I had a battlebox in RTR era that I used for kitchen table games and to get my housemates into the game, in reality it was 1000 bulk cards from ebay rather than anything tightly designed and curated, it was possibly the best magic I ever played. I've been inspired to build another one by the wonderful TrainmasterGT's Unstable Cubicorns and landofMordor's All Terrain Battlebox; and I've got broadly similar design goals. The rock solid MTG rules engine combined with the almost complete elimination of negative variance with the battlebox land system leads to tight technical games with zero setup, suitable for enfranchised players. We can make it accessible to casual or infrequent players by focussing on apparently simple and easily grokkable cards, with complexity emerging from the combination of simple elements rather than individually complicated cards. I'm aiming to keep the flavour pretty tight, close to OG, as Garfield intended, alpha-beta-1.0 (m10 is magic 1.0 fight me). Partly for the nostalgia hit of craw wurms and royal assassins, and partly because they tend to do a good job of piggybacking designs onto relatable concepts to make it easier for infrequent players. We want to jump players straight past the card comprehension layer of the game to the strategic layer of the game, without having to know a deck and format inside out. Ideally you should be able to describe an in-game sequence as two wizards duelling using natural language, rather than thick magic jargon. Almost the polar opposite of a Judges Tower.
Treating the stack as one big deck, we can make estimates for the amount of each effect required, and take multiples (if neccessary) of the most suitably designed card. Ideally looking for cards with simple effects and names that give you an idea of the effect before you even get to the text box. Old frame and non-digital ("analog"?) art preferred, good flavour text is icing. Aiming for a flattish powerlevel, don't want the draw step to determine games but the lack of variance in the format means we can probably support a wider power level than a well-designed cube without breaking anything. Any keywords must appear on multiple cards to increase the ROI on grokking any individual card. Will be limiting cards with memory requirements, or cards with extra practical requirements like token generators - each unique token requirement added to the set reduces overall space in the physical box and slows down play. Also will be reducing modal effects where possible, battlebox already leads to relatively complex game states and modal cards explode decision trees to an uncomfortable degree.
I'll be spitballing here, almost a notebook of cool cards I find as I build up the box.
Treating the stack as one big deck, we can make estimates for the amount of each effect required, and take multiples (if neccessary) of the most suitably designed card. Ideally looking for cards with simple effects and names that give you an idea of the effect before you even get to the text box. Old frame and non-digital ("analog"?) art preferred, good flavour text is icing. Aiming for a flattish powerlevel, don't want the draw step to determine games but the lack of variance in the format means we can probably support a wider power level than a well-designed cube without breaking anything. Any keywords must appear on multiple cards to increase the ROI on grokking any individual card. Will be limiting cards with memory requirements, or cards with extra practical requirements like token generators - each unique token requirement added to the set reduces overall space in the physical box and slows down play. Also will be reducing modal effects where possible, battlebox already leads to relatively complex game states and modal cards explode decision trees to an uncomfortable degree.
I'll be spitballing here, almost a notebook of cool cards I find as I build up the box.
