We're back again on the trail, following where the signposts lead us in draft. This new Avatar set has some new twists on the uncommon gold "archetype" cards and overall has some new ideas on structure. How do you structure a set with four types of elements in a game with five colors and ten color pairs? We dive in and give our breakdown. Join Beac…

We've got a combo episode this week. Part project showoff, part live design, and all weird old mechanics. Rexxer2 aka Spencer hops on the pod with Tim to talk through this mechanic-a-day project and then dive in to design three of the cards! Fans (if they exist??) of Frenzy, Grandeur, and Gravestorm gotta listen to this one. The Year of Mechanics g…

Spooky season meets rhinoceroses in our monthly challenge! We got your best card ideas submitted throughout the month and we cover the entries in this episode. Lots of great designs, plus Juliet's twist on anagram card names! Charity stream for Moonshot this weekend: https://www.twitch.tv/moonshotnetwork Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://d…

This week we're headed joining heads to brainstorm a ton of new ideas for 2HG draft! The episode starts with a recap of Battlebond along with cracking a sample pack. Once the table it set, we settle in to the big brainstorming session, sharing over a dozen ideas for a Battlebond followup. Brad's stream: https://twitch.tv/bradleyrose Join Beacon of …

This week Gabe's bringing the Mark Rosewater's State of Design 2025 article to the pod. We've picked our favorite points from the article and talk through the implications and lessons. Some of these sets aren't that old but feel ancient now! It was fun to re-live these sets and find some takeaways now that we have some distance. The article: https:…

This week we're putting aside our usual design goals and focusing on a new one: creating cards good enough to hang in a high powered cube! Selesnya hasn't gotten as much love as the other color pairs in high power formats, but our community is here to the rescue. Local cube organizer Eric is back on the pod to evaluate all of your great submissions…

This challenge review dives into "spellbook" technology from Arena. What cool cards can you design when that card has access to three other cards? We got a ton of submissions again, so you'll learn all about the possible tech! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com…

Big episode! Alexis Janson breaks down their game and helps brainstorm how to steal some of that technology for our own Magic designs. Alexis was a Beacon host way back in the day, so you know they're ready to go deep on the design and ideas behind Galaxy. Check out the game: https://galaxy.fun The dev twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/playgala…

Kayiu and Juliet walk through the basics of Moxtober 2025, the yearly community custom Magic event! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.comبقلم Beacon of Creation

Juliet is joined by Gabe Lincoln to ask to borrow a cup of one of Magic's oldest flavors, Giant non-Lizard-Wizard non-Hero-Villain Spiders. How do the arachnids that predate the keywording of reach differ from the ones that come after? What is the anatomy of a two-color gold Spider? Why does Ravnica get the most Giant Spiders of them all? Join Beac…

Wizards is releasing Through the Omenpaths, a full reflavoring of their Spider-Man set. That got us curious how the existing Universes Beyond sets could be redone too! Khord jumps on the pod as we tackle cards from LotR, 40k, Doctor Who, and more. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofc…

Our packed court of Objection! submissions wraps up this week with another packed ep full of great cards! This wide open challenge asked submitters to design a mechanic called "Objection" and we got SO MANY versions. Listen in for our thoughts on all these cards, including three more new submitters! Submissions from: Xena, MWB, JamesDaltonBell, Jul…

You won't hear me objecting to so many design submissions, but you WILL hear all about the first half of our cards with the Objection mechanic! Keywords, ability words, and flavor, this challenge is all about defining "Objection!" as a Magic mechanic. Due to some Discord issues and due to the huge number of submissions, this week's ep just covers t…

We've told you about You Make the Pack, now it's time to do it!! We've got some live design this week, making submissions for the YMTP event. We brought on new community member KennaKhaos to help and it was definitely the right choice! We tackle both a rare and a common for this emerging project. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.g…

Juliet and game designer Brendan McLeod dispel Ondore's lies as they talk about Final Fantasy XII's sparse appearances in the canon "Magic: The Gathering–FINAL FANTASY", and set out to make a jeskai Commander deck with all new designs for the game's biggest hitters and most memorable moments and characters. Brendan's bsky with links to Paper Labyri…

How do you make your own set in a month? The power of friendship! Beacon regular Brad (aka Redbay) breaks down the schedule he and Peter (MonoWhiteBorder) used to finish and release an entire set in a month. There's a TON of great tips for making sets in this ep, so you won't want to miss it! Check out the set here: https://rrredbay.github.io/sets/…

Signpost gold cards are a great way to teach your drafters what archetypes and decks can be drafted in limited. By learning from retail Wizards sets, we can improve our design skills and make more fun sets ourselves. In our Following Signposts episodes, we break down what we learn JUST from the archetype card and the uncommon gold cards. Your draft…

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:…

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 Satur…

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 battl…

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 Bo…

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/t…

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 …

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 Discor…

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 Bea…