#mtgust

Introduction: why did I write this list?

I love un-cards, also known as “acorn cards” or “silver-bordered cards”.

Un-sets have some of the most fun card designs of all of Magic: the Gathering, and generate an experience which is impossible to replicate with normal, black-bordered Magic. They are experimental, creative and extremely funny.

Lately, with the introduction of sets like Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, Modern Horizons and Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, Magic received very weird mechanics, such as Mutate, Venture into the Dungeon and d20 rolls, and singular cards that push some boundaries, like Urza’s Saga and Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar. This, along with Spice8rack’s video about silver bordered cards, made me think that many un-cards could be used in normal, casual matches of Magic without much problems. Host/Augment and Contraptions are just as weird as Mutate and Venture, and single designs like Sword of Dungeons & Dragons recently became much closer to black border.

Un-cards are fun, and are made to be played with. More people should play them, but I also think that those people have a right to play a normal match of Magic without having to dance the hokey-pokey, if they want to. What if there was a resource you can check to see the level of mechanical weirdness of the un-cards you want to try out? Maybe they’re all designs that nowadays would be acceptable within the realms of black border, so why shouldn’t you be able to play them? Most un-cards go through the same design and development cycle black-bordered cards do. They are balanced.

So, this list was born. It has several uses:

It tries to legitimize at least some un-cards in the eyes of the community, showing how those cards can help enhance, and not warp, black-border games;

It can be, as already discussed, a resource to help facilitate rule 0 conversations (or any pre-game discussions) involving un-cards, stating explicitly what kind of gameplay the chosen cards help promote;

It can be used as a tool for custom card designers to help them guide their thinking when designing un-cards (“do I want to make an experimental design which wants to be used alongside black-bordered cards, or do I want to make a silly card for fun and extravagant acorn matches?”).

With all of this in mind, let’s get to the Un-tensity Scale!

What is the Un-tensity Scale?

The Un-tensity Scale is a list of every un-card, categorized in five different levels which I dubbed “un-tensity” levels. Un-cards vary in mechanical silliness, going from cards that follow the rules of black-bordered Magic to cards that require you to imitate a chicken in order to activate them. So, this list places them in levels of how silly and rules-breaking they are. Here’s the five levels:

Un-tensity Level 1 — Basically Black Border: Should they put a black border on these, they’d work perfectly within the rules. You can play these and be sure that nothing weirder than black border happens in your games (most dice-rolling cards, for example). Host creatures from the Host/Augment mechanic are here too, because by themselves, they are simple creatures with enters-the-battlefield effects.

Un-tensity Level 2 — Almost There: To accomodate for these cards, either the Magic rules or the cards’ rules text would need some slight adjustments (Water Gun Balloon Game, Sword of Dungeons & Dragons), but other than that, they work just like normal black-border cards. This level of un-tensity includes Contraptions and Augment too; this is because both mechanics follow cleanly defined rules, designed and developed just like any other black-border mechanic. This is the level I suggest anyone, even the players who don’t like the sillyness of un-cards, to try. Level 3, 4 and 5 can be rule-breaking or straight-up super silly, but levels 1 and 2 will still feel like regular Magic, and you might have fun playing with them and even against them!

Un-tensity Level 3 — Experimental: These are not black border because of rules issues of varying levels (Infinity Elemental, fractions, Just Desserts, Extremely Slow Zombie), and make use of experimental mechanics that haven’t found a way through black border yet (Split Screen, Clocknapper, Giant Fan), but will mostly be fine gameplay-wise when played. These will spice up your games with out-there but fun mechanics, with the slight chance things will get wonky, rule-wise.

Un-tensity Level 4 — Printed-card-specific: These cards care about qualities black border can’t, such as art and watermarks; so, you’ll have to refer to the specific printing of the card you’re using, and not to the general card the rules use (for example, Commander 2018 Putrefy doesn’t have a watermark, but Dragon’s Maze Putrefy does; this is not relevant in black-border Magic, but it can be on this level of un-tensity.) These make the game much more quirky and less “serious”, gameplay-wise, because you’ll care about hats on creatures (Goblin Haberdasher), squirrels in arts (Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher), and length of text (Alexander Clamilton), but playing on this level of un-tensity will ensure that you won’t have to deal with stuff “outside” the cardboard, such as physical and vocal components.

Un-tensity Level 5 — Physical/Outside-the-game Requirements: In this level, anything goes. These are the cards that require physical or vocal elements (Knight of the Hokey Pokey, Magic Word), make use of outside assistance (Flavor Judge) or interact with other people (Gimme Five). These might warp the game completely, making it unpredictable, but possibly a ton of fun too!

Some thoughts!

Now, I will talk about some personal thoughts about some of the cards in it. I really like un-cards and this is a spectacular opportunity to talk about them! If you wish, you can skip this section, going directly to the actual list by clicking here.

Un-tensity Level 1: Basically Black Border

One of the greatest gifts Adventures in the Forgotten Realms gave to us is making dice rolling a black border mechanic. This means that many cards from Unglued and Unstable now work within the rules! I suggest you mix them with DnD dice rolling cards. Steel Squirrel, for example, might be very interesting in an environment with d20 rolls…

As for single cards:

Chicken à la King is probably one of the best Bird lords out there (Chickens have been errataed to be Birds), and doesn’t really need a big dice-rolling support in a tribal deck, so I suggest to try this out. It’s one of the many un-cards that might be worth it to test in a full black-border environment.

Incoming! works within the rules, but can be dangerous, because it’s game-ending in basically any deck running Impact Tremors and Purphoros, God of the Forge (and many other cards that I probably missed), so it might get real old real quick.

Still have no idea how Old Fogey works, hope you can figure it out.

Gleemax is another card that’s probably never gonna be played fairly (Kaboom!), but it technically works within the rules, so it’s included here.

Some cards like Jackknight reference mechanics from other levels of un-tensity, like Contraptions and Augment. They’re still eligible to become black border without rules text changes because of the precedent Steamflogger Boss set. Thank you Steamflogger Boss! I find it funny that, by themselves, most of these cards are even more playable than the Boss. 

Crow Storm is one of the very few un-cards that are silver-bordered because of power level issues. These issues however are specifically directed at tournament Magic, so I’m sure you can use this one in casual Constructed, such as Commander or Oathbreaker (or in Cube!)

As Luck Would Have It is an amazing alternate-wincon card that works within black-border rules; one of my favorite cards from this list!

Buzzing Whack-a-Doodle is another personal favorite, it’s really fun and I suggest to try it out! Secret choices have been black border for a while now (Menacing Ogre), so this card wouldn’t need any rules text change to become black border.

Krark’s Other Thumb is another amazing card for dice-rolling decks! It is a die-roll version of the black bordered Krark’s Thumb. It works within the rules and has been designed, developed and balanced like any other black border card, so feel free to play it, and to play against it! Cards from this level of un-tensity will not cause rules issues. A part of the community really wants to have a black border version of this card, and with this list, I hope I can convince people that they should be able to play the acorn version. It exists, and it’s been made to be played! 

Surgeon General Commander perfectly works within the rules, and it’s currently the only five-color commander that supports the Mutate mechanic (and the Host/Augment mechanic). It’s an amazing build-around commander that I suggest to try out!

Un-tensity Level 2: Almost There

This level of un-tensity has some of the coolest un-cards in the game. Seriously, give this level a try. Level 3 has some really rule-breaking cards, and 4 and 5 contain the cards that people commonly think of when thinking of un-cards (silly stuff like artist matters cards and having to wear glasses). Levels 1 and 2 however have amazing cards for black border matches. If you generally don’t like the kind of gameplay un-cards create, I think you’ll still like the gameplay of levels 1 and 2, and that you’ll have a lot of fun facing them too! Contraptions and Host/Augment follow precise rulings that you can look up and reference; and things like Do-It-Yourself Seraph combos sound very spicy. 

Jalum Grifter is one of the cards I’m not really sure I placed correctly in the list. I’m almost certain the rules text can’t be black border as-is, but the effect can easily be black border I think; we’ve seen a similar ability in Jeskai Infiltrator, where you have to shuffle a small amount of cards to make your opponent guess which one is which. So, I’ve put Jalum in level 2, even though it basically makes you play a minigame (which isn’t totally stranger to black border — Goblin Game is legal, after all).

Togglodyte is just a card with two states, “ON” and “OFF”. Some cards already have more than one possible state, like Class cards (Bard Class), which notably don’t make use of counters. While I don’t think Togglodyte’s text is technically black border, the rules will handle it with no problems.

Water Gun Balloon Game is another card that makes use of states (the pop! counters aren’t proper counters in the Magic sense of the word), so the only thing about this card that doesn’t really work in the rules is the color of the Giant Teddy Bear token, pink. I have a couple of suggestions for this. You can either use pink (and gold; Sword of Dungeons & Dragons) as though it was an “official” color, so, for example, Manalith and Bloom Tender can create pink mana, and Convergence cards can be scaled up with pink mana, or you can house rule the token to be colorless, which is probably the fairest approach that makes the card work within the rules. Either way, the rules issues of this card are easily solved, and in return you get a fun card that encourages everyone to cast spells!

Do-It-Yourself Seraph is not on level 1 out of a technicality, because “has the text box” is not black border templating. In black border games, the angel just takes the abilities of the exiled artifacts. It’s not relevant whatsoever that it gains all watermarks, flavor texts and reminder texts because those are not relevant to black border games. If you, however, play the Seraph on higher levels of un-tensity, it becomes synergistic with cards that care about those elements. Seraph is an excellent design that adapts to the environment it gets played into, and it’s one of my personal favorites among all un-cards. This one is an excellent build around that would be super fun to play in black border magic. Try it out!

Socketed Sprocketer is totally fair game when it comes to dice rolling in black bordered. It’s not in level 1 of un-tensity because “installing” is not black border wording. In black border it would probably need to use phrasings such as “roll a six-sided die, then note the result”. Wording worries aside, the card is fine to be played in black border games.

Super Duper Death Ray is a funnier version of Flame Spill from Ikoria. Wording is not black border legal, but since Flame Spill exists, Super Duper Death Ray is fair game!

Earl of Squirrel is silver border literally just because the squirrellink ability is not spelled out and it’s, well, keyworded as “squirrellink”. This card is an amazing lord for Squirrels and tokens and I strongly suggest you to play it!

Sword of Dungeons & Dragons is another one of my favorite un-cards, and one that’s also interesting because of how much it became close to black border in recent years. The card references an IP that’s outside of Magic, and until Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, that was not really a black border thing. It uses the d20, that again, a couple of years later became black border. The only thing that holds this back from being level 1 is the fact that the token is gold, which is the same situation of Water Gun Balloon Game’s pink Giant Teddy Bear, so I suggest the same solution: you either accept gold as an additional color, or you make the token colorless. However, thanks to the dnd sets, we now have official colors for gold dragons: Adult Gold Dragon is red/white, so the token could be red/white, and Ancient Gold Dragon is white, so the token could be white (“Ancient Gold Dragon” is also the statblock in the background of the token art). I’d personally go with red/white, because it keeps the token “gold”, which feels more in line with the spirit of the card.

Snow Mercy is here just because the activation cost is funny and probably not something you’d see on a black border card, but it works perfectly fine!

Un-tensity Level 3: Experimental

This is where things start to get weird, and a bit less rules-adjacent. I still think some are worth it to play in mostly black-border realms, even though sometimes you’ll have to deal with some rules issues. Honestly, some of these designs are safer than Panglacial Wurm, so I don’t think you’ll have much to worry about. But on with some card-specific thoughts!

Cards that reroll dice (Clam-I-Am, Goblin Bookie, Wall of Fortune) have yet to appear in black border, and they have some rules issues with timing (Goblin Bookie would need to be activated during ability resolutions for example, which is a thing black border Magic really doesn’t like), so they appear in this list. However, they are exceptionally intuitive, so you’ll rarely encounter problems by allowing them in your games.

Giant Fan and By Gnome Means don’t really work within the rules because both reference printed text, by they are intuitive enough that they shouldn’t create rules issues. Both are really fun counters-matter cards!

Fraction cards (Fraction Jackson, Sauté) are the first bunch of un-cards that I will recommend against. They mostly create logistical issues because they force players to track fractional numbers, and they aren’t that much fun to experiment with either. The only one fraction card that I run in my Cube is Just Desserts, because it has an home-run flavor and because functionally, most of the time, it’s just a spell that deals 3 damage to a creature. You won’t have to track fractions for the rest of the game, a problem that most of the other fraction cards have. So, yeah, I suggest caution with these ones.

Speaking of fractions, City of Ass was maybe balanced when mana burn was a thing, but now it’s kinda broken, especially when you have two on the battlefield. It’s overpowered and not really interesting, so I strongly recommend against this one. A bit of a half-assed design if you ask me, but maybe that was the point?

Richard Garfield, PhD is another card that I love, but can slow down games a little if you have to think about all the cards you can use (remember, you can use only cards legal in the format you’re playing while using Richard — no Ancestral Recalls in Commander!). It’s also one of the most powerful un-cards out there for how much versatile it can be, so, again, caution, but it might be worth it to play, because the stories this card is able to create are unmatched. Think about it!

Mox Lotus is another card that’s really, really dangerous to play, and is one of the few cards that to me feel more like jokes rather than actual cards designed to be played with.

Rules Lawyer is a fun way to mess with your Magic Judge friends, and most of the time will just keep you and your other creatures alive!

Animate Library will play fine most of the time, by being a really, really big creature. It can be an extremely funny alternate way to win in a Battle of Wits deck!

Clocknapper is another card that’s really cool and that will mostly work fine, and it might be the one closest to level 2 among the cards in this level.

More or Less messes with numbers and number words the same way Trait Doctoring messes with basic land and color words, and has lots of combo potential, especially if you get to replace a 1 with a 0…

Masterful Ninja is amazing and finding it in the art is super rewarding, trust me ;)

Infinity Elemental is generally easily playable, and very exciting! Giving it lifelink gets you infinite life, which stays infinite even if you’re dealt infinite damage! Converting the power of Infinity Elemental into other resources might get a little messy though: if you make Infinity Elemental fight your Broodhatch Nantuko, you will get infinite Insect tokens, which is amazing, except if you have Soul Warden, which will create infinite triggers which, if not responded to, will end the game in a draw. However, if you have Impact Tremors, those triggers will probably end the game in your favor!

The Grand Calcutron is one of those cards that will probably get a couple of groans around the table, since it forces to reveal and order all players’ hands, but it can also be a grouphug piece since it allows everyone to draw. It can be your Commander, so building around it may be a fun challenge! 

Mary O’Kill is one of my favorite designs, I love the Killbots and love the concept of “switching” creatures; Changelings count as Killbots, so there’s surely something to explore there. Universal Automaton is a perfect one-drop Killbot! It’s even an artifact creature!

Split Screen is great. The flavor matches the mechanics extremely well, and it’s great fun! I suggest you to play this, but with one tiny caveat: combo’ing with it and Thassa’s Oracle (or similar cards) gets old pretty fast. The combo consists in simply playing Split Screen and making one of the four “decks” a 0-cards pile, which then you can use to win the game with Thassa’s Oracle (source). Split the Screens responsibly!

Un-tensity Level 4: Printed-card specific

While un-themes like artist matters and watermark matters, which define level 4, are not my personal cup of tea, here are some of my favorite cards from this level:

Squirrel Farm is a really fun minigame card, that makes use of the ability of un-cards to care about art in a very interesting (and simple) way. The art is also very funny. Good stuff!

Duh and Old Guard are the two cards that care about reminder text and both are incredible pieces of comedy. The reminder text that explains what reminder text is is hilarious, Duh’s art is really funny (the creature is getting crushed by parenthesis) and Old Guard’s flavor text is amazing. I use both in my Cube and both are fantastic!

Alexander Clamilton is a very funny “wordiness-matters” card, considering it’s pretty wordy! I think it’s my favorite Unsanctioned legend, and a blast to build around in Commander!

Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher is really cool, letting you use all your favorite Squirrel-themed cards like Squirrel-Powered Scheme to build around it. 

Abstract Iguanart is probably my favorite artist-matters card, as it’s decently powerful, and a nice build-around that rewards you for running a lot of different artists. I love its flavor text too!

Underdome was created to make Unsanctioned decks work right out of the box, but it’s also an excellent fixing land for acorn cubes. 

Un-tensity Level 5: Physical or Outside-the-game Requirements

And here we are, on the silliest of levels. I recommend people to at least try sometimes to play with the full range of silliness the silver border provides. It’s a lot of fun, and makes for a different experience while still feeling like Magic. Some thoughts on single cards:

Some cards that require vocal components can function without it, like the Infernal Spawn of Evil line and Carnivorous Death-Parrot. However, I find them funnier when playing them as intended. If you still prefer black border Magic, I think no one will have a problem with facing an Infernal Spawn of Evil deck that doesn’t require you to say “It’s coming!”

Gotcha is a terrible mechanic. It makes the game super un-interactive (pun, obviously, un-intended), in the sense that people will be afraid to speak or move. And that doesn’t really sound like a good time. Gotcha is especially bad in volume, where there are multiple floating around the table, limiting your actions, and are especially especially bad when they are removal (Number Crunch, Touch and Go), which might snowball very very fast. The only Gotcha card I like is Laughing Hyena. Its flavor text makes me laugh more than I want to admit, and having the opponent try not to laugh is, if my Youtube recommendeds taught me anything, really funny. However, if your opponent laughs, all that will happen is you regrowing a bear, which is not game-breaking. Being a creature means that the gimmick won’t play out for the rest of the match (like with instants and sorceries with gotcha), because the Hyena will spend some time in hand and on the battlefield. As the only Gotcha card in my Cube, I used it with some degree of success, even though I still had to remove it for something better (let’s be real, Jade Avenger is funnier than any Gotcha card on the planet).

Miss Demeanor and Chivalrous Chevalier are cards I like because they present opportunities to compliment my friends, and I never miss such opportunities!

Cheatyface and Entirely Normal Armchair are amazing and super fun to play. Seeing your opponents grow more and more paranoid for the chair is especially hilarious. These cards really embody just how fun un-cards can be!

I wasn’t sure I liked Enter the Dungeon, but it took me to play it just once to become a fan. Playing under the table is the perfect way to convey entering a dungeon. I love it.

Gimme Five is an amazing card that is sure to make people laugh a lot. It doesn’t really work on Spelltable and similar environments, but otherwise, running around collecting high fives is a very fun experience. Especially in Cube, I recommend this one. Bonus points if the cube has life gain synergies!

Outside-assistance cards (Subcontract, Kindslaver, Flavor Judge, …) are really fun, and really good at involving every player (or person in general) in the fun! These are really good designs that, once again, embody really well what it means to play silver-bordered Magic.

Side Quest is so much fun, if a little on the weak side. In cube it’s a blast, because you’re more likely to see more other games. The mechanics match the flavor in a way that black-bordered Magic can’t do!

Slaying Mantis is probably the best “throw this card to get an effect” card in the whole game (in my opinion, even more than actual Chaos Orb), and while it’s hilariously difficult to use, it’s just a super fun card.

Handy Dandy Clone Machine is another card with a simple, great concept that results in a good time for everyone. There’s nothing like getting an army of friends to represent your army of hands!

Thank you very much for reading! I hope this list made you excited about trying un-cards, and that you’re looking forward Unfinity!

Enjoy, stay safe, and have a wonderful day! :D

-Giving an official decision on whether something in an artwork is a tree or not

-Giving an official decision on whether something in an artwork is a hat or not

-Watch a player keep his head on the table long after his Skull Saucer died, because that's a thing he can do

-Become a player's teammate on his second turn only for our team to get horribly mana-screwed

-Took control of the same player's turn while he had a wrath in hand. Guess what I did next.

-Watch a player use his mouth to draw cards because his hands were creatures.

Some cards in the new Unstable set for Magic the Gathering ask you to roll a six sided die, so I decided to design on e that fits the themes of the set.

The sides are formed like sprockets that have a number in their center. And the 1 has been replaced with an acorn.