Spoiler!

Previously, I've tended to ramble about computer game design theory. But one of my favourite hobbies is designing Magic cards (i.e. cards for the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering.)

One thing I've noticed is that whenever I'm working on a set of new cards, Wizards (the company that makes Magic cards) will go and publish a new set of their own that contains several cards that are almost-identical to the ones I'm working on!

Of course there's no way a Wizards designer is stealing ideas etc - what's happened is that we're both in there poking at the same parts of the design space. In fact, when this happens, I'm delighted, because it means that I'm on the right track when it comes to reverse-engineering their design process.

Anyway, the next new set is about to release, and coincidentally I've been working on a set of my own for a little while. So I wanted to post up the spoiler (list of cards) for my own new set so that I can point to it and say, "See? I didn't steal idea X from the new set, it was designed before the official set came out!"

So that's what the next post is: the in-progress spoiler for my next set. I won't edit it after posting - as changes are made, I'll put them in a separate file that I will update throughout the process.

Someday, I hope to come back and ramble a bit about how the Magic card design process, because there are rules to be aware of if you want yours to seem authentic.

PS: There are sites where information about the new official set is already available, but I haven't looked at any of them and you'll just have to take my word for it :)