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Inconceivable!
Last week I spoke to my thoughts on proxy cards: thank you to everyone who commented. It’s clear there isn’t clarity across the board, and the diversity of thoughts and opinions show just how broad the spectrum really is.
One point that was raised was one regarding Un-set cards: cards from Unglued and Unhinged. “Are Un-cards really cards?” It’s an interesting consideration juxtaposed to my position that “proxy cards are any cards that aren’t legal for tournament play.” Cards from the “silly sets” certainly aren’t tournament legal.
But I think they’re just fine to play with.
Now You Really Hate Me
I can hear the clanging of pitchforks and torches already but before you storm my castle and do whatever it is an unruly mob does, I have a few thoughts that help explain where I’m coming from. Again, my goal isn’t to convince you that you’re wrong but to open up potential and provide a basis for self-reflection.
With the semantics out of the way let’s get down to it. The wacky sets in Magic are interesting not because of what they aren’t (tournament legal) but what they were considered: expansion sets. Unlike Collector’s Edition and World Championship Deck releases, these cards were designed to be played with other Magic cards despite the prohibition on tournament use.
That means they share many of the everyday characteristics of “normal” Magic cards:
- Collectible (a range of rarities)
- Appeal across the Magic psychographic profiles
- Interactive with cards within and outside the set
- Subtle in-jokes that veteran players would appreciate
Of course, the sets were also designed with a few things that were completely opposed to traditional paradigms:
- Cards were meant to break the rules (especially in Unglued)
- As many jokes as possible were packed onto each card
- The set was not part of a block or overarching plan
- Design and Development were coordinated as one team effort
A quick search for Mark Rosewater’s articles about Unglued and Unhinged share all this (and many more entertaining annecdotes). However the most striking thing I found was the feel of the articles: Un-sets were just another part of Magic.
Obviously they aren’t, per se, but the tone of the articles and comments (at the time) suggest that this type of wacky Magic wasn’t something to be ostracized or ignored but was merely a Magic of a different flavor, much like Vengevine and Fauna Shaman excite different players in different ways than Wild Evocation and Gaea’s Revenge.
If you’re having a hard time understanding, consider the amazing things for “normal” Magic that have resulted:
- Full art lands in Zendikar
- Barren Glory (is The Cheese Stands Alone)
- Split cards (were originally for Unglued II)
- Mindslaver (and other cards were also reworked or used from Un designs)
This list has a few more items but you catch the drift: some of the “rules breaking” design exploration has yielded wonderful fruit that falls well within the boundaries of the acceptable – or is at least considered acceptable now. I still remember a time when Portal and Starter cards were also off-limits.
Where’s your Grim Tutor now?
I won’t try to avoid the fact that Un¬-cards are, in fact, shoved to the side for the vast majority of players. They aren’t legal in any organized formats – at least those with notable recognition – won’t become legal anytime soon (at least that’s what my crystal ball is divining for me) and despite obvious collectability they generally carry extremely poor value. That’s three big strikes against general interest growing.
But I’ll handle the lone exception first: basic lands.
The First Line of Defense
Unhinged and Unglued lands are, arguably, the most well-known and received portions of the Un-sets. My cube is stocked with lands from these sets (primarily and moving towards Unhinged for consistency’s sake) and I’ve seen numerous casual and tournament decks packing the original rounds of full-art lands. I saw stacks of these sell out from dealers at Grand Prix DC.
It’s an understatement to say that full art lands are popular. Zendikar lands were preselling extremely well at solid prices. As the market flooded with more copies the prices, naturally, fell, but I am still astonished at the number of players who are still looking for Zendikarfull art lands – or weren’t around to grab them.
The Un-lands are, for many players, the most exciting thing still in the sets. To slowly bulk up my cube lands I’ve been buying a steady stream of Unhinged packs. The price is set so I essentially net even over a handful of packs and always break positive when I hit a foil version. And I’m not alone: others, including one judge, regularly pop the packs and dig for more.
The problem, however, is that these lands weren’t the point of the sets. Lands are still fresh, fun, and attractive but lack any humor or joke whatsoever. These lands are the “serious business” that prop up continued sales. I suspect there are very few, also like myself, that grab a box on discount and open it up with Sealed or Draft play.
But it’s always the lands players are after. I don’t think I need to say anything more here.
What I really want to get into is the conception that Un-cards are unfit for Magic. That is to say that if you were to put a few wacky cards into your everyday Magic deck, other players are apt to be disappointed, angry, upset, or indignant. Somehow, somewhere along the way, these silver-bordered cousins became less acceptable than a proxy card of a “normal” card – and you know how I feel about proxy cards.
A Silver Lining
Let me be clear: silver has no business in Legacy, Vintage, or other sanctioned, competitive events. I would not suggest that adding cards like Number Crunch and Fraction Jackson to competitive play would be something acceptable (though it would make for a great thought experiment) in terms of maintain balanced and fair gameplay.
What I do propose is that you give these maligned cousins a second chance outside of the arena of bright lights and metagames: kitchen tables, casual meetings, and the occasional more-serious “thought experiment” type deck.
The fact that formerly “rules breaking” and “far-out-there” concepts have gone on to become “real” Magic cards is just an indication of what’s available within the walls of the wild. The fellow player who introduced me to cube (Erik Klug and his common/uncommon cube) learned his cube trade from the man himself: Tom Lapille. As Eric’s story goes, Tom was one day looking for an Unhinged card: AWOL.
The important note is that, if you skipped the previous two links, Tom runs a “real” cube full of very powerful goodies.
Another popular card in the cube community is Blast From the Past – which feels exactly like something that should have been printed during Time Spiral Block. Can you determine which interactions cancel enough other out? When is it appropriate to play this? Those are the types of questions, and modern rules knowledge exploitation, that gnaw at the minds of veterans –few other cards alone allow so many interesting and powerful plays.
And did I mention it’s hilariously fun to play as well?
While we’re no longer privy to the exact contents of Tom’s cube anymore considering that some of these “crazy” cards where (and hopefully still are!) included leads us to a powerful point: there are Un-cards that are wonderfully “normal” in their function. Ignoring inherently unbalanced and unreasonable cards (like Handcuffs and Chaos Confetti), there is a veritable basket full of potential that sit languishing for use.
Fowl Play? What’s so strange about a blue aura that removes all of a creature’s abilities? I’m sure this would find use in EDH and other places.
Frazzled Editor? It’s perhaps one of the most useful, if slightly confusing, forms of protection out there.
Shoe Tree? A 5/5 for five is a little underwhelming. The amusement of the occasional pair of shoes on the table seems harmless enough – and totally worth it.
I could grab many more but my point is this: a silver border doesn’t mean the card itself is utterly adverse to normal Magicgames. Mark Rosewater has repeatedly suggested that the best way to play with Un-sets is to specifically mix it with the nonsilver-bordered world. He compared these sets to icing – best on the cake but quickly tiring by itself.
The Wall
I may have tickled the funny bone in some of you but there’s certainly a lot of skepticism to overcome, especially when there are cards like Goblin Bookie and ________ (You know, the card without a name?) out there that don’t walk so fine a line with rules.
Giving a carte blanche for using these sets is a recipe for disaster, which is why I was never suggesting it to begin with. However it’s clear that the potential for friendly, and fair, fun to invigorate group dynamics is there. So where is the balancing point?
There isn’t a clean answer – there rarely is when you’re dealing with Un – but there is hope: talk it out. Take a peek if you haven’t looked before. I promise that you’ll be confused, unsure, surprised, or pleased – or even a little bit of everything in between.
Besides, I always win at Side to Side.
Adam Styborski is a casual player with a foot firmly set on the fun side of things. With an eye on the bigger picture, and a philosophy of constantly questioning authority, you’ll never know what you’ll find each week. Reach out to him on @the_stybs or in person near Rockville, MD.| Useful Author Links | Last 4 posts |
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So the real question is, how do you feel about proxied un-cards?
Actually, the real question is why people would worry about your personal views on which cards/proxies they use, but that’s besides the point.
In any case, MaRo’s quest to get Un-cards functionally reprinted in core sets is proof enough that several are suitable for normal casual play.
Un-cards transitioning into “real” Magic sets is obvious (and subtle). What I really want to call into view is that why a card designed as part of an expansion, modestly amusing, and doesn’t cause debilitating play issues but because it has a silver border is problematic for most players.
A prime example would be something like Yet Another Æther Vortex which allows some seriously cool interactions (tap the land on top of your library, crack a fetch land, then tap the land that it on top after the shuffle) without requiring any special speaking, player actions, or other things that get sticky when Un hits the boards.
If players accept pen on a basic land for a card why not something that’s interesting, unique, and has room for exploration – that’s actually printed on a card? The culture of Magic players is thick with odd standards like these and stopping to consider them can be an interesting exploration.
My general lack of interest in playing with Un-cards comes almost entirely from flavor – or, more accurately, lack of flavor. If I pull up Unglued on Gatherer, I see a list of mildly amusing Magic-related in jokes. Even the mechanically interesting cards that one could really imagine seeing play just don’t grab me because, well, they lack any flavor I want to engage with.
For example, Hungry Hungry Heifer is a mechanically interesting card, and unsurprisingly later made an appearance as Chisei, Heart of Oceans in Betrayers of Kamigawa. The difference is that my interest in playing with a cow with a bib wanes as I’m looking at the card in Gatherer, whereas a visually surreal Kami that lives in a block that’s all about the spirit and material worlds coming together is emotionally engaging.
The same applies to Jester’s Sombrero, which is mechanically fascinating, yet features a mild joke based on a Magic card and a pun that only works if you remember old TV ads…and so forth.
I would not play this game if it were just stats on cards. As a consequence, a set that lacks engaging flavor of some kind simply leaves me cold. Note that this doesn’t even mean that there has to be a whole set – the flavor in M10 and M11 is strong, and I really engaged with all the future-shifted cards in Future Sight. It’s just that even in that last case, each card feels as if it /could/ plug into some greater fantasy narrative. In contrast, each Un- card feels like a mildly amusing gag, and that’s just not enough.
I’ll play with Future Sight and M11 cards all day long, wacky mechanics or no, because I want to be part of their stories. It’s as simple as that.
Tournament legal magic cards have the perception of being tested and approved for “fair play”. Silver bordered cards, being illegal for tournaments, to not have that same level of approval. Most casual players I know do not use silver bordered cards. These cards may have a place in a Cube or Stack where everyone has equal access to them. But when a player shows up to a constructed game with them, there is the perception that the player has an unfair advantage or is “cheating”. The same thing applies when a player brings proxies of “homebrewed” or “fan-designed” cards to a constructed game. Once again, such cards do not have the implied testing and “fair play” approval that tournament legality implies. While some silver borders may eventually transition to black, such as with Barren Glory, most players seem content to wait until R&D is ready to do so.
#MTGNews #MN Inconceivable! http://tinyurl.com/2eeomas
This comment was originally posted on Twitter