Unstable (Magic: The Gathering)
Unstable is an official parody expansion set to the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering that was released on December 8, 2017. It is the third set of its kind, featuring silver borders, following in the tradition of 1998's Unglued and 2004's Unhinged.
Flavor and background
Unstable takes place on Bablovia, a steampunk-inspired plane. It features five main factions, one for each allied color pairing: The Order of the Widget, the Agents of S.N.E.A.K., the League of Dastardly Doom, the Goblin Explosioneers and the Crossbreed Labs.Mechanics
Unstable features interactions with "Host" creatures via the "Augment" mechanic. Certain creatures have the supertype "Host" and feature an effect that triggers when they enter the battlefield. Other creatures have the "Augment" ability and can only be played on top of a Host creature. When this is done, the Augment creature replaces the "when this creature enters the battlefield" trigger with a different trigger, making the Host's mechanic repeatable in some way. The art and card frames for Host and Augment creatures are designed such that the Augment creature can visually replace the front half of the Host creature, turning the composite creature into a hybrid.Another major Unstable mechanic involves Sprockets and Contraptions. These are the culmination of a card first printed in Future Sight, the future-shifted "Steamflogger Boss." At the time of its 2007 Future Sight printing, Steamflogger Boss referenced "Riggers" and Contraptions, which were not referred to by any other cards or rules in all of Magic. Unstable finally defined them. Contraptions are artifacts that reside in a special Contraption deck consisting of no more than 15 cards. "Assembling" one puts it on the battlefield. All Contraptions have a reverse face, instead of the standard Magic: the Gathering card back, depicting three sprockets. Any assembled Contraption must be assigned to one of these sprockets of its controller's choice at the time of assembly. At the beginning of a player's upkeep, that player may "crank" any Contraptions associated with one sprocket. The sprockets are selected in sequence, such that the player cannot choose which sprocket will activate at will.