TwistedSpoon Studio

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Wednesday is when we talk about custom Magic designs, usually covering new custom mechanics. I say usually because this week we're doing something a little different.     While these designs are new, the mechanics might be familiar... because we're working through the signpost uncommons for Festival of Urbestia ! FUR might be on hiatus, but we're still working through the card file. Without further adieu, let's jump in! Sky Merchant     WU is here to play artifacts and swing with flyers. And they're all out of artifacts. Because they played them to trigger Commerce and give their creatures flying.     FUR's white-blue archetype is your standard flyers affair-- gum up the ground, swing in the air, profit. In this case, it's more tempo than control, using bounce and disruption to slow down the opponent while playing artifacts at the right time to secure an advantage. There's also a mild flicker su...

    Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week, Workshop Wednesday is a little wacky-- we're doing silver-border, baby! After all, what's funnier than explaining your jokes?     Before we get started, I want to say that there are two different kinds of Un-designs in the world of custom magic. There are genuine, this-is-a-card-you-could-play designs and there are joke cards that are clearly never meant to come anywhere near a table. This article is going to cover a couple of both, but I think you'll be able to tell the difference. Be Cool, Dude     Do you remember those halcyon days of kitchen table Magic? Did you ever play at school over your lunch break, or during homeroom before first period? Ah, those were the days.  And if someone tries to get pedantic about the numbers, just read the title! Quit the Game Forever     Oftentimes, when I post a silver-border design, it's in response to a trend in the community. Sometime last year, r/Cus...

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Workshop Wednesday is where we share custom Magic designs and discuss the process behind them. This week, I thought it would be fun to look back at the Workshops that we've done so far! Cost Lands     Lands? With Costs? Witchcraft!      This was the first Workshop Wednesday and the design that inspired the series. Cost lands were extremely divisive, but the response was net positive. If you want to learn more about the design space, you can find the original workshop here . Prophecy     On the other end of the spectrum, prophecy was very  well received. My old college roommate-- the infamous Zuberan, for those in the know-- and I came up with this a while back, but this workshop explored the design space and found some interesting places it could go. You can find the original article here . Backup     These designs demonstrated the power of flavor, elevating a well-received mechan...

    Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week in our series on Festival of Urbestia , the custom Magic set about a world of beastfolk, we're continuing Integration design with a new set skeleton-- this time with uncommons! Because the world of Urbestia has changed so much during this stage, this set skeleton is going to look very different from the last one that was shared.     You can find the new set skeleton here . The rest of this article will be explaining the changes that have taken place, but stick around until the end for an important announcement.   Out with the Old     We've already talked Crafting to death, but it bears repeating here. The Equipment-token mechanic has been removed from the set skeleton, but a minor equipment-matters theme has remained. There are common Equipment in white, red, and colorless, with Equipment-matters support at uncommon. This archetype is pretty slim, with the hope that players will mostly i...

     Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week in our series on  Festival of Urbestia , the custom Magic set about a world of beast folk, we're revisiting our draft archetypes. Third times' the charm! White/Blue     This color pair isn't changing much. Blockers on the ground, attackers in the air-- it's a classic. The seasoning that gives it that little extra  oomph  this time around is the artifact theme. While blue had commerce before ( "whenever an artifact enters the battlefield under your control, [effect]" ), now white has it too, allowing for a broader range of effects. We also have the flicker tech from earlier versions of FUR, which can now be used to repeat commerce triggers. Blue/Black     Continuing our "classic archetypes with an artifact theme" trend, blue/black is, of course, control. This time around, the twist is Treasure-- while every color has at least one in this set, black has more than the rest. That means that...

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Every Monday we bring you Musings on game design, and this week, we're talking about resource systems. Every game has them, whether they appear to or not. Resource systems fall into two broad categories: Implicit and explicit.     Consider Yu-Gi-Oh for a moment. Your goal is to reduce your opponent's life points to zero by summoning and attacking with Monsters. You summon Monsters by playing them from your hand onto the field once per turn.     Now consider Magic: the gathering. Your goal is to reduce your opponent's life to zero by casting and attacking with creatures. You cast creature spells by tapping lands to produce mana, which you spend to pay their mana cost.     That's the difference between implicit and explicit resource systems. In an implicit resource system, you have a hard limit to what you can do-- summon one Monster a turn, take four actions per turn, attach one Trainer item per turn,...

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week in our series on Festival of Urbestia , the custom Magic set about a world of beastfolk, we're kicking of the Integration stage by introducing two new mechanics. We're going to discuss what left and why, and then we'll talk about Vicious and Commerce. Funeral for a Friend     First up, we have to say goodbye to a mechanic. Suit Up, originally Craft, was a keyword action that allowed the player to create one of two equipment tokens. One granted +1/+1, the other +0/+2, and both had equip 2. The idea was that the tokens would have different arts, allowing you to customize your creatures aesthetically and mechanically.      There are three problems with Suit Up. First, the tracking can be a pain-- when you have the tokens, it's fine, but if you don't, you're trying to remember which penny is a Claw and which is a Pelt. On online clients, it can be hard to tell at a glance which is which when they'r...

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! It's Workshop Wednesday, which means we're going behind the scenes on custom Magic designs. This week, it's the Tragedy mechanic!     Tragedy is an alternate-cost mechanic that appears on instants and sorceries, allowing them to be cast when they're put into the graveyard from your library. That most often means mill, but it also triggers off of effects like Dark Bargain and Gifts Ungiven.     Tragedy is inspired by Miracle, a similar mechanic from Avacyn Restored that allowed you to cast a spell for a much lower cost if it was the first card you drew in a turn. Interestingly, cards can break their normal timing restrictions when cast with Miracle. The same loophole is intended for Tragedy (and technically, I think it has to work that way to work at all, but don't quote me on that).     Tragedy has some strange balancing concerns. On the one hand, it essentially allows you to draw cards by allow...

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week in our series on Festival of Urbestia , the custom Magic set about a world of beast folk, it's finally time to start the Integration Stage of design. What is Integration?     The Integration Stage is where we take the vision that we spent the last four months creating, and we figure out how to actually make it happen. That means playtesting, playtesting, and playtesting some more. We're going to stress test the set, find the gaps in our mechanics, and iron out the wrinkles.     We're also going to integrate the story elements more heavily. This means creating cards to represent story moments, adding flavor text to existing designs, and reflavoring cards to fit better with the beats we want to hit. We're also going to craft the uncommons and rares during this stage, so those designs will have the story built-in from the start. About the Story...     Before we do that, I want to address feedb...

     Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Today we're talking custom design, and to continue the sci-fi theme of the last few articles, today we're talking power suits. Inspired by space sci-fi from Halo to Warhammer 40K, this cycle is intended for a hypothetical Commander preconstructed product. Gear Up     Suits are a new artifact subtype that acts like equipment, but attaches to players. The Don ability allows you to attach a suit to a player-- any player-- at sorcery speed. Each of the suits in today's cycle also has an enters-the battlefield ability.     While it may not seem strictly necessary, the etb-effects are actually what makes this work. After all, if you want an artifact that gives you abilities, those already exist: they're called artifacts. Putting those extra effects behind a cost begs the question, why not just make them more expensive?     Thanks to these spell-like effects, these go from artifacts with extra steps, to spel...

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Last week, we analyzed the named mechanics in the latest Magic set, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty . This week, we're taking it a step further.        I've said it several times now, but NEO has a lot going on. A lot . On top of 7 to 8 named mechanics ( depending on how you slice 'em ), there are enchantment creatures, colored artifacts, tribal themes, and more. All in all, this analysis covers 36 different factors. And on top of that , it's all broken down by color and rarity.     You can find the results here!       There are four sheets: one with raw numbers, one with ASFANs, one with the average number per draft pool ( 24 packs ), and one with the average number per sealed pool ( 6 packs ). The final set of columns shows the totals across all columns. As a note, I didn't count Sagas or tokens in the creature counts; for the former, most of this analysis was performed by eye ...

    Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! It's not Monday, but we're still Musing about the latest and greatest addition to everyone's favorite multimedia franchise. That's right, this week we're talking about Pokemon Legends: Arceus!  Well, okay, maybe not. You read the title, right?   Themes and Structure     Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty is all about the conflict between old and new, tradition and technology, history and progress. This mirrors not only the desire to reinvent a world that R&D viewed as a failure for decades, but also a genuine tension in Japanese culture. Having maintained isolation from the rest of the world for centuries, Japan was essentially dragged into the industrial revolution in the 1850s; over the next hundred-and-fifty years, Japan would leap from medieval to modern at a dizzying pace.     This theme is represented in the set via artifacts and enchantments. Of course, you can't do a set based on Japan without Samurai and N...