Friday, March 30, 2018

Beacon of Creation Episode 16 notes

Hey there Beaconeers! 

Last week's design challenge had quite a few submissions, and we didn't have enough time on the show to go over them so Ive made a mockup of each submission.

The  host/augment challenge last week was to make a common or uncommon planeswalker that appeals to Johnnies/Jennys and wouldn't be liked by Timmies/Tammies.  I've listed them all here, with creator credits on the artist line.






The most interesting trends that I noticed on these cards is that they all have only one or two loyalty abilities and most of them are not Legendary. Only one of them has an ability that adds counters. This group gives us a great idea of what planeswalkers could look like at lower rarites.

Our worldbuilding challenge was to make commons that highlight the five mechanincs of Castmire, our custom set.




These five cards each interact with gates.  Two of them are gates themselves, two give you a bonus if you're playing with gates, and one of them punishes opponents who are playing gates.





It's strange how designers design cards that are similar.  Melonbomb and I both designed a "shade" card.  I like his design better, though.  The flavor of Shady Past is perfect.


Speaking of parallel design.  Bradley Wilson and I made almost the same card this time around.  Mine is probably undercosted and his is probably overcosted, but maybe a 1W or 2W creature with a version of this ability will be in our final set file.





I really enjoy Brad's cycle of artifacts.  They all trigger from one of the five mechanics in the set.



I'm really enjoying the direction that Haunt is taking in Castmire. These cards all do something a little different with Haunt, and I think there is a lot of cool design space that we haven't explored yet, too.



I'm also enjoying investigate in Castmire, as well.  It's a really nice smoothing mechanic, and can easily replace cantrips in the set.  It gets bonus points for it making tokens that you can interact with in interesting ways..

Next week's challenges:

Host/Augment: Has to have Kaya's Name in the title/ planeswalker deck specific card.

Worldbuilding: Cycle of common creatures that live outside the mansion; like the guy who clears the gutters, or whatever.









Friday, March 23, 2018

Beacon of Creation Episode 15 notes

Hey there Beaconeers!

This weeks's challenges are as follows:

Host/Augment: Anti-Timmy/Tammy, pro-Johnny/Jenny, common or uncommon Planeswalker.

Worldbuilding: Design one uncommon card for each of the sets mechanics. (Investigate, Haunt, Gates matter, Shadow, and Detain)

You can send your designs to beaconcreation@gmail.com, or tweet them @magicdesigncast. We usually record on Monday evening, so you have the whole weekend to do them!You are always welcome to do old design challenges if you're not fully caught up yet.  We look at all the emails.


-Adam

Friday, March 16, 2018

Beacon of Creation Episode 14 notes

Hey there Beaconeers!

This week's challenges are as follows: 

Host/Augment: A card that deals with the bottom of the library/is a counterspell

Worldbuilding: Flavor text for a red card that fits the noir theme.

Bonus:  19 black commons sent in by Reuxben! (Thanks for your work!)






















Friday, March 9, 2018

Beacon of Creation Episode 13 notes

Hey there Beaconeers!

This week's host/augment challenge is to make a mono-colored permanent with the Izzet watermark that must also have a keyword ability.

This week's worldbuilding challenge is a bit more nebulous.  Using the design skeleton guidelines here: Create at least one common card to flesh out our set. Make as many as you like, and remember our set mechanics!  Shadow, Investigate, Haunt, Gates matter, and Detain.

Friday, March 2, 2018

Beacon of Creation Episode 12 notes

Hey there Beaconeers!

This week's Host/Augment challenge is to make a White creature with a flavorful drawback/ it must have the word "Die" in its text box twice.

The worldbuilding challenge it create the green planeswalker on Castmire.  We've talked quite a bit about this planeswalker in past episodes, especially on the episode with Michelle.  We haven't quite nailed down what this planeswalker is, or what its abilites are. Let's fix that!


Last week's challenges were to make a cycle of commons that were set on Castmire, and to make a meld card with the three parts each being a different color.

Zefferal posted his cards on twitter.






I love the idea of making clues into actual spells. They help trigger things like Tireless Tracker, and are super flavorful. Here is his crack at the meld challenge:



Bradley Wilson submitted this cycle:





Keeping these abilities at sorcery speed is good for keeping complexity low at common. Plus, Butler creature type!  Co-Host Bradley had some cool submissions as well.  Here are his commons:




I like the investigatory feel of this version.  These are slightly changed due to the short conversation we had about them on the podcast.
Brad's meld:
Super cool theme.  I think the Guardian still needs a bit of reworking, but it's a great idea. Here's my common cycle:






I'm not super impressed by my work here.  These cards might be too strong and are probably too complicated for common. My meld cards, though, I'm pretty proud of.










Bonus card!