MtG Commander Cube
- Description: Custom made draft-able commander cube for “Magic: the Gathering”
- Technology: LaTeX, Magic Set Editor
- Scale: Side-project (over months)
- Team Size: Only me (received feedback from others)
- Job: Dealing with a high-level design concept, top-down approach and designing game cards that fit, are fun, and balanced.
- Rules: Click here
- Biggest Learning: Design first, playtest, find the aspects and design philosophies that encapsulate the vision. Focus on that, design everything else around it to fit. Repeatedly test and re-evaluate to stay on course-
Description:
Magic: the Gathering is a popular card game. One of its many formats, commander, allow a very flexible, and casual approach to the game. A “cube” in this game is called a fixed set of cards that players can draft their decks with. It embodies the design challenge of both making deckbuilding fun and challenging, but also the games that are played with those drafted decks.
Inspired by the cube Brandon Sanderson made, I started this project to create my own cube for the commander format, and not only use existing cards, but also design my own. I started by constructing a vision of how I want the draft and gameplay experience to be. I tackled certain design issues encountered, and produces a top-down approach for the card designs.
In addition to the actual cards played with, I designed “Regalia” cards that are never played, but allow for more draft variety. For instance, a regalia might allow you to have the red color identity even though you otherwise wouldn’t.