Cardmaking in Thirds -- Constructive Critisicm gets +1 Rep!!

[N00B Hunter]

Welcome too...

 

Introduction:

Alright, so I've been here for a while. In that time, I've seen a lot of cards. In fact, I've seen a HUGE amount of cards. Most of those cards made on this site are lacking, in my opinion. As I search, it gets harder and harder to find high-quality cards on the forums. It's almost like people are losing focus... I really want this site to be better, and I really don't want the net card quality going down, in fact it would be really great if it went up ^^. So, here I am, presenting to you yet another cardmaking tutorial; hopefully, one you'll pay attention to.

 

This isn't a regular tutorial, at least the way I see it. This tutorial is going to be unique, and you'll see how as you read. For this tutorial, remember that 3 is the magic number (other magic numbers are 1, 5, 7, and co.) for most of cardmaking, and that a lot of the card creation that you do can be categorized into three seperate attributes. So, let's get down to business, shall we?

 

Chapter 1: Card types

Don't worry, just because it's called a chapter doesn't mean it's hecka long. Bear with me and read through these chapters and, trust me, it will make you better at cardmaking.

 

There are 3 Card Types (see? the number 3 already! ^^), which you should all know. They are Spell Cards (formerly known as Magic Cards), Trap Cards, and Monster Cards. Each card has a certain usage in decks, which means certain limitations as to activity, abundance, and balance (which will be explained later). Let's look at the Spell Cards:

 

Spells: In addition to the Normal Spell (no symbol), there are 5 kinds of Spell Cards.

• Quick-play (Lightning Bolt Symbol) -- These Spells can be played from your hand or Set and treated, in activation, like Trap Cards. Most Quick-Play Spells perform some small action, usually with little or no payment.
  
• Ritual (Symbol of a Flame) -- These Spells Summon designated Ritual Monsters from your hand. They require a Tribute equal to or higher than the monster's level, and Summon monsters greatly ranging in power.
  
• Equip (Plus Sign) -- These Spells attach to a monster, be it yours or your opponent's. The monster is affected by the listed effect on the equip card. Most equip card effects are midly strong, because of how vulnerable they are. Many equip cards are used as cover cards (good-looking cards that don't really benefit any strategy).
  
• Field (Compass Rose Symbol) -- These cards go in the Field Card Zone, and affect all monsters, Spells, Traps, the hand, or whatever have you. A Field Spell is like a pumped up Equip Spell. Most Field Spells have mild to more lenient effects because of the number of cards that they can influence.
  
• Continuous (Symbol for infinity) -- These cards stay on the field until they are destroyed, almost like a Field Spell, and their use is just as uncommon. Most Continuous Spells have more range, either doing less and effecting more targets, or doing more but being more specific than a Field Spell. (Ex: "Yellow Luster Shield", and "The First Sarcouphagus").
  

 

Normal Spells are the base of all other Spells. They function in the most basic ways, and can be used for a wide variety of effects -- ranging anywhere from cover cards ("Des Croaking") to cards used as staples ("Brain Control" or "Heavy Storm").

 

Next victim...

 

Traps: Unlike Spell Cards, the category of Trap Cards includes Normal Traps because of the unique strategies behind each Trap Card.

• Normal Traps (no symbol) -- Regular Traps must be set for at least 1 turn before being activated. Because of this, and their effects and potential for being destroyed in the current metagame, Trap Cards are made to be Set and activated as quickly as possible. These cards are usually very useful because of their low number in decks (that low number being mostly because of the 1 turn wait to activate a Trap Card).
  
• Continuous Traps (Infinity Symbol) -- Again, Continuous Traps need to be Set for 1 turn before activation. Continuous Traps, like Continuous Spells, are meant for long-term use. Continuous Traps, however, usually do more than Continuous Spells because of the 1 turn wait. This makes Continuous Traps especially useful ("Royal Decree" is probably the most popular Continuous Trap in the current Advanced Format).
  
• Counter Traps (Curved Arrow Symbol) -- With a one-turn wait, the usefulness of Counter Traps comes with the fact that they are the only cards of Spell Speed 3, meaning that they have the ability to resist against most cards stacked in decks. Most Counter Traps act similarly to Quick-Play Spells, but usually add something (like "MST" versus "Magic Jammer": "MST" destroyes S & T and doesn't take payment, but doesn't negate. "Magic Jammer" negates a Spell, destroys it, but takes a discard) to the effect and require a payment.
  

 

And finally, monsters. The hardest topic to cover:

 

Monsters: Of a wide variety, with all sorts of different power levels, monsters are probably the most messy of all 3 Card Types. There are 5 main kinds of monsters:

1. Effect (Light Brown) -- The most common in the metagame, "Effect" Monsters open up into more categories of Gemini, Union, Tuner, etc. kinds of monsters. Effect monsters can vary all over the place, being incredibly efficient cards to cover cards or just plain slop, Effect Monsters are usually a cardmaker's first choice of card type if they don't go with Synchro or Fusion.
   
2. Normal (Yellow) -- Relatively uncommon, most Normal Monsters are either related to another card, or have high stats, and sometimes both. "Gene-Warped Warwolf", for example, has high stats and no card correlation. "Aitsu" is a Normal Monster as well, but is lvl 5 with 100/100. What's his use? He works in a Union with the card "Koitsu", whose ability increases the ATK of "Aitsu" by 3000 and gives him piercing ability. Some Normal Monsters, though, don't have any use whatsoever, like "Jerry Beans Man". So you've got a wide range of options when choosing for a Normal Monster.
   
3. Synchro (White) -- created by the combination of a Tuner Monster are at least 1 non-Tuner Monster, Synchro Monsters are usually around lvl 6 with incredibly powerful abilities for their level (say if an Effect Monster were to have those abilities, it would be banned). Some Synchro Monsters require a certain Tuner Monster, or a certain kind of Synchro fodder, or number of monsters used for the Synchro Summon.
   
4. Fusion (purple) -- Summoned via Fusion Summon, Fusion Monsters kind of grew in the metagame as of late, but still aren't a really important part. Most Fusion Monsters are made of 2 other monsters whose levels, when combined, usually don't exceed 10 (7-9 is good; 10 is pushing it sometimes). Fusion Monsters' levels don't matter, and can range from low to incredibly high, as long as their higher than the highest-level monster used for the Fusion Summon ("Master Dragon Knight" is the only exception to this rule that I can think of, being a 12-star while "BEUD" was a 12-star, oh, and "Thousand-Eyes Restrict").
   
5. Ritual (Blue) -- Most Ritual Monsters have a level anywhere between 8-5 (9 & 10 are strange, while anything above that is whacked out, and 3 or below usually means you have a unique card up your sleeve). Ritual Monsters are either cover cards, or are quite useful ("Crab Turtle" would be a cover card, and "Demise, King of Armageddon" would be a useful card). You can have fun with this as long as you stay in the lvl boundaries and don't mess with the stats too much.
   

 

Alright!!! You made it through what is probably the most boring chapter of all!!! ^^ Good job!

 

Chapter 2: Cardmaking -- Balance, OCG, and aesthecity

So here you are. You're sitting in front of a computer, with an idea of a card in your mind. You've read Chapter 1 (or at least know the data in it), and you're ready to start. Most cardmakers I've seen start of badly... usually making some incredibly strong card or incredibly corny card (like a Normal Monster Digimon or Poke'mon). So, before doing ANYTHING at all, you should look at the 3 (Three again!!!) evaluation points meant for all cards. These are balance, the need for a card to work efficiently, OCG, phrasing things so that they're politically correct, and aesthecity (yes, it's also important to have a good-looking card).

 

Aesthecity: Alright, easy stuff first. Aesthecity looks at a variety of things. The most important ones are the picture and the name of the card, but other knicknacks are the copyright, the circulation, the serial number, the rarity, and the Set ID. (Hey!! That's seven total!!!)

 

The picture is important. When choosing a picture, make sure not to just find a URL and put it right in the URL spot. Go onto Paint or Photoshop, crop the picture, save it, and then post it on photobucket.com or tinypic.com, or some site that stores pictures, and copy that URL into the URL space. As for the name, try to make the names original. "Dark Master Ultimate Killer" really doesn't sound good. Good ideas for cards that you like is to give them a personal name, and then a title, like "Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch" or "Crystal Beast - Amethyst Cat". Notice that the monster has a name and title. If you're going to create some other name, it's usually best to come up with a name that is an adjective, and then a noun, like "Cyber Dragon" or "Sand Gambler". Use the first word to create a specific category, and then use the second word to give more realism to the picture. (Ex: "Cyber" doesn't sound like the name of a monster, in Yu-Gi-OH or outside, but "Dragon" is commonly recognized as a mythical creature. "Sand" is kind of a wide topic, either referring maybe to the desert, or a beach, or an eroded pile or rubble. "Gambler" however, well we all know what a gambler is)

 

Other things to note:

Circulation -- sometimes people write in "1ST EDITION" or "LIMITED EDITION" on their cards. Last time I checked, if a card was 1st or Limited, is had a gold sticker. So unless you can change the sticker color, don't put anything in the circulation.

Set ID -- Usually, _ _ _ _ _ - EN_ _ _ is the Set ID format. In the real TCG, you only use 4 out of 5 of the first spaces, which are used to name the booster or deck, or whatever source the card came from, while the last 3 spaces are for numbers identifying which card number it is (Say if it's the 7th card in a booster set called "Triad Force", then the Set ID would be TRFO - EN007. If it were the 34th card, the Set ID would be TRFO - EN007. Note that TRiad FOrce is the source of the TRFO acronym-like thing.)

Copyright -- Put the year you joined, and then your cardmaking name. This can be your real name, it can be your username, it can be whatever you want.

Serial Number -- Click on the random assignment thing. Don't make it "0000000" please, that just drives me nuts.

Rarity -- Even though it's cool, remember that not every single one of your cards should be Ultra Rare and Secret Rare. Make some commons too. For those of you who don't have Photoshop or connections to ppl who can edit your cards so they look shiny, then you're stuck with basically Common, Rare/Secret Rare, and Ultra/Ultimate Rare. Big disappointment, but that's the sacrifice we pay (I do too).

 

OCG: (This section and all after is have not been finished as of yet. If this reading has been helpful, please comment and if I get positive comments in enough numbers I will continue. Thank you.)

 

Thanks for reading! Updates will happen soon!! :mrgreen:

[Exyst]

For the OCG section, maybe write about teh Fusion/Synchro OCG and Tuner/Gemeni/Union OCG

 

The guide is brilliant though!

[N00B Hunter]

I will most defintely write about the OCG of Fusion, Synchro, Tuner, Gemini, Union, and all of the other monsters out there as I do my OCG section. Thank you for your help, and a +1 RPt. to you! :mrgreen:

[Guest Supreme Gamesmaster]

Don't worry, I'll be handling specific effect bits (they're called "clauses"). As a whole Slifer Red course, I think you've got this down. You may want to detail Nomi VS Semi-Nomi and/or special Fusion Summoning conditions (à la Gyzarus, Flame Wingman, Chaos Neos, etc).

 

And I'm 'Supreme Gamesmaster', not 'Supreme Grandmaster', thanks.

[Purple Dinosaur]

I the Fusion Monster section, you mentioned that Thousand-Eyes Restrict and Dragon Master Knight have an exception to their level because of their Fusion-Material Monsters. Dark Flare Knight also has such a reduction in ATK/DEF and also the Level.

 

But Good Job though!

 

-PD

[N00B Hunter]

"Supreme Gamesmaster", thank you very much, and sorry for that name confusion (my attention span is a bit lacking... ^^). I planned to cover other Fusion Summoning conditions, but I completely forgot about Semi-Nomi/Nomi 'clauses' (as I shall now call them ^^).

 

"Purple Dinosaur"... oh, goodnes. How could I forget "Dark Flare Knight"? (oh, wait... right ^^).

 

A +RPt. to both of you!

[Valkyrie Lupia Blitzer]

Pretty good guide. However, you may want to link to the Yu-Gi-Oh Wikia or explain the rules of the game, as some people here may not even know how to play. @_@

[moneypony]

the next section should be card rulings which will tell popular ruling mistakes,(ie.some people think for "scrap metal scarecrow"if you use it and set,your opponent attack you can use it again but you can't.or tributing "kaiser sea horse" for majestic mech will still activiate end phase effect.)the guide seems so good so far,i hope this gets stickied so it won't be dead or drowned in spam.

[-DJ-]

Great guide

[N00B Hunter]

Pretty good guide. However' date=' you may want to link to the Yu-Gi-Oh Wikia or explain the rules of the game, as some people here may not even know how to play. @_@ [/quote']

"BlitzerRyuusei", I can kind of see where you're coming from, but I really doubt that a person who doesn't know how to play would make cards before learning. Your Yu-Gi-OH Wikia idea is good, though, and I think it would be nice to be able to include links to real cards as examples. Thank you, and that's a +RPt.

 

the next section should be card rulings which will tell popular ruling mistakes' date='(ie.some people think for "scrap metal scarecrow"if you use it and set,your opponent attack you can use it again but you can't.or tributing "kaiser sea horse" for majestic mech will still activiate end phase effect.)the guide seems so good so far,i hope this gets stickied so it won't be dead or drowned in spam. [/quote']

Well, "moneypony", I'm not talking the rulings of real cards. I'm talking about making your own cards. However, I might take into consideration the idea of certain rulings, and how certain phrases mean certain things (I've actually found out some really interesting stuff about targets).

 

Greate guide

Thanks much! :mrgreen: