As Luck Would Have It is comparable to an actual magic card, though: Helix Pinnacle, the main difference being Helix Pinnacle has Shroud instead of Hexproof, and you pay X mana instead of rolling dice. (an ultimately easier thing to do in Green) As for the Killbots, they actually *do* have different names, despite being the same in every other way. This is essentially a Llanowar Evles/Elvish Mystic/Fyndhorn Elves, but they're all vanilla. As for Contraptions, *Technically*, all Contraptions are Borderless, not Silver-Bordered/Acorn, and function within the rules (Especially as Steamflogger Boss, an eternal card refers to them) The only thing preventing them from being played is the lack of eternal-legal cards to do so. They are entirely workable, and function very similarly to Attractions from Unfinity. (going so far as to point out that Mark Rosewater even *admits* they work within the rules, a screenshot you yourself used in the video.)
@@harutakami1313 I tried to be conservative in terms of potentially Unfair cards, but I can see your point. I interpreted the Killbots as being the same card because they have the same card number, but it is an easy fix. Contraptions are a weird case. As you said, they do function rules wise, but I took the perspective of a hesitant Wizards employee. I could have explained my reasoning better in the video
I don't agree with Mana Screw sharing a category with Mad Science Fair Project; the inherently repeatable nature of the card seems like it's so inherently unfun and likely to lead to slow games that it can't ever really be done.
I disagree with the Killbot thing. While they are mechanically identical and share art, they are considered distinct cards by the rules, so they work fine as vanilla 2/1s for 2
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant Card number isn't actually a thing the rules care about in any way I'm aware of so it should be fine. Even if they are supposed to be considered the same card, the Secret Lair cards show that you can, in fact, have the same card with multiple names, so I'd class them as Untimely - black border can and does do the same thing in a different way which the killbots could theoretically be erratta'd to do.
@@PerfectlyGenericUser Skinned cards are considered the same card and officially have the original name, so I don't think they affect things, but good to know about card numbers and rules
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchantAre High Stride and Leaping Ambush considered the same card and your can only run a total of 4 of them. Staggering Size and Fanatical Strength are also functionally the same and they were even printed in the same block I don't know why WOTC of the coast does this
@malockssomexmastodon4615 well it wasn't an issue when they were just unique functional reprints, but also any alternative has the original card's name printed on it anyway.
I think Unfinity went in the opposite direction. It tried to power itself down to avoid complaints but that just meant the outliers stuck out like sore thumbs. If it was a powerful set people would enjoy it because they could play with the cards.
One thing you missed with cards with activated abilities that let you reroll a die or reflip a coin is the timing issue. You can't activate an ability in the middle of resolving one
@TrumanTheGrayMerchant technically speaking, if even a single card can pull it off in Black Boarder magic, no matter how silly, aslong as the card isnt banned for that same ability, then it should be ok
Another big issue Jack-in-the-Mox has as written is that its ability is a mana ability. This means that if you activate it while paying costs to cast a spell or activate and ability, and you roll a 1 and have to sacrifice it, you would be able to reverse the mana ability and simply try again until it works. (See rule 723, Handling Illegal Actions: "Each player may also reverse any legal mana abilities that player activated while making the illegal play, unless mana from those abilities or from any triggered mana abilities they caused to trigger was spent on another mana ability that wasn’t reversed.") So in reality, it's really more like a Mox for any color. Mad Science Fair Project and Mana Screw get around that by making it not be a mana ability (Mad Science Fair Project because it targets and Mana Screw because it explicitly has the Lion's Eye Diamond text). Even when played as intended, it'd still be an incredibly powerful card, but as written currently it'd be even more powerful. They could errata it to get the LED text if it was made legal, but I still thought it'd be interesting to point out the implications of that rules text. Another fun example of this kinda stuff is Chromatic Sphere, which draws a card as part of a mana ability and thus, technically speaking, you first draw the card but do not get to look at it, because the mana ability might get reversed. See the ruling: "This is a mana ability, which means it can be activated as part of the process of casting a spell or activating another ability. If that happens you get the mana right away, but you don’t get to look at the drawn card until you have finished casting that spell or activating that ability." Also, notably, The Ultimate Nightmare of WotC Customer Service actually got a real card that functions extremely closely. While Comet Storm reads oddly, the effects are basically the same. Note that the Y and Z from TUNOWOTCCS could be combined with the card reading "any target," and those got turned into the Multikicker on Comet Storm (though Comet Storm always gets one target more than TUNOWOTCCS since the Multikicker is only used for targets beyond the first).
Bloomburrow had Murmuration spoiled, which is clearly meant to be a reworked Crow Storm. Its functionally the same thing but instead of a card with storm its an enchantment which checks for how many spells youve cast at the end of each of your turns.
Since no such card has existed, I'm not certain about this, but wouldn't there be a problem with the fact that its cost includes both tapping and untapping the same permanent, since you pay all its costs at once, and you can't both tap and untap something?
@@RasmusVJS no, it's all as separate costs and paid in order, to give an in game example, use halo fountain. turn halo fountain into a creature, and now it can be used as part of the "untap creatures" cost in it's abilities because first you pay the mana, then tap it, then untap your creatures(which in this case includes halo fountain)
So, for Super Duper Deathray, while LITERALLY giving it trample doesn't work, there are spells that deal X damage, and any damage over the creature's toughness goes the the creature's controller. So I think it could be reworded to be Black Border legal
I don't play MTG, and I only collect based on how fun or cool a card looks or sounds. Which means whenever I find an Un- card in the 10 cent pile in the card shops I frequent, I snatch it up.
I think B-I-N-G-O is much higher than unworkable. It might require a keyword to offload complexity into the CR, and it would need the grid to also be included in its Oracle text. But I don't think it's much different from other cards where the CR and frame do a lot of heavy lifting - particularly dungeons, which also have a osrt of complex spatial relationship. It would be tough, but not a total non-starter.
Goblin Bookie in specific is a problem for dice rerolling, because it's an activated ability that needs to activate in the middle of some other spell or ability resolving (which black border rules don't allow, except for paying mana costs using mana abilities). All black border dice rerolls are done as replacement effects, and while some do require paying costs, the cost of tapping Goblin Bookie is especially awkward to translate away from an activated ability, since it cares about summoning sickness. Also, MaRo has gone on record to say Crow Storm was seen as too efficient to print in black border, so "unfair" is definitely the right call (possible mis-evaluation and/or powercreep aside).
8:57 im pretty sure something that almost already exists. I can't remember the name of the commander but there's a legendary creature that gifts your opponents creatures, goads them as long as they control it, but doesn't let them attack you, the owner. Thats kinda what evil presents does
I think there's some merit to the idea of changing the effects slightly to work within the rules. Like how Earl of Squirrel's "squirrellink" could just be written out, I think you could tweak Acornelia to just work when you cast a Squirrel card rather than with a Squirrel in its art. This would open space for Squirrel Kindred cards, too. And if you'd want to go further, you could change "You get an acorn counter" to "put an acorn counter on Acornelia/a permanent you control", and "pay X acorn counters" with "remove X acorn counters from among permanents you control", since Chittersplitter uses those counters too. This would allow the card to work functionally the same but within the rules of black border we can easily observe.
I think people would be disappointed with how much of a nerf that would be. There are dozens of cards with squirrels in their art that aren't creature type squirrel.
For stuff like randomness, interactions with the internet, and the 5-sided card, I think you've forgotten that Alchemy is a thing that currently exists. You could easily put Urza, Academy Headmaster or the one that creates a token of any random card as an Alchemy-only card, and the arena interface easily allows for a 5-sided card (I believe there are Alchemy cards that play like this, but I don't play Alchemy)
That's a good point that I did consider but ultimately decided was outside the bounds of the video. I feel as though when people ask for cards to be made black border, that's not what they mean. I could have mentioned that in the video, though
Rules Lawyer does actually break something- something that earned an Unfinity card an acorn sticker. Clare D'Loon turns all your tokens into cards that are still tokens; Rules Lawyer removes the rule that makes that necessary. (704.5d: If a token is in a zone other than the battlefield, it ceases to exist.) As a side note, some of the things that Rules Lawyer does are existing effects: namely, all the ones that cause a player to lose the game and the "legend rule".
I really do like The Countdown is at One. The subgame is meaningfully different than a regular game, a red deck playing it is likely to have the advantage, and the reward is strong, on theme for the kind of deck that confidently wins the subgame, but not unbeatable. If only it also had "You may not mulligan more than once during the subgame" or something to keep "mulligan to 2, mountain, shock, GG" off the table. It's also really expensive for an aggro card, but it isn't really supposed to be playable. I can imagine it would turn Commander into a mad scramble, what with everyone but the winner taking the penalty and the sheer chaos of 4 people at 1 health with no board.
1. I think wordy and similar cards are unworkable. Unfinity put acorns on similar cards. 2. I think B-I-N-G-O is fine. It's like mutate where you make it very messy under the hood but the actual rules text is simple. 3. Someone already mentioned it but whether or not something can reroll a die depends on templating. Wall of Fortune can, Goblin Bookie can't. 4. Socket Sproketer I think works because Unfinity has Vedalken Squirrel-Whacker that does something similar. Understandable for me. 5. I think you just make the killbots normal vanilla creatures. 6. As much as I love Discord, Unfinity acorned Killer Cosplay and Gallery of Legends under the pretense of being too much of an ask of players. I think Discord has the same issue. 7. I think Grusilda is untimely, not unworkable. You just combine the power and toughness like the card says. A few specific rulings and you're good. You did convince me on Seraph tho. 8. Earl of Squirrel I think is at minimum understandable, if not unambiguous. 9. Unfinity did actually have exactly this with Vedalken Squirrel-Whacker. Unambiguous. 10. Organ Harvest should be in unfair. 11. Doubles showed up with Celebr-8000 in Unfinity. Unambiguous. 12. Hangman has the same ability type as many acorned Unfinity cards. Unworkable. 13. I think Incoming! is unfair personally. 14. Jalum Grifter isn't random, it's a dexterity card. Unworkable. 15. Look at Me has a counterpart in Truss, Chief Engineer, an acorn card from Unfinity. 16. I think Mary O'Kill only does things other magic cards already do. Understandable. 17. Mine Mine Mine isn't overpowered but the play pattern is terrible. Just look at the game knights episode this is played in. Unfair. 18. Again you can't reroll as an activated ability. Plus the intent is clearly to reroll its own tokens which makes no sense. Unworkable. 19. Twilight Sparkle can work with name changing effects. Unambiguous (but mostly pointless). 20. I put rainbow dash in understandable. The game could easily track coolness without really changing the text. 21. Richard Garfield doesn't work for the same reason Killer Cosplay doesn't. Do I think Killer Cosplay should be legal? That's another story. 22. Water Gun Balloon Game should have the same ruling as Sword Of Dungeons & Dragons as they have the same exact problem: new colors. I personally think they should just errata them to be colorless and all colors respectively.
Thanks so much for your perspective! 1/12. Good point. I was torn because some word stuff did make it into non-acorn, but I probably should have split up those cards based on what specifically they did. 2. I was trying not to be too ambitious, but I could definitely see that. 3/18. Betrayed by my lack of understanding of dice rolling. 4/9. I must have misread Vedalken Squirrel-Whacker as Acorn lol. 5. I took the same card number as being considered the same card, but I could see them just being vanilla creatures considered separately. 6. I could see them experimenting with online functionality on physical cards one day, maybe. Probably not a good idea, but slightly more plausible than art matters and stuff. It and Urza should have gone in the red section of Untimely instead. 7. Good point. 8. You're right. 10. I could see that. 11. Good catch! 13. I think it's debatable, but I can definitely see your perspective. 14. The current Oracle text of Jalom Grifter merely says to "Shuffle" the cards. I think whether you're supposed to track the cards or guess randomly is kind of muddled now. If it's the latter, I wouldn't consider it a dexterity card. 15. Good catch! 16. What cards do a switch while retaining the statues, counters, and attachments? 17. Interesting, I'll have to check that out. 19. I still think it'd be weird to have a legal card reference non-legal cards, but that is something I hadn't considered. 20. That's fair. Some new but simple concepts were borderline for me. 21. That's true, I'd push it back to the internet cards. 22. My concern is that the rules text refers to the art, so it would take a radical rewriting to make black border.
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant 16. So I should more say "A card that changes each of these can be a card." Specifically Ozolith, ninjutsu, Flickerform, etc. Untimely might be better. 22. Yeah but it actually doesn't! The unfinity reprint has different art and the rulings changed to fit. It's just to represent something. You could probably fix this with a frame treatment like bingo. Still I see it.
@@MakeVarahHappen 16. Good point. I also recently learned that a similar mechanic was considered for a Ravnica set, so maybe it's not as radical as I thought. 22. True!
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant19 small point, there is precedent of black border cards referencing cards not legal at the time, specifically cards that weren't printed yet, like the dragonfire in dragons of tarkir being referenced in fate reforged for example, or god-pharaoh's gift being referenced in amonkhet. It would lead to some stramge rules interactions if new black border versions of the ponies were then printed to go along with twilight being black border, but that would only be in silver border games so not that much of a concern considering what already happens in those
Rules Lawyer is actually fairly playable. Most state based effects/actions already have cards that effect/ignore them (ex: See Platinum Angel and Skullbriar). I believe the only two listed that doesn't have a card giving an exception is the planeswalkers with 0 loyalty and permanents falling off illegal targets. It's a fun card, but might be over powered for the cost is all.
I feel that Rules Lawyer wouldn’t work at all due to 704.5d If a token is in a zone other than the battlefield, it ceases to exist. In most cases, if a token found its way into your hand from this, it could (probably) be cast without a mana cost, but there are cases where the card couldn’t function on its own, such as with the Aetherborn from Aether Refinery and others.
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant that's more interesting question... first of all, Rules Lawyer does not apply here, card in hand is no longer a permanent, so it is affected by SBAs. If we ignore that tho... 706.2 When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object’s characteristics. The "copiable values" are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty). So theoretically I see no reason for it to be different than any real card...
We have blackboarder cards that care about textboxes, swapping textboxes even, so Do-it-yourself Seraph's ability to have text boxes seems untimely at worst, unambigious at best.
Lets go! I haven't really started the video yet but I'm so happy to see another upload from you. Crazy to me you don't have more subs, I hope that changes soon cause you make great vids.
Cards with weird reminder text but otherwise would work in the rules I don't think should be judged so harshly, as reminder text is not rules text. Reminder text can say whatever the designers want, it has no bearing on the card's mechanical function. At worst, a definition for that ability would need to be added to the CR or the card's oracle page.
i'm assuming given how first strike has a surprising amount of rules baggage behind it despite looking simple, last strike would also probably have issues
I'll fight to the death over this, "Pay 2 and Transform a transformer to transform this card" is completely incomparable to every other External element card you showed. Everything Grimlock does is completely game legal, and it even has a mana cost to use its ability. 4/4 for 4 mana that gives dinosaurs and artifacts +2/0. Pay 2 mana to convert it to an 8/8 trample. Compare that to "Open a new booster pack and add one to hand" or "Give someone at another game table one of your cards." If it wasn't for the fact that it was a promotional card for Transformers fans Grimlock would be completely reasonable Gishath support.
I think Princess Twilight Sparkle could be somewhere in the "workable" tier, since there is precedent for magic cards referencing cards that have A.) Names and B.) haven't been printed yet. The "everypony wins the game" part is definitely what makes it weird, but we do have a few cards that force draws so it could be reworded to work that way as well.
Cards can have cutesy wording, such as that purposely misspelled Secret Lair card text, or the Phyrexian language cards, so I don't think Everypony would be a barrier. But I dount they'd put an intentional draws the game effect in a modern black border card.
I think anything that cares about the names of cards or letters in cards could never be black border, because it would change how the cards function between different languages. Even if it said to check the English name for the cards, would you really want people to be checking that for every single card they ever play?
Rules lawyer breaks things like "losing the game for having 0 or less life", creatures dying, etc, however apart from a mess, it does not create situations that are unsolvable to the best of my knowledge.
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant Oh, that is a state based action, I can imagine tokens being put in someones hand might cause problems, them not having a mana cost and all.
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant Fortunately Rules Lawyer only stops SBAs from applying to permanents, so if you move a token to another zone and it ceases to be a permanent...
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant That would be annoying, but there's a separate rule (111.8) that says a token that has left the battlefield can never move to another zone afterward, and this isn't a state-based action. So you could be in an awkward position with a token in your hand or in your library, but it wouldn't really be able to do anything while it's there (I think even the wording of forecast and splice would prevent you from using the forecast or splice ability of a token in your hand, since tokens aren't cards.) It would be annoying that you could have unattached auras remaining on the battlefield and animated equipment remaining attached to creatures, including possibly themselves, but I think it would maybe still function.
I think that Nearby Planet from Unfinity definitely could have been a legal card, with a slight reworking of the name "Rangeling" it can be seen as a worse version of Planar Nexus. Edit: It would technically be a direct powercreep of Gateway Plaza but that card is unplayable regardless.
Id be curious how this would look with Alchemy cards. Some would work with some tweaking since Garth-One Eyes conjures a card in black bordered. Stickers work in all public zones so it's almost like cards with perpetual effects that last indefinitely.
I think Evil Presents could be tweaked slightly to be fully legal, it's almost just Goad Afaik everything Rules Lawyer does exists on other legal cards, but all at once for so cheap would put it in unfair (it might also break the pie but who really cares about that)
I disagree on crow storm, ironically it's an uncommon so it wouldn't be legal in pauper which is the only place it would be unfair. IMHO it belongs in unambiguous but understandable would also be realistic
I would say Super Duper Death Ray should be in untimely, as in the recent years we've gotten some number of cards that cares about "excess damage", which would work the same as a spell having Trample
Personally, I feel that General Surgeon Commander is so simple a concept even by having Augment that it should be allowed in Commander. Sythis and other Enchantresses alone are a great example. Even though I love it though, the idea of a Mutate enchantress style card that gets every mutate effect as it itself is non-human kinda terrifies me. Specifically Auspicious Starrix and Illuna. Hexproof enchantments might make it easy to make super good though. I can imagine a 15 mutate stack commander getting bit by Path or Swords. OOOF!
I think some of the "add to hand" cards could be heavily reworked into exiling the card and only a specific player beig able to play it from exile, kinda like the Ragavan effect
using krarks other thumb in my mr house dice rolling deck, rule 0-ing it. So far no one had any issue with it, but keeping something around to switch it just in case
just desserts deals functionally three damage. its a common burn spell but with a joke number, i see it as understandable. edit: just realized damage multipliers exist, this makes it much more difficult, your ruling makes sense now
I got to the point where you said "putting opponent's cards into your hand is unworkable" and was like, not really, Yugioh has a card that literally does this. It's never played competitively but it exists.
Spike is fine if you make it work: in an official game, "outside the game" means "in your side board" and cards in your side board need to be legal in the format you're playing. Edit: as a better version of Karn the Great Creator it may still be unfair but needs some testing
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant Apocalypse Chime, City in a Bottle and Golgothian Silex exist. If the first expansion a card was printed in is information known by the game, the fact that a card has been banned in the past (or is still banned) could be too. Scryfall provides a list of cards Spike can get if you use "is:spikey"
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant I assume that if Spike were to somehow be made legal, they'd just put every single card you can search for in the Comprehensive Rules - much like they did for the cards that cared about sets, City in a Bottle, Golgothian Syulex, and Apocalypse Chime. (On that note, World-Bottling Kit and some of the Heroes of the Realm cards could probably be legal... but require an excessively long rule in the CR.)
I would argue evil presents are unwieldy or unfair, not unworkable. It might be a bad card but could work. Goad already forces a creature to attack every turn. Beantown bullies gives the player the ability to "give opponents creature cards" and is just one of many examples of that mechanic.
i mean, they already made The Ultimate Nightmare of Wizards of the Coast® Customer Service in black border all the way back in 2010. in fact, they made it better by making the first target free while also making it an instant. talking about comet storm btw
(Hex) Cards with infinity are unwieldy instead of unworkable imo. Magic does have rules regarding infinite combos and such, which prevent actual infinity from being reached (you have to say how much time an infinite combo repeats, and if you can’t stop it the game is a draw if I am not mistaken). For example, mox Lotus could have “t: Add 1 to your mana pool. You may repeat this any number of times” and it would work within the rules (even if broken).
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant At first I was going to go in a similar fashion, giving it the ability to gain +1/+0 any number of times, but then I realised that would interact really unintentionally with a lot of stuff, so I will just admit I was wrong and only some abilities with infinite can be recreated while maintaining the card’s flavour and idea XD I think my mox lotus suggestion feels fine due to being a mana ability and not going into the stack
I play a commander deck with as luck would have it, and it’s fine. It can’t beat high power casual decks even when I get it out early. I don’t know if it would be good in a 60 card format though.
Who What When Where Why can work in black border, its effective a spree card, but you can only pick 1 mode (but prob can be just be as choose any number) it would be Who What When Where Why Instant + CARDNAME is all colors. Spree - Choose one or more additional costs WX: Target player gains X life. 3R: Destroy target artifact. 2U: Counter target creature spell. 3B: Destroy target land. 1G: Destroy target enchantment.
I can see the logic behind why they handled Unfinity the way they did, but I do think it's poor form to have eternal-legal cards in a set that's only in English. And on a broader level stickers and attractions should never have been legal.
i very much disagree with the ruling for "ach hans run", it appears in the list at 3:58 which is "cards that care about spoken words or sounds" however i would contend that "ach hans run" doesnt actually fit into this catagorization. while it does have a spoken component with its activation, the spoken words are exclusively the trigger, and not a series of words that breaks black border. it is mostly a flavourful way of making a declaration, it could very easily be reworded to "at the beginning of your upkeep you may name a creature card" cards that care about specific card names are in black border magic, for example pithing needle cares about naming specific cards. all that is to say that a specific vocal component is not integral to "ach hans run" from a design perspective, it exists as a fun form of flavour for an interaction that is entirely basic and otherwise unremarkable. declaring a card name is neither abstract nor obtuse and already exists within black border magic
Checks and Balances needs a clause that makes it stop working once there are only two players left, because if a multiplayer game has gone down to two players, it makes the game a horrible slog. Also, Frankie Peanuts would be a pain in tournament play even if it were only limited to in-game questions, because you can ask about hidden information like whether a particular card is in the other player's hand, which would require calling a judge. Infinity isn't really debated in the philosophy of mathematics. It isn't a number because it isn't specific enough to be a number, as some infinite values are larger than others. Infinity is a quality that some values can have. It's safe to assume that Infinity Elemental's power is countably infinite, the smallest kind of infinite value.
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant Thanks! I thought of one more. Jalum Grifter is actually another manual dexterity card in disguise. You don't shuffle the face-down cards; you play Three-Card Monte with them. The idea is that the opponent is trying to keep track of the right card visually as you move them around on the table.
Disagree with "Denied", the fact it doesn't say "nonland card" is a problem imo. Playing a mono black deck? Name swamp and enjoy your 1 mana counterspell. Rules Lawyer breaks A TON of stuff. Cheese would be unfair in something like commander especially. Cheese and teferi's protection in hand... tap out all mana, cast teferi's, cast cheese, instant win. Eh, i could see Ach! Hans Run being really unfair in commander especially. I personally don't know much about other formats but A sneak attack from library is extremely powerful especially in commander. Being able to basically tutor out and cheat into play things like the eldrazi with annihilator, blightsteel, progenitus, countless other high cost cards with extremely strong ETBs.. now yeah you can sneak attack these things but they are cards in your hand so it isn't as consistent
Gotta disagree with the killbots i have like 4 cards in my commander deck that cost 2b that targets a play to scry 2 draw 2 and burn 2 So 4 cards with the exact same cost text and stats but different names should be fine
My reasoning wasn't merely that they're identical, it's that they had the same card number, which I should have communicated in the video. It seems like the consensus is that that doesn't matter
I think sword of Dungeons & dragons should be unambiguous, I always saw the "gold Dragon" as being the whole name of the token, not, gold being the color and dragon being the name of the token. The card works perfectly fine imo, worst case scenario we make a colorless dragon I mean hell, we have an adult gold dragon, an ancient gold dragon, they gotta come from somewhere right? Plain old gold dragon.
I feel crow storm could go into unambigious, since its an UNCOMMON, and thus not legal in pauper anyway. I feel jack in the mox is fine since mox amber and mox chrome exist. super-duper death ray is probaly fine since theres a commander that can give instants and sorceries lifelink and deathtouch now. the cheese stands alone vs barren glory situation is comparable to simic ascendancy vs darksteel reactor. togglodyte is vaguely in the ballpark of the day/night cycle?
The Pauper examples were to demonstrate the power of this kind of card. For unfair, I took the perspective of a hesitant Wizards employee, but I could have communicated that more clearly. Chrome Mox is banned in Modern and Jack in the Mox is probably better than at least Mox amber. The rules for instants and sorceries are apparently different for different keywords
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant true but pauper is a very different fish to other formats. sojourner's companion is banned there because of affinity but basically sees play no where else. due to being from unglued, at a guess id say that makes jack in the mox not legal in modern anyway even if it was unsilver-bordered. such a card would be perfectly fine in commander however, same with the others. and commander seems to be the premier format now. I mean..... not really?
Honestly? They should just straight up add Contraptions. It’s a shame that the mechanic, which was hinted at in Future Sight, and HAS a black border card that mentions the mechanic, is completely unusable because the mechanic was turned into a silver border mechanic.
They revealed that they had no plans to make Contraptions and only did from fan demand, so it was probably silver border or nothing, but I get what you mean
@@pvzbronygodgaming8476 yeah, they chose an intentionally silly series of words thinking they would never have to define them. The original idea was "erect a monument" lol
notes: 1:you say cards that care about text boxes are unworkable i say excange of words is legal and bad and so is psyic paper for a non unfinty example 2: i dont see why contraptions couldnt work they feel mechincly simular to atractions in that some mechanic puts them in play and they give benfits when in play 3: wile murge is very simular to mutate it isnt exactly the same but i agree it probibly could be printed as is 4: i say no for the letters while they are simular to stickers i think wizards has realised that stickers are ather obsenly broken (sticker goblin) or terible to play with due to rules nobdy wants to even touch stickers in comander 5: abuity reminds me of chains of mephastophlies but funny confusing cards that are printed as jokes often stay un since yk confusing 6: multizone cards are imposible to work without weird rule changes probibly 7: nah outside the game is fine since wish effects have been legal in black border it just has the same problem as stickers where the rules are weird and nonsensical 8: awol works fine just have it say junkyard that may as well be the "absoltly removed from the game forever" zone lol 9: bfm works fine if its like meld but uh as is its a bit of a "how dose this work" 10: there is a blue sphinx (i think) that steals a phase but its worded "player chooses a phase to skip" so it would likely be worded simularly 11: killbots are fine they are all difrent instances of a vallina 2/1 and with difrent names so they are perfectly legal by black border rules 12: discord is broken since it dosent say it cant get any of the following: scheemes, un cards and other weird nonsense from mtg so it dosent work within the rules since you cant just cast scheemes outside of the mode they where intended for that and tracking it making copys of creatures is a nightmare. 13: do it yourself works fine (see mimicplasum) there are simular cards that work in black border but imp its way too strong because it copys all text boxes 14: rules loyer is broken if legal the amount of silly shiz you can do by ultimating planeswalkers and every instrcutable creature geting 100x betetr is suprising 15: staying power is beyond broken 16: it seems weird the rules cant handle spells with trample but can handle the unfinty minitor that makes spells creatures
1. That's true, they've played in that space some. 2. I agree that they work, I just thought they might be hesitant based on Attractions controversy. 4. I don't think that's universally true. Stickers are overhated IMO. 5. Fair 7. There's a big difference between selecting a single card and caring about an amorphous concept. 10. Interesting, good to know. 11. Yes, that seems to be the consensus. I was judging them based on having the same card number, but it seems like that isn't actually an issue. 12. Are schemes considered cards from a game standpoint? Good point about silver bordered cards, though. Copies of permanents become tokens, I don't think that'd be too much of a problem. 13. Mimeoplasm only get the abilities of one of the creatures, that's an important distinction. 16. Which card?
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant dont know about scheeme rules i dont play condpericy, 16 i mean Magar of the Magic Strings who animites them as face down 3/3s 11: i dont think the same number matters
Also: rules lawyer is entirely playable. Another player made two nonlegendary copies of it and played a boardwipe. His board survived and mine didn't. It doesn't work like "other permanents have indestructible" because once it leaves the battlefield the stuff still dies.
I just wish Unfinity had made half the archetypes proper legal so you could get a proper decklist, I'm super sad Legacy Attractions had to die for mind goblins sins, when it's too incomplete to be built in Pauper and the most popular attraction's commander, The Most Dangerous Gamer, only has a single "legal" Prize Winning Attraction which is sadly a once in blue moon deal. Hope they eventually re-work the nerve to make another Unset, if not just relegate the weirdo effects to Mystery Boosters/Con Event cards, we may never have another "Time Spiral" that just dumps semi-baked effects onto the unsuspecting standard players again, but I still hope we have goofy joke cards that can have the chance to break up the SIGMA SRS HIGH COST legacy formats with a pile of high variance non-sense again.
Do you disagree with any of my rulings?
How long is too long for a comment about this?
@@MakeVarahHappen as long as you want!
As Luck Would Have It is comparable to an actual magic card, though: Helix Pinnacle, the main difference being Helix Pinnacle has Shroud instead of Hexproof, and you pay X mana instead of rolling dice. (an ultimately easier thing to do in Green)
As for the Killbots, they actually *do* have different names, despite being the same in every other way. This is essentially a Llanowar Evles/Elvish Mystic/Fyndhorn Elves, but they're all vanilla.
As for Contraptions, *Technically*, all Contraptions are Borderless, not Silver-Bordered/Acorn, and function within the rules (Especially as Steamflogger Boss, an eternal card refers to them) The only thing preventing them from being played is the lack of eternal-legal cards to do so. They are entirely workable, and function very similarly to Attractions from Unfinity. (going so far as to point out that Mark Rosewater even *admits* they work within the rules, a screenshot you yourself used in the video.)
@@harutakami1313 I tried to be conservative in terms of potentially Unfair cards, but I can see your point.
I interpreted the Killbots as being the same card because they have the same card number, but it is an easy fix.
Contraptions are a weird case. As you said, they do function rules wise, but I took the perspective of a hesitant Wizards employee. I could have explained my reasoning better in the video
I don't agree with Mana Screw sharing a category with Mad Science Fair Project; the inherently repeatable nature of the card seems like it's so inherently unfun and likely to lead to slow games that it can't ever really be done.
I disagree with the Killbot thing. While they are mechanically identical and share art, they are considered distinct cards by the rules, so they work fine as vanilla 2/1s for 2
They all have the same card number, which is why I thought they were considered the same cards mechanically
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant Card number isn't actually a thing the rules care about in any way I'm aware of so it should be fine.
Even if they are supposed to be considered the same card, the Secret Lair cards show that you can, in fact, have the same card with multiple names, so I'd class them as Untimely - black border can and does do the same thing in a different way which the killbots could theoretically be erratta'd to do.
@@PerfectlyGenericUser Skinned cards are considered the same card and officially have the original name, so I don't think they affect things, but good to know about card numbers and rules
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchantAre High Stride and Leaping Ambush considered the same card and your can only run a total of 4 of them. Staggering Size and Fanatical Strength are also functionally the same and they were even printed in the same block I don't know why WOTC of the coast does this
@malockssomexmastodon4615 well it wasn't an issue when they were just unique functional reprints, but also any alternative has the original card's name printed on it anyway.
I think Unfinity went in the opposite direction. It tried to power itself down to avoid complaints but that just meant the outliers stuck out like sore thumbs. If it was a powerful set people would enjoy it because they could play with the cards.
That's an interesting perspective!
I appreciate how your categories of rating the un-set cards all start with un-
Thanks!
One thing you missed with cards with activated abilities that let you reroll a die or reflip a coin is the timing issue. You can't activate an ability in the middle of resolving one
Ah, I knew I was missing something there, thank you.
Technically, panglacial wurm exists and allows that in black border magic.
@@marcello9476 that card should not be used as precedent haha
@@marcello9476 Fantastic Point. Simultaneously, allow me to introduce you to my friend Selvala. She got me banned from an LCS.
@TrumanTheGrayMerchant technically speaking, if even a single card can pull it off in Black Boarder magic, no matter how silly, aslong as the card isnt banned for that same ability, then it should be ok
Another big issue Jack-in-the-Mox has as written is that its ability is a mana ability. This means that if you activate it while paying costs to cast a spell or activate and ability, and you roll a 1 and have to sacrifice it, you would be able to reverse the mana ability and simply try again until it works. (See rule 723, Handling Illegal Actions: "Each player may also reverse any legal mana abilities that player activated while making the illegal play, unless mana from those abilities or from any triggered mana abilities they caused to trigger was spent on another mana ability that wasn’t reversed.") So in reality, it's really more like a Mox for any color. Mad Science Fair Project and Mana Screw get around that by making it not be a mana ability (Mad Science Fair Project because it targets and Mana Screw because it explicitly has the Lion's Eye Diamond text). Even when played as intended, it'd still be an incredibly powerful card, but as written currently it'd be even more powerful. They could errata it to get the LED text if it was made legal, but I still thought it'd be interesting to point out the implications of that rules text.
Another fun example of this kinda stuff is Chromatic Sphere, which draws a card as part of a mana ability and thus, technically speaking, you first draw the card but do not get to look at it, because the mana ability might get reversed. See the ruling: "This is a mana ability, which means it can be activated as part of the process of casting a spell or activating another ability. If that happens you get the mana right away, but you don’t get to look at the drawn card until you have finished casting that spell or activating that ability."
Also, notably, The Ultimate Nightmare of WotC Customer Service actually got a real card that functions extremely closely. While Comet Storm reads oddly, the effects are basically the same. Note that the Y and Z from TUNOWOTCCS could be combined with the card reading "any target," and those got turned into the Multikicker on Comet Storm (though Comet Storm always gets one target more than TUNOWOTCCS since the Multikicker is only used for targets beyond the first).
Very interesting, thank you!
Bloomburrow had Murmuration spoiled, which is clearly meant to be a reworked Crow Storm. Its functionally the same thing but instead of a card with storm its an enchantment which checks for how many spells youve cast at the end of each of your turns.
I thought that was interesting
Would Psychic Network work written as "players may look at the top card of any other players library at any time?"
I like that. The only issue I can think of is that you'd have to ask for permission to be shown it, which could get tedious.
I would love a card with "tap, untap, tap, untap, tap, untap, tap" because a lot of abilities key on 'each time something becomes tapped'
Interesting point!
Since no such card has existed, I'm not certain about this, but wouldn't there be a problem with the fact that its cost includes both tapping and untapping the same permanent, since you pay all its costs at once, and you can't both tap and untap something?
@@RasmusVJS no, it's all as separate costs and paid in order, to give an in game example, use halo fountain. turn halo fountain into a creature, and now it can be used as part of the "untap creatures" cost in it's abilities because first you pay the mana, then tap it, then untap your creatures(which in this case includes halo fountain)
So, for Super Duper Deathray, while LITERALLY giving it trample doesn't work, there are spells that deal X damage, and any damage over the creature's toughness goes the the creature's controller. So I think it could be reworded to be Black Border legal
I think the issue is that since we already have those cards, there's not much of a point porting over the Ray but removing what makes it unique
I don't play MTG, and I only collect based on how fun or cool a card looks or sounds. Which means whenever I find an Un- card in the 10 cent pile in the card shops I frequent, I snatch it up.
I think B-I-N-G-O is much higher than unworkable. It might require a keyword to offload complexity into the CR, and it would need the grid to also be included in its Oracle text. But I don't think it's much different from other cards where the CR and frame do a lot of heavy lifting - particularly dungeons, which also have a osrt of complex spatial relationship. It would be tough, but not a total non-starter.
That's a good point, I could see a unique frame like for Sagas or Level Up making it a lot more straightforward.
So, so happy I have a slight faceblindness. It really helped with forgetting the .... uniqueness of The Cheese Stands Alone.
Goblin Bookie in specific is a problem for dice rerolling, because it's an activated ability that needs to activate in the middle of some other spell or ability resolving (which black border rules don't allow, except for paying mana costs using mana abilities). All black border dice rerolls are done as replacement effects, and while some do require paying costs, the cost of tapping Goblin Bookie is especially awkward to translate away from an activated ability, since it cares about summoning sickness.
Also, MaRo has gone on record to say Crow Storm was seen as too efficient to print in black border, so "unfair" is definitely the right call (possible mis-evaluation and/or powercreep aside).
8:57 im pretty sure something that almost already exists. I can't remember the name of the commander but there's a legendary creature that gifts your opponents creatures, goads them as long as they control it, but doesn't let them attack you, the owner. Thats kinda what evil presents does
I think there's some merit to the idea of changing the effects slightly to work within the rules. Like how Earl of Squirrel's "squirrellink" could just be written out, I think you could tweak Acornelia to just work when you cast a Squirrel card rather than with a Squirrel in its art. This would open space for Squirrel Kindred cards, too. And if you'd want to go further, you could change "You get an acorn counter" to "put an acorn counter on Acornelia/a permanent you control", and "pay X acorn counters" with "remove X acorn counters from among permanents you control", since Chittersplitter uses those counters too. This would allow the card to work functionally the same but within the rules of black border we can easily observe.
I think people would be disappointed with how much of a nerf that would be. There are dozens of cards with squirrels in their art that aren't creature type squirrel.
For stuff like randomness, interactions with the internet, and the 5-sided card, I think you've forgotten that Alchemy is a thing that currently exists. You could easily put Urza, Academy Headmaster or the one that creates a token of any random card as an Alchemy-only card, and the arena interface easily allows for a 5-sided card (I believe there are Alchemy cards that play like this, but I don't play Alchemy)
That's a good point that I did consider but ultimately decided was outside the bounds of the video. I feel as though when people ask for cards to be made black border, that's not what they mean. I could have mentioned that in the video, though
Rules Lawyer does actually break something- something that earned an Unfinity card an acorn sticker. Clare D'Loon turns all your tokens into cards that are still tokens; Rules Lawyer removes the rule that makes that necessary. (704.5d: If a token is in a zone other than the battlefield, it ceases to exist.)
As a side note, some of the things that Rules Lawyer does are existing effects: namely, all the ones that cause a player to lose the game and the "legend rule".
Ooh, interesting.
I really do like The Countdown is at One. The subgame is meaningfully different than a regular game, a red deck playing it is likely to have the advantage, and the reward is strong, on theme for the kind of deck that confidently wins the subgame, but not unbeatable. If only it also had "You may not mulligan more than once during the subgame" or something to keep "mulligan to 2, mountain, shock, GG" off the table. It's also really expensive for an aggro card, but it isn't really supposed to be playable. I can imagine it would turn Commander into a mad scramble, what with everyone but the winner taking the penalty and the sheer chaos of 4 people at 1 health with no board.
Interesting perspective!
1. I think wordy and similar cards are unworkable. Unfinity put acorns on similar cards.
2. I think B-I-N-G-O is fine. It's like mutate where you make it very messy under the hood but the actual rules text is simple.
3. Someone already mentioned it but whether or not something can reroll a die depends on templating. Wall of Fortune can, Goblin Bookie can't.
4. Socket Sproketer I think works because Unfinity has Vedalken Squirrel-Whacker that does something similar. Understandable for me.
5. I think you just make the killbots normal vanilla creatures.
6. As much as I love Discord, Unfinity acorned Killer Cosplay and Gallery of Legends under the pretense of being too much of an ask of players. I think Discord has the same issue.
7. I think Grusilda is untimely, not unworkable. You just combine the power and toughness like the card says. A few specific rulings and you're good. You did convince me on Seraph tho.
8. Earl of Squirrel I think is at minimum understandable, if not unambiguous.
9. Unfinity did actually have exactly this with Vedalken Squirrel-Whacker. Unambiguous.
10. Organ Harvest should be in unfair.
11. Doubles showed up with Celebr-8000 in Unfinity. Unambiguous.
12. Hangman has the same ability type as many acorned Unfinity cards. Unworkable.
13. I think Incoming! is unfair personally.
14. Jalum Grifter isn't random, it's a dexterity card. Unworkable.
15. Look at Me has a counterpart in Truss, Chief Engineer, an acorn card from Unfinity.
16. I think Mary O'Kill only does things other magic cards already do. Understandable.
17. Mine Mine Mine isn't overpowered but the play pattern is terrible. Just look at the game knights episode this is played in. Unfair.
18. Again you can't reroll as an activated ability. Plus the intent is clearly to reroll its own tokens which makes no sense. Unworkable.
19. Twilight Sparkle can work with name changing effects. Unambiguous (but mostly pointless).
20. I put rainbow dash in understandable. The game could easily track coolness without really changing the text.
21. Richard Garfield doesn't work for the same reason Killer Cosplay doesn't. Do I think Killer Cosplay should be legal? That's another story.
22. Water Gun Balloon Game should have the same ruling as Sword Of Dungeons & Dragons as they have the same exact problem: new colors. I personally think they should just errata them to be colorless and all colors respectively.
Thanks so much for your perspective!
1/12. Good point. I was torn because some word stuff did make it into non-acorn, but I probably should have split up those cards based on what specifically they did.
2. I was trying not to be too ambitious, but I could definitely see that.
3/18. Betrayed by my lack of understanding of dice rolling.
4/9. I must have misread Vedalken Squirrel-Whacker as Acorn lol.
5. I took the same card number as being considered the same card, but I could see them just being vanilla creatures considered separately.
6. I could see them experimenting with online functionality on physical cards one day, maybe. Probably not a good idea, but slightly more plausible than art matters and stuff. It and Urza should have gone in the red section of Untimely instead.
7. Good point.
8. You're right.
10. I could see that.
11. Good catch!
13. I think it's debatable, but I can definitely see your perspective.
14. The current Oracle text of Jalom Grifter merely says to "Shuffle" the cards. I think whether you're supposed to track the cards or guess randomly is kind of muddled now. If it's the latter, I wouldn't consider it a dexterity card.
15. Good catch!
16. What cards do a switch while retaining the statues, counters, and attachments?
17. Interesting, I'll have to check that out.
19. I still think it'd be weird to have a legal card reference non-legal cards, but that is something I hadn't considered.
20. That's fair. Some new but simple concepts were borderline for me.
21. That's true, I'd push it back to the internet cards.
22. My concern is that the rules text refers to the art, so it would take a radical rewriting to make black border.
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant 16. So I should more say "A card that changes each of these can be a card." Specifically Ozolith, ninjutsu, Flickerform, etc. Untimely might be better.
22. Yeah but it actually doesn't! The unfinity reprint has different art and the rulings changed to fit. It's just to represent something. You could probably fix this with a frame treatment like bingo. Still I see it.
@@MakeVarahHappen 16. Good point. I also recently learned that a similar mechanic was considered for a Ravnica set, so maybe it's not as radical as I thought.
22. True!
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant19 small point, there is precedent of black border cards referencing cards not legal at the time, specifically cards that weren't printed yet, like the dragonfire in dragons of tarkir being referenced in fate reforged for example, or god-pharaoh's gift being referenced in amonkhet. It would lead to some stramge rules interactions if new black border versions of the ponies were then printed to go along with twilight being black border, but that would only be in silver border games so not that much of a concern considering what already happens in those
@@winter945 that is true. A thought provoking situation all around
Rules Lawyer is actually fairly playable. Most state based effects/actions already have cards that effect/ignore them (ex: See Platinum Angel and Skullbriar). I believe the only two listed that doesn't have a card giving an exception is the planeswalkers with 0 loyalty and permanents falling off illegal targets.
It's a fun card, but might be over powered for the cost is all.
That's a good point
I feel that Rules Lawyer wouldn’t work at all due to 704.5d If a token is in a zone other than the battlefield, it ceases to exist.
In most cases, if a token found its way into your hand from this, it could (probably) be cast without a mana cost, but there are cases where the card couldn’t function on its own, such as with the Aetherborn from Aether Refinery and others.
@spicysquidink you can't cast cards with no mana cost on them.
@@darrkhunter96 what about tokens with mana costs, like copies?
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant that's more interesting question... first of all, Rules Lawyer does not apply here, card in hand is no longer a permanent, so it is affected by SBAs. If we ignore that tho... 706.2 When copying an object, the copy acquires the copiable values of the original object’s characteristics. The "copiable values" are the values derived from the text printed on the object (that text being name, mana cost, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, power, toughness, and/or loyalty). So theoretically I see no reason for it to be different than any real card...
We have blackboarder cards that care about textboxes, swapping textboxes even, so Do-it-yourself Seraph's ability to have text boxes seems untimely at worst, unambigious at best.
Combining textboxes specifically is problematic
Yeah the main issue is what happens if it gets two power and toughness CDAs
Lets go! I haven't really started the video yet but I'm so happy to see another upload from you. Crazy to me you don't have more subs, I hope that changes soon cause you make great vids.
Thank you!
Cards with weird reminder text but otherwise would work in the rules I don't think should be judged so harshly, as reminder text is not rules text. Reminder text can say whatever the designers want, it has no bearing on the card's mechanical function. At worst, a definition for that ability would need to be added to the CR or the card's oracle page.
I didn't want to be too ambitious by ignoring reminder text, but that is a good point
There was a black-border card in Unfinity that did almost the same as Elvish Impersonators, Squirrel-Whacker
rocket powered turbo slug might be a bit too good in burn, it's basically 6 damage for 0 mana
Hmm, I hadn't thought about it that way
How is last strike not workable in current rules?? It’s very simple and intuitive to anyone who knows how first strike and double strike work
I don't know the specifics, but it would take a complete restructuring of how combat works, is my understanding
i'm assuming given how first strike has a surprising amount of rules baggage behind it despite looking simple, last strike would also probably have issues
I'll fight to the death over this, "Pay 2 and Transform a transformer to transform this card" is completely incomparable to every other External element card you showed. Everything Grimlock does is completely game legal, and it even has a mana cost to use its ability.
4/4 for 4 mana that gives dinosaurs and artifacts +2/0. Pay 2 mana to convert it to an 8/8 trample. Compare that to "Open a new booster pack and add one to hand" or "Give someone at another game table one of your cards."
If it wasn't for the fact that it was a promotional card for Transformers fans Grimlock would be completely reasonable Gishath support.
I see your point, but I didn't want to remove aspects of cards, even superfluous ones
I think Princess Twilight Sparkle could be somewhere in the "workable" tier, since there is precedent for magic cards referencing cards that have A.) Names and B.) haven't been printed yet. The "everypony wins the game" part is definitely what makes it weird, but we do have a few cards that force draws so it could be reworded to work that way as well.
Cards can have cutesy wording, such as that purposely misspelled Secret Lair card text, or the Phyrexian language cards, so I don't think Everypony would be a barrier. But I dount they'd put an intentional draws the game effect in a modern black border card.
I think anything that cares about the names of cards or letters in cards could never be black border, because it would change how the cards function between different languages. Even if it said to check the English name for the cards, would you really want people to be checking that for every single card they ever play?
Yeah, it wouldn't be a good idea
Rules lawyer breaks things like "losing the game for having 0 or less life", creatures dying, etc, however apart from a mess, it does not create situations that are unsolvable to the best of my knowledge.
Tokens being moved to zones beside the battlefield was brought up
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant Oh, that is a state based action,
I can imagine tokens being put in someones hand might cause problems, them not having a mana cost and all.
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant Fortunately Rules Lawyer only stops SBAs from applying to permanents, so if you move a token to another zone and it ceases to be a permanent...
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant That would be annoying, but there's a separate rule (111.8) that says a token that has left the battlefield can never move to another zone afterward, and this isn't a state-based action. So you could be in an awkward position with a token in your hand or in your library, but it wouldn't really be able to do anything while it's there (I think even the wording of forecast and splice would prevent you from using the forecast or splice ability of a token in your hand, since tokens aren't cards.) It would be annoying that you could have unattached auras remaining on the battlefield and animated equipment remaining attached to creatures, including possibly themselves, but I think it would maybe still function.
@@TheWolverineDoll would then having a token in your library make it impossible to lose to mill?
some ante cards allow you you to put an opponents card into your hand but im not sure if that even counts as black border
I wouldn't use them as precedent haha, but good point
I think that Nearby Planet from Unfinity definitely could have been a legal card, with a slight reworking of the name "Rangeling" it can be seen as a worse version of Planar Nexus.
Edit: It would technically be a direct powercreep of Gateway Plaza but that card is unplayable regardless.
Apparently the issue was that it was fetchable by cards that searched for the basic land types
Id be curious how this would look with Alchemy cards. Some would work with some tweaking since Garth-One Eyes conjures a card in black bordered. Stickers work in all public zones so it's almost like cards with perpetual effects that last indefinitely.
Alchemy would change a lot of these results. With the work done for Momir Vig, random card generation probably wouldn't be too difficult
I think Evil Presents could be tweaked slightly to be fully legal, it's almost just Goad
Afaik everything Rules Lawyer does exists on other legal cards, but all at once for so cheap would put it in unfair (it might also break the pie but who really cares about that)
Goad doesn't attack the controller
Remember, uncards are meant to be played, games are meant to be fun.
I do advocate for playing with them regardless of legality, if everyone is ok with it
Staying power is kind of similar to The Master, Multiplied.
I disagree on crow storm, ironically it's an uncommon so it wouldn't be legal in pauper which is the only place it would be unfair. IMHO it belongs in unambiguous but understandable would also be realistic
I did this from the perspective of a cautious Wizards employee, which I could have clarified in the video
I would say Super Duper Death Ray should be in untimely, as in the recent years we've gotten some number of cards that cares about "excess damage", which would work the same as a spell having Trample
There are various ways of writing it out, but I don't see the point of porting it with different wording, since what's the point?
Mise would go crazy in DanDan
For sure
The fallen apart has a literal functional reprint from Eldraine
I meant to bring that up haha
Personally, I feel that General Surgeon Commander is so simple a concept even by having Augment that it should be allowed in Commander. Sythis and other Enchantresses alone are a great example. Even though I love it though, the idea of a Mutate enchantress style card that gets every mutate effect as it itself is non-human kinda terrifies me. Specifically Auspicious Starrix and Illuna. Hexproof enchantments might make it easy to make super good though. I can imagine a 15 mutate stack commander getting bit by Path or Swords. OOOF!
There are good cards with Mutate, but I don't think any are broken, especially in EDH
I think some of the "add to hand" cards could be heavily reworked into exiling the card and only a specific player beig able to play it from exile, kinda like the Ragavan effect
That would lose the charm imo
using krarks other thumb in my mr house dice rolling deck, rule 0-ing it. So far no one had any issue with it, but keeping something around to switch it just in case
I'm glad! It really depends on the group. I think KOT is also one of the most well known "practically black border" cards.
just desserts deals functionally three damage. its a common burn spell but with a joke number, i see it as understandable. edit: just realized damage multipliers exist, this makes it much more difficult, your ruling makes sense now
Plus, I didn't want to strip away the point of the card
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant you could have it say "round to the nearest hundredth for calculation purposes"
I got to the point where you said "putting opponent's cards into your hand is unworkable" and was like, not really, Yugioh has a card that literally does this. It's never played competitively but it exists.
It is currently something Wizards is completely unwilling to do (with good reason imo)
Spike is fine if you make it work: in an official game, "outside the game" means "in your side board" and cards in your side board need to be legal in the format you're playing.
Edit: as a better version of Karn the Great Creator it may still be unfair but needs some testing
I still don't think black border would distinguish banned cards
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant Apocalypse Chime, City in a Bottle and Golgothian Silex exist. If the first expansion a card was printed in is information known by the game, the fact that a card has been banned in the past (or is still banned) could be too.
Scryfall provides a list of cards Spike can get if you use "is:spikey"
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant I assume that if Spike were to somehow be made legal, they'd just put every single card you can search for in the Comprehensive Rules - much like they did for the cards that cared about sets, City in a Bottle, Golgothian Syulex, and Apocalypse Chime. (On that note, World-Bottling Kit and some of the Heroes of the Realm cards could probably be legal... but require an excessively long rule in the CR.)
I am a minute in and my only true issue is going to be the "Unworkable" starting at green and going to red
I used tier list coloring. I'm not sure what the origin of that is
I would argue evil presents are unwieldy or unfair, not unworkable.
It might be a bad card but could work.
Goad already forces a creature to attack every turn. Beantown bullies gives the player the ability to "give opponents creature cards" and is just one of many examples of that mechanic.
Maybe unwieldy. You are right that there are similarish concepts, but there's no precedent for creatures attacking their controller
Water Gun Balloon Game also breaks the color pie since pink is not a color
I wouldn't consider that a color pie break by the conventional definition, but it is certainly relevant
i mean, they already made The Ultimate Nightmare of Wizards of the Coast® Customer Service in black border all the way back in 2010. in fact, they made it better by making the first target free while also making it an instant.
talking about comet storm btw
That's true, it's definitely fine powerwise
Jack-in-the-Mox wouldn't be broken unless just having mana is what you want, even then I think it's fair enough for 5-color.
Hence why I treated it as colorless
(Hex) Cards with infinity are unwieldy instead of unworkable imo. Magic does have rules regarding infinite combos and such, which prevent actual infinity from being reached (you have to say how much time an infinite combo repeats, and if you can’t stop it the game is a draw if I am not mistaken). For example, mox Lotus could have “t: Add 1 to your mana pool. You may repeat this any number of times” and it would work within the rules (even if broken).
How would you do Infinity Elemental?
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant At first I was going to go in a similar fashion, giving it the ability to gain +1/+0 any number of times, but then I realised that would interact really unintentionally with a lot of stuff, so I will just admit I was wrong and only some abilities with infinite can be recreated while maintaining the card’s flavour and idea XD
I think my mox lotus suggestion feels fine due to being a mana ability and not going into the stack
I play a commander deck with as luck would have it, and it’s fine. It can’t beat high power casual decks even when I get it out early.
I don’t know if it would be good in a 60 card format though.
Good to know, thank you
Syr Cadian would work if instead of tracking real time it would use the Day/Night mechanic.
I didn't want to radically change cards
Who, what, when, where and WHYYY do I delight in
What do I intend to find this time?
Who What When Where Why can work in black border, its effective a spree card, but you can only pick 1 mode (but prob can be just be as choose any number)
it would be
Who What When Where Why
Instant +
CARDNAME is all colors.
Spree - Choose one or more additional costs
WX: Target player gains X life.
3R: Destroy target artifact.
2U: Counter target creature spell.
3B: Destroy target land.
1G: Destroy target enchantment.
Giving it fuse would be a big upgrade. I think just allowing split cards to be more than two would be the simplest answer
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant yea fair, or only 1 additional cost would work here as well
I can see the logic behind why they handled Unfinity the way they did, but I do think it's poor form to have eternal-legal cards in a set that's only in English.
And on a broader level stickers and attractions should never have been legal.
I agree with the language thing. I don't think there's much problematic with attractions. They died for Name Sticker Goblin's sins
Cards that care about expansion symbol are unworkable? Someone should have told "City In A Bottle", "Apocalypse Chime", and "Golgothian Sylex".
Those care about the set, not the expansion symbol. And now they just care about a list of cards from the set
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant That's splitting hairs pretty damn fine, I think.
i very much disagree with the ruling for "ach hans run", it appears in the list at 3:58 which is "cards that care about spoken words or sounds" however i would contend that "ach hans run" doesnt actually fit into this catagorization. while it does have a spoken component with its activation, the spoken words are exclusively the trigger, and not a series of words that breaks black border. it is mostly a flavourful way of making a declaration, it could very easily be reworded to "at the beginning of your upkeep you may name a creature card"
cards that care about specific card names are in black border magic, for example pithing needle cares about naming specific cards.
all that is to say that a specific vocal component is not integral to "ach hans run" from a design perspective, it exists as a fun form of flavour for an interaction that is entirely basic and otherwise unremarkable. declaring a card name is neither abstract nor obtuse and already exists within black border magic
Interesting
Checks and Balances needs a clause that makes it stop working once there are only two players left, because if a multiplayer game has gone down to two players, it makes the game a horrible slog.
Also, Frankie Peanuts would be a pain in tournament play even if it were only limited to in-game questions, because you can ask about hidden information like whether a particular card is in the other player's hand, which would require calling a judge.
Infinity isn't really debated in the philosophy of mathematics. It isn't a number because it isn't specific enough to be a number, as some infinite values are larger than others. Infinity is a quality that some values can have. It's safe to assume that Infinity Elemental's power is countably infinite, the smallest kind of infinite value.
Good points
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant Thanks! I thought of one more. Jalum Grifter is actually another manual dexterity card in disguise. You don't shuffle the face-down cards; you play Three-Card Monte with them. The idea is that the opponent is trying to keep track of the right card visually as you move them around on the table.
@@TheWolverineDoll the current oracle text just says "shuffle," so I'm not sure if it's meant to be skillful or random
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant Interesting, that might be functional errata, so it's only skillful when R&D's Secret Lair is on the board
@@TheWolverineDoll Yeah, I thought it was quite odd
I use angelic rocket in a rule zero deck but don't use the host thingymajig
Banish Target Creature.
A Banished creature cannot leave the Banished zone until the current game ends.
*can't?
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant thanks
can you copy and paste that 104 minimal disruption, list of cards in here please. I want to go through them and make a commander deck
Here you go! I've noted a few that commenters have made compelling arguments against.
1. Adorable Kitten
2. Ambiguity
3. Angelic Rocket
4. Bat-
5. Big Boa Constrictor
6. Blast from the Past
7. Bumbling Pangolin
8. Buzzing Whack-a-Doodle
9. Checks and Balances
10. Chicken à la King
11. Chicken Egg
12. Chittering Doom
13. Clam-I-Am
14. Clambassadors
15. Clever Combo
16. Common Iguana
17. Denied!
18. Dirty Rat
19. Dr. Julius Jumblemorph
20. Eager Beaver
21. Earl of Squirrel
22. Elvish Impersonators
23. Feisty Stegosaurus
24. Flock of Rabid Sheep
25. Form of the Squirrel
26. Fowl Play
27. Free-Range Chicken
28. Free-Range Goblins
29. Fruitcake Elemental
30. Get a Life
31. Gnome-Made Engine
32. Goblin Bookie [timing problem]
33. Goblin Bowling Team
34. Goblin Secret Agent
35. Goblin Tutor
36. GO TO JAIL
37. Ground Pounder
38. Growth Spurt
39. Half-Kitten, Half-
40. Half-Orc, Half-
41. Half-Shark, Half-
42. Half-Squirrel, Half-
43. Hammer Helper
44. Hammer Jammer
45. Humming-
46. Hungry Hungry Heifer
47. Hydradoodle
48. Incoming!
49. Inhumaniac
50. Jumbo Imp
51. Krark's Other Thumb
52. Krazy Kow
53. Labro Bot
54. Lobe Lobber
55. Mad Science Fair Project
56. Mana Screw [Probably Unfair]
57. Mer Man
58. Mine, Mine, Mine! [Arguably Unfair for being unfun]
59. Monkey-
60. Mother Kangaroo
61. Multi-Headed
62. Ninja
63. Novellamental
64. Numbing Jellyfish
65. Ordinary Pony
66. Old Fogey
67. Organ Harvest [Maybe unfair]
68. Painiac
69. Paper Tiger
70. Poultrygeist
71. Rainbow Dash
72. Really Epic Punch
73. Rhino-
74. Ricochet
75. Robo-
76. Rock Lobster
77. Rocket-Powered Turbo Slug
78. Scissors Lizard
79. Season's Beatings
80. Serpentine
81. Shaggy Camel
82. Six-y Beast
83. Snickering Squirrel
84. Snow Mercy
85. Spark Fiend
86. Squirrel-Powered 87. Scheme
88. Steam-Powered
89. Steel Squirrel
90. Stinging Scorpion
91. Strategy, Schmategy
92. Strutting Turkey
93. Success!
94. Surgeon General Commander
95. Sword of Dungeons & Dragons
96. Teacher's Pet
97. Temp of the Damned
98. The Big Idea
99. The Ultimate Nightmare of Wizards of the Coast® Customer Service
100. Time Out
101. Timmy, Power Gamer
102. Togglodyte
103. Uktabi Kong
104. Urza's Science Fair Project
105. Voracious Vacuum
106. Who // What // When // Where // Why
107. Wild Crocodile
108. Willing Test Subject
109. Zombified
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant you're a legend, thank youuuu
@@GooseTronics You're welcome!
Disagree with "Denied", the fact it doesn't say "nonland card" is a problem imo. Playing a mono black deck? Name swamp and enjoy your 1 mana counterspell.
Rules Lawyer breaks A TON of stuff.
Cheese would be unfair in something like commander especially. Cheese and teferi's protection in hand... tap out all mana, cast teferi's, cast cheese, instant win.
Eh, i could see Ach! Hans Run being really unfair in commander especially. I personally don't know much about other formats but A sneak attack from library is extremely powerful especially in commander. Being able to basically tutor out and cheat into play things like the eldrazi with annihilator, blightsteel, progenitus, countless other high cost cards with extremely strong ETBs.. now yeah you can sneak attack these things but they are cards in your hand so it isn't as consistent
Eh, for Cheese, you have to also empty your hand. There are easier two card combos
Gotta disagree with the killbots i have like 4 cards in my commander deck that cost 2b that targets a play to scry 2 draw 2 and burn 2
So 4 cards with the exact same cost text and stats but different names should be fine
My reasoning wasn't merely that they're identical, it's that they had the same card number, which I should have communicated in the video. It seems like the consensus is that that doesn't matter
I think sword of Dungeons & dragons should be unambiguous, I always saw the "gold Dragon" as being the whole name of the token, not, gold being the color and dragon being the name of the token. The card works perfectly fine imo, worst case scenario we make a colorless dragon
I mean hell, we have an adult gold dragon, an ancient gold dragon, they gotta come from somewhere right? Plain old gold dragon.
The intent was for the color to be Gold, but it is a simple change
I feel crow storm could go into unambigious, since its an UNCOMMON, and thus not legal in pauper anyway. I feel jack in the mox is fine since mox amber and mox chrome exist.
super-duper death ray is probaly fine since theres a commander that can give instants and sorceries lifelink and deathtouch now.
the cheese stands alone vs barren glory situation is comparable to simic ascendancy vs darksteel reactor.
togglodyte is vaguely in the ballpark of the day/night cycle?
The Pauper examples were to demonstrate the power of this kind of card. For unfair, I took the perspective of a hesitant Wizards employee, but I could have communicated that more clearly. Chrome Mox is banned in Modern and Jack in the Mox is probably better than at least Mox amber.
The rules for instants and sorceries are apparently different for different keywords
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant true but pauper is a very different fish to other formats. sojourner's companion is banned there because of affinity but basically sees play no where else.
due to being from unglued, at a guess id say that makes jack in the mox not legal in modern anyway even if it was unsilver-bordered. such a card would be perfectly fine in commander however, same with the others. and commander seems to be the premier format now.
I mean..... not really?
Cool video! Definitely subbing!
Thank you!
is there a pastebin of the list at 21:00?
Here you go! I've noted a few that commenters have made compelling arguments against.
1. Adorable Kitten
2. Ambiguity
3. Angelic Rocket
4. Bat-
5. Big Boa Constrictor
6. Blast from the Past
7. Bumbling Pangolin
8. Buzzing Whack-a-Doodle
9. Checks and Balances
10. Chicken à la King
11. Chicken Egg
12. Chittering Doom
13. Clam-I-Am
14. Clambassadors
15. Clever Combo
16. Common Iguana
17. Denied!
18. Dirty Rat
19. Dr. Julius Jumblemorph
20. Eager Beaver
21. Earl of Squirrel
22. Elvish Impersonators
23. Feisty Stegosaurus
24. Flock of Rabid Sheep
25. Form of the Squirrel
26. Fowl Play
27. Free-Range Chicken
28. Free-Range Goblins
29. Fruitcake Elemental
30. Get a Life
31. Gnome-Made Engine
32. Goblin Bookie [timing problem]
33. Goblin Bowling Team
34. Goblin Secret Agent
35. Goblin Tutor
36. GO TO JAIL
37. Ground Pounder
38. Growth Spurt
39. Half-Kitten, Half-
40. Half-Orc, Half-
41. Half-Shark, Half-
42. Half-Squirrel, Half-
43. Hammer Helper
44. Hammer Jammer
45. Humming-
46. Hungry Hungry Heifer
47. Hydradoodle
48. Incoming!
49. Inhumaniac
50. Jumbo Imp
51. Krark's Other Thumb
52. Krazy Kow
53. Labro Bot
54. Lobe Lobber
55. Mad Science Fair Project
56. Mana Screw [Probably Unfair]
57. Mer Man
58. Mine, Mine, Mine! [Arguably Unfair for being unfun]
59. Monkey-
60. Mother Kangaroo
61. Multi-Headed
62. Ninja
63. Novellamental
64. Numbing Jellyfish
65. Ordinary Pony
66. Old Fogey
67. Organ Harvest [Maybe unfair]
68. Painiac
69. Paper Tiger
70. Poultrygeist
71. Rainbow Dash
72. Really Epic Punch
73. Rhino-
74. Ricochet
75. Robo-
76. Rock Lobster
77. Rocket-Powered Turbo Slug [Maybe unfair}
78. Scissors Lizard
79. Season's Beatings
80. Serpentine
81. Shaggy Camel
82. Six-y Beast
83. Snickering Squirrel
84. Snow Mercy
85. Spark Fiend
86. Squirrel-Powered Scheme
87. Steam-Powered
88. Steel Squirrel
89. Stinging Scorpion
90. Strategy, Schmategy
91. Strutting Turkey
92. Success!
93. Surgeon General Commander
94. Sword of Dungeons & Dragons
95. Teacher's Pet
98. Temp of the Damned
99. The Big Idea
100. The Ultimate Nightmare of Wizards of the Coast Customer Service
101. Time Out
102. Timmy, Power Gamer
103. Togglodyte
104. Uktabi Kong
105. Urza's Science Fair Project
106. Voracious Vacuum
107. Who // What // When // Where // Why
108. Wild Crocodile
109. Willing Test Subject
110. Zombified
Honestly? They should just straight up add Contraptions. It’s a shame that the mechanic, which was hinted at in Future Sight, and HAS a black border card that mentions the mechanic, is completely unusable because the mechanic was turned into a silver border mechanic.
They revealed that they had no plans to make Contraptions and only did from fan demand, so it was probably silver border or nothing, but I get what you mean
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant aw dang, that sucks.
@@pvzbronygodgaming8476 yeah, they chose an intentionally silly series of words thinking they would never have to define them. The original idea was "erect a monument" lol
10:22 wait gerrymandering is unfair??? Why do politicians do it then
🤯
notes: 1:you say cards that care about text boxes are unworkable i say excange of words is legal and bad and so is psyic paper for a non unfinty example
2: i dont see why contraptions couldnt work they feel mechincly simular to atractions in that some mechanic puts them in play and they give benfits when in play
3: wile murge is very simular to mutate it isnt exactly the same but i agree it probibly could be printed as is
4: i say no for the letters while they are simular to stickers i think wizards has realised that stickers are ather obsenly broken (sticker goblin) or terible to play with due to rules nobdy wants to even touch stickers in comander
5: abuity reminds me of chains of mephastophlies but funny confusing cards that are printed as jokes often stay un since yk confusing
6: multizone cards are imposible to work without weird rule changes probibly
7: nah outside the game is fine since wish effects have been legal in black border it just has the same problem as stickers where the rules are weird and nonsensical
8: awol works fine just have it say junkyard that may as well be the "absoltly removed from the game forever" zone lol
9: bfm works fine if its like meld but uh as is its a bit of a "how dose this work"
10: there is a blue sphinx (i think) that steals a phase but its worded "player chooses a phase to skip" so it would likely be worded simularly
11: killbots are fine they are all difrent instances of a vallina 2/1 and with difrent names so they are perfectly legal by black border rules
12: discord is broken since it dosent say it cant get any of the following: scheemes, un cards and other weird nonsense from mtg so it dosent work within the rules since you cant just cast scheemes outside of the mode they where intended for that and tracking it making copys of creatures is a nightmare.
13: do it yourself works fine (see mimicplasum) there are simular cards that work in black border but imp its way too strong because it copys all text boxes
14: rules loyer is broken if legal the amount of silly shiz you can do by ultimating planeswalkers and every instrcutable creature geting 100x betetr is suprising
15: staying power is beyond broken
16: it seems weird the rules cant handle spells with trample but can handle the unfinty minitor that makes spells creatures
1. That's true, they've played in that space some.
2. I agree that they work, I just thought they might be hesitant based on Attractions controversy.
4. I don't think that's universally true. Stickers are overhated IMO.
5. Fair
7. There's a big difference between selecting a single card and caring about an amorphous concept.
10. Interesting, good to know.
11. Yes, that seems to be the consensus. I was judging them based on having the same card number, but it seems like that isn't actually an issue.
12. Are schemes considered cards from a game standpoint? Good point about silver bordered cards, though. Copies of permanents become tokens, I don't think that'd be too much of a problem.
13. Mimeoplasm only get the abilities of one of the creatures, that's an important distinction.
16. Which card?
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant dont know about scheeme rules i dont play condpericy, 16 i mean Magar of the Magic Strings who animites them as face down 3/3s
11: i dont think the same number matters
I disagree with earl of squirrel because there's a green equipment who does citizenlink
Also: rules lawyer is entirely playable. Another player made two nonlegendary copies of it and played a boardwipe.
His board survived and mine didn't.
It doesn't work like "other permanents have indestructible" because once it leaves the battlefield the stuff still dies.
@@hoffedemann5370 was it a damage board wipe
@@ab-mc2nq yup. blasphemous act
Yeah, I don't know why I was caught up on Squirrellink, it's entirely reasonable
it's so weird that bottom tier is green and top tier is red lmao
I went off tier list coloring. I've never known the origin of that
@@TrumanTheGrayMerchant lol that's fair. It's just green good red bad, generally speaking
@@violet_broregarde very fair
your team?
?
I just wish Unfinity had made half the archetypes proper legal so you could get a proper decklist, I'm super sad Legacy Attractions had to die for mind goblins sins, when it's too incomplete to be built in Pauper and the most popular attraction's commander, The Most Dangerous Gamer, only has a single "legal" Prize Winning Attraction which is sadly a once in blue moon deal.
Hope they eventually re-work the nerve to make another Unset, if not just relegate the weirdo effects to Mystery Boosters/Con Event cards, we may never have another "Time Spiral" that just dumps semi-baked effects onto the unsuspecting standard players again, but I still hope we have goofy joke cards that can have the chance to break up the SIGMA SRS HIGH COST legacy formats with a pile of high variance non-sense again.
You speak the truth
I ever post a screenshot about Cheese because no one talked about it in yt
th-cam.com/video/OrF1q87yvKg/w-d-xo.htmlsi=HtHjN_UkjDDluaJk
A true Cheese Stan, alone