Wizards of the Coast designs hundreds of cards each year, but that doesn't quench people's creativity for making new cards—in fact, it only gives people more inspiration. If you're anything like me, tons of other people across the Internet, many Friday Night Magic players, or lots of people at kitchen tables across the world; then you've at some point been inspired with a Magic card design of your own.

In this article, I'll answer the question, "What do I do with my card designs?" Possible future articles may include specifics on card design tools and formatting, tricks for designing better cards, and any other of a plethora of topics about the broad realm of making Magic cards.

Why Design Magic Cards?

Wizards of the Coast knows what it wants to do with its cards. They release four sets each year, and each one is built for drafting and playing sealed deck, and is full of cards expected to be used in block and standard, and possibly extended and legacy constructed formats.

When you create a card, you can't do any of those things with it. That's a sad truth. You can't bust your new awesome creation out of a Zendikar pack and play it in your draft deck. You can't print out four copies, sleeve them up, and head off to Friday Night Magic. I think those realities alone prevent too many people from getting super excited about designing their own cards. Unless you won an Invitational or got a job at Wizards, you were out of luck.

Fortunately, people play Magic in a lot of different ways. There are a few reasons people enjoy designing cards, and therefore a few reasons to write about how to do so. But, I think the most compelling reason to both design and write about designing Magic is that you want to play with the cards. And so, without a way to play with your cards, what good is an article about designing cards? That's why I'm going to cover a few formats where you just might be able to get away with sleeving up your creations and bringing the beats.

Casual, Kitchen Table Magic

This is the first, easiest option. Your 'kitchen table' may be in your game room basement, the lunch room at school, a table at your local card shop, or an actual kitchen table. The point is that there are no DCI numbers, rankings, format-based card restrictions, or tier one decks, and the reason you play is just to have fun.

'The point is to have fun,' though, also happens to be one of the most important social contracts in all of Magic's array of formats. Part of designing Magic cards is balance, and that becomes all the more important in kitchen table Magic. If you want your friends to let you play with cards you made up, you need to show them that you're creating fair and balanced cards. Part of the fun of Magic can be finding broken card combinations and abusing them in your deck, but when you design the cards that are in your deck, broken combinations just make your friends hate you faster and destroy your credibility when you want to introduce future creations.

Elder Dragon Highlander

In a lot of ways, EDH is like the kitchen table when it comes to designing your own cards. In fact, for some people the kitchen table is EDH. It includes the same social contract of having fun. However, EDH is full of powerful spells, so there's more leeway in creating a flashier, bombier card to put into your deck. Just make sure that's it's the type of card to garner a, "Wow, cool!" type of response, and not a frustrated grimace from your opponent.

You may even design your own general, but having that kind of control over your colors and the ability of the central card in your deck might be pushing your friends' collective patience a little too far ?

The Cube

Just as EDH had a similarity to kitchen table Magic, cube drafting has a similarity to EDH. That is, they both are chock-full of bomby and flashy cards. Now, I have never cube drafted, and in fact I have a personal grudge against cubes, but I'll get to that in a moment. But, from what I understand, each player builds his or her own cube with different goals. Of course, those goals tend to involve them and their friends having fun. So, when designing cards for your cube, bomby and flashy cards should be fine. In fact, crazy combo pieces should be fine as well. You might shy away from common and weaker uncommon-style cards.

Anyone can draft any card from your cube, so your friends should be just as excited about just about anything you pull out of the hat... just as long as it's not absurd or totally game-warping.

Repack Drafting

Huh? What's repack drafting? Well, remember when I said I had a grudge against cubes? That's because I'd been ‘repack drafting' for years before I'd ever heard of a cube or the concept became so popular.

While cubes tend to include extremely powerful cards and make for a different style of drafting experience, what I call 'repack drafting' creates a more typical limited feel, but with the diversity of all Magic's expansions (or rather, all of them that I choose to include). Basically I have commons, uncommons and rares in separate sections, with each section shuffled distinctly. (Actually, the commons are also sorted by color before being sorted.) When preparing a draft, eleven commons, three uncommons, and one rare are pulled from their appropriate sections (without looking at what the cards are, of course) to build a pack. Make enough packs for everyone involved, then draft as normal: Rochester, Winston, normal, or whatever. Then at the end of the draft, sort the cards and put them back.

The cards included are just some of my favorite commons, uncommons and rares that might not have a place anywhere else. Every draft is a new and unique blend of cards from all across Magic, but without the absurd power level and interactions potential of a cube.

As you can see, a repack draft collection is a great format for which to design new Magic cards. Commons, uncommons and rares of all varieties are all fair game, as they are equally accessible to everyone, and every style of card is expected, just as in a normal set of Magic. Once again, you still want to avoid absurd and extremely overpowered designs: crazy game-warping bombs can ruin any format. Also note that rarity assigning is particularly important in this format, as it's the only one of the four I've listed where it actually makes any difference. While putting a common-worthy design into an uncommon slot might only be slightly disappointing for the player who opens it, having commons in rare slots or rares in common slots can have unforeseen consequences.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this first look at what you can do with your card designs. And next time you turn your friend's dog or Gandalf the Grey into a Magic card, why not try sleeving it up?