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The Lion’s Lair #5

“Mark of quality”

(A custom card design guide: templating)

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Today’s topic is a pet peeve of mine, and I’ve been wanting to write something about it for a long time. In this issue, I’ll talk about templating, editing, and quality, including also some very basic rules knowledge. Then I will show you some examples of common mistakes in those areas that I’ve seen frequently in custom cards but that are very easy to correct. Of course, it would be better to not make them at all, and a little attention is all it takes. Let’s begin!


”Pieces”, or “The cog in the machine”

(“Pieces” by Sum 41, “The cog in the machine” by Lagwagon)

As of Fate Reforged, there are more than 14,000 unique cards in Magic (source). They all have to coexist with each other in a rules system that has to be coherent and exhaustive. For it to work and have these qualities, it’s necessary to have a defined and constant structure, both at the level of rules (and that’s what the Comprehensive Rules are for) and at the level of single cards, where that is guaranteed by standard templates. You can think of a Magic card like a cog in a machine: each single cog in the gears needs to be properly designed and built for the whole machine to work. You can also think of Magic cards as pieces of a big interconnected puzzle, where each piece has to have the right shape to connect to the ones next to it. That is what a single card is, and each of them must work properly for the whole system to work.

Also, using standard templates and correct grammar helps a lot with comprehension complexity (see #3 – “As simple as that”). A well written card, using well established templates, with proper grammar and orthography, and with no spelling errors is easier to read and process for the brain, so it makes a better first impression and it’s easier to understand.

In the MCC rubric, this is included in “Quality”:

Quality (X/3) – Points deducted for incorrect spelling, grammar, and templating.

Note that this single section works differently than all the others in the rubric: you’re given 3 points, then judges deduct from those points for each mistake. Each judge has his or her own way to do this. I personally deduct half a point for any mistake, no matter how little it may be, and a whole point for particularly serious one (for example errors that alter the functionality of the card or don’t make it work at all).

The rest of this article will be dedicated to showing the most common mistakes in this area and how to avoid them, grouping them in a few broad categories. But before I get to that, I want to mention another resource that was born out of the recent “explosion” of contents in the CCC forums: Astrolabe’s wiki, called the “Custom Card Creation Handbook”. There, he has a page called “Rules Text Style Guide”, which I will be drawing from, while also adding something of my own. Mistakes are underlined. Some examples will be custom cards designed by me for this purpose, but most will be real cards, taken from recent sets where possible. Let’s go!


Play by the rules

First, one thing you need to remember is to always check if there are already established standard templates for what you want to do. For this, as well as other things I talked about in past articles, Gatherer is your best friend. There’s no reason to change already existing templates, provided they exist for the effect you’re designing. If not, use similar existing templates (if available) and adapt them. If your design is so innovative that there aren’t any, just try your best using the English language, but still remembering that some words and punctuation signs have a very specific meaning in Magic, as we’re about to see.

That said, we can start looking at actual common mistakes. The first category I’m going to examine is that of things involving the rules. Nobody is asking you to read the whole Comprehensive Rules, not even WotC themselves, but there are a few basic things from there that you just have to know if you’re doing custom card design. Sometimes these things affect gameplay too, in which case you should know them already just from playing the game, but sometimes they don’t, and that’s what the player can afford not to know but the designer can’t.

Let’s start with the very basics. What is there in a deck? Lands and spells. So what do you do with those?

1 – “cast” and “play”
“cast” is used for anything that is not and can’t ever be a land.
“play” is used for lands. It’s also used if the object you’re affecting could be a land.

2 – “cards”, “permanents”, and “permanent cards”
“Permanents” (“artifacts”, “creatures”, “enchantments”, “lands”, and “planeswalkers”) exist only on the battlefield.
When they are in any other zone they are “cards” (“artifact cards”, “creature cards”, “enchantment cards”, “land cards”, and “planeswalker cards”).
“Permanent cards” are cards (that means they’re not on the battlefield) of any of those five types, or, in other words, that are not instants or sorceries.

How to recognize and correctly template the different kinds of abilities (#3-4-5)

3 – Triggered abilities
A triggered ability must begin with one of the following words:
• "When", if it’s expected to resolve just one time (for example, “When CARDNAME enters the battlefield”).
• "Whenever", if it’s expected to resolve multiple times (for example, “Whenever CARDNAME attacks”).
• "At", if it triggers at a specific time (for example, “At the beginning of your upkeep”).
If it begins with any other word, it's NOT a triggered ability. A triggered ability is always written like this:

[TRIGGER CONDITION], [EFFECT].

There is always a comma separating those two, and always a period at the end.

4 – Activated abilities
Activated abilities must have a colon. If there's not a colon, it's NOT an activated ability. They are always written like this (with a period at the end):

[COST]: [EFFECT].

Everything before the colon is the cost and everything after the colon is the effect. Those are not to be mistaken. The first letter after the colon (the first letter of the effect) is always capitalized, as is the first letter of each single cost if there are multiple ones.

5 – Replacement effects
Replacement effects substitute an event (which will NO LONGER actually happen) with another event. You recognize a replacement effect because it always contains the word “instead”. There are many types of replacement effects, but the most common are two:
• Those beginning with "If" followed by a conditional sentence (the event to replace, which won't happen at all), then a comma, followed by the new event that will happen. These will apply anytime the event would happen.
• Those beginning with "The next time" followed by a conditional sentence (the event to replace, which won't happen at all), then a comma, followed by the new event that will happen. These will apply only the next time the event would happen. Just that one time.

How to recognize and correctly template different kinds of conditional abilities (#6-7-8)

6 – Conditional static abilities (“As long as”)
These are static abilities that apply only if a specified condition is met. They are written:

[EFFECT] as long as [CONDITION].

without commas and with a period at the end.
If there are multiple effects, the condition is written before, like this:

As long as [CONDITION], [EFFECT 1] and [EFFECT 2].

with a comma after the condition and a period at the end.
Pay attention not to confuse these with “for as long as”, which specifies a duration instead.

7 – Conditional triggered abilities (intervening “if”)
These are triggered abilities that trigger only if a specified condition is met. They can be written in two different ways, depending on when you want the check on the condition to happen:
• Intervening “if”

When/whenever/at [TRIGGER], if [CONDITION], [EFFECT].

The condition has a comma before it and a comma after it, and there’s a period at the end.
In this case, the condition is checked twice: the first time as the trigger event happens, and if the condition is not true then the ability doesn’t trigger at all, and the second time when it’s about to resolve (if it has triggered on the first check), and if the condition is not true then the ability does nothing.
• Non-intervening “if”

When/whenever/at [TRIGGER], [EFFECT] if [CONDITION].

There is only one comma, after the trigger, and a period at the end.
In this case, the ability always triggers when the trigger even happens and the condition is only checked on resolution.

8 – Conditional activated abilities (“Activate only”)
These are activated abilities that can be activated only if a specified condition is met. They are written like this:

[COST]: [EFFECT]. Activate this ability only if [CONDITION].

The “Activate only” part is its own sentence, so its first word (“Activate”) is capitalized and there is a period at the end.
A particular case is that of abilities that can be activated by any player or only by your opponents. In these cases the following wordings are used:

[COST]: [EFFECT]. Any player may activate this ability.

[COST]: [EFFECT]. Only any opponent may activate this ability.

A matter of style

In this category I’ll list mistakes that have to do with the established style conventions in Magic wording.

9 – “get”, “gain”, and “have”
Creatures always “get” power and toughness bonuses.
Permanents always “gain” abilities temporarily, or “have” abilities indefinitely.

10 – Numerals and number words
Only the following are written as numerals:
• power and toughness;
• life;
• converted mana cost;
• keyword parameters.
Anything else is written with number words. Notably, this includes cards, tokens, mana, counters, and multiple targets.

11 – Capitalization
Only few thing are actually capitalized: card names, card types and supertypes in the type line, subtypes anywhere on the card, single costs when separated by a comma, and the first letter of an effect after a colon. Most other things are never capitalized, and that includes card types and supertypes everywhere except the type line, and keywords unless they are at the beginning of a phrase or list of keywords.

12 – Flavor text
For this, you just have to remember a few things:
• The attribution, if present, must be on its own line, preceded by a long dash.
• English grammar counts here too. Don’t forget it!
• Emphasis in flavor text, if present, is unitalicized rather than underlined or bolded.

13 – “All creatures” vs. “creatures” (also for other types of permanents)
• If you’re affecting all creatures on the battlefield, and not just your own or another subset, you write “all creatures”
• If you’re doing some actions on them, even on just a subset (for example just your own), you also write “all creatures”. That action can be tap or untap, destroy, sacrifice, exile, return to their owners’ hands, etc...
• If you’re giving abilities or power and toughness bonuses to a subset of creatures (for example just your own), you just write “creatures”, without “all”.

14 – Modal spells and abilities
These are always formatted in a bulleted list. There is “Choose one” or one of its variants, followed by a long dash (not a colon), then the modes. Each of them is in its own line, that starts with a bullet (not a minus sign) and ends with a period. The first word of each mode is capitalized.
In the case of the so-called “anchor words”, such as the Sieges in Fate Reforged, after each bullet there is the anchor word, that must be capitalized, followed by a long dash and then the corresponding ability, with the first word also capitalized.
Note about bullet points: you can just make the bullet point as an inline character (•) using the combinations of keys ALT+0149 (typing sequentially the single numbers on the numeric keypad while keeping ATL pressed) or ALT+7(on the numeric keypad) if you're on Windows. Keep that in mind!

15 – Opponents
Writing just “your opponent” is always wrong! That is not uniquely identified in multiplayer, where you can have multiple opponents at the same time. You need to write one of the following:
• “target opponent” if you want to target a specific opponent;
• “an opponent” if you’re not targeting that player;
• “your opponents” if you want to affect all of them (this doesn’t target either).

Grammar check

In this category I’ll list mistakes that have to do with English grammar or different spellings. Please note that sometimes what is acceptable in English grammar and in Magic “grammar” are not the same. Also, don't worry if English is not your first language, it's not my first language either, yet I’m here designing custom cards.

I wholeheartedly suggest everyone to avoid these mistakes as much as you can. Not only they are horrible to see, but it takes so little time to correct them and so little attention to avoid them.

16 – it’s / its
“it’s” with the apostrophe is a verb, the contracted form of “it is”.
“its” without the apostrophe is a possessive adjective.

17 – you’re / your
“you’re” with the apostrophe is a verb, the contracted form of “you are”.
“your” without the apostrophe is a possessive adjective.

18 – they’re/ their
“they’re” with the apostrophe is a verb, the contracted form of “they are”.
“their” without the apostrophe is a possessive adjective.

19 – could/would/should of / could/would/should have
“of” is a preposition and as such it can’t take the place of a verb: “could of” is wrong! It’s “could have”! The same is true for “would” and “should”.

20 – they / he or she, or their / his or her
“they” is only a plural pronoun in Magic (and one could argue also in English grammar). There exists no gender neutral pronoun, so you must use “he or she” and “his or her” on Magic cards. When possible, you can also use “that player” instead to avoid gender issues.

21 – color / colour and flavor / flavour
While both spellings are acceptable in English, with their existence being due to the difference between British and American English, in Magic only the former (without the “u”) is acceptable, as WotC is based in the USA.

22 – can’t / cannot
Again, both are acceptable in English, but only the contracted form is standard template in Magic. Always use “can’t” on Magic cards.

23 – chose / choose
This is particularly relevant now that Fate Reforged has just come out, given the choice theme in that set. Here, when you write "chose" instead of "choose", you aren't making just a simple typo, you're changing verbal tense (“chose” is past tense, “choose” is imperative), so you're changing the whole meaning of your sentence! Always use “choose”, with the double “o”!

24 – “s” at the third person
Always conjugate verbs correctly! This means, among other things, that you always need to remember to put the “s” at the third singular person!

25 – Saxon genitive
Always remember the apostrophe!

26 – Oxford comma
While its use is debatable in the English language, it’s always there on Magic cards. Use it!

Signing out

As I’m doing all this out of memory, based on cards I’ve seen designed in the CCC forums, I’m sure I’m forgetting something. If I have further mistakes to point out I’ll do so in a future article.

@everyone: Please suggest more mistakes you're not seeing in this article for a future "part 2" one. You can post them here in the article thread and I'll see them.

Anyway, for the meantime just remember to always double check your cards and pay attention to all the little details. Being able to see them and giving them the attention they deserve is a skill as important in custom card design as it is in real life.


Until next time,

bravelion83