Thursday, February 9, 2012

Chimzar – Introduction and Vision


Many of you know me as the guy who constantly posts question after question about your cards.  Before now you didn’t have the opportunity to destroy my ideas.  Well, here is your long awaited chance!





I have been designing cards since the days of the first edition of the set editor.  In college Magic became my primary hobby and since then designing has been my favorite part.  Until these blogs I never had an outlet to show off my work.  I feel very fortunate to have found this site and I am excited to get to the craziness.

My designs tend to push the bound of what magic can do while also exploring the silly things the game will let you do.  Negative effects are my specialty.  Cards like Infernal Contract have powerful effects but with high non-mana costs.  Sadly this is something that Magic has shifted away from (see Phyrexian Negator verses Phyrexian Obliterator) and an area many designers are afraid to travel.  I hope to show new ways for looking at the negative.

Along those lines, I like making bad cards (10th to 15th pick in a draft).  Cards like Mindless Null are not bad designs even though players may complain; there is a real art to making bad cards that are still played (at least in limited).  It is very rewarding to players to find a card at face value that is bad but works with a set or deck idea.

Away from the negative, I have designed some keywords and like exploring old ones.  Really old ones, like banding, phasing and landhome (sadly not a keyword anymore).  Many of the really old keywords get a bad rap, but in all fairness the cards were bad, not the keywords.

Lastly, I strive really hard to template the text of my cards within the rules of Magic.  It can be changeling for players to make ideas work in the rules, so I will post some template puzzles for practice.  I hope you find them fun.

Before I end, I do want to make a request.  I often have ideas that I just can’t find art for, therefore I may post some cards without art.  I don’t want to do this, but maybe I could get help from you guys.  Thanks for the help and I look forward to your comments.

P.S. I also really like making Ante cards, so I look forward to showing those, too.

7 comments:

  1. Nice intro.

    Reaction of choice really makes me want to be able to play UURR on the card. I also think if you changed it to a rare, you could realistically make it 4 damage, as it will take triple color combination to cast no matter what the mode, which which make it a much more mana limiting form of flame javelin.

    I like undress, very similar to demystify, just giving up the ability to destroy non-aura enchantments, to destroy the more dangerous (at least these days) equipment.

    I like city of light, but I'm not sure I would play it, as it is a pretty huge disadvantage early when you want an untapped 5 color land. What do you think about allowing the opponent to put in a basic land, not just any land?

    Insightful Orator is neat, but I don't think feasible outside of magic online. If you're going to be interacting with 3 cards ontop of your deck, it will be hard not to see the top 2, much less it will hard to stop people from wanting to see the top 2 as well as the third, given the history of cards that interact with the top of the deck. Cards like oust and long term plans insert a card face down into the deck, instead of attempting to look at only one that isn't on top.

    Is there a specific reason you like designing cards with white borders?

    Also a funny story about mindless null being a bad card: It was, honestly they accidently designed it badly. the original design of mindless null was 1B, 2/2, can only block if you control a vampire. However, when the card was entered into the set list, they accidentally entered it as a 2B cost. It was caught before production, but it actually became more of an inside joke amongst the designers and stayed with the three mana cost.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I do think that Reaction of Choice should deal 4 damage but I'm still happy with the power level at uncommon. It really would depend on the set. I made both old bordered cards at least 4 years ago (pre-return of Lightning Bolt), so the power level has changed since then.

    I know to a judge, Insightful Orator is just asking to cause rules violations. Players would just need to take responsibility for setting the top 2 cards aside without looking at them before revealing the third card. Its not as bad as Sylvan Library, but it hasn't seen print for a long time. I have thought about making it the forth card so it would give you even more info with Sensei's Divining Top, but that might be trying too hard...

    So the white borders story. Whenever I make a set that I want to print out, I print with white borders to save ink. So my sets tend to be default set to it. Most people don't like white borders, but as my friends know, I am kind of a white border hoarder. Because Wizards doesn't print white bordered cards any more, I like to play with versions that are. Also, this way people can easily distinguish between my cards and other creator's creations.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jeeze, I keep editing the cards. I'm worse than George Lucas...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I like it. Welcome kind sir to the terrible world of people judging you. That aside, I really like your flavor texts, infact i think they are the best parts. Flavor texts are underrated and a simple laugh can really help me like a card!

    ReplyDelete
  5. They all suck! (jk) I really like Undress and City of Light, but I feel sad that I can't get both sides of Reaction of Choice. Insightful Orator makes me want to punch the rules in the mouth.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I enjoy the reaction of choice the most. I kind of want it to be (UR U/R 1) with a small power-up so I can possibly cast it with both effects but it still looks very fun.

      The land is something I wouldn't play outside of group-hug and that would be iffy because it doesn't specify basic land. Now if it specified basic land, I'm totally in on that.

      Undress is like a lowercosting more flavorful and slightly less utility Disenchant, so I love it.

      I don't know how I feel about Insightful Orator...

      Delete