This is just an editorial. I’ve played Magic The Gathering since it started in 1993. Enjoyed it immensely. About 6 years ago I was introduced to the Commander variant. If you don’t know about MTG (this abbreviation was used long before the political personality began using it) then I should start there. It is a 1v1 game where each player builds a deck of at least 60 cards. From that deck each will draw and cast spells as the players take on the role of wizards dueling and trying to kill each other. That’s it. Simple game, right? Well…. Simple idea anyway. Commander takes the game up a notch but also brings it down to be casual. The game is now 4 players (ideally) with higher starting life amounts, a 99 card deck, and 1 card outside the deck referred to as your Commander. That card will drive the theme of your deck. There is so much more to it, but I don’t intend for this to be a tutorial. More a glimpse into the dark recesses of my mind!

The card pictured above doesn’t exist. I created it. Why would I do that? Specifically with that card it was a challenge in a forum to design a farmer Commander card that cares about food tokens. Not sure what it says about me that I instantly thought of the motel owners of Motel Hell. So I designed the card you see above. To be clear, you can’t play with homemade cards. Well… Unless the group you play with is fine with it. But in tournament settings all cards have to be legitimate MTG produced pieces of cardboard.

Having played this game for 30 years, I never considered making my own cards. In large part because I have always been an incredibly casual player. I bought cards all the time, but as packs. I never looked at a card and said I would be willing to pay $50 to add it to my deck. But then a strange thing happened to me this year. I decided I wanted to make Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy deck. I started by trying to find cards that I could possibly do a custom picture on. But I got frustrated at trying to make things that didn’t work work. So I did a thing.

I found a program called Magic Set Editor. Freeware that lets you design and print a card. Or many cards.

I then created the entire deck of cards for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I know the game well enough to have a good eye for balancing cards.

And a rabbit hole the size of a black hole was thus opened for me. I saw Furiousa and really want to make a deck based on it, but need the DVD release so I can grab images and figure out the cards to make.

And I have talked with Cullen about making decks for some creator owned comics of his. The idea being that the cards will be posted on his Patreon as a free download. I’d like to have 4 decks so a group could play Bunn The Gathering! (That name is being workshopped at the moment. And by that I mean the voices in my head are debating over it.) For the Bunniverse project (name also being workshopped, see above) I currently have 8 decks planned. And will likely have 4 more in mind before those 8 are finished. Currently I have one of his done and started on a second.

But what does all that have to do with the card above? The site I downloaded the program from has a forum and they do a weekly challenge (sorta, it’s been a month now and no results) where an idea is presented and anyone can do a design to enter. After doing the Motel Hell Commander card, I have found myself wanting to design a deck to play with it. I’m sure that once I get around to it, you will hear about it again.