Un-Sets: Top 10 Funniest Silver-Bordered Cards

Hello guys! Today my article brings the ten funniest cards of the Un-Sets (Unglued, Unhinged, Unstable and Unfinity), which were the famous cards with silver border (they were because unfortunately Wizards replaced them with an accorn symbol in the latest set, Unfinity).

For those unfamiliar with Un-Sets, they are sets that are banned from tournaments because they often contain jokes and crazy effects that parody Magic, players, and the game's history.

This top 10 had the sole criterion of my opinion and personal taste. With due introductions made, let's get to the list.

Before we go into our top 10, I'll make some honorable mentions because it was really hard to choose just 10 cards!

Killer Cosplay

Mythic equipment for one mana from Unfinity with several references. It starts with the design of this card is a Grizzly Bears with a Tarmogoyf costume, remembering that these two green creatures have the same mana cost. The flavor text (text in italics written just below the rules text) is also a reference, this time quoting Lhurgoyf.

I, personally, love references, even more if it's with the illustration of the cards.

Blast from the Past

Another card full of references, but this time with abilities. Even the name is fun because it reminds us of the explosive red cards (blast), a blast from the past with madness, cycling, kicker, flashback and buyback.

As this card is a blast from the past, they did it with the old frame, as the Unhinged set was released after Mirrodin, which was the expansion that first changed the frame.

Combo - Ashnod’s Coupon + R&D’s Secret Lair

To close the honorable mentions, I bring you a very fun and evil combo, with an Unglued artifact and an Unhinged land.

It just consists of having the two cards in play.

With Ashnod's Coupon, you tap and sacrifice it for target player to get a target drink for you, but this card has errata that says you have to pay for the drink you order.

Now, with R&D's Secret Lair, which in addition to standing up adds colorless mana, you ignore all errata on the cards, making your opponent pay the price of any drink for you. Great!

Kicking off our top 10 with a free hand from Unhinged, with a joke in the art that Wizards probably won't do again. It seems that the last few Un-Sets have some committee members to approve the kind of parody that can be done in the cards, and a card spelling that word again is definitely not the kind of joke that Wizards wants to do again.

It's funny that the illustrator's name on this card says “feed me”.

Another card from Unhinged, but with the old frame for bringing several references in the abilities. It is an elderly green dinosaur with phasing, cumulative upkeep, echo, fading, banding, protection, snow-covered plainswalking, flanking and rampage.

With so many old abilities like that, it already makes the card pretty fun, but in my view, the funniest thing is the flavor text saying that children today who are playing Magic with cards that below have their collection numbers and their turn symbols (formerly, in addition to the cards only having the illustrator written below, “tap” was written instead of the tap symbol), and the real Magic was to make a deck with twenty Black Lotus and twenty Plague Rats.

Remembering that at the beginning of the game, there was no restriction of only 4 equal cards in the deck.

A card that may seem boring to some, but I laugh every time I see it. Referring to the famous City of Brass, it makes me laugh a lot with the flavor text written just “But…” and with the small subtle drawing made in the text box, can you see that?

We cannot forget the beautiful art of John Avon, the master of “landscapes” (landscapes) painting... well, y'know!

Reference with the iconic card Chaos Orb which, in short, you throw it up, and destroy the permanents it touches.

Because of this peculiar ability (an ability that caused this card to be banned from all formats), there was a legend saying that a player won a great championship by tearing the Chaos Orb into several pieces and throwing it at the opponent's board, so this player managed to destroy all of their permanents.

Since I met Magic in 96, this story already existed, and even though there is no record of it actually happening, the flavor text of the card asks us saying “And you thought this was just an urban legend”.

A type of mechanics that I found very amusing. With Booster Tutor you open a sealed booster pack, reveal the cards and choose a card to put in your hand.

Aside from the fun part of tutoring a card from a sealed booster, the flavor text is really fun.

Booster Tutor has had two reprints, and each one is creative. In the original print it says that real people use Arabian Nights boosters, in the second it says that choosing the right set can make you beat a great rival, but a wrong choice can end up in torment, like in Homelands (regarded as a weak set).

And finally, the last one is a voice saying, "Did you save an Urza Saga packet for this?" Hilarious because an Urza Saga booster pack is extremely rare and worth a great deal of money.

A very fun Unstable card. It's a five-color planeswalker of the character Urza's head that you need to access the website "AskUrza.com" to know what each loyalty point will do.

Although this card only has 3 planeswalker point slots, there are actually many abilities that are randomized each time you click on the corresponding number (on the website you can see all the abilities that the page randomizes) .

A card more powerful than the Black Lotus itself because while the Black Lotus adds 3 mana, the Blacker adds 4. Incredible, isn't it? But that comes at a price: you have to tear it into pieces to add mana.

In my opinion, this is the most fun card in Unfinity. It references the Approach of the Second Sun which is a spell that when it's cast, you put it in seventh place in your library, and when it's cast a second time, you win the game.

Well, Form of the Approach of the Second Sun is an enchantment where you become a Magic card in the seventh position of your deck. That's right, you kind of turn into a card, balancing the top 6 cards of your library on your head, and when the cards run out, that is, when you draw yourself, you win the game!

Richard Garfield himself, creator of Magic, in a card. Of course, he had to be a legendary creature, human designer.

Garfield's card is pretty strong, it says you can play any cards as if they were any other cards of your choice, as long as they have the same casting cost and color. I think he would be a strong commander, no?

And the number one isn't just one card, it's four!

These cards are a cycle of Magic player types, one for each set. In short, Timmy from Unglued is the player who likes to play with large creatures or perform incredibly strong spells. Johnny from Unhinged is the player who likes to do deckbuilding and Spike from Unstable is the one who likes to grind in competitive tournaments.

For a long time, they only thought about these three types of players, but over time, they noticed that there is a type that cares more about the “lore” (the game's story), with the illustrators, with the arts; and thus Vorthos was born in Unfinity. You can even find out what kind of player you would be in this quiz!

I really like all these 4 cards and I even prepared a Commander decklist for each of these cards:

Timmy, Power Gamer

Johnny, Combo Player

Spike, Tournament Grinder

Vorthos, Steward of Myth

Pay attention to Spike's deck because it's a tribal of banned cards. Therefore, I put suggestions of cards that you can take to the game in the "maybeboard" part. Remembering that, you can put cards that were banned in the past and even cards banned from X1 (Two Player Commander) on Magic Online.

Another attention is in the Vorthos deck, which you can make any tribal you want. In her deck, I opted for a Nicol Bolas tribal, but you are welcome to change to whatever you like.

Around the time of Unstable's release, they released Un-Sets cards in Commander for a few months, which was a really fun thing to do. There is also Unsanctioned, which is a box to play with 2 people, with 5 decks of the five colors, where you choose two colors, shuffle them and make a playable deck. The interesting thing about this product is that it only has reprints, an attitude I never thought Wizards would do.

Personally, I'm a big fan of silver-bordered cards, and I was disappointed that Unfinity didn't have that kind of border. Obviously, in choosing only 10 cards with some honorable mentions, many others will be missing and as I said earlier, this list was made entirely with my opinion.

Did you agree? Did you disagree? Do you use Un-Sets cards in your Commander group? What are your favorite cards from Un-Sets? Comment below and see you next time!