@doppelspooker Thanks, included! That looks to be the most promising link out of everything so far, as far as expected maintainence combined with easy access goes!

@TheThirdMan i was speaking to the scryfall developer who added that search criteria, and they were pleasantly amused they wound up with a more correct list than the one Maro provided in the Unstable FAQ

(Maro missed some cards like Cranial Plating, which is banned in Pauper -- the R&D team that put that list together might've missed a couple of formats)

Hah, interesting indeed... I addressed the problem of formats as well, and the main problem I'm having with giving a list of cards (even though in a sense, that's what I'm doing) is that players lose control over which formats they want to consider. Personally, I don't think it's sensible to consider Pauper bannings as valid if you're playing a format that allows non-common rarities - but then, playing with Unstable cards, I also wouldn't be mad if someone did :p

@TheThirdMan Pauper definitely doesn't get defined with that power level (and there's even a bunch of Pauper formats), but Spike will be happy to point out to us that MTGO Pauper is an official, defined, sanctioned, constructed format with a real ban list, and therefore they get to tutor for a Cranial Plating.

@doppelspooker True, but looking past the marketing opportunities for Wizards and the application as a brain teaser for people like us, I just don't think it's a great choice for your casual playgroup. I also don't have a good idea about what a great choice would be, ...

...but my guess is something along the lines of "allow everything banned in this and more powerful generic formats [Vintage > Legacy > Modern > Standard], as well as formats relevant to your format [if you're playing Pauper, include the Pauper ban list, if you're playing Commander, add that ban list as well, and so on]"

the reason for always including generic formats is that those are generally well-enough known and therefore won't cause as much confusion as including Pauper Tiny Leaders, Backroom-of-this-and-that-restaurant-edition ;)

This might be trying to fix a non-problem though

If they can tutor out a Sylvan Primordial but instead tutor out a cranial plating, I'd consider myself lucky

heh, yeah, and of course, it mostly won't be an issue because players will be "Yo, I'll tutor myself [...], which was banned in whatever format" - "Yeah, whatever, I'm busy managing Squirrels while my head has to remain on the table" :D

hahaha

I guess I'm talking about the possibility that someone foolishly decides to host an actual tournament with prizes on the line, and some poor dude has to judge an argument between players in that regard :)

@TheThirdMan i hope they are prepared then

and might have a sanctioned list of Spike cards

hah, yeah

@TheThirdMan "here, I'll equip this cranial plating to that guy's hand." "Do I.... do I put that card between my fingers... or something?"

hehe... good times. I don't plan to attend any drafts, but my Commander group is talking about having a (casual, of course) Un-tournament, where everything Un-* is legal. I hope this interaction will come up :D

@TheThirdMan my own commander group is discussing both having a small Un-draft night and some Un-commander.

I'm definitely going to the Unstable prerelease. (Or the release. Or FNM. Whichever is available.)

@TheThirdMan Usually whatever body is hosting the tournament will have players use wishboards for "tutor from outside the game" cards

One thing to keep in mind fo Un-Commander is that Grand Calcutron has been errata'd to "Grand Calcutron can be your Commander." -- blogatog post

According to MaRo they wanted to put it onto the card, but ran out of space...

... :D

I guess I'll definitely run R&D's Secret Lair as a win condition then :]

There is going to be a big Un draft hosted at my house, and we are trying to figure out what things we need for it

so far list is: crap ton of D6s a few D20s, a ruler/tape measure, internet connection for ask Ursa, stopwatch timer

sounds easy enough... here I was thinking hand prosthetics and actual squirrels as squirrel tokens :D

hahaha

fun thing Maro clarified: if the subgame from The Countdown Is At One results in a draw, both players see double damage for the rest of the main game -- markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/167777120838/…

makes sense, cards says:

@Malco i found and added in the reference for that, because i am going mad with the power to edit chat posts.

> Players play a Magic subgame, starting at 1 life and using their libraries as their decks. For the reset of the main game, if a source would deal damage to a player who didn't win the subgame, it deals double that damage to that player instead.

certainly clear

@doppelspooker hahaha, did you just ding a level and get a new privilege?

should be moderator priviledges

Last new privilege is at 6k rep for this site right?

5k it seems actually

@Malco nope, that's a diamond moderator power

"diamond moderator" makes it sound like it's above the measly bronze, silver and gold moderators ;)

wait if it is a ♦ power how are you editing chat?

Ooh, and here's the one where he says he wanted to do that -- markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/167547084388/…

all I want to know is the errata behind why TGC functions the way it does, see the comments on boardgames.stackexchange.com/a/39149/16063

> I wear many hats at Wizards of the Coast, one of which is that of silver-bordered rules manager. I got this job years ago when I made Unglued, the first silver-bordered set. You see, the rules manager at the time collapsed while looking at the file and was later told by his doctor that the twitching would eventually go away if he never looked at Unglued again. I volunteered to take over, as the silver-bordered cards made sense to me. Flash forward nineteen years, and I'm still at it.

My guess is that calling it a program is just a flavour thing for convince, the actual hand modifying stuff is a continuous effect of GC. So when GC leaves the battlefield the modifications stop

Probably things like this are just how the silver-bordered world works, and why the black-bordered rules manager had a medical emergency when being asked to handle both black-bordered and silver-bordered rules at once.

@doppelspooker from the FAQ

@Malco yep, thanks! that's from the top of the FAQDKLDJSLFKJSDLKFJ.

@doppelspooker maybe, but "it just works different than the rules" isn't a particularily satisfying answer :)

@Malco Black-bordered rules would expect it to say "As long as The Grand Calcutron is on the battlefield, players' hands are programs."

(which would probably work way better)

@doppelspooker my question is, why didn't they put it like that then? silver-bordered cards don't need "dumbed down" or even alternate rules

@doppelspooker Blackboarder probably wouldn't mention program unless there were other cards in the set that specifically modified programs

they might've even managed to put the Commander phrase on there :D

@TheThirdMan perhaps they ran out of time to settle it and decided "we'll fix it in post"

@doppelspooker perhaps, but they have been working on it an awful long time, the set has been in design for around 6 years.

@Malco grand calcutron may not have been developed until toward the end of that period

@TheThirdMan that is an issue when two TGC's enter and either one leaves

(maybe)

it shouldn't be... both set a quality for the existing zone, and if one leaves, the other will still be in place

but i think it's more useful to call it a program, it helps us cognize what the heck is going on -- hands don't have first cards; programs do though

hands don't have first cards in MtG, and programs don't have cards period :D

but I see where you're coming from

or something of the like

it's clearly a card templated to get the spirit of turning the player into a machine accross, but I don't see why that had to be done against the existing ruleset, and with a seemingly incomplete card text

>...

Don't think you can put the parenthesized stuff as reminder text, think it has to be rules text to work properuly, as it is telling you new information about how the card functions, not clarifiying

that skips the third ability entirely, and prevents people from doing my mistake of assuming the name's been given to actually do something different, while it really does noth at all

@Malco possibly, I'm not sure enough how ordered zones are handled, seeing as abilities interacting with libraries usually use the phrase "put it on top/put it on the bottom"

I am really interested to see how TGC plays, hopefully someone gets one at the draft

I think the only ordered zones are your library and sometimes your graveyard

looking to see how they handle ordered graveyards might be enlightening

see my edit above, tried to clarify it a bit

but in any case, you may well be correct

if they defined Program in the Comp rules it would probably be more trouble than it is worth

yeah

but I don't know if they can address all the issues with rules text on the card itself.

TGC flavourwise seems pretty UW but seems like it would be more useful to G or RW decks

true, but my issue is that they have rules text that goes deliberately against the game rules.

just dump creatures or burn spells and refill your hand at end step

while also making your opponents counter magic a lot more difficult

A common ground for rules clarifications is "cards only do what they say". Nowhere on TGC it says that the cards in your program will be re-converted to your hand, and therefore, I don't think anyone would guess that. Despite that, the introduction of a seperate term makes you believe that is is different from your hand (or at least, that was my argument, whereas others have disagreed)

@TheThirdMan I don't know if I would consider it going against game rules, but it does modify some things that aren't normally modified

@TheThirdMan That was my initial thought as well, but it was ambiguous

agreed, although it was only ambiguous because it was obviously requiring knowledge of what a program is, whereas a program is literally nothing else than a revealed, ordered hand :D

there's some differences though

i can't activate X from my opponent's program (probably), and I can't make someone discard their program.

You can make them discard their hand though

heck, with Grand Calcutron out, Windfall basically just says "discard all your zero cards, then draw no cards"

which makes them discard their program

@Malco it doesn't!

I got a quote for you one sec... :P

@Malco i await it

"If I'm forced to discard, do I lose cards from my program? - Yes. Your program is still your hand, and those cards can be discarded."

markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/167612387803/…

:)

mine's from the FAQ

ahh mines from blog atog

Hmm, ok.

This also means X can be used from within a Program, which is good.

I'd like to point out that the term "program" instead of "hand" likely caused this confusion :)

You can use X in the opponents program but it is restricted.

You can only play the first card of the opponents program

oh good

that is answered, phew

[closes BGSE Ask Question page]

oh dang I miss remembered that

(wait a minute, what? does... does this mean X doesn't actually let me cast from their program at all?)

(darn)

@doppelspooker exactly

Oh no! X is trapped in the machine! How will he escape this Dastardly trap? Is the Order of the Widget working with the League of Dasterdly Doom? Find out next time!

I was really happy to see that this is the case though:

I adore the fact we can pay a tap cost from inside a hand.

@Malco hehehehehe. :D

It's unfortunate that it won't retain abilities between zones, otherwise this could be quite awesome :)

with other cards granting him abilities, I mean

you can use it to dodge hand removal though

headcanon: Nicol Bolas was responsible for setting up both SNEAK and The League of Dastardly Doom, but he did it by accident and is embarrassed by being associated with these loons, so he won't ever admit to it.

@TheThirdMan X and Phoebe are both so awesome. They're the commanders I was waiting for for Dimir: unbridled fun for a theft deck.

Bolas would probably be one of the few PW capable of multiverse walking

They could be too powerful to be fun though, since they both let me hose my opponents, but I'd like to find out.

@Malco oh, are these guys from a different multiverse entirely?

.... the silver bordered 'verse. of course. :D

I think it is called the Un-iverse

There is a lore post coming out in a week or two apparently

Otherwise it looks like it was designed with future sets in mind, which is great.

hmmm, printed at common I don't think so

There would be multiple secret bases on the common sheet that's only difference is the watermark

could end up with multiple bases in a pack... might be reprinted in the future though

@Malco well they'd have to change the flavor text too, probably

it could've said "agents of S.N.E.A.K. watermark" but then they'd never be able to reprint it -- and for a name like "Secret Base" they'd surely want to make it reprintable if possible

plus there are cards in this set that do stuff to watermarks, so it can be relevant I think

more strange interactions in this set: markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/167789810008/…

Alright, I'm in the middle of revising my TGC answer, and there's something curious going on with the release notes interpretation

you can steal an opponents Dr. Julius Jumblemorph by swapping it with a killbot in your hand using Mary O'Kill on the battlefield.

assume TGC's first ability is Stifle'd, are players no longer able to cast spells until TGC (somehow) leaves the battlefield, due to TGC's second ability?

I mean, "program" might just be a fancy word for "hand", but the first ability is rather specific in being responsible for the transition

I would say no

the restrictions are being applied to the players program

yay more confusing ambiguity

also for the other abilities, I would say when a player draws, the game looks for a program, can't find it, and rolls back the replacement effect. So when you try to draw a card it just lets you draw as normal

With the Un-iverse intention that "The point of Unstable is to lean towards the fun side of the spectrum", the idea probably would be: if your hands don't actually become programs, then you just use your hand as normal. The abilities on TGC apply to how we use our programs, not how we use our hands.

it says "players can only play [...]", which means they can't cast anything else... no Suspense, no nothing

the creating a program probably shouldn't be an etb

@Malco very much agreed

@Malco i agree -- it's a "you do as much as you can" thing, and since there's no program, you do nothing special.

whew, in any case, I'll leave out that paragraph for the time being. I don't think there are Stifle effects on any banned/restricted lists, and with that, this shouldn't really be an issue :D

Ultimately if you think too hard about un-rules you will end up like the black border rules manager....

:D

@doppelspooker <- is probably right

@TheThirdMan \o/

I think if Maro saw a game where someone stifled TGC and then was trying to insist to all the players that they can no longer use their hands, he would correct them, and then if they still insisted, he would frown at them in silence until they reneged. And if he couldn't frown hard enough, he'd find a member of staff or a judge who could frown hard enough, and delegate the frowning to them.

or he'd make a Silver Rules Manager decree

:D

it is technically possible to stifle the ability in limited

long story short, if they made that a continuous effect from a static ability, everything would be fine. And I cannot imagine that they didn't think about it...

if you unleash the pack and get a Nimble Obstructionist, then return it to your hand, then cycle it

it gets stifled

@doppelspooker I posted a new answer and quoted you, which is hopefully alright. :) I'd like to quote by name, but since you happen to wear a rather spooky one these days and I suppose you'll change it back eventually, I opted against that. Feel free to edit it if you have any objections

@TheThirdMan i'll be changing back in about a week. feel free to quote me as doppelgreener!

officially i am doppelgreener, but for event-related reasons i might be doppel-something-else on rare occasion

@doppelspooker done!

oh, wait, i can change back now, actually

yeah, it's not like I haven't seen the name before or anything, but I don't want to go over someone's head with things like that :)

@TheThirdMan i appreciate the thought you put into that then :)

ah, you are green again

Goodbye Space Ghost! :'(

@Malco he might be back

(i have a green version of him)