Unstable/Trivia

General

 * Mark Rosewater joked that his toaster did most of the design.
 * Originally, there were supposed to be 50 Contraptions (10 for each faction), but Dawn Murin, the art director for Unstable, decided to connect the art of all the Contraptions in each faction, leading there to be 9 Contraptions for each faction, with each piece of artwork on each Contraption card making up a single section of a 3x3 grid.

Cards

 * Amateur Auteur's possible flavor texts references the plots of Dragon's Maze, Oath of the Gatewatch, Avacyn Restored and Theros.
 * Animate Library is the first Aura to enchant a library.
 * Better Than One allows players to add a teammate to existing games, the first card of its type to do so. This effect has previously been templated by the Richard Garfield Celebration Cards Splendid Genesis and Fraternal Exaltation, made to celebrate the birth of each of his children.
 * Baron Von Count uses the template "Destroy target player" that Mark Rosewater earlier had wanted to use for Door to Nothingness.
 * Crow Storm and its token are a play on the meme that Storm Crow</c> is the best card ever printed, due to its ability to be exiled to pay the cost for Force of Will</c>.
 * has no creature type in his type line. However, he has a Changeling- like ability similar to that gives him every creature type.
 * Entirely Normal Armchair</c> is a refined design of Cheatyface</c>, whose ability was not as clear as Mark Rosewater would like and is a common source of judge rulings on his blog.
 * Gimme Five</c> and Hot Fix</c> were originally cards with a mechanic called Stopwatch that forced you to do certain actions in a set amount of time.
 * GO TO JAIL</c> is a direct reference to Monopoly, a Hasbro brand.
 * The mechanics and art of Hazmat Suit (Used)</c> both refer to Vile Bile</c>, a card from Unhinged.
 * Half-Orc, Half-</c> references the half-orc, a creature born to mixed orc and human parentage in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Half-orcs also appear in The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.
 * Incite Insight</c>‘s art and flavor text are direct references to Stroke of Genius</c>.
 * Infinity Elemental</c> is the mythic vanilla creature that Mark Rosewater had been teasing for several years.
 * Just Desserts</c> is a play on the often misunderstood phrase "Just Deserts". It also plays on π and pie and deals a non-integer amount of damage (indeed, an irrational and transcendental amount).
 * Kindslaver</c> refers to Mindslaver</c>.
 * <c>Krark's Other Thumb</c> refers to <c>Krark's Thumb</c>.
 * <c>Novellamental</c>'s art and flavor text reference Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre.
 * <c>Ordinary Pony</c> received emergency errata to prevent it going infinite with <c>Half-Squirrel, Half-</c>.
 * <c>Party Crasher</c>'s flavor text is a direct reference to <c>Akroma, Angel of Wrath</c>.
 * <c>Really Epic Punch</c>'s art and mechanics are direct references to <c>Savage Punch</c> and <c>Epic Confrontation</c>. The card is missing "until end of turn", referencing <c>Riding The Dilu Horse</c>'s typo, and functions similarly.
 * <c>Rules Lawyer</c> holds the record for the longest reminder text on a given single card, and is also the first card to refer to a specific Magic rule (in this case, rule 704) anywhere in its text.
 * <c>Spike, Tournament Grinder</c> completes the mini-cycle started with <c>Timmy, Power Gamer</c> (Unglued) and <c>Johnny, Combo Player</c> (Unhinged).
 * In an effort to promote diversity and representation, Spike is portrayed as female.
 * <c>Shellephant</c> is the first card to use "and/or" in the type line. This means that you can change Shellephant’s creature types at any time and while Shellephant is in any zone. It can be a Turtle, an Elephant, or both. “And/or” isn’t a creature type.
 * <c>Staff of the Letter Magus</c> is a spoof of the Magus Staff cycle from the Magic 2014 Core Set. The card itself parodies the designs and flavor texts of the card cycle.
 * <c>Steamflogger Boss</c> is reprinted from Future Sight, and is the only creature card printed on the land sheet. This makes it the only black-bordered card in the set.
 * <c>Super-Duper Death Ray</c> is the first card to combine direct damage with trample.
 * <c>Sword of Dungeons & Dragons</c> references Dungeons & Dragons, another Hasbro brand.
 * Although D&D has heavily influenced the creation of Magic (e.g. Legends), this is the first time the brand itself is referenced.
 * This mash-up card was previewed with a different graphical design as a HASCON-promo.
 * The card also references the Sword of... mega-cycle from the Mirrodin and Scars of Mirrodin blocks.
 * <c>Teacher's Pet</c>'s art refers to <c>Natural Selection</c>.
 * <c>The Grand Calcutron</c> is influenced by Richard Garfield's earlier creation of the board game of RoboRally. It simulates the programming sequence from that game.
 * The Grand Calcutron was supposed to have "This artifact can be your commander" as rules text, but there was not enough room. Mark Rosewater stated in his blog that he officially errataed The Grand Calcutron to be legal as commander in silver-bordered EDH games. As an exception (as it is a functional change), this was later officially implemented in Oracle.
 * <c>Urza, Academy Headmaster</c> is the first Un-Planeswalker, the first 5 color Planeswalker, and the first card to refer to an outside source (AskUrza.com) for a (changeable) rules text. Each ability has 20 possible effects, all of which derive from Planeswalker cards in the past, with occasional minor changes.
 * <c>Very Cryptic Command</c> and its variants is a reference to the criticized textless promo <c>Cryptic Command</c>; its detractors believed the complexity of the spell, being a bimodal spell released only recently, was largely inappropriate to be expected to be remembered verbatim. The variants play off this by having a total of 24 abilities, some of which vary in minor nuances.
 * One version of this card features an unfinished sketch by artist Wayne England, who died before he could finish it. He had also created the art of the original card.