[Gadgetron™] Corporation:- Advanced Card Making Tutorial

[Yusei Fudou]

Here's some tips that will improve you guys in card making, seeing that most of you have some bad OCG. I'm using some of the real examples in YCM Forums to prove that there are a lot of bad cards.

 

A neat card:

 

A bad card:

 

As you can see, my grammar in the Medusa Queen card is too similar or actually the same as Kazuki Takahashi, proof? Sure:-

 

 

I didn't copy the text from the original card, I used the same method that is all. That's all you have to do. But surely, you'll say 'Wait, what the hell?! How am I supposed to remember everything in that bloody method?'

 

Here's some tips for Card Grammar (or the method):

 

• Punctuation is the heart of grammar. You'll need to follow it correctly. You can't write like this: "when this card is special summoned discard 1 card from your hand"... it isn't correct. Use the normal punctuation... Card Grammar is English grammar but with a few edits.
  
• Capitalization is an important part of punctuation. It must be correct, e.g. "When this card is Special Summoned, discard 1 card from your hand". Look at how neat it is, it isn't really hard to write that way. Now to the YGO Card Grammar capitalization. All types of summoning must be capitalized neatly. E.g. Special Summoned, Flip Summoned, Normal Summoned, etc. Also, point words must be capitalized correctly, example: Life Points, Attack Points, Defense Points, ATK, DEF.. and the position words: Attack Position, Defense Position, along with the phases: Standby Phase, Main Phase, Draw Phase... etc. Also the following must be correctly capitalized: Spell Card, Trap Card, Monster Card. (Note: I don't say correctly capitalized so you can go on making mistakes like DEFENSE POINTS or SPELL CARD, no, just write the beginning of the word in capital and the rest in small... e.g. Defense Points, Spell Card not SPELL CARD, DEFENSE POINTS)
  
• Now let's talk about battle positions. NEVER say "Attack Mode" or "Defense Mode" when writing the card's text. That's wrong. They're Attack Position, and Defense Position. E.g. "Discard 1 card from your hand. Destroy 1 Defense Position monster on your opponent's side of the field."
  
• Effect accuracy is important. What does that mean? It means you have to be very accurate in writing the card's effect to show people what you really meant in this effect and not ruin it or make it misunderstood. A lot of people write "on the field" but they may actually mean on one of either player's field, opponent's field or yours. You may not understand what I'm saying. Alright, let's take an example that you're trying to write a card effect that lets you special summon a monster from your grave. Some people may mistakenly write the effect (as an example) like this: "Discard 2 Spell Cards from your hand. Select 1 monster in the graveyard and Special Summon it." That makes it a bit overpowered than the original effect and totally changes the effect. How? Simple. You have a graveyard of your own, same as your opponent. If you don't specify which graveyard, the effect of the card turns to mean both graveyards. Same thing with the fields, "your side of the field" and "your opponent's side of the field", if you say just "the field" it means both sides, and so on.
  
• Now to increasing and decreasing, you'll need to learn how do you write these stuff. A lot of you make equip cards that increase OR decrease Attack/Defense Points of the equipped monster. Look at the beginning of this thread, and notice the bad card written by Blackpanther. That is ultimately wrong. We can edit it to be way more correct like "Increase the ATK of the equipped monster by 700." Seems you've got it how should you write these effects, hmm? Alright. Now let's get deeper into this thing. Some trap cards we know have the effect that decrease a specific monster's attack, like Shadow Spell. Want to learn how to write such effects? Easy! Here's an example to make it quick for you and stop wasting time reading:- "Discard 1 card from your hand. Select 1 face-up monster on your opponent's side of the field. Decrease the selected monster's ATK by 500." Hmm, got it how? OK. I'm sure you can make other payments than just discarding, and advance this simple example effect I gave you. Don't know how to make good payments? Check out the next point.
  
• Payments are some neat stuff in this game that make it fair and square for both players. A lot of people on here make either very stupid payments for big card effects or very hard payments that no card deserves, and such. We'll take this effect: "Select 1 monster on your side of the field. The selected monster can attack twice this turn." And we'll have to give it a payment so it becomes fair. As this allows to all cards, we'll make the payment a little hard. Like: "Pay 2000 Life Points." But not "Pay 7000 Life Points", why's that, I mean? Ridiculous payment, and would waste the player's Life Points and make the card you made stupid to other people. Now to the payment ruling in card-making. The payment MUST be before the effect, e.g. "Discard 1 card from your hand. Add 1 "Armed Dragon LV3" from your Graveyard to your hand." But if you don't mean it to be a payment, like Dark World Dealings and all, then you must write it after the effect. Note that Dark World monsters don't get their effects applied if they're discarded as payments. Read more about payments on the YGO Wikia if you want more info.
  
• Overpowering a card is lame and annoying. Don't say 'I don't care' because overpowered cards were never card-making art and most people would hate your cards if they're overpowered. But what is overpowering? Making a very good effect, that would make a card forbidden if it was real, and so on. It's OK if you overpower in a contest that says 'OVERPOWERING CONTEST' but do not make overpowered cards in other places if you want to keep your cards neat.
  
• If you know the game-play and all of its rulings very well, card-making would be surely easier for you. Please do not think of yourself as the best game-play knower and visit the Gameplay Category at YGO Wikia, it will improve you greatly in card-making.
  

 

Now to some few tips a little not related to Card Grammar that you need to do to improve your card-making:-

 

• Images are some important stuff in card-making. Sure they are, and you do know of that. But what neat places are there to find pictures? You can start by Photobucket.com, its search engine for pictures is good. Deviantart.com is awesome, it's a great source of well-drawn pictures and artwork. I recommend it.
  
• In making packs, use the random EN001 and stuff in Card ID, like: RNP1-EN001 and such. Makes it more organized.
  

 

Questions about card-making? Ask me here. :) I'll answer.

[Jerry OldMaster]

Now that's where I'm taling about :)

Thanks for taking my favourite card as an example :)

[Yusei Fudou]

^Thanks for the comment. And yeah, I'm recently using a fossil deck which has a lot of Rock-Type Flip Summon cards and Medusa Worm is my fav after Guardian Sphinx. =P

[Jerry OldMaster]

^ Superb!

You're always running my favourite types of Decks....

Gravekeeper's, Dino's, and now Flip Dows :P

Don't forget Stumbling :P

[Yusei Fudou]

Hehe, so we do actually have something in common, except meanieness...

 

Well as you can see we're elites and all and we have the same elite meanie great special awesome taste in decks. >=D