Unstable/Trivia

Unstable/Trivia

 

Variant cards

 

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 to 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. It also is a nod to making basic effects that work on each plane
• 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.
  • He is also depicted in The Countdown Is at One and referenced in Clock of DOOOOOOOOOOOOM!.
• capital offense: to play up the joke that the card punishes capital letters, the card has no capital letters in its title bar, card type line, or text box. Attempts were made to make the artist's name, set code, and language lowercase, but were denied.
  • capital offense was supposed to be called capital punishment, but Conspiracy: Take the Crown used it as a name earlier.
• Crow Storm and its' token is a play on the meme that Storm Crow is the best card ever printed, due to its ability to be exiled to pay the cost for Force of Will.
• Dr. Julius Jumblemorph has no creature type in his type line. However, he has a Changeling-like ability similar to Mistform Ultimus that gives him every creature type.
• Entirely Normal Armchair is a refined design of Cheatyface, whose ability was not as clear as Mark Rosewater would like and is a common source of judicial rulings on his blog.
• Gimme Five and Hot Fix were originally cards with a mechanic called Stopwatch that forced you to do certain actions in a set amount of time.
• GO TO JAIL is a direct reference to Monopoly, a Hasbro brand. The all-caps name is a nod to how the GET OUT OF JAIL card is written.
• The mechanics and art of Hazmat Suit (Used) both refer to Vile Bile, a card from Unhinged.
• Half-Orc, Half- references the half-orc, a creature born to the 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‘s art and flavor text are direct references to Stroke of Genius.
• Infinity Elemental is the mythic vanilla creature that Mark Rosewater had been teasing for several years.
• Just Desserts 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 refers to Mindslaver.
• Krark's Other Thumb refers to Krark's Thumb. In Commander Legends, this would later be expanded on with Krark, the Thumbless.
• Mary O'Kill's name is a play on the juvenile kiss, marry, kill question and answer game.
• Masterful Ninja; he is so good, you can't see him. He's not even in the card art, instead showing shades and pumps. Because he's messing with you, he is a Troll Ninja. It also has a Un-set variant of dash.
• Novellamental's art and flavor text reference Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre.
• Old-Fashioned Vampire is drinking blood from an "I'm Not a Morning Person" cup. His creature type is Vampyre.
• Ordinary Pony received emergency errata to prevent it going infinite with Half-Squirrel, Half-.
• Party Crasher's flavor text is a direct reference to Akroma, Angel of Wrath.
• Really Epic Punch's art and mechanics are direct references to Savage Punch and Epic Confrontation. The card is missing "until end of turn", referencing Riding The Dilu Horse's typo, and functions similarly.
• Riveting Rigger references Rosie the Riveter in pose and name.
• Rules Lawyer 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.
• Spike, Tournament Grinder completes the mini-cycle started with Timmy, Power Gamer (Unglued) and Johnny, Combo Player (Unhinged).
  • To promote diversity and representation, Spike is portrayed as female.
• Shellephant 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.
• Staff of the Letter Magus 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.
• Steamflogger Boss 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.
• Super-Duper Death Ray is the first card to combine direct damage with trample.
• Sword of Dungeons & Dragons references Dungeons & Dragons, another Hasbro brand.
  • Although D&D has heavily influenced the creation of Magic (e.g. Legends), this was the first time the brand itself was 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.
• Teacher's Pet's art refers to Natural Selection.
• The Grand Calcutron is influenced by Richard Garfield's earlier creation of the board game of RoboRally. It stimulates 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.
• Urza, Academy Headmaster 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.
  • The art references the story that Urza had his head cut off, but continued living. The head earlier showed up in Urza's Hot Tub.
• Very Cryptic Command and its variants is a reference to the criticized textless promo Cryptic Command; 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 also created the art of the original card.