Hi Mark, I'm actually trying to build an uncube with Unstable as a base, but I'm running into an issue. I don't think there's enough contraption assemblers in the set for the size of cube I want to build. I've been thinking of possibly adjusting some of the overcosted assembling cards to be more in line with the power level, or editing some of the unfinity cards that open attractions to make contraptions instead. It seems a bit extreme to go and edit cards with stickers to suit a cube, but I want to avoid having to run multiple of a card or making the cube smaller. What do you think would be the most in-spirit solution for a cube centered on Unstable?

I would run duplicates, but if that is untenable to you, you could run clones, flickering effects, etc. which allow you to reuse the assemblers you have.

Un-rules question: Does Kindly Cognician (“Spells you cast that refer to artifacts or Contraptions in their rules text cost 1 less to cast”) reduce the cost of Kongming’s Contraptions (“T: Kongming’s Contraptions deals 2 damage to target attacking creature”)?

Sadly Contraptions means cards with the subtype Contraption and not cards with the word “contraption” in its rules text.

With attractions banned in eternal, is there any hope for assembling contraptions in black border? Contraptions themselves are still black border, and I was really hoping we could see them in a premier set someday.

Attractions getting banned doesn’t help.

I was surprised that neither Host/Augment nor Contraptions were in your 20 best mechanics. I feel Host/Augment is a more fun version of Meld. How come they didn’t make the cut?

Neither was better than the other 20 I had.

if/when "artifact creature - contraption.

If. I don’t even know the functionality of such a card.

Can the rules handle the entire Contraption system and the Riggers needed to make them work? I mean, Attractions seem to work well.

My gut is probably, but the system wasn’t set up to be Eternal-level, so there could be complications I’m not aware of.

If Attractions are a 9 on the storm scale, and a new side deck mechanic is a 10, where do Contraptions sit on the storm scale?

A 9.

If/when “whenever you would assemble a contraption you may open an attraction instead and vice versa”

If. That requires a set with both Contraptions and Attractions, a big ask.

Has any thought been given to changing the rule with attractions and contraptions so that when they leave play they go back on the bottom of their respective decks in a random order? It's a pretty big feel bad when any of 1000 soft wipes make the deck unable to play anymore.

The problem with that is it encourages you to play Attraction/Contraption decks at the minimum size rather than at the maximum size which we feel leads to less fun game play. They are both mechanics that we like at a high variance.

I've always wondered about Contraptions - you stated at the time that they weren't given borders with the intent that they would be black-border legal even though there were no black border assemble effects. But at the time dice rolling wasn't black board, and there are a number of contraptions that roll dice. Were you anticipating dice-rolling becoming black border back in Unstable?

I thought it was potentially possible.