Unfinity - cEDH Set Review

Saw in Half by Joseph Weston

Greetings fellow clowns, Jake FitzSimons here, I've taken a quick break from the circus to bring you a review of the best Unfinity cards for cEDH. If you're not up-to-date with the latest happenings in the world of Magic: the Gathering, it might interest you to know that "Un" sets now include cards legal in eternal formats. In fact, every single card in Unfinity has a black border!

However, black border isn't the sign of a legal card in this set; the absence of an acorn stamp is. See here for more info on that and an explanation on Stickers and Attractions - you'll need it. But while this set is shooting for zany hijinks and miscellaneous shenanigans, it does contain cEDH-playable cards. Some are fringe, some are sleepers that will get better, and one is going to saw the format in half. Let's get into it!

_____ Goblin

What's Mind Goblin? Who's Joe?

Ponder those questions while you try to get your head around a card that works differently every time you play it. What matters is that despite its inherent randomness, _____ Goblin will always be mana-positive. There are 44 sticker sheets to choose from, nine of which of have a word with four or more unique vowels. This means even though you'll only get three of those ten sheets, _____ Goblin will always make a minimum of four mana.

There is one sticker sheet with a six-vowel word, two with five, and six with four. This gives a 71% chance that your three sticker sheets will contain a five- or six-vowel word, at which point _____ Goblin starts to feel like a real ritual. It also makes _____ Goblin terribly hard to evaluate. There are decks that care about making mana and little else (Godo, Bandit Warlord), but there aren't many of them.

It's also important to know you can't go infinite with _____ Goblin in the same way you would with Dockside Extortionist. Stickers stay stuck for as long as a card remains in a public zone, meaning that blinking will not go infinite: you'll run out of stickers. The same is true of reanimation combos.

Thankfully, there is a card that will easily create infinite mana with _____ Goblin; Cloudstone Curio. The ease of execution here will hinge on which your best sticker is, but you can guarantee it with any zero mana creature¹.

Let's get into the nitty gritty. _____ Goblin is irritatingly impractical, even in the best of circumstances, and even when you're not playing it yourself. You don't need stickers if you have Praetor's Grasp, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer or a reanimation effect in your deck because you can only ever place stickers on permanents you own, making _____ Goblin useless. And yet, cloning works.

That's right folks, if you clone a _____ Goblin you'll be able to place a name sticker and generate mana. As long as you've got a Phantasmal Image in your deck, there's a chance you'll have to figure out what stickers you have access to. This is annoying to say the least.

You don't need real sticker sheets (they operate more like counters, and anything will suffice) but you do have to pick a set of ten sticker sheets and randomly pick three of them. While you'll pick the same ten your opponent chose, unfortunately, technically speaking, the randomising has to happen before the game begins. There's no way reasonable people will expect you to do this and I'm sure randomising on the spot will be fine, but good god. It's a tremendous amount of work just to figure out what a single card actually does.

Right now the most obvious home for _____ Goblin is in a favorite deck of mine, Koll, the Forgemaster where mana neutral/positive creatures are already the name of the game. But note just how rare this Goblin is. There are no shortage of creatures in Magic that produce a lot of mana, but there are very few that produce more than they cost the same turn they come into play. Tinder Wall, Dockside Extortionist and Treasonous Ogre all fit this description and it's no coincidence they're cEDH staples. _____ Goblin may well join them.

Captain Rex Nebula

Ding ding ding ding, the fourth² card printed this year that can go infinite with Devoted Druid! Just go to combat, turn Devoted Druid into a Vehicle, and suddenly she'll lose creature typing. No amount of -1/-1 counters will kill a noncreature artifact, so she can be tapped and untapped infinitely.

While Swift Reconfiguration is cheaper, Captain Rex Nebula has the advantage of being a creature, making him easier to tutor for. Admittedly, Captain Rex isn't the first creature that makes Devoted Druid go infinite; Vizier of Remedies takes that crown, but because the good Captain turns Devoted Druid into an artifact and, again, removes creature typing, Devoted Druid won't need to worry about summoning sickness.

Far, far more interesting and significantly sillier are Captain Rex Nebula's implications as a commander. In fact, he can deal infinite damage with just one other card to win the game on the spot! Yep, all you need is a two-mana Dwarf and Captain Rex. There's just one catch. You can't roll a 2...

Turn the Dwarf into a Vehicle (I'm not even going to entertain a mental image here), roll a dice, deal a damage, roll a dice, deal a damage etc. The chain will break and the Dwarf will explode the moment you roll a 2, which you have a 1 in 6 chance of doing every time you pick that dice up. Presuming your healthiest opponent is at 40 life, your odds of success are 0.068%. That's horrible, but in for a penny, in for a pound.

Spit in the face of the dice gods. Twist the fates. With one of these cards, your chance of avoiding a 2 (or a 2 and a 1, which is still failure) forty times in a row is now 3.08%! Add the second and you can get that all the way up to a staggering 26.77% of success! Who doesn't like a four card combo that only works a quarter of the time? Obviously this is terrible, but many cEDH players will be silly enough to try it and I salute them.

In fact, if you like dice, it might be better to have Wyll, Blade of Frontiers in the command zone. Wyll can even combo with Delina, Wild Mage for infinite creatures, but true to form, it's hilariously unreliable. Begin combat with both in play and you might go infinite, you just need to roll better than 15. Many times in a row. The good news is that every successful roll improves the likelihood of the next one. If you want a simulation for this, check out this awesome resource³ from Draft Punks MTG, an Aussie drafting channel and friend of Commander's Herald.

Clown Car

Magda, Brazen Outlaw goes fast. This is the third new ride she's got this year. In case you haven't been keeping score, she started riding a hoverbike earlier this year thanks to Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty and a literal hearse courtesy of the Streets of New Capenna. And now, fittingly, she has her very own Clown Car.

I say fittingly because from the moment Unfinity releases, Clown will be an official black-bordered creature type. That means that before anyone can put a real physical copy of Clown Car in their deck, they'll already have actual factual Clowns in there, going by the name of Universal Automaton and Bloodline Pretender. Get that Maskwood Nexus into play and you're not playing Dwarf Tribal, you're playing Clown Tribal.

As to why Vehicles are valuable in the first place, cEDH Magda decks revolve around tapping down Dwarves, and there's nothing quite so simple and reliable as paying a Crew cost. You can do it any time you have priority and it bypasses the summoning sickness that would otherwise slow newly played Dwarves down. While High-Speed Hoverbike, Unlicensed Hearse, and the original Smuggler's Copter are all valuable for their additional utility, none can boast the bargain bin price of Clown Car.

It's free. For zero mana, you can tap down as many creatures as you like for the crew cost, making this one of the easiest ways in the deck to get Magda, Brazen Outlaw triggers. Outside of Magda, the next most obvious home is in Winota, Joiner of Forces. Even played at zero mana, it's just as good as a Memnite. Yes, you need to tap Winota to swing with it, but there's not much point swinging unless you have her in play to begin with.

Best of all, it's a great way of turning spare mana into more Winota triggers. Terrifyingly, the Clowns are not Humans, and while you aren't guaranteed to get tokens out of it, any tokens you don't make just ensure a bigger creature to lay down pressure with. Otherwise, it's always at least a 0 mana artifact for Urza, Lord High Artificer that can produce extra Mox Sapphires if you've got mana lying around to begin with.

Last Voyage of the _____

Last Voyage is to Animate Dead as Diabolic Tutor is to Demonic Tutor. It's the same card but it costs twice as much. Usually that's enough to ignore a card (Phantasmal Image is powerful, Clone not so much), but when the card in question can win the game on the spot, paying double doesn't seem so bad.

Enchantment-based reanimation has a long history of going infinite with Worldgorger Dragon, and as of Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward. Reanimate one or the other and you'll have a loop that blinks everything (except lands in Abdel's case) you have in play, effectively generating infinite mana. Commander Spellbook explains it best.

Last Voyage is fittingly last in a line of viable cards that can achieve this combo, coming fourth behind Dance of the Dead, Necromancy, and Animate Dead. If your deck is a dedicated Worldgorger or Whitegorger deck and you're desperate for extra redundacy, Last Voyage is your answer. Also it does something with stickers, but we can ignore that. _____ Goblin is enough for now, no need for cEDH to get any stickier.

Magar of the Magic Strings

What if spells were also creatures? And not just creatures, but puppets controlled by a Minotaur... I'm not super clear on the flavor here. Either way, Magar of the Magic Strings provides three useful cEDH tools: card advantage (replaying spells from the bin), mana advantage (casting those spells for free), and combo potential (specifically with Savage Beating).

It might look like any old extra combat spell would allow one of Magar's 3/3 puppets to set up infinite combat steps, but that won't work. Cards like Seize the Day and Relentless Assault stipulate "after this main phase". Because the 3/3 tokens cast their spell on impact, during the combat step, you won't be rewarded with an additional combat. Unfortunately, Savage Beating is the only exception.

Red does have access to extra turn spells, but every last one of them includes some variant of the phrase "at the beginning of that [the extra] turn's end step, you lose the game." Without access to something like Sundial of the Infinite, there's no point in puppeting a turn spell. Unless? Black does have access to... Temporal Extortion!

Sort of. While opponents may squabble a bit over who takes one for the team and loses half their life total to stop you, someone will eventually do it. If not the first extra turn you take, then the second. Your mileage may vary based on the playstyles and political shenanigans in your cEDH group, but this is interesting if nothing else.

Having said this, Magar of the Magic Strings is held back his puppets not having haste. At three mana to play him and three mana to reanimate a spell, you're six mana down before you even have a token. Add the full turn you'll have to wait before swinging, and Magar looks like the sort of commander who needs a longer game to shine. There are solutions to this in the form of Anger (Entomb will be a key card in any Magar deck), and even Filth to ensure the tokens connect, but it will take some work.

I don't consider myself a Minotaur expert, but if you'd like to hear from one, Commander's Herald has the Minotaur specialist writing a guest set review on Monday. Stay tuned!

Myra the Magnificent

Again with the dice-rolling. I don't have the space (ha) to explain how attractions work, but Myra the Magnificent will reward you with them whenever you cast an instant or sorcery from hand, an easy enough condition to meet.

While the attractions themselves provide minimal, inconsistent value, they are at least artifacts, making them relevant for Urza, Lord High Artificer and Whir of Invention interactions.

The real attraction (haha!) here is Myra the Magnificent's ability to go infinite with a turn spell. Exile a Time Warp or Temporal Manipulation variant with her ability and you'll take another turn whenever you visit that attraction. But like Captain Rex Nebula and Brazen Dwarf, the problem here is reliability. In fact, it's less reliable and costs even more to get going.

Remember, a 1 is always a failure. Barbarian Class or Wyll, Blade of Frontiers can help you avoid them but there's always a chance. Thankfully Myra the Magnificent has a little extra redundancy in the form of Pixie Guide. After all, three rerollers are better than two.

So this set has two different die-centric card that sort of go infinite with just one other card, but require either ridiculous luck or a host of additional support pieces. That doesn't sound particularly competitive, and for good reason: it isn't. But it could be! Give it a couple of years, a few sets, maybe a few dice-rolling cards in a Modern Horizons set. It sounds outrageous, but remember it was only a few years ago that coin flipping decks were a gimmick at best.

The Most Dangerous Gamer

The Most Dangerous Gamer does two very important things for cEDH. It means that Gamer is an official creature type (joining Clown as something I'll pretend my Changeling Outcast is in my Yuriko deck), and it means we have yet another fantastic card to name with Demonic Consultation.

Unfortunately, The Most Dangerous Gamer doesn't shine quite as brightly as it would have if Sloppity Bilepiper hadn't just been printed in Warhammer 40k Commander. Either way, we're getting so many cards with silly names that I'm going to declare a "best Demonic Consultation name" winner each set, and this epic Gamer takes the cake for Unfinity.

Saw in Half

Saw in Half almost deserves an article to itself. There's just so much going on under the hood here, both in the combo and the utility departments. More than that, it was spoiled over ten months ago. Magic fans first laid their eyes on this a few weeks after Innistrad: Crimson Vow came out.

Anyway, lets start with something kooky: if you Saw a healthy Serra Ascendant in half, you'll get two 8/8s. You heard me: two 8/8s. But that's not even the beginning of what this card can do.

First things first: it's really good with Dockside Extortionist. That sentence is becoming a catchphrase when it comes to cEDH card evaluation, but Saw in Half is really, really good with that cheeky Goblin. Bouncing and replaying a Dockside is a good enough already, but that's a rate of one card for one additional Treasure explosion. Saw is one card for two Docksides. Okay, we got the Dockside comment out of the way, let's talk about more interesting things.

The easiest combo application for Saw in Half is as another tool for going infinite with Dualcaster Mage. Just like Twinflame and Heat Shimmer before it, just target a creature, hold priority, cast Dualcaster Mage, target Dualcaster with the copy, and whoosh, you have infinite 1/1 creatures.

A simple explainer from Commanderspellbook

But unlike Twinflame and Heat Shimmer, Saw in Half does not grant haste. While the combo can make infinite creatures, waiting a full turn to actually win with those creatures is subpar for cEDH. However, Saw in Half is an instant. Assembling the combo at instant speed means you can untap with an infinite wide board for the win.

What makes Saw in Half even better is that you'll be making two Dualcaster Mages per loop, not just one. That means an extra Mage ETB and an extra spell that can be copied infinite. I couldn't hope to list all the cards that will lead to a win with near infinite copies, but cEDH cards that work include: Demonic Tutor, Diabolic Intent, Ponder, Jeska's Will, Praetor's Grasp, or even a humble Lightning Bolt.

Still, there's more. Saw in Half also functions as a win condition in Cormela, Glamour Thief. Printed back in Streets of New Capenna, poor Cormela has been waiting since April for the very thing that makes her so powerful to begin with. With five mana available, Cormela in play and a Demonic Tutor in hand, you can win the game.

Feminine Grixis commanders and convoluted combos that require a primer to understand - name a more iconic duo. In short, the ability to recur spells (a ritual, a tutor, Saw in Half itself) with Cormelas by halving her over and over again will lead to infinite mana and infinite spell cast. I couldn't possibly hope to write this out in full, so I'll defer to a great explainer available here.

What about the general utility? If you've lost your commander to a Gilded Drake you can just saw the stupid thing in half. You'll not only get your commander back, you can steal something else to boot. Someone has the audacity to target your commander with a Dismember? Beat them to the punch. Do the cutting yourself and enjoy imagining what one half of your commander would actually look like on a battlefield.

That's just as true of any important creature with "remove me" stapled to its forehead. Protect your Opposition Agent or your Collector Ouphe. Get extra mileage out of Professional Face-Breaker or Grim Hireling. If you're feeling greedy, cut your Dark Confidant or Esper Sentinel in half. Get two more triggers with Spellseeker. Do whatever you like, the list goes on and on. Good creatures you're already playing get even better with Saw in Half.

And then we get to Eternal Witness. An eternal combo tool, she's become even more interesting lately with the printing of Displacer Kitten and Saw in Half is another feather in her cap. Having Saw in Half and an Eternal Witness in play is sort of like having an endless supply of Eternal Witnesses. Without fail, every three mana can bring something back from your bin (not to mention make more 1/1s).

This is a simple value engine that will quickly get out of control. Throw a tutor into the mix and you can grind with the best of them. Cast your tutor, cut your Witness in half, get back your tutor and your Saw. Rinse and repeat for as long as you like. Three card interactions that take this much mana usually aren't worth it, but this is unique in that all three cards are powerful and playable independent of one another.

The c in cEDH Stands For Circus

Well, that's a wrap. If you'd told me a year ago I would be reviewing an Un set in terms of the impact it would have on cEDH, I would have... probably believed you. Magic is getting weirder and weirder. Even still, it's strange to see the Unfinity cards up close and recognise that yes, stickers are a part of cEDH and yes, eventually a Clown will kill you.

The strongest card in the set will be Saw in Half, without question. It's only the most dedicated cEDH fans that have brewed with it so far, but most of the community has been patiently awaiting its arrival. Now that it's here, I think we've only just scratched the surface of what the card can do. I'd like to think Saw in Half is what we'll most remember this set for when we look back on it a year from now, but I worry that _____ Goblin will take that spot, for good or ill.

So what do you think? Are there cEDH tools hiding among the balloons and children and clown robots and animal puns? Have you already tested Saw in Half and reached your own conclusions? How do you feel about stickers? Let me know in the comments or reach out to me on twitter at @Jake_FitzSimons.

1. Combo courtesy of Darth Jeeling
2. The other three were Swift Reconfiguration in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, Luxior, Giada's Gift in Streets of New Capenna and Myrkul, Lord of Bones in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate.
3. If you hit the button and nothing happens, it's because the number it made was too big.