history of custom sets

[folding_music]

I've been wondering how far the hobby of designing yr own set goes back? I noticed the Wagic import mode on certain M:TG clients and was wondering, like, what was the first infamous custom set people cared about, if there's anyone writing about them, etc. I realize it's a niche inside a niche but i'm into it and want to know more

[void_nothing]

Definitely an interesting question, but a hard one to answer. The enjoyment of custom designs is so personal and fragmented that I think this is really about each person's own history of getting into the sub-hobby.

I can offer you Magic Librarities' section on Non-Official Cards, which archives some VERY old attempts at custom set design (as in from the first couple of years of Magic's existence). I can also tell you my own history with custom sets begins on MTGNews circa 2004. At this time, the premier set designer active there was PlanesJayWalker, although sadly their sets were hosted on Angelfire and thus are hard to recover. Sciurimancer, the first great custom card designer imo, was also making full sets at this time I believe.

The first custom set I participated in was Mercadian Memories, which I also wish I had access to and that I could remember the usernames of the people involved. It featured an invasion coming from Mirrodin (although not Phyrexian, instigated by Memnarch's heir Plaeron) over a half a decade before Scars of Mirrodin and of course much earlier than March of the Machine.

The most influential custom set designer on me has been Guesswork, with whom I collaborated on Legends II on MTGSalvation - thankfully that work is a lot more accessible.

[folding_music]

this is great info, thank you! :3 if only there was a wiki for all this; I feel like so much effort has been lost

[Tahazzar]

I think my first custom set posts on internet were in MTGSalvation back in 2010-2011. The twitch integration nuked all my posts and threads there tho. My very first custom set there was a legacy of kain fan set and then after that bunch of sixth color purple stuff.

[folding_music]

oh man
so much stuff gets lost
i need to see it all lol

[wizyard]

i think the first time i heard about the game, before i even learned to play it- my mind went straight to creating cards like genies and leprechauns and shi.. they were surely not designed well, since i had no idea how such a game could even work. but the potential was obvious and it really fired my imagination

long ago there was an online magic blog/ magazine site BrainBurst.com, and i think i was really inspired by the custom cards that would be featured on the front page there

not sure but think i joined MTGSalvation around 2007 maybe. i wish my earliest stuff on there wasn't lost

i remember PlanesJayWalker, Scurimancer and Guesswork

regarding custom sets of the past, it's worth checking out Evan Erwin's set Rise of the Titans, which interestingly featured many themes and mechanics similar to ones that would later appear in Zendikar

oh, i just found this thread of finished sets

spectral chaos is a piece of history that might count- check out https://thechaosorb.com/spectralchaos-set-images/

never used Cockatrice, but like Wagic i know folks have played online with custom cards for free for long time on that client app

magicmultiverse.net/ is still running, has been for long time now- that's a cool lesser known database of custom cards

the magic set editor application is worth mentioning, a very important resource for so many over the years

the great designer search (number 3?) had a wiki that wasnt used that much, people were more interested in engaging in twitter. there was a waiver that wotc had for that wiki, ceding rights to whatever was written within there. the wiki is no longer hosted, i wonder what interesting things were hidden in that, and whether the corporation was able to glean usable design ideas from that

[wizyard]

bump to mention Middle Ages

never heard of this before, just saw a video talking about it- an unoffical card set made in 1994, set of stickers you could put on the face of regular magic cards. wotc quickly put a cease and desist on them

more deets n pix here

[Scuirimancer]

The Middle Ages set was sort of imfamous back in the day. It was mentioned occasionally in the early custom card community. Seemed very mysterious. I never found any more information about it, but I wasn't inclined to look very hard at the time. It's neat to see it all there, now. Is that the oldest custom Magic set we know of?

I have a couple of text files that I downloaded in the 90s, if you're interested. I'll put them up on my website. The transfers between computers and floppy disks over the years have left some corruption in the files. I removed most of it, but some of the text is garbled, and there could be some cards missing.

(To be clear, I did not make these sets.)

http://www.swiftsden.com/mtg/LIBRARY.TXT
"The Age of Dreaming" by Mary Pat Campbell. July 1995. It says she typed it "for Brad's 22nd birthday..." That's sweet. I wonder what they were to each other? It's a mysterious little time capsule of something nice that someone did for someone else. Gives me a good feeling. Most of the cards have "Brad Allison" as the illustrator. I assume that's our birthday boy. I don't know if he actually created artwork for these, or contributed ideas, or if it's just an homage. There's a little bit of corrupted card text at the beginning. There's also a few card names with no text. I'm pretty sure that's not a result of corruption. Maybe they are placeholders, or just random name ideas that they hadn't developed into cards, yet. I downloaded this file from a BBS, along with an Ice Age spoiler, and in fact I thought this was a spoiler for a real set at first.

http://www.swiftsden.com/mtg/ALSTHATIA.TXT
The set's name and creator are unknown. I'm calling the set "Alsthatia," because there are a few cards that imply it's the name of the fictional setting's world. This was originally a group of files, one for each color (plus lands and artifacts), named "C-WHITE", "C-BLUE", etc. I combined them into a single file. The date of the original files is September 1997, and there are references to cards from Visions, which was released at the beginning of 97. I don't remember where I downloaded this from. By 97, we would have had world wide web access, though it might have been through AOL.

I noticed before uploading these files that ALSTHATIA.TXT included three artifact cards at the end that were formatted the same way as the cards in LIBRARY.TXT, with a bullet before the name and the illustration attributed to Brad Allison. I guess that could have been a result of the file corruption (the files have always been together in the same folder), or maybe I moved them a long time ago for reasons I don't remember. Anyway, I moved those three artifacts back into LIBRARY.TXT file where I assume they belong. There's also a section of black cards in the ALSTHATIA.TXT that are formatted differently (and the designs are pretty wild and different from the rest)... Don't know what's up with that.

[wizyard]

whoa, a wild Scuirimancer appears!

thanks for sharing those two sets, they're not bad at all and quite interesting

favorites from that first file

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black

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Assassinate 1B
Sorcery
Tap a black creature you control to destroy any non-artifact creature in
play.

Root Rot (General idea by Juno) BBB
Enchantment
Opponent must bury one Forest during his upkeep. If opponent has no Forests in play, Root Rot is destroyed.
Pay BBB during your upkeep or bury Root Rot.
"May no fruit ever come from you again!" And the fig tree
withered at once. -- Matthew 21:19

biblical flavortext for the win!

rip to weird color hosers

Disdain 2B
Sorcery
Destroys all non-mana producing land.

Lucid Dreamer B
Summon Dreamer
U: Dreamer may not be the target of spells or fast effects until end of
turn. If Dreamer is untapped, tap him. This ability may only be played
during opponent's turn.
1/1

blue

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Focus U
Interrupt
Duplicates any creature's special ability being activated. The source of
this additional effect remains the same.

Time Vortex UU
Enchant Land
Put three time counters on Time Vortex when brought into play. Remove
one time counter during your upkeep. On the turn in which the last
counter is removed, gain an extra turn. Time Vortex is removed from
the game entirely if there are no time counters on it at the
beginning of your turn.

Astrologer 1U
Summon Wizard
U: Target Ship gains islandwalk until end of turn.
T: Look at the next 3 cards of your library and return them in the same
order.
1/1

Tidal Flux 1U
Enchant Land
Put a tide counter on Tidal Flux when brought into play and during your
upkeep. If there is one tide counter on Tidal Flux, it produces no
additional mana when target land is tapped. If there are three counters
on Tidal Flux, it produces UU when target land is tapped. At all other
times, Tidal Flux produces U when target land is tapped. When there are
four tide counters on Tidal Flux, remove them all.

green

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Abundance XG
Sorcery
Return X lands from your graveyard to your hand.

Darkwood Snailvain G
Summon Snail
Darkwood Snailvain gains +0/+2 while untapped.
0/2

Refresh 1G
Socery
Remove all counters from play. Add one colorless mana to your mana pool for each counter removed.

Pixie Dust 1G
Instant
All your creatures with toughness of 1 are flying creatures until end of turn. Other cards may later increase creatures' toughness beyond 1.

red

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Target 2R
Enchant creature
Does 2 additional points of damage whenever target creature receives
damage from a creature, sorcery, or instant.

Demand for Fury 1R
Enchantment
A player takes 2 damage for each non-wall creature he controls which was
not in his territory at the beginning of his turn that does not attack
during his turn.

Drought (Seasonal Drought) 1RR
Enchantment
Put a drought counter on Drought during your upkeep. Pay R or discard Drought. If not discarded, at the end of your upkeep Drought does 1 damage per drought counter to each player and each creature in play.
A player may spend U during any upkeep to remove a drought counter.

white

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Witness to Descent 1W
Summon Wizard
T: Target creature gets a -1/-1 counter for each creature it has damaged this turn which is now in the graveyard.
1/1

Secular Dominion 1W
Enchantment
: Counter any spell or effect that would cause the loss of control or re-targeting of one of your permanents.

Vow of Silence 1W
Enchantment
You gain 2 life if you cast no spells during your turn, If at any time you cast a spell, bury Vow of Silence.

colorless

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Ghazban Cathedral
Land
T: Add one colorless mana to your mana pool.
T: Both players may opt to draw a card.

Kyklos Temple
Land
T: Add one colorless mana to your mana pool.
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana may only be used for summoning Wizards.

Dreamscape
Land
Destroy Dreamscape at the end of any turn in which you control no creatures.
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

i feel that seeing custom sets from early time periods is like peering into an alternate universe,

we see some ideas reflect some of the conventions of the time that didn't stick, like green storm/weather magic. makes one wonder what things would look like if we'd stayed on such paths..

[void_nothing]

Bring back real world quote flavor texts in core set cards, I say.