Post by kinotherapy on Jun 26, 2019 23:19:15 GMT
(This thread is aimed at more at experienced designers who have a good understanding of what a set skeleton is and how to use one — check out this article for an introduction)
When starting a set, you'll often have a good idea of the size and shape of set you want to make, but not a skeleton which you can start building from. Sometimes you'll get lucky and find a skeleton that precisely matches your needs, but most of time you'll have to build it from scratch: either creating an empty set file and filling it with blank cards at the colors/rarities you want (which is a chore that can take literal hours) or by having an external reference in, say, a spreadsheet, which can be fiddly to keep track of (and still fairly time consuming, though not nearly so much).
For situations like these, I'm offering to create the set skeleton for you: an MSE set filled with blank cards at the exact rarities, colors and other criteria for the set you're trying to make.
If you'd like a set skeleton, message me with as many details as possible.
Things I can do:
• Rarity: I would hope so, right? I can remove specify rarities if you like; it actually makes things easier lol
• Color: I suppose I could technically remove a whole color, too. I can't think of anybody who would want to do that, though.
• Colorless: I prefer to group artifacts and lands as "colorless" as they generally share the same space in the set (i.e. leftover space in each rarity after each color has been considered) but they can be separately categorised if you wish. Note that colored artifacts are generally considered to be cards of their card rather than artifacts
• Multicolored / Hybrid: As long as it's kept symmetric, this is fairly simple to do (e.g. if you're doing a ravnica style set, then exactly 3 gold cards and 1 hybrid card for each allied paired at common)
• Card codes: Card codes can go on the cards themselves, or in the card notes, or both! Or not at all. Speaking of card notes...
• Criteria tags: These are very useful tags put into each card's notes section that lets you filter for them using the search bar. By default, you get color tags and rarity tags written in the notes using scryfall syntax, so you could put, say "r:c c:g" in the search bar to search for all your green commons. This is real nice when you want to search / filter multiple criteria, e.g. checking the common cmc curve for a certain color.
• Archetype tags: Another type of tag I can add. Essentially, a certain number of your cards can be allocated to specific archetypes, which can then be searched for using a tag such as "a:wu". In this case you'd need to choose what portion of your cards you want to be archetype-locked: for example, if you have 16 commons in each color, you can say that 12 of those 16 cards are designated for the colors' 4 archetypes, meaning that searching for an archetype brings up 6 cards: 3 in each of that archetypes colors.
• Cycles: Mostly this just involves adding a bespoke tag on certain cards, but the best use of this is probably arcuns and land cycles. If you're using archetype tags, then gold arcuns will also get tagged.
• Starting template: The default frame I use is M15 Mainframe, but if you want to use a different one for whatever reason, that can change.
• Basic lands: They come with the watermark!
Things I won't do:
Generally, anything that has to be done card by card I won't do, as that's simply better handled by yourself. Some specific examples of this are:
• Typelines: Even creature vs non-creature is flexible, contextual and not worth locking in early on.
• CMC: While there is use in labelling cmc early (e.g. "1 cmc blue flyer") this is again very contextual and something better taken care of by the designer.
• Keywords: I do think it's useful to distribute expert-level keywords early, but I don't trust myself to do it. Use an as-fan calculator.
Here is an example of a dream request:
Hey gorgeous, I'd like a set skeleton for a small set (75 common, 65 uncommon, 45 rare, 12 mythic)
Common: 14 cards of each color, 5 colorless. For each color, I want 2 cards allocated for each archetype.
Uncommon: 9 cards of each color, 5 colorless. Include a 5 card land cycle (one of each color) and a 10 card arcun cycle.
Rare: 6 cards of each color. Include a 5 card cycle of enemy colored dual lands and 1 card for each color pair, but don't archetype tag these.
Mythic: Leave these blank.
Basics: 4 of each.
Leave the names blank, but include card codes and color, rarity and archetype tags in the notes.
When starting a set, you'll often have a good idea of the size and shape of set you want to make, but not a skeleton which you can start building from. Sometimes you'll get lucky and find a skeleton that precisely matches your needs, but most of time you'll have to build it from scratch: either creating an empty set file and filling it with blank cards at the colors/rarities you want (which is a chore that can take literal hours) or by having an external reference in, say, a spreadsheet, which can be fiddly to keep track of (and still fairly time consuming, though not nearly so much).
For situations like these, I'm offering to create the set skeleton for you: an MSE set filled with blank cards at the exact rarities, colors and other criteria for the set you're trying to make.
{How it works}
MSE sets contain a file that stores all of the information on your cards in a markup language. This language can be generated by a script and pasted into an empty set file, allowing me to easily mass produce simple cards according to specific patterns.
1) It's not user friendly and never will be. People have been known to go blind after witnessing my code.
2) It's impossible to consider all the possible needs somebody might have for their set, and I feel it would be far easier to consider people on a case-by-case basis than attempting to cover every wacky set concept.
3) Anybody capable of modifying the script to their needs is probably a better programmer than me anyway. If you're interested in giving it a shot, try creating a new MSE file, then unzipping it and opening the "set" file in a text editor to figure out how it works.
MSE sets contain a file that stores all of the information on your cards in a markup language. This language can be generated by a script and pasted into an empty set file, allowing me to easily mass produce simple cards according to specific patterns.
But kino, if you're using a script, why don't you just make the script public?
1) It's not user friendly and never will be. People have been known to go blind after witnessing my code.
2) It's impossible to consider all the possible needs somebody might have for their set, and I feel it would be far easier to consider people on a case-by-case basis than attempting to cover every wacky set concept.
3) Anybody capable of modifying the script to their needs is probably a better programmer than me anyway. If you're interested in giving it a shot, try creating a new MSE file, then unzipping it and opening the "set" file in a text editor to figure out how it works.
If you'd like a set skeleton, message me with as many details as possible.
Things I can do:
• Rarity: I would hope so, right? I can remove specify rarities if you like; it actually makes things easier lol
• Color: I suppose I could technically remove a whole color, too. I can't think of anybody who would want to do that, though.
• Colorless: I prefer to group artifacts and lands as "colorless" as they generally share the same space in the set (i.e. leftover space in each rarity after each color has been considered) but they can be separately categorised if you wish. Note that colored artifacts are generally considered to be cards of their card rather than artifacts
• Multicolored / Hybrid: As long as it's kept symmetric, this is fairly simple to do (e.g. if you're doing a ravnica style set, then exactly 3 gold cards and 1 hybrid card for each allied paired at common)
• Card codes: Card codes can go on the cards themselves, or in the card notes, or both! Or not at all. Speaking of card notes...
• Criteria tags: These are very useful tags put into each card's notes section that lets you filter for them using the search bar. By default, you get color tags and rarity tags written in the notes using scryfall syntax, so you could put, say "r:c c:g" in the search bar to search for all your green commons. This is real nice when you want to search / filter multiple criteria, e.g. checking the common cmc curve for a certain color.
• Archetype tags: Another type of tag I can add. Essentially, a certain number of your cards can be allocated to specific archetypes, which can then be searched for using a tag such as "a:wu". In this case you'd need to choose what portion of your cards you want to be archetype-locked: for example, if you have 16 commons in each color, you can say that 12 of those 16 cards are designated for the colors' 4 archetypes, meaning that searching for an archetype brings up 6 cards: 3 in each of that archetypes colors.
• Cycles: Mostly this just involves adding a bespoke tag on certain cards, but the best use of this is probably arcuns and land cycles. If you're using archetype tags, then gold arcuns will also get tagged.
• Starting template: The default frame I use is M15 Mainframe, but if you want to use a different one for whatever reason, that can change.
• Basic lands: They come with the watermark!
Things I won't do:
Generally, anything that has to be done card by card I won't do, as that's simply better handled by yourself. Some specific examples of this are:
• Typelines: Even creature vs non-creature is flexible, contextual and not worth locking in early on.
• CMC: While there is use in labelling cmc early (e.g. "1 cmc blue flyer") this is again very contextual and something better taken care of by the designer.
• Keywords: I do think it's useful to distribute expert-level keywords early, but I don't trust myself to do it. Use an as-fan calculator.
Here is an example of a dream request:
satisfied_customer said:
Hey gorgeous, I'd like a set skeleton for a small set (75 common, 65 uncommon, 45 rare, 12 mythic)
Common: 14 cards of each color, 5 colorless. For each color, I want 2 cards allocated for each archetype.
Uncommon: 9 cards of each color, 5 colorless. Include a 5 card land cycle (one of each color) and a 10 card arcun cycle.
Rare: 6 cards of each color. Include a 5 card cycle of enemy colored dual lands and 1 card for each color pair, but don't archetype tag these.
Mythic: Leave these blank.
Basics: 4 of each.
Leave the names blank, but include card codes and color, rarity and archetype tags in the notes.