Beacon of Creation

Tapping is core to Magic and it's about time we did a Design Challenge all about it! This month you sent us all your cards that tap lots of creatures, and as an extra challenge we said to do it without blue! As always lots of innovative cards and plenty of deep dives into the nooks and crannies of each submission. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images:...

A little bit of romance, a dash of action, some new mechanics, and even a speedy bunch of card crafting. This episode has it all! Fusing Capenna's angels and demons world with families, weddings, and duels of honor seems like it will make for a super fun set! Be sure to check Juliet and co's production of Hamlet but with Sonic characters this Saturday at   https://twitch.tv/moonshotnetwork Join Be...

Design or Die! To celebrate Card Colosseum, Khord and Tim are design cards at lightning speed! Each prompt gets three minutes, for 15 cards all in one podcast. Listen to our answers to these prompts, then hop on the Discord and give us your versions! Card Colosseum is a yearly event in the Magic Set Editor (MSE) Discord where pairs of players battle it out, bracket-style, to see which designer com...

Passion project meets mainstream set release with Judge Bones's Final Fantasy Tactics Advance project. Started before FIN and reinvented afterward, we talk through all the components he needs to jumpstart this fun adaptation. Learn a bit about some classic games, brainstorm about advanced sideboards, and embrace our new Geomancer overlords. Meet Bones at Cube for a Cause: https://www.upkeepnewyork...

Your last chance on the battlefield! This month's design challenge is all about finality counters. Bring creatures back, but not forever. Added on top is a whole lot of Universes Beyond-style top down flavor! Tune in to hear about all the twists our designers found for this still-new mechanic. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images:  https://beaconofcre...

In this live-design episode, Tim and Juliet tackle a templating question based on the precedent of Party, with some help from Banding and Domain. Along the way, they examine the role that lands, dual lands, and 1/1s play in the sequencing of Magic's gameplay, and how all that's best of dark and bright (Shadowmoor and Lorwyn) meet in the aspect and eyes of novel designs. Join Beacon of Creation's D...

Washington Cube Champs is a two day event packed with cube draft! Not just a niche format anymore, cube has its own events and tournaments, including WCC pulling in over a hundred players! This week we've got a pair of interviews with players at the event, including a full breakdown of the cubes each of them played. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Image...

With Tarkir Dragonstorm winding up, we're following their lead and enhancing some old mechanics! Like going from Scavenge to Renew and Flashback to Harmonize, we asked the listeners to design some new mechanics based on old ones. Designing mechanics is one of the hardest things to do a designer, so check out the fruits of everyone's labor! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88V...

Elders... be they dragons, dinosaurs, or Final Fantasy villains, they've always got cool abilities and an epic feel. This week we review your submissions to the challenge of designing new Elders creatures. Thrown into the mix is Juliet's challenge to include... the whole alphabet? Another great wacky mix of card analysis, creativity, and tangents about childhood and podcast saints. Join Beacon of...

Crossover eps take another card game, teach you the rules, and compare those ideas to Magic. What can we steal to use in our own designs? For this ep, our hair is turning gold, our energy is radiating from our bodies, and normal humans can't even see the speed of our punches. It's Dragonball Z! It's got commander-style face cards, a more spell-like combat system, and plenty of wild nooks and crann...

This one is for the flavor text lovers! Tim and Juliet have to dissect the flavor in this mystery pack from Peter. The pack's story has an order, and it's up to us to figure it out! Very much a Custom Magic episode. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord:  https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images:  https://beaconofcreation.com Moonshot's big charity stream is this weekend!

Starting in Zendikar, quests have been a fun way to build towards a goal. This week's guest, Qirn, has been thinking all about quests for a Legend of Zelda set and has some ideas. Along the way we break down the challenges of designing quests and the cards that are like quests. A deep dive! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord:  https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images:  https://beaconofcreat...

We've got Beacon regular IgnitedxSoul, aka Dylan, on the pod this week! The topic is Outpost Zero, a sci-fi horror set, but more specifically we're diving into some problem draft archetypes in the set. A nice mix of learning about the set and brainstorming ideas for designs! Check out Ignited's writing: https://www.dylan-tyler-ward.com Join Beacon of Creation's Discord:  https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh...

Don't miss this ep! Our listeners each sent us one of two things: either a custom card (of any design) or a real card with the name and types changed. The job for us hosts is to guess which is which, and you can play along!  Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images:  https://beaconofcreation.com

With Dragonstorm out but Alchemy not yet revealed, we're taking a shot at some ideas for Arena play with these new mechanics! Long time discord member Craftedlavaistrue joins Tim and Peter for a trio of new cards. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images:  https://beaconofcreation.com

Arms and the magic we sing of fate And Voc-Gal's micro-set Battle rate. Meanwhile the well-built set speedily came to the isle of the two Sirens, for a fair and gentle wind bore her on. Then presently the wind ceased and there was a windless calm, and a god lulled the waves to sleep. https://beacon-of-creation-mtg.github.io/previews/VGT https://khord22.github.io/VGE-spoiler   https://linktr.ee/kho...

Juliet and Redbay break down the hip new limited format and custom design project: 45-card Micro-sets for duplicate sealed! Can this new format bring the best of traditional set design limited and the brevity and expediency of jumpstart play? Check out a preview of five different Micro-sets made by different designers, with a deep dive into Redbay's own traditional-fantasy inspired Veyrathal! Chec...

Winter hibernation is over and we're hungry! Our challenge this month was to design cards with cards with devour, emerge, or exploit, so keep those snacks coming! We've got dreadmaws, eldrazi books, corrupt sherifs, lots of red arrows, and more! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images:  https://beaconofcreation.com

They don't make formats like they used to... but should they?! Join guest Tom on a tour through the famous Rise of the Eldrazi format. Along the way we'll also talk about the parallels between ROE and a certain current draft format. Finally we try to see beyond just the cards in the original set and brainstorm some additions to the format. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88V...

Celebrating 400 episodes! This is an intro to the original Beacon of Creation project, Castmire, a spooky Magic set in a world before Duskmourn and Murders at Karlov Manor. The coolest part of the ep is the second half, where we give into sweet ideas from all of you to do with Castmire. We've got the two original creators of Beacon here, Brad and Adam, and lots of their stories and perspectives! J...

Juliet and game designer Aaron Lim dig into Magic's most interesting cards with the Food subtype! From Gingerbrutes to Krovod Haunches, they resist the urge to create tokens and design some tasty (though potentially broken) cards that'll make you say "Bon Appétit". Check out Aaron's Kickstarter live now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ehronlime/ithaca-in-the-cards-and-what-should-we-have-tom...

Big spells with a backup plan! We've got all of your entries in our Four Weeks challenge, where designers had to make a spell you can cast for either 8 mana or 2 mana! We've got lots of Cleave and Prototype, some Spree, and plenty of other innovations. Yet another fun design deep-dive! Juliet's Bath & Butler Works pod on Moonshot:  https://www.patreon.com/posts/bath-butler-3-of-122994563 Join Beac...

Final Fantasy previews are here and we've assembled a heroic party to talk all about it! Tim and Juliet are joined by the wonderful Ash Parrish of the Verge to break down all the cards. We talk our favorite previews, then talk through some possibilities for the set. What color is Bahamut? Should Materia be a token? What are the famous dragons in Final Fantasy anyhow?  Ash's work: https://www.theve...

You Make the Pack is our community project where we build a pack of Magic cards, one card at a time! What starts as a blank slate quickly narrows into a specific vision. Past packs were Food Hell World, Declining Clockwork Empire, and The Beach That Makes You Old. For this episode we're looking at everyone's cards for this new YMTP. We've got snorf, story, spores and more. Come along with us as we...

This week is all about drift archetypes! We break down all ten from the new set along with their gold cards. Are they exciting? Believeable? Synergistic? This is a great way to get familiar with the components of the set's limited design. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes: https://beaconofcreation.com Watch "Cars" for Pete's sake!