Introduction

My name is Bob. I'm an avid magic player, and a level 1 judge. I've been playing since Time Spiral block, and magic has become a major part of my of my social and leisure life, and I hope in the future to make it a professional part as well. I'd like to consider myself an amateur card designer, spending a fair chunk of my free time not playing the game, designing and developing cards for it.

Inspired by Mad Olaf's Blog I decided to create my own; to showcase my, and others, works. I'll be updating (hopefully daily) with cards of my own creation, as well as looking at new cards that get previewed from aspects of a player, judge, and designer.

I give artist credits when I can, however much of the artwork I use is found from Wallbase, which the majority of the time doesn't provide artist credits. If anyone knows the source of an image I haven't credited, please let me know so I can correct it and give the artist proper credit.


I prefer to work from a top down design aspect, finding inspiration in pictures or concepts and creating from there. Occasionally I will work off of a general theme and create cards to fill specific roles within the theme.

I've also designed cards based on other TV series, anime, or video games (such as league of legends). Likely I'll have the occasional theme week where I'll show off cards designed from the same concept, including the rest of the League of Legends set.











 While I'm interested in just showing my work and getting feed back from players and other designers, the end goal I'd like to accomplish with this blog is to develop a community of designers and players that work together to show what we can accomplish to the designers of the game that we all love. In that sense, if you are a fellow card designer, and would like a forum to display your work and to improve, send me an email at sether42@gmail.com and we can see about getting you added.

As it's the first post, I figured I'd spoil a handful of cards that are some of my favorites that I've been working on recently.

A planeswalker utilizing a static ability. While red gets the majority of non-basic land hate (including Blood Moon), blue has had it's fair share. I also wanted an effect strong enough to take the place of the usual "ultimate" ability.

When designing a "+" ability for a planeswalker, it's important to remember to always make it available to activate (unless there's multiple "+" abilities). If you have an ability that targets creatures, and there aren't any creatures in play, then your planeswalker can never increase in loyalty. In this case, Cetus can always tap or untap himself if nothing else is available.

The "-1" ability was designed based off of the pirates from mercadian masques set, who made opponents sack permanents unless they pay 1. In this case, I wanted it to feel more like the pirate looted more than pillaged.

After seeing the lack of love for painlands that developers have had in the real game (damage for multiple colors never went over well with casual gamers), my love for filter lands, and some inspiration from Mad Olaf's Snow filter land, I created this pain filter.

The original design of this required the land to tap and lose 1 life to make 1 colorless, then as long as the land was tapped, it could filter any mana into white or black without life loss. This proved a bit too powerful, so the life loss was added to the filtering side.

While it enters the battlefield tapped like many nonbasic lands, it's interesting to note that it actually adds some value in being able to filter the turn it enters the battlefield.










A top down design from the image. The original design had a creature that cost less when one of your creatures was the target of an opponent's spell or ability, but it didn't fit the concept of protecting the creature that was targeted. The current version lets the mother wolf absorb the danger that would come to her young. Having four toughness was key to absorb most burn spells and some of black's negative toughness effects.

An enchantment similar to Glory of Warfare. Top down design. I wanted players to choose which side they wanted to use, but to always have both available.

  Lastly another top down design card. I wanted a legendary creature that had no power herself, however could raise an army to do her bidding. Very frail, but under the right circumstances, could push out a lot of power. It also acts as a free sacrifice outlet, something that can be quite powerful in its own right.
*Edit: Updated with Chimzar's suggestions.


I plan on updating once a day if I can, however it may be a bit rough starting out. So please bear with me. Any advise, criticism, and comments is appreciated; and if you wish to contribute your own work, please contact me and we'll get you setup.