Mark Rosewater offered up a first look at some of the cards coming in next April’s Unfinity release — the fourth Un-set in Magic: the Gathering history.
Unfinity was announced earlier this year, previewing some of the art and Sci-fi/amusement park themes, but today’s article gives official previews of cards coming in the top-down set. On top of previews, Rosewater explained how Unfinity will be black-bordered — a first for an Un-set — and will have cards legal in eternal formats.
While the entire set will be in black border, not all the cards in Unfinity will be tournament legal. Wizards of the Coast (WotC) is introducing the acorn holographic security stamp, which will designate cards with it aren’t legal in eternal formats. Cards that have the typical oval holographic security stamp will be playable in eternal formats like Commander, Vintage, and Legacy.
Cards with the acorn security stamp are meant for casual play, as they tend to break the rules of the game or involve other circumstances not accounted for in black-border cards. Reasons listed in the article for why a card should have the acorn security stamp (or what would have been considered silver-border only) include:
- Cards that don’t work within the black-border rules
- An element of “cards matter” that black border doesn’t reference (flavor text, as an example)
- Cards that require interacting with people outside the game
- Cards that require a physical or vocal component
- Cards that reference a state external to the game (are they able to see something from their seat, for instance)
- Cards with some effects that just don’t feel right in black border
By marking each card in the set with either an acorn or the typical oval security stamp, WotC was able to make the set black border and offer up cards for Commander players (along with fans of Vintage and Legacy) while conveying some of the cards can only be played casually. Check out the first two acorn cards previewed from Unfinity:
Rosewater pointed out how Assembled Ensemble requires the acorn designation because it references art work in the rules, while Killer Cosplay needs players to have outside knowledge of other cards with a certain mana cost to function. For comparison, here are two cards previewed that will be legal in eternal formats.
Both of these cards function within the rules of Magic, with The Space Family Goblinson using die-rolling, which was a primary mechanic in Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. The Space Family Goblinson is one of 30 legendary creatures in the set and more than a third of them are eternal-legal, so expect them to show up soon in Commander games near you. Each legendary creature in Unfinity will also receive a new booster fun retro-pop treatment called the showcase cards of tomorrow. Take a look at the retro-pop version of The Space Family Goblinson:
The set will also include two planeswalkers that get this treatment along with the usual borderless alternate art versions that we are used to seeing in Standard-legal sets. Of course, Unfinity wouldn’t be an Un-set if there wasn’t full-art basic lands. Take a look at the planetary space-ic lands and the orbital space-ic lands that come in normal versions, foil versions, and special galaxy foil versions.
The planetary space-ic lands show off the landscape on a planet while the orbital space-ic lands show the planets from far away.
The space-ic lands will show up in Draft boosters and Collector Boosters. Notably, a space-ic land will not show up in every Draft Booster like previous Un-sets. Draft Boosters will have a space-ic land around 70 percent of the time. Collector Boosters will only contain foil cards, so each space-ic land opened in them will be either traditional foil or galaxy foil.
Lastly, Unfinity will also include special borderless space versions of the shocklands. The space shocklands appear pretty rarely, with only one in every 24 Draft or Collector Booster will have them. However, each Collector Booster display will include on Box Topper Booster that will have on traditional foil space shockland. Check them out below:
More details on Unfinity will be released soon and the set will have its own preview period that hasn’t been announced yet. The set is scheduled to be released on April 1, 2022.
Read the original article from WotC.