A Few Other Things

I design Magic cards sometimes. If you're interested in my (rarely active) main blog for some reason, you can find it at auartic. If you want to know something, it's probably in my FAQ.

[abelzumi]

Abelzumi’s Fall 2017 Contest (ft. Taylor Payton)

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY.

This is a special contest, because the reward isn’t product or singles or whatnot - instead, the winner of this contest will have their card illustrated by freelance fantasy artist Taylor Payton.

Reblog this post with a custom MTG card design. If you are doing a card render, do not use art. MSE is highly recommended. If you are somehow unable to submit a custom design, message me privately so we can work something out.

This contest will end and the winners will be announced on the last day of November 2017. No entries will be accepted past midnight PST of Wednesday, November 29th.

So! The point of this contest is to not only get some amazing MTG art out into the world and support artists, but also to develop design choice, spectacle, and a “wow” factor of cards. Each card should be designed with art in mind, something amazing and beautiful, something unique that shows a world and a place that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

Please message me for any questions!

-Abelzumi

[abelzumi]

Oh, and you DON’T need to be following me. Just want to make that clear.

[auartic-games]

Here’s an older design that I've had laying around waiting for an opportunity like this.

[auartic-games]

A couple of interesting pseudo-evasion abilities I thought of for UG uncommons.  

[auartic-games]

Yet another splashy five-color mythic.  I love the idea of this one, although I don’t know how it’d play out in practice. 

[auartic-games]

Build your own mana rock.  A barely-veiled reference to an excellent board game. 

[auartic-games]

“I’m not asking.”

I’m back!  I realize it’s been a while, but here’s something.  

I have no idea how good this is.  Note that your opponent still chooses modes and targets, so most of the time this will just be forcing them to play kinda suboptimally, which seems on its face to be okay given that Duress effects usually deny the option altogether.  That said, if you can Compel a removal spell with no creatures in play and force them to kill one of their own, that’s pretty brutal, which maybe justifies bumping this up to 2 or even 3 mana.

[markrosewater]

Amonkhet Invocations (Masterpieces)

Share with me your thoughts on the new Masterpieces in Amonkhet.

[auartic-games]

I really don’t like them.  I appreciate that you guys are trying to push the boundaries, but here are my thoughts:  

I’m not opposed to the text box or P/T box changes, but the font and spacing on the title and type lines don’t look good to me, and I don’t like the extra hieroglyphics.

Having the colors of the mana symbols dulled down bothers me, and I don’t feel like the frame communicates color effectively enough.

Borderless cards seem wasted if you’re not going to extend the art across the borders and it’s just getting used for a new frame.

Centered text looks weird on Cryptic Command specifically, but I think it’s okay on the other cards.

The Bolas horns on the bottom are cool.

It feels too... Amonkhet?  The Expeditions and Inventions are set on their respective planes, but they don’t feel out of place in another deck.  These are too specific.

Overall, I guess my biggest problem is that it just doesn’t look like a Magic card.  Without the card text I likely wouldn’t even recognize them, and I’m not a fan of that.

[markrosewater]

Why doesn't magic use Semi Colon? Like instead of "As an additional cost to cast CARDNAME..." Why not just; "Additonal cost: etc etc etc... So much waste of space for... Eminence? Elegance? Ultra Conservative rules manager? I think there's more elegance in simple solutions.

Because we already use semicolon as a means to show costs.

[drkobolds]

Ugh, no. They used to do this. (Or, at least, what you seem to mean. Those aren’t semicolons.) Here.

I encountered these cards for the first time when I was a fairly new player. Do you know what I thought they did? I thought, on resolution, you could pay the cost as many times as you want and get the effect that many times. Because that’s what that would mean if it were on a permanent. Nothing about this communicates when you are supposed to pay the extra cost.

“As an additional cost” is very clear. It makes it clear that you can’t play the spell without paying the extra cost, when to pay the cost, and helps make it clear that you don’t get the cost back if the spell is countered. There might be a better wording out there, but going back to (additional cost): (effect) isn’t it.

Reducing word count does not always increase elegance.

[auartic-games]

I think that what’s being proposed would turn Abjure into:

Abjure {U}

Instant

Additional cost: Sacrifice a blue permanent. Counter target spell.

For things like this, Magic tends to use a long dash rather than the colon (or semicolon, which is what was mentioned in the ask but I think that person just had the wrong name).  Which would make Abjure:

Abjure {U}

Instant

Additional cost – Sacrifice a blue permanent Counter target spell.

That saves about a line of text (depending on how long the card’s title is) and I’d say it’s no less clear than saying “As an additional cost to cast ~, […]”.

[mtgfanset]

Custom Magic Discord

Follow this link

The channels are all in alphabetical order. Since we don’t have a set name yet, our channel is #tumblr-fan-set

[auartic-games]

I hang out here!  Come say hi, we don’t bite.

[auartic-games]

A top-down of, well, a slot machine.

In case you aren’t handy with probabilities, this will on average draw you exactly one card after your discard.  Occasionally it’ll be more than that.  But you never know!

[auartic-games]

Just imagine that this has a black color indicator, they are as of yet unavailable on MTG.Design.

[auartic-games]

Fusing Ancestral Recall and Counterspell gets you something that is… balanced?  Maybe?

And featuring obligatory condescending blue flavor text.

[magicarasa]

This is really beautiful.

Just for the record, because this always seems to come up with stuff like this, the spell can’t be cast at all unless there are enough valid targets for it–so three spells currently on the stack. So it can’t be used just to counter one or two spells, it always has to be three.

Which turns it into a really niche effect basically only usable after like Howl of the Horde with raid or to mitigate Storm a bit (and in which case you should be playing Flusterstorm).

[sorin-slackov-bored-of-innistrad]

This wouldn’t actually counter Howl the Horde copies though because those spells aren’t actually cast so they can’t be countered.

[auartic-games]

It can, actually, for the same reason that Flusterstorm works or that you can kill a token copy of a creature with Murder.  The game sees a copy of a spell as a spell as long as it stays on the stack.

[auartic-games]

Fusing Ancestral Recall and Counterspell gets you something that is... balanced?  Maybe?

And featuring obligatory condescending blue flavor text.

[auartic-games]

This doesn’t work in the rules currently, as tokens cease to exist when they’re not on the battlefield as a state-based action, but something like this could be kinda neat with some CR changes.  

[conorace]

Thanks for an Awesome Year everone!

I would just like to thank everyone in the tumblr community for being so awesome and supportive and for helping me reach the point that I have reached today.

Specifically, thanks to @magicarasa who has been super kind and supportive and who inspired me to start creating cards on tumblr with his viking inspired set. Thanks to @imakethecard for always being there to provide feedback and critique on my cards, and to @affinityforanime, @remakingmagic, @mtg-philocalist, @orb-warded-kor-warlord, @follower-of-liliana and @mtgdunkmaster for all their awesome designs and for always being supportive; the custom magic card community on tumblr wouldn’t be the same without all you. Thanks to @kytheon-hero-of-akros for being really cool and having awesome content (and memes), and last but not least thanks to everyone else in the magic community here on tumblr. My blog currently stands at 160 followers with my side blog @bestcustommtg at 298, all from a grand total of 0 followers at the start of the year. I couldn’t have done it without all you guys. I’ve had an awesome year and I can’t wait to see what 2017 brings.

[imakethecard]

And thank you, both for the designs and for starting the compilation blog.

Off the top of my head, some more designers who I’m glad to have around: @tonric, @planeforger, @thereliquarytower, @wapulatus, @auartic-games, @custommagiccardswithnonmagiclore, @dealumi, @legendaryedhplays, @yaldobaoth, @starship-games-design, @moxperidot, @the-last-punbender, @deck-of-saint-vick, @blackdeckwins, @damnyoumodoshuffler, @abelzumi.

Some of them haven’t posted lately, but they all had some good stuff in 2016.

[auartic-games]

I appreciate the shoutout!  I’m glad I started this blog, the feedback from people here has been very helpful.  As one of my New Years’ resolutions I think this year I’m going to try to give back and give commentary on other people’s designs more.  I might do it like magicarasa does and have a weekly thing or something.  

Anyway, happy cardmaking to everyone.

[magicarasa]

jdragsky replied to your post “jdragsky replied to your photo “auartic-games: Something different…”

yeah thats true, its just that as currently stands every single deck in every single format would run three, because the cost is nonexistent (why would a deck not run three?)

Well not every single deck, only the ones that expect they’ll have three or more artifact cards in their graveyard at some point. That rules out a fair number (though any deck with at least that many artifact cards in it isn’t hurt by running a copy of this particular design).

[magicarasa]

jdragsky

yeah but there would be other cards that do different things. my point is, is that if theres even a remote chance this card could trigger, ud run three in yr deck. if im playing ANT storm, theres a very remote chance i end a turn with three artifacts in my graveyard. i would still want three of this card, because the upside of suddenly getting 3 free moxes is so much better than the downside (none).there has to be some kind of cost

reply functionality is no longer working for me. The card includes reminder text for Forgotten which reads “Start the game with up to three forgotten cards with different names in the command zone.” It could only ever be 1 free mana.

[auartic-games]

I’ve found myself unable to reblog replies as well, which I attributed to lack of Tumblr knowledge.  So I’m glad it’s not just me.

Anyway, @jdragsky, in addition to the cards having to be unique, your original suggestion (that they should take up a sideboard slot) is actually how it currently works.  I originally included that in the reminder text, but that took it to sometimes four lines which left barely any room for the actual card’s abilities.  They function more or less the same way as conspiracies in that way.

[auartic-games]

Something different from me– an actual mechanic!  This was inspired by the “forbidden” mechanic which Maro has occasionally discussed.  I’m having a ton of fun designing for it, to the point where I might actually put some effort in and find art and make a mechanic post in the future, but for now it’s 3 AM and I’ll just leave this one here.

In case the reminder text isn’t clear, these work like conspiracies; you put them into the command zone from your sideboard before starting the game, they can’t start in your library.

[auartic-games]

Some more designs.  As usual, my disclaimer that numbers or balance are probably wrong applies here.  

First, something in the same vein as Faded Mox: an artifact that references a historical card.  The memory trigger here is mostly a pun on “ancestral” if I’m being totally honest.

Another somewhat classic design.  The memory trigger is more straightforward here; it just rewards you for surviving a large attack.  Also, fun fact: naming anthems is surprisingly difficult.

Like Bolt, but you reflect it through a Lens of Clarity or a Prophetic Prism or a Lich’s Mirror and suddenly you have two bolts!  Hopefully the flavor comes through there.  It also reflects off of, like, boots, which is maybe not ideal but I find amusing.

I feel like the flavor of a “Forgotten Creature” is strange so here’s a sorcery that just makes a token.  This also explores a little more design space on what kinds of memory triggers you can have.  The second ability could also plausibly have been “At the beginning of your end step, you may sacrifice five creatures [...]” to maintain the symmetry with the other designs, but I think I like this one standing out a little bit.

[auartic-games]

Something different from me-- an actual mechanic!  This was inspired by the “forbidden” mechanic which Maro has occasionally discussed.  I’m having a ton of fun designing for it, to the point where I might actually put some effort in and find art and make a mechanic post in the future, but for now it’s 3 AM and I’ll just leave this one here.

In case the reminder text isn’t clear, these work like conspiracies; you put them into the command zone from your sideboard before starting the game, they can’t start in your library.