Weekend Art Challenge 012017—zirngibl

Click through to see the illustration and design requirements for your single  card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which you may use to revise your submission any number of times. I will aim to review the most recent submission from each designer.

Two Interesting Things I Noticed About Kaladesh Design

The first, most readily apparent thing I noticed about Kaladesh is the greatly increased power level of common creatures. The creatures in Eldritch Moon were notably more powerful too, but I chalked that up to small-set-power-upgrade (in which small sets get a bump to power level to help keep sales from dropping as interest in the block levels off). But here's a brand new, and very shiny block, raising the bar for common creatures.

A Set in Three Mechanics

The pendulum swings, but make no mistake, its resting state is not the center.

Every set needs to introduce new mechanics to entice players, even if it offers a new gameplay experience by remixing existing mechanics; that's [one of] the biggest reason[s] the core sets were so unpopular for so long. But how many new mechanics does a set need? 1? 3? 5+?

Kaladesh's success demonstrates 3 is one ideal.

Weekend Art Challenge Review 102216—vlda

Design a card for Kaladesh or Aether Revolt with this art. Bonus points for each of Johnny, Tammy, and Spike to whom it appeals strongly.

Weekend Art Challenge 102216—vlda

Click through to see the illustration and design requirements for your single card submission, due Tuesday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which you may use to revise your submission any number of times. I will aim to review the most recent submission from each designer.

Midweek Art Challenge Review 101716—piotrmtekien

Design a vehicle card for Kaladesh or Aether Revolt. Bonus points if it's common

Midweek Art Challenge 101716—piotrmtekien

Click through to see the illustration and design requirements for your single card submission, due Wednesday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which you may use to revise your submission any number of times. I will aim to review the most recent submission from each designer some time on Thursday (possibly in the comments below, we'll see).

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.

Weekend (Art) Challenge - Digital to Analogue

Weekend Art Challenge

What up, Artisans! Click through to see this weekend's design requirements and lack of art because there is none. Submissions are due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, and everyone is encouraged to give feedback. You may use that feedback to revise your submission any number of times, though if there's any ambiguity as to what your final submission is, I'll make my best guess when doing the renders.

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 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: 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.

Tesla: Playtest Engineering I: Structure

This article is WotC safe.

Hello again, everybody! I hope you've all been enjoying your holidays, and that you continue to do so! Now, back to business. This week, I'll be starting a three-part series on designing an all commons playtest, from start to finish. First off, we'll be discussing 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. (The lessons in this article are great for anyone looking to design a set, though!)

Tesla: Value of Expectation

This article is WotC safe.

Last week, we introduced everyone to the plane of Tesla, Kaladesh, a new plane which debuted in Magic Origins. We also discussed the topic of expectations and the roles they fill in designing a set, and began brainstorming what Kaladesh brings to mind.

This week, we're going to discuss what these expectations of Kaladesh can do for us, and how we can use them to our advantage to give us a guideline for the set's structure and mechanics.

Tesla: Welcome to Kaladesh - Great Expectations

This article is WotC safe.

Last week and the week before, we discussed possibly having Tesla set on Kaladesh, a new plane which debuted in Magic Origins. The discussion began with some great debate on both sides, but over the course of the last week, it seems there was an overall shift towards supporting Kaladesh. The setting seems full of rich inspiration for design even with the sparse details Origins gave us, and the conversations and proposals being thrown around in the comments were promising. For these reasons, it's time I've made my executive decision as the project lead of Tesla. So, without further ado, welcome to the plane of Tesla: Kaladesh!

This week, let's continue going through the final stages of exploratory design, onto one of the big topics I've been planning to discuss, and that our arrival at Kaladesh serves as a great segue to: expectations.

CCDD 090215—Servitors

Cool Card Design of the Day
9/2/2015 - If Magic did go to Kaladesh, would it continue the Thopter token theme from Magic Origins? We've talked about how neat it is that the Kaladesh cards in Origins have an artifact theme almost entirely without artifact cards. My guess is that a Kaladesh set would include Thopter tokens, but could also include one or two other artifact creature tokens.