Maro was dropped on his head as a child edition!
So far we know that Unstable will have:
>More focus on 'fun' and less focus on 'humor'
>Full-art land by John Avon (Rumor is that it will be 'no-border')
>Only the Sword of Dungeons & Dragons will be in the set, the other two Hascon promos will be con-exclusive
>Cards designed for use in Cube and Commander
>FUCKING CONTRAPTIONS, with Steamflogger Boss getting a reprint in the land slot.
>Actual world building with
Fucking clicked the submit button by accident
>Actual worldbuilding with factions
>A different art direction
>Emphasis on testing new mechanics
>No card ripping
>Autobots, transform and roll out
>transformers don't transform
>transformers don't transform
>riggers are exiled to the silver border
"Un-hype" is right. I waited a fucking decade for this mechanic and they just give up on it and slap it in a meme set. Trust MaRo to find a way to make a joke set disappointing.
Really it's for the best. New sets these days are so bland and safe with their mechanics that if they tried to make riggers blackboarded you know it would be shitty.
At least in Un-sets they can let loose.
After Vehicles and Energy and Delve and the Eldrazi, you really want them to try Riggers and Contraptions? Are you retarded?
>"Autobots! Convert and roll out!"
There's some legal fuckery going on where you can't say that Transformers transform because then it just become descriptive of what they do (i.e. they're Transformers because, well, they transform) and then you lose the copyright because it's generic now.
The official word is that Transformers CONVERT, so. That's a thing. A dumb, dumb, legally necessary thing.
This is to imply that convert isn't somehow exactly as generic as transform?
Can someone make a picture of Optimus accepting Jesus or Mohammad or otherwise converting to some religion and spam Hasbro with it?
Convert is generic, but they're not called "converters".
It's specifically just having their name be descriptive of what they're doing that's fucky.
>More focus on fun and less focus on humor
>Rigger taking up a land slot
Well, now I'm not buying any of this shit. What a silly thing to do.
Then why can't they just say that Transformers transform from vehicles into robots? Even the dinobots could be called vehicles.
Like, imagine that they used the word "transform" to describe them, well, transforming.
This opens the floodgates to other companies using "transform" to describe what their products do, and then using "transformer" in the title of their product because it's become a generic thing. It transforms, therefore it's a Transformer - that's what Hasbro want to avoid.
It's not like this is exclusive to Hasbro, either. Trying too hard in defending copyright has been a thing for ages.
Like, fuck, you know how BandAid is a specific brand? Everyone calls bandaids bandaids regardless of the brand, but if they ever use a bandaid in a movie or TV series they'll call it anything BUT a bandaid. Because using it for the wrong brand will probably get them sued, and using it for the right brand is just product placement.
I hope Hascon has some Pony cards
You know what, I'll just quote the wiki.
>Because "Transformers" is a registered trademark, Hasbro systematically avoids using the word "transform" as a verb when referring to the toys in recent years. Instead, the term "convert" is used: For example, toys that don't transform have the note "Figure does not convert" on the packaging. Apparently, Hasbro employees are trained to automatically use the word in any official conversation, such as interviews and panel discussions.
>Meanwhile, toy instructions often use the simpler term "change", as in "change to robot".
It's dumb as hell and I know that it's dumb as hell and I bet that both MaRo and Hasbro know that it's dumb as hell, but it's an intentional legal decision and they're sticking to it. (Also, they own WotC so what they say, goes.)
What do you have against Energy and Vehicles?
Steamflogger Boss is taking up 1 of 121 land slots.
1 in 121 packs will have a Steamflogger Boss instead of a full art land.
This is entirely so that it is blackbordered, because they can't print it silverbordered and they can't print it on the silverbordered sheet.
Quirky mechanics that everyone thought would be completely unplayable, only for them to completely dominate the meta.
Man, is it so wrong to want good things? Just because Vehicles and Eldrazi and basically everything they've done for the last decade is shit doesn't mean it has to be shit forever. The streak has to end eventually, right?
What are the odds that you have to physically assemble a contraption?
>Energy
A mechanic that hurts the Standard environment due to how goddamn playable the cards are, while also demanding people run other Kaladesh stuff just to make the cards good if not better. It pretty much overshadows whatever Amonkhet brought to the table due to how easy it is to fix mana. The only standout cards of the block were cards like Abrade, but outside of that everything else was useless in comparison.
>Vehicles
Bland and boring mechanic that overstats it's cards and puts a cost barrier to actually make them useful, with the only good ones having a low cost barrier for some fucking reason (See: Heart of Kiran, Smuggler's Copter, Aethersphere Harvester, Skysovereign).
MaRo needs to go now.
Energy isn't parasitic, it's just charge counters standalone.
>I waited a fucking decade for this mechanic
>unironically waiting for a mechanic to happen that from its inception was planned as a throwaway joke
>getting butthurt it gets released in a joke set
...
Energy IS parasitic, it's just a better parasitic design. Mind you, nothing forces energy to remain parasitic, because it could easily be put into most sets, since "energy" is an extremely vague term.
Good thing OD&D Magic-Users don't use magic, right?
I don't think they ever tried to copyright the term "magic users"
"Magic User" wasn't the name of the game, it was a descriptive term that wasn't under copyright.
For a reasonable example, if all of the Pathfinder books described their adventures as "Pathfinding", it could cause similar issues. Or if D&D was called Adventurers.
>Energy
One of the better additions to the magic in the last few years (although it's just Yet Another Resource System). If RnD would just bite the bullet and make it evergreen, the game would be immediately better. Should've named it instead of energy though.
>Vehicles
Just a different take on equipment with worse topend, better bottom and slightly more variety on execution. Exactly like equipment, when pushed it feels ridiculously good, otherwise it's limited-tier meh. A couple vehicles per set where appropriate will not go amiss, although I'd expect them to only be pushed by mistake for a year or so.
Yeah, it doesn't even need to be a tech-focused set. It's evocative while still being vague, it was a good name. I'd honestly like to see it turn up again semi-regularly.