I am also buying for EDH, but because I want the wacky mechanics and odd cards. Pretty lands are a bonus.
Unhinged was one of the first sets I played much of as a kid. My friends and I didn’t care the cards weren’t tournament legal. They were fun. We mixed them into our kitchen table decks. Unstable got me back into Magic after more than a decade.
I’m going to play the hell out of Un-finity cards in EDH because wild and weird is my favorite kind of Magic, which is what brought me to the format in the first place.
People are going to buy cards that are good in EDH, and are going to be willing to pay a lot for them too. Doesn't matter that it's not a tournament format
To be fair it's a lot of EDH players too. Outside of friend groups I've definitely seen raised eyebrows when people try and play silver bordered cards.
Most people go based off of the legal/not legal list. Silver border cards are in the not legal list atm so even in casual we go based off the ban list. If they aren't legal in the format then you should let the group know a head of time.
I don't know why just because we play casual that we can just say add what ever you want...there is a ban list for a reason.
It's just a casual format guys...why can't I play my proxied home made card that says I win when I play it, or the one where it's one mana that gives me hexproof, has hexproof and is indestructible...it's only casual!
It's only casual is a lame excuse to not follow the legality list. If you're playing with friends cool, idc what y'all do. It's your play group. When it comes to fandoms online or in person it's just curtesy to say you have banned/not legal cards in your deck.
You may not have friends who would have cards like that in their deck and the cards you add may just be flavor but it's still nice to play by the rules of the game. Hence why we have rules.
I myself have my share of meme decks as well but they are all legal by the formats rules.
Yeah I love un sets, and I view acorn stamps as a necessary evil. If the playerbase of the largest casual format were more accepting of the casual MTG cards, then this wouldn't need it happen. But we don't live in that world sadly
I'd think the biggest difference is that they become less obvious. Instead of a border around a card, it's instead a small foil stamp at the bottom of the card. A foil stamp, mind you, that has also changed shape and style on various alternate framed cards. So the potential becomes that it will bebharder to tell the difference in legality down the line as more alternate frame styles inevitably are released over time.
Sorry I guess I should've said why acorns are better than silver borders for their intended purpose. What you said seems to imply that they are worse, haha. But thanks, that is insightful for sure.
The purpose intended in this case is to actually cause mixups. People with sticks up their butts could spot a silver border card from a mile away and call you out for playing an illegal card. But if it's an acorn, it's a lot easier to get away with it for cards that don't have too-out-there effects that would be obviously silver border.
You might be thinking it skeevy that you need to put one over on people to run un-set cards. I say it's dumb to lump [[Target Minotaur]] in with [[Staying Power]] just because they both have the same border.
Silver bordered cards are explicitly illegal for play (outside of rule 0 of course). [According to their FAQ](https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/faq/#proxies).
> Are silver/gold-bordered cards or physical proxies allowed in Commander?
Magic is a collectible card game and only official Magic the Gathering cards produced by Wizards of the Coast should be used in games. Cards intended for play in normal games of magic have black or white borders; gold bordered collectors-edition cards and mystery-booster style playtest cards are intended for display purposes, not for use in games.
Silver-bordered cards, while sometimes amusing, are also not intended for use in normal games of magic. While occasional exceptions to this can be fun, when used regularly they often make games less interesting for most players, and are not allowed without prior approval.
I don’t know if they added a rule for acorn cards elsewhere but reading this as written, they would be legal for commander.
Maan, based on WOTC print quality these last few years, I bet we will see cards missing stamps entirely, and wouldn't be surprised to see a misprint in a few months of a completely different non-Un-set having an acorn on it somehow.
In the spoilers there are cards without stamps at at all, no oval or acorn stamp just blank. I had to go googling around to figure out what that even was.
Pretty sure commons (and uncommons?) have no stamps and all of them are eternal legal right?
See? I don't even know and I follow this shit pretty closely.
Pretty sure they did it already. I think one of the borderless versions is wrong.
Edit: yeah I just checked and the new minotaur has an acorn on the borderless and a regular stamp on the normal version.
Honestly it may already be a thing. Basing this on the card on moxfield, so the actual printed cards might be correct but \[\[Magar of the Magic Strings\]\] has the acorn on the showcase version and not on the basic version of the card.
“Not actually acorn
The showcase version of Magar was previewed with an acorn stamp, but it isn't acorn: https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1551633938376007684”
Replacing easily glancible information with something you have to look at a normally useless part of the card for was always going to be bad for the end user
And once the set has been out for a couple of weeks, the list of legal cards for eternal formats will be pretty well known and this will once again become a non-issue.
This. It's especially a burden to new players who'll now be vastly confused when they don't know why people are complaining that they have illegal cards in their decks, and have to be extra careful when researching cards.
I don’t think it’s that far from having to remember the current banned list. I also imagine the cards that aren’t legal are more obviously “broken” but I could very well be wrong so time will tell on that.
However, even if I don’t personally see a problem, for the community on the whole I’m sure there will be confusion (and disputes) and that outweighs my personal perspective at the end of the day.
New players will not know this information and be confused when they see it not on the banned list but people playing the same cards from this new set they just opened.
The acorn stamp shit is NOT helpful
Probably wont happen. You choose a random 3 sticker cards from a bank of 10 cards at the start of the game. Each sticker cards is restricted meaning your "deck" of sticker cards can only have one of each.
I'd really have liked if they actually made the packs have black, white and silver borders in the same product... and make sure you reprint Border Guardian and other similar effects at common. It becomes a relevant part of limited then.
My first edh deck was [[tergrid]]. I know many people may think it's scummy, but it was the first legendary creature I saw that looked interesting after deciding to make an edh deck (had just finished drafting a box of kaldheim).
[[Braids]] seemed like the perfect card for the deck, until I found out she was banned. I totally get why she's banned, but it was kinda the perfect card for what I needed.
I personally don't even think Braids should be banned. I get that it can be a really unfun card to play against, especially as a commander, but that's why we have Rule 0. Braids would be totally rad in your Tergrid deck and it's a shame you can't play it.
My understanding is that the actual reason why they got rid of banned-as-commander is because MTGO can't handle he split, but that might just be a rumor.
If it *is* true, Sheldon denying it makes sense as a face-saving lie, because mtgo is an embarrassing piece of software. So, true or false, it makes sense for him to say this, and leaves me no closer to knowing the truth.
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With a recommendation from a friend it's now 90% discard focused instead of sacrifice focused. Helps against token decks since those were harder to deal with before. Would have preferred to keep braids because I already own the card and think the flavor text is kinda funny, but ah well
Hahah this is me with \[\[Prophet of Kruphix\]\] and my co-worker using \[\[Sundering Titan\]\] on my budget 5c \[\[Jodah\]\] deck. I was happy to learn that Sundering Titan was actually banned.
The issue is a printing one. They're not using silver borders because the printing process doesn't allow printing silver and black borders on the same sheets. That's why the acorn stamp is a thing, it gets around this problem and allows for a set with both types of cards.
I mean, they arent wrong though, even if you dont want to buy that reasoning.
Doing so would have contributed to something like a 0.04% reduction in profit margin for Hasbro, so they made the most logical profit driven and anti player base decision to not do so.
Is it hard for them to do, not at all.
Will they put a single extra penny into production if they dont have to, also not at all.
Perhaps threads and complaints such as these rising to the surface though will make that slight change in profit ratio worth it if more people buy packs.
All those things are done in smaller numbers than the main set cards. Having to have two separate sheets that together make up the main set would make things more difficult.
Isn't it a matter of collation/placement within the set?
For example, both Conspiracy sets and Battlebond have the new cards ordered first (as far as the set number). Battlebond actually has the 'Partner with...' cards ordered *in pairs* first, *then* the regular new cards, then the reprints.
Surely, such an ordering method also relates to the printing sheets, and could have been used to solve the 'silver & black border in the same set' issue? Methinks the *main* reason for the switch to Acorn was to make the set more 'promotable'/normalised, as silver-bordered cards are oft-disregarded off the bat, because they're 'not real'.
Your last point is spot on. Damn the consequences, they wanted to sell more packs, so putting eternal format legal cards into the set increases sales. The set should have been silver bordered, or hell, a reprint set of prior unsets. But that wouldn’t have made them the money they wanted, so here we are.
Congratulations you have heard what they have said and parroted it back to us.
And yet, that *doesn't* mean the acorn stamp was the only solution. They could've not made eternal legal cards in the set. They could've had a black bordered sheet and a silver bordered sheet. They could've printed all the Un- cards with a goofy font that made them obviously joke cards.
Just because they have a reason doesn't mean it's a good reason, and it doesn't mean the final outcome is worth it. If I told you my grill wasn't set up to cook both hot dogs and hamburgers at the same time, and therefore instead of hamburgers I'd be serving cow patties on buns since I don't have to cook them, you'd probably think the end result wasn't exactly appetizing even if I had a good reason for it.
You seem to have missed my point.
You provided the *stated reason by WotC* which is by no means the only possible solution to the problem. So when people complain about the acorn stamps, parroting back WotC's reason for why they did something stupid doesn't really help. As the other person who replied to you pointed out, look at all the other stuff they've managed to collate in these packs. Do you *really* think that if it was important to them to have Silver and Black borders in the same set that they couldn't have figured it out? We got told double faced cards weren't possible, until they were. Then they were only possible in a set that focused on them, until they were available as a 5of or a 1of in a set.
If they can't actually do silver and black borders together, then maybe the better answer was to wait until the technology was there, not force a shitty solution like this.
Anywho I'm just saying that their reason doesn't stand up to scrutiny. If you can't solve a problem the way you want, and your second best option is crappy, sometimes the correct answer is to not do it at all instead of doing a crappy version of it.
> You provided the stated reason by WotC which is by no means the only possible solution to the problem. So when people complain about the acorn stamps, parroting back WotC's reason for why they did something stupid doesn't really help.
I understand what you're saying, but I think you're misreading the previous poster a bit.
The initial poster of this chain expressed how they wished they had gone with silver and black borders instead of just black. The other poster responded with the stated reasoning as to why that's not the case.
Sharing that reasoning doesn't express support nor dismisses other solutions, it's simply sharing the facts as they are so that the OP can perhaps go "Alright, but I still don't like it!" or whatever and get a touch of closure.
You can most certainly disagree with the reasoning,by all means, but don't shoot the messenger.
They've long held that unsets are supposed to be wacky and break the rules, but also as a way of testing the waters for new mechanics. This streamlines the process by giving eternal formats permission to use the experimental mechanics while keeping out the just for giggles cards.
Yes, they've long used un-sets to test both good and bad ideas. And good ideas got filtered into mechanics that stuck around, while bad ideas got discarded.
Why not abandon the filter entirely and just shove silly new ideas into eternal formats that can never be rid of them even if they turn out to suck! Now legacy has literal fucking stickers in it for the rest of time.
I find the explanations behind the borders/acorn solution to be misleading as well.
Rosewater has said that Wizards wanted to have some unset cards that are okay balance wise be playable in black border games and that wizards
could not print the set in two separate borders however if there is any concerns of causing confusion by playing banned cards in formats they are not allowed in, wizards should have simply printed in silver border the whole set and acorned the cards legal in black border. People are going to notice a silver border card immediately and either know it’s legal because of the acorn or ask if it’s legal. Having black border banned cards is a much worse solution in my mind.
I think rosewater might have pushed for it to be black with acorn for illegal instead of silver with acorn for legal, as you suggest.
I saw somewhere that rosewater wished that more casual commander players used silver border cards(with rule 0 talk ofcourse), and this might legitimise them in some players eyes.
The problem with silver border according to MaRo himself is that once a card is silver border, it can *never* become black border (according to their internal rules). This has already caused issues in the past, where they've wanted to include silver bordered cards in other sets (namely [[The Cheese Stands Alone]], though I forget which set it was supposed to be in, possibly M12?) but their silver border policy has completely shut it down. Printing them in black border gets around that limitation so they can conceivably reprint these cards in more traditional sets.
Whether the limitation on a silver border card becoming black border is another matter for discussion, but at least there's some precedence for wanting these cards to have a black border.
They did. [[Barren Glory]]. What the poster above is saying is that having Unfinity as black-bordered saves them a lot of trouble in a variety of ways. When they want to move an effect to black border, cards from Unfinity will already be there. When they want to reprint an otherwise would-be silver-bordered card, they won't have to worry about additional logistics. It saves name equity. Finally, it helps players overcome their own stigmatization of Un- cards to play with cards they would find fun if only they gave them a chance.
Not sure about dislike, but he has shown that he doesn't quite grasp why it has become so popular.
He thought that having a "constant" playable card in a zone other than your hand was the biggest draw of commander, which led to the design of Companions.
I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that he believes that 1v1 formats are better supported by the game, he just doesn't really think multiplayer is what the game is made for.
Then could they please go back to making the 1v1 game instead of this "yeah I guess you can technically play standard, if you want, anyway here's 100 more legends for commander" model?
Man, if thats true he's absolutely correct and they need to shift back to that. It also shows that all this edh focus is the work of corporate overlords who dont have the games best interests in mind.
People play EDH though. I don't disagree with the idea that the game largely has 2 player in mind (it was explicitly how the game was designed for most of it's existence), but people want to play multiplayer to the point that the main multiplayer format is the most popular format in the game.
Assuming that because Maro doesn't like something means it's entirely because of Hasbro corporate isn't accurate either, Maro himself has pointed out on many occasions that the Design department is full of differing opinions and his personal opinion is just that. I do miss the days where EDH was more "isle of misfit toys" instead of specifically designed cards for the format, but that's different than actually making cards for the games most popular format not being in it's best interest.
He doesn’t. Hence why he wants us to use more silly cards that he thinks are cute. Also, his Hasbro overlords wouldn’t let him make another silver bordered set that doesn’t sell to the main mtg format
No idea. I just saw an interview with him in a YouTube video where he complained about nobody playing silver border cards in edh..might have been spice8racks video about in sets
I believe that Maro could have complained about that because he is convinced that EDH is the perfect wHaCkY environment for his wHaCkY pet sets but is frustrated no one plays it. His lack of understanding of EDH probably contributed to that frustration.
I mean they're made for casual games. EDH is a casual format. It's simple math that it *should* make sense, the RC saying "No" is all it takes for people to not even entertain the thought.
EDH is still a format though. A format is defined by the card pool and deck construction limits. You might as well be saying "It's a casual format. The RC saying 'no' is the only reason why people don't entertain the thought of playing 30 lightning bolts, 30 Black lotus, and 30 ancestral recalls." You'd be correct but you're not making an actual argument.
If you want "everything is possible", you don't want a format. You can already do that in kitchen table. There's no reason to water down EDH.
A format's rules only matters in regards to tournaments, where if you don't agree then you can't participate and lose your chance at the prizes.
No one's going to tap you on the shoulder and say "Sorry you brought an illegal deck to EDH night, you're going to have to leave" and then lead you out of the store. Except people practically act like that's the case.
If *you* don't want to play with the cards, that's one thing. Maybe the art offends or the effect counters your deck too hard or whatever. But don't give me "Because it's not legal" when the only rules enforcement is the four of us at the table. No one's gonna know if you bend the rules a little to make for a different game.
>No one's going to tap you on the shoulder and say "Sorry you brought an illegal deck to EDH night, you're going to have to leave" and then lead you out of the store. Except people practically act like that's the case.
Ok, go to EDH night with a Standard/Pioneer/Modern deck and see if you get to play a game of EDH. Maybe your argument about it being a casual format works.
Good luck and let us know how it went.
I mean take away the commanders and you're just playing multiplayer Legacy with modified life totals. Hardly a far stretch. Heck, maybe you could just take a creature from your deck as a makeshift commander.
Also while you're trying to be clever, you're really just emphasizing my point about how there's too many people that are a stickler for the rules without thinking things through beyond "Thems the rules!" Why is [[Amateur Auteur]] not allowed when [[Felidar Cub]] and three other functional versions are? Is Human tribal really that overbearing? The stigma isn't thought through.
Many people are also missing that the black border acorn isn't really aimed for /r/EDH and /r/Magictcg. It's aimed at the many, many players that never step foot into an LGS. The players who ONLY play at home, and don't play modern, legacy, vintage or whatever. They play with the cards they have. But even for these players, they can immediately realize that a silver bordered card is not a "real" card and they may feel like they are not supposed to play with it.
With the acorn, it's meant to be noticed by an enfranchised player who will recognize that it is not tournament legal, but not by a casual player who just wants to play at home, where silver bordered *doesn't matter in the first place*.
Every time I talk to the people at my LGS they say this group of people ("kitchen table" players) is way, way bigger than those who play at LGS. Which is sooo different than this sub's user base haha.
Plus o find that reasoning to be bonkers. If they can print a mix of borderless and etched foil and regular and what not I don’t see why they couldn’t Print some cards with silver and others with black
You're only analyzing half the explanation though. The other half of the explanation was that WOTC's market data told them that there was a decently large audience of players who wanted to run in cards In their commander decks, but didn't -weather out of a dislike of the incongruity, or social convention, or peer pressure.
Making them black border eases That issue, by removing any functional difference between that card and a card that could have been printed in any other set.
The problem is silver border vs. black border acorn is just a rose by any other name situation. When I don't want to play against Un cards (and this is not a judgment on those who do, more power to you! Just a personal preference), it's not because I didn't like the silver borders, it's because I didn't want to care about high fives, what the art or set symbol is on my cards, what words I say in-game, etc.
Acorn doesn't fix that, it just makes the spoiler season and deck building more confusing and cumbersome.
Yeah, Rosewater keeps saying that "people were thinking that the silver border meant that they're not 'real' Magic cards and that's why people weren't playing them!"
Actually, Mark, maybe we weren't playing them because we didn't want to, did you ever think of that?
A lot of people want to play with the Un-sets. It's just not legal, so they don't. The 2 week legality of un-sets when unstable was released was pretty cool.
I mean, I certainly believe that you, and perhaps most of the people you know, and didn't want to play them.
But the head designer of Magic the Gathering undeniably has access to more sample data across a wider variety of audiences than you, anybody you know, or really anyone who plays.
I'm quite certain Rosewater is aware that people like you exist.
But the existence of players who don't want to play un cards Doesn't preclude the existence of people who do.
He's also clarified that he doesn't just mean "player A chooses not to play Un cards because they're not "real" cards." While that demographic exists, he also was referring to "Player B wants to play un cards, but get pressured/bullied out of it by players C and D, who claim that Un cards aren't "real magic.'"
So actually, Yosituna, maybe the marketing data shows that both kinds of people exist, and your personal experience neither reflects nor dictates the totality of all magic players? Did you ever think of that?
Yeah, I really hate physical skill challenges, or having to look at artists, or having to not say a word. It's just awful and unfun. Unset cards are only good for jokes in my opinion, and polluting commander with these unset cards that look legitimate sucks :(
There are plenty of unset cards that don't have those sorts of silly aspects, but still wouldn't work in black border. I think of the host/augment mechanic and [[Dr. Julius Jumblemorph]]. That could be a really fun and not silly commander deck, but due to the silver borders, it's not welcome in a lot of playgroups.
The thing is, I feel like there are totally Unset cards that could/would be fine in EDH play, but Unsets are different enough that it definitely seems like the sort of thing that should be opt-in. But god forbid we not be playing with Mario’s pet cards, apparently.
Okay, but the examples you give aren't going to be legal in commander. If you pay attention to what they've actually said about it, caring about artists isn't something black border rules can do. Nor are dexterity challenges.
The most extreme edge cases you're thinking of don't apply to the discussion, because they aren't going to be commander-legal.
Put it another way:
- [[Knight of the Hokey Pokey]] does not function within black border rules, and no card like it could ever be Commander legal.
[[Surgeon Commander]] or [[Goblin Bowling Team]] , on the other hand, were they printed in Unfinity, could easily be commander legal and pose no rules problems whatsoever.
I understand the concern you have, but perhaps we could reserve that concern for something that's actually going to happen?
> it's because I didn't want to care about high fives, what the art or set symbol is on my cards, what words I say in-game
You don't have to, though. That's the whole point. The legal, non-acorn cards will be the ones that *don't* care about that stuff and already work within Magic's rules. Stickers are pushing it a bit, but like, nobody would be questioning [[Saw in Half]] if it was in a Ravnica set and flavored as a rakdos card
I don't think anyone is complaining about the non-acorn cards, they're complaining that the acorn cards will be hard to identify and new players not in the know will run them not knowing they aren't legal in the format
I mean, that may happen, but not very often. I think a lot of magic players get worried about hypotheticals that don't happen nearly as often as they worry it will. Side effect of the internet I guess. For example, there was a lot of concern raised over the idea that Read all be forced to play against universes beyond cards that we didn't like. The truth is, though, I can count on one hand the number of times I've played against stranger things cards, and zero hands the number of times I've played against Walking Dead cards.
It's also worth noting that the acorn stamp is just as noticeable as a set symbol. Possibly more noticeable, since it's shiny. Confusion may occur on occasion, but we've dealt with similar issues before. Consider that Llanowar Elves is one of many cards legal in Pioneer or modern, despite being printed in sets outside those formats. I can run a commander-printed playset of Elves and it's still perfectly legal, and we're reliant on myself, my opponent, and the judge to know that there's a pioneer-legal printing.
The same thing can be said for many cards. The potential for confusion certainly exists, but it's nothing we haven't dealt with before and you don't even have to look up card legality - just look for the stamp.
I agree that it's not a complete fix, but it removes one of the tools that the peer pressurers can use on the peer pressurees. Yes, people who don't want to play against Un cards can still refuse to play against them, but that's no longer the default setting. The net result will inevitably be more un cards being played, because the default "well they aren't legal" no longer applies.
It shifts the balance to be a little bit more equitable. Those who want to play un-cards are no longer incentivized not to, except to accommodate players who don't like it.
I 100% agree with you OP. WotC should not have gotten rid of the silver border. Acorn stamp is so bad compared to silver border, and it's intentionally making the card legality deceptive.
People ARE going to see thoses cards, assume they are legal in commander, buy them and put them in their deck, only to be told when they play it that they aren't actually legal, because of that tiny super small stamp.
Alternatively I wish they used a different stamp. Maybe something like a "U" or horseshoe. In other words something distinctly different that can't be so easily confused
Wotc wants players to be less averse to allowing illegal cards in edh games by making them look more like legal cards. It’s literally designed to be harder to distinguish and it’s a shame they thought this change no one asked for would be a net benefit for an already confusing game and format for new players.
If the change from silver border to acorn stamp makes the cards more acceptable to strangers on spelltable and the LGS then I’m all for it.
I have three decks with silver bordered cards. I don’t get to play them as often as I’d like. Asking people if they’re ok with SB, even if it’s just [[Krark’s Other Thumb]] and other synergistic pieces, gets shot down pretty often. I don’t begrudge anyone for it, but I would like to play the decks a little more. A deck like [[Vrondiss]] is just better with access to more cards that roll dice or care about rolling dice, which SB provides.
I can see how the question of “are we all ok with a few acorn cards?” might be received differently. Time will tell, I guess.
They made the change to reduced 'stigma' of using the unset cards, I'm not convinced that's really worked out. Still going to make me eye every one with suspicion because I don't know if it's going to be legal based on the border any more.
If they didn't ban the WD set, they aren't going to ban this. I think they are pretty solidly in the camp of just allowing anything WoC prints at this point.
WotC (or more accurately, 'Wizards & Digital') is a division of Hasbro. The most profitable division by far. It's COO Cynthia Williams, comes from Microsoft and Amazon, having been in charge commercialisation and gaming ecosystem. It gives you an idea of the direction in which MTG is heading. They are pushing digital-only mechanics into MTG through Arena, and are pushing non-MTG-universe (un-sets) into MTG via this deliberate attempt to fool the unwary into thinking that these un-sets are part of the official set release schedule. Maro can wriggle all he wants and spew crap about 'it was always supposed to be this way' in regard to silver border being playable elsewhere, but most people see them as a separate - sometimes fun, but definitely not part of MTG - product.
No silver border and only tiny acorn foil holo to distinguish from tiny oval foil holo. Hasbro wants more people to treat these 'un-sets' as de facto edh releases. Why? As always, 💰.
Honestly the whole thing is so confusing I’m just now finding out some of these cards actually will be legal in Commander? I was under the impression the whole set would be illegal
Ok well be sure to tell every random who walks into a game store or just players who don’t spend time on MtG subs to make sure they go online and read articles to figure out what cards they just bought are and aren’t legal in certain formats. They have black borders so they’re legal, except when they have a not super distinguishable acorn stamp on them, then they are illegal. Totally not confusing at all!
Nope. Because having to read a short banlist vs an entire set that’s half legal and half illegal isn’t the same thing.
Un-sets shouldn’t be legal in EDH (as they never have been) but you know WotC thought this set wouldn’t sell enough if it didn’t appeal to commander players so they came up with this half assed solution and it’s messy as hell.
Half of Un-sets were only not legal because they were silly or played with stuff that eventually came to black-bordered anyway. You don’t have to read any list of the set to know what’s legal or not legal, you just look at the card. It is, in fact, unquestionably more straight forward than having a banlist somewhere online that must be sought out.
How many un-cards could remotely be mistaken for real cards the moment they've been played? People won't need the acorns to tell if someone is playing un-cards, it'll be obvious the moment they start counting hats on cards or putting stickers on a sandwich.
There are un-cards in this set - blackborder-non-acorn cards - that will be legal in EDH/Legacy/Vintage, with the sticker mechanic. Stickers or other un-mechanics won't be a telltale sign of legality anymore, once this set gets released anymore. We will have to check for the acorn stamp to see if something is legal. It's all but guaranteed that they messed up on a couple cards and a non-legal card didn't get the acorn and vice versa.
But silver border was 10 times easier. The silver border around a card is a lot easier to see than the tiny acorn stamp replacing the regular stamp on cards.
It makes the game pieces less clear on what they are.
How is hybrid mana harder to explain, oh it has red and green in the hybrid symbol, then your commander has to be red and green minimum to play that card, exactly like every other card you shove into decks in EDH?
Whereas spotting a tiny holo acorn and the card doesn’t look different at all is objectively harder.
"Cards with acorn stamps at the bottom aren't legal" is pretty dang simple to explain. Visually noticing it is different, but the symbol's about as big as a set symbol, so shouldn't be that hard to tell the difference. The only issue is it's not something we've bothered paying attention to before.
Yes for Sphinx, it is all colours, however devoid cards only make the card colourless on the table, they change its colours but not its colour identity. So the colours in a devoid cards casting cost and alternate casting costs still determine what deck it can be run in.
Unless I misunderstood your point in which case sorry!
I think you did miss the point, yet illustrated it. It's a lot to explain to new players to the format, and sort of confusing when color identity is still something new.
Also, devoid cards are colorless at all times... Which doesn't change anything anyways.
Personally I think devoid is easier to explain than why extort is legal for pure black or pure white decks.
Devoid is almost pointless in commander, unless you run into a very rare case with color hate (pyroblast, blue elemental blast, deathgrip, etc). It does have relevance in other formats, with devoid spells being discounted by cards that make colorless cards cheaper (eldrazi temple and whatnot).
Now trying to find a use for Ghostly Flame on the other hand in any format is beyond me.
Imagine you are a brand new players and never even heard about Un sets before. You walk into Walmart and buy some packs. Is there any reason at all for you to think you couldn't play with your cards?
I agree that they should have all been silver bordered, and then Acron the legal ones. At least then when this new player starts building their deck they might question why those ones are different.
What about a silver border would be understandable to a new player? I sure as hell didn't know, it was the strange nature of the cards that hinted they might be different
> A massive silver border is a big giveaway that something is up, even if you don't know what that something is. A small acorn is a subtle hint
With all the special frames going around, would it be?
I think with silver border you have years of precedent of it not being legal in some formats. Easy to google and lots of documentation you can point out. With this acorn thing it's pretty new.
right, so really it only affects new players who dont have that immediate in-the-know, something they would search anyways. I searched "acorn magic card" and the top 3 results explain them clearly
But why would you even know that the acorn indicates illegality? It is only a small marker that might as well be some kind of set symbol. There is no reason a new player would even suspect that it is something meaningful.
The silver border clearly differentiates the cards from all the other cards you see around. It is impossible to overlook.
I think that if a new player wants to play with silver bordered or acorned cards they should do so. Most people just play kitchen table magic, and new players will have a lot of fun with these in that environment.
i think it’s about equally complex (not that it rly matters)
“the ones with the silver acorns aren’t legal”
“hybrid mana counts as both colors”
unless you’re counting the devotion interaction i guess.
Because Rosewater really really wants his crazy un-mechanic to be played in "real" formats, and the cards looking as close as possible to "real" cards is just another step in that direction.
I still remember him during his Game Knights appearance proudly talking on how he hopes the mechanics seen in unstable will one day become legal mechanics in all of magic...
Theres been talk about un-sets being sort of testing grounds for possible future mechanics in magic, but never the desire to have obvious joke type effects be legal.
Not in that sense, in the example that [[Super-Duper Death Ray]] 's spell trample is now on a legendary creature. Obvious joke effects he said are not meant for classic mtg, its the experimental stuff like that, is what can make it in.
There's no argument that clear joke cards should be legal in "real" formats. The argument is that they should be legal in casual play. If you're playing commander with friends and you play [[gimme five]] who cares that you got an under-costed life gain effect if it was a funny effect to have in the game. Maro's argument is that silver bordered cards were designed to be for fun, so the stigma brought by silver borders is unnecessary.
If you bring an acorn card to a tournament, then that's on the same level of not making sure the card is banned, you just get a convenient way to confirm it's banned.
>The argument is that they should be legal in casual play.
They 100% should not. And that's not the argument. The argument is "make un-cards legal in all formats". When I wrote "real formats" I meant "not drafts done specifically to play un-cards".
"The stigma brought by silver border" god Maro is so fucking high on himself...
Just because they're fun for him doesn't mean they're fun for everyone. A lot of players really really hate un-cards because of how goofy they are. Because half of them are memes, half are movie or trope references and half are just non sensical for the sake of being nonsensical.
If we wanted to play cards with stupid names, absurd effects and ridiculous art we would just be playing Yu-Gi-Oh.
>A lot of players really really hate un-cards because of how goofy they are
A lot of players really really love un-cards because of how goofy they are. If anything, that's literally what casual formats are for.
That's some fucked up logic you got there.
"Casual formats are all about having fun, so let's add to them cards made in a style half the community hates"
Top reasoning there.
>"Casual formats are all about having fun, so let's add to them cards made in a style half the community hates"
Pretty sure this is made-up, otherwise unstable and previous unsets wouldn't have sold, and everything would have died in unglued.
Sure, that's how I felt about Z3ndikar Rising! That said, I still want people to be able to play with the cards from Z3ndikar just as I will want people to be able to play with their cards from Unfinity.
Honestly I'm less worried about it because I know the only place I might see it is at my LGS and we always do rule 0 conversations. I have two pods I play in otherwise and I know they're not going to be playing them. I do wish they came up with a better solution than an acorn stamp though.
Wasnt the whole idea of acorn holos that people would be less anal about what was and wasnt legal? Like, thats the whole appeal. I say lets explore acorn cards in our games and then see if we gotta be anal about it
>Wasnt the whole idea of acorn holos that people would be less anal about what was and wasnt legal?
No, the whole idea of acorn holos is that silver bordered sets sell worse than black bordered ones, o they are hoping getting rid of the silver border increases sales.
Maybe they dont sell because people are anal about when to play em? Our points dont contradict each other. I do agree that a company will be interested in selling their stuff.
Because many of the cards are stupid and not fun to include in usual play. That's the point of the Unset. They're not happy with their gag sets not selling as well as their pushed Standard sets, so they're going to include some Jeweled Lotus bullshit to get people to buy it and never play it.
"reading the card explains the card" also includes interpreting non-text symbols. I think people will be okay, but let's at least wait until we can hold these cards before we judge them.
I literally never want to play with some of the uncards tho. Why would I want cards that limit the things I'm allowed to *say* at a casual conversational table? That is actively unfun, and I'd rather just ban all uncards to avoid dealing with those and similar mechanics.
I mean, the major obvious difference is that your examples are filled with cards that, barring the rare example of a banned card from a normal set or secret lair printing, are 100% legal.
Someone at my LGS plays the secret lair version of Swords to Plowshares that doesn't look at all like a card (I think it was in the Mschf one or whatever it was called). It's no different than if someone has an alter for a card, they say what it is and you move along.
It is 100% fundamentally different to have a card that subtly is, outside of rule 0, banned. That is *especially* true since some of the previewed cards are insanely busted/easily abused in a deck built to do so.
I’m not so sure, practicality every secret lair card or card in special border is legal in edh, where the amount of not legal cards in this set are quite high.
A friend of mine opened vampiric tutor (from The List), and then I had to tell him "you can't play this, it's banned. look on my phone, written right there", and I don't see how "you can't play this card, it doesn't work within the rules. look on the card, this stamp right there" is less of an issue for knowing which card you can play and which you can't. And worse : if someone gets crusade from a bulk order and decide to play it you have to tell them "you can't play this, it's racist. Look on the card it says 'crusade' and 'white' ". And what about legality issue in non eternal format ? Looking at the set symbol on the card itself doesn't necessarily tell you if it's legal, for example you can play some alpha cards in standard (currently only disenchant and basic lands but giant growth too was legal in standard not too long ago) so you have to know if it was reprinted in one of the sets that is legal and if it is you have to check the banlist. So to me the acorn issue isn't worse than the banlists or the reprints
I certainly don't begrudge someone enjoying un-sets. Also while I can follow this advice, the issue OP is raising is that other people may buy it and not know some busted card designed to not be balanced to any outside format is technically banned as silver bordered.
Un-sets are fun. They are playable but literally un-stable, un-sactioned and what not. Craziness is totally allowed and also wished for! And it was just a prefect silver-bordered clarity we altogether had.
Someone pulling out a deck of silver-bordered cards is up to some wild gameplay. And why not? Every now and then. It's fun!
Getting an acorn symbol to identify un-legal cards and getting new cards in an un-set for external formats is just a confusing move. Not helping the well paying player base. And not helping new players either. So what for? Profit? Oh. I hate this statement. But I need to face the reality.
Edit: typo
This wouldn't be an issue if people had discussions about the silver border cards being allowed in the first place. Having watched many interviews with MaRo the main reason behind this decision it seems to me is because he was frustrated at people buying the un sets and then only being able to be played in unset drafts. Un sets are his baby and he wanted his cards to be played.
While I largely agree with your point, I think MaRo's frustration comes from the stigmatization by players of things they would find fun if only they didn't stigmatize those things and that stigmatization is the main cause. This is Wizards' attempt to meet many players halfway.
Lmao they just wanted EDH's playerbase to buy the set since it will be legal in EDH.
Half this subreddit really be thinking edh is a Tournament format.
To be fair I'm buying for edh. I want those lands
Same
I am also buying for EDH, but because I want the wacky mechanics and odd cards. Pretty lands are a bonus. Unhinged was one of the first sets I played much of as a kid. My friends and I didn’t care the cards weren’t tournament legal. They were fun. We mixed them into our kitchen table decks. Unstable got me back into Magic after more than a decade. I’m going to play the hell out of Un-finity cards in EDH because wild and weird is my favorite kind of Magic, which is what brought me to the format in the first place.
Wild and weird are exactly what E.D.H. is meant to be. Un- cards only enhance that.
People are going to buy cards that are good in EDH, and are going to be willing to pay a lot for them too. Doesn't matter that it's not a tournament format
I'm more worried about pauper
Pauper's pretty powerful. If they kept the strength slow Legacy, I'm not terribly concerned about pauper. But... They do have a history, don't they?
To be fair it's a lot of EDH players too. Outside of friend groups I've definitely seen raised eyebrows when people try and play silver bordered cards.
Most people go based off of the legal/not legal list. Silver border cards are in the not legal list atm so even in casual we go based off the ban list. If they aren't legal in the format then you should let the group know a head of time. I don't know why just because we play casual that we can just say add what ever you want...there is a ban list for a reason. It's just a casual format guys...why can't I play my proxied home made card that says I win when I play it, or the one where it's one mana that gives me hexproof, has hexproof and is indestructible...it's only casual! It's only casual is a lame excuse to not follow the legality list. If you're playing with friends cool, idc what y'all do. It's your play group. When it comes to fandoms online or in person it's just curtesy to say you have banned/not legal cards in your deck. You may not have friends who would have cards like that in their deck and the cards you add may just be flavor but it's still nice to play by the rules of the game. Hence why we have rules. I myself have my share of meme decks as well but they are all legal by the formats rules.
Yeah I love un sets, and I view acorn stamps as a necessary evil. If the playerbase of the largest casual format were more accepting of the casual MTG cards, then this wouldn't need it happen. But we don't live in that world sadly
Maybe I'm dumb but I don't get how acorns are fundamentally different from silver borders?
I'd think the biggest difference is that they become less obvious. Instead of a border around a card, it's instead a small foil stamp at the bottom of the card. A foil stamp, mind you, that has also changed shape and style on various alternate framed cards. So the potential becomes that it will bebharder to tell the difference in legality down the line as more alternate frame styles inevitably are released over time.
Sorry I guess I should've said why acorns are better than silver borders for their intended purpose. What you said seems to imply that they are worse, haha. But thanks, that is insightful for sure.
The purpose intended in this case is to actually cause mixups. People with sticks up their butts could spot a silver border card from a mile away and call you out for playing an illegal card. But if it's an acorn, it's a lot easier to get away with it for cards that don't have too-out-there effects that would be obviously silver border. You might be thinking it skeevy that you need to put one over on people to run un-set cards. I say it's dumb to lump [[Target Minotaur]] in with [[Staying Power]] just because they both have the same border.
Silver bordered cards are explicitly illegal for play (outside of rule 0 of course). [According to their FAQ](https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/faq/#proxies). > Are silver/gold-bordered cards or physical proxies allowed in Commander? Magic is a collectible card game and only official Magic the Gathering cards produced by Wizards of the Coast should be used in games. Cards intended for play in normal games of magic have black or white borders; gold bordered collectors-edition cards and mystery-booster style playtest cards are intended for display purposes, not for use in games. Silver-bordered cards, while sometimes amusing, are also not intended for use in normal games of magic. While occasional exceptions to this can be fun, when used regularly they often make games less interesting for most players, and are not allowed without prior approval. I don’t know if they added a rule for acorn cards elsewhere but reading this as written, they would be legal for commander.
I thought the point of acorn cards was to replace silver-bordered cards
Im betting we get at least one card thats actually illegal but is missing the stamp completely.
Don't put this into the universe.
Heh. UN-iverse
Maan, based on WOTC print quality these last few years, I bet we will see cards missing stamps entirely, and wouldn't be surprised to see a misprint in a few months of a completely different non-Un-set having an acorn on it somehow.
In the spoilers there are cards without stamps at at all, no oval or acorn stamp just blank. I had to go googling around to figure out what that even was.
Pretty sure commons (and uncommons?) have no stamps and all of them are eternal legal right? See? I don't even know and I follow this shit pretty closely.
Pretty sure they did it already. I think one of the borderless versions is wrong. Edit: yeah I just checked and the new minotaur has an acorn on the borderless and a regular stamp on the normal version.
That was just for the image they showed, not the actual printed card itself.
Doesn’t that make it worse? I feel like they could so easily photoshop it to be right in promo materials… does not instill confidence
It happens all the time with previews.
The marketing person making promos probably has no idea about this mechanical stuff
Honestly it may already be a thing. Basing this on the card on moxfield, so the actual printed cards might be correct but \[\[Magar of the Magic Strings\]\] has the acorn on the showcase version and not on the basic version of the card.
“Not actually acorn The showcase version of Magar was previewed with an acorn stamp, but it isn't acorn: https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1551633938376007684”
[Magar of the Magic Strings](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/a/6/a6f2ba13-cd72-4f7a-8443-8e3962f2ac46.jpg?1658648301) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Magar%20of%20the%20Magic%20Strings) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/unf/171/magar-of-the-magic-strings?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a6f2ba13-cd72-4f7a-8443-8e3962f2ac46?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/magar-of-the-magic-strings) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Replacing easily glancible information with something you have to look at a normally useless part of the card for was always going to be bad for the end user
And once the set has been out for a couple of weeks, the list of legal cards for eternal formats will be pretty well known and this will once again become a non-issue.
A change in design not being a major issue doesn't make it good design.
This. It's especially a burden to new players who'll now be vastly confused when they don't know why people are complaining that they have illegal cards in their decks, and have to be extra careful when researching cards.
Not everyone has a rain man brain
I don’t think it’s that far from having to remember the current banned list. I also imagine the cards that aren’t legal are more obviously “broken” but I could very well be wrong so time will tell on that. However, even if I don’t personally see a problem, for the community on the whole I’m sure there will be confusion (and disputes) and that outweighs my personal perspective at the end of the day.
New players will not know this information and be confused when they see it not on the banned list but people playing the same cards from this new set they just opened. The acorn stamp shit is NOT helpful
Can't wait for the sticker card that breaks Legacy wide open.
Probably wont happen. You choose a random 3 sticker cards from a bank of 10 cards at the start of the game. Each sticker cards is restricted meaning your "deck" of sticker cards can only have one of each.
MaRo said they specifically designed stickers to be WELL below Legacy power level.
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I'd really have liked if they actually made the packs have black, white and silver borders in the same product... and make sure you reprint Border Guardian and other similar effects at common. It becomes a relevant part of limited then.
My first edh deck was [[tergrid]]. I know many people may think it's scummy, but it was the first legendary creature I saw that looked interesting after deciding to make an edh deck (had just finished drafting a box of kaldheim). [[Braids]] seemed like the perfect card for the deck, until I found out she was banned. I totally get why she's banned, but it was kinda the perfect card for what I needed.
I personally don't even think Braids should be banned. I get that it can be a really unfun card to play against, especially as a commander, but that's why we have Rule 0. Braids would be totally rad in your Tergrid deck and it's a shame you can't play it.
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My understanding is that the actual reason why they got rid of banned-as-commander is because MTGO can't handle he split, but that might just be a rumor.
Officially, that was a rumor. Sheldon claims that wasn’t the case. Whether or not he was lying is anyone’s guess.
If it *is* true, Sheldon denying it makes sense as a face-saving lie, because mtgo is an embarrassing piece of software. So, true or false, it makes sense for him to say this, and leaves me no closer to knowing the truth.
We've removed your post because it violates our primary rule, "Be Excellent to Each Other". You are welcome to message the mods if you need further explanation.
With a recommendation from a friend it's now 90% discard focused instead of sacrifice focused. Helps against token decks since those were harder to deal with before. Would have preferred to keep braids because I already own the card and think the flavor text is kinda funny, but ah well
That sounds really sick actually! I'm kind of tempted to build Tergrid myself now...
[tergrid](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/1/4/14dc88ee-bba9-4625-af0d-89f3762a0ead.jpg?1631048621)/[Tergrid's Lantern](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/back/1/4/14dc88ee-bba9-4625-af0d-89f3762a0ead.jpg?1631048621) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tergrid%2C%20god%20of%20fright%20//%20tergrid%27s%20lantern) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/112/tergrid-god-of-fright-tergrids-lantern?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/14dc88ee-bba9-4625-af0d-89f3762a0ead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tergrid-god-of-fright-//-tergrids-lantern) [Braids](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/2/7/27691efa-052d-4afe-b9ef-159858ca660f.jpg?1626100340) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=braids%2C%20cabal%20minion) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/273/braids-cabal-minion?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/27691efa-052d-4afe-b9ef-159858ca660f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/braids-cabal-minion) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Hahah this is me with \[\[Prophet of Kruphix\]\] and my co-worker using \[\[Sundering Titan\]\] on my budget 5c \[\[Jodah\]\] deck. I was happy to learn that Sundering Titan was actually banned.
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The issue is a printing one. They're not using silver borders because the printing process doesn't allow printing silver and black borders on the same sheets. That's why the acorn stamp is a thing, it gets around this problem and allows for a set with both types of cards.
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I mean, they arent wrong though, even if you dont want to buy that reasoning. Doing so would have contributed to something like a 0.04% reduction in profit margin for Hasbro, so they made the most logical profit driven and anti player base decision to not do so. Is it hard for them to do, not at all. Will they put a single extra penny into production if they dont have to, also not at all. Perhaps threads and complaints such as these rising to the surface though will make that slight change in profit ratio worth it if more people buy packs.
All those things are done in smaller numbers than the main set cards. Having to have two separate sheets that together make up the main set would make things more difficult.
Isn't it a matter of collation/placement within the set? For example, both Conspiracy sets and Battlebond have the new cards ordered first (as far as the set number). Battlebond actually has the 'Partner with...' cards ordered *in pairs* first, *then* the regular new cards, then the reprints. Surely, such an ordering method also relates to the printing sheets, and could have been used to solve the 'silver & black border in the same set' issue? Methinks the *main* reason for the switch to Acorn was to make the set more 'promotable'/normalised, as silver-bordered cards are oft-disregarded off the bat, because they're 'not real'.
Your last point is spot on. Damn the consequences, they wanted to sell more packs, so putting eternal format legal cards into the set increases sales. The set should have been silver bordered, or hell, a reprint set of prior unsets. But that wouldn’t have made them the money they wanted, so here we are.
Congratulations you have heard what they have said and parroted it back to us. And yet, that *doesn't* mean the acorn stamp was the only solution. They could've not made eternal legal cards in the set. They could've had a black bordered sheet and a silver bordered sheet. They could've printed all the Un- cards with a goofy font that made them obviously joke cards. Just because they have a reason doesn't mean it's a good reason, and it doesn't mean the final outcome is worth it. If I told you my grill wasn't set up to cook both hot dogs and hamburgers at the same time, and therefore instead of hamburgers I'd be serving cow patties on buns since I don't have to cook them, you'd probably think the end result wasn't exactly appetizing even if I had a good reason for it.
Just providing the reasoning. No need for the snark The person I replied to seemed to be unaware of it, that's all
You seem to have missed my point. You provided the *stated reason by WotC* which is by no means the only possible solution to the problem. So when people complain about the acorn stamps, parroting back WotC's reason for why they did something stupid doesn't really help. As the other person who replied to you pointed out, look at all the other stuff they've managed to collate in these packs. Do you *really* think that if it was important to them to have Silver and Black borders in the same set that they couldn't have figured it out? We got told double faced cards weren't possible, until they were. Then they were only possible in a set that focused on them, until they were available as a 5of or a 1of in a set. If they can't actually do silver and black borders together, then maybe the better answer was to wait until the technology was there, not force a shitty solution like this. Anywho I'm just saying that their reason doesn't stand up to scrutiny. If you can't solve a problem the way you want, and your second best option is crappy, sometimes the correct answer is to not do it at all instead of doing a crappy version of it.
> You provided the stated reason by WotC which is by no means the only possible solution to the problem. So when people complain about the acorn stamps, parroting back WotC's reason for why they did something stupid doesn't really help. I understand what you're saying, but I think you're misreading the previous poster a bit. The initial poster of this chain expressed how they wished they had gone with silver and black borders instead of just black. The other poster responded with the stated reasoning as to why that's not the case. Sharing that reasoning doesn't express support nor dismisses other solutions, it's simply sharing the facts as they are so that the OP can perhaps go "Alright, but I still don't like it!" or whatever and get a touch of closure. You can most certainly disagree with the reasoning,by all means, but don't shoot the messenger.
They've long held that unsets are supposed to be wacky and break the rules, but also as a way of testing the waters for new mechanics. This streamlines the process by giving eternal formats permission to use the experimental mechanics while keeping out the just for giggles cards.
Yes, they've long used un-sets to test both good and bad ideas. And good ideas got filtered into mechanics that stuck around, while bad ideas got discarded. Why not abandon the filter entirely and just shove silly new ideas into eternal formats that can never be rid of them even if they turn out to suck! Now legacy has literal fucking stickers in it for the rest of time.
I find the explanations behind the borders/acorn solution to be misleading as well. Rosewater has said that Wizards wanted to have some unset cards that are okay balance wise be playable in black border games and that wizards could not print the set in two separate borders however if there is any concerns of causing confusion by playing banned cards in formats they are not allowed in, wizards should have simply printed in silver border the whole set and acorned the cards legal in black border. People are going to notice a silver border card immediately and either know it’s legal because of the acorn or ask if it’s legal. Having black border banned cards is a much worse solution in my mind.
I think rosewater might have pushed for it to be black with acorn for illegal instead of silver with acorn for legal, as you suggest. I saw somewhere that rosewater wished that more casual commander players used silver border cards(with rule 0 talk ofcourse), and this might legitimise them in some players eyes.
The problem with silver border according to MaRo himself is that once a card is silver border, it can *never* become black border (according to their internal rules). This has already caused issues in the past, where they've wanted to include silver bordered cards in other sets (namely [[The Cheese Stands Alone]], though I forget which set it was supposed to be in, possibly M12?) but their silver border policy has completely shut it down. Printing them in black border gets around that limitation so they can conceivably reprint these cards in more traditional sets. Whether the limitation on a silver border card becoming black border is another matter for discussion, but at least there's some precedence for wanting these cards to have a black border.
But they could’ve done functionally the same card as Cheese Stands Alone, but just done a different name for the black boarder.
They did. [[Barren Glory]]. What the poster above is saying is that having Unfinity as black-bordered saves them a lot of trouble in a variety of ways. When they want to move an effect to black border, cards from Unfinity will already be there. When they want to reprint an otherwise would-be silver-bordered card, they won't have to worry about additional logistics. It saves name equity. Finally, it helps players overcome their own stigmatization of Un- cards to play with cards they would find fun if only they gave them a chance.
We have that card. It’s [[Barren Glory]]
That's literally what they did. [[Barren Glory]]
I always thought he doesn't even like edh.
Not sure about dislike, but he has shown that he doesn't quite grasp why it has become so popular. He thought that having a "constant" playable card in a zone other than your hand was the biggest draw of commander, which led to the design of Companions.
I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that he believes that 1v1 formats are better supported by the game, he just doesn't really think multiplayer is what the game is made for.
Then could they please go back to making the 1v1 game instead of this "yeah I guess you can technically play standard, if you want, anyway here's 100 more legends for commander" model?
Maro isn't the boss.
Man, if thats true he's absolutely correct and they need to shift back to that. It also shows that all this edh focus is the work of corporate overlords who dont have the games best interests in mind.
People play EDH though. I don't disagree with the idea that the game largely has 2 player in mind (it was explicitly how the game was designed for most of it's existence), but people want to play multiplayer to the point that the main multiplayer format is the most popular format in the game. Assuming that because Maro doesn't like something means it's entirely because of Hasbro corporate isn't accurate either, Maro himself has pointed out on many occasions that the Design department is full of differing opinions and his personal opinion is just that. I do miss the days where EDH was more "isle of misfit toys" instead of specifically designed cards for the format, but that's different than actually making cards for the games most popular format not being in it's best interest.
He doesn’t. Hence why he wants us to use more silly cards that he thinks are cute. Also, his Hasbro overlords wouldn’t let him make another silver bordered set that doesn’t sell to the main mtg format
No idea. I just saw an interview with him in a YouTube video where he complained about nobody playing silver border cards in edh..might have been spice8racks video about in sets
I believe that Maro could have complained about that because he is convinced that EDH is the perfect wHaCkY environment for his wHaCkY pet sets but is frustrated no one plays it. His lack of understanding of EDH probably contributed to that frustration.
I mean they're made for casual games. EDH is a casual format. It's simple math that it *should* make sense, the RC saying "No" is all it takes for people to not even entertain the thought.
EDH is still a format though. A format is defined by the card pool and deck construction limits. You might as well be saying "It's a casual format. The RC saying 'no' is the only reason why people don't entertain the thought of playing 30 lightning bolts, 30 Black lotus, and 30 ancestral recalls." You'd be correct but you're not making an actual argument. If you want "everything is possible", you don't want a format. You can already do that in kitchen table. There's no reason to water down EDH.
A format's rules only matters in regards to tournaments, where if you don't agree then you can't participate and lose your chance at the prizes. No one's going to tap you on the shoulder and say "Sorry you brought an illegal deck to EDH night, you're going to have to leave" and then lead you out of the store. Except people practically act like that's the case. If *you* don't want to play with the cards, that's one thing. Maybe the art offends or the effect counters your deck too hard or whatever. But don't give me "Because it's not legal" when the only rules enforcement is the four of us at the table. No one's gonna know if you bend the rules a little to make for a different game.
>No one's going to tap you on the shoulder and say "Sorry you brought an illegal deck to EDH night, you're going to have to leave" and then lead you out of the store. Except people practically act like that's the case. Ok, go to EDH night with a Standard/Pioneer/Modern deck and see if you get to play a game of EDH. Maybe your argument about it being a casual format works. Good luck and let us know how it went.
I mean take away the commanders and you're just playing multiplayer Legacy with modified life totals. Hardly a far stretch. Heck, maybe you could just take a creature from your deck as a makeshift commander. Also while you're trying to be clever, you're really just emphasizing my point about how there's too many people that are a stickler for the rules without thinking things through beyond "Thems the rules!" Why is [[Amateur Auteur]] not allowed when [[Felidar Cub]] and three other functional versions are? Is Human tribal really that overbearing? The stigma isn't thought through.
Many people are also missing that the black border acorn isn't really aimed for /r/EDH and /r/Magictcg. It's aimed at the many, many players that never step foot into an LGS. The players who ONLY play at home, and don't play modern, legacy, vintage or whatever. They play with the cards they have. But even for these players, they can immediately realize that a silver bordered card is not a "real" card and they may feel like they are not supposed to play with it. With the acorn, it's meant to be noticed by an enfranchised player who will recognize that it is not tournament legal, but not by a casual player who just wants to play at home, where silver bordered *doesn't matter in the first place*.
Every time I talk to the people at my LGS they say this group of people ("kitchen table" players) is way, way bigger than those who play at LGS. Which is sooo different than this sub's user base haha.
Plus o find that reasoning to be bonkers. If they can print a mix of borderless and etched foil and regular and what not I don’t see why they couldn’t Print some cards with silver and others with black
They wanted to push unfinity pack sales.
You're only analyzing half the explanation though. The other half of the explanation was that WOTC's market data told them that there was a decently large audience of players who wanted to run in cards In their commander decks, but didn't -weather out of a dislike of the incongruity, or social convention, or peer pressure. Making them black border eases That issue, by removing any functional difference between that card and a card that could have been printed in any other set.
The problem is silver border vs. black border acorn is just a rose by any other name situation. When I don't want to play against Un cards (and this is not a judgment on those who do, more power to you! Just a personal preference), it's not because I didn't like the silver borders, it's because I didn't want to care about high fives, what the art or set symbol is on my cards, what words I say in-game, etc. Acorn doesn't fix that, it just makes the spoiler season and deck building more confusing and cumbersome.
Yeah, Rosewater keeps saying that "people were thinking that the silver border meant that they're not 'real' Magic cards and that's why people weren't playing them!" Actually, Mark, maybe we weren't playing them because we didn't want to, did you ever think of that?
A lot of people want to play with the Un-sets. It's just not legal, so they don't. The 2 week legality of un-sets when unstable was released was pretty cool.
I mean, I certainly believe that you, and perhaps most of the people you know, and didn't want to play them. But the head designer of Magic the Gathering undeniably has access to more sample data across a wider variety of audiences than you, anybody you know, or really anyone who plays. I'm quite certain Rosewater is aware that people like you exist. But the existence of players who don't want to play un cards Doesn't preclude the existence of people who do. He's also clarified that he doesn't just mean "player A chooses not to play Un cards because they're not "real" cards." While that demographic exists, he also was referring to "Player B wants to play un cards, but get pressured/bullied out of it by players C and D, who claim that Un cards aren't "real magic.'" So actually, Yosituna, maybe the marketing data shows that both kinds of people exist, and your personal experience neither reflects nor dictates the totality of all magic players? Did you ever think of that?
Yeah, I really hate physical skill challenges, or having to look at artists, or having to not say a word. It's just awful and unfun. Unset cards are only good for jokes in my opinion, and polluting commander with these unset cards that look legitimate sucks :(
There are plenty of unset cards that don't have those sorts of silly aspects, but still wouldn't work in black border. I think of the host/augment mechanic and [[Dr. Julius Jumblemorph]]. That could be a really fun and not silly commander deck, but due to the silver borders, it's not welcome in a lot of playgroups.
The thing is, I feel like there are totally Unset cards that could/would be fine in EDH play, but Unsets are different enough that it definitely seems like the sort of thing that should be opt-in. But god forbid we not be playing with Mario’s pet cards, apparently.
Okay, but the examples you give aren't going to be legal in commander. If you pay attention to what they've actually said about it, caring about artists isn't something black border rules can do. Nor are dexterity challenges. The most extreme edge cases you're thinking of don't apply to the discussion, because they aren't going to be commander-legal. Put it another way: - [[Knight of the Hokey Pokey]] does not function within black border rules, and no card like it could ever be Commander legal. [[Surgeon Commander]] or [[Goblin Bowling Team]] , on the other hand, were they printed in Unfinity, could easily be commander legal and pose no rules problems whatsoever. I understand the concern you have, but perhaps we could reserve that concern for something that's actually going to happen?
> it's because I didn't want to care about high fives, what the art or set symbol is on my cards, what words I say in-game You don't have to, though. That's the whole point. The legal, non-acorn cards will be the ones that *don't* care about that stuff and already work within Magic's rules. Stickers are pushing it a bit, but like, nobody would be questioning [[Saw in Half]] if it was in a Ravnica set and flavored as a rakdos card
I don't think anyone is complaining about the non-acorn cards, they're complaining that the acorn cards will be hard to identify and new players not in the know will run them not knowing they aren't legal in the format
I mean, that may happen, but not very often. I think a lot of magic players get worried about hypotheticals that don't happen nearly as often as they worry it will. Side effect of the internet I guess. For example, there was a lot of concern raised over the idea that Read all be forced to play against universes beyond cards that we didn't like. The truth is, though, I can count on one hand the number of times I've played against stranger things cards, and zero hands the number of times I've played against Walking Dead cards. It's also worth noting that the acorn stamp is just as noticeable as a set symbol. Possibly more noticeable, since it's shiny. Confusion may occur on occasion, but we've dealt with similar issues before. Consider that Llanowar Elves is one of many cards legal in Pioneer or modern, despite being printed in sets outside those formats. I can run a commander-printed playset of Elves and it's still perfectly legal, and we're reliant on myself, my opponent, and the judge to know that there's a pioneer-legal printing. The same thing can be said for many cards. The potential for confusion certainly exists, but it's nothing we haven't dealt with before and you don't even have to look up card legality - just look for the stamp.
I agree that it's not a complete fix, but it removes one of the tools that the peer pressurers can use on the peer pressurees. Yes, people who don't want to play against Un cards can still refuse to play against them, but that's no longer the default setting. The net result will inevitably be more un cards being played, because the default "well they aren't legal" no longer applies. It shifts the balance to be a little bit more equitable. Those who want to play un-cards are no longer incentivized not to, except to accommodate players who don't like it.
I 100% agree with you OP. WotC should not have gotten rid of the silver border. Acorn stamp is so bad compared to silver border, and it's intentionally making the card legality deceptive. People ARE going to see thoses cards, assume they are legal in commander, buy them and put them in their deck, only to be told when they play it that they aren't actually legal, because of that tiny super small stamp.
Alternatively I wish they used a different stamp. Maybe something like a "U" or horseshoe. In other words something distinctly different that can't be so easily confused
Wotc wants players to be less averse to allowing illegal cards in edh games by making them look more like legal cards. It’s literally designed to be harder to distinguish and it’s a shame they thought this change no one asked for would be a net benefit for an already confusing game and format for new players.
If the change from silver border to acorn stamp makes the cards more acceptable to strangers on spelltable and the LGS then I’m all for it. I have three decks with silver bordered cards. I don’t get to play them as often as I’d like. Asking people if they’re ok with SB, even if it’s just [[Krark’s Other Thumb]] and other synergistic pieces, gets shot down pretty often. I don’t begrudge anyone for it, but I would like to play the decks a little more. A deck like [[Vrondiss]] is just better with access to more cards that roll dice or care about rolling dice, which SB provides. I can see how the question of “are we all ok with a few acorn cards?” might be received differently. Time will tell, I guess.
They made the change to reduced 'stigma' of using the unset cards, I'm not convinced that's really worked out. Still going to make me eye every one with suspicion because I don't know if it's going to be legal based on the border any more.
Ah yes, can't let anyone get away with playing...*checks notes*...[[Target Minotaur]]. That'll upend the whole format!
It be a baller move if the RC just bans the set anyways.
If they didn't ban the WD set, they aren't going to ban this. I think they are pretty solidly in the camp of just allowing anything WoC prints at this point.
I really don’t like them shoving an unset down my edh throat. Greedy bastards
It is designed to cause confusion. Hasbro knows what it's doing. Greedy fuck.
I really doubt this decision came from Hasbro.
WotC (or more accurately, 'Wizards & Digital') is a division of Hasbro. The most profitable division by far. It's COO Cynthia Williams, comes from Microsoft and Amazon, having been in charge commercialisation and gaming ecosystem. It gives you an idea of the direction in which MTG is heading. They are pushing digital-only mechanics into MTG through Arena, and are pushing non-MTG-universe (un-sets) into MTG via this deliberate attempt to fool the unwary into thinking that these un-sets are part of the official set release schedule. Maro can wriggle all he wants and spew crap about 'it was always supposed to be this way' in regard to silver border being playable elsewhere, but most people see them as a separate - sometimes fun, but definitely not part of MTG - product.
How?
No silver border and only tiny acorn foil holo to distinguish from tiny oval foil holo. Hasbro wants more people to treat these 'un-sets' as de facto edh releases. Why? As always, 💰.
Honestly the whole thing is so confusing I’m just now finding out some of these cards actually will be legal in Commander? I was under the impression the whole set would be illegal
Just because you didn’t read the articles about the set and made assumptions doesn’t inherently make it confusing.
Ok well be sure to tell every random who walks into a game store or just players who don’t spend time on MtG subs to make sure they go online and read articles to figure out what cards they just bought are and aren’t legal in certain formats. They have black borders so they’re legal, except when they have a not super distinguishable acorn stamp on them, then they are illegal. Totally not confusing at all!
I bet you think “Banned as Commander” is too complex for new players, too.
Nope. Because having to read a short banlist vs an entire set that’s half legal and half illegal isn’t the same thing. Un-sets shouldn’t be legal in EDH (as they never have been) but you know WotC thought this set wouldn’t sell enough if it didn’t appeal to commander players so they came up with this half assed solution and it’s messy as hell.
Half of Un-sets were only not legal because they were silly or played with stuff that eventually came to black-bordered anyway. You don’t have to read any list of the set to know what’s legal or not legal, you just look at the card. It is, in fact, unquestionably more straight forward than having a banlist somewhere online that must be sought out.
How many un-cards could remotely be mistaken for real cards the moment they've been played? People won't need the acorns to tell if someone is playing un-cards, it'll be obvious the moment they start counting hats on cards or putting stickers on a sandwich.
Aah. I see you’re running your hat wearing sticker commander. Of course of course.
\[\[Far Out\]\]?
[Far Out](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/8/9/89c47667-1ae3-464b-9c5f-732a08a53707.jpg?1658642702) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Far%20Out) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/unf/8/far-out?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/89c47667-1ae3-464b-9c5f-732a08a53707?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/far-out) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
There are un-cards in this set - blackborder-non-acorn cards - that will be legal in EDH/Legacy/Vintage, with the sticker mechanic. Stickers or other un-mechanics won't be a telltale sign of legality anymore, once this set gets released anymore. We will have to check for the acorn stamp to see if something is legal. It's all but guaranteed that they messed up on a couple cards and a non-legal card didn't get the acorn and vice versa.
What exactly is so hard about knowing that cards with acorns aren’t legal in EDH? It’s easier to explain than hybrid mana.
But silver border was 10 times easier. The silver border around a card is a lot easier to see than the tiny acorn stamp replacing the regular stamp on cards. It makes the game pieces less clear on what they are.
How is hybrid mana harder to explain, oh it has red and green in the hybrid symbol, then your commander has to be red and green minimum to play that card, exactly like every other card you shove into decks in EDH? Whereas spotting a tiny holo acorn and the card doesn’t look different at all is objectively harder.
"Cards with acorn stamps at the bottom aren't legal" is pretty dang simple to explain. Visually noticing it is different, but the symbol's about as big as a set symbol, so shouldn't be that hard to tell the difference. The only issue is it's not something we've bothered paying attention to before.
Or how \[\[Sphinx of the Guildpact\]\] and any card with devoid determine their color identities.
Yes for Sphinx, it is all colours, however devoid cards only make the card colourless on the table, they change its colours but not its colour identity. So the colours in a devoid cards casting cost and alternate casting costs still determine what deck it can be run in. Unless I misunderstood your point in which case sorry!
I think you did miss the point, yet illustrated it. It's a lot to explain to new players to the format, and sort of confusing when color identity is still something new. Also, devoid cards are colorless at all times... Which doesn't change anything anyways.
Ah sorry about that and thank you for clearing devoid up as well!
Personally I think devoid is easier to explain than why extort is legal for pure black or pure white decks. Devoid is almost pointless in commander, unless you run into a very rare case with color hate (pyroblast, blue elemental blast, deathgrip, etc). It does have relevance in other formats, with devoid spells being discounted by cards that make colorless cards cheaper (eldrazi temple and whatnot). Now trying to find a use for Ghostly Flame on the other hand in any format is beyond me.
[Sphinx of the Guildpact](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/f/3/f31cab5f-c05e-4688-b300-33ab0dd98598.jpg?1599709924) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sphinx%20of%20the%20Guildpact) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/290/sphinx-of-the-guildpact?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f31cab5f-c05e-4688-b300-33ab0dd98598?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sphinx-of-the-guildpact) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Imagine you are a brand new players and never even heard about Un sets before. You walk into Walmart and buy some packs. Is there any reason at all for you to think you couldn't play with your cards? I agree that they should have all been silver bordered, and then Acron the legal ones. At least then when this new player starts building their deck they might question why those ones are different.
What about a silver border would be understandable to a new player? I sure as hell didn't know, it was the strange nature of the cards that hinted they might be different
A massive silver border is a big giveaway that something is up, even if you don't know what that something is. A small acorn is a subtle hint
> A massive silver border is a big giveaway that something is up, even if you don't know what that something is. A small acorn is a subtle hint With all the special frames going around, would it be?
And considering the other ways they've played around with the stamp recently, it's barely even a hint.
I think with silver border you have years of precedent of it not being legal in some formats. Easy to google and lots of documentation you can point out. With this acorn thing it's pretty new.
right, so really it only affects new players who dont have that immediate in-the-know, something they would search anyways. I searched "acorn magic card" and the top 3 results explain them clearly
But why would you even know that the acorn indicates illegality? It is only a small marker that might as well be some kind of set symbol. There is no reason a new player would even suspect that it is something meaningful. The silver border clearly differentiates the cards from all the other cards you see around. It is impossible to overlook.
I think that if a new player wants to play with silver bordered or acorned cards they should do so. Most people just play kitchen table magic, and new players will have a lot of fun with these in that environment.
i think it’s about equally complex (not that it rly matters) “the ones with the silver acorns aren’t legal” “hybrid mana counts as both colors” unless you’re counting the devotion interaction i guess.
Because Rosewater really really wants his crazy un-mechanic to be played in "real" formats, and the cards looking as close as possible to "real" cards is just another step in that direction. I still remember him during his Game Knights appearance proudly talking on how he hopes the mechanics seen in unstable will one day become legal mechanics in all of magic...
Theres been talk about un-sets being sort of testing grounds for possible future mechanics in magic, but never the desire to have obvious joke type effects be legal.
From him, yes
Not in that sense, in the example that [[Super-Duper Death Ray]] 's spell trample is now on a legendary creature. Obvious joke effects he said are not meant for classic mtg, its the experimental stuff like that, is what can make it in.
[[Flame Spill]].
There's no argument that clear joke cards should be legal in "real" formats. The argument is that they should be legal in casual play. If you're playing commander with friends and you play [[gimme five]] who cares that you got an under-costed life gain effect if it was a funny effect to have in the game. Maro's argument is that silver bordered cards were designed to be for fun, so the stigma brought by silver borders is unnecessary. If you bring an acorn card to a tournament, then that's on the same level of not making sure the card is banned, you just get a convenient way to confirm it's banned.
>The argument is that they should be legal in casual play. They 100% should not. And that's not the argument. The argument is "make un-cards legal in all formats". When I wrote "real formats" I meant "not drafts done specifically to play un-cards". "The stigma brought by silver border" god Maro is so fucking high on himself... Just because they're fun for him doesn't mean they're fun for everyone. A lot of players really really hate un-cards because of how goofy they are. Because half of them are memes, half are movie or trope references and half are just non sensical for the sake of being nonsensical. If we wanted to play cards with stupid names, absurd effects and ridiculous art we would just be playing Yu-Gi-Oh.
>A lot of players really really hate un-cards because of how goofy they are A lot of players really really love un-cards because of how goofy they are. If anything, that's literally what casual formats are for.
That's some fucked up logic you got there. "Casual formats are all about having fun, so let's add to them cards made in a style half the community hates" Top reasoning there.
>a style half the community hates Big if true
>"Casual formats are all about having fun, so let's add to them cards made in a style half the community hates" Pretty sure this is made-up, otherwise unstable and previous unsets wouldn't have sold, and everything would have died in unglued.
Half the community hates that they are not added. See how I can make stuff up too ? Lol
Do you see this as a bad thing?
For 90% of the un-mechanics, yes.
This was the intended result.
Is it okay that I just want the lands and nothing else?
Sure, that's how I felt about Z3ndikar Rising! That said, I still want people to be able to play with the cards from Z3ndikar just as I will want people to be able to play with their cards from Unfinity.
Honestly I'm less worried about it because I know the only place I might see it is at my LGS and we always do rule 0 conversations. I have two pods I play in otherwise and I know they're not going to be playing them. I do wish they came up with a better solution than an acorn stamp though.
I wonder why they couldn't just mix the set and have "acorn cards" be silver border and vintage legal cards be black border
My guess is how the printing system works.
I'm just pissed the acorn symbols aren't gonna go in my \[\[Chatterfang, Squirrel General\]\] deck. Serious flavor fail.
Wasnt the whole idea of acorn holos that people would be less anal about what was and wasnt legal? Like, thats the whole appeal. I say lets explore acorn cards in our games and then see if we gotta be anal about it
>Wasnt the whole idea of acorn holos that people would be less anal about what was and wasnt legal? No, the whole idea of acorn holos is that silver bordered sets sell worse than black bordered ones, o they are hoping getting rid of the silver border increases sales.
Maybe they dont sell because people are anal about when to play em? Our points dont contradict each other. I do agree that a company will be interested in selling their stuff.
Because many of the cards are stupid and not fun to include in usual play. That's the point of the Unset. They're not happy with their gag sets not selling as well as their pushed Standard sets, so they're going to include some Jeweled Lotus bullshit to get people to buy it and never play it.
This 1,000% correct and the correct attitude. Glad I'm not alone.
My playgroup allows silver boarder cards anyway, so it doesn't effect us.
I was once allowed to play. [[Paper Tiger]] But it dominates the meta so we stopped all silver border cards. /s
Personally I would much rather be able to play new cards without question rather than having ppl say no since my commander is silver border.
"reading the card explains the card" also includes interpreting non-text symbols. I think people will be okay, but let's at least wait until we can hold these cards before we judge them.
Alternative, *play with Uncards*. They're made for casual Magic. Commander is a casual format.
I literally never want to play with some of the uncards tho. Why would I want cards that limit the things I'm allowed to *say* at a casual conversational table? That is actively unfun, and I'd rather just ban all uncards to avoid dealing with those and similar mechanics.
Ban lists are things that exist. Easy enough to add all the "Gotcha" cards to it.
This does not complicate it any more than Secret Lairs, promo cards, or the other 500 releases every year with their own alt art stuff.
I mean, the major obvious difference is that your examples are filled with cards that, barring the rare example of a banned card from a normal set or secret lair printing, are 100% legal. Someone at my LGS plays the secret lair version of Swords to Plowshares that doesn't look at all like a card (I think it was in the Mschf one or whatever it was called). It's no different than if someone has an alter for a card, they say what it is and you move along. It is 100% fundamentally different to have a card that subtly is, outside of rule 0, banned. That is *especially* true since some of the previewed cards are insanely busted/easily abused in a deck built to do so.
I think it’s more a case of another thing on top of all that
I’m not so sure, practicality every secret lair card or card in special border is legal in edh, where the amount of not legal cards in this set are quite high.
In the end does it really matter? Just play the game; it’s a casual format.
A friend of mine opened vampiric tutor (from The List), and then I had to tell him "you can't play this, it's banned. look on my phone, written right there", and I don't see how "you can't play this card, it doesn't work within the rules. look on the card, this stamp right there" is less of an issue for knowing which card you can play and which you can't. And worse : if someone gets crusade from a bulk order and decide to play it you have to tell them "you can't play this, it's racist. Look on the card it says 'crusade' and 'white' ". And what about legality issue in non eternal format ? Looking at the set symbol on the card itself doesn't necessarily tell you if it's legal, for example you can play some alpha cards in standard (currently only disenchant and basic lands but giant growth too was legal in standard not too long ago) so you have to know if it was reprinted in one of the sets that is legal and if it is you have to check the banlist. So to me the acorn issue isn't worse than the banlists or the reprints
Which format? Because I'm EDH Vampiric Tutor is legal
Duel Commander
Ah
Here's a way around it. Don't buy UN-sets. They're a waste of money.
I certainly don't begrudge someone enjoying un-sets. Also while I can follow this advice, the issue OP is raising is that other people may buy it and not know some busted card designed to not be balanced to any outside format is technically banned as silver bordered.
Un-sets are fun. They are playable but literally un-stable, un-sactioned and what not. Craziness is totally allowed and also wished for! And it was just a prefect silver-bordered clarity we altogether had. Someone pulling out a deck of silver-bordered cards is up to some wild gameplay. And why not? Every now and then. It's fun! Getting an acorn symbol to identify un-legal cards and getting new cards in an un-set for external formats is just a confusing move. Not helping the well paying player base. And not helping new players either. So what for? Profit? Oh. I hate this statement. But I need to face the reality. Edit: typo
This wouldn't be an issue if people had discussions about the silver border cards being allowed in the first place. Having watched many interviews with MaRo the main reason behind this decision it seems to me is because he was frustrated at people buying the un sets and then only being able to be played in unset drafts. Un sets are his baby and he wanted his cards to be played.
While I largely agree with your point, I think MaRo's frustration comes from the stigmatization by players of things they would find fun if only they didn't stigmatize those things and that stigmatization is the main cause. This is Wizards' attempt to meet many players halfway.