Hello folks and welcome back to all things casual. One of the more controversial products printed in Magic’s history were the silver bordered cards from Unglued and Unhinged. These sets sported a variety of jokes, puns, and wacky mechanics that might make sense in a fun kitchen table, but hardly at a real tournament.

Frankly, I think the major “miss” of the Un- sets was the humor theme. Anyone who’s ever heard the same joke over and over can tell you jokes wear thin. People are suitably distracted by the large number of jokes on the cards, but you know what?

There are a small but not insignificant number of silver bordered cards that have mechanics, names, and such that actually could be printed today in modern Magic.

Let me give you a classic example of a few:

Take Organ Harvest –

The name is suitably fine, and the mechanic of letting folks sacrifice creatures for two Black mana a pop in right in line with cards such as Culling the Weak. The art is fine, and the mechanic allowing your teammates to benefit from this card has made a recent appearance with the Surge mechanic in Oath of the Gatewatch on cards like Boulder Salvo. Even the flavor text fits the various puns in real cards.

Not every card is Organ Harvest, but there are a few.

How about Fowl Play?

Sure, the name is pun-laden, but the mechanics and art are all something that works. Blue does this all of the time with cards like Turn to Frog. The card’s mechanics and flavor are suitable, why couldn’t a Wizard turn someone into a Chicken instead of a Frog? It works.

I like these cards.

For me, the most durable of the Silver Bordered cards are those that actually fit alongside cards printed since, cards that aren’t wacky or out of place.

All of the Un- cards mentioned by me today are in current decks.

10. Kill Destroy; Name Dropping ;Spell Counter

Gotcha! Is a fun mechanic. And for cards wanting to come back from your graveyard, namely creature kill and countermagic, Spell Counter and Kill Destroy are pretty strong. They can be recurred over and over again. I’ve often used both to play politics with the table. Don’t want that card Steve is playing to resolve? Then just say the word, and I can gotcha this Spell Counter back to my hand, to play and counter it. And Name Dropping is even better, since there are so many words people say without thinking about them. Yes, I’ll gotcha back Sol'Kanar the Swamp King. Thanks for saying, “the!” However, the cards often have a chilling effect on table talk and conversation, especially with Name Dropping, so I only use them when I have to.

9.Goblin Bookie

IfGoblin Bookie only let you re-flip a coin, without re-rolling a die, then it’d be custom made for coin flipping cards, totally in bounds, and in a bunch of places. Die rolling is an added Unglued mechanic for randomness, and it’s actually pretty intuitive for the most part. You could add tossing a d6 for cards today instead of coin flipping and no one would miss it. Goblin Bookie is still commonly seen as a player for coin flipping decks that use stuff like Karplusan Minotaur, Chance Encounter, Krark's Thumb, and Goblin Bomb.

8. Double Play; Double Take

The common Double cycle from Unglued is pretty uneven. These two are amazing, and I still use them. Double Take is one less card drawn now than others like Jace's Ingenuity. Extra cards next game is nasty too, especially given you have them when the game begins. Now yes, Double Play is expensive for a Rampant Growth. But starting the next game with a free land is so good it’s sinful.

7. Infernal Spawn of Evil ; Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil

I love this duet of Daddy and Baby. The first can be used occasionally to threaten folks, and get in free damage during your upkeep. You don’t have to invest any cards, just keep the ability open, until you want to play your Demon Beast later. But my favorite of the lot is Junior, who can be used occasionally to smack someone for two damage, as long as you are searching your deck with things like Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Rampant Growth, or Dizzy Spell. Tutor and smash. You get beats for later too, so you don’t invest a card in the abilities, they are just nice additions.

6. World-Bottling Kit

Yes, World-Bottling Kit is a funny card, but it actually does work in real Magic. One of the things that Magic cards care about in black bordered world is the expansion symbol. Early sets had cards like City in a Bottle and Apocalypse Chime. Those cards were good ways to hit stuff that got out of hand. World-Bottling Kit is just a flexible version of these cards. Choose an expansion, and then stuff it in a bottle. It gets exiled. It’s a great adjunct in a line of artifact-based sweepers, and it’s more selective because you never have to name a set you’ve invested in. There’re always two or three cads or threats ready to go and get popped. I find that recent stuff tends to be played more, so you can find more cards from Shadows over Innistrad or Oath of the Gatewatch

5. Cheatyface

Cheatyface is the highest ranking Un- card on my list without a true analog in Black Bordered World. We played Cheatyface heavily at the kitchen table. I would tutor and grab Cheatyface too; I had more than one Cheatyface in a deck that’s supposed to be Highlander, and stuff like that. One of my favorite tricks was to drop Cheatyface underneath a land or other permanent. Then when someone came to attack me, I’d move the cards and block with Cheatyface! Or I’d take the creature to attack, and then reveal, after blocks, Cheatyface! Obviously it’s fun and in the spirit of the card, but Cheatyface can get old, and you need a playgroup that appreciates it. But in that group? Get your cheat on!

4. Giant Fan

To this day, Giant Fan is one of the favorite tools for Johnnies everywhere. Move a counter from one card to another, and it either becomes a +1/+1 or the counter mentioned on that card. There’s nothing about it that’s not totally in bounds, and other than potentially the name, you could print it in the next Commander supplement. Giant Fan blows counters all over the table for good times, and is layered with sheer flexibility.

3. Uktabi Kong

Uktabi Kong is another classic card which works perfectly fine as is. Take a look under the hood — you have an 8/8 Trampler for eight mana, which is totally par for the course. And when it arrives on the battlefield, you get an enter-the-battlefield trigger to destroy all of the Artifacts. Shatterstorm on a stick. That’s obviously strong. And then we have the ability to tap two Apes to make another. All you need is one more Ape to mate with the Kong, and then you can make an epic amount of Ape tokens as well. It’s a real card, with real power.

2. Blast from the Past

I love the flexibility of this card. Each game, it’s fine early on to Cycle, use Madness, and get both one card and two damage, for — that’s my favorite take. (And then flash it back for later good stuff). You can buy it back to do two damage over and over again like Fanning the Flames or Searing Touch later on when you have mana. Kick it when you have the mana to get the creature token. It’s great.

1. Who/What/When/Where/Why

This is my favorite Un- card for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because it’s one of the best, most interesting, and perfectly suited cards there is in an Un-set. Let’s bore into why. First, most split cards are named with a pair of words that go together. Take Life // Death, Fire // Ice, Pure // Simple, or Wear // Tear. These are words we are used to putting together in English, and I bet there are a ton of phrases written down somewhere at WOTC in an Excel sheet for potential future split card names, like Thunder and Lightning, Rock and Roll or maybe even Fast and Furious. So here we have a split card with more than two options, and its names all suit each other. Then you have the solid slate of five abilities — counter a creature, destroy a land, an artifact, an enchantment, or gain some life. It’s solid. And all of the abilities are appropriately cost — When costs one more than Remove Soul, What is one more than Shatter, etc. This card could be black bordered and printed tomorrow. The only part jokey part of the card is the five-cards-in-one-card concept. But that’s not funny, that’s insightful. It’s a solid card too!

Honorable Mention to these cards, along with a quick vignette:

_____ aka BLANKMAN — Great for any deck wanting cards with specific names for mechanics like Grandeur.

Snow Mercy — A strong variant on No Mercy that’s pretty good at getting the table to respect you while you have a good defense.

Free-for-All — Mass removal-ish, that gives everyone the best creatures all spread out and nice.

Frankie Peanuts — There are so many ways to use and abuse Frankie. He’s the only silver bordered card I‘ve ever written an entire article for.

Chaos Confetti –Tear it up, and blow up lots of stuff! We ruled you had to have one torn up, but you didn’t have to keep tearing up the one in the deck being played. Some deck box had a small amount of torn confetti in it for a while.

Rare-B-Gone — I think this is the perfect answer in a lot of Commander metagames for folks with very pricy, and pimped out decks.

Greater Morphling — It puts creature abilities to shame!

Johnny, Combo Player; Timmy, Power Gamer — I use these cards occasionally, but you need to make sure you are in the right metagame or playgroup to ensure they aren’t hated out. Both can be really onerous at times, so you want to ensure you won’t get hated on.

Urza's Hot Tub — Discard a card, and then fetch up a card that has the same name. As I discussed before with Name Dropping, there are a lot of adverbs, adjectives, and common words like “The” and “Of”, and you can also find lots of cards with words in them like Spell, Lightning, and Goblin.

And there we have it! Silver bordered fun times are here again!