Judging by the leaked pictures, this set looks like it got some real creative attention, not just lip service. I'm psyched (but I might not buy much or any of it).
Yep, and this is why they stopped making un-sets after the first two.
It basically served as a minor distraction for players that might draft with it once or buy a pack on a lark but it had trouble selling a lot of product to people.
I am legitimately not excited about this set in general, but...not everything should be for me. I hope others enjoy it. Hell, I'll probably still give it a spin.
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After all these years, I'm kinda disappointed that we aren't getting Contraptions in black border, but it's better than not seeing them at all!
I'm sure there's a storyline explanation for why Steamflogger Boss is the only black-bordered spell in the set. My hypothesis is that he managed to invent a Contraption that allows someone to escape from the silver-bordered realm into the black-bordered Multiverse, a mechanism that travels across the fourth wall itself.
I think it's worse honestly. I'd rather them not do them at all than have something so anticipated being just a joke that's meaningless in the long run. And the fact Steamflogger Boss is indeed being reprinted just puts salt on the wound.
Would rather wait another 10 years, possibly have a new designer/dev who can make it work. Just feels like a big middle finger to all of us who were looking forward to contraptions in black border.
My god. You need a thicker skin if you take this as WotC giving you the finger.
To those who think the Crossbreeds look too Simic, there is a precedent for this faction containing white: the white Phyrexians.
Their idea of "community" and "togetherness" is literally sewing dudes together.
And I like the look of all of the factions. Lack of distinct factions was one of the biggest disappointments with our "real" Mad Scientist World, Kaladesh. There were only two factions, and they were simply named "the government" and "the rebels."
I'm totally on board with this set. It's weird that people feel betrayed by contraptions being silver bordered. If you've ever tried your hand at the contraption riddle, you know that it just doesn't really work. It can be forced, but not in any kind of an elegant way. Silver border is where contraptions belong. I hope they make their money back on this.
These days I'm mainly a casual player and collector, but I love everything about Magic and I like almost every product that they produce. I didn't buy any new product from the Conspiracy sets, but I bought a few singles staples like Berserk and Show and Tell on the secondary market because the prices were depressed. I bought the new Archenemy Scheme cards on the secondary market. I buy all of the Commander products at (online) retail. Wizards doesn't make money off of people like me on every product, but I get excited about most products none the less.
I like Un sets, I drafted Unhinged when it was new and I used to own a set of Unglued. I don't expect to spend much or anything on new Unstable products, but I might go to the release. Either way, the set improves my Magic experience and helps retain me as a customer for other products.
Maro postet the collected available info for Unstable on his blog.
I promised to post the new info I gave out at the panel. Note that it’s all about Unstable. Here it is:
Unstable will have a small Squirrel theme, enough to build a deck around. There is a Squirrel lord but because its effects stack, it isn’t legendary so people can get multiples on the battlefield at the same time.
The set will have full-art basic lands with art done by John Avon. We did something with them that we almost did in Unhinged by chickened out. They look amazing.
The set will have Contraptions. I figured out a flavorful and fun way to do them but it was a bit much for black border. I consider it a home run execution. Steamflogger Boss is on the set. It appears once on the land sheet (It was the only way to get a black-bordered card in the set). Only the basic lands and Steamflogger Boss are Eternal playable. All the creatures in this set that assemble Contraptions are Riggers.
The set has a cohesive creative theme. We brought in artists and did real world building. The world is a mad scientist steam punkish world with five factions:
Order of the Widget (White/Blue) - This is the cyborg faction. They are like Esper but without any self control. They use their inventions to constantly improve themselves. You don’t need a toaster if you replace your hand with a toaster. They take self improvement to an absurd degree.
Agents of S.N.E.A.K. (Blue/Black) - This faction is the spies. They use their inventions for elaborate spy devices. The problem is, they are, for the most part, awful spies, using spy gadgets whenever and wherever they can often when not remotely called for.
Legion of Dastardly Doom (Black/Red) - This faction is the super villains. They use their inventions for death rays, weather control devices and apocalypse machines. They want to rule the world, but are constantly fighting as to who gets to destroy the world first.
Goblin Explosioneers (Red/Green) - This faction is the Goblins, it includes the Steamfloggers. These Goblins love making contraptions and are slightly obsessed with hammers. Their style is slapping thing together to see if cool things can happen. And when things don’t explode, sometimes they do.
Crossbreed Labs (Green/White) - This faction is obsessed with using their inventions to alter biology. They are all made up of hybrids of different animals. Part monkey/part spider/part leopard - sounds good. This faction mixes and matches all sorts of different animals in its quest for self improvement.
The set uses modern design and development techniques. It was designed to be drafted by itself and the release events for the product will be booster drafts. We worked hard to make the set have a lot of playability so you can draft it a bunch of times.
The set will have foil tokens, both for tokens produced by cards in the set and for popular tribes we felt the players would like in foil.
There are tons of other cool things I can’t talk about yet. The set does have a second named mechanic, along with Contraptions. It is something we’ve been trying to solve for years and with the flexibility of silver border, finally found a way to do it.
The set started design in January of 2011 and has its release date slip on several occasions. I am very proud of the work everyone did and think it’s the best Un-set we’ve ever made. I believe fans of Un-sets are going to love it.
Most intriguing I find that they are doing something special with the full art lands, something that may have been too crazy the last time they tried it. What is it? Rotated artworks, like this? It may be funny art.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
Don't forget that Unglued was sold as $1 per pack. It was the funny joke set that we bought with that leftover $1-$2 in store credit. Getting a Blacker Lotus or even the common Chaos Confetti was fun to see.
I never bought Unhinged. It stopped being a joke when packs were the same MSRP as regular packs and that seemed like they were pushing too hard with the "ass" theme, the 1/2 mana cost and power/toughness life themes. It tried to make a joke rules change that you couldn't really play well with other sets. Unglued you actually could. Which made it fun.
Maro postet the collected available info for Unstable on his blog.
I promised to post the new info I gave out at the panel. Note that it’s all about Unstable. Here it is:
Unstable will have a small Squirrel theme, enough to build a deck around. There is a Squirrel lord but because its effects stack, it isn’t legendary so people can get multiples on the battlefield at the same time.
The set will have full-art basic lands with art done by John Avon. We did something with them that we almost did in Unhinged by chickened out. They look amazing.
The set will have Contraptions. I figured out a flavorful and fun way to do them but it was a bit much for black border. I consider it a home run execution. Steamflogger Boss is on the set. It appears once on the land sheet (It was the only way to get a black-bordered card in the set). Only the basic lands and Steamflogger Boss are Eternal playable. All the creatures in this set that assemble Contraptions are Riggers.
The set has a cohesive creative theme. We brought in artists and did real world building. The world is a mad scientist steam punkish world with five factions:
Order of the Widget (White/Blue) - This is the cyborg faction. They are like Esper but without any self control. They use their inventions to constantly improve themselves. You don’t need a toaster if you replace your hand with a toaster. They take self improvement to an absurd degree.
Agents of S.N.E.A.K. (Blue/Black) - This faction is the spies. They use their inventions for elaborate spy devices. The problem is, they are, for the most part, awful spies, using spy gadgets whenever and wherever they can often when not remotely called for.
Legion of Dastardly Doom (Black/Red) - This faction is the super villains. They use their inventions for death rays, weather control devices and apocalypse machines. They want to rule the world, but are constantly fighting as to who gets to destroy the world first.
Goblin Explosioneers (Red/Green) - This faction is the Goblins, it includes the Steamfloggers. These Goblins love making contraptions and are slightly obsessed with hammers. Their style is slapping thing together to see if cool things can happen. And when things don’t explode, sometimes they do.
Crossbreed Labs (Green/White) - This faction is obsessed with using their inventions to alter biology. They are all made up of hybrids of different animals. Part monkey/part spider/part leopard - sounds good. This faction mixes and matches all sorts of different animals in its quest for self improvement.
The set uses modern design and development techniques. It was designed to be drafted by itself and the release events for the product will be booster drafts. We worked hard to make the set have a lot of playability so you can draft it a bunch of times.
The set will have foil tokens, both for tokens produced by cards in the set and for popular tribes we felt the players would like in foil.
There are tons of other cool things I can’t talk about yet. The set does have a second named mechanic, along with Contraptions. It is something we’ve been trying to solve for years and with the flexibility of silver border, finally found a way to do it.
The set started design in January of 2011 and has its release date slip on several occasions. I am very proud of the work everyone did and think it’s the best Un-set we’ve ever made. I believe fans of Un-sets are going to love it.
Most intriguing I find that they are doing something special with the full art lands, something that may have been too crazy the last time they tried it. What is it? Rotated artworks, like this? It may be funny art.
My guess is borderless lands. Art goes all the way to the edge of the card.
Maro postet the collected available info for Unstable on his blog.
Most intriguing I find that they are doing something special with the full art lands, something that may have been too crazy the last time they tried it. What is it? Rotated artworks, like this? It may be funny art.
They could do basic lands on the front and back of the cards. This would anger collectors, most likely, but since this is an UN set...the more I think of this, the more I can see basic lands being on the back of regular cards. The latter seems unlikely though as the basics are an additional card, but perhaps a token/basic land combo?
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
My guess is borderless lands. Art goes all the way to the edge of the card.
This is the thing I would love to see most. Something along the lines of this (foil treatment here would look amazing).
If they still wanted to play it a bit safer, I could see them doing frameless full art lands that still have the black border but no other card frame elements.
Borderless basic land would be very cool, and while difficult I imagine it would be possible if and only if the lands all combine to form a single picture.
I get that it's an Un-set and that, from what I can see at least, they're only doing allied color pairs. But the flipping Crossbreed Labs are Selesnya? Seems very Simic to me.
I'm sure even folks at WotC agree with this,
but they didn't seem to want to develop themes for the enemy colors
sundayswiththeilluminati asked: Hey Maro, did you decide on ally-colored mad science factions in Unstable because the red-blue mad science slot is already taken by the Izzet League?
A: It came down to finding a home for the Steamfloggers. Goblins in monowhite or monoblue felt wrong. That left either black/red or red/green and red/green felt the more appropriate choice. Also, cyborgs in white/blue, spies in blue/black and super villains in black/red all felt like slam dunks.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
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In the works since January 2011? Dang. That is a long time for a MTG set. But if the fun looking artwork, new full art lands, foil tokens in a set meant to be drafted are anything to go off of, this will be totally worth it.
It's weird that people feel betrayed by contraptions being silver bordered. If you've ever tried your hand at the contraption riddle, you know that it just doesn't really work. It can be forced, but not in any kind of an elegant way. Silver border is where contraptions belong. I hope they make their money back on this.
I assume they are the same people who are SO MAD about this.
It's weird that people feel betrayed by contraptions being silver bordered. If you've ever tried your hand at the contraption riddle, you know that it just doesn't really work. It can be forced, but not in any kind of an elegant way. Silver border is where contraptions belong. I hope they make their money back on this.
I assume they are the same people who are SO MAD about this.
I'd be a little bothered to be honest. I know they're not putting Phelps and a damn shark in the same tank, but something like two different tanks at an aquarium side by side and comparing their speeds? Sure, I'd accept that. But not a CGI shark. There's a level of exaggeration that people are willing to accept and this would be over that line.
But onto Unstable, I am a little disappointed that contraptions are being done in silver border. After the letdown of Kaladesh, it makes me wonder how much better it would have been with contraptions instead of energy.
But on the plus side, the new guilds look amazing, as does the art. I've been getting very bored with Magic art lately (don't care if it's digital or not, it just all looks the same) so I love to see this style.
And if the lands are borderless, I would probably see myself buying a lot of these. Hoping for no 1/2 power/toughness creatures this time, that was something that really turned me off Unhinged.
Here's hoping contraptions do well enough that they can transition to black border and for plenty of squirrels.
They could do basic lands on the front and back of the cards. This would anger collectors, most likely, but since this is an UN set...the more I think of this, the more I can see basic lands being on the back of regular cards. The latter seems unlikely though as the basics are an additional card, but perhaps a token/basic land combo?
Keep in mind, Steamflogger Boss is going to be on the same sheet as the lands, so it can't be anything to crazy. I'd say DFC basics are definitely out, and borderless lands are highly unlikely.
Maybe they attempted to make them black bordered thus making them legal in other formats.
It basically served as a minor distraction for players that might draft with it once or buy a pack on a lark but it had trouble selling a lot of product to people.
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My god. You need a thicker skin if you take this as WotC giving you the finger.
Get a grip.
Their idea of "community" and "togetherness" is literally sewing dudes together.
And I like the look of all of the factions. Lack of distinct factions was one of the biggest disappointments with our "real" Mad Scientist World, Kaladesh. There were only two factions, and they were simply named "the government" and "the rebels."
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Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
I like Un sets, I drafted Unhinged when it was new and I used to own a set of Unglued. I don't expect to spend much or anything on new Unstable products, but I might go to the release. Either way, the set improves my Magic experience and helps retain me as a customer for other products.
Unstable will have a small Squirrel theme, enough to build a deck around. There is a Squirrel lord but because its effects stack, it isn’t legendary so people can get multiples on the battlefield at the same time.
The set will have full-art basic lands with art done by John Avon. We did something with them that we almost did in Unhinged by chickened out. They look amazing.
The set will have Contraptions. I figured out a flavorful and fun way to do them but it was a bit much for black border. I consider it a home run execution. Steamflogger Boss is on the set. It appears once on the land sheet (It was the only way to get a black-bordered card in the set). Only the basic lands and Steamflogger Boss are Eternal playable. All the creatures in this set that assemble Contraptions are Riggers.
The set has a cohesive creative theme. We brought in artists and did real world building. The world is a mad scientist steam punkish world with five factions:
Order of the Widget (White/Blue) - This is the cyborg faction. They are like Esper but without any self control. They use their inventions to constantly improve themselves. You don’t need a toaster if you replace your hand with a toaster. They take self improvement to an absurd degree.
Agents of S.N.E.A.K. (Blue/Black) - This faction is the spies. They use their inventions for elaborate spy devices. The problem is, they are, for the most part, awful spies, using spy gadgets whenever and wherever they can often when not remotely called for.
Legion of Dastardly Doom (Black/Red) - This faction is the super villains. They use their inventions for death rays, weather control devices and apocalypse machines. They want to rule the world, but are constantly fighting as to who gets to destroy the world first.
Goblin Explosioneers (Red/Green) - This faction is the Goblins, it includes the Steamfloggers. These Goblins love making contraptions and are slightly obsessed with hammers. Their style is slapping thing together to see if cool things can happen. And when things don’t explode, sometimes they do.
Crossbreed Labs (Green/White) - This faction is obsessed with using their inventions to alter biology. They are all made up of hybrids of different animals. Part monkey/part spider/part leopard - sounds good. This faction mixes and matches all sorts of different animals in its quest for self improvement.
The set uses modern design and development techniques. It was designed to be drafted by itself and the release events for the product will be booster drafts. We worked hard to make the set have a lot of playability so you can draft it a bunch of times.
The set will have foil tokens, both for tokens produced by cards in the set and for popular tribes we felt the players would like in foil.
There are tons of other cool things I can’t talk about yet. The set does have a second named mechanic, along with Contraptions. It is something we’ve been trying to solve for years and with the flexibility of silver border, finally found a way to do it.
The set started design in January of 2011 and has its release date slip on several occasions. I am very proud of the work everyone did and think it’s the best Un-set we’ve ever made. I believe fans of Un-sets are going to love it.
More than Riggers, Contraptions, or Full Art Lands,
this set needs a price reduction.
Given the cards are all but worthless,
would it kill Wizards to sell this in $2 packs?
$6-7 drafts would almost certainly be popular.
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
I never bought Unhinged. It stopped being a joke when packs were the same MSRP as regular packs and that seemed like they were pushing too hard with the "ass" theme, the 1/2 mana cost and power/toughness life themes. It tried to make a joke rules change that you couldn't really play well with other sets. Unglued you actually could. Which made it fun.
My guess is borderless lands. Art goes all the way to the edge of the card.
They could do basic lands on the front and back of the cards. This would anger collectors, most likely, but since this is an UN set...the more I think of this, the more I can see basic lands being on the back of regular cards. The latter seems unlikely though as the basics are an additional card, but perhaps a token/basic land combo?
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
If they still wanted to play it a bit safer, I could see them doing frameless full art lands that still have the black border but no other card frame elements.
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This is why they picked ally colors for the set;
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/163337206458/hey-maro-did-you-decide-on-ally-colored-mad
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I assume they are the same people who are SO MAD about this.
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I'd be a little bothered to be honest. I know they're not putting Phelps and a damn shark in the same tank, but something like two different tanks at an aquarium side by side and comparing their speeds? Sure, I'd accept that. But not a CGI shark. There's a level of exaggeration that people are willing to accept and this would be over that line.
But onto Unstable, I am a little disappointed that contraptions are being done in silver border. After the letdown of Kaladesh, it makes me wonder how much better it would have been with contraptions instead of energy.
But on the plus side, the new guilds look amazing, as does the art. I've been getting very bored with Magic art lately (don't care if it's digital or not, it just all looks the same) so I love to see this style.
And if the lands are borderless, I would probably see myself buying a lot of these. Hoping for no 1/2 power/toughness creatures this time, that was something that really turned me off Unhinged.
Here's hoping contraptions do well enough that they can transition to black border and for plenty of squirrels.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate