Random discussions

edited November 2023 in Off-topic Chat
I were very bored so I came up with this discussion. It’s just a discussion where you can post and discuss about interesting topics.

If you want to post anything random, this is where you can.
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Comments

  • I’ll start. The first topic I would like to talk about is:
    What cards you should have created for considering yourself a “real” cardsmith?

  • edited October 2023
    A few examples are a kobold, a mox and an un-card.
  • And a snail.
  • And figures, of course.
  • Remember this card?


    This is them now

    Feel old?

    For me, I would try to understand what went wrong and how can I fix it. I will try to rework and rework it until it's fixed well with very little flaws. If I can improve the old card or something similar as that while exploring and experimenting the card smithing then I can consider myself as "real" cardsmith.
  • You know what would be pretty cool? A discussion where people could post various card ideas/concepts they have had (anywhere from general to very specific), but don't feel like using themselves, and other people could use them!
  • @TheDarkKnight1234567 True! That could be for another discussion. I made this conversation to have an interesting topic to talk about in a dynamic way. You can also post here anything you want to say, but you don't know where.
  • @smax765 I guess I make the cutoff for real cardsmith.  I would add to that a balanced common card with a custom ability, since common cards impose lower power limits and will test a cardsmith's ability to create within those limits.

    https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/roguhn-the-prodigal


    https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/sanguine-mox


    https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/fluster-cluck-1


    https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/ethereal-nightguard


  • Unfortunately, I haven't made a Kobold and a Mox, so I guess I'm not a real cardsmith yet... ?

    However, I have made a (hopefully) balanced common, and an Un-card:

    Syphon Lightning

    A Pitiful Attempt to Defy Fate
  • @Jadefire
    Does this card makes me a "real" cardsmith?

  • @FireOfGolden Misdirected seems reasonable as an "upgraded" Negate.  While it doesn't technically contain a custom ability, forcing a target change to one of the spell's controller's choice that's controlled by another player is fairly novel and only somewhat reminiscent of an effect like Illusionist's Gambit.  Although my personal preference is to not recycle existing Magic art, I'd say the concept and balancing of the card make the cut.
  • The week is ending, so if someone has a question, you can post it here.
  • edited November 2023
    Here is my second question.
    What is (at least as for you) the best way to create a good card?
  • Assuming we're being as generic as possible about the meaning of 'good card':
    1. Begin with the core concept. This can come from anywhere, and it need not be more than a few descriptive words.
    2. Search for cards with effects similar to what you want your card to do. Use these as reference for wording, costs, rarity, P/T, etc. (I prefer using Scryfall for this, especially once you get the hang of the simple and powerful search syntax.)
    3. Compile a draft in your card editor of choice. (I prefer MTG.Design for this, particularly if I think there will be many drafts.)
    4. If your draft has too much text, pare down the concept and revise accordingly.
    5. Check for balance issues and revise accordingly. (If you've done step 2 properly, this may often come down to a matter of experience, particularly where infinites, locks, and other shenanigans are concerned.)
    6. Do you like the card you've come up with? Has it accomplished what you wanted, or as close as is reasonable? Do you still want to make that concept? (There are plenty more questions you can ask here, but I think you get the point.) If not, consider revising the core concept and returning to step 2, potentially saving the current draft for use as the starting point of another design.
    If you're unsure about anything during any step of the process, you can always head to the cantinapost over here (though this one's like pulling a lottery at time of writing), or message someone directly.

    As an example, here's a rough outline of how I arrived at Rantou, Master of the Festival:
    I recently built a Seizan historic brawl deck on Arena, and as enjoyable as it might be to watch your opponent self-destruct, a five mana 6/5 that has a tendency to give your opponent two cards and die immediately is a hard sell at best. And so my core idea became "a legendary creature that's a unique spin on Seizan and similar effects."

    One family of effects similar to Seizan is Nekusar and other draw punishers, so I started brainstorming variations on "whenever an opponent draws a card, ~ deals 1 damage to that player." After a couple iterations, I settled on "Whenever a card is put into an opponent's hand, ~ deals 1 damage to any target."

    These sorts of effects tend to have card draw attached to them when they're on legendary creatures, so now I considered variations on "At the beginning of each player’s draw step, that player draws an additional card." Since my card cares about cards being put into the hand from anywhere, I eventually settled on "At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player exiles the top card of their library, then puts it into their hand." Since this firmly in red's realm, my card should be at least black-red to justify it.

    To recap, my card draft currently looks like this:

    NAME {N}{b}{r} 

    Legendary Creature – ??? [P/T]

    Whenever a card is put into an opponent's hand, ~ deals 1 damage to any target.

    At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player exiles the top card of their library, then puts it into their hand.

    (N here is a variable, as the mana cost is usually one of the last things I decide on)

    Proceeding to the art and name, while I normally look at Artstation and Pinterest for card art, I've been playing around with niji・journey recently, and had made the art I ended up using for Rantou a few days prior. (To skim over how I decided on the art and his name, I'm a fan of various Far Eastern cultures, this song came out recently, and I'm mildly proficient in Chinese and Japanese.) The creature types followed from the art and its context, so now the only things left to decide on were the mana cost and P/T.

    Recap after art choice:

    Rantou, Master of the Festival {N}{b}{r}

    Legendary Creature – Minotaur Demon [P/T]

    Whenever a card is put into an opponent's hand, ~ deals 1 damage to any target.

    At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player exiles the top card of their library, then puts it into their hand.

    Now, if you recall the Nekusar-style effects I mentioned earlier, those cards tend to cost 3~5 mana, so it should be pretty safe to put Rantou at {2}{b}{r} since he's a 2-color legendary creature. With nothing particularly aggressive or defensive about him, making Rantou a 3/3 to compensate for the card advantage and damage he throws around looks to be fairly normal. Since I don't find him to be particularly strong or weak in any sense, I set him at rare, giving me this draft:

    Rantou, Master of the Festival {2}{b}{r} (R)

    Legendary Creature – Minotaur Demon [3/3]

    Whenever a card is put into an opponent's hand, ~ deals 1 damage to any target.

    At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player exiles the top card of their library, then puts it into their hand.

    But you may have noticed that, while this is a perfectly good card, this isn't what I linked to at the beginning. That's because, in my Step 6, I decided that the abilities didn't fit the aesthetic I'd created with the art, name, etc., so I saved this text to put on another card and went back to the drawing board. At this point, I recalled my Hyakki Yakou collection and Archfiend's Revel, the general ideas of which (and a handful of existing cards) inspired the moderate shift to the version I published.

  • edited November 2023
    I don't know about you guys, but this is I usually create 'good' cards:

    1. Decide I should probably make a card, since jpastor said I need to make one more card to qualify for the cardsmith league playoffs, and I still haven't completed my last mystery box challenge from 10,000 BCE.
    2. Try and think of a unique and interesting card concept, but to no avail.
    3. A week later, when I'm unable to write down anything, think of an idea so amazing, Richard Garfield would be jealous.
    4. Promptly forget said idea.
    5. A day or so later, while I should be working, remember the idea and write it down in a Google Doc, aptly named 'MTG Thing'.
    6. Decide my idea is very stupid.
    7. Try and change it and take away what I don't like, until it's actually good.
    8. Make the card on MTGCardsmith, and post it!
    9. Realize I forgot the mana cost, so I delete it and make it again.
    10. Once the card is on the MTGCardsmith home page, notice that I forgot the artist, but the card already has 10 faves and I can't edit it because I don't have premium, so oh well...
  • I have two general approaches, and I think they align with a top down or bottom up kind of approach.

    Sometimes, I am playing or crafting or watching MTG content and think "wouldn't it be cool to have a card that did ___?"  So I make a card that does that and spend a bunch of time trying to figure out what would be a good name, color, cost, image, etc. to capture that function.

    Other times, I'll have an experience (big or small) that makes me think, what if that were a Magic Card?  I'll then have the flavor of the card first, but no idea what the card will ultimately do.  I then have to rack my brain to come up with some way to represent the feeling or experience I'm trying to capture in card form.

    There are other approaches, as well, I guess, or at least other initiators.  I'll sometimes give myself challenges, or get a challenge from the forums, and that will send me down one of the two previously mentioned paths, for instance.

    When I'm actually making the card, however, my process is almost always linear, straight down the page.  I'll often spend several minutes trying to get the text box straight in my head so I can put down the right mana cost, rather than just filling out the text box first and then going back to add the mana cost later.  It's not a great strategy, but it's how I tend to work.
  • It’s the moment to post my third question. It’s very simple. What is the decks you usually play? Favorite colors? Tribes? Cards?
  • Blue and red deck ?
  • I love whatever I haven't done before.  I love winning with complex and convoluted combos.  I love wins where it gets to the point where I feel like I can just about do everything, for instance, I had a game yesterday on Arena where I had blinked Oracle of the Alpha a half a dozen times, filling my deck with the power nine, before I started blinking Etali to play all the spells from my and my opponent's decks, but they'd just comboed off the turn before, and had a massive and nearly impenetrable board.  I eventually won by taking a bunch of extra turns with all my Time Walks, and casting a bunch of Ancestral Recalls, targeting them.  It was an absolute pile of jank, and I'd lost with that deck dozens of times, but it was worth it to watch my opponent try to counter my attempt to make them draw three cards only to have it countered by the Jin-Gitaxias I'd stolen from their deck.  Would I enjoy playing that deck again today, however, probably not.  I did my thing, and now it's time to move on to an equally convoluted, yet otherwise completely different way to win.
  • I try my best to play a mix of decks with different strategies and power levels, just for variance. I'd have to say Black is my favourite colour, because historically most of the decks I have built contain black. Favourite Tribe would likely need to be Goblins, because funny. Finally, I like cards that give me an unnecessarily large (but not infinite) amount of something, but my unrelated pet card would be hot soup : ) .
  • I changed my mind to a discussion where anyone can post any random question or start a random conversation with the rest of the cardsmiths.
  • I have here a question:
    What was the first character you created for a MTG card?
  • I'm glad you asked! My first & only original MTG character is Hopscotch.

    Hopscotch Bard of Waterdeep

    PS: I know that it should be worded as 'Saga spells you control have read ahead' but I don't have premium so I cant fix it (although I certainly would not mind if I were gifted premium  ;)).
  • This card would be first ever, but I deleted it from Mtgcardsmith.com. Want to know whats remarkable? The Internet never forget it.


    Compare this to;

  • My first card ever made is my first legendary creature.
    Do you want to meet him? (Oh, the card is in Spanish)

    The card is very bad worded, so here is what it does:
    Front face:
    Your life total can’t be reduced as long as you control a token spirit or angel.
    Whenever a spirit deals damage to a player, create a 1/1 black spirit creature token with first strike.
    {8}{w}{b}: transform [cardname].
    Back face:
    At the beginning of your upkeep, put five +1/+1 counters on this creature.
    Token angel and spirit creatures you control get +1/+1.
    When this creature transforms, tap each creature you control with power 3 or greater.

    Basically, very OP on front face, very bad on back face.

    And that’s why I am trying to get the best Angie card. For that, I am creating his background, and that’s why I have chosen this question.
  • LvBLvB
    edited November 2023
    Looks like "Agnor, Spiritman" and "Agnor, Angelman" to me when they are in the Stickman Realm o:) >:) B)

    My random question: Was it a good idea to buy 14 bonehoard dracosaur and hope that the price of them goes up ? xD
  • @LvB @smax765
    Unlocked idea: "Reaperman" ?
  • Seems that the raven man has defeated Extus, @jaceberlin…

  • @LvB
    Since you loved Snail so much, here's one for you, but paper verison!

  • @jpastor
    That real????!!
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