A real-life custom card tournament
Custom Cards forum
Posted on May 16, 2019, 4:24 a.m. by Boza
Hey guys,
I want to try to organize my local scene into building custom cards only decks which we will then organize into a small tournament.
The idea is to get 8 people organized and have them each create 20(or 30 or 40) custom cards, all of which are balanced between the colors.
After that, all the cards will be uploaded online and all participants will be able to create 60 card decks. The trick is that you have to use at least 1 card created from every participant and you cannot use more than 5 cards created by a single person. All decks will use custom cards only (except basic lands).
All the decks will be printed out (I am paper player) and we will use them in real life to play 3 round swiss tournament.
How does this idea sound?
Do you foresee any issue I can take care of ahead of time?
Any suggestions for improvement?
Any way I can do this in a different, better way?
Thanks in advance!
Chasmolinker says... #3
I think you'd be better off doing a draft with the cards rather than have the 1 and 5 card limitations. Set some keyword limitations to make the cards cohesive. This would be a limited environment so limited keywords should keep the play "fun"
May 16, 2019 9:07 a.m.
Chasmolinker says... #4
Maybe have each person develop cards based around a specific keyword/mechanic or color identity. This would need to be a collaboration. Having cycles of cards (AKA the "insert planeswalker"'s triumph cycle) would be beneficial. A dual land cycle would be a nice jumping off point.
May 16, 2019 9:10 a.m. Edited.
One of the big problems I foresee is players can make powerful combos that will go overlooked by other players. Since they would know the combo is in the game, they would have a fairly significant advantage in deckbuilding, as they engineered a powerful wincon. Think something like Saheeli/Felidar--a combo all of R&D overlooked--but added maliciously.
I presume you're already going to have some sort of review process to weed out any broken cards--you should be sure to actively look for potential combos during the review.
I do not think Chasmolinker's idea of doing draft is going to work all that well. In any custom created card set, there are likely going to be some that are really far out there--whoever first picks these broken cards will have an obscene advantage over the remainder of the players.
May 16, 2019 9:30 a.m.
SynergyBuild says... #7
Example: A card that says: Hellbent - Players can't skip their draw step if you have no cards in your hand.
May seem kinda cool, a lock piece for sure, but one that requires you to have a board state that wins, and no cards in hand, and hope your opponent can't stabilize on board with their hand, or they instantly win.
Little do they know Bottled Cloister utters breaks that parity, drawing you cards, letting you have a draw step, and shutting your opponents down in the process.
May 16, 2019 10:14 a.m.
Thank you SynergyBuild, Chasmolinker and cdkime for the feedback!
As previously noted, this is a very early stage thing and I appreciate any comments! Here are my thoughts on all the mentioned above things:
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Balance issues - at least a few noted that there is no mention of how to make sure those cards are balanced between each other. There are several ways to correct that:
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The design constraint would be a standard-legal set. Several examples would be provided to guide people on power level, using examples from recent sets.
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A review process will definitely be part of the procedure, after all cards are completed. For example, if we make 20 cards each, each person will be assigned to review 20 different cards from other creators. This is to both police power level and promote collaboration. Additional reviews can also be done after decks are constructed.
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The restriction of using at least 1 card per player and no more than 5 per particapant will work to balance things out - people will naturally build their broken cards in different colors, making a deck with all or most of them impossibly inconsistent.
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Draft instead - It creates severe creation restrictions - each player will have to create 45 cards, which is a lot for most people in order to have 3 boosters each; it is infinitely less time consuming to organize a constructed event than a sealed one; drafting cards can lead to less controlled processes; and drafting weird custom cards well is directly proportional to player skill - I do not want to discriminate based on skill.
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make broken answers - WOTC had once suggested creating a set where power 9 cards would be considered mid-tier in power level. But balancing that is time-consuming and I think ultimately not as rewarding as it sounds.
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Having a clear starting point - I like the idea of having each person delegated to a certain group of cards, but that limits creativity in ways I do not like much. I think that if the participants are a good mix of Johnny, Spike and Timmy, we would naturally get a good mix of all three types of cards as people will gravitate towards their own personal tastes when designing.
Thanks for the feedback and keep it coming! It is already helping a ton into shaping a unique Custom Card experience!
Let me assure you, when this becomes a reality, I will share the whole process on this forum, so you will all know how it came out!
May 16, 2019 10:44 a.m.
SynergyBuild says... #9
Do you have an answer hidden synergies, the main point cdkime and my second post asked about, or do you just assume that everyone reviewing and making cards has to know all 17000ish magic cards.
May 16, 2019 10:52 a.m.
I thought I covered that with the balance issues, but maybe not - a review process will have the group "police itself" when participants review each other. Furthermore, since participants will be designing independently from each other, there will be no chance of cross-contamination - if a broken interaction exists, it will be between a few cards from one single person, making it easier to detect. Additionally, a secondary review process, after decks are created, can be implemented to weed out any potential for broken synergies. Finally, a quick review of how many times each card appears in each deck will provide a very birds-eye view on broken cards - if 1 card is a part of 6 out of 8 decks that could be an indication for further review.
I want to emphasize, this is a spur-of-the-moment thing and as I am writing, I do not have everything structured or figured out, but I am very focused on fine-tuning this as much as possible before approaching potential participants, so your help is invaluable!
In case there was any consufusion, all cards in the decks, except basic lands will be custom cards, so there is no need to know all magic cards. Heck, I doubt even Matt Tabak knows all the interactions between all 17k cards.
May 16, 2019 11:03 a.m. Edited.
SynergyBuild says... #11
Your rules never implied only custom cards were used.
May 16, 2019 11:13 a.m.
SynergyBuild My mistake entirely, I have corrected the topic above.
May 16, 2019 11:28 a.m.
Chasmolinker says... #13
So you want to create a custom card set to be played in a vacuum using all of the standard rulings of MTG as it exists today.
My main question is regarding print run. How many of each card are you planning to print? If everyone has access to all of the cards in multiples, broken combos would be inherently balanced simply by everyone having access to the combo.
This again goes back to, "Why the 1 & 5 card limitations?" The format will "evolve" and the best cards will be discovered as time goes on in play-testing. The most broken of which get sent back to the drawing board by way of vote. If the majority of the "Design Team" agrees that a card is broken, un-break it or toss it out all together.
Starting points to me are:
What is the set theme? Where does it take place? What is the story? What are the mechanics?
I'd be glad to review some card designs for you if you ever need assistance or just an outside opinion.
May 16, 2019 12:47 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #14
This format seems undoable, the more I look at it, the dumber it gets. Cards get banned AFTER decks have been made, sending people to the drawing board for creating cards all over again, make new decks, and bannings happen again. This loops until no more bannings.
AKA -
Step 1: Find 8 players who want to do this.
Step 2: Then make them spend hours designing 20-40 cards each.
Step 3: Let spend an extra few hours learning all of the new cards each other person had made.
Step 4: Let them construct decks using them possibly just a couple hours for this.
Step 5: Have them look at eachothers decks, (AKA each player knows what each other player is piloting, and therefor the games have 0 surprises).
Step 6: Make a democratic system for banning cards, requiring all players who had them banned in there decks require to remake those decks, and have the players who made those cards come up with new designs, rinsing and repeating until no cards are banned (Estimated to be a few days of this.)
Step 7: Have games with these decks. Remember all players have no fun learning eachothers new decks, because they already saw them and banned their best cards, etc.
Step 8: After a week of preparation, a day of play, and minimal enjoyable gameplay, you get nothing!
This doesn't even mention the time spent printing out 300ish card designs, sleeving them up, putting them on MTG cards, etc. That kind of ink also costs a lot of money, the cutting out of this is time-wasted. Honestly this is a 2 week venture, for what seems like trash gameplay.
Sound about right?
May 16, 2019 1:04 p.m.
Chasmolinker says... #15
A big key to custom card design is to design cards and not decks.
You design interesting cycles of cards or cards that care about a certain aspect of the game and then create a spoiler of the completed set. Let people find card interactions and lines of play from there. The set doesn't need to be powerful. Just fun.
design cards, NOT decks
May 16, 2019 1:15 p.m.
Chasmolinker says... #16
BTW.... All of the playtesting can be done right here on tappedout with the use of alters and something like MTG Cardsmith
May 16, 2019 1:19 p.m. Edited.
Flooremoji says... #17
There is a discord for Custom magic cards, I would recomend that you check it out and use those cards, the format is very fun to play. However, if you really want to design your own cards and such, I think it would be fine.
Cockatrice is a computer app that you can load custom cards on.
May 16, 2019 3:27 p.m.
Ok, I can see that there are a few issues to iron out. I still really want to get a custom card - exclusive tournament going, but I will think about it and come up with a better idea that is more streamlined. Thanks for helping me see that!
May 17, 2019 2:27 a.m.
ZzyzxTheAetherKnight says... #19
What of a casual deck built around a planeswalker? I run a Phantom deck. It's not a commander deck.
SynergyBuild says... #2
What is considered balanced?
May 16, 2019 8:44 a.m.