Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #559: Unstable Cards, Part 6

Episode Date: August 3, 2018

This podcast is part six of a six-part series on the design of each and every non-Contraption card in Unstable.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time to drive to work. Okay, so I've been talking all about unstable. I'm going through every car that is stable, minus the contraptions. And I think today is going to hopefully be the final series here. So we start with Rules Lawyer. So Rules Lawyer is a rare artifact creature, a cyborg advisor, 1-1 for three white-white, so five mana total, two which is white. State-based actions don't apply to you or other permanents you control. And then it defines what state-based actions are, which is lengthy.

So this was the most controversial card in the set. This set was in and out of the set numerous times. So the way this card came about was was a lot of times in the unsets we come up with just a cool name and then it's like, okay, this is a funny name. So rules lawyer is a term for a player that kind of knows the rules really well and tries to take technical

advantage of the rules. And so we thought it'd be funny to have a card called rules lawyer. It's a funny name. So the real question was, okay, it's rules lawyer. You're you're messing with the rules okay what if you get to um we liked the idea that you got to ignore a rule so we went to the rules manager at the time uh was matt tabak and said to him okay if you if you could skip any one step or any one rule, if you could have a rule that doesn't apply, what rule would you make it?

And so Matt thought for a while, and he comes back and he goes, I got it! 704, which is the rule for state-based abilities. And state-based abilities just do a lot of, it's what I call, it's kind of the cleanup of the, like it just kind of makes things happen. Oh, that's supposed to be

dead, it's dead. Or that's supposed to be this. And it's the kind of thing that says, oh, you know, I heard something's supposed to happen, I better make that happen. And a lot of things in the game happen because of state-based rules. So, it felt like a cool thing to say, okay, what if state-based rules didn't work? Now, on a practical level, rules lawyer, I mean, it does more than this,

but it kind of works a little bit like Platinum Angel that says, you can't win the game while I'm in play. Because that's one of the things that, like, creatures won't die, and you can't lose the game. There's a bunch of things that can't happen without state-based actions. There's additional things, too, the legendary rule, and there's some other stuff. But it is one of those things that, like, if you put it in play, it's like,

oh, okay, well, until I get rid of the rules lawyer, I'm going to have trouble. But notice the rules lawyer doesn't protect itself. It just protects everything else. So it's a lot, it's kind of like a platinum angel in that it's like, until you get rid of me, there's going to be some problems. You need to get rid of me.

And anyway, it was in the set, and then it was taken out of the set, and there were numerous people that tried to kill this card. There were numerous people like, I'm going to make it my goal in life to get rid of this card from the set. Luckily, Rules Manager had a cheerleader who was trying to save it, which was me. I like Rules Manager. It's the kind of a card that I know people will talk about.

It's the kind, like, there's different kinds of un-cards that you want to have. And one of them is one that just, it does weird things, but it's the kind of thing that people will talk about. When I say there were five cards that people ask questions about, Rules Lawyer is one of them.

I want to do crazy thing., and rules lawyer's in play! Or the other thing is, I want to do such and such. No, you can't. Okay, that, plus rules lawyer's in play. So it is definitely one of those things that gets all sorts of crazy hypothetical things to happen. And I like the card. I think we

decided, well, we ended up putting in the cyborgs, ended up being on a creature, I mean, rules lawyer needed to be a creature because it's rules lawyer, because the name implies it's a creature, and we had a choice between being in the crossbreed labs or being in the

order of the widget, and just, like, it seemed more, like, white-blue seemed more orderly and caring about rules and things, it was more azureous, if you will. So we decided to put it in the cyborgs, which had to be a creature because it was a ruled lawyer. So it ended up being an artifact creature. That's just a byproduct of kind of where it needed to go flavorfully.

Okay, next. Sneak Dispatcher. The Agents of Sneak. So Sneak Dispatcher is an uncommon creature. Human spy. Two-1, 1 in a blue so 2 men in total, 1 which is blue so for 2 in a blue, tap look at the top card of target player's library

if it has an agents of sneak watermark you may reveal it and put it into your hand otherwise put it on top or bottom of its owner's library ok so notice that this card allows you to look not just at your library but at any player's library. And if you find an Agents of Sneak card, you get to put that in your hand. Hey, that means I can look at my opponent's library, find an Agents of Sneak card, and put it into my hand.

Once again, I mentioned this earlier in a previous podcast. Black border cards don't let you put cards that you don't own into your hand. But this is silver border, baby. We don't follow no rules. Well, we follow some rules, but not those rules. And so anyway, this card is part of the cycle,

the Uncommon Build Around Faction Watermark Matters cycle. This is the blue one. And if you want to make an Asian Sneak deck, this allows you to get card advantage and draw them. It also lets you sort of determine what you or your opponent is going to draw. So it definitely has a

spy-like feel. One of the big things we were trying to do with the agents of sneak because they're the spies, is try and hit all the spy tropes and try to figure out what feels sneaky like you're a spy. So sneaking and looking information and changing things felt super spy.

Okay, next. Sacrifice play. Common instant. Two in a white. So three mana total. One of which is white. A person outside the game chooses an attacking or blocking creature. Target opponent controls. That player sacrifices the creature. So this is part of our outside assistance cycle. So at common, there's a card in each color that you have to go get somebody outside the game and have them make a decision. So one of the things, there are some higher rarity cards like Kind Slaver

that make them make more complex decisions. But the idea for the common cycle was they just have to do one thing. And the idea is you don't even need a magic player. Like, okay, I'm attacking with these, he's attacking with these creatures. Hey, person that doesn't even know magic, pick one of these creatures. And we try to word them so that they have functionality.

Like, for example, Sacrifice Play is going to for sure destroy an attacking creature, and if there's only one attacking creature, you know which one it's going to destroy. But it also has situations where I really need a certain creature destroyed, but I'm at the whim of the person who's coming over. And the best, the cards that worked the best of the outside assistance were one in which you want to put it in your deck, there's functionality, but you get in situations every once in a while where you're really at the mercy of another person,

and it's like, come on, person, come on, come on, you know, and it has that same sort of die-rolling moment. There's a moment in games where's like, come on, person, come on, come on, you know, and it has that same sort of die-rolling moment. There's a moment in games where, like, I know that my fate hinges upon some sort of random variable, and I'm like, okay, random variable, come on, and there's some tension that's kind of fun. We're careful in normal Black Morgon magic not to have things that are random matter too much

because of gameplay for like tournament level stuff. But here it's perfect. So anyway, that is the outside assistance. Okay, next, Secret Base. So tap, add colorless mana to your mana pool. Tap, add one mana, if any, color to your mana pool. Spend a spell that shares a watermark with Secret Base.

So this was another variation card. This was a watermark mana card. So the idea was there were five different secret bases, one for each of the factions, and each faction has its own watermark and has its own art. We actually had five different pieces of art. So secret base varies depending on, I mean, the art is different and the watermark is different.

Mostly it matters for the watermark because the card, you can use the mana. It makes things one cheaper if you're casting spells of that. But you can, like the idea is I can always use it for colorless, but I can only use it for colored

of my faction. And then there's five different factions. So, originally we were talking about having a secret base that was all the same art and just having this be the watermark.

But we didn't really have an opportunity to show you the bases of all the things. We thought it was funny. So we ended up having five pieces of art. Okay, next.

Selfie preservation. Common sorcery, one in the green. So two mana, one of which is green. Search your library for a basic land card and reveal it. If there's a tree in the art, put it on the battlefield tapped. Otherwise,

put it in your hand, then shuffle your library. So one of the tricks in making unsets is making basic effects, but making them in a way that has an un-quality to them. So basically what this card does is it is rampant growth, but we've been sort of moving away from rampant growth. So this is rampant growth if the land has a forest in its art. Now, this is a green card, so if you're going to go get a forest, almost every forest has an art. I think there's one forest someone found that didn't have a tree in it. But essentially, the idea is, well, if you're going to get a forest, look, you're probably in good shape.

Forests have trees in it. And then other lands, it varies. Swamps are the next best chance to get a tree in it. A lot of swamps have trees in it. Then you get to mountains, and some mountains have trees, but a lot of them don't. Then you get to islands where, like, a few islands have trees. And then plains, I think there's, like, a handful that have trees. But we liked the idea of art mattering in a kind of fun way,

but it mattered in a way that leaned in the direction the card wanted to work, which is we picked something that we knew forests would most likely have, since forests, by definition, are a grouping of trees. And the fun thing about this

is watching people, normally when you go build your land base in a tournament, whatever, just grab your lands, but this makes people, so when they're building their lands, like hunt through the lands and try to find the right thing. So it's another way to just make you care in a slightly different way. And I like making art matters things.

The tricky thing about making art matters is that it has to be clear about the thing you're asking about. Like even this one, people are like, oh, is that a tree? Does that count as a tree? Like I got a bunch of questions of, oh, is that a tree? Does that count as a tree? Like, I got a bunch of questions of, does this count as a tree? So whenever I do art things, like, you know, what's a hat?

It means I have to start doing some definitional things. But this one is pretty straightforward. Usually you can tell if that's a tree or not a tree. Okay, next. Serpentine. This is a rare creature.

It's a worm. It's got augment. It's plus three, plus three. Whenever a land enters a battlefield under your control, and the augment is 2G. So, once again, this is one of the things where it's rare,

it's got a pretty good boost. Plus three, plus three for 2G is not shabby unto itself. So, even just making your creature bigger. But then, we give it a landfall trigger. We don't call it landfall, but it's essentially a landfall trigger. And guess what? You play lands on many turns. So this is a pretty good thing.

This is at rare, so it's not easy to get. But if you're building your Host and Suture deck, which is probably white-green, this is a really good card in your Host and Suture deck. Next, Shaggy Camel. It's a common host creature. It's a Camel, 3-3 for 3 W, so 4 mana total, one of which is white. When this creature enters the battlefield, creatures you control get plus 1 plus 1 until end of turn. So notice that this is a 4 mana 3, 3. The ability, well, okay, is not particularly strong. So we're giving you something that you're getting a decent amount of value.

You know, in Limited, for example, you'll often just play a 4 mana 3, 3 in white. You know, this ability can matter, and when hooked up to the right thing, there are scenarios where this can become good. It is better in certain styles of deck, interestingly enough. There is some weenie strategies you can do, or not really weenie strategies, go-wide strategies you can do. And if you're playing a go-wide strategy, this can be really good in the right deck. And if you're playing a go-wide strategy, this can be really good in the right deck.

For example, you can do white-green where you do squirrels and tokens. You can basically do gnomes and squirrels. So it's a go-wide token deck in white-green. And this card's really good in that deck. So there are certain archetypes you can play with this card as better. It is one of the weaker host creatures in a vacuum, meaning its ability, repeatable, is not quite as potent as a lot of other abilities you can repeat many times. But it is also something where the base creature is pretty good, and there are definitely decks you can play that are quite

strong. Next, Shelliphant. Uncommon creature. Turtle and or elephant. And for power toughness, it just says question mark, question mark, question mark, slash question mark. Costs one green green, so three mana total, two which is green. Zero, choose one. You may activate this ability while Shelliphant is in any zone. Shelliphant has a base power and toughness of 1-4, or Shelliphant has a base power and toughness of 3-3. So this card started, or the origin of this card started in a normal set. We called it Elefertile. It was half Elephant, half Turtle.

I don't even know what set it started in. And Elefertile ended up not being able to make it. So we decided we wanted to put Elefertile here. I needed to make the original Elephurtle I think was a 1-4 that could get like plus 2 minus 1 like turned into a 3-3 and this time we wanted to make something

a little bit more interesting so what we did is it's a card that has dual states and you can determine what the states are the reason it says turtle and or elephant is you can decide at any time whether you want it to be turtle and elephant or turtle or elephant. It has to be either turtle or elephant, but it can be turtle and elephant. And the fact that you can affect in any zone, Black Border doesn't really do that.

I mean, Black Border can have global effects that affects everything everywhere, but it can't let you change while in the zone. Well, this one lets you do it. And there's a few interesting shenanigans you can do with this card. Because it's both a 3-3 and a 1-4 if you attack with it your opponent has to kind of treat it like it's a 3-4

because you have the ability to sort of toggle between them. Now note that you can't you have to lock in because you have to do damage when you get damage when you do damage at the same time. So it's not really a 3-4. It doesn't get a 4-toughness and 3-power. But the opponent has to sort of consider it like it's a 4-toughness creature and it's a 3-power creature.

Because it can't be both, but it could be either one or the other. So they have to assume it's both. This card was going to be called Elefertile. But this is one of the ones where we let the people try to give it a name, and then Shellphant ended up being a better name than Elfertil, although Elfertil will always have a warm place in my heart. Okay, next, Side Quest. Unstable.

I was unstable. That's a set. Uncommon Sorcery. White, so it costs a single white mana. Target player in the Silver Border game you can see from your seat gains control of target creature you control until your next turn. At the beginning of your next upkeep, put two plus one counters on that creature. So this is a flicker effect where it flickers into another game.

Note when it comes back, it is like flickering. It does enter the battlefield. It triggers enter the battlefield effects. I know we were... There's a game... Did we show we were, there's a game, did we show the game? There's a game we played in, there's a game we played on

when I shot Game Nights. I'm not sure whether we aired that game, but we messed it up a little bit, but I'm sure we aired that game. Anyway, this is inspired by a card called Ass Whoopin' in Unhinged,

where you took a card and a person could, how did Ass Whoopin' in Unhinged, where you took a card and a person could... You could... You could put something of yours into another game. And this is like that. This is like that, but

more temporary. But anyway, we wanted to get a flicker effect into the set, and it dawned on me that it might be fun to have a flicker effect that, well, the creature's going to go away, but instead of just going to exile, hey, what if it went somewhere else? And that was kind of what inspired SideQuest.

Also, I think Elefertile is in SideQuest. I believe it's Elefertile that's being, or it's Shelfent, that's being sent on a Sidequest, if I remember correctly. I like having cards that reference other cards, so I think it is Shelfent that's going on the Sidequest. Okay, next, Skull Saucer, Uncommon Creature, Zombie Head, 4-1, 4 black-black. So six mana total, two which is black, flying.

And when Skull Saucer enters the battlefield, destroy target creature and put your head on the table. Sacrifice Skull Saucer when your head stops touching the table. So, in the past, in Unglued and Unhinged, we did a bit more physical stuff. I decided I wanted a little bit of physical stuff

because there are players that really enjoy, you know, there are players that really get into that. We limited the physical stuff mostly to black. So if you don't want to do the physical stuff, kind of stay away from that color and you don't have to do the physical stuff. I guess there's an artifact or two.

And then the idea was, originally this card, I think when it did combat damage, it could kill someone the first time it did combat damage. And we finally decided, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to put a lot of the card not on the creature. So if you just want to cast So for example, this card costs 6 mana

and destroys the creature. Look, if you want to just play, if you just want to destroy a creature and not put your head on the table, look, you can play 6 mana, destroy a creature. You're not getting all the equity out of this card, but okay, I mean, I don't have to do that. So the enter the battlefield effect can happen without your head going on the

table. But it's a 4-1 flyer. We did make it fragile so it's easy to kill because keeping your head on the table is not easy to do. And the idea we loved here was, I liked a lot the idea that the creature itself was just a head and the idea of you are itself was just a head.

And the idea of you are the head, you're putting the head on the table. This card has played out really well. This is one of the cards that there's a lot of concern about because when I wanted to put some physical stuff in there's people, like one of the things is in general, like any magic set, there's different people that like different things.

And kind of what I'm trying to do is mix it up. I try to segregate it a little bit so if you don't want to play it, you can avoid it. But also, if you're really into the physical stuff, okay, well, play black. That's where the physical stuff is. And, you know, it's a lot of fun. Like, I definitely had games

where I was playing Skulls of the Stars on the table and I'd hand it in a clone machine. We're like, my head is a creature, my hands are tokens, and how many body parts can be creatures? So, um, and this is another fun one I found with people where they try to do things to get you to lift

your head from the table because once you lift your head from the table the creature goes away. So there's some fun, like look over there and there's some fun things. So anyway, this card has turned out to be, it did all the things I wanted to do. The people who really get into it have enjoyed it a lot. There's been a lot of pictures. This is the kind of card that inspires

people to take pictures and post them, which is good. Like I said, I like cards that tell stories. This definitely encourages that. And then I remember we didn't know quite, like, one of the things that was challenging is, look, it flies and it's a head. And so I just said to Kelly, it's a flying head! I think this was also kind of inspired, my kids used to watch a show called Phineas and Ferb, and there was one episode where they build a haunted house,

I think, and there was this giant floating baby head that is a running joke throughout the whole show. I think that somehow influenced me to make this card. But anyway, that is Skull Saucer. Okay, next. Slaying Mantis. Uncommon creature. Insect Wrestler. 6-6. 5 green

greens. So 7 mana total. 2 of which is green. It's got just a second. As long as the spell is on the stack, players can't move cards on the battlefield. Which is supposed to be a take on split second. Slaying Mantis enters the battlefield by being thrown from a distance of at least three feet. When Slaying Mantis enters the battlefield,

it fights each creature an opponent controls that touched it as it entered. So the idea is you've got to stand three feet away horizontally, not vertically, but horizontally. And the idea of this card is you get to fight anything it touches. So it's pretty big. I mean, it costs seven mana, but it's a 6-6.

So the idea is, look, it has the potential to... And the way the fight works, by the way, is it fights each individual creature. So let's say it lands on a 4-4, 3-3, and a 2-2. It fights the 4-4, it fights the 3-3, it fights the 2-2. Now, those fighting are all at the same time, but it'll destroy all of them, because a 6-6 can destroy a 4-4, 3-3, and a 2-2.

In fact, if you landed on three 6-6s, it can destroy all of them, because it'll do six damage to each creature. Each creature will do six damage to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll die, but it'll destroy all the things. So, we knew I wanted a physical... So, the very first set had...

What's it called? Chaos Confetti, where you ripped a card up and threw it. Now, people were very clear they didn't want to rip their card up. But I liked, we had one in, what was it called? The one where you're trying to use your land and cover the card. Anyway, we've done physical stuff before where there's some physicality to it. The idea of using your card... The thing that I liked a lot

about this... I forget who designed this card. I don't think it was me. I think it was one of my team. But anyway, the idea that this thing is going to determine... Like, you throw it because it's going to fight anything that it touches. The flavor was so... Anything of your opponent. It doesn't fight your own creatures.

I think it's anything of your opponent. Yeah, an opponent. So anyway, this card is definitely one of those cards that has paid off. On game nights, I played Josh in game one. He got it. He played it. I was in a winning position, but if he could hit a couple

creatures, it really could have turned the game around and got me in trouble. And there was a big drum roll and we measured and everything and he tosses it and it misses the table. And that was, it was very funny. So anyway, in the pre-release, I get this card and I'm like, okay, I'm not going to miss the table. So I'm practicing with it because Josh didn't really practice with it. That probably was his mistake. So I practiced with it. I even get sleeves really practice with it. That probably was his mistake. So I practiced with it. I even get sleeves to practice throwing it in the sleeves. So the first time I get it, I get it on the table. I didn't miss the table.

That was my main goal, but I didn't hit anything. The second time I throw it, I get it, I get it, like, really close. And then the third time, I actually managed to kill multiple things with it. So anyway, I was successful with my multiple things with it. So anyway, I was successful with my slaying mantis.

Once again, it's a lot of fun. The wrestling theme, I think Kelly came up with that. I think the idea, we were trying to figure out what was, we wanted to have

a green creature that was a wrestler. And then, I'm not sure who came up with the name slaying mantis, but it's an awesome name. So, anyway, and then we made it an insect since it was a Slaying Mantis. Next, Sly Spy.

Uncommon creature, human spy, 2-2 for two and a black. So three mana total, one of which is black. And this is another of our rules variant cards. There's six variants of these. This is one of the uncommons. Whenever Sly Spy deals combat damage to a player,

that player reveals his or her hand. You choose a card from it with the longest name. That player discards that card. So these are all when I hit you saboteur effects.

And they're all kind of un-effects. They're all quirky effects. They're, I think they're all discard effects. Is that right? I think they're all discard effects. Is that right? I think they're all discard effects.

I'm trying to remember. Um, they might not all be discard effects. They're all black effects. Actually, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe they're various black. I think that I got to take that back. I guess they're various black effects. They're not all discard effects. But anyway, there are various, they're all effects that you could not do in a normal

Blackboard Border set. So, and the fun thing about Sly Spy is that the variance cards have the same art. So if you see it, you know that if it hits you, it's a bad thing. But you're like, oh, what bad thing is this one going to do? And so one of the fun things about the variance is the confusion of the variance is kind of part of the fun of the variance, which is sometimes people see the card is kind of part of the fun of the variants which is sometimes people see the card and not realize it's a variant and they're like oh i played that card before that does thing x and then it hits them and like oh wait a minute that's um one of the new things about the variants was we didn't tell people about the variants i mean right right before

i guess the audience once the audience um once people started opening packs it came out but um we were kind of hush about it, so the idea was, one of the fun things was Unsets liked to make a little bit of a chaos, so the idea that you would play against somebody and they had a card, and you know what it does, and then you play somebody else with the same card, but it doesn't do the same thing, was kind of

fun. And so Slice By is in that area. Next, Snickering Squirrel, Common Creature, Squirrel Advisor, 1ickering Squirrel, common creature. Squirrel Advisor, 1-1 for a single black mana. You may tap Snickering Squirrel to increase the results of a die roll of any player rolled by one.

So the idea is, if they roll one, if you roll, no, it's any player, not just you. Usually you don't want to make other players' rolls higher. There's occasions to do it. Normally rolling higher

is better for you than rolling lower. So, usually use this on yourself. In team games, you could use it to help other players if you want. And yes, you can turn a 6 into a 7. And if you have multiple of these, you can turn a 6 into a 7 to an 8 to a 9, for example. This card was originally

called Lab Squirrel. Hold on, let me take a drink for a second. So, Lab Squirrel. Hold on, let me take a drink for a second. So Lab Squirrel was a, or Snickers Squirrel. The reason we called it Lab Squirrel was one of the things in our flavor, and I talk about this in my short story. The flavor is that there's so much mad scientist experiments that they ran out of white mice. And so they had to find a replacement for white mice.

And the replacement, the perfect replacement turned out to be squirrels. So squirrels are the replacement. But through the experimentation, some of the squirrels have become super smart, like a snickering squirrel. And so there's a bunch of super smart squirrels running around Bablovia.

So the idea of this card was we wanted to have different dice interactions. So blue lets you re-roll dice. Red lets you roll lots of dice. Green cares about dice roll. White doesn't really do a lot of dice roll because luck is not white's thing. And then black allows you to increase die rolls.

Okay. Next is Socketed Sprocketer. Socketed Sprocketer. This is hard to say. So socketed sprocketer. So let me read this one, then I'll explain what that means. Tap. Uninstall all results from socketed sprocketer, then roll a six-sided die. Install the results on socketed sprocketer. Put the die on the card.

You may uninstall a result from socketed sprocketer to use it for a die you rolled. Uninstall a six from socketed sprocketer to use it for a die you rolled. Uninstall a six from socketed sprocketer to draw a card. So the idea was you've got to preload a die roll on this card. So you had to tap it, and then you get to roll a die. And what happens is whatever you roll, you now put it on this die. You roll a one, put it on there, put a two, a three, whatever. So now there's a die on socketed sprocketer. And what that means is whenever you roll a die, you are allowed to, well, whenever you're about to roll a die,

instead of rolling the die, you can instead use the die result you've rolled on this card. As an added bonus, you also can remove the die from this card if it's a six to draw a card. So the idea is this is to use in your blue die rolling deck, because it helps you manipulate what the die rolls are. It's a little bit different. The other blue lets you re-roll dies. This lets you sort of, instead of rolling, have a pre-known thing. And sometimes what's cool is, let's say I roll a three on this.

I wait until, oh, rolling a three will accomplish the thing I need to accomplish fine, I'll use the three but you always every turn, because it's a tap effect you can reroll it every turn at bare minimum one out of six times you can tap it to draw a card this card's utility I don't know if I'd play this card if this was the only

thing rerolling a die, it really wants other die rolling, but there's plenty of die rolling in the set, so it's not that hard to have one or two cards that care about die rolling. Okay, next. Spell Suck. So Spell Suck is counter-target spell, then assemble a contraption. So one of the things we try to do for the Agents of Sneak is they have the most functional things tied to their contraption building, and they tend to mess with the opponent, kill a creature or counter a spell.

So the idea is you're kind of building this control deck, and while I'm messing with my opponent, I'm slowly building my contraptions. So each of the factions, we wanted to give them their own feel of how they build contraptions and what they do. And so this is what the Agents of Sneak do. They're kind of the control. We're going to control the game, slowly build our contraption

to the point at which the contraption will win the game for us. That's how that tends to play out. Next, Spike, Tournament Grinder. It's a rare legendary creature. Human gamer, 1-1. And it's got a for black Phyrexian mana.

Oh, I'm sorry. What's this mana cost? It's mana cost is 2 and a black Phyrexian mana. Is that right? Oh, I'm sorry. Its mana cost is, oh, two and a black Phyrexian mana. Is that right? Oh, I'm sorry. Two.

Okay, I'm messing this up. Its mana cost is two generic, black Phyrexian mana, black Phyrexian mana. Four total. Black Phyrexian mana. Phyrexian mana means you may pay two life instead of paying the color. So it costs two black black. Or it could cost two and a black and two life. Or it can cost two and four life.

You can even play this if you're not playing black in your deck. And there's people who have run it in their deck not even playing black. Then for black Phyrexian, black Phyrexian, black Phyrexian, black Phyrexian, so four black Phyrexians, choose a card you own from outside the game that has been banned or restricted in a constructed format, reveal the card

and put it into your hand. So this is, we're doing a cycle. We did Timmy Power Gamer in Unglued. Johnny, I'm sorry, Timmy Power Gamer in Unglued. Johnny Combo, what was it, Combo? Oh, Timmy Power Gamer Johnny Combo Player and this is Spike Tournament Tournament Grinder

Tournament Grinder so we someone came up with this design really early and we loved it and the idea that is I can wish for things that were band restricted in constructed formats it means you get to go get really powerful things that is, I can wish for things that were band restricted in constructed formats.

It means you get to go get really powerful things. And there's a lot of just crazy things you can do with this. The card obviously is very spiky because it's Spike. So Spike's one of the second graphics. So Timmy and Tammy, Johnny and Jenny, and Spike. And I think it is, this card has proven to be a lot of fun it really, wishing for a small subset of cards is cool we also made the conscious choice

to have Spike be a woman and because the names originally when I named them I made them male so when we made both Timmy and Johnny we put males in the art just because it was a male name so we had an opportunitymy and Johnny, we put males in the art just because of the male name.

So we had an opportunity to correct that. So we, I mean, to have some balance. I mean, we, I like the fact, I mean, ideally we want to have a balance. And I like the idea of people thinking that the psychic graphics are not just for one gender or the other. That's why we have different names to sort of convey that. Anyway, I thought it was really cool. It came out, the different names to sort of convey that. Anyway, I thought it was really cool. It came out.

The shirt that's in the art was so popular, we made the shirt. Or at least we sold for a while the Nope shirt with the blue mana symbol. But anyway, that turned out to be a very popular card. Split Screen Rare Artifact. When Split Screen enters the battlefield, shuffle your library and deal into four libraries. very popular card split screen rare artifact when split screen enters the battlefield

shuffle your library and deal into four libraries if anything refers to your library choose one of your libraries for it play with your library

top card revealed when split screen leaves the battlefield shuffle your libraries together so this is a card where it gives you a bunch of choices

early on but eventually what happens is you start getting stranded because like, oh, that's not a card I want to draw. Oh, that's not a card I want to draw. Oh, that's not a card I want to draw. You have a lot of control. You can choose how big the libraries are. You can choose what you draw from.

Any effect that carries, you can pick which one it is. This card just is a kind of a cutesy way to let you have some choice of what you draw in a way that we wouldn't do in normal Blackboard or Magic because you can't have more than one library in Black Border Magic. There's some funky things that happen when you have more than one

library, but Silver Border were up for the funky, so that was fine. And if you'll notice, by the way, there's a lot of fun things. It's showing a screen and you can see different things, some of which I think reference other cards. One is even

a camera on the person watching the camera. So it's kind of fun. Next, Spy Eye. Spy Eye is an uncommon creature, an Eye Spy, for one and a three. Two blue blue, so it's four mana, two wishes blue. Whenever Spy Eye

deals combat damage to a player, you may draw a card from that player's library. So once again, we're playing around with the idea that I can have cards I do not own and put in my hand. This basically is one of the things I love about Uncards is we can take a simple effect we do all the time and just have one

tiny tweak. So we make cards like Thawing Magpie what we call Curiosity effect where it's like I do combat damage to a player and I get to draw a card. And this is like I do combat damage to my opponent and I get to draw a card. Well, it's their card because it's not set.

But I love the idea that it's just so close, but just a little bit different. We did have some conversation, by the way, between whether or not the name of the card and the creature type should be in the same order and not in the same order. But in the end, we decided to go the direction we did. Next, Squirrel Dealer, common creature,

raccoon, lizard, bird, 1-1 for a single green mana. When Squirrel Dealer enters the battlefield, ask a person outside the game, do you like squirrels? If he or she does, create a 1-1 green squirrel creature token. This is part of the cycle of outside assistance. I...

Somehow, I made this card because I was just tickled pink by the idea of... We joke all the time, and we want to... There's some of us that want squirrels to be in Black Border magic and just be more part of normal magic. There's other people that don't.

That's why they're relegated to supplemental sets in Silver Border. But I thought it was kind of funny to sort of like just... Because obviously you want people to say yes to squirrels. So you've got to find people

that share your passion for squirrels. There's so many creature types because of the art. The art is awesome, by the way. This was one of our favorite pieces of art. Maybe my absolute favorite piece of art from the set. We used it a lot. I showed it off, I think, when I first showed the set at San Diego Comic-Con.

When I first showed any of the art from the set at all, I showed off this art because it's such an awesome piece of art. But anyway, this is a fun card. Squirreled Power Scheme, Uncommon Enchantment, 2 and a black. Increase the results of each die roll you roll by 2. power scheme, uncommon enchantment, two and a black. Increase the results of each die roll you roll by two. So we ended up tying black's dice manipulation to squirrels to play into the idea of the super smart squirrels, that they're the ones behind the scenes manipulating things. Probably we owe this to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that revealed that the smartest animals were the white mice that were manipulating

all the experiments on Earth. So I think that inspired this idea. So thank you, Douglas Adams. Next, Staff of the Letter Magus. It's an uncommon artifact. It costs three generic mana. As Staff of the Letter Magus enters the battlefield, choose a consonant other than N, R, S, or T.

Whenever a player casts a spell, you gain one life each time the chosen letter appears in that spell's name. How do we pick the letters we picked? Well, we did some random sampling and just discovered that there were four letters that were just so far ahead of the other letters that it just wasn't fun, so we took them away from you. And this is another example where you aren't normally allowed to reference what's in a name, so we played in that space. Also the Magus Cycle. There's a cycle of Magus Spells that gives you life based on

um... Is it card type or is it color? I'm blanking on it. But it's a cycle. And this is sort of... The art is mimicking that cycle. The card is mimicking that cycle. Next, Stamp of Approval.

Uncommon Artifact costs three. As Stamp of Approval enters the battlefield, choose a watermark. Creatures you control with the chosen watermark get plus one, plus one. So we're not allowed to make watermarks matter in real magic because you can have different variants of the same card. Some of them have watermarks, some of them don't, and they also be treated the same. So watermarks is one of the things we're not allowed to make matter.

Watermarks are new since Unhinged, so watermarks weren't really a thing as of Unhinged, so I knew that when we make next Unset, I wanted watermarks to matter, so I made a couple cards that matter. This one, I liked the idea of just doing a simple get a lot of creatures. Also, one of the things that we wanted to do was wanted you to be able to play we wanted to do was wanted you to be able to play factions in this. We wanted you to be able to draft factions as a viable thing to draft, and so this card was stuck in uncommon to allow you to

sort of help enable making faction draft decks, because you can just choose whatever you need to. So whatever faction you draft, this card is good for enabling faction drafts. We left it open-ended so you could play with other watermarks and other things. But really, this was made and put it uncommon as a means to help promote build-around faction drafting. That's kind of the point of the card. Next, Steady-Handed Mook. Common creature, human rigor, 1-1, 2 and a black. It's got Death Touch.

And when it enters the battlefield, you assemble a contraption. Once again, this is the spy trying to have a little more function. This is a little more control-oriented. It's a 1-1 Death Touch creature. Those are really good for keeping your opponent from attacking or from getting rid of the biggest creature if they do attack. So it's another card that's sort of like, I play a control style. I hold off my opponent.

Meanwhile, I'm building contraption because my win condition is going to be my contraption. Next, Steam Powered, Uncommon, Artifact Creature, Construct. It's an augment card, so it's plus zero, plus four, for five mana. So most of them are triggered. This is one that you just pay mana, and it's augment four. So this is the card that just instead of, it's not a, most of them are triggers. Most Augment are triggers. This happens to be a cost.

I think it's the only cost and not a trigger. But the idea is, if you put this on, spend 5, you get to do it. And this is one of those cards, by the way, that don't underestimate. I know 5 seems like a lot, but there are a lot of effects that you just repeatedly do every turn are backbreaking. Like this with jellyfish is insanely good. So anyway, if you're drafting, you see this card.

It is especially one of the things I know when people are drafting host and augment in general is they don't prioritize taking the augments and the augments, like there are more hosts than augments. And it's easy to pick up the host. It's a lot easier

to pick up the host. It's hard to pick up the augments. And this is the kind of augment you definitely want to get. Next, Steamflugger boss. Rare creature, Goblin Rigger. 3-3, 3 and a red. So 4 mana, 1 which is red. Other riggers you control get plus 1, plus 0 and have haste. If a rigger you control would assemble a contraption, it assembles 2 contraptions

instead. So this is the Granddaddy. This is the black-bordered creature in the set. The lands are I mean, they're not actually black-bordered and they don't have a border that's black, but they're treated as black-bordered. So I guess this is the one card that actually has a black border in the set.

So basically this is the card that inspired contraptions that showed up in Future Sight. I knew, I knew, I knew that when we did Contraptions, we needed to have Steam Plugger Boss. And so we put it on the land sheet because it has to have a black border. The other sheets are silver border, and it's hard to mix black border and silver border. And anyway, so we put it on the land sheet. It's only on there once. So every set, I mean, the idea is every pack you open will have a full Art Basic land,

except, except, every once in a blue moon, you'll get a Steamflugger boss. By the way, if you open it, the way it works in draft is you leave it in the pack if you open a Steamflugger boss. If it's a land, you take it. If not, you leave it in. And so every once in a while, there's an extra card to draft because there's a Steamflugger boss. We did that. Originally, we had talked about maybe just keep the Steamflugger boss, so you keep a land, but then people didn't get it drafted and it's actually a lot

of fun in the environment and we wanted to make sure the person who could use it could play it. So anyway, you put it in the draft. We didn't, we talked about whether or not to do new art, but we realized that the art, the original art, fit the world and we thought it was kind of cool that it got to be

in a new frame, but actually use that art like it really was a flash forward from the future. Okay, steam it was kind of cool that it got to be in a new frame, but actually use that art like it really was a flash forward from the future. Okay, Steamflugger of the Month. Rare creature, Goblin Rigger, 3-3-3 red-red. So 5 mana, 2 which is red. When Steamflugger of the Month enters the battlefield, it assembles a contraption for each

contraption you control. So this one doubles contraptions. Like I said, the shtick for the Goblins is they just want to have a lot of contraptions. The goblins are all about just making the biggest possible contraption machine you can make. They're not about nuance.

They're not about subtlety. They're not about control. They're like, just make the biggest contraption you can make. So cards like this doubles your contraptions. Steamflugger Service Rep. Creature. Goblin Rigger. 1-1, 2 and a green. So cards like this, like, doubles your contraptions. Steamflugger, Service Rep, Creature, Goblin Rigger, 1-1, 2 in a green, so it costs 1 green, 3 mana,

3 mana total, 1 of which is green. Whenever another Goblin enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay 1. If you do, Steamflugger, Service Rep assembles a contraption. So this is a card that says, okay, every time I play a Goblin, it essentially says, every Goblin has enter the battlefield,

pay one, assemble a contraption. So once again, you'll see, and notice we put the cards that are assembling lots of contraptions are in the steam flogger space. The steam floggers

are the company that the goblins took over that make all the contraptions or make, I guess they're not the only ones that make contraptions in this world,

but they make a lot of crazy devices. And so we were referencing steam flogger boss. Well, he's a boss of the steam of crazy devices. And so we were referencing Steamflugger Boss. Well, he's a boss of the Steamfluggers. And then there's Steamflugger Temp. Uncommon creature, Goblin Rigger, 2-1 for one and a red. So two mana, one of which is red.

Six and tap, Steamflugger Boss assembles a contraption. So you'll notice all the Steamflugger stuff is really good at assembling contraptions. And then Steamfluggery. Uncommon Instant, four red red. So six mana total, two of which is red. Roll six out of die really good at assembling contraptions. And then Steamfluggery. Uncommon Instant. Four red reds. So six mana total. Two which is red. Roll six out of die. Assemble that many contraptions. So you'll notice all the Steamflugger

bosses. Contraptions, contraptions, contraptions. Make lots of contraptions. They love contraptions. Steel Squirrel. Uncommon Artifact Creature. Squirrel. One one. And it costs two. Whenever you roll five or higher on a die, steal squirrel gets plus X plus X until end of turn where X is the result. And then six, roll a six-sided die.

So the idea here is it's a little tiny creature that has the potential to turn into a big creature. Originally, this only happened when we rolled a six, but once again, because of the six or more problem, we changed it to five. And this also lets you roll a die, which just enables a lot of other die rolling things. You'll note, by the way, that the squirrel deck has a die rolling theme in it. It's black green, and this is another piece of that. So it's not the easiest deck to draft. You kind of have to open, like, if, for example, you open up Earl of Squirrels, the kind of have to open like, if for example you open up Earl of Squirrels, the kind of thing where you can go for it and try to make

a squirrel deck. But it's a black-green deck. It's not the easiest thing to draft, but there's a lot of components to it, and it's dice-oriented. If you're playing a black-green squirrel deck, you want a lot of dice cards. Pick up the dice cards. Remember, green cares about dice rolling, black manipulates dice, and the black dice manipulator

are squirrel-related. So if you're going. And the black dice manipulator are squirrel related. So if you're going to do the black-green squirrel deck, be aware. There's a lot of dice in it. There's other stuff you can do. There's actually some fun host augment stuff you can do. Black has some of the strongest augments. It doesn't have as many, but both the zombie and the ninja are pretty good, and they combo well with some of the green stuff.

So Black Green is a really interesting deck. Actually, in the pre-release, I played a Black Green deck, although I had to pull the squirrel component out of my deck because I almost got Earl Squirrel, but it passed, passed, passed, passed, and the person before me took it. Stinging Scorpion, common host creature. Scorpion, 3-2, 4 and a black.

When this creature enters the battlefield, target creature and opponent control gets minus 1, minus 1 until end of turn. Notice that this is 5 mana for a 3-2. What that tells you is the effect is pretty potent. And this has the ability to kill things and multiple things. And when hooked up to the right sort of trigger it can become pretty potent um it's one of those things that you first look at seems like not that strong and the more you play with it the more you realize that oh it's actually a bit more potent than you realize um i know a lot of people kind of look at this i'm like oh monster minus one that's not that

big a deal and three two that's not so awesome for a five mana thing uh and then whatever you end up playing just because you have to and then you augment you're like oh this thing is really good so don't underestimate it one of the coolest things about it is it messes up all the combat math so like whenever your opponent is attacking they always have to you know depending on your trigger but they have to know that

especially if you pick a trigger that you have some control over it can be pretty potent it's definitely one of those... Not every host creature is good with every augment, by the way. Certain combinations are stronger. This is the kind of card where the more control you have of the timing of it, the better it is. So something like Serpentine or Steam Powered

are things where you have more finite control, especially if you can do it post-combat, where they have to account for the fact that maybe you can do it in combat. Even when you can't finite control, especially if you can do it post-combat, where they have to account for the fact that maybe you can do it in combat, even when you can't do it, especially if it's hidden information they don't know, like, for example, Serpentine, whether you have a land or not, they might not know.

It can be very powerful. Next, subcontract. Sorcery, black, common sorcery for single black mana. A person outside the game looks at target opponent's hand and chooses a non-land card from it. That player discards the card. This is the black part of the common outside assistant cycle. We tried a bunch of different things

but in the end, just like a discard card where your opponent has some say. The only thing I'm a little sad here is this card's a little bit weak on rate meaning it's not really the right thing to play. Even if you're... Well, I mean, if the person picking for you knows how to play magic,

is on your side and picks the best thing, meaning if it turns into a coercion, then it happens to be a good card. The problem is between people not knowing and people messing with you, it just so little of a time ends up being a coercion that it ends up... This card is a hard card to

play and I wish I would have fitted it a little bit to make it a little bit easier to play. I mean, it is a good card to play if you know if someone knows magic and they'll help you, it's good. But that doesn't always happen. Okay, success. Common instant, white. Target creature goes plus two, plus two, it'll end

of turn. If it's a host or augment, it gains lifelink to end of turn so white and green the crossbreed labs is the one that's most attuned to the host and augment not that the other cards don't have a little bit but green and white are where it lies there's more host and augment in white and green

and they have a larger amount of or they have the host augment matters cards are mostly in white and green this is one of those. And this is the kind of thing, it's a combat trick. It's not that you can't play it outside of a host augment deck, but wow, it just adds a little extra value in a host augment deck.

Summon the pack. Open a sealed magic booster. Reveal the cards and put all creatures revealed this way onto the battlefield under your control. They're zombies in addition to their normal types. So we did a card in

Unhinged called it was called Booster Tutor. And the idea of Booster Tutor is you got a tutor from a land. You go open up a Booster Pack, get a card from it. That was really popular. We decided we wanted to make a variant of it. And so this card for a long time was called Undead Legions, because it's kind of a nod that you wanted to play with the card Legions,

which is all creatures. It's an expansion in which all the cards are creatures. There's some other good picks, too. Getting 15 creatures is pretty potent, so the Legion packs are pretty good for this. This is the one card I think Matt Cavati illustrated, by the way. Matt doesn't get to do a lot of illustrations now. He works at Wizards, but he asked, he wanted to do one card.

He knew this was a saucy card, so he asked to do it. Okay, next. Super Duper Death Ray. So this is one of the cards that I try to make in Magic. I think Liquid Fire is one version of it. And just the rules don't let you put Trample onto a direct damage spell. Even though it's not that hard to understand, like players would get it, it just doesn't work within the rules.

And I kept trying to do it, and finally I just said, okay, and I did it here. So this is, if people are wondering why, you can't actually do this, sadly, in Black Border. Suspicious Nanny, Uncommon Creature, Human Spy Rigger, 3-4 for 4 and a blue. Whenever Suspicious Nanny deals combat damage to a player, it reassembles target creature that player controls. So this one gets to steal contraptions from your opponent. It takes one of their contraptions and puts it on one of your sprockets. So not only do the spies, not only do they assemble their own contraptions from your opponent. It takes one of their contraptions and puts it on one of your sprockets. So not only do the spies,

not only do they assemble their own contraptions, and part of doing it, they can mess with the other people's contraptions. Sword of Dungeons and Dragons. How are we doing on... What are we doing on time here?

We have 50 minutes. I'm so close to being done. Okay, I'm going to quickly... I don't think I have enough for a whole other show, so I'm going to quickly get through this. It's going to be a long last show, but I just don't think I have enough for a whole other thing. Sword of Dungeon Dragons.

Rare artifact. Equipment. Cost 3. Equip creature gets plus 2 and protection from rogues and clerics. Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, create a 4-4 gold dragon creature token with flying and roll a d20, a 20-sided die. If you roll a 20, repeat the process. This card, when we made it,

we loved the idea of riffing off Sword of Blank and Blank and making a Dungeon Dragons riff. We went to the Dungeon Dragons team. They said we could do it. I think originally we had Warriors and Wizards, Wizards and warriors.

And based on the art that came back, because it was a mace and clerics used maces, they asked if we could change to rogues and clerics. They also, we originally made a berserker token, and they asked if we could make a dragon token, because dragons are iconic, obviously, to Dungeons & Dragons. I think we were more interested in making a D&D monster that didn't exist in Magic, but they really asked if we could do a dragon. They wanted a gold dragon, so we literally made a dragon that's a gold color, because in Magic,

gold usually means multicolored, but here, nope, it's actually gold. And we ended up, that ended up going in the Hazcon exclusive, because we're doing three things that reference, and they realized we just had a really fun card and it referenced another thing, so it ended up going there. The unique thing about the Hazcon version of, it has a

watermark. It has the Hascon watermark so it actually is different from the one in the pack because watermarks matter and it does have a watermark so in a few weird cases it can matter. Next, Targeting Minotaur. Common creature 2-1 for one and a red with prowess. This is one of the art variants.

It shows four different Minotaurs being attacked by four different spells. I think in one of each color of the other colors other than red is how it played out teacher's pet, uncommon creature, cat bird scientist 2-1, 1-W 2-2-W, sacrifice teacher's pet, search your library for a card with augment combine it with target host

you control the shelf of your library so this lets you tutor for a host or augment I'm sorry, tutor for an augment so that you could once you get a host creature out you can then a host or augment I'm sorry tutor for an augment so that you could like once you get a host creature out you can then go get the augment you need

to put on the host creature and once again it's in white because green and white are the things that play with host augment the big idea rare legendary creature

brainiac villain 4-4 4 red red 6 mana 2 which is red 2 hybrid black or red hybrid black or red tap

roll a 6 sided die create a number of 1-1 red braininiac creature tokens equal to the result, tap three untapped Brainiacs you control. The next time you roll a six-sided die, instead roll two six-sided dice and use the total of the results. This was the, I wanted to have a chaotic villain. He sits on the council. He's one of the four.

I made a minor red in his cost, but we put black-red hybrid in his activation so that he'd be black-red for legendary purposes, for commander purposes, but he's one of the other four of the villains. He's he was designed as the archetypal kind of chaos villain. He ended up being a little bit more of a

mad scientist villain, but he's a brainiac, but that's where it started. Countdown is at one. Three red red, five mana, two fishes red. Players play a magic sub game starting at one life and using their libraries as their decks. For the rest of the main game, if a source would deal damage to a player who didn't win the sub game, it deals double that damage

to that player instead. The idea here is we want to do a sub game, but we want it to be fast, so I thought it would be really funny if, what if you just start at one life? It's just a super fast sub game, and then we put it in red, so the reward could be, oh, well, all damage to that player is doubled. So the reason you want to win is, it just makes it easier to beat them in the main game. And there's a lot of fun.

This is definitely one of those cards that's created a lot of stories. We don't do sub games in Black Border anymore, even though Scheherazade was the first one. So Silver Border, we try to do a sub game every Silver Border. The Grand Calcuton, rare legendary artifact, white-blue. When the Grand Calcuton

enters the battlefield, each player hand becomes a program and order revealed cards. Players can only play the first card of their program. If a card would be put into a player's hand from anywhere,

the player reveals it and places it anywhere within his or her program. At the beginning of each player's end step, if the player has fewer than five cards, he or she draws cards equal to the difference. This is the leader of the Order of each player's end step if that player has fewer than five cards he or she draws cards equal to the difference

this is the leader of the order of the widget it was always my intent that this could be a commander except we just didn't have space to say that but we didn't want it to be a creature because the whole shtick is

the founder of them upgraded himself so much they basically turned into a computer but anyway this is a fun card and we have, after the fact, said you can play it as a commander

even though we couldn't fit it on the card. Three-headed Goblin, rare creature, Goblin Mutant, 3-3, three red red, so five mana,

two witches red. Triple Strike. Once we knew we were going to do Last Strike, of course we do Triple Strike. We ended up making it

a Goblin just because we thought it was funny. Time Out, common instant, four and a blue. Roll six-sided die. Put target non-land permanent into its owner's library

just beneath the top X cards of the library where X is the result. We were trying to find fun ways to use dice. This was an interesting way to sort of delay things for a while, but not forever.

We don't normally put things quite as deep as this card can. Normally in Matchy, we try not to put deeper than three, but it just plays so nicely with die rolling, so we're like, well, the average is three and a half, which is about what we normally do. So, yeah, I can average above it,

but an average is about where we limit ourselves. Next, Urza, Academy Headmaster. Mythic Rare, Legendary Planeswalker. Urza, white, blue, black, red, green. So he's the first five-card Planeswalker, and Urza has a Planeswalker. Plus one. Head to askurza.com and click plus one. Minus one. Head to askurza.com and click minus one.

Minus six. Head to askurza.com and click minus six. So the idea here is you have to go to the website to see what he does. The plan right now, he hasn't changed yet, but the plan is he will change with time. Right now, when you use him, you get a random selected of different Planeswalker abilities. Not all of them, and they're tuned a little bit,

but you definitely get sort of a collection of different Planeswalker abilities. Very cryptic command. Rare. One blue, blue, blue. So four mana total, three witches blue. Choose one. And then this is one of the rare

the variant rules variants so this one is untap two target permanents tap each permanent target player controls exactly one word in its name discard all the cards

in your hand then draw the mini cards return target instant or sorcery from your graveyard to your hand so there are always four abilities

one of which is always an un-ability like the one that cares about cards with one word in their name. And the fun thing about it is, this card's already confusing, because it has four different abilities, but there's six different cards, each with unique four different abilities. So when your opponent gets very cryptic, man, it is, in fact, very cryptic.

So Wayne England, who is the artist of this card, he did the original cryptic command, and what happened was, um, he, uh, sadly died after he turned the sketch in, but he died before he could finish the painting. So as one of the six, uh, the, uh, we, we use his sketches, the, uh, one of the art, so there's five of the same art, uh, which was finished by a friend of his who took his, took the inspiration, finished it, uh, and then, um then one of them is his sketch. And the one that has his sketch, the ability that's an un-ability references Wayne. So anyway, it was a nice little tribute.

Voracious Vacuum, common artifact host creature, construct 1-1. When this creature enters the battlefield, put a plus or minus counter on target creature. This is another host creature. We originally had this as a green effect, but then we moved it here

when we decided we wanted to do artifacts. Wall of Fortune, common artifact creature. Wall, 0-4-1-3. Defender, you may tap and un-tap while you control to have any player die that player rolled. Note that you can reroll not just your dice, but your opponent's dice, and it doesn't just reroll off this.

If you have other walls, there's not a lot of other walls in this set, to be fair, but if you want to make a wall deck, you can make a dice deck in which you use some walls defensively, and you can use the walls with all fortune to reroll dice. Watermarket, Rare Land. Tap, add, colorless, colorless to your mana pool. Spell this mana only to cast spells with watermarks. So this is a watermark mana card.

It taps for two mana, two colorless mana. We don't normally let you tap for two colorless mana on the land, but it only gets used for things with Watermark, so it's meant for a Watermark-only deck, which I thought was kind of cool. Wild Crocodile, common host creature. Crocodile, one, one, one and a green. So for two mana, one which is green.

When this creature enters the battlefield, search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, put it in your hand, and shelf your library. This is part of our color fixing. If you're going to try to splotch other colors in green, this is a very early pick by the way. This and Selfie Preservation that can

allow you, if you want to play more than two colors you can do it but you need base green to do it. There is a fun host augment deck where you play a lot of different hosts in augment but you really really need to pick up the cheap green color fixing to do that. Willing Test Subject. A common creature. Spider Monkey Scientist.

2-2-2 in a green reach. Whenever you roll a 4 or higher on a die, put a plus one counter on a Willing Test Subject. 6, roll a die. This can get out of hand. This is a really good card. It's a common, especially if you're having any dice manipulation or just something where you're doing a lot of dice rolling. This card is great

if you pick up Willing Test Subject make sure to pick up the Mad Science Fair project they combo really well together Worker Double, Common Sorcery 2 red red, assemble 2 contraptions once again this is more of red just trying to do a lot we have assembled

D6 contraptions, this is just a straight up 4 mana, you get to assemble 2 ok, we're almost done here Wrench Rigger, Common Creature, Goblin Rigger D6 contraptions. This is just a straight up four mana, you get assemble two. Okay, we're almost done here. Wrench Rigger. Common creature, Goblin Rigger. It's a 1-1 for a single red mana. When it enters the battlefield, assemble a contraption. This is the cheapest, easiest way to assemble a contraption.

Red has a curve for assembling contraptions, by the way. If you're playing Goblins, Red-Green, you can curve out and make a contraption almost every turn if you draw the cards in the right order. X. Rare. Legendary creature. Human spy. 2-2. One blue, one black. As long as X is in X's opponent's

hand, or owner's opponent's hand, X's owner may cast X and activate X's abilities. That opponent cast X and play with his or her hand revealed. You and a black tap put X in target opponent's hand. Three blue-black. You may play a card in the same hand as X without paying its mana cost. The schtick of

X is he's a spy, kind of like James Bond-y kind of thing. He's legendary. And he can go in other people's hands and then let you cast cards out of their hand. Note they can't cast him. There's a lot of shenanigans. Read the FAQ. He's a complicated card. I really, really wanted the

reminder text, X spots the mark, but it just didn't fit, but I love that flavor text, so I oracled it in. It's a fun card. So finally, Zombified. This is an augment card. Uncommon creature, zombie, plus two, plus two. For four and a black, combine

Zombified from your graveyard with target host. And then for two and a black, exile creature card from your graveyard. That's the trigger. Oh, so this is another trigger that is not, it's a cost and not a triggered ability. And then augment four and a black. So the idea here is you make something dead. It's plus two, plus two. And then

you can exile creature cards from your graveyard. Spend two and a black and exile creature cards to trigger the effect of the host creature. Woo! That is everything. So I don't often go over an hour on this.

And I had a long commute today too. I really thought I was going to get it all done. But anyway, I wanted to finish, so you guys get an extra long episode. But I got to get to work.

I got work to do. So anyway, now that I'm all through it, I hope you guys enjoyed the unstable talk. It's a lot of fun making that set. I've had so much positive reinforcement,

not reinforcement, so much positive reinforcement, or not reinforcement, so much positive feedback from people. So many people out there have enjoyed it. So I'm so happy. I'm optimistic of a fourth unset. It hasn't been green-lit or anything, but the fact that the third one went so well really, really makes it a good chance

we'll get to do a fourth one. So I'm trying to think of crazy things to do. Anyway, I'm obviously at work. I've been for a while. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.