Beacon of Creation Episode 52 Notes

Design challeges due Dec 24 at 7pm Pacific:

Top down design:
Big holiday meal or get-together

Bottom up design:
Your take on gates, only one of a cycle needed.

Beacon of Creation Episode 51 Notes

Design challenges due Dec 10 at 7pm.

-Top-down challenge: Design a card that evokes the sensation of being “indoors”.
-Bottom-up challenge: Design a red common that dabbles in undermined design space for red.
-Bonus challenge: Design some common trespass cards.

I added the new design skeleton and the first version of all the commons to the sidebar ->

 Feel free to print out the commons and playtest them.  Any feedback on how they play would be very helpful. Send feedback on playtests to playtest@beaconofcreation.com.

Beacon of Creation Episode 50 Notes

Challenges due Monday, December 3rd by 7pm Pacific time.

Worldbuilding Challenge:
Rare mystery card that use clues.  Make sure it's a cool story moment, as this will be canon in Castmire's story.

Castmire Design Challenge:
A common Haunt creature. (current colors for Haunt are Green, Black, and White)

Current reminder text for Trespass:
(As this spell resolves, exile it haunting target land. When that land's controller is dealt combat damage, you may cast this spell without paying its mana cost. Then put it into its owner's graveyard.)

Beacon of Creation Episode 49 Notes

Our design challenges for next week are due Monday, Nov 26, at 8pm Pacific Time.
-Design a rare for constructed.
-Design a green common that cares about the graveyard.

Beacon of Creation Episode 48 Notes

Hey there, Beaconeers!

We got a lot done this episode regarding Castmire. We talked about the color combinations, draft archetypes, and mechanics for each color.  Our first pass ended up with these pairings:

Haunt creatures (WBG)
Trespass spells (URB)
Startle (WRB)
Investigate (UWG)
Gates (URG)

UW: artifact matters or tempo (detain)
RU: artifact matters (red sacrifice, blue gets more)
RB: Startle Trespass
UR: Lands-matter gate/trespass?
UG: Colorless-matters? (gates+artifacts)
WB: Haunt + Startle = ???
WG: Haunt + Investigate = ??? defender matters value-creatures?
UB: Nightmares/horrors/value control?
RG: Ramp gates
BG: Haunt recursion
WR: (go wide?)


We are recording on Sunday this week, so the challenges will be due  on Sunday the 18th, by 8pm.

Our design challenges for next week are:

• Design a white common that gains life, but without lifelink.
• Design a black common that is a helpful aura.
• Design a rare signpost card for one of the archetypes we talked about on the episode.

Beacon of Creation Episode 47 Notes

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge #1
- Create a white common combat trick that gives +2/+2 and a small bonus.

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge #2
- Create a blue common that cares about instants and sorceries.

Our new email for submissions is cards@beaconofcreation.com

The old one still works, but this one is easier for us moving forward.

Beacon of Creation Episode 46 Notes

Cardcrafting Challenge:

• Design a card that evokes a costume change

Castmire Worldbuilding challenge:

• Black uncommon that returns a creature from the graveyard to the battlefield.

 Just a heads up, I added the Design skeleton to the sidebar as well as all the Castmire worldbuilding challenges as an MSE file to download. The Version # on the Castmire file always updated with the episode number that it's been updated with.

-Adam

Beacon of Creation Episode 45 Notes

Design Challenge Due Oct. 29

• Cardcrafting challenge:
• Make an escape room card
• Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge:
• Pumpkin patches

Beacon of Creation Episode 44 Notes

Cardcrafting Challenge:

• Make a two-card combo with a card that doesn’t have a combo

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge:

• Detain at common and detain in non-white, non-blue 

Here's a link to Brad's blog where he is doing all the #Moxtober challenges: click me!

Beacon of Creation Episode 43 Notes

Cardcrafting Challenge:

• Design a simple card that hasn't been designed yet. 

Castmire Worldbuilding Challeng:

• Pick an Inktober 2018 prompt, whichever day you’d like, and design an individual card (not a mechanic) based on that prompt.
  https://inktober.com/rules/ 

Beacon of Creation Episode 42 Notes

Submissions due Monday, October 8th.

Cardcrafting challenge

• Design a creature card that has an effect that is related to a loud sound flavor

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge:

• Something Spoooooooky! A scary ghost with a vendetta.

Beacon of Creation Episode 41 Notes

Design Challenges due Monday. October 1st.


Cardcrafting challenge

• ZAREPATH SUGGESTION: Make a card from a setting that WotC would never do.

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge:

• Land-matters in a haunted house way on a nonpermanent.

Beacon of Creation Epsiode 40 Notes

Challenges due Monday, September 24th

Cardcrafting Challenge

• Make a mythic X spell that is flavored as either Golgari, Simic, or Orzhov

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge

• A creature with two different race creature types depicted as two seperate creatures on one card.

Beacon of Creation Episode 39 Notes

Design Challenges Due for next week (Sept 17)

Cardcrafting Challenge

• Design a card that is fairy tale themed...

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge

• Design a noncreature rare (not mythic rare) depicting some aspect of love

Design challenges due two weeks form now (Sept 24)

Cardcrafting Challenge

• Make a mythic X spell that is flavored as either Golgari, SImic, or Orzhov.

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge

• A creature with two different race creature types depicted as two seperate creatures on one card.

Beacon of Creation Episode 38 Notes

Design Challenges Due for Next Week (Sept 10)


Cardcrafting challenge

• French vanilla creature with a combination of two evergreen/deciduous keywords we haven’t seen before in Magic, and they must NOTE be a non-bo, like:
• Flying, reach ← no 
• First strike, double strike ← no

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge:

• Black uncommon or uncommons that do one or more of several different effects, which are listed on the blog - they include things like creature sacrifice, returning creatures from the graveyard, discard, etc.

Design Challenges Due for Two Episodes from Now (Sept 17)

Cardcrafting Challenge

• Design a card that is fairy tale themed...

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge

• Design a noncreature rare (not mythic rare) depicting some aspect of love

Beacon of Creation Episode 37 Notes

Challenges for Monday, September 3rd.

Cardcrafting Challenge:

• Design a card with one line of rules text that references a new keyword ability called Squiffy and then define what that means with reminder text.
• Credit to Goblin Lore Podcast (@GoblinLorePod) for suggestion

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge:
Not all house plants are benign. Especially in Castmire.

• Design a Plant creature named Oleander
• Credit to Eric Williamson on Twitter (@Four2113)

New Challeneges for Monday, September 10th.

Cardcrafting Challenge:

•  Cardcrafting Challenge
  
  • French vanilla creature with a combination of two evergreen/deciduous keywords we haven’t seen before in Magic, and they must not be a non-bo
  • Flying, reach
  • First strike, double strike
  • @luminumcan Alex Spalding
  
  Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge
  
  Black uncommon or uncommons that do one or more of the following things:

-x/-x to all creatures

create tokens

destroy creature

discard

drain creature

drain player

exile creature

flying creature

lifelink creature

lord

opp sacrifices a creature

return creature from graveyard

tutor

Beacon of Creation Episode 36 Notes

Hey there Beaconeers!

Here is the challenge due on Monday the 27th:

Cardcrafting challenge:

Make a Dark Age card from one the mechanics we talked about in episode 35

• Lore (remove from deck)
• Berserk (this creature deals to creatures and receives damage in the form of +1/-1 counters)
• Eldritch (batch; instant, colorless, lore)
• Thaw (shuffle a card from your card pool into your library)
• Vanishing
• Time counters
• Or a make a new one!

Remember that the card must have the name and artwork from an Ice Age or The Dark card (although they don't need to be from the same card.)

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge:
Big red chaosey sorcery (with Castmire flavor.)

New challenges for Monday, September 3rd.

Cardcrafting Challenge:

• Design a card with one line of rules text that references a new keyword ability called Squiffy and then define what that means with reminder text.
• Credit to Goblin Lore Podcast (@GoblinLorePod) for suggestion

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge:
Not all house plants are benign. Especially in Castmire.

• Design a Plant creature named Oleander
• Credit to Eric Williamson on Twitter (@Four2113)

Keep the designs coming!  We can't get enough of them. :)

-Adam

Beacon of Creation Episode 35 Notes

Challenges due August 20

Host/Augment: An uncommon draft-around card exploring an "uncommon" theme/ not an enchantment or creature.

Castmire Worldbuilding challenge: Design a card for Castmire that is for two of the three psychographics.

Challenges due August 27

Cardcrafting Challenge: Make a Dark Age card from one the mechanics we talked about on episode 35.

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge: Make a big red chaos-y sorcery.

Beacon of Creation Episode 34 Notes

Hey there, Beaconeers!


Challenges due August 13

Host/Augment: Make a Legendary Aura/ it must be a callback to a previous card.

Castmire Worldbuilding challenge: Design one or more cards that are the "clues" from the previous week's challenge. (Here is the link for all those clues: Link)


Challenges due August 20

Host/Augment: An uncommon draft-around card exploring an "uncommon" theme/ not an enchantment or creature.

Castmire Worldbuilding challenge: Design a card for Castmire that is for two of the three psychographics.

Beacon of Creation Episode 33 Notes

Hey there Beaconeers! 

Challenges due August 6

Host/Augment: Design a card that mentions the term "commander"/must be colorless.

Castmire Worldbuilding challenge: Design any number of cards that are named for spooky mansion/ noir tropes. (eg: Bump in the Night, etc.)

Challenges due August 13

Host/Augment: Make a Legendary Aura/ it must be a callback to a previous card.

Castmire Worldbuilding challenge: Design one or more cards that are the "clues" from the previous week's challenge.

See y'all next time.

-Adam

Beacon of Creation Episode 32 Notes

Challenges due July 30:

Host/Augment: A black draw spell that doesn't make you sacrifice a permanent or lose life.

Castmire Worldbuilding challenge: Design a card named Red Herring

Challenges due August 6

Host/Augment: Design a card that mentions the term "commander"/must be colorless.

Castmire Worldbuilding challenge: Design any number of cards that are named for spooky mansion/ noir tropes. (eg: Bump in the Night, etc.)

Here are all the clues I promised:

From James Gover (bobbbyyy):

Not all the portals are closed….

There is one at the corner of a busy courtyard.

It is disguised as a thick door padlocked by Barstoe, who believes only he has a key and
 hence access.

The reality is otherwise. Other agents know of the portal and have other uses. Dark
 lurk-ers of the mansion pick the lock and use the portal for disposing if evidence,
 waste and occasionally bodies.

Dack has found the portal from the other side touching an artifact that come
 from Castmire which revealed the nature of the planar portal and the small mansion plane.
 Dack then followed the signature of the portal to Castmire to do Dack stuff.

Barstoe’s use for the portal was to syphon excess energy to provide lighting and
 heating for the mansion. When Ashiok arrived and started messing with things
 Barstoe’s portal became neglected and releasing sporadic energy.

This is where Taccatta’s investigation comes into it. And then the three clues.

1. The door has two pairs of going in and one going out.
2. The lights keep flickering and losing power.
3. Barstoe’s office has a bunch of letters on the desk to his pen pal on the other 
   side of the portal. The clue art should feature things to provide small hints like
    glimpses of words from another plane.

Nich Grayson (@WUBRG):

* There is always a knife missing from the knife block in the kitchen. No matter how often kitchen staff replaces it, a knife will disappear.

* Occasionally, there appears a protoplasmic glowing bloody hand-print in the center of a door leading into to the old formal dining hall.

* Hidden beneath the wallpaper of the dining hall is an unfinished spiral-design of magic symbols carved into the wall. The wall weeps blood through the wallpaper no matter how often they try to wipe it up or paper over it. The weeping comes from these carved symbols.

Bradley Rose (@bradleyrose):

- Scream behind a random door in mansion at sundown each night

- Love letter written on attic floor

- Spice cabinet was destroyed

Beacon of Creation Episode 31 Notes

He there Beaconeers!

Challenges due July 23:

Host/Augment (hole filling edition): Design a green enchantment that is powerful enough to see playin Legacy without breaking standard.

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge: Tell us one of the mysteries of the Manor, and three clues that help Tacatta or someone else discover it.


 Challenges due July 30:

Host/Augment: A black draw spell that doesn't make you sacrifice a permanent or lose life.

Worldbuilding challenge: Design a card named Red Herring

Beacon of Creation Episode 30 Notes

 Hey there Beaconeers!

We just bought the domain beaconofcreation.com. (I'm not sure why I linked it, since it just brings you back here.) I just thought it would be easier to get people to look at the blog for the challenges.

Anyway, here are the challenges:

Challenges due Monday July 16:

Host/Augment: Design a creature of a creature type without an ability that most creatures of that type have.  It must be flavored as a sentient race.

Worldbuilding: Design up to three different cards, each based on a piece of flavor text that someone else submitted for the previous challenge.

Noted below --

Bradley
 "It's either a mirror or a window. Either way, it's bad."

 "Finally," Ashiok whispered to themselves.

 Not every creak is the floorboards.

Adam
The cellar has been devoid of life of for decades, but that doesn't mean it is uninhabited.

Travelers who wander from the main rooms of Castmire Mansion often find themselves lost for days at a time.

No one ever thinks to leave the property. It never even crosses their minds.

James Gover (bobbbyyy)

“Damn Pixies”

I have a series describing The Courtyard

“In the Courtyard guests have high tea, sandwiches with the crusts off” W

“Gargoyles above the Courtyard watch, stalk, and stare” C

“The Courtyard has four walls, or more accurately, gates” L

“The Courtyard has shadows and the shadows have sinister types and the sinister types have blades and the blades have edges” B

“The gardens of the Courtyard provide a wilds within the walls” G

“Someone had to document The Courtyard” U

“The heat vents in The Courtyard provide warmth for tropical plants but have been known to cook unhappy wildlife” R


Challenges due July 23:

Host/Augment (hole filling edition): Design a green enchantment that is powerful enough to see playin Legacy without breaking standard.

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge: Tell us one of the mysteries of the Manor, and three clues that help Tacatta or someone else discover it.

Thanks!  We hope to hear from you all soon. :)

-Adam

Beacon of Creation Episode 29 Notes

Challenges due Monday July 9:

Host/Augment: Design three cards that care about being cast in sequence / must have an ability outside the battlefield.

Worldbuilding: Write flavor text for cards that portray three different aspects of Castmire.

Challenges due Monday July 16:

Host/Augment: Design a creature of a creature type without an ability that most creatures of that type have.  It must be flavored as a sentient race.

Worldbuilding: Design up to three different cards, each based on a piece of flavor text that someone else submitted for the previous challenge.

Beacon of Creation Episode 28 Notes

Hey there Beaconeers!

Challenges due Monday, July 2:

Host/Augment: A planeswalker from a specific plane and race that doesn't match that race's color(s)/ must use transform to turn into a non-planeswalker

Worldbuilding: A small creature from the established Castmire creature grid (found in the sidebar) of each color.

Challenges due Monday July 9:

Host/Augment: Design three cards that care about being cast in sequence / must have an ability outside the battlefield.

Worldbuilding: Write flavor text for cards that portray three different aspects of Castmire.

Beacon of Creation Episode 27 Notes

Hey there Beaconeers!

Quick update to the the blog:  I added a sidebar for important link suck as the Creature Grid and a full version of the Castmire set file.

Challenges due by Monday, June 25:

Host/Augment:  A common non-aura enchantment/ must cost only one mana.

Worldbuilding: Vote on the Castmire Twist!  (See sidebar for link)

Challenges due Monday, July 2:

Host/Augment: A planeswalker from a specific plane and race that doesn't match that race's color(s)/ must use transform to turn into a non-planeswalker

Worldbuilding: A small creature from the established Castmire creature grid (found in the sidebar) of each color.

If you're interested in seeing all the cards made for this week's challenges, (vanilla permutations and weird dwarf) you can get the MSE file here.

Beacon of Creation Episode 26 Notes

Hey there Beaconeers,

Our creature grid is done! 

You can check out the final version here.

When designing creatures in the future, remember to stay within the creature grid as much as possible.  They are some exceptions, but moving forward, these are going to be the basic creature types we use a lot of.

I also forgot to post the style guide submissions from last week (sorry!) Check the bottom of last week's post for those links.

Challenges:

Due Monday, July 18 by 7pm Pacific time:

Host + Augment Challenge

    Multicolor Dwarf with no power or toughness that cares about precombat and/or postcombat main phases that is from a set that’s a top-down Viking world with black-aligned Gods.
- Can use only a portion of these, but more challenging, the more restrictions you decide to use

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge:

    Design a vanilla creature, a virtual vanilla creature, and French vanilla creature, and a virtual French vanilla creature; all set in the world of Castmire.
- Haunt, investigate, and detain are the keywords we are using

Due Monday, July 25th by 7pm Pacific time:

Host + Augment

Host: Brad’s, using a suggestion from Twitter:
From Trevor Cashmore (@InanimateGames, of Goblin Artisans)
“A common non-Aura enchantment.”
Augment: Adam: Must cost only one mana

Castmire Worldbuilding Challenge:

Vote on the twist you want to see in Castmire here.

Here are the cards done by Rifken on the last episode. I changed some of them for clarity and rules interactions and added names, creatures types, etc for the incomplete ones. If you remember what challenges they are for, let us know!

Bonus!  Here's the full card that I did this week - with art!

Beacon of Creation Episode 25 Notes

Hey there Beaconeers!

This week's challenge (due Monday June 11 at 7pm Pacific):

Host/Augment:

Something silver-bordered that isn't dice rolling that uses twobrid for a good reason. (Thanks to Chris Mooney and Ryan Siegel-Stechler)

Worldbuilding:

Just complete all four sections of the Creature Grid survey from last week! (There are four different links, be sure to click them all!)

Two weeks from now (due Monday June 18 at 7pm Pacific):

 Host/Augment:

submitted by a bunch of people on twitter:  Design a dwarf that has no power or toughness that cares about precombat or postcombat main phase from a top-down Viking world with black-aligned gods/must be multi-colored, in the correct colors for a dwarf. (Editor's note: Seriously, Brad?)

Worldbuilding:

Design a vanilla creature (no rules text), design a virtual vanilla creature (after the first turn, is effectively a vanilla creature), design a french vanilla (creature with only one or more key words, and no other abilites), and design a virtual french vanilla.

(edited)  I forgot to add a link to the styleguide pictures! We got two submissions:
 Here is one from Bill French.
 And here is the second one from James Gover.

Beacon of Creation Episode 24 Notes

Hey there beaconeers!

First things first:  We have a new way to vote!  I made four separate surveys where you can vote for the creatures types that will be the main ones in Castmire.

The links are here:

White
Blue
Black
Red/Green

Some notes:  I had to do four separate surveys because the service wants to charge if I do more than ten questions at a time.  Luckily, this time it's an easy fix, but we will have to be careful in the future to not have too many votes each time. Also, the Red and Green ones are together because green has no fliers and red has no small flyers, so it only takes up 8 spaces for both!

Next week's challenges (due Monday, June 4 at 7pm Pacific) :

Host/Augment:

Two colorless creatures that "partner with" each other.

Worldbuilding:

A style guide for the plane. (Thanks to Jonanthan Woodward)

Two weeks from now (due Monday June 11 at 7pm Pacific):

Host/Augment:

Something silver-bordered that isn't dice rolling that uses twobrid for a good reason. (Thanks to Chris Mooney and Ryan Siegel-Stechler)

Worldbuilding:

Just do the survey at the top of the page!

Bonus!

Here are renders of all the cards that were submitted for this week's wordbuilding challenge.

Beacon of Creation Episode 23 notes

Hey there Beaconeers,

Design Challenges due on Monday, May 28th:

Host/Augment Challenge:
A Vehicle that works better in multiplayer

Worldbuilding Challenge:
Cycle of five rare legendary creatures that came into Castmire via the plane’s extraplanar portals, they don’t have to be mechanically or “planarly” linked.


Challenges due on Monday, June 4th:

Host/Augment Challenge:
Two creatures that each have "partenr with" for the other/ they must both be colorless.


Worldbuilding Challenge:
"Style guide" for the plane.  Send pictures along with descriptions.

Here's a link to the most recent worldbuilding challenge, the Creature Grid. I've left some spaces open for anyone to add their own creature grids for Castmire. Please don't erase anything that other folks have put in here.  I trust you all to be professional.


Our guest, Jonathan Woodward, sent us an email to pass along this Two Headed Giant draft variant for four players:

"Here is my explanation of how to run a full two-headed giant draft with just four players.

A common problem I have encountered is that drafting with fewer than eight players can really skew the drafting experience.  If there are only four players present, having only 12 packs to pick cards from means that the decks assembled often look very little like the decks that would be built from a 24 pack draft.  These drafting issues get even worse if the format of choice is 2HG, as four players normally only represents two teams.  However, there is a solution to this issue that works very smoothly for drafting 2HG with just four players.

Our four players are A, B, C, and D.  For the drafting portion of the event, each of these players represents an entire 2HG team (you can pretend they have imaginary partners seated beside them who don't offer any input).  Each player begins with six packs (or four packs of Battlebond) in front of him or her, and drafts a pool of cards from which to build two 2HG decks, the same as in a regular four team 2HG draft.  After drafting, each of the four players builds two decks from the cards they drafted - again, the same as a regular 2HG draft.

When deck construction is complete, it is now time to play player A's decks against those of the player who drafted on the opposite side of the table from him, player C.  Player B joins player A, and together they each play one of the A decks in a 2HG game against players C and D playing C's decks.  Let's say that the A decks beat the C decks.

The next game will be players B and C playing B's decks against players A and D playing D's decks.  Let's say that the B decks win.

In the third and final round of our single-elimination tournament, players A and C will play A's decks against players B and D with B's decks.

I've found this structure to work quite well.  One of the fun features of this method is that everyone gets an opportunity to play on a team with everyone else."

See you next time!

-Adam

GDS3 Design Challenge 2: A Circus Act (for fun)

So, to keep up the trend, I'm doing all the GDS3 challenges in the limited time frame available before the real results are out.  The rules for design challenge 2 are here.

Here are my circus cards:

Some notes:

My mythics are a little weird, I know.

Lion Tamer seems a little out of color pie mechanically, but flavorfully, I believe it fits.  His control over the cats isn't magical as much as it is nature-oriented.  He befriends them instead of dominating their will. (He might actually be a Druid instead of a Shaman, now that I think about it.)

As for Tibalt, I think emblem manipulation is a fun mechanic that hasn't been explored yet.  There are some weird rules interactions that might need to be fudged, but I would say the ability is pretty grokkable.