Unstable



Unstable is a booster-based card set for Magic: The Gathering that can not be used in legal Magic tournaments. It was released on December 8, 2017 as a standalone set. This is the third of the silver-bordered Un-sets and is designed to be drafted.

Set details
Unstable contains "216-ish" cards (5 basic lands, 75 common, 75 uncommon, 46 rare, and 15 mythic rare) and 20 foil tokens, and includes randomly inserted premium versions of all cards. The set explores new areas of Magic game design and continues the tradition of bending the conventional rules of the game in a fun and whimsical way. Unstable was designed to both be drafted alone and be mixed with other sets: according to Mark Rosewater, however, the best experience is probably when it's drafted alone. The expansion symbol is a wrench with an acorn-shaped hole.

The big difference between Unglued and Unhinged on one hand, and Unstable on the other, is that the first two were meant to be mixed in with normal Magic, whereas Unstable was built as a stand-alone limited experience.

The set features 'modern design sensibilities' and is built around a 'cohesive creative vision'. It includes fun legendary creatures that can be utilized in the Commander format and some cards designed for Cube. Like its predecessors, Unstable features 5 full-art basic lands, but borderless instead of black-bordered. Every pack contains one of the five lands unless it is replaced by a Steamflogger Boss, which replaces 1 in every 121 basic lands. The set also features foil tokens, both for tokens produced by cards in the set and for popular tribes outside the set.

The set contains some cards at common which are functionally identical to existing black bordered cards or possibly "blackborderable". These had been included for limited gameplay purposes.

Unstable is only published in the English language.

History
Mark Rosewater had to wait 13 years after Unhinged before Unstable could be printed, as Unhinged had been considered a commercial failure. However, Rosewater and senior brand director Mark Purvis argue this wasn't because of poor sales, but because of overprinting. At the time, Wizards of the Coast didn't regularly create supplemental sets, so Unhinged was treated as a small expansion. Actual work on the set took six years. When design started, one of the goals, as proposed by the director of product design Mark Globus, was to explore what new printing technology might allow: however, none of these proposed ideas were feasible at the time the set was printed.

The design of the set was finished in 2014. It was originally scheduled for summer of 2015, but was pushed back a year to make room for Modern Masters 2015. It was then scheduled for the summer of 2016, but the concern that its steampunk influence made it too similar to Kaladesh, pushed it back yet another year. It was then scheduled for summer 2017: however, after Conspiracy: Take the Crown was added last-minute, its release was pushed back to December.

Marketing
Unstable is sold in boosters and Draft Packs. The first details of Unstable were revealed by Rosewater at San Diego Comic-Con 2017, who also heavily promoted the set on Blogatog.

A booster contains 16 cards: 1 rare, 3 uncommons, 8 commons, 2 contraptions, 1 basic land and 1 foil token. A randomly inserted premium version may replace any one of these cards. The boosters feature art from Willing Test Subject, Three-Headed Goblin and X.

Draft Weekend was held on the 9–10 December 2017, the first time which a non-Standard set was used in such an event, and also the first time the event is held on a casual level (Only 1 lifetime PwP were awarded in those events).

Promotional cards

 * Draft Weekend Launch promo: Earl of Squirrel
 * Judge Gift: Rules Lawyer

Tokens
Unstable features 20 foil tokens, one per pack. Half of them are tokens from Unstable, with humorous fake ads on the back of each. Only the front side is foil, the back side isn't. For the first time, some of these tokens have watermarks, which interacts with the "watermark matters" mechanic that appears on a number of cards in the set. The other half of the tokens are for non-Unstable cards, and has full borderless art of the same token on the back faces instead of advertisements.
 * 0/1 Goat creature, for Everythingamajig.
 * 1/2 Bird creature with flying called Storm Crow, for Crow Storm</c>.
 * 1/1 Faerie Spy creature with the S.N.E.A.K. watermark and with flying, haste, and "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to an opponent, draw a card.", for Faerie Aerie</c>.
 * 2/2 Rogue creature with the S.N.E.A.K. watermark and with menace, for Dispatch Dispensary</c> and Very Cryptic Command</c>.
 * 1/1 Brainiac creature, for The Big Idea</c>.
 * 1/1 Goblin creature, for Box of Free-Range Goblins</c>, Garbage Elemental</c>, and Gift Horse</c>.
 * 1/1 Squirrel creature, for Chittering Doom</c>, Earl of Squirrel</c>, and Squirrel Dealer</c>.
 * */* Construct artifact creature, for Rapid Prototyper</c>.
 * 1/1 Gnome artifact creature, for By Gnome Means</c>, Gnome-Made Engine</c>, Gnomeball Machine</c>, and Very Cryptic Command</c>.
 * Gold 4/4 Dragon creature with flying, for <c>Sword of Dungeons & Dragons</c>.
 * 4/4 Angel creature with flying
 * 1/1 Spirit creature with flying
 * 1/1 Thopter artifact creature with flying
 * 2/2 Vampire creature with flying
 * 2/2 Zombie creature
 * 1/1 Elemental creature
 * 3/3 Beast creature
 * 1/1 Saproling creature
 * */* Elemental creature with "This creature's power and toughness are each equal to the number of creatures you control."
 * Clue artifact

Reception
Wizards of the Coast reported that Unstable was one of the smash hits of the year, and was beloved by players.

Flavor
Unstable is set on Bablovia, a steampunk 'mad scientist world' with 5 factions:
 * The Order of the Widget faction are cyborgs that use technology to constantly improve themselves. They have no self control.
 * The Agents of S.N.E.A.K. faction are really bad spies with cool toys.
 * The League of Dastardly Doom faction are supervillains scheming to take over the world. They're constantly at odds with each other.
 * The Goblin Explosioneers faction are steamfloggers and tinkerers that experiment with lots of crazy ideas, many of which explode. They breed fast enough to not wipe out their race.
 * The Crossbreed Labs faction are creature hybrids that have used their inventions to create a perfect society where everyone is their true self.

Themes and mechanics
Unstable also has a number of one-off mechanics that play on other black-bordered mechanics: Unstable also features a number of returning mechanics.
 * Contraptions and assemble One of two flagship mechanics of the set.
 * There are 45 different Contraptions (nine with each faction's watermark), or roughly one-fifth of the set.
 * Contraptions are artifacts that start the game shuffled into a separate "contraption deck." When an effect assembles a Contraption, that player takes the top card of their contraption deck and puts it into their first, second or third sprocket slot. (Any number of Contraptions can exist in a single sprocket.)
 * During each of your upkeeps, if you control a Contraption, you move the CRANK! counter onto the next sequential sprocket of your Contraption deck (sprocket 3 looping back to 1), then crank all Contraptions in that sprocket. Each Contraption has a different ability that triggers upon being cranked.
 * All creatures that can assemble a Contraption are Riggers.
 * Each pack of Unstable contains two Contraption cards.
 * Two cards may reassemble a Contraption, which means that player takes control of the Contraption and puts it on a sprocket of their choice.
 * Host creatures and augment The other flagship mechanic of the set.
 * Host creatures all have abilities that trigger on their entering the battlefield, as well as art and name divided by a vertical line. Creatures with an augment ability have no mana cost (but have a color indicator), have plus or minus symbols in both their power and toughness (ex. +2/+2 or -1/-0), and each have the first half of some triggered ability.
 * Augment appears on creatures without casting cost. When a host creature is on the battlefield, its controller can augment it with a creature from their hand: those two creatures are then combined into one until they leave the battlefield. The augment creature overlaps the left side of the host creature, such that the arts align.
 * If an augment creature is on the battlefield not combined with a host, it goes to the graveyard as a state-based action.
 * "Watermark matters" To emphasize the individual factions, there are a number of cards (ex. <c>Stamp of Approval</c>) that care about the watermark printed on a card.
 * "Outside assistance" Cards that require you to find a person not playing in your current game and ask them to do something, usually making a choice or choices about something that will impact your game.
 * Other "things that matter" include collector number, border color, rarity, artist's name, and the number of words in a card's name.
 * Art menace Creatures with art menace can only be blocked by creatures "with two or more visible figures in their art."
 * Blurry A play on evasion abilities, creatures with blurry can't be blocked except by players who were wearing glasses as the creature was cast.
 * Just a second A riff on split second, spells with just a second prevent players from moving cards on the battlefield while they're on the stack.
 * Last strike and triple strike A riff on first strike and double strike, creatures with last strike deal damage after creatures without last strike. Creatures with triple strike deal both first-strike, regular, and last-strike combat damage.
 * Loose lips A source is considered to have loose lips if an open mouth is depicted in its artwork. This only appears in the context of <c>Knight of the Kitchen Sink</c>, a variant of which has "protection from loose lips."
 * Squirrellink Similar to lifelink, creatures with squirrellink create that many Squirrel creature tokens whenever they deal damage.
 * Switch To switch two cards means to exchange their respective game states. Cards that switch do not trigger other abilities, as they do not transition between states.
 * Undeathtouch Creatures with undeathtouch specifically exile a creature card if they would otherwise deal damage to it, including cards in a graveyard.
 * Existing un-mechanics that return include wordy, "flavor text matters," "art matters," subgames, dice rolling and dexterity cards.
 * Existing non-evergreen mechanics that return include battalion, battle cry, cascade, frenzy, proliferate, Phyrexian mana, protection, storm, undying, and unleash.
 * Trample also appears on non-creature spells for the first time (<c>Super-Duper Death Ray</c>).

New types and colors
Unstable continues the trend of introducing humorous card types to the game.

Supertypes

 * Host is a new supertype, that is used with the augment mechanic.

Creature types

 * New card types are:
 * Beaver (<c>Eager Beaver</c>)
 * Brainiac
 * Cyborg
 * Deer (<c>Druid of the Sacred Beaker</c>)
 * Hatificer (<c>Goblin Haberdasher</c>)
 * Head (<c>Skull Saucer</c>) (previously seen in the Face the Hydra  Challenge Deck)
 * Kangaroo (<c>Mother Kangaroo</c>)
 * Killbot (<c>Curious Killbot</c>)
 * Raccoon (<c>Squirrel Dealer</c>)
 * Scientist (<c>Willing Test Subject</c>)
 * Vampyre (<c>Old-Fashioned Vampire</c>)
 * Wrestler (<c>Slaying Mantis</c>)
 * Reintroduced creature types are:
 * Spy (previously existed on <c>Stromgald Spy</c>, before receiving errata)
 * Villain (previously existed on <c>Spinal Villain</c>, before receiving errata)
 * A number of creature types were also revisited after a long absence from black-border Magic:
 * Ninjas appear for the first time since Betrayers of Kamigawa and the Night of the Ninja deck of Planechase 2012.
 * Beebles and Gamers are featured for the first time since Unhinged.
 * Riggers, first featured in Future Sight, and were expanded upon and given a mechanical identity.
 * Squirrels form a minor flavor theme.

Other subtypes

 * Contraption
 * Urza (<c>Urza, Academy Headmaster</c>)

Colors
Gold joins brown, hazel, and pink as exclusive silver-bordered color.

And/or
“And/or” (<c>Shellephant</c>) isn’t a creature type.

Variant cards
Thirteen cards in Unstable were printed with multiple variants. These variants can differ on rules text, stats, flavor text, art, watermark, and even card name. The rarity of all the variations of a particular card add up to the regular listed rarity.

Functional reprints

 * <c>Amateur Auteur</c> is a functional reprint of <c>Felidar Cub</c>, <c>Kami of Ancient Law</c> and <c>Keening Apparition</c>, save for creature type and border color.
 * <c>Novellamental</c> is a functional reprint of <c>Vaporkin</c> and <c>Welkin Tern</c>, save for creature type and border color.
 * <c>Beast in Show</c> is a functional reprint of <c>Yavimaya Wurm</c>, save for creature type and border color.