What's up Wizards, it's time for Rule Zero, the show that helps you prepare for the best game of Commander. It is our hope that through our combined 20 plus years experience of playing EDH and cultivating a great playgroup, tons of great decks, and also trying a lot of outside the box variants and homebrew rules that we can pass that golden knowledge on to you. Today we were supposed to have a special guest, a man who has probably played more Silver Bordered cards than anyone in our playgroup combined, minus that one time where our other friend Mike bought 100 cheaty faces and then kind of slid them into his sleeve so they technically were on the table. But unfortunately this morning Carl couldn't be with us because his voice was very corpse like. So instead of trying to make him be on the podcast to be like, you must talk about silver border cards. We're going to let Carl's voice rest and he's given me some of his picks and we talked a little bit as much as he could eek out. So here we are. The top 10 unset cards that should be legal in EDH. So, before we get started looking at the top 10 unset cards that could be legal in EDH, did you know, listeners, that from December 8th, 2017 until January 15th, 2018, a period of about a month and one week, all unset cards minus a short ban list were legally playable in Commander per the Commander Rules Committee? And as far as I'm aware, nothing blew up. Or perhaps some players got a cramp from sitting beneath a table or had an aneurysm from imagining that their library was actually an attacking creature. But I didn't see those posts blowing up on social media at the time. And I think that the month went off without a hitch, despite. A lot of hand wringing that happened right beforehand by some players who were like scoffing and kind of spitting in their own tea, just frothing at the mouth. I don't know if it was that serious, but people were not all happy about the idea that the CRC would let silver border cards be legal and I think some players kind of took the month off. So there's this strange divide. And it's so bizarre to me, because once you play with some of these cards, and once we talk about them, I think you'll have to acknowledge, these cards aren't weird at all. And for a format that one of its stated goals is to allow you to play all the cards of Magic throughout its history, it's so strange to me. That they didn't just let silver border cards exist in this casual format. So here we have it. In no particular order, let's go ahead and broaden our horizons a little bit. Number one, Baron Bond Count. One, a black and a red, a legendary creature, human villain. It is a 3 3. Baron Von Count enters the battlefield with a doom counter on five. Whenever you cast a spell with the indicated numeral in its mana cost, text box, power, or toughness, move the doom counter one numeral to the left. When the doom counter moves from one to Destroy target player and put that doom counter back on five in the art for this card If you're listening to the podcast, you can't see it But if you are watching on youtube you can it already has kind of these counters on top of the card itself So it says one two, three, four five It has these big balls above baron bond count and what this card does is you just Play a lot of bizarre cards, particularly things like level up cards or things that have like a lot of different numbers and casting costs or power and toughness. So you might play a one four that costs five manner to play and gains you three life when it comes in because you want as many. options as possible on a singular card. So you just play a lot of really eccentric, bizarre cards that you never really see in commander at all at other times. And in this deck, they can be decent. I mean, they're not great. This isn't a CDH deck and you shouldn't be too afraid of it. If you ever have somebody in your play group who wants to sit down and enjoy some barren bond count, but it is very silly. It's easy to see and kind of disrupt from a mile away if you're really terrified. But, uh, I love that it opens up. An avenue where you specifically play a lot of really bizarre cards that we never see in the format. Number two is Krark's Other Thumb. It is a two mana legendary artifact. If you would roll a die, instead, roll two of those dice and ignore one of those results. Dice rolling is now a part of the game. You know what's always struck me as kind of funny? Is that for so long, flipping coins was an acceptable thing in Magic. Ever since the heyday when people would send off for the book copy of Mana Crypt. Have you ever watched somebody flip a coin? As like, that's a decisive thing you can do. In fact, there's some science behind it and maybe I'll find some for the show notes that flipping coins is not actually a balanced way to make a decision. So you're not even getting a 50 50 on it. Like you think you are because there's physics that are involved that a dice roll often handles a little bit better. Not that anything is perfect. But just the process of flipping a coin is ridiculous and yet we have crark's thumb which allows you to flip two coins Watch those coins flip onto the table and dent your cards because like somebody's using a freaking metal token Or like a giant Silver dollar. Watch the coins flip in the air and then like fall off somebody's hand and hit the floor and start rolling around and now the game's really disrupted. To me flipping coins is so much more ridiculous and unset worthy than dice rolling and yet here we are in 2024. And the Commander Rules Committee has still not allowed Karak's Other Thumb to be godfathered into Commander. Even though we have plenty of commanders now who actually care about dice rolling. And an entire set that cares about dice rolling. Look at the D& D cards. Look at Vrondis. Vrondis wants you to roll dice, and every time you do, you get an extra dragon. What about him? Why can't he live his best life? There's also Mr. House, super popular commander from the Fallout universe, loves dice rolling. Will, uh, Blade of Avernus or Blade of Frontiers also does this thing where he doubles dice rolls. So in closing, we all need to allow Krark's Other Thumb to exist at our tables. If one of your friends wants to play this, or if you want to play this, I see no issue and you can use, This podcast is evidence that it's totally fine because I'm the authority I guess I don't know Anyways, let's move on to number three number three kill Destroy one black black for an instant destroy target non black creature. Gotcha Whenever an opponent says kill or destroy, you may say, gotcha. If you do return, kill, destroy from your graveyard to your hand. So this one could be a little controversial, but Carl really wanted it in here. One thing that's amazing about this card is the art, which has a adorable little squirrel sitting in a pristine field with tons of weapons being fired and lobbed at it from a distance from unknown assailants. It's pretty great. So I think people like to imagine that this card is much worse than it is. And by that, I mean, much more detrimental to the flow of the game or that a person would abuse it. But this is no swords to plowshare. This is a one black black instant spell that destroys target non black creature It's like murder if murder was worse However, you can bring it back to your hand But you have to have cast it in the first place in order for that to happen So it's not like every turn in the game This person's getting back kill destroy because that also needs to be triggered by an opponent You Not the person playing it saying something like I kill or destroy this and then that player really being on the ball and remembering What's going on? So there's so many little hoops that have to be jumped through in order to get this card back now the plus side to this is I think it adds to the element of politics in EDH. Let's say it's you and the kill destroy player facing off against some horrific menace on the other side of the table. There is a commander that is Voltron'd up, maybe it's Dana, and Dana is carrying eight swords and she's about to Voltron someone to death. You could destroy one of those pieces of equipment, perhaps? And then you say that out loud, winking to the other player, and then they get the card back and then they are able to protect the table. So I like to envision the best case scenarios for these cards rather than some kind of sky is falling worst case, because honestly, I think it plays out much more in the best case scenario because oftentimes silver border are more social cards. And if you're in a healthy social group, these cards are going to be healthy. Let's go on to number four. So recently we just did an episode, in fact the episode right before this one, about Blue Green, aka Simic, and the new commander Omo, Queen of Vesuva, who makes lands into everything. Basically they're every type. Well, wouldn't you know it, one of the cards that we can't play, it's not Silver Border technically, but it did come out in the most recent Unfinity set, and it has the acorn stamp on it so that you can't play it legally in commander. Is a card called Nearby Planet. It is a land. It has rangeling. This card is every land type including plains, island, swamp, mountain, forest, desert, gate, lair, locusts, and quote all those urses ones. Nearby planet enters the battlefield tapped. When it enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you pay one extra. So this is an everything land. It is literally a less complicated version that has reminder text on it of what Omo does You today in legal commander. I think that's all we need to say about this. It's totally fine, right? You be the judge. Tell me if I'm taking crazy pills. I think it's great. Moving on to number five. Ukatabi Kong. For five, green, green, green. Creature ape. It is an 8 8 with trample. When Ukatabi Kong comes into play, destroy all artifacts. For 8 mana, doesn't seem like a problem. Tap two untapped apes you control, put a 1 1 green ape creature token into play. To me, this is a piece of magic history. The joke in this card is that in the background of this card you see a pregnant monkey. And that is in part because back in Visions there was a card called UTA Orangutan, which I'll be showing on screen. But if you're listening, just know that there is an ape who's happily swinging from some vines in the foreground And in the background, it very much appears that two monkeys are getting it on spicy hot in the background. And so this became a meme and then. This unset card makes fun of that in the art and the fact that you're tapping two apes in order to make another ape Funny joke, right? Anyways, the card itself not that powerful and guess what today? We have a legal card called kibo utabi prince 2 2 for three legendary creature monkey noble Each player creates a colorless artifact token named a banana. So I'm not going to go on any further. You've probably played against Kibo or know about Kibo. Kibo is hilarious. I love Kibo. It's great. I'm not trying to yuck anybody's yum here, but if we've got a card that has a monkey, like with a hundred bananas flying around in the air, then we can have this wonderful, beautiful Utabi Kong that references the sexual healing of the jungle legal and EDH onwards. To number six. All right. For number six, we're going to talk about Urza Academy Headmaster. It is a white, a blue, a black, a red, and a green. That's right. The Wooberg is in effect for a legendary planeswalker Urza. It has four starting loyalty, a plus one, head to askurza. com and click plus one negative one. Head to ask za.com and click negative one, negative six. Head to ask za.com and click negative six. Now there are preset planes walkers that this draws from. Granted, it's a lot, but as Carl pointed out, and I think it's worth mentioning. When you randomly get effects off of this planeswalker that costs five mana to put out, you are often not going to get the effects that you want, and therefore it is not very powerful. The fact that this Urza, the five color one, is the least powerful Urza maybe, besides maybe like the uncommon blue one, which somebody can make an argument that that one's stronger, says, I think, that this is a totally okay card. To play in commander moving on to number seven crow storm two and a blue for a sorcery Create a one two blue bird token with flying name storm crow Guess what? This spell has as an effect. It has storm. So technically you could go off And create a million storm crows now storm crow used to be a meme in magic If you want to learn about the history, maybe I can post something in the show notes. It almost was like the, the colossal dreadmaw of its day. They even had the colossal dreadmask that came out in the new Modern Horizons 3. Solely for meme value. This is a card that is not broken in any way. It's a three mana sorcery spell that allows you to make a bunch of 1 2 birds. It's totally fine. So moving on to number eight. Next up we have Discord. Lord of Disharmony. To a black and a red for legendary creature chimera It is a three five with flying at the beginning of your instep Choose a random non land magic card name until your next instep You may cast a copy of a spell with that name And mana of any type can be spent to cast it if you cast a spell this way Copy this ability if discord is on the field So the way this card works is that you You Go to scryfall click random on scryfall and then a card will pop up and until your next end step You may cast a copy of that spell and mana of any type can be used to cast it If you cast it you get double the effect so it could be very powerful. But then again We're looking at random on scryfall If you haven't had the opportunity to do that before, you should, because I think that will help temper your fears that this card would be too broken. Anyways, this was a Carl pick. He really enjoys this one quite a bit. It came from a secret layer drop. It is not an official unset card, but it is not currently legal in commander. And that's too bad because I'm pretty certain you too could have a great time. Everyone could have a great time. And I'll harp on it one more time. If the Commander Rules Committee just allowed more casual cards to be in the casual format. Wouldn't that be crazy? Eh? So the final card that we want to show off would be none other than one of my friend Mike's favorite cards. It's a five color split card. Five cards all fit into one regular card frame. It is called Who, What, When. When where why so we're going to go through each of these modes Who an instant for one white and x target player gains x life? What a instant for a red and two? Destroy target artifact win two and a blue instant counter target creature spell where three and a black instant Destroy target land y one and a green instant destroy target enchantment So we can counter creatures, destroy lands, artifacts, or enchantments, or in a pinch we can gain x life. None of these modes are broken and in combination none of these cards really add up to make a card that is broken in commander. I think this card's totally fine. It's not hard to read. It's not chaotic. All the effects are very mundane, but useful and it's modal. What more do you want? In fact, I think this card is more legible than half of the commanders I've seen played in the past five years. So there's our top 10 un cards that you can totally play at a table of commander as long as your group is okay with it and you have that rule zero conversation. For example, just show folks the cards, I would say. Like, if you're new to a group, ask them if it's okay, and if not, that's all right. It's their decision, it's their choice, it's their group, right? So just kind of respect that. Have a couple extra cards on hand if you need to swap them in and out. But most likely, people are going to be a okay with this, and in particular, groups that have been around for quite a while will be okay. I think more prone to be okay because they know you as a person and they know that you're not trying to break the world With a nearby planet which is not going to break anything ever In fact, it's very powered down from what we can already do in commander A couple honorable mentions are, some of my faves, Sword of Dungeons and Dragons for 3. It's an artifact equipment. It came out in Unstable. It initially came out in a Hasbro special box set that had Silver Border Grimlock, Nerf War, and this card, but they reprinted it in Unstable, thankfully. And, uh, It's just a regular sword, you know what swords do or if you don't it's an equipment you pay two to equip it equip creature gets Protection from something and something. Well, this one gets protection from rogues and clerics used to be that was very niche But now it's maybe a little better. I don't know you have to come across the right person player to make it really effective. And whenever a quick creature deals combat damage to a player, create a four, four gold dragon creature token with flying, and then roll a D 20. If you roll a 20, repeat this process. This card is totally fine. A lot of people play D and D cards. I think they would love to be able to play this card as well. It makes a dragon, but it doesn't do anything like sort of feast and famine does another one that could see play. I think without any issue is goblin tutor. Again, another dice rolling card. It's one red for an eight. You roll a six sided die. If you roll a one, Goblin Tutor has zero effect, so it's already not great. Now, if you roll a two, you search your library for a card called Goblin Tutor, which you can't run two Goblin Tutors in an EDH deck, so there is literally a 33 percent chance that this card does nothing. If you roll one and two, it doesn't do anything at all. If you roll a three, you get a enchantment for four. You get an artifact for five, you get a creature and for six, you get an instant or sorcery spell and you have to reveal those cards. I mean, it's fun. It's random. It's goofy. I play it in my deck sometimes and nobody's had an issue with it. So. We're not just saying like, Hey, play these cards and you'd be the canary in the coal mine. No, we have played these cards in our play group for a long time and haven't really had any issues with any of them so far. So more than happy to share our knowledge and our experience with you all. And finally, thank you so much for joining in this unscripted lighthearted look at. Unset cards that you can play at your table next week We're gonna be diving into a topic which is close and personal to me. It is mental health and magic Referencing a recent story that kind of blew up on social media about a player who tilted pretty hard at an RCQ I believe And we want to go into what is happening for players as this goes on. We've all been tilted. We've all been a little salty, but there are some things we can do or some things we can kind of better understand about ourselves before we ever even enter the shop that can help avoid this fate. And everyone will be more grateful for it, including yourself. So give that one a listen. If it seems like it's something interesting to you. And if you want to leave a comment or share a thought about unset cards or whatever, find me on Twitter at rule zero, that's the number zero podcast, or you can email us at rule zero podcast at gmail. com. Always would love to hear from you all. Leave a comment, like, subscribe in the YouTube videos or leave a five star review. I mean, you can leave less, but why? I guess you can leave whatever kind of review you want to. One star, you're at liberty to do that. I hope you don't. But yeah, and honestly, at this point, anybody could leave a review and I'd be more than happy to read it. One, two, three, four and a half, five, whatever you want to do. Um, just love the feedback. And I think it does improve our presence under the algorithmic eye of the Lord. Whoever that Lord is, I don't know, but apparently we need to appease them. Otherwise they won't pass our podcast around and they'll think that we're just robots and we're not, I'm not a robot. Would a robot say something like this? And remember. In magic, there is no problem that a rule zero conversation cannot solve.