CCDD 04232020 - Megazord

So I don't know much about Kaiju. The closest I guess is I was a fan of Power Rangers when I was in 4th grade, and that had lots of giant monsters. Name of keyword aside, mutate is a cool way to capture the voltron/megazord transformation, so I played around in that space today.

Tesla Design Challenge: Inspiring Rares

Hi everybody! Over at the Multiverse, we've been working hard to design more rares for Tesla. This week, as a part of the final push, let's have a weekend design challenge - to finish up the rares, and make some exciting build-arounds while we're at it.

Tesla: Come into Play - Playtest, Prerelease, and the Future of Tesla

Hi everybody. This weekend, something big happened: Kaladesh came out! That doesn't mean our project is over, though we're certainly nearing the end. This week, I'm going to discuss what it means for the future of our project, and also compare my experiences with the prerelease and with playtesting Tesla.

Tesla: Uncommon Sense

Hi everybody! Last week, we started finalizing the uncommons in Tesla. This week, I want to review some of my favorite uncommon designs from the Multiverse so far, and discuss how they embody some great 'roles' that uncommons should fulfill.

Tesla Design Challenge 072716 — Uncommon Ground

Hi everybody! Last week for Tesla, we started working on filling in the commons over at the Multiverse, and we also began testing with all-commons. The all-commons playtest went pretty well - though we definitely lots of room for improvement! As all-commons playtesting has begun (with at least one contender for every slot in the skeleton), it's also time that we started working seriously on the uncommons!

Tesla Design Challenge 072216 — Hello World

Hi everybody! Over at the Multiverse, we're taking the final steps towards finalizing the commons in the skeleton, in preparation for imminent all-commons playtesting. This week, we're going to have a fun triple-fold challenge: filling in the rest of the commons, in addition to filling in flavor text and the rest of the world of Kaladesh.

Tesla: Archetype Hype

Hi everybody! Sorry for the late article, but it's a fun one, so I hope it will be worth the wait. This week, we're going to be showing off the prospective archetypes for Tesla, in all their glory!

Tesla: Archetype Cast

Hi everybody! Work over at the Tesla Multiverse continues, as we finalize the members of each archetype and solidify the common skeleton in preparation for commons-playtesting and the higher rarities. Last week, we discussed the types of archetypes and the roles they serve - this week, we'll be discussing the types of cards in an archetype, and how this helps us design commons!

Tesla: Types of Archetypes

Hello again, everyone! We've been hard at work over at the Magic Multiverse, filling in and polishing up the various archetypes, including the ones we discussed last time. This week, we're going to look extensively not only at the philosophy behind archetypes, but at the different kinds of archetypes - and we're going to use these lessons to design better archetypes, and cards in those archetypes, for Tesla.

Tesla: Archetype for the Taking & Playtesting Plans

Hello again, everyone! Last time, we discussed the recent announcement of an official Kaladesh set, and what that means for us. This week, we're going to discuss potential archetypes, as well as some plans for playtesting in the future.

Tesla: The Announcement Agenda

Hello again, everyone! Wow, yesterday had a big announcement from Wizards of the Coast - Kaladesh is an actual set coming out in September! Seeing as our own custom set creation project, Tesla, is based on Kaladesh, this means we've got a big robot elephant in the room to discuss.

Tesla: About Double Face

Welcome back, everyone! Last time on Tesla, we discussed Kicker variants for Tesla. One of the big possibilities we discussed was a mechanic called Discovery (now being called 'Develop'), which utilized double-faced card technology for its unique take on Kicker. This week, we're going to discuss the role of DFCs in Tesla, and what approaches we could take regarding them.

Tesla: Kick into Gear

Hello again, everyone! Since last time, there's been some great progress on the Tesla set skeleton over at the Multiverse, kick-started by the Filling in the Skeleton challenge and Skeleton Key article. We've been on a 'big picture' kick lately, so this week, I thought I'd zoom in a bit and examine a single mechanic - Research - in more detail.

Tesla Design Challenge 0328016 — Top-Down Designs

Hello again, everyone! Yes, this week is a Tesla double feature! Yesterday, I discussed some approaches to filling the Tesla set skeleton as a team. One such method I mentioned was producing 'bounties', various ideas that simply must be in the final set as a card. This week, we're going to be focusing on one such bounty... the top-down design!

Tesla: Skeleton Key, or, Approaches to Team Set Design

Hello again, everyone! Over the past few weeks we've done some serious work on the set skeleton for Tesla, such as in the Filling in the Skeleton challenge, as a part of the final push to get the project closer to serious playtesting. Today, I'd like to talk about how the process of filling the skeleton has gone, some discussion of approaches to collaboratively filling the set skeleton as a team, and more.

Tesla Design Challenge 031016 — Filling in the Skeleton

Howdy all! We're nearing the weekend, and what better way to celebrate than with a Tesla design challenge? Over a the Multiverse site for Tesla, progress has been steady. We've been chipping away at the file, and now, let's make the final push to fill in the skeleton completely!

Tesla Design Challenge 022916 — Aggressive Mechanics

Howdy all! Let's start off the week with a Tesla design challenge! Last week, there was some discussion on the Multiverse about finding a possible replacement for Renown, given how often it's been overlapping with Revolution. So let's address the issue with a design challenge!

Tesla: Playtest Engineering III: Testing Cards

This article is WotC-safe.

Hello again, everybody! Once again, a return from a lengthy break, and this time, we're concluding the series about designing an all-commons playtest. Last time, we designed all the commons for our playtest. In the first part, we talked about the overall structure of a playtest set. Now, we're onto the most important part: playtesting the cards, gathering feedback, and using that feedback to improve both the designs and the set as a whole.

Tesla: Design Challenge 012016 — Noncreature Mechanics

Howdy all. We're taking a break from our series on playtest design - so I can gather some more feedback from playtesting - and during this break I'd like to have a design challenge! One thing I noticed while gathering mechanics a while back, and especially while putting together the playtest, is that we could use a few more options for noncreature mechanics for Tesla.

And there's where you come in!

Tesla: Playtest Engineering II: Designing Cards

Hello again, everybody! I'm back from my holiday vacation, and eager to jump once more into the fray! Last time, we began a series on designing an all commons playtest, from start to finish. In the first part, we talked about the overall structure of a playtest set, and how one can use concepts like as-fan to help quickly create such a structure, using our custom collaborative set Tesla as an example. This time, we're going to learn how to quickly fill in this structure with actual cards.