This weekend Larry Li won the Modern Grand Prix in Oklahoma City where Pro Tour Ixalan champion Seth Manfield finished in the top four. In Madrid, the team of Rodrigo Togores, Cristian Ortiz Ros, and Adrian Ramiro Cano took home the top prize at the Team Modern Grand Prix. Of course, in the wake of all this high-level competitive Modern action, there was only one thing on everyone’s mind: the release of Unstable.
Yes, even though Modern was the format of the weekend at the game’s highest levels, Unstable was the talk of the town all over social media. Apparently, despite the fact that Unglued and Unhinged were widely considered failures for Wizards of the Coast, Unstable has been a rousing success.
Given the success of Unstable’s opening weekend and the likelihood of a fourth Un-set being released in the future, the question could be asked, should there be an Un-set Grand Prix? The answer is obviously no. From a pro player perspective and from a judge perspective and from almost every perspective there’s either no reason to have such an event or the logistics of such an event become a complete nightmare.
Almost every perspective except for one: the enjoyment of the viewing audience.
If you had a chance to catch the live prerelease event on Friday that the team at Loading Ready Run held, featuring none other than Mark Rosewater himself, then you had the privilege to catch a glimpse of what could be at an Unstable Grand Prix. Close your eyes and imagine it:
Two thousand players of all ages descend upon the local convention center dressed in various costumes. Many have come as squirrels but there are goblins, mad scientists, and other fantastic creatures among the crowds. The artists of the set, including the legendary John Avon, are all in attendance signing and taking commissions for their fans. It’s estimated that five thousand fans will be in attendance throughout the weekend to meet their favorite artists and Wizards personalities.
The sealed deck building time has been completed and the first round is getting underway. Already we’ve spotted a handful of players running around the tournament venue looking for high fives. Almost every spectator will get involved in making a game-breaking decision at some point during the day. And, unfortunately, most of the judges look like they’re running around as chickens with their heads cut off (though that’s partly because they’re all dressed in chicken costumes).
It’s hard to predict how entertaining nine rounds of this would be but you have to admit you might tune in to see Luis Scott-Vargas and Rich Hagon have a running tally of who could spin more terrible puns throughout the weekend’s coverage. Draft on Sunday would actually stand to be a nice change of pace from the usual analysis.
Again, this unfortunately would never happen because I’m 99.99% sure you can’t actually legally torture the judge staff this way, but the comedic and entertainment value might be enough to attract a much larger audience than Magic is used to drawing. Granted, Grand Prix Oklahoma City this past weekend drew a peak of 12,300 viewers, which is right in the expected range for a North American event. Still, could an Unstable Grand Prix have done better?
Maybe, maybe not, but I suspect we’ll never know.
Tune in next week after the final Grand Prix events of 2017 come to a close and we’ll look back on the year in Pro Magic.
Rich Stein is a retired Magic player, an amateur content creator, and a Level 2 Social Justice Sorcerer. He hopes to eventually become a professional content creator and a Level 20 dual class Social Justice Sorcerer/Bard but he’s more than content to remain a retired Magic player. You can follow his musings on Twitter @RichStein13.