Getting Custom

Hello everyone and welcome to the first installment of Getting Custom. Getting Custom is about players creating homebrew Magic cards. I hope that I may be able to write an article each week on certain card designs. I even hope to be able to find some other custom card creators to help us through the design process.

So as I have told before, I surf the forums at MTGSalvation quite a bit. I am know to that community as 'jfdep'. I have had quite a few comments over the past few years on my games that I create for the forum games. In fact, it was because of those first comments that I went on and developed my own Magic Block called 'Falling Star', but more on that later in upcoming Getting Custom.

Recently, I came across a forum game called "The Fantasmigorical Cube Creation Contest!". The user is putting together a Cube of custom designed magic cards, so I thought that maybe I should give it a try.

The stipulations was the following:

• Had to be an artifact or land card
• Had to accelerate mana generation at the cost of another resource

Sounded easy enough. I sat and looked through all the art I have collected over the past few years trying to find something that make for a good land or artifact. At the time this article was being made, I have 3,194 image files in my Magic art folder and I continue to obtain more. As I was scrolling, I came across this piece of art and knew that I had to create a land around this piece. Take a look.

Just beautiful isn't it? I was very well done. The artist is know on DeviantART as Angela-T. Many of her works are beautiful and very well done. I would like to thank her for the art that inspired me to create this card.

Very elegant and simple. One user on the forums described it like this.

I like this card so much. Terrific name. Terrific concept. Terrific playstyle. Terrific flavor text, and terrific render. I would love to see a cycle of these, each with color related drawbacks. -- Alabran

I was happy to see that others liked my land card, and Alabran's comment made me feel like I wanted to continue the cycle. Now, this is where the work starts. How do I make a cycle of these lands that has appropriate backdraw from each with still being balanced?

Again, I turn to my Folder-O-Art and looked for some art for the next color pairing which was going to be green, white, and blue. About three quarters of the way down I find this little piece of art. Looks fantastic and I thought captured white rather well.

So, I had the art now what? Well, that was simple, add all the needed text. The hard part was the drawback. So the point of this cycle of lands is to help the opponent out when you help yourself. The more opponents you have that worse it is for you to use it. The Grove's primary color was green and that gave the opponent life. I didn't want to give this one life gain, since I wanted them all to have different effects. Then it dawned on me. White does like to exile cards, but how many cards is enough to exile. Again, I turned to the first card. The more players the more unfair it gets. The final result of the card looked like this.

It took awhile, but I was able to create a whole cycle. Each has their own unique drawback that is indeed color appropriate. Take a look for yourselves.

Color Shard: White/Blue/Black

Color Shard: Blue/Black/Red

Color Shard: Black/Red/Green

So, I think that is enough of my talk for now. I would like to know what you think about these lands. But until next time, this is Deppe passing the turn.

The Magic Show with Evan Erwin

Heres this week's weekly dose of Evan Erwin and the Magic Show.

And here is a bonus dose with a classic

Rumors, Speculation, and Discussion

Hello everyone, I want to spend a little bit of time today on new set rumors, speculation, and discussion. Before the release of a new set, we have a time period where these three words have a whole lot of meaning.

I spend a lot of time each day on the MTGSalvation Forums. I mean like a lot of time, like I always have a few threads open in my browser when I'm online. So lately, there have been a few cards being spoiled by Wizards of the Coast for the upcoming set Zendikar. This set is said to house a crate full of magic flavor and brings back a mechanic that players love to play.

One Wizards announces the new set, speculation starts to happen. People start new threads in the Speculation forum at MTGSalvation. This speculation season started off with hardly anything to work with except for two sentences, "Priceless Teasures. Deadly Perils". This is all that people had to work with for a few months. many started to browse through all the futureshifted cards from Futuresight to see what cards may fit the tiny spoiler we were given.

Not much time later, Mark Rosewater wrote an article about card design and gave another tiny spoiler. He wrote "you wouldn't believe us if we said we were doing ______ without ______." He did not give anything away, but what he wrote started even more speculation. There is so many things that can fit into the spoiler he gave us. Threshold without 7 came to my mind. Other things that can fit are "Affinity without Artifacts" and "Splice without Arcane".

Another hint came from yet another article on the Magic website. we were told that heavy multicolor would not happen again for a while. After this tidbit, players started talking about how Zendikar would be a monocolor themed block. This is something that I could agree with, more so after the new dual lands were released with Magic 2010. The dual lands from M10 deal with basic land types. So the only way they could be used most efficiently would be in a two color deck with many basic lands. Another thought came to mind not too long later. Maybe there will be nonbasic lands in Zendikar that have basic land types. They make the M10 duals great and they help support a mono color theme.

So last week, we had Gencon. The Convention for games. At Gencon, Wizards released a few products before they hit the streets a week or two from now. Planechase and From the Vault: Exile was released to a very limited amount of people. Each Planechase deck has a card from Zendikar in them. All of these cards were common, but four commons were better than not having anything. Each card displayed good flavor and revealed a possible sub-theme for the set.

Currently Wizards is slowly spoiling Sorin the new planeswalker from Zendikar. Not much is know about Sorin, but we do have the art, name, type, and loyalty. And as one can imagine, the forums went nuts. Speculating abilities, colors, and playability. Today, Wizards spoiled another planeswalker that will be in Zendikar. The new Chandra has been revealed, and just like Sorin, we only know the color, type, and art. And during my browsing of the "New Chandra" thread on MTGSalvation, I came across this picture:

Could this be the new Chandra? Could it have been leaked? The answer to those questions is no. Why you ask? Because a few days before I was browsing and saw this picture:

At first glance, the card looks real with the counters and things on it, but once you take a closer look, its clearly fake. As you can see, both cards are the same except for a few things. For one, Chandra's hair is coming out of the border just like the planeswalker art should. Secondly, one picture has two +1 abilities and the other only has one +1 ability. Thirdly, the picture of the cards on the table, the cards have no depth and just looks like they were copied and pasted on the background.

So, why do people do this? Why do they try and create fake cards to put on display? Well that's an interesting question to answer. Because these people think that they can fool others. A lot of times these attempts don't work, but sometimes they do. If you can create a card that looks perfect in every way and I believe it, I say more power to you and good job. But these attempts keep people thinking and gives them more to talk and speculate about.

This card here is one that mocked up for my own custom set.

I think I did a relatively good job with this card, but I do admit that this is far from perfect.

In the end, people just want their handy work recognized and they want something more to talk about. So I how you link back next week when I talk a bit more on Rumors, Speculation, and Discussion. This is Deppe passing the turn.

And here is another little goody that I think you all will enjoy.

The Magic Show with Evan Erwin

And here's your weekly taste of the old school Magic Show

The Magic Show with Evan Erwin

Playing Out Of Your Mind

Soccer is a game that I’ve been playing since I was 5 years old. I became a competitive player for a traveling club in 6th grade, and played up through my first year of college. In that time, I learned a lot about controlling my body, my mind, and the ball both on and off the pitch. Pre-game warm-ups, quarter and semi-final games, and penalty kicks were easily managed by the beginning of high school as I’d spent a lot of time practicing and preparing for these difficult situations. I played “out of my mind” because I as able to take my doubts and fears and remove them from the way I play.

In all honesty, Magic is not something that I should get worked up about. It’s printed cardboard cards with pretty pictures used in imaginary duels with other players with delusions of grandeur. For some reason though, when I play against someone I know to be good or is running a deck I’m ill suited to be playing against (normally control), my hands shake and I become flushed. I make bad plays, I don’t see the damage on the board as well as I should, and I lose to players that I should easily beat.

My challenge has become, “How do I play Magic like I played soccer? How do I get out of my own head?”

Settling into a rhythm is something that I think a lot of players in Magic are unable to do well. This includes getting into a rhythm of play with your deck and your play over all. I frequently am building and dismantling decks to try and find something new and exciting. This prevents me from getting to know the decks I play and have a hard time getting into a rhythm of play.

The easy answer to this problem is to play more Magic. The more I play, the better I become at playing different strategies of the game. When I started, playing Control was never an option for me. I didn’t want to play the game like that. So, until recently, I’ve shut myself off from playing Control type decks, favoring Aggro or Combo. As I learn to play new ways, more cards are open to me and my familiarity with the game increases.

This summer, with my job scheduling me the hours that they have, I often times must race over from work to try and make the first round so that I don’t start the first round with a game loss. This puts me out of my element and I don’t really stabilize mentally until the 3rd or 4th round, and by then I’m out of contention for the Top 8.

What this means for me is that I have to find new ways to make the routine I have of getting focused a much shorter process on days where I can’t take my time to be sufficiently prepared. If you find yourself rushing over to your local game shop on Friday nights, here are a few tips to making sure that you aren’t rushed anymore than you have to:

• Get your deck up to FNM quality on Tuesday night

  This may feel like over preparation, but believe me: the nights where I go in with a deck I’ve prepared a few days in advance almost always does better than the deck I slap together the night before. Locking in your 75 cards early in the week allows you clear your mind and not have it overwhelmed with questions about your deck at the last minute.

• Play test your weak matchups and your strong matches equally.

  When you play decks you know you aren’t well suited for, it can be hard coming from a disadvantaged position. By playing the decks you are going to have trouble with, you learn the tricks and strategies that your opponents using that deck or deck type will be using against you. No longer will you be surprised by cards your opponents play because you will have seen the play multiple times before. Learning to play around the pit falls will carry you a win against decks you are expected to lose.

  Nothing gives you the confidence you need like beating decks like you know should. Testing against your best matchups is a good way to boost your confidence in-between or after testing against your weaknesses. Losing is never fun, so mix up your “shouldn’t win’s” with “gimmie games” to keep a level head.

My last suggestion is that you try and roll yourself into play gradually. When I arrive at my local game shop, there’s nothing I want to do more than to shuffle up and play some Magic as quickly as possible. Spend sometime away from other players if you can and get yourself there gradually. My Tuesday night schedule goes something like this:

1. Show up 40-45 minutes early

   Few players are there so early and this will give you plenty of time to get comfortable with your surroundings and prepare for the games you will be playing.

2. Once players arrive, play casual games with non-tournament decks

   You might be there for some solid Type 2 Magic competition, but playing outside the format or with something that is for fun only helps to put you in the mood for Magic. Try to play something different than what you are playing that evening. My favorite is to play EDH. It is immensely fun to play in single and multiplayer and it allows you to play in a completely for-fun environment.

3. Pre-game your deck

   3. This means that you shuffle, sleeve, double check the sideboard, and make any simple tweeks to the deck that you need to. This is not for major changes. If a couple people show up and are talking about their great new mill decks they are running that night, you are more than welcome to adjust the sideboard to meet the change in your meta-game. However, changing your main deck cards or the deck you are running will throw off your game plan and put you at a disadvantage over players with stable deck strategies.

Above all, remember that you should be playing Magic for the love of the game. When the game feels more like a job than something you do for fun, you might need to take a break from the game. Soccer became a job to me, so I quit playing competitively. On occasions when I lace up my boots to play again, I have so much fun at getting to play once more. No matter what the activity, sometimes you just have to know when to take a break.