Humble Beginnings

How I learned to love the spreadsheet.

When I first knew I wanted to design a Magic: The Gathering set, I suppose I had a very glamorous idea of what card design was like. I got all the tools I needed, and immediately started pouring forth every good idea for a card that I had – we’re talking Legendary Creatures, Powerful Instants and Sorceries, lots and lots of rares and mythics.

This is a terrible way to design a set.

All I had to show from this was a collection of scatterbrained ideas with no through line, and while some of them were novel or interesting, they were all without context – absolutely no meaning to any of them.

The ultimate intention I have with designing a custom Magic set is, well. I want to play Magic with it, and turns out – and you may not believe this – most Magic cards, at least at their face value, aren’t that interesting.

However, as you might have guessed, it’s the more humble and unremarkable cards that serve as the foundation for any set. They set the tone, establish mechanics and themes, and especially in terms of playing the game, they’re the backbone of any constructed or limited deck.

I am, of course, talking about Commons.

280 Card Set // 120 Commons.

• 75 Creatures
• 25 Instants/Sorceries
• 15 Artifacts
• 5 Lands

This is the outline I have set out for myself when creating the commons for MHMTG. Obviously, as I get further along in the process, I expect it to change, but it can be fun to look back and be reminded of our virtuous and idealist visions.

Structurally, I have laid out my design skeleton for Commons in an excel spreadsheet, which I will spare you the torment of linking here.

Of course, I’m not going to be able to help myself from creating interesting or flashy cards as I get ideas for them, and I’ll keep them in a little reserve to fill in some gaps later – maybe I’ll even showcase some of them here and there if they’re particularly inspired.

However, for the foreseeable future, It’s commons all the way down. Let’s do this work.