The idea of exclusively using certain cards as a staple or “best” alternative fits in competitive settings it does not necessarily fit in casual ones. We exclude tens of thousands of cards each and every time we sleeve up a deck, whether it’s because they don’t fit your strategy, or they would stretch the deck to more colors than you want or need to be or simply because you enjoy playing with different cards. I described issues like these as superficial – and I do believe that they are. Beyond that, Unhinged‘s signature gotcha mechanic is infamously powerful as a tool for griefing – isn’t the whole point of casual Magic to make friends, not lose them? Even cards whose power level doesn’t approach those two do things that completely alter a game of Magic, sometimes in unpredictable ways. Certain online databases list every single silver-bordered card as “illegal” even in social settings like Commander, putting them in an adjacent category to stigmatized cards like Trinisphere or Strip Mine. Why, you may ask? There are, after all, a number of superficial reasons why not. Unstable is coming out soon, and so you should take the opportunity to consider doing the same. anyway, my references are rather far off the most recently-travelled roads, and so it may not surprise you to hear that I also sometimes play with silver-bordered cards. If you scan through my reviews on this site, you’ll note that I often refer to decks from Shards of Alara Standard, or Lorwyn Standard, or Time Spiral Standard. I do keep an eye on some of the top decks, because I am after all a Card of the Day writer and the majority of our reviews are from Standard sets, but I haven’t actually assembled one of those decks in quite a long time. It’s a pretty open secret around here that I don’t really play Standard any more.

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