've been subscribed to this channel for many years, and even though I've drifted away from MTG as a hobby I still watch The Professor's videos because I love how much he obviously cares about this game. I remember some of his earlier videos where he talked about the impact MTG had on his life, and I truly appreciate what he has done.
Game companies nowadays focus so much on getting as many casual customers as possible that they completely forget that a handful of diehard fans are worth more than dozens, if not hundreds, of once-in-a-while impulse buyers
@@ThatWildcard You are describing whale hunting. The issue that is actually at hand is being beholden to stockholders.
Whats funny about all this is to me the community did do exactly what wizards asked of us. Take Un sets seirously. Wizards asked us "do you want to put stickers on your cards and bring an 'attractions' deck to game night? And the entire community responded with... no not really."
When its silvet bordered, its all about the fun value. The question is "do you wanna fuck around and play something weird?" Not "what is the tactitical value of this sticker?"
69 upvotes and no comments? Lemme fix it up real nice
I swear Wizards is the only company in the world that in the span of a year can go "We don't have the technology to print un-set cards and have them be playable in commander, but not legal in eternal formats" and then proceed to make a major announcement whereby they keep those same cards playable in commander and not legal in eternal formats
Data point of one, I was one of those players that had a great time playing Unhinged and Unstable that completely ignored Unfinity because it WASN'T silver border.
Yeah there’s a lot of silver border fans who felt that way too.
I play some games with my extended family every now and then. We still play 1v1 games, 60 cards whatever we can scrap together and many of our decks have silver-bordered cards to be funny. I tried building a janky attractions deck but had to scrap it cause it wasn't fun. All it did was slow down gameplay and add unnecessary complexity.
I also couldn't really see it being fun if it wasn't silver border. Former LL1 Judge from APAC who has given up on magic completely. Sold my duals off last year to get into rollerblading instead.
Drafted Unstable twice in one evening at an event, that event was completely nuts lol
I skipped it altogether because of the stickers. I was heartbroken, because Un-sets are fun and I love that the game doesn't take itself too seriously... but I'm not buying fucking stickers.
7:09 - I can confirm that I have NEVER clicked on a shuffle up and play video, (holds zero interest for me to watch other people play Magic, much like I don't watch videos of other people playing video games) but I do click on almost every review, banning, or otherwise "opinion" video you put out. So yeah, these types of videos absolutely have value.
Same. Why would I watch other people play Magic? I can just play, or literally do anything else
100% this.
The shuffle up and play videos are great because the player interactions and banter. I can't stand watching tournament style stuff but commander gameplay is fantastic. Profs most recent video (Spice8Rack, Sam from Rhystic Studies and Numot) is a perfect example. I don't closely follow the turn by turn plays but I love having it on while I'm sorting or brewing a new deck.
Yep, I think the only time I watched Shuffle Up and Play was when Arin Hanson was on, and I'm pretty sure I got bored after, like, 5 minutes.
0:14 YES YES YES. FINALLY SOMEONE SAID IT. I always considered that the level of polish in mechanics in Unstable to be top quality and it actually breaks my heart that the entire set is dismissed as "hur hur, silver border, not really cards"
My unstable cube is one of my favorite things to play, in spite of only having actually convinced my group to play it twice.
@@GreatTeacherKashi I honestly think that most of the Unstable cards would have worked as black border. Hell, even Mark Rosewater laments that he printed Krark's Other Thumb in silver border.
@@GreatTeacherKashi I, too, have an un-cube (heavily weighted toward Unstable to support the parasitic mechanics of Contraptions and Host/Augment, but with some cards from Unglued, Unhinged, and Unsanctioned), and it makes for fantastically crazy games. So much fun.
Breaks your heart? Get a grip my guy
@@GreatTeacherKashi I also built one but, as we played I tryed to "update" it with consparcy and unfinity, but the polish on unstable is unmached so I plan on turing it back into a unstable set cube
Unstable is the only Un- set I ever got. The most fun with Magic I had, ridiculous antics and got people playing Magic that didn't normally play. Good times.
I really liked Unsanctioned. It was like a wackier version of those jumpstart boosters. Slap two half-decks together and play. Perfect thing to break out on a casual game night.
@@wombatgirl997 some of the unsanctioned cards were better replaced with other un set cards though
I enjoyed an unfinity draft with friends. Same as you just described. However, stickers in competitive play is stupid.
As a dealer, and seeing the current direction of wizards, I think they need to take a mindset a bit closer to that of a casino. Slots by multitudes makes more money than live games (cards etc), yet the casino isn't filled with only slots. Why? Because the live games brings people in who end up playing slots while waiting for a table, taking a break etc. Conversely people playing slots also sometimes come to live games to take a break, but still have something to play. To me the bonus sets are/were like this. It gave a reasonable break from the current sets to play something fun, silly, and different, while also letting me play magic without getting burned out as easily as its happening now adays. I couldn't get enough of Unstable with how well crafted it was, and yet I only drafted infinity a couple times before having my fill of fun. Unstable was so amazing, Im slowly working on building up a large enough collection, that I can have a cube that realistically emulates what it was like opening packs.
I'm debating making homemade paper "packs" to draft my unstable collection with. I might also include the couple highlights I liked from Unfinity and some Unsanctioned stuff.
I have an Unstable and Unfinity Set Cube draft and they are amazing.
Even if you look at theme parks, there's variety in what is out there. There are rides for little kids, there is an arcade, there are spins, loops, water rides, go karts, petting zoos, tons of things to get people in the door outside of "this ride is 4% faster and 3% taller than last year's ride".
@@nopinions yup, though I guess what I was referring to is more in line with the "loss leader" business idea (though in this case still making a profit just less on one) where you have a more appealing product thats meant to bring people in, even if you don't make as much or any profit (like the old welcome decks) with the plan of earning more over the longer term by increasing your sales around that product. I.e you lose $5 on ever welcome deck given away, but in the long term off the people who join thanks to them, say 50% for example, If you make even $20 off them you have now made double the money it cost you for the welcome decks, and more than likely that person is now going to be a repeat customer who gives that $20 not just once, but many times over through out the years.
The issue with alot of businesses now adays is they look too short term, and end up damaging alot of their long term momentum, profits, product etc.
Good take. Plus, the argument that people stop buying Un-sets doesn't hold water, because they never were a print-to-demand product. They will never have the same kind of profit margin as a Masters set, but if future ones are able to keep up Unstable level quality, they will always sell out. Which is the best thing you can hope for when you make toys with no inherent value.
Had you not made that Mr. House "precon" video, I probably would've sat on the Caesar precon and been sad about it for a lot longer. But it is now one of the most fun decks I've played since getting into Magic less than a year ago. So thank you for that. It got me to break away from feeling like cohesive flavor/theme was necessary, and just make something for the sake of goofy bullshit fun.
That’s so great to hear!
I used to have a Urza, Academy Headmaster deck (with him as the Commander) from Unstable, it was a fun time as random was the game. The one card I now advocate for to be commander legal is Krark's Other Thumb as there are plenty of dice rolling cards in the format currently and it wouldn't be that concerning to have another card to join in the pot.
YES! I NEED A DECK WITH BOTH THUMBS, PLEASE!
@@jemm113 Double thumbs or nothing!
I've let Goblin bookie and Earl of squirrel get played. They're fun even though they technically cause "rules problems." I'm against anything that requires me to do stuff, Like Enter the Dungeon. Also against cards that are overpowered/cause headaches like necro-impotence or Rules Lawyer.
@@morenfin Earl should have been made black-border tbh. I’m not wholly against black border in silver border sets (technically we got a black border reprint with the goblin from future sight lol) but they need to be rare and sparing. Like a commander that’s fun but otherwise operates within normal rules or something like krark’s other thumb that could synergize with real mechanics like dice rolling. Perhaps those mechanics were too far down the pipeline and the D&D set too far on the horizon to get ahead of, but since it was literally Krark’s other thumb it should have been made black border or at least erratad as such when the d&d set came out!
99% of old dice rolling cards should be legal if we're being honest, and whenever I get to building my Mr. House deck I'm gonna play most of them
Felt this was coming 😂 I had an image in my head of the Professor hearing about the ban and just shouting out in celebration 🎉
Way to save Unsets: Universes Beyond - Discworld
You. Keep talking
HIRE THIS PERSON IMMEDIATELY
Gimme gimme gimme
Yes please!
Unseen
12:58 in 2017/2018 the silver border cards were legal in EDH for 2 months, could have just announced something like that.
Silver border cards are legal on April fools day every year
@@calebbarnhouse496I love this.
True
No, you can't do that. The rules of the game do not support silver border, that's WHY THEY ARE SILVER BORDER.
That was notably the CRC not WotC that did that.
But laurelkeeper is correct: there are some silver-border/acorn cards that do not fit in the rules and cannot be made legal beyond a limited time promotion like that.
I'm so far disconnected from MtG play that I legitimately didn't know Unfinity wasn't silver border. It seems so obvious to me that it should have been from the start.
The majority of cards in the set were not legal. The cards that were allowed in competitive play didn't typically do anything crazy like have you wear a hat or count fire extinguishers. Surprised stickers and attractions made it through, though I honestly feel like the community overreacted about them.
The funny thing is that it WAS silver border from the start, but they made the decision to denote some as black border at the last minute. There are a bunch of errors with cards being printed the wrong way, too, so you have to look online to know for sure what's even legal.
@@eewweeppkk It does seem like people have a tendency to have very strong feelings about MTG cards that may not be all that rational. I feel similarly about that Izzet companion otter that got pre-release banned in EDH. I understand it was a unique capability for decks that include red and blue, but was it really that good though? I mean the EDH ban list has historically been very loose and there is some absolutely busted stuff that never has been banned. In my opinion the amount of criticism that card got was vastly out of proportion to how much it would have actually impacted the game.
@@wombatgirl997 Otter got banned because its an factual auto include in any URx.
@@FearOgre Who cares? Is it really that strong? Would it break the game? EDH was built around doing weird janky stuff. People talk about "auto-includes" all the time.
The legacy legal argument never made any sense. Like prof said, they control the formats, they control what is allowed, they have reference Commander specific elements on cards. Day zero they could have banned sticker/attraction mechanics just like they banned ante cards and now have done.
Kind of like "team" cards in battlebond, yea? Not in any way relevant to most formats, but an utter blast in 2-headed giant.
This is a piece of misinformation I hear a lot, so here's Mark Rosewater's response to the question.
A body outside of Wizards, the Commander Rules Committee, determines set legality for the format. If we made a set not legal in eternal formats, the cards wouldn’t be legal in Commander.
Yes, we could technically make it legal in eternal formats and then ban all the cards in Legacy, but we don’t like to use the ban list in that way.
@@laurelkeeperThis is why I propose a holo stamp (like the acorn) that means a card is only legal in 3+ player formats and limited.
WotC is not controlling the legality of what cards get banned or are legal In Commander (the CRC can still ban any card they want to), but they have an avenue to print a card that could be legal in Commander that cannot impact 1v1 eternal formats.
@@laurelkeeper Are they now all banned in Commander due to being banned in Legacy and Vintage? If yes, then that argument holds weight. If not, then WOTC is kinda making it up.
They can just talk to the Commander community and go "Hey, wanna do this?" and if no, then don't bother. If anything, that saves them money on designing, palytesting, and printing these cards.
@@laurelkeeperthat is an absolutely false statement from Mark Rosewater.
*Historically* the commander list of legal cards was "everything legal in vintage with XYZ extra bans on top" but that banlist setup was ditched in 2020. (Specifically, when Vintage banned Lurrus but Commander chose not to)
Unfinity being released in 2022 means commander had already been working with a completely seperate banlist from vintage for over two years at that point - they absolutely had the mechanisms in place to just ban the cards in vintage and legacy out the gate.
7:22
That's long term thinking. That doesn't work for large corporations who need to show share holders massive growth every single quarter. Business needs to achieve the impossible, massive financial growth infinitely. Businesses at their size can't consider customers until after they've considered shareholders, which means customers get the short end of the stick
Loved to see the Discord mention, as I've been playing a hybrid voltron/toolbox deck using Nightmare Moon from the original MLP silver border cards with my pod for a while now. Some of these silver border cards are genuinely engaging to play with with and againat and fit into the EDH gameflow very naturally, and I'd love to see more of these cards become a regular sight in the format.
Yeah, as I noted in your other video about the stickers, there’s already a precedent of making “legalized” versions of Un-set cards (like The Cheese Stands Alone -> Barren Glory), which let the freedom of design in those sets contribute to legal play without the Un-sets’ tone conflicting with everything else. Unfinity completely threw that out the window, plus the issues with being forced to play with it as mentioned. Plus the stickers are a pain in the butt to deal with.
Hope you see this Prof, thanks for making those lower view deck guide videos. I love them and really appreciate their existence, they're some of your most evergreen content. I'd love to see you revisit some of your early deckbuilding guides like building mana bases for different numbers of colors.
I love the stickers in extremely specific formats. Mostly I use it in my old “Type 4” deck. It allowed me to make really unique cards to speed up the game easily and without significant modifications.
I used them to make a card that can’t be countered, or removed in anyway. It deals 1 damage to everyone each round. It basically adds a ticking clock to the game.
A TCC Build Your Own Precon that includes silver-border/un-cards cards, pun named cards, and goofy art would be a light-hearted and fun idea and video that I personally would really enjoy!
I think there was one years ago but it may have been more of a joke video
That would be an incredible April Fools video
A friend of mine runs a rule-0 Discord, Lord of Disharmony deck, and it always gets laughs and excitement. He bought a little receipt-paper heat printer that bluetooths to his phone, so he can print out the card he pulls up through a scryfall random. It's always really fun to play against.
I've always loved the Un-sets, and one of the things that made me sad about sets before Unfinity is that, at least in the circles I inhabited, silver border cards were seen as "not real Magic cards" and thus rejected even for casual play. The lack of middle ground was frustrating - I wanted to play with these cards! - and making Unfinity partially legal for competitive play felt like it might be the solution to that.
Maybe the *right* solution was just to find a new play group :(
in my experience, often players would still soft-ban unfinity mechanics in playgroups (i haven't had a chance to play with Stickers in my Emiel deck) , so it didn't even really help much with that anyway. ;.;
@@curtin1107I would never play with or against anyone playing with stickers. Enjoy the win, I quit, and I'm going home.
I like that not only views/money drives you, I love that you make videos that do add to the collective value of the subject matter as you say. Thank you professor! ❤
I would love to see an episode of Shuffle Up & Play where you play commander using a lot of cards from the Un-sets
Conspiracy and Battlebond were so fun, it breaks my heart we will never get it again
well, thanks for keeping up with these videos
I have a wubrg die rolling commander deck with garth that has an attraction focus and my playgroup and I love it. We HATE stickers and banned them in our play group. They are way to absurd and obnoxious. I agree with all if it being banned in sixty card formats however.
You are so right! I’ve never watched an episode of shuffle up and play but haven’t missed another video you’ve made. Keep making the “other” stuff!
I only got into Magic a year ago, but the way you lovingly describe the old Un-sets makes me wish I could have experienced that. 🥺
You still can :) There are online vendors that sell the booster boxes online. You can buy the specific singles you want. And if you aren't turned off by it you can proxy the cards at home.
I grew up super poor and I drew my own MTG cards so I could play with my brothers :)
Get some friends together, print off some proxies, and have a draft. Prof is 100% correct that Unstable was incredibly fun. I never drafter Unglued, because I was too young and poor to actually spend money on cards at the time, but Unhinged was great as well.
Thanks for the advice!
Unstable is “only” $150 a box currently. Conspiracy is pretty cheap too. Both a lot of fun to draft with friends!
I played Unstable with my playgroup and it was an absolute blast!! It was one of the first times we had all drafted together and it opened our eyes to how deep and fun and weird that magic as capable of being! And with that, I’m going to build a cube for my playgroup, and I’m definitely putting in a couple cards from the silver bordered world that fit the draft themes as a little surprise for them. I have a relationship with them such that I know for a fact that they would love that small addition.
Heya Prof! also happy to see stickers being gone for now
also since I'm here early, I saw your double booster box opening earlier in the week and I hope you aren't feeling too burnt out! 1M subs is almost on the horizon and as someone whose been here since around 50k I'm happy to say that nobody out there is more deserving to spearhead the mtg content creator community than yourself. Treat yourself well and I hope to see many more videos in the future from you!
The original ban list for that Un-Set was ridiculous, it didn't have "cut target card into pieces" type cards on it, but also banned totally reasonable stuff, and importantly didn't re-legalise unproblematic cards from old un-sets.
I love the theme of the set, I got commander decks with space family goblinson or captain rex nebula. But the thing that kills the un-finity set is the stickers and atracctions been legal in competetive formats.
I wish they just reprinted on demand long time staple booster boxes like unstable, and the definitive booster boxes. Just let those sets never retire. It would be so nice for new fans to experience the best experiences of the past.
I love your content, and really appreciate your voice in magic discourse. Thank you for all you do for every part of this community.
Silver border shuffle up and play would be amazing
12:05 The only thing to add here- cards that say "This card can be your commander" are still legal in Legacy and Vintage. It's not a rules text that indicates only EDH legality!
Build It Came From Planet Glurg. The deck self adjusts to table power level in low medium to high medium power games pretty well.
I loved Unstable so much I made a cube of it and I try to add in random one offs of other Un cards into the draft for fun.
I adore Unfinity and other Unsets, but I really, really think that stickers being Legacy legal was a massive misstep. It inherently makes the game less accessible, since Unfinity was only printed in English. Cards like Saw in Half, Magar of the Magic Strings, or Comet, Stellar Pup are easily reprintable, but stickers are hard to reprint in other languages. Honestly, if "Mind" Goblin wasn't printed, we really wouldn't have this issue imo, but since it's the poster child of stickers, it's a huge stain on how people will see stickers in Commander for sure. I think that the blanket ban of stickers and attractions was a good decision, but the reputation that they've gotten will probably make decks utilizing them elicit a few groans from the Commander table.
My Playgroup banned stickers and attractions in our circle as soon as they came out. We kind of saw this all coming.
They’re still legal in commander. Just banned in every other competitive format. Honestly I don’t mind attractions, but stickers are dumb.
I’m so lucky I got to experience a few of these drafts, such a fun time. Crazy to think that’s when wizards was making better decisions and my LgS was always packed. Neither true today
not silver border but Solaflora, intergalactic icon from unfinity is a very fun build around.
Mr House Attraction or Dice Roller deck seems really fun, I hope you make the list. Theres lots of neat D6 cards, and the Fallout Bobbleheads could make for a silly (but fun!) alternate win con. Cards within the D&D set mostly use D20s but theres a few cards that give functionally the Advantage mechanic from D&D letting you roll twice, or reward you when any die (d6 or d20) is rolled.
I always felt the Attraction mechanic should have been the black border (or non acorn, blech) mechanic as it doesnt seem too outrageous vs Dungeon Initiative etc
Un sets are my favorite sets. I loved Unfinity. The galaxy foils are beautiful, especially the lands. It brought us the galaxy's bestest boy, Comet.
It all should've been silver bordered though. Maybe a bonus sheet for cards that work mechanically with black bordered sets, but stickers never should've been legal outside silver border. I really hope we get more Um sets in the future , they're so much fun.
(8:48) I love Baron Von Count and made a Commander deck with him. Even got a few wins by ticking down his doom counter to the opponent's demise, including one where I was at 8 poison counters and sure to die to poison on the next turn, but I cast just enough spells with the right numbers to "destroy target player" with Baron Von Count and take the victory!
Also, there was one night fairly recently where a player brought a Squirrel deck that included a few Un-set Squirrels, and I was totally fine with that. It ended up being quite the hilarious match with tons of Squirrel tokens being added to the battlefield under everyone's control.
And yeah, I totally agree that stickers and attractions should never have been eternal legal in the first place. Furthermore, they should've kept the iconic silver border for the non-legal cards too.
There are some Unset cards that can be standard legal now, such as box of goblins
Yeah, I'm doing a Party Box style shared deck and finding I'm using A Lot of the silver border goblin cards, which don't actually feel that crazy in modern magic design
it's like Jim Sterling has been saying for years-companies don't just want SOME of the money, they want ALL of the money and Hasbro like many gaming companies wants to have more "growth" each year despite how unsustainable it is.
My friend runs a MLP deck we let them run silver border cards, we have a had a lot of fun with them resolving Discord.
im not playing that shit
@@Mr_Boss_Smile cringe
@@MurrmorMeerkat yeah bronies are cringe
As for the “value” videos, here is a channel viewer that does not watch any shuffle up and play but always here for the explanatory, news and update videos, like this one! Thanks for keeping them up!!
I actually like attractions, but stickers, I’m happy they will never be back because I do not want to have to tediously put stickers on my cards, I don’t need an urza with infect 😂
And if you did, you could just play the mind control aura that gives infect
Lore wise, wouldn't urza with infect just be yawgmoth?
@@theautisticguitarist7560 more like mishra
@@theautisticguitarist7560 facts
I’m in process making my partner her first custom commander deck with attractions, just waiting for the rest of the cards to arrive. Super stoked to see it in action. Stickers I can see getting annoying but I don’t really see why attractions are getting lumped in with this hate.
Thank you for making this video ❤️. We are still stuck with this stuff in cEDH and every time I see that damn Goblin and remember I didn't bring stickers I want to scream. The design is so painfully shortsighted.
I don’t play, but I want to own Entirely Normal Armchair in bulk
I liked stickers and attractions. Especially in undrafts and un-commander. Them being black border is weird, but they should have been commander only if anything.
I really enjoyed playing with Attractions in Legacy. It was a lot of fun and was not hard to keep track of with the extra deck and Saga like timing. I do not see any reason for the Attraction banning. People are just mad/unhappy that new stuff was added. Dont really understand the hate for it. I also did not have any problem with Stickers but I can kinda understand as they are different online/paper.
7:20 there is SO much value in these videos! Thank you for having this kind of mindset instead of the one WOTC has
Monkey's Paw moment for me
i actually wished *some* silver bordered cards were eternal legal and applauded when they announced that some cards from Unfinity would be legal
little did i know that it would be one of the most annoying and poorly designed mechanics that would make the jump to black border....
and now thanks to that, we may not see another un-set ever again
I dunno, i only see a good outcome here.
The only issue is that unfinity had to be printed at all in the first place.
In regards to Un-Commander, Please consider 5-color Dr. Julius Jumblemorph. Squirrel-pony is an easy wincon and five color (rule0) gives you options.
on the issue of tracking game pieces and complexity, I think It comes down to us when brewing to really ask ourselves if its worth it to add a card that bring in an extra game piece only because said card is good. I'd rather have another goblin or a synergy piece in my goblin deck before adding ___Goblin just because I don't think carrying around the sticker sheets is worth it. Same thing with day and night, innitiative, etc. I will absolutely add those mechanics if thats the whole theme of the deck, as in, a dungeon deck, or say Vadrick and day and night (this one is a bit extra because he's an astronomer, day and night also hits as extra flavour.) But I've been refraining more and more to add those cards willy nilly, just for my own sanity.
That was the logic behind it but the reality shows that nerds Will be carring around any sort of nonsense if it means they get the ever SO slightly higher chance of winning.
Watching this video reminded me of a comment that MaRo made in an interview on GLHF: Talking about the design of a specific mechanic he liked that was largely ignored by the player base, the lesson he learned was that players needed to “trip over the fun”, basically be forced into engaging with product and mechanics. Hadn’t connected that comment to Unfinity’s sudden format legality, but this essay suddenly makes that comment very prescient of the design mentality at WotC.
So glad nobody at my store touched or talked about these. How did we go from cards like Urza Headmaster to balloon tokens and stickers?
I’ve always love Unsets, getting a sneak peak into what RnD is working on and the zany antics in the cards was always fun.
I loved battlebond especially for commander, the co-operative cards are fun politicing.
Due to this whole debacle, I’m actually less ok with stickers and attractions in commander than if they were silver bordered to be honest
Yeah, it’s them trying to basically force their legality in a format they’re not supposed to have any control over that I personally don’t like.
That, and I really do dislike the silliness factor.
then don't play them problem solved!
"There is no way to make cards legal in Commander but not Legacy."
Yes there is. There always has been. A silver border card is legal in *casual formats.* Commander is a *casual format.* Quod erat demonstrandum. Or has that detail been forgotten by both Wizards and the community at large, that Commander was a format about using your bulk and embracing weird ideas rather than having to keep up with every new release to ensure your deck is optimized and efficient?
I really enjoy Unfinity, and I love my Attractions Commander decks. Banning in competitive doesn’t matter to me. But as someone who works in theme parks it was so fun to get a set based around all the nonsense in my life.
The main issue was the edh rules committee did not make silver border cards legal when they should have. I think if they honestly legalized silver bordered cards And then banned the problematic ones EDH would be in a better place.
EDH rules are just suggestions. Nobody's stopping your table from playing silver bordered cards if your playgroup wants to. You don't need an official rule from the rules committee to say those are legal.
Large swaths of EDH playgroups already have house rules on cards they want or don't want to play with.
@@BananaBanditos That's not what i'm saying. Most random groups go by the ban & legality list. Sure, if you have a usual group you can easily play silver border. But I think the casual format should have full access to the casual cards, which would also have an effect on cEDH. I love cEDH but I honestly think it needs a big injection of not taking itself so seriously. The silver border cards just being legal would have a huge effect all around.
Me too, prof!
12:05 or more specifically 12:35 "This card is legal in commander" may not allow for its later banning due to CR 101.1, so that's a whole new potential can of worms. A new keyword related to deckbuilding (only include in the deck if you have a commander, a mashup of Lieutenant and Partner in a way) might have worked.
Prof, I'm glad to hear you love silver border as much as I do... any chance of a silver border episode of shuffle up and play?
I was leaning towards being in favor of silver border, but Maro actions and behvior made me despise them as a whole.
It is such an unfortunate thing how the stigma over silver border cards is not only gonna remain prominent, but was the main primary reason why WotC experimented with getting rid of them to begin them. They were intended for casual fans, but at the same time, said casual fans were the ones who wanted the least of it because "it is just a joke". The desire from casuals trying to follow banlists and competitive mindset specifically designed for tournament players is the bane of each and every card game in the social media era, and why playing these games prior their boom was a much bigger, better experience: WE, players created the experience we wanted with friends, and we had fun in our own way. It was more of a tool to design, to create. Nowadays? People just buy a Commander Precon and never do anything with it.
Data Point of One: I was a player who ignored silver sets but picked up Unfinity because it looked better, had more interesting themes, and was fun while also teaching core mechanics of MtG to new players. I still don't think stickers or attractions shouldve ever been legal outside of Un
12:08 No, there's not. Card legality is determined by printing, not by mechanic. "This card can be your commander" is not a legality change, it is a mechanical change which Wizards has control over. They do NOT have control over Commander legality. It's their game, but not their format.
I like attractions, i just freaking hate stickers
Same. I just built a commander deck recently with Myra the magnificent in the 99 so now I’m sad. I haven’t even got a chance to try her out yet
Having a second deck Yu-Gi-Oh style was really fun
@@amethystrose3480 She's not banned in commander though so I don't think you have to worry about that and I doubt that the stickers and attractions will be banned in commander.
@@Nidrog still legal in commander? Nvm then. I got scared for a second there
@@amethystrose3480 Yeah I can see why. Now if the RC decides to ban it then you can get scared but thats still some time before they do their next quarterly thing.
as someone who for several years ran a contraptions deck as part of my Yorion blink shenangans (you get to blink all your contraptions and assemble them onto the next sproket so they all triggere every turn) Silver border can be a real blast except for the complexity issues of a second deck
Basic Mountain did us a favor.
Unstable is my absolute favorite draft experience ever. The spread of mechanics across the colors was executed beautifully, and pretty much anything you draft works. I made an Unstable Wizards Tower (great format invented by Wizards in Theros) and it keeps some of that fun.
Excited to watch, really wish they would reprint unstable and make some of its mechanics black border. The combi creatures were amazing! Glad the stickers were banned though, super annoying to use, kinda fun to play with/against but overall negatively impacted the experience in my oppinion
I really just need krark’s other thumb in black border so I can do a coin and dice deck with the thumbless lad at the helm!
Glad to see Tolarian Winds becoming more frequent again! We’ve been treated to it a couple times now in the past couple weeks, I had honestly wondered if they were being discontinued before the last one came out
I’m lucky enough to never have encountered stickers in a real game and I’m glad i never will moving forward
Exactly!
still legal in commander
@@Radicalbeastcommander might as well be a completely different game
@@Radicalbeastgood thing my entire playgroup hates stickers
0:11 no one talking about how flush with the corner that booster box was?! ✨
WotC could have also just did a subset of Unfinity like they've been doing with these newer sets, that are only legal in Commander... "Commander: Unfinity" "Commander: Wilds of Eldraine" "Commander: Outlaws of Thunder Junction" I don't know why they couldn't just do that and make just those cards black border while the rest are silver border like a more traditional unset card that's not meant to be played with any other format other than itself and other unsets.
? the cards printed in commander decks/sets are legal in eternal formats by default, that's the whole problem.
@@andrewwang7699 I don't think you understood what I said. I said the un-set should have been silver-bordered by default, EXCEPT for the commander-specific cards part of the commander subset of the un-set. That way the commander cards are legal by default while the main set isn't.
@@legobumb I mean, is that not what WOTC did (replacing silver border with acorn)?
Like, the "not-silver-border/acorn" cards are the UNF cards that were deemed to be acceptable for eternal (ie: commander) play. (i think there's a Rosewater quote about them trying to to make any non-acorn cards of legacy/vintage power level).
It feels like your disagreement is with what cards WOTC decided were cards were "commander-acceptable"?
-Company makes a good product.
-People buy it because it's good.
-Company makes a follow-up optimized for profit at the expense of quality.
-People don't buy it because it's bad.
-Company cancels the product line.
Sigh
Infinite profit growth!!!! -Hasbro 🥲
I agree that stickers are a bit odd and I don't enjoy, but attractions are quite fun in commander. I run an attraction deck with my pals and it's a lot of fun and chaos.
Limited Infinity... Man, I haven't heard that in a long, long time. I remember playing that back in high school on break with the seniors who had the deck for it.
Our economic system is completely broken. So tired of this zero sum infinite growth shit
It's not the economic system capitalism is fine. It's the companies themselves they don't have to push for more growth every year
@@goreobsessed2308 this is a normal function of capitalism. The only way to prevent this from happening is to put more guardrails up switch to a different economic system.
Isn’t it practically illegal to do anything else because of shareholder value?
This is why the guard rails have to be put up by the fed, not by the companies themselves. Businesses have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders due to a really shitty supreme court ruling.
@@BlitzkriegOmega agreed
I actually played with Discord as my commander yesterday and it was a really fun and goofy time! Not something to do everytime but to bring out every once in a while.
Can we have a serious discussion about the idea of making your own cards and sets, because WOTC has been shitting the bed?
What you're suggesting is essentially the delegitimization of authority and anarchist revolution against it.
I'm all for it, but I might have a few recommendations of other places to apply this concept.
Player at my LGS love it when I both play uncards and/ or play my Cedh attractions deck. We even force people to be fine with proxy as long as they can be read. its a game for fun
The only issue is that Stickers should have been Un-legal.
Make Attractions as the Black Boarder mechanic, not the Stickers.
stickers already poisoned the perception of people (with good reason) of Un-sets
so Attractions are paying for sticker's crimes
Attractions were also super annoying for Legacy apparently
Any mechanic that requires you to bring a side deck of stickers/attractions/cards even if you don't play the cards that use them is dumb. Let's say someone creates a token copy of Spinnerette, Arachnobat under my control. I have no attraction deck with me (why would i, my deck isnt built around it). Now the ETB of it doesnt work for me. Same goes for ___ Goblin.
@@SimonS188 actually there was a rule in the MTR that if you were asked to place a sticker on a permanent, you’d go click the link and get 3 sticker sheets.
Stickers are much more in line with Dungeons then Attractions, and when we got Dungeons with AFR, it was a matter of “when” we got something like Contraptions in Black Boarder.
There are valid complaints about not liking or wanting attractions or stickers in the game, but needing to have the sheets is not one of them.
@@ZakanaHachihaCBC it kinda does make stickers worse, because stickers travel between public zones, so even if you generate the stickers on a site, you need to keep track of the sticker when the goblin dies, but not when its bounced, you need to put a different sticker if it comes back into play again and now keep track of that different sticker
Attractions were a tad more streamlined, still had their drawbacks like copying one breaking the game if you don't have an Attraction deck yourself
7:04 I appreciate this so much, thank you!
Will I miss stickers? Not really. But it feels off taking out 2 whole mechanics old yeller style for the sins of one goblin
I think having black border cards in unfinity would have been totally fine if it was handled better. If they would have kept the silver border for non-legal cards instead of the acorn as well as keeping stickers/attractions out of legacy to begin with I don't think anyone would have had a problem. Everyone wins.
Many Magic the Gathering players agree
Attractions are a ton of fun in draft, but even in draft, stickers weren’t my favorite. I feel the same about “rip this card into pieces” cards.
Things like "rip this card up" and "Open a booster" I think are fine personally, as long as you're not expecting people to use them. They're funny jokes to make, and they're nice options to have for people who really do want to use them, and the expectation can just be that most people will read them, have a laugh, and then not put them in a deck.
When every set is a just meme-y joke set these days (e.g., cowboys, murder mysteries), the Un-sets don’t have much of a place anyways. RIP
My thoughts exactly. There weren't even that many actual attempted jokes in unfinity, more just references.
I Have my own Mr. House deck and I like to use some of the Un Dice rolling cards in it. Nothing silly, just stuff like Goblin Bookie and Inhumaniac. I always ask if people are okay with it and have not had any complaints yet. It would be awesome to see a commander legal stamp on some of these.