Pauper Set Review: Unfinity

There I was, quietly preparing a Deck Guide for Modern when BAM! Wizards has released the content creator's nightmare — I mean, the full spoiler for the new release, Unfinity!

In case you've been living in a cave for the past few weeks, this new Un-Set differs from the previous ones. First, the borders of the cards are no longer silver, but black like a regular Magic card — you check its legality on the acorn symbol where the holographic symbol would normally be on rares and mythics.

And second, yes, any card that doesn't have an acorn symbol is considered legal in eternal formats — Legacy, Vintage, Commander... and Pauper. So, here we are, with an Unfinity Review for Pauper!

These changes make Unfinity the most confusing set of 2022. It's messy, with a bunch of weird mechanics that interact with elements outside the game, and it requires a lot of patience to understand everything that's going on.

For example, Attractions are an "extra deck" that you can reveal one of when a spell or creature requires you to "visit an attraction". Each deck must have a minimum of ten Attractions and can only have one copy of each, so it's not exactly legal in Pauper right now because there are only eight of them available as common and without an acorn symbol.

Another mechanic is Stickers, "markers" that you literally stick on the card to give it a name, property, keyword or special effect for the cost of tickets, which some cards give as part of their ETB effect, attack, or death trigger.

With them, you can change a permanent's name, power and toughness, give it an ability, or give it a cool little hat because... well, why not? Creatures can be fashion too!

For reference purposes, since there are cards that care about names in this set, the word with the highest number of vowels among the Stickers is 6, with Delusionary. The stickers are random, but I'll be considering the best possible result with Delusionary whenever I review those cards.

In essence, Stickers work similarly to the Energy mechanic, where you accumulate an "out of game" resource during the game and spend them to pay the cost of certain abilities.

Servo Exhibition with an RNG that maybe gives you a third artifact token is worth an honorable mention for the minimal possibilities where it might be useful in go-wide strategies.

Conditional Lifelink on a 3/1 body is interesting if Stickers become a viable mechanic in Pauper, especially if you alter its power and toughness in a way that makes it more resilient in combat.

I was about to say how this little creature has protection against Myr Enforcer and Frogmite, but apparently giant machines aren't robots. And so, my idea that you could use it as a Ninjutsu blocker/target ceased to exist.

Pauper gained its first command! And... it only has two modules, as Attractions aren't available in the format. Again, it can be useful if Stickers become important enough, but overall, it just feels like a "two mana, do nothing" spell.

Glitterflitter is a faerie, possibly making it relevant for augmenting a Faerie Seer, but its mana value and lack of Flash make me skeptical of its usefulness.

At its best, Wizards of the Delusionary will allow you to look at the top six cards of your deck and place one of them in your hand and the rest in the bottom. That's a powerful card filtering and, coupled with a 3/1 body, can give it a well-deserved space in Ghostly Flicker and/or Ephemerate archetypes.

A slightly higher power and toughness would make Dissatisfied Customer a decent threat to black archetypes. But as a 2/1, it trades with basically any faerie or Squadron Hawk to deserve a slot.

Six-Sided Die is a really fun removal, but it costs too much in a constructed format due to the inconsistency of its RNG when we have Unmake for the same cost and Cast Down for one less mana.

Perhaps the most useful black card in the set, Wolf in Delusionary Clothing offers a body and mini-board wipe against Faeries, Elves, and Battle Screech. It doesn't seem superior to Suffocating Fumes in that regard, but it's definitely worth an honorable mention, as you can reuse the ETB.

If there's a card in Unfinity that can be broken in Pauper in the future, it's probably Delusionary Goblin. Paying three mana to add up to six is ​​a bigger boost than Seething Song, but like rituals, this creature doesn't have enough payoffs to break the Metagame can't create infinite interactions with unfiltered Flickers as it adds just red mana.

If you're feeling lucky, Slight Malfunction is as effective as a mix of Abrade with Forked Bolt to Electrickery against go-wide Aggro.

Wee Champion is a great payoff for Sticker strategies: You put a hat on it, and it becomes 1/2, give it a set of teeth, and it becomes 2/3, and so on. As art Stickers have no ticket cost, it can get out of control quickly, but it feels too slow and dependent for a competitive landscape.

Chicken Troupe a 2/2 for two mana that protects itself well with Ward 2 in a mana intensive Metagame like Pauper, and can have a home in Stompy. However, I think Silhana Ledgewalker works better in this regard since it has evasion and Hexproof, and it's currently a card that doesn't see much play in the archetype currently.

Due to the errata that several creatures received to have the Phyrexian subtype, Embiggen becomes an extra Might of Old Krosa — with the advantage of not limiting itself to Sorcery-Speed ​​— in Infect, where Glistener Elf and Blighted Agent have four different types in their texts.

Delusionary-o-saurus is a 9/9 for six mana with Trample. That's a respectable clock if you can keep it on the battlefield, and it does an insane amount of damage alongside Assault Strobe, Temur Battle Rage and the like.

Ticket Turbotubes is yet another variant of artifacts that seek to replicate Bonder's Ornament. It doesn't look any better than other cards we have in this category, but it's worth the honorable mention.

That's all for today.

Aside from two or three occasional cards, Unfinity was clearly not designed for constructed, and its focus is mostly on creating an environment where players can have fun with unique mechanics that don't fit the standards of a common Magic set, and despite a variety of interesting ideas, their execution made this release a real mess to follow and understand.

If you have any questions or want to mention any cards I might have missed, feel free to leave them in the comments!

Thanks for reading!