It Appears R&D Reads Your Custom Cards
General forum
Posted on Jan. 5, 2016, 3:52 p.m. by Serendipitous_Hummingbird
So I stumbled across this custom card from 2012 that appears to be almost identical to Chandra, Roaring Flame.
CMC, starting loyalty, and +1 are identical.
-X is very similar to CRF's -2
The ultimate ability, although reasonably different, is rather similar and they both use the relatively unusual number 6.
It could be a freak coincidence I guess, but to me it looks like R&D used this design
View post on imgur.comCard credit to MTGSalvation user Johnni, art credit (as credited by Johnni) to DeviantArt user MobileSuitGio
Servo_Token says... #3
There's very very few things that you can do with a Chandra. It's bound to happen with the number of people making custom cards. R&D Does not and can not look to custom cards for inspiration, but overlap will happen due to limited design space.
January 5, 2016 3:57 p.m.
1.) You have no proof that they read this. Just because you designed a card doesn't mean that they can't come up with it independently. And it's likely they didn't, because if they did WotC could be sued for using someone else's intellectual property.
2.) Most "original" ideas aren't original.
3.) Planeswalker design space is quite narrow. You can change costs and numbers but, especially for Chandra, there are only so many ways you can reinvent the wheel.
January 5, 2016 4:01 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #9
Wasn't there some talk about WOTC dev teams being expressly prohibited from browsing custom cards to prevent exactly this kind of issue?
January 5, 2016 5:42 p.m.
Epochalyptik - Yeah, Mark Rosewater has to constantly remind people on his blog that he can't look at outside card designs.
January 5, 2016 5:47 p.m.
Serendipitous_Hummingbird says... #11
JWiley129 Never said I had proof, but your arguments are definitely more convincing than mere similarities.
Epochalyptik I didn't know that R&D couldn't do that. It makes sense, though.
Guess it is just a coincidence, and given the massive amounts of custom cards online, it isn't as big a coincidence as I thought.
Thanks for the responses. It's always good to know that you're wrong before you continue to spread false information.
PepsiAddicted I assumed Norin was based on Brave Sir Robin
January 5, 2016 6:28 p.m.
PepsiAddicted says... #12
haha oh man thats perfect yes ok Norin IS based on Brave Sir Robin
January 5, 2016 6:33 p.m.
Over 20,000 individual cards or something like that?
Ideas are going to cross the multiverse and overlap at some point.
January 5, 2016 8:14 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #14
There's only so many things a Red planeswalker can do, period, especially a character like Chandra who has such a strictly-defined MO. The designer of the custom card and the Magic R&D folks are simply working in the same restricted design space, and any similarities are going to be coincidental.
Serendipitous_Hummingbird says... #2
Here's a link to the MTGSalvation thread
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/creativity/custom-card-creation/365412-chandra-the-pyromancer
January 5, 2016 3:53 p.m.