Where do people play custom sets?

Fanboy · Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 424

Like many...I've wanted to do my own custom set (even as far as doing the fully rendered art work!...hopin Wizards might commission me someday). But...I always get stopped when it comes to "When it's done...who the hell is going to play it?". Is there a place where peope use custom sets...or are they all pretty much a waste?

Jorbes · Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 249 Location: Netherland

I think it's more an issue of "what's the point?"
Even if you make a killer deck, what is the gain?
It's not like you can test it for a sanctioned event.

But all the negativity aside, I think wizards is just doing such a good job at keeping the real mtg cards interesting, that people dont really feel the need to go and cheat on em with some hotter (blonde?) set of cards.

PS. Dont wait for wizards to come to you, just try to apply for a job, you might get lucky if you are really that good.

Fanboy · Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 424

Noob3 · Joined: 22 Jun 2005 Posts: 36

get 7 more dudes around & draft packs of your set

Magx · Joined: 07 Sep 2004 Posts: 339

ShadowS · Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 158

We do acually play custom sets on Apprentice in #other. There are 3 people in there that like to do custom sets, me included. I have already done the original set (330 cards).

It is in fact very very hard to complete a set. You need ALOT of dedication, inspiration and just a desire to design. (I want to be a game designer one day, so I have alot of that =P).

Twilightsown · Joined: 20 May 2006 Posts: 61

I think that making a set is definitly not a waste of time, even if you don't desire to one day work for wizard's as the process is fun and its challenging. Me and Sc4rs have actually finished the first set of our Block (Entitiled Heatwave) and are currently Beta testing. I think the best thing you can do is find a good friend who also wants to design a set and work on it together. You can bounce ideas off one another, have a person to play with, and have someone to keep you motivated (Me and Sc4rs had to kick each other in the ass quite a few times to finish it xD)
Seriously, its fun, its challenging, and overall, you feel pretty damn accomplished when you're done. Definitly not a waste of time, especially when you got good friends to test it with ^_^

TD · Joined: 19 Jul 2006 Posts: 105

I am yet another person from #other working on a custom set. I've also played with ShadowS' sets a few times, and am currently writing an article about the requirements for each color in terms of commons and custom set design, mostly because I'm doing research into it anyway and might as well share.

In general, though, designing a good custom set is difficult. A custom set should have interesting mechanics, flavor, cards which seem appealing to play with, good limited play, and in general originality and new ideas. A lot of sets fall down in large numbers of these, and many fall down in all. Broken cards do not make for a good set, and proper commality is very important, as is novelty. If your set doesn't have many new ideas, people are less likely to play with it, doubly so because Time Spiral is out and already mixes in a lot of the most popular mechanics from the past anyway.