Silver border cards are great! They add a ton of fun to most of the games that they're in. But they're a bit of a pain, right? You're having your rule 0 conversation and someone wants to play with silver border cards. Do you let them? Like, you've got no qualms playing against a Mary O'Kill, but when they make your cards into copies of blacker lotus and tear them to shreds, well, you like your cards. So rather than have these lengthy rule 0 conversations in which you have to, in detail, relate every single silver border card in your deck to a group of players who probably don't know what those cards do, I propose a better solution.

In this list, I have sorted every single silver border card into tiers. The lower the tier, the closer the card is to being black border playable. That way, in the rule 0 discussion, you can simply say, "I have silver-border cards in this deck that are tier-2 or lower" and it's as simple as that.

N.B. Cards in tiers designated #.5 are considered to mechanically function in that tier, but are probably strong enough to warrant asking specific permission from your playgroup to play them.

0: This card isn't even applicable to EDH. Like, it uses sideboards, or teammates, or something like that. I guess they're fine anywhere, but they don't do anything.

1: This card could absolutely be printed in a normal magic the gathering set. There are cards that are just like this in black border. The only thing weird about them is their creature types, but like, how much does that matter really?

2: Tier 2 is for cards that reference contraptions and combinations. Both of these keywords actually work in black border, but were determined to be weird enough to separate into their own tier.

3: These cards require their controllers to perform tasks that are considered trivial. Assuming that any player playing these cards is able to complete these trivial challenges, they function exactly like black border cards. I personally would recommend agreeing to skip the little tasks entirely in order to keep the game fully accessible to players who struggle with these tasks.

4: This card uses information like artists, art, or lines of text that aren't technically accessible in black border magic but they make sense within an individual game.

5: These cards are generally intuitive to play with, but they also just don't work under black border rules. You might not naturally run into the rules holes these cards contain, but you could probably find them if you went looking. If you're fine with once in a blue moon saying, "I don't know how this works" and playing around problems, then these cards are fine. If you want to be playing by the rules 100% of the time, then this and higher levels are a no-go.

6: When you play with these cards, you open up the possibility of losing a game of magic outside of your magic skills. Dexterity tests, memory tests, and artist quizzes aren't really in the spirit of THE game. That being said, you can play these cards and have tons of fun. You just aren't really playing magic.

7: Most of the Gotcha! mechanics aren't balanced around multiplayer, where you could exploit an alliance to activate Gotcha! abilities infinitely many times. In addition, Gotcha! really discourages table talk, which I think hurts some of the fun of EDH, don't you?

8: These cards shouldn't be used in EDH. These cards usually encourage activities that you don't want encouraged by EDH, such as the destruction of cards, bribery, eating at the table, enforcing gender stereotypes, or playing Frankie Peanuts.