General Custom Cards: The Lab

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Can Card Conjurer do a compleated (hybrid phyrexian) mana symbol?
Yes. When you click the Text Code / Mana Symbol Code Reference under Edit Bounds, and scroll down, you'll find that it can do both phyrexian mana (e.g. {wp}) and phyrexian hybrid mana (e.g. {wup}) :)
 
Card Conjurer has been terminated by Wizards of the Coast
(Source: @blacksmithy )

CARD CONJURER​


I'm sorry.​

On November 3rd, 2022, I received a cease and desist for Card Conjurer.​

Today, November 18th, I’m taking it down.​

I wish there were another way. I tried everything I could. The fact is, Wizards wants it down, and so I must comply.​

I initially received an email from Reynolds Law requesting that I take down my website because it uses copyrighted and trademarked material from Wizards of the Coast. I responded by explaining my situation and how I believed that Card Conjurer respected the fan content policy.​

I also asked why Card Conjurer is being C&D’d but not other custom card creators that don’t provide Wizards’ copyright notice, put card frames behind paywalls, have been around longer, and have more users. I was told that Wizards “enforces its rights… as it deems appropriate.”​

Ultimately, their attorney listed some examples to warrant taking down Card Conjurer.​

1) verbatim copying of Card text and card art (I can remove card imports)​

2) messing with their legal notice by placing cardconjurer.com under their copyright (ok? I can remove that)​

3) Card Conjurer “reproduces, displays and allows the copying and distribution of many of the MAGIC: THE GATHERING trademarks and logos”​

Notice that this does not mention copyrights, just trademarks and logos. These primarily include the mana symbols, among other things.​

No one is allowed to use these trademarks without licensing, but as we all know, there are plenty of sites, products, and other content that use these symbols all the time. Unfortunately, now that I’m on WoTC’s radar, Card Conjurer can’t get away with it as everyone else does.​

I understand that Wizards has the right to protect its intellectual property and that the fan content policy includes a clause for arbitrary takedowns. I’m just disappointed that Card Conjurer can no longer do what so many other fan sites have done for years, and continue to do.​

So for these reasons, I have no other choice but to take down Card Conjurer.​

I have to be thankful that they asked me to take it down before pursuing legal action.​

However, this completely destroys me. I know I’m only 20, but Card Conjurer feels like my life’s work. I taught myself how to code in high school by starting Card Conjurer. I was really proud of it, and it means a lot to me personally.​

I’m immensely disappointed to have to take away Card Conjurer from the community. I can’t describe how much I loved seeing what everyone was making with it. I genuinely appreciate all the emails, tweets, and direct messages from over the years.​

I’ll miss being tagged in posts with custom cards, blinged commanders, dank memes, cosplayer crossovers, and all the other cool stuff you’ve been making with it.​

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me along the way, especially my Patreon members, who enabled me to provide Card Conjurer for so long. I’ll be canceling all memberships and refunding the last month. Sorry to let you all down.​

When Wizards announced MTG 30th Anniversary Edition, the community responded by embracing proxies. Now, I believe that this C&D is Wizards’ counter-response.​

I’m sorry to everyone who’s affected by this. I wish there were a way I could fight it.​

I still love the game, but this is a sad day for the Magic community.​

Once more, thank you so much to all of my supporters:​

Kobe P.​

Paul C.​

Alex W.​

Aaron C.​

Ancestral MTG​

Sheepwave​

Yunas​

Ritchie T.​

Aurelian M.​

The Bell-Horwaths​

Bradley C.​

Endiron​

John C.​

Benjamin D.​

Brent O.​

Elry​

Edward E.​

Avery D.​

Zachary C.​

TheSapphireTri​

Rhys W.​

Ross G.​

James M.​

Westane​

Kerby​

Taya​

Aibis D.​

Alex​

Dominic F.​

Brendan R.​

SE​

Connor S.​

Adjicio​

Makoto Takahashi​

Molta​

Morgan S.​

Jonathan D.​

Jay S.​

James T.​

Devin L.​

Palmer S.​

Brian G.​

Ken M.​

Frank O.​

Ken Z.​

Fabien S.​

Trentyn D.​

Geovani N.​

Travis P.​

Frank R.​

Georg H.​

dave​

Josh C.​

Leo H.​

Dawid S.​

Mason L.​

Andreas H.​

Ben S.​

Ap0c4lyptyc​

MTG FOR DUMMIES​

Sam E.​

Tim L.​

Lewis​

Jayson M.​

Justin J.​

Sam B.​

Damian Z.​

Montana K.​

Clark P.​

Augusto V.​

Charles R.​

Pugg​

Morgan F.​

Jesse H.​

Saoirse T.​

Julian N.​

Sean A.​

Johnny S.​

Stef B.​

Jovanny S.​

Junkman​

Marco S.​

Donnis H.​

nullJaeger​

Michael W.​

Navin K.​

Nicholas P.​

Chikara K.​

David C.​

Aaron J.​

Leif T.​

Martin C.​

Rodney F.​

Will A.​

Samuel T.​

Donovan M.​

Nathan C.​

Caprat​

Neal M.​

Edward V.​

Mike S.​

DaveO J.​

Logan D.​

Marcos N.​

Austin T.​

Joel T.​

Geoffrey T.​

Jimmy M.​

Gwynayne W.​

Guillaume D.​

MoldyAce​

Adam T.​

J. Skene​

Cesar P.​

Elizabeth S.​

Andrew K.​

Wren​

Camille D.​

Michael G.​

Curtis H.​

Viet D.​

Pedro P.​

Brian L.​

Greg R.​

Paul W.​

Ayah N.​

Blake M.​

Joshua R.​

Alejandro F.H.​

Slamtown J.​

Britton N.​

Raziel​

Kilian T.​

Michael J.​

Robin S.​

Ben K.​

Mike W.​

Kacem K.​

Tom B.​

Mathias H.​

Mystic Syntax​

Brittany C.​

Beezchurgr​

Swimmaf​

Austin M.​

Karl G.​

Louis C.​

ChayGamin​

What I do next is uncertain. I don't think I'll abandon Card Conjurer, but I must shut down for now. I hope to return in the future with a new version, oriented towards fully custom cards for game designers. But unfortunately, the days of being a custom Magic card creator are over. It was great while it lasted.​

—Kyle​

I'll be honest. I was already getting pretty tired of WotC and how they've been handling their release schedule and the 30th Anniversary shit. I was making a custom cube to remove myself from their secondary market. This takes a lot of my love for the game away. Not sure where I'll go from here. Extremely disappointing.
 
Last edited:
Fuck WotC.

They are probably going after all the proxy-making sites, and this was in the list (even though it's really not what competes with their $999 proxies) and because it's run by someone they can actually sue, it got Cease and Desisted. What does it actually accomplish? It hurts people who design custom cards.

Yeah, with this management, Magic is going to die.
 
Do you guys no compareable services that aren't shut down yet? I habe templates for photoshop, but it is very finnicky and thus error prone, also just not as sharp as conjurer was in resolution ... :(
 
I don't think anyone could come up with a worse idea than $60 Giant Spiders.
The $300 Toy Gauntlet would like a word...
weeklymtg-chandras-gauntlet-available-oct-27-for-299-via-v0-mmh0ky2u77v91.png

F6130_LS_MTG_PREMIUM_CHANDRA_GAUNTLET_0487_1024x1024.jpg
 
Do you guys no compareable services that aren't shut down yet? I habe templates for photoshop, but it is very finnicky and thus error prone, also just not as sharp as conjurer was in resolution ... :(
I'm lacking the skills atm or ever to use Photoshop, but there are several high ress templates available on the internet. The ress should be higher then Conjurer was. Some templates seem to be scripted for less effort. So there is hope for those who want to put in the effort.

https://github.com/MrTeferi/MTG-Proxyshop
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I'm lacking the skills atm or ever to use Photoshop, but there are several high ress templates available on the internet. The ress should be higher then Conjurer was. Some templates seem to be scripted for less effort. So there is hope for those who want to put in the effort.

https://github.com/MrTeferi/MTG-Proxyshop
I'm lacking the motivation to pay Adobe €25 per month just to be able to make Magic proxies. I mean... I might as well buy real cards at that price point :p
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
So, I have a long and ongoing project to, at some point in the far future, build the Basic Blues cube a.k.a. One Of LadyMapi's Many Brilliant Ideas TM. It's not even anywhere close to playable on CubeCobra, let alone assembled in real life, but the idea is that the basic land box is filled with Tundras, Underground Seas, Volcanic Islands, and Tropical Islands instead of basic lands, making blue essentially colorless. This has many neat effects, like every player having access to counterspells and card draw, but it also naturally limits the cube to six color pairs, meaning it's a little less open than traditional formats that support 10 color pairs. Making people fight over colors is something I like a lot in a format (as people who know my Wheel of Change cube probably know). So, to celebrate the revival of a certian website and make a small step forward for my Basic Blues cube, I decided to create some new custom lands for the cube. These are basically the painlands, but instead of colorless mana they generate blue mana. I made the art myself, using MidJourneyAI, and because of the nature of the cube, I decided to use the blue land frame with colored pinlines for the secondary colors. Let me know what you think! :)

Edit: Thanks for the feedback! I changed the frames, coloring the rules text backgruond instead of the pinstripes with the secondary colors, and making the pinstripes blue. These look really nice, if I say so myself :)

Sinister Strand.jpg Ashen Grove.jpg Mangrove Outcrop.jpg Seaside Oasis.jpg Sun-Soaked Cliffs.jpg Stagnant Delta.jpg

Art links (to my own art :D):
Sinister Strand
Ashen Grove
Mangrove Outcrop
Seaside Oasis
Sun-Soaked Cliffs
Stagnant Delta
 
Last edited:
Love the idea, love the artworks.

However I think it's barely noticeable that those art the blue land frames actually. Maybe it would look cooler, although more same-y, if you'd use the gold land frame and blue pinlines for them?
 
So, I have a long and ongoing project to, at some point in the far future, build the Basic Blues cube a.k.a. One Of LadyMapi's Many Brilliant Ideas TM. It's not even anywhere close to playable on CubeCobra, let alone assembled in real life, but the idea is that the basic land box is filled with Tundras, Underground Seas, Volcanic Islands, and Tropical Islands instead of basic lands, making blue essentially colorless. This has many neat effects, like every player having access to counterspells and card draw, but it also naturally limits the cube to six color pairs, meaning it's a little less open than traditional formats that support 10 color pairs. Making people fight over colors is something I like a lot in a format (as people who know my Wheel of Change cube probably know). So, to celebrate the revival of a certian website and make a small step forward for my Basic Blues cube, I decided to create some new custom lands for the cube. These are basically the painlands, but instead of colorless mana they generate blue mana. I made the art myself, using MidJourneyAI, and because of the nature of the cube, I decided to use the blue land frame with colored pinlines for the secondary colors. Let me know what you think! :)


Art links (to my own art :D):
Sinister Strand
Ashen Grove
Mangrove Outcrop
Seaside Oasis
Sun-Soaked Cliffs
Stagnant Delta
these are super cool!
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Love the idea, love the artworks.

However I think it's barely noticeable that those art the blue land frames actually. Maybe it would look cooler, although more same-y, if you'd use the gold land frame and blue pinlines for them?
Yeah, there's a lot of directions you can take this. Here's a bunch :D

Let's start with the base versions of a dual land and a triland for comparison. Note that the name and type line are colorless for dual lands. Conversely, everything is gold on a triland, there's no distinction between different trilands other than in the rules text.

Frozen Falls v0.jpg Frozen Falls v5.jpg

So far I've used the frame below, which puts dual colored stripes on a base blue land frame. You can see the name and type line are blue in this example, as is the text box.

Frozen Falls.jpg

Here's a number of variations on this theme, using either or both base frame as inspirations. First your suggestion, which works well for signaling blue, but you can't immediately divine which other colors it generates. The second example puts those secondary colors behind the rules text. The third example drops the golden name and type line from the second example in favor of the colorless name and type line used on duals.

Frozen Falls v2.jpg Frozen Falls v4.jpg Frozen Falls v3.jpg

The fourth example is a variation on the regular dual frame, replacing the colorless color on the name and type line with the blue from a basic blue frame. I personally don't think this one is particularly clear, but if you also make the pin stripes blue, you get the fifth and final example.

Frozen Falls v6.jpg Frozen Falls v7.jpg

So, which are your favorites?
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I really like this last one, since it has a nontrivial amount of all three colours, so it's very easy to understand what it does. Just please invert the red and the white, lol :)
Oh, hahaha, that's something I did right in the original six, but messed up doing all these quick mock-ups XD

Edit: I might have set myself up for a proper poetic challenge... I hope inspiration strikes for the other five :)

Frozen Falls.jpg
AIrt by me
 
Last edited:
Top