Weekend Design Challenge 083118 - No Judge Free-for-All II: Free-er for More than All

It's a holiday weekend, and I'm swamped with non-Magic stuff at the moment, so we'll do another No-Judge Free-for-all. Got a cool idea for a card you want feedback from the Artisan community on? Drop it below in the comments, and then offer someone else some feedback. No one's doing a formal judging this week, but if you have something interesting to show off, I'm sure you'll get some good feedback on it.

Have fun, and enjoy the weekend.

CCDD 083018—Dread Shade

Cool Card Design of the Day
This is an older design I found sitting in my file. Not sure how it came to be. I do dig the flavor of it possessing and animating corpses, and how you usually have to pay black mana to do that.

CCDD 082918—Hobgoblin Warlord & Master Illusionist

Cool Card Design of the Day
Since yesterday's CCDD turned out not to be new, here are two. These both explore double-tribal.

But first, let's briefly explore some good and bad tribal designs.

CCDD 082818—Paired Strike

Cool Card Design of the Day
Here's a top-down-from-the-art implementation of two combatants coordinating an attack on a third.

Multiplicative Design

Today I want to dig into a broad design concept called multiplicative design, and look at how we can approach Magic design through that context.

Weekend Design Challenge 082418 - What's in the Box?

Click through to see the requirements for your design challenge, due by Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which you may use to revise your submission any number of times. I encourage you all to revise your designs at least once in response to feedback. I will review the most recent submission from each designer, or whichever submission you specify you wish to have reviewed.

CCDD 082318—Nightmare's Truth

Cool Card Design of the Day
What makes a horror truly terrifying is not knowing whether you can kill it or not. Or worse, watching it grow stronger when you try to.

As Garfield Intended

I’m a big fan of variant formats. Not only do they add some spice and variety for long time players, but they also allow for more flexibility when scheduling Magic events with your friends (I’m always looking for more limited formats that don’t require 8 people in the same place for multiple hours). When I saw the most recent episode of Enter the Battlefield about Richard Garfield and the Alpha Playtesters, I became inspired. The “original” Magic format they described, full of surprises and built around trading, sounded like a lot of fun! It got me thinking: how can we best recreate that original Magic environment using modern technology and design sensibilities? In this article I’m going to explore the best way to play Magic “as Garfield intended”, literally.

CCDD 082218 - Fastball Special

My current design obsession is translating X-Men mythos into magic cards. Part of what makes the X-Men tick is when they are able to combine their powers in cool and interesting ways.

CCDD 082118—Hell's Hydra

Cool Card Design of the Day
Here's a green-black interpretation of a hydra.
Heads-up: This execution is real mythic.

Weekend Design Challenge 081718 — Over the Counter

Click through to see the requirements for your design challenge, due by Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which you may use to revise your submission any number of times. I encourage you all to revise your designs at least once in response to feedback. I will review the most recent submission from each designer, or whichever submission you specify you wish to have reviewed.

Why Designing Other Games Makes You Better At Designing Magic

I spent several years before the GDS working on non-Magic games, and the experience I gained from that is what gave me the skills necessary to get second place. I wanted to share a couple specific reasons how designing these games helped me as a Magic designer and to help illustrate an alternate path to becoming a Great Designer.

CCDD 081618—Claim Dinner

Cool Card Design of the Day
This Prey Upon variant came top-down from the art. It's essentially a spell version of Polukranos, World Eater's monstrosity trigger, but using a very different template.

CCDD 081518—Killed in the Chaos

Cool Card Design of the Day
It feels great when you can tie an effect that serves a purpose for your game to a strong thematic concept. As the cardname suggests, this story is straight out of Assassin's Creed: No one will see a quiet stabbing in a bustling marketplace.

CCDD 081418 — Limit Break

Cool Card Design of the Day

Time for me to take charge! Today's design was inspired by me wondering, what could creatures do with charge counters?

Weekend Design Challenge 081018 - Guild Leaders/Champions

Hey Artisans. Click through to see the requirements for this weekend's design challenge, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, so once you've got your great idea down, give some thoughtful critique to some of your peers. Revise your submission any number of times, and on Monday-ish, I'll review the most recent submission from each designer.

CCDD 080918 - Guild Excommunicates

This week we looked into joining a guild, and benefiting from being a part of it. Have any cards explored what leaving a guild looks like?

CCDD 080818 - Guild Loyalty Cards

Moving right along with some more Ravnica 3 stuff, I'm pretty convinced at this point that devotion is a fantastic mechanic for a world built around belonging (or not) to a guild. So here's some devotion cards.

CCDD 080718 - Guild Recruitment

I don't know if I made this quite clear yet, but I'm super pumped to be spending a whole year on Ravnica. I was revisiting my dusty old thread about what I would do if I was in charge of designing Ravnica 3, and one of the themes I wanted to explore was being recruited into a guild.

Weekend Design Challenge 080318 - Return 3x Combo!!!

Hey Artisans. Click through to see the requirements for this weekend's design challenge, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, so once you've got your great idea down, give some thoughtful critique to some of your peers. Revise your submission any number of times, and on Monday-ish, I'll review the most recent submission from each designer.

CCDD 080218—Tale Teller

Cool Card Design of the Day
This idea started as a way for red to mitigate countermagic played against it, but then I saw no reason not to open it up for proactive use.

CCDD 080118—Not Your Time

Cool Card Design of the Day
Here's a counterspell that doesn't net you a card if its target costs more.