Card Core Design #1: Common Sense

Week 1. Let's hit the ground running.

"Common Bond" by Raymond Swanland

I'm at the very beginning of designing a Magic: The Gathering Core Set and have to start somewhere. Since it's a Core Set, instead of what you might find in a Fall expansion, I don't need to begin with a theme or a premise that drives and informs my design. It's just a bunch of individual, classic-fantasy cards with no new mechanics introduced. However, I do know that I'm bringing back the undying keyword mechanic.

Before I jump into exploring undying, I need a design file. And set design begins with commons. So, I'll need a common design skeleton. I'm going to pretty much follow the process as outlined in Mark Rosewater's "Nuts & Bolts: Design Skeleton" article.

First, I need to determine how many commons. Core Sets are large sets. That means 269 cards. Of those number of cards, 101 of them are supposed to be commons.

Code	Card Description
C1
C2
C3
C4
C5
C6
C7
C8
C9
C10
C11
C12
C13
C14
C15
C16
C17
C18
C19
C20
C21
C22
C23
C24
C25
C26
C27
C28
C29
C30
C31
C32
C33
C34
C35
C36
C37
C38
C39
C40
C41
C42
C43
C44
C45
C46
C47
C48
C49
C50
C51
C52
C53
C54
C55
C56
C57
C58
C59
C60
C61
C62
C63
C64
C65
C66
C67
C68
C69
C70
C71
C72
C73
C74
C75
C76
C77
C78
C79
C80
C81
C82
C83
C84
C85
C86
C87
C88
C89
C90
C91
C92
C93
C94
C95
C96
C97
C98
C99
C100
C101

Most Core Sets have 20 cards of each color in common. And then 1 artifact or land.

Code	Card Description
CW01
CW02
CW03
CW04
CW05
CW06
CW07
CW08
CW09
CW10
CW11
CW12
CW13
CW14
CW15
CW16
CW17
CW18
CW19
CW20
CU01
CU02
CU03
CU04
CU05
CU06
CU07
CU08
CU09
CU10
CU11
CU12
CU13
CU14
CU15
CU16
CU17
CU18
CU19
CU20
CB01
CB02
CB03
CB04
CB05
CB06
CB07
CB08
CB09
CB10
CB11
CB12
CB13
CB14
CB15
CB16
CB17
CB18
CB19
CB20
CR01
CR02
CR03
CR04
CR05
CR06
CR07
CR08
CR09
CR10
CR11
CR12
CR13
CR14
CR15
CR16
CR17
CR18
CR19
CR20
CG01
CG02
CG03
CG04
CG05
CG06
CG07
CG08
CG09
CG10
CG11
CG12
CG13
CG14
CG15
CG16
CG17
CG18
CG19
CG20
C?01	artifact/land

Most common cards are of the "creature" card type. Let's start by defining how many creature cards should be in the set. Looking at Magic 2015, Magic 2014, and Magic 2013; there tend to be about 56 common cards that are either creatures or that make creature tokens.

(I chose to look at the three most recent Core Sets because I wanted to be up-to-date with Core Set conventions while also looking at enough sets to form a pattern).

Each color has a certain number of creatures in it, and some colors tend to have more than other colors and vice versa. In priority order of receiving the highest number of creatures per color: white, green, black, red, then blue.

If black is the color that gets the average amount of creatures, let's take the average number for when you take 56 divided by 5. That is 11.2. Let's round down. So, 11. I'm going to give 11 to black. Then, following the convention that Mark describes in his article, I'll accordingly increment or decrement by 1 or 2 for each of the other colors. So, that looks like this: 13 white, 12 green, 11 black, 10 red, 9 blue. That totals 55 creatures. I have one creature remaining. Let's make it an artifact creature for now.

Based off of Magic 2015 and Magic 2014, an artifact creature at common is an opportunity to reflect the mechanical theme of the set. It's also an opportunity to do an artifact-creature twist on a creature mechanic. Like how Stonework Puma is an Ally artifact creature that supports the Ally theme but doesn't actually provide an ability like most Allies do. Sliver Construct is the same way and is a Sliver card that ties into the Slivers that appeared in Magic 2014. Will-Forged Golem became the first artifact creature with convoke when Magic 2015 was the set bringing back convoke.

However, there's still opportunity to do an artifact creature with undying at uncommon. But, for now, let's mark it down with undying.

Code	Card Description
CW01	creature
CW02	creature
CW03	creature
CW04	creature
CW05	creature
CW06	creature
CW07	creature
CW08	creature
CW09	creature
CW10	creature
CW11	creature
CW12	creature
CW13	creature
CW14
CW15
CW16
CW17
CW18
CW19
CW20
CU01	creature
CU02	creature
CU03	creature
CU04	creature
CU05	creature
CU06	creature
CU07	creature
CU08	creature
CU09	creature
CU10
CU11
CU12
CU13
CU14
CU15
CU16
CU17
CU18
CU19
CU20
CB01	creature
CB02	creature
CB03	creature
CB04	creature
CB05	creature
CB06	creature
CB07	creature
CB08	creature
CB09	creature
CB10	creature
CB11	creature
CB12
CB13
CB14
CB15
CB16
CB17
CB18
CB19
CB20
CR01	creature
CR02	creature
CR03	creature
CR04	creature
CR05	creature
CR06	creature
CR07	creature
CR08	creature
CR09	creature
CR10	creature
CR11
CR12
CR13
CR14
CR15
CR16
CR17
CR18
CR19
CR20
CG01	creature
CG02	creature
CG03	creature
CG04	creature
CG05	creature
CG06	creature
CG07	creature
CG08	creature
CG09	creature
CG10	creature
CG11	creature
CG12	creature
CG13
CG14
CG15
CG16
CG17
CG18
CG19
CG20
CA01	artifact creature, undying

I want some of my creatures to actually be cards that make tokens. White tends to have 1 to 2 cards that make tokens. As for the rest of the colors, it's up in the air. I'll at least add one instant/sorcery cards that creatures tokens.

While I'm starting to call out other card types, let's fill in the rest of the slots with instants, sorceries, and etc. Most colors have a single Aura enchantment at common, except white most definitely usually has a Pacifism-like Aura card alongside some other Aura that grants a benefit to a creature. White and blue tend to have more instants than sorceries compared to other colors. Green and black tend to have more sorceries than instants compared to other colors. Equipment artifacts or plain vanilla artifacts tend not to be at common.

White has 12 creature cards right now. That leaves 8 noncreature cards, 1 of which being an instant or sorcery that makes a creature token. 2 of the noncreature cards will be an Aura. 6 left. Dividing in half for instants and sorceries, we get 3 and 3. But white gets more instants than sorceries, so I'll put down 4 instants and 2 sorceries. One of these instants/sorceries needs to be a token-maker, so I'll mark that down without committing just yet.

Blue has 11 noncreature cards. 1 will be an Aura. 10 instants/sorceries. 5 and 5. Looking at previous Core Sets, blue usually gets 3 sorceries, leaving 7 instants.

Black gets 11 creature cards and 1 Aura. 8 instants/sorceries divided by 2 is 4 and 4. Adjust for black having more sorceries, and keeping in mind that green is probably more intensely into sorceries, and the final numbers will be 5 sorceries and 3 instants.

Red gets 10 creatures and 1 Aura. Red has an even number of sorceries and instants, but I have an extra slot left over after I determine there should be 4 instants and 4 sorceries. I'll keep it ambiguous for now.

Green is using up 12 slots for creatures and 1 for an Aura. Green gets more sorceries than instants, and it feels right that it should have even more sorceries than instants than black does for itself. 5 sorceries and 2 instants it is.

Code	Card Description
CW01	creature
CW02	creature
CW03	creature
CW04	creature
CW05	creature
CW06	creature
CW07	creature
CW08	creature
CW09	creature
CW10	creature
CW11	creature
CW12	creature
CW13	creature
CW14	sorcery
CW15	sorcery, token-making?
CW16	instant
CW17	instant
CW18	instant
CW19	instant, token-making?
CW20	enchantment, Aura
CU01	creature
CU02	creature
CU03	creature
CU04	creature
CU05	creature
CU06	creature
CU07	creature
CU08	creature
CU09	creature
CU10	sorcery
CU11	sorcery
CU12	sorcery
CU13	instant
CU14	instant
CU15	instant
CU16	instant
CU17	instant
CU18	instant
CU19	instant
CU20	enchanment, Aura
CB01	creature
CB02	creature
CB03	creature
CB04	creature
CB05	creature
CB06	creature
CB07	creature
CB08	creature
CB09	creature
CB10	creature
CB11	creature
CB12	sorcery
CB13	sorcery
CB14	sorcery
CB15	sorcery
CB16	sorcery
CB17	instant
CB18	instant
CB19	instant
CB20	instant
CR01	creature
CR02	creature
CR03	creature
CR04	creature
CR05	creature
CR06	creature
CR07	creature
CR08	creature
CR09	creature
CR10	creature
CR11	sorcery
CR12	sorcery
CR13	sorcery
CR14	sorcery
CR15	instant
CR16	instant
CR17	instant
CR18	instant
CR19	sorcery/instant
CR20	enchantment, Aura
CG01	creature
CG02	creature
CG03	creature
CG04	creature
CG05	creature
CG06	creature
CG07	creature
CG08	creature
CG09	creature
CG10	creature
CG11	creature
CG12	creature
CG13	sorcery
CG14	sorcery
CG15	sorcery
CG16	sorcery
CG17	sorcery
CG18	instant
CG19	instant
CG20	enchantment, Aura
CA01	artifact creature, undying

Let's jump back to creatures and define them more. Creatures come in different sizes of power and toughness, but they are generally categorized by Magic R&D into "small," "medium," and "large." And these sizes come in different ratios for each color. Here's the breakdown:

White doesn't get "large" creatures and has most of its creatures as "small."

Blue has mostly small creatures but has a tiny bit of "medium" and usually one "large" creature (usually a Serpent-type of creature).

Black usually gets an even divide of small and medium creatures.

Red has more small creatures than medium creatures but not by much.

Green has one or two "large" with a pretty even divide between small and medium for the others.

Since this is a large set, I decided to give green two large creatures. From the remaining ten creatures, doing an even split between small and medium felt like I was giving too much heavy weight with those two large creatures alongside the mediums. So, I eliminated a creature slot and made an extra slot that would make a creature token and is either sorcery or instant.

Code	Card Description
CW01	creature, small
CW02	creature, small
CW03	creature, small
CW04	creature, small
CW05	creature, small
CW06	creature, small
CW07	creature, small
CW08	creature, small
CW09	creature, small
CW10	creature, small
CW11	creature, medium
CW12	creature, medium
CW13	creature, medium
CW14	sorcery
CW15	sorcery, token-making?
CW16	instant
CW17	instant
CW18	instant
CW19	instant, token-making?
CW20	enchantment, Aura
CU01	creature, small
CU02	creature, small
CU03	creature, small
CU04	creature, small
CU05	creature, small
CU06	creature, small
CU07	creature, medium
CU08	creature, medium
CU09	creature, large
CU10	sorcery
CU11	sorcery
CU12	sorcery
CU13	instant
CU14	instant
CU15	instant
CU16	instant
CU17	instant
CU18	instant
CU19	instant
CU20	enchanment, Aura
CB01	creature, small
CB02	creature, small
CB03	creature, small
CB04	creature, small
CB05	creature, small
CB06	creature, small/medium
CB07	creature, medium
CB08	creature, medium
CB09	creature, medium
CB10	creature, medium
CB11	creature, medium
CB12	sorcery
CB13	sorcery
CB14	sorcery
CB15	sorcery
CB16	sorcery
CB17	instant
CB18	instant
CB19	instant
CB20	instant
CR01	creature, small
CR02	creature, small
CR03	creature, small
CR04	creature, small
CR05	creature, small
CR06	creature, medium
CR07	creature, medium
CR08	creature, medium
CR09	creature, medium
CR10	creature, medium
CR11	sorcery
CR12	sorcery
CR13	sorcery
CR14	sorcery/instant
CR15	instant
CR16	instant
CR17	instant
CR18	instant
CR19	instant
CR20	enchantment, Aura
CG01	creature, small
CG02	creature, small
CG03	creature, small
CG04	creature, small
CG05	creature, small
CG06	creature, medium
CG07	creature, medium
CG08	creature, medium
CG09	creature, medium
CG10	creature, large
CG11	creature, large
CG12	sorcery
CG13	sorcery
CG14	sorcery
CG15	sorcery
CG16	sorcery
CG17	sorcery/instant, token-making
CG18	instant
CG19	instant
CG20	enchantment, Aura
CA01	artifact creature, undying

We can define the creatures even further with what kind of creature keywords are supposed to show up. But before I do that, I'm going to focus on including undying. That way, I can design around where undying is supposed to show up.

So, undying premiered in Dark Ascension. In that set, four colors had undying. And, for each color, they generally had one for each rarity. This is good to keep in mind for when we need to not have too MUCH undying.

In Dark Ascension, black had a disproportionately-higher amount of undying cards, including having two black cards at common (1 creature card, 1 non-creature card). That makes sense for black.

So, what of the other colors? Green makes sense to have undying because of regeneration. White has cards that bring creatures back from the graveyard, so that's a possible color. And because white hasn't yet had any cards that have undying, I am absolutely going to choose white to include for this, in the same fashion that black got to have convoke in Magic 2015, exalted in Magic 2013, and bloodthirst in Magic 2012, each for the first time for its color.

That leaves red and blue. I don't want to have undying in every single color for this set, so I'm eliminating blue. And because past returning keywords tended to only have two or three colors have access to a keyworded mechanic, I'll eliminate red. For common, that is. That undying Phoenix dream at rare still lives on (notice that convoke didn't re-appear for many cards in Magic 2015, except on a rare card).

Since that was a small set, and this is a large set; I think I'm O.K. with having two cards at common for a particular color that have undying in this set. Here's a chart of how much the returned keyword showed up, for each rarity:

	M10 - NONE	M11 - Scry	M12 - Bloodthirst	M13 - Exalted	M14 - Slivers	M15 - Convoke
Common	0	4	5	4	6	9
Uncommon	0	1	3	4	3	8
Rare	0	0	0	2	5	5
Mythic	0	0	2	1	0	0
TOTAL	0	5	10	11	14	22

So, if I give black two common undying cards and then give white two common undying cards (because white could use all the undying presence it can get), that'll be four common undying cards, which would be par for everything Magic 2013 and older. Green should have at least one, so that's 5 undying. Seems about fine.

For different-size type of creatures, I'll first look to creature types. There isn't a Skeleton undying creature, yet, so I'm totally making a small black creature have undying. A Skeleton type would be just perfect.

Code	Card Description
CW01	creature, small, undying
CW02	creature, small
CW03	creature, small
CW04	creature, small
CW05	creature, small
CW06	creature, small
CW07	creature, small
CW08	creature, small
CW09	creature, small
CW10	creature, small
CW11	creature, medium, undying?
CW12	creature, medium
CW13	creature, medium
CW14	sorcery
CW15	sorcery, token-making?
CW16	instant, undying?
CW17	instant
CW18	instant
CW19	instant, token-making?
CW20	enchantment, Aura
CU01	creature, small
CU02	creature, small
CU03	creature, small
CU04	creature, small
CU05	creature, small
CU06	creature, small
CU07	creature, medium
CU08	creature, medium
CU09	creature, large
CU10	sorcery
CU11	sorcery
CU12	sorcery
CU13	instant
CU14	instant
CU15	instant
CU16	instant
CU17	instant
CU18	instant
CU19	instant
CU20	enchanment, Aura
CB01	creature, small, undying, Skeleton
CB02	creature, small
CB03	creature, small
CB04	creature, small
CB05	creature, small
CB06	creature, small/medium
CB07	creature, medium, undying?
CB08	creature, medium
CB09	creature, medium
CB10	creature, medium
CB11	creature, medium
CB12	sorcery
CB13	sorcery
CB14	sorcery
CB15	sorcery
CB16	sorcery
CB17	instant, Undying Evil?
CB18	instant
CB19	instant
CB20	instant
CR01	creature, small
CR02	creature, small
CR03	creature, small
CR04	creature, small
CR05	creature, small
CR06	creature, medium
CR07	creature, medium
CR08	creature, medium
CR09	creature, medium
CR10	creature, medium
CR11	sorcery
CR12	sorcery
CR13	sorcery
CR14	sorcery/instant
CR15	instant
CR16	instant
CR17	instant
CR18	instant
CR19	instant
CR20	enchantment, Aura
CG01	creature, small, undying?
CG02	creature, small
CG03	creature, small
CG04	creature, small
CG05	creature, small
CG06	creature, medium, undying?
CG07	creature, medium
CG08	creature, medium
CG09	creature, medium
CG10	creature, large, undying?
CG11	creature, large
CG12	sorcery
CG13	sorcery
CG14	sorcery
CG15	sorcery
CG16	sorcery
CG17	sorcery/instant, token-making
CG18	instant
CG19	instant
CG20	enchantment, Aura
CA01	artifact creature, undying

As for the rest of the design skeleton, I've hit my limit for writing today, so I'll have to save posting the rest of filling out this design skeleton for next week! Until then, may your commons make sense.