21 Ways to Design a Card: Part 7 — Read R&D Articles

In this series so far, I've often discussed ways to get random stimulus that sparks off free association of some kind. But once you get that stimulus, the direction in which you take that design is often guided by your understanding of what you think is good in a card.

Oftentimes, I'll look at the initial stimulus and see something that connects to a design question I've been thinking about (such as "how do I make mill spells interactive and strategic?"), or a category of fun that I want to cater to, and that guides me to the final design.

When designing cards, it's important to have this sort of perspective on what you think cards should be like.

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. 

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...."