Chah's Musings - A Minor Point in Token Templating

During the Great Designer Search 2, Aaron Forsythe mentioned that the introduction of the Tribal type was not a great choice:

I can tell from your templates that you're thinking of using the Tribal type in the set, but I'd rather you didn't if at all possible. That mechanic, while conceived with the best intentions, is generally considered a bit of a failed experiment, and bringing it back on a couple cards in Rise of the Eldrazi probably wasn't a wise choice.

21 Ways to Design a Card: Part 3 - Find a Rule to Break

The Magic rulebook states that Magic is full of cards that change how the rules work. Haste breaks the rule that a creature summoned this turn can't attack. Vigilance breaks the rule that a creature attacking must tap.

Finding a rule to break (and an interesting way to break them) is a great source of ideas for cards. 

Rules Fixes: The Legend Rule

Honestly, sometimes I wonder if Mark Rosewater's trolling his own column. In case you missed it, a couple weeks ago MaRo effectively threw down the gauntlet and challenged the community to design a better legend rule. Even if he didn't quite do it on purpose, his post started 27 pages (and counting) of forum chatter and managed to elicit a response from Tom LaPille of Magic R&D and "Latest Developments" fame. As a result, I've grotesquely over-invested my time on this troll-foolery, and here's what I've come up with:

21 Ways to Design a Card: Part 2c - Tomb Raider and Tome Raider

I've designed some cards for each zone in the game, and once again it was a good source of inspiration.

21 Ways to Design a Card: Part 2a - Cards Inspired by Magic Jargon

I'm going to continue with my series of cards that draw inspiration from Magic glossaries - namely, cards based on things that players say during a game.

Here's some card ideas based on the phrases "In response to that..." and "At the end of your turn...."

21 Ways to Design a Card: Part 2 - Use a Magic Glossary + More Japanese-Inspired Cards

A great way to design varied cards is to look at a glossary of Magic terms or player jargon and make a card inspired by each item that appears on that word list. It will make you think about each zone, each permanent type, each type of player action, and each type of decision-making that players go through in a game.

I'm currently designing cards that are inspired by words that Japanese people use when playing Magic in Japanese. (I will start up a blog on how to play Magic in Japanese very soon.) It's had the same effect as going through a glossary of Magic terms. At first I was just hoping the cards I make would help leave an impression about Japanese words and make them memorable, but I've discovered that designing based on Magic words allows me to think about cards that wouldn't have occurred to me otherwise.

Japanese Card of the Day: Giftstone of Dohzo

Within a few days, I'm going to start another blog about teaching yourself to play Magic in Japanese. It will focus on language learning, but each post will also contain a card design inspired by a Japanese word or phrase. I'll simultaneously post just the card designs in this Goblin Artisan blog too, since it may be of interest to any readers of this blog.

The first one is based on the word Dohzo. It means "please, go ahead," and it's used to offer a gift or a seat, give permission to do something, ask a guest to come inside, etc. When playing Magic, "Dohzo" (along with a hand gesture) is sometimes used to pass the turn.

21 Ways to Design a Card: Part 1 - Improve a Card You'd Never Play

We each have our tendencies as card designers — I like creatures, and if left to my own devices I tend to design too many cards that modify creatures or affect creature combat. In order to diversify our designs and avoid focusing too much on our habitual space, writing out a list of techniques for coming up with card ideas can be helpful since it lets us design from many angles.

I will make this a weekly series. The number 21 is a placeholder. I have no idea how many ways to design a card I'll be able to find or reference. And it's like the number of oceans or continents in the world - there are different ways of counting the same thing. If I manage to reach 21, I'll keep going on.

Top-Down Tuesday - Executioner's Deathmask ( + Contest)

Though I intended to return with yet another hearty dose of ghastly blather, editing the many articles of my fellow contributors got me itching to write something with a bit less heft. (Yet hopefully just as much chew — like a Baby Ruth.) And it being Tuesday, what better day could there be to discuss a couple of top-down designs? Presumably none as alliterative, that's for sure.

Holy Crap! Phyrexia is Evil! (Part 2)

Tomorrow is the New Phyrexia prerelease, so I'll be heading out to inflict terror on the pathetically incompleat. But before I do, I wanted to write a follow up to Part 1, in which I explain why I have a few reservations with the new set regarding how its designs affect the way the game works. To do that, I first want to explain the different types of actions available in a typical match.

Pursuing the Obvious Solution

As I continue to pluck away at designing Melody, the set I first conceptualized for GDS2, I've found myself succumbing to instances of self-doubt brought on by an uncomfortable realization of re-treading the past. As a musician, writer, painter, I've had to overcome this same debilitating condition a number of times, it being both intrinsic and anathema to nearly all creative endeavors. Perhaps I could go further and say that it's one of the absolutes of the human condition, a quality born of the struggle between individualism and an acknowledgment of history. So hopefully you all know what it is that I'm talking about and can empathize, even if you are not currently engaged in Magic design.

Mo' Mythics, Mo' Problems

The primal mechanic has me worried this designer might disagree with his job description — me, MaRo, and everyone else employed by Hasbro (NYSE: HAS) are in the business of creating desire for Magic products. Our biggest seller is booster packs.

— Ken Nagle

Since the introduction of the mythic rarity, a lingering air of dissatisfaction has loomed over the magic community regarding the intent behind the not-especially-distinctive orange symbols. This is primarily due to the effect the additional rarity has on secondary market values, inflating them to a great degree, but also because of various beliefs regarding what type of cards were "supposed" to be designated with this rarity, beliefs often rooted in a frequently stated misquote of Mark Rosewater. As I sat down to work on a cycle of mythics started during the initial planning of my GDS block, I was thinking about the expectations placed upon cards of a given rarity, but also about how monetary considerations can (and perhaps should) affect how the design of mythics is carried out. What I mean by "monetary considerations" is two-fold: