Magic the Gathering Custom Set Design - The Skeleton

I enjoy making my own Magic cards as much as any other Magic enthusiast. While creating single cards is a fulfilling exercise, one may become motivated enough to attempt what employees at Wizards of the Coast do: design and perfect a custom set of their own. I've been wanting to write some blog articles that might aid others in set creation, or at a minimum push others toward thinking about what goes into making a set. Although it seems a bit of an odd topic to start with, I thought I would begin by discussing a tool which aids in the creation of a set: the Skeleton.

When you begin to write essays in Middle School English, the teacher may want you to start your paper by writing an outline. For Magic Sets the Skeleton is the outline. How complex a creator makes the Skeleton can aide or deter the set's progress from idea to completion. The first thing the Skeleton defines is how many cards the set will contain. I've made very small sets that have had only 50 cards, but most small sets range around 150 cards, while larger sets contain around 250 to 300+ cards.

The second thing the Skeleton define is how these cards are spread among the five colors and multicolor/colorless cards. Most sets will strive for an even spread among the five colors and a spread among the multicolor cards. The number of colorless artifacts and lands will tend to remain fluid in order to aide in maintaining this balance. The balance in the five colors isn't always necessary, as a designer may desire to make more cards for one color than for another.

Our third level of the Skeleton is rarity, which happens to be one of the trouble points for myself in the skeleton. Rarity is a difficult matter to design into a card, because often people mistake uniqueness for power level. Look at Fork, Twincast, or other "copy target spell" cards for example.  These cards however are rarely used in mainstream tournament decks, so they aren't OP. So why are these cards rare? Every one of these cards are rare because copying big spells for little mana is unique. The problem in designing cards to fit into a space in the third level is that those cards are often OP instead of Unique, which often leads the card to be thrown out later in design.


The lowest levels are design choices based on how the designer wants to push the set. For example the set may contain any number of two-color factions, such as a group of red-green barbarians. The designer may then set aside half of the red cards and dedicate them to being part of the barbarian faction. In this case a designer may be forced to design a card that is sub-par or broken.

There are of course easy ways to fix the problems that the Skeleton creates. The most obvious solution of course is to just design more cards than are necessary for your set, then whittle out the bad cards. If creativity is not your strong suit (or you just plain run out of ideas), it may be necessary to allow some flexibility in the skeleton. While you may need six good cards for your faction, you may find that only five of the cards you made are up to par. You could always bring in another card and change up its flavor to match your skeleton, but it might be a more suitable solution to maintain the card as-is and change your skeleton.

In final note I will point out that the Skeleton is a powerful tool in the design of a Magic set, but a player should be wary of the Skeleton's negatives and not force undesirable cards into the Skeleton.

Pokemon - That First Choice

I'm reminiscing of the good old days of Pokemon Red and Blue. As you recall there was the choice of one of three starter pokemon: Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle.

As you know with pokemon games the three were part of the rock-paper-scissors style that Pokemon is known for. Alas at the start of the original games the choice would seem to be an easy one. You began with your first gym battles against Brock and Misty, Rock and Water trainers respectively, both of which were weak to grass and strong against fire. Thus Bulbasaur was the best choice in the beginning, while Charmander would be the weakest.

Brock in particular was difficult, his rock Pokemon are nearly untouchable by normal type attacks, requiring you to train several pokemon to pretty high levels. Whereas Bulbasaur learned Vine Whip at 13, and Squirtle learned Bubble at 8, Charmander would never learn a move. In Red you could level Butterfree to level 12, where it would learn Confusion. But that would be if you started with a Caterpie and leveled it through Metapod (as opposed to starting at a higher Metapod that only knew Harden). If you had Blue, you were stuck with Beedrill, unless you managed to get lucky enough to find a Caterpie or Metapod, which had a 5% appearance rate. Your only other options were Rattata, the Nidorans, Pikachu, and Pidgey, none of which had a useful move early. (Yellow solved this problem by giving the Nidorans Double Kick at level 12)

Alas, there is an upside to picking Charmander. Fire type Pokemon are fairly hard to get to until Route 7, where one must search for either a Growlithe (Red, and only knew Ember until Level 50) or a Vulpix (Blue, which learned Ember immediately and that only until level 35). The other option was to transform their Eevee into a Flareon, which learns Ember at level 31. However the option for Flareon denies you the option of using Eevee to evolve into Jolteon, hands down the best Electric type in the game (If you didn't bother trying to get Pikachu, Jolteon is the only Electric type you will see until you get to the Power Plant).

But I digress, for most people the triad problem can be solved by trading with another cartridge that restarts its game multiple times (5 times and once more gives both cartridges all three). The fact that you can do this is the sole reason you begin by delivering the package to Viridian in the beginning, which would bore the hell out of most of today's ADD-riddled kids. Nonetheless the initial choice of one of the three helped give players a unique way of playing, allowing them to choose their play-style in a manner not seen since Mega Man's initial choice of bosses.

After Innistrad: Where To Next?

Innistrad is one of the best storylines Magic the Gathering has ever had. It has a very easy to follow and well explained storyline, there aren't massive plotholes or retcons, yet it still uses characters that have previously been introduced (Way back in Lorwyn, although back then they weren't the focus of the story).

So what's next for Magic? That's what I want to determine here, and to do so by examining each of the planeswalkers:

Ajani: Last seen in Gathering Forces, Part 1. He was trying to convince Elspeth to return to Alara, which while broken, is not lost.
Jace: I forget most of what happened during Test of Metal, but that book has appeared to be written off as to have never happened. It appears he is still in control of the Consortium on Ravnica, and has been in contact with many of the walkers. Outside of this he appears to be looking to a solution to the Eldrazi
Liliana: Currently on Innistrad, and is currently seeking out the four demons who own her soul. Grislebrand is her second, and unless her role ends on Innistrad, we will likely see her again.
Chandra: Last Seen in Awakenings, Part 3. She left Zendikar shortly after fighting Jace and Sarkhan in the Eye.
Garruk: Currently chasing after Liliana on Innistrad. Whether he will break his curse so soon is unlikely, and will probably follow Liliana.
Sarkhan Vol: Sarkhan had been seen stalking Liliana for Bolas, and has more recently returned from the Eye of Ugin. He has been working for Bolas, whom he sees as some sort of idol.
Sorin: While he left Zendikar to look for a way to stop the Eldrazi, he has reappeared on his home of Innistrad to try to find Avacyn and restore order to the plane.
Nissa: Last seen on Zendikar, making a mistake in freeing the Eldrazi and then fleeing to look for help.
Gideon: Arrived on Zendikar just in time to see the Eldrazi freed. Has also fled to search for help.
Nicol Bolas: Presumably plotting to take over the Multiverse (still).
Dack Fayden: Character in the Comic Books who has landed himself on Innistrad. What he will do is left to be determined.

The Mirrodin Group
I seperate these planeswalkers because I did not read the Scars of Mirrodin Set Novel, so I am going off of forum posts. It seems however that this book might get reconned sometime in the future.
Elspeth, Karn, and Koth: Fighting Phyrexia to try to reclaim Mirrodin.
Venser: Dead
Tezzeret: Last seen allied with the Phyrexians and trying to become the Father of Machines, fighting with Glissa for he right.

So What's Next?
While Innistrad so far has succeeded in introducing Garruk and Liliana into the storyline, it has introduced yet another substory, Liliana's quest to reclaim her soul. To end Innistrad, Liliana will succeed in furthering her goal, however this does not unite the side story to the main story. Thus we introduce Sorin, who has two purposes, giving us the back-story of Innistrad (Avacyn), but he also gives us a link to the Eldrazi and the main story. Thus this leads the story to progress from Sorin in two possible directions, which I'll get to below.

There have been rumors aplenty that the next block will feature a return to Ravnica, and thus I deduct the following prediction: Ravnica remains to be a place in the multiverse where planeswalkers frequently intersect. Jace retains the Consortium there, and coming back from Zendikar he is likely to want to gather allies to fight the Eldrazi. Gideon and Nissa have also been looking for aid against the Eldrazi as well, thus come to visit Jace. Ajani too may be looking to hire aid for restoring Alara, but upon hearing the Eldrazi may be willing to let Alara be. Chandra likely will not be involved with the gathering group, despite knowing what happened there.

This leads to the last tidbit: Who comes from Innistrad? Sorin is not very welcome on Innistrad thanks to his creation, thus is also likely to join. However, while on Innistrad he is likely to align himself with either Garruk or Liliana as the book climaxes at the Helvault. In my opinion, I would think he would aide Garruk in getting his curse lifted, although Garruk will likely leave to chase Liliana after uniting with the Consortium on Ravnica. Dack Fayden will also join with the Consortium, aligning himself with Sorin.

While the driving point is toward the gathering of planeswalker allies to fight against Bolas, the plot is unwritten by Ravnica itself: What great cataclysm could occur on the plane itself that could serve to create a the backstory for the set? While an attack by the Eldrazi could work, the player base was romanced to Ravnica because of the unique guild divisions it once had,  a fact which would stir scrutiny among the fanbase.

However, if the direction the story has been taken by Innistrad is any harbinger of things to come, we are in for one hell of a nice ride.