I've never been a big fan of Un- sets. They've always felt more like a curiosity than something to be played with, and that seemed to be the case for both Unglued and Unhinged. Looking through the cards form both sets now, there's a bunch of things that were playable or at least interesting, such as Lexivore, Fowl Play, Jumbo Imp, Strategy, Schmategy or Elvish Impersonators. Now, some of these cards may not be powerful enough and they have a big chance element associated to them, but the idea is going in a different direction from a regular Magic game. The problem with chaos drafting Unglued though lies in that you may end up getting half of the BFM or Bureaucracy, either stuff you simply can't play or stuff that makes games tedious and annoying. The same goes for Unhinged: some cards are fun and ok, but there's a whole load of cards that will only make you feel like you'd rather open a Saviors of Kamigawa pack full of Everminds, because honestly, who'd want to actually spend 7 minutes with a Atinlay Igpay on the board? These experiments in fun metamagic never reached a good level of playability, but Unstable offers redemption for silver-bordered cards. Indeed, as a set it looks cohesive, it makes sense for limited and it has a limited number of cards that force you to take actions that distract you from your game. However, the question I still have is whether this is a good set to Chaos Draft.
Now, the first thing that comes to my mind is a comparison with both Conspiracy sets. Parasitic mechanics are hard to deal with during a chaos draft because of the very limited pool of cards that will be able to work together in order to make those mechanics work. The difference then is that both Conspiracy sets are highly playable even when using a single pack for your chaos pool. Sure, Illusion of Choice becomes a much worse card if you can't manipulate votes during a multiplayer game, but it's still a cantrip for U. The key design element here is that cards with Will of the Council or Council's Dilemma work in both multiplayer and 1v1 games in a more or less effective way (indeed, Council's Judgment is an awesome p1p1 card, but stuff like Custodi's Squire is also pretty amazing). I'm not quite sure how Unstable will stack up, but before adding Unstable boosters to a chaos pool, I have a couple of concerns:
This is probably what worries me the most. An Unstable pack contains 8 commons, 3 uncommons and 1 rare/mythics, plus two contraptions and a land. Unless there's a critical mass of Unstable boosters, contraptions won't be playable cards because you may need cards to assemble them in your maindeck. While at first it may seem that there's no opportunity cost to have a contraptions deck besides your main deck, there's the very real cost of having to play cards to assemble these few contraptions you'll have. There's 23 cards that assemble contraptions, 7 of which are instants or sorceries, and in most cases the effect you get besides contraptions will be highly overpriced (though I would still probably run Finders, Keepers and perhaps Spell Suck). The 14 creatures left (there's 2 contraptions that assemble contraptions) are luckily playable, but nothing outstanding. If you do happen to come across a decent beater and have a contraption, then you're lucky, but you'll need that luck to get the contraption to wheel anyway if there's only one Unstable booster during the first pack. So with that out of the way, I find it better to assume an Unstable pack has a working 12 cards, much like Alliances and Chronicles. Now, if you want to keep card volume at a decent level when drafting, my idea has always been pairing boosters of less than 15 cards with other boosters, so you could mix, say, Chronicles with an Ugin's Fate booster and get a 15 card pack, or Unstable with a Duels of the Planeswalkers M15 booster, opening a grand total of 18 cards plus two contraptions. Having a larger booster will give someone an advantage when it comes to card quantity, but it should be small enough to be almost negligible, though I think it'd make contraptions even thinner as a mechanic.
Talk about parasitic mechanics! It's fairly obvious why this should be a concern, but let's look at the facts. There's 16 cards with Augment and one host/augment tutor in green. There's also 19 host creatures, and these are much much easier to play, offering some value for your mana. Getting augment to work will then depend on getting cards in your colors and on the density of the pool. If there's only one Unstable pack, then chances are it won't work at all.
Cards that interact with rolls will always depend on cards rolling dice. A Squirrel-Powered Scheme won't really do much unless you're rolling dice on the regular. Again, the problem of parasitic mechanics becomes intensified because of the unique nature of the requirements for such mechanics to work. Drafting regular sets loaded with parasitic mechanics can sometimes yield a higher number of ok-ish interactions, but in this case, unless you're running other Un- sets in your chaos pool there's not much you'll be able to do.
With that said, there's a bunch of cards that would be pretty great for a draft with other sets. Super-Duper Death Ray seems like that sort of card, and Urza would be easily a first pick to define the rest of your draft.
As I did with Iconic Masters, I think it's a good idea to check how single packs (generated on mtgen) would fare to get an idea of what the set would look like for a chaos draft.
This is a pretty meh booster, and not one I'd like to see. An unplayable parasitic rare, two augmenters, two hosts and three cards to assemble contraptions. Extremely Slow Zombie looks like a decent pick, but it's a (very) dumb beater. Spell Suck wouldn't be my first pick, but it's not that terrible. I think Mer Man, Wall of Fortune and Entirely Normal Armchair are the best cards in the pack, and I'd probably go for the Armchair because it does something funny, but it's also decent colorless removal if you can get it on the board. Picking that card, however, would really reduce my chances of getting the other Unstable things to work, especially if there's more than 4 people drafting.
This pack doesn't really look much better, does it? On its own, it feels rather weak, but Selfie Preservation is an amazing ramp spell and I wouldn't mind playing The Big Idea, despite feeling like a very win-more card. Painiac, Mer Man and Adorable Kitten are all decent playables too. As for the contraptions, they feel too weak to grant them enablers in my main deck.
At this point, I don't think I'd enjoy seeing a single Unstable pack in a chaos draft pool. Instead, I think you need to run at least one per player, opening all of them together, to give the mechanics a chance and make the whole experience a bit more interesting. Hopefully next time I'll draft I will have some more concrete idea of what works and what doesn't with regards to this set.
Now, the first thing that comes to my mind is a comparison with both Conspiracy sets. Parasitic mechanics are hard to deal with during a chaos draft because of the very limited pool of cards that will be able to work together in order to make those mechanics work. The difference then is that both Conspiracy sets are highly playable even when using a single pack for your chaos pool. Sure, Illusion of Choice becomes a much worse card if you can't manipulate votes during a multiplayer game, but it's still a cantrip for U. The key design element here is that cards with Will of the Council or Council's Dilemma work in both multiplayer and 1v1 games in a more or less effective way (indeed, Council's Judgment is an awesome p1p1 card, but stuff like Custodi's Squire is also pretty amazing). I'm not quite sure how Unstable will stack up, but before adding Unstable boosters to a chaos pool, I have a couple of concerns:
1. Pack size
This is probably what worries me the most. An Unstable pack contains 8 commons, 3 uncommons and 1 rare/mythics, plus two contraptions and a land. Unless there's a critical mass of Unstable boosters, contraptions won't be playable cards because you may need cards to assemble them in your maindeck. While at first it may seem that there's no opportunity cost to have a contraptions deck besides your main deck, there's the very real cost of having to play cards to assemble these few contraptions you'll have. There's 23 cards that assemble contraptions, 7 of which are instants or sorceries, and in most cases the effect you get besides contraptions will be highly overpriced (though I would still probably run Finders, Keepers and perhaps Spell Suck). The 14 creatures left (there's 2 contraptions that assemble contraptions) are luckily playable, but nothing outstanding. If you do happen to come across a decent beater and have a contraption, then you're lucky, but you'll need that luck to get the contraption to wheel anyway if there's only one Unstable booster during the first pack. So with that out of the way, I find it better to assume an Unstable pack has a working 12 cards, much like Alliances and Chronicles. Now, if you want to keep card volume at a decent level when drafting, my idea has always been pairing boosters of less than 15 cards with other boosters, so you could mix, say, Chronicles with an Ugin's Fate booster and get a 15 card pack, or Unstable with a Duels of the Planeswalkers M15 booster, opening a grand total of 18 cards plus two contraptions. Having a larger booster will give someone an advantage when it comes to card quantity, but it should be small enough to be almost negligible, though I think it'd make contraptions even thinner as a mechanic.
2. Augment cards
Talk about parasitic mechanics! It's fairly obvious why this should be a concern, but let's look at the facts. There's 16 cards with Augment and one host/augment tutor in green. There's also 19 host creatures, and these are much much easier to play, offering some value for your mana. Getting augment to work will then depend on getting cards in your colors and on the density of the pool. If there's only one Unstable pack, then chances are it won't work at all.
3. Dice matters
Cards that interact with rolls will always depend on cards rolling dice. A Squirrel-Powered Scheme won't really do much unless you're rolling dice on the regular. Again, the problem of parasitic mechanics becomes intensified because of the unique nature of the requirements for such mechanics to work. Drafting regular sets loaded with parasitic mechanics can sometimes yield a higher number of ok-ish interactions, but in this case, unless you're running other Un- sets in your chaos pool there's not much you'll be able to do.
With that said, there's a bunch of cards that would be pretty great for a draft with other sets. Super-Duper Death Ray seems like that sort of card, and Urza would be easily a first pick to define the rest of your draft.
As I did with Iconic Masters, I think it's a good idea to check how single packs (generated on mtgen) would fare to get an idea of what the set would look like for a chaos draft.
Pack 1
This is a pretty meh booster, and not one I'd like to see. An unplayable parasitic rare, two augmenters, two hosts and three cards to assemble contraptions. Extremely Slow Zombie looks like a decent pick, but it's a (very) dumb beater. Spell Suck wouldn't be my first pick, but it's not that terrible. I think Mer Man, Wall of Fortune and Entirely Normal Armchair are the best cards in the pack, and I'd probably go for the Armchair because it does something funny, but it's also decent colorless removal if you can get it on the board. Picking that card, however, would really reduce my chances of getting the other Unstable things to work, especially if there's more than 4 people drafting.
Pack 2
This pack doesn't really look much better, does it? On its own, it feels rather weak, but Selfie Preservation is an amazing ramp spell and I wouldn't mind playing The Big Idea, despite feeling like a very win-more card. Painiac, Mer Man and Adorable Kitten are all decent playables too. As for the contraptions, they feel too weak to grant them enablers in my main deck.
At this point, I don't think I'd enjoy seeing a single Unstable pack in a chaos draft pool. Instead, I think you need to run at least one per player, opening all of them together, to give the mechanics a chance and make the whole experience a bit more interesting. Hopefully next time I'll draft I will have some more concrete idea of what works and what doesn't with regards to this set.
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