Beacon of Creation

A show about design in Magic: the Gathering. Each week we cover both official cards and custom cards made by the community. The weekly design challenge gives you the opportunity to make it on the show! Hosted by Tim, Juliet, Kayiu and Markus, with guests! Music used with permission: https://www.youtube.com/user/daleculp

Juno Challenge Review, part 3 07/15/2026

Juno Challenge Review, part 3 Wrap up our "hatebears" challenge with your best 2 mana 2/2s that slow down your opponents' strategy. As usual, your submissions drifted from that starting point into some exciting areas. Punish those lacking devotion, buy some plush merch, and witness the return of the Atog in this fun deep dive episode. New Eps of Juliet's other show coming soon: Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/42098180

Juno Challenge Review, part 2 07/08/2026

Juno Challenge Review, part 2 Continuing our review of your "hatebear" cards, which mix assertive combat with rule-bending counterbalances. These rule-centric cards have HUGE design implications, so stay tuned for, among other things, a review of the layers system. New Eps of Juliet's other show coming soon: Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/42002715

Juno Challenge Review, part 1 07/01/2026

Juno Challenge Review, part 1 For June, we asked for your best "hatebear" cards. Small creatures, big roadblocks for your opponents. What different ways can you impede your opponent? New Eps of Juliet's other show coming soon: Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/41902015

Sharpie Cube! Change Cards To Your Heart's Content 06/24/2026

Sharpie Cube! Change Cards To Your Heart's Content Ever want to knock a mana off a creature? Remove a bad drawback from a land? Sharpie Cube is the idea of redacting rules text. Always subtraction, never addition. Community member Otter has extensive experience making these edits and walks us through his principals and rules for modifying cards. Then we sharpie some cards live! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/41789300

Cooperative Magic Mega-sode! 06/18/2026

Cooperative Magic Mega-sode! We've got community members AuxilliaryOtter and first time guest CryptRat on to talk cooperative Magic! We go deep on the innovations found in the new TMNT Team Up product, then walk through our community's pitches for cooperative and multiplayer modes! Co-op is still such a new and unexplored part of Magic, so there's plenty to learn in this episode. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/41686175

Swamps and Marshes Challenge Review, part 2 06/10/2026

Swamps and Marshes Challenge Review, part 2 Are you Prepared for the second half of our black-mana artifact and land prepared spell design challenge? Tim and Juliet go on an Adventure reviewing all the submissions and have an Omen for next month's challenge. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/41593095

Swamps and Marshes Challenge Review, part 1 06/03/2026

Swamps and Marshes Challenge Review, part 1 This month we pay homage to our nation's wetlands by reviewing a variety of black mana producing cards. You might be disappointed by only ten cards, but secretly you get the full 20 thanks to adventures, omens, and prepared spells! Lots of discussion on the amount of juice you put into a land, and not a small amount of discussion around demon worship. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/41504075

Noggles, Donkeys & Midsummer Night's Dream w/Andrew Gillis 05/27/2026

Noggles, Donkeys & Midsummer Night's Dream w/Andrew Gillis Juliet and game designer Andrew Gillis tackle the noblest of beasts and regalest of steeds, the humble donkey. From its memorable place in Eventide as a goblin-replacement, to its historical role in documented in human society, to the artistic fancy of human-donkey transformation, there's fertile ground to design more Noggles! You can find Andrew's game We Contain Solitudes here: Or as part of a bundle here: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/41437540

The Baneslayer Cube by Redbay 05/20/2026

The Baneslayer Cube by Redbay Baneslayer Angel vs Mulldrifter is a spectrum of on-board presence versus pre-loaded value. This week's episode is a cube design episode about that tension. Community member Redbay hops back on the pod to outline the philosophy behind their "Baneslayer Cube" which puts more focus on battling creatures. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/41358335

Popcorn! Playing "Telephone" with Game Design 05/13/2026

Popcorn! Playing "Telephone" with Game Design This week we talk about and design for the "Popcorn" game in our Discord community. Fast paced, exciting, and pretty eccentric are apt descriptions for the cooperative hopper of cards. Design a card based off of the last card, and the next person designs one off of yours. We go over some highlights from the game, then design a pair of cards ourselves! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/41275295

Designing Cities w/Amberspire's Nic Tringali 05/06/2026

Designing Cities w/Amberspire's Nic Tringali Cain may be the "first author" of cities, but Juliet and game designer Nic Tringali dive deep into what makes the city, and the city builder, so frequent a fantasy in games and in real life. Along the way they discuss Amberspire, the hit new city-builder that goes live the day this episode releases, and design some brand-new Magic cards! Find Amberspire on Steam: Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/41172860

April Fool Us Challenge - Chaos Edition 04/29/2026

April Fool Us Challenge - Chaos Edition The big episode is here! Our new yearly tradition where our listeners try to fool us! Each card we review today is either a real card with name and color changed or a completely made up card. Can we tell the difference? We use a variety of clues to try to bust the fakes and make the right guess! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/41057435

Design Crossover - Spirit Island 04/22/2026

Design Crossover - Spirit Island Crossovers are back! This time Otter jumps on the pod to explain the board game Spirit Island to Tim. Despite being an area-control cooperative game, it has a ton of cool rules to adapt over into Magic. These Crossover eps are a great way to get the best tidbits from another game while also brainstorming tons of new Magic ideas! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/40970955

THE Horse Challenge Review, part 3 04/15/2026

THE Horse Challenge Review, part 3 Tim and Juliet enter their joker phase as they barrel through the final dozen submissions to THE Horse challenge. Put on your stirrups and listen to us break down all of your great saddle cards. Tons of creativity! There's even some innovation in... flavor text? Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/40882705

THE Horse Challenge Review, part 2 04/08/2026

THE Horse Challenge Review, part 2 Our massive "Year of THE Horse" challenge review continues! You sent us way more submissions than ever before, including mount[ain] kings, the biggest lore dragon, a goat, and many horses. Continue learning along with us about all the nooks and crannies of the Saddle mechanic. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/40770520

THE Horse Challenge Review, part 1 04/02/2026

THE Horse Challenge Review, part 1 You better be ready for extensive horse content!!! We got a beyond-huge amount of submissions this month for our Design Challenge, so this episode can only tackle the first THIRD of that bumper crop! So much saddle content, from more traditional beasts to a doting dad. Come get your fill but be ready to come back for more next week. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/40707575

YOUR Fractured Planeswalkers! 03/25/2026

YOUR Fractured Planeswalkers! Last week's episode about color-shifted "Fractured" planeswalkers set off a firestorm of design in the Discord! This week we're going over a bunch of those cards. So many cool twists on existing characters in new roles, elements, and themes! GrandNagus aka Weasel joins us on the pod for the first time to share their card, too. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/40615315

Fractured Planeswalkers! Classic Characters in New Colors 03/18/2026

Fractured Planeswalkers! Classic Characters in New Colors Orzhov Ral Zarek is just the beginning! Khord and Tim collaborate on the idea of switched up colors for planeswalkers. Water wizard Chandra? Tezzeret with wooden limbs? Kaito the samurai? It's not just about changing color, it's also important to find that character nugget to keep the same. How do you keep Liliana's sass while giving her a white mana power set? Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/40521420

Febru-Air Challenge Review, part 2 03/11/2026

Febru-Air Challenge Review, part 2 Juliet and Tim review your submissions for the 4/4 flier challenge. Along the way, they dive deep into what makes a keyword plausible, an ability word worthwhile, and randomness in gameplay fun or unfun. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/40391565

Febru-Air Challenge Review, part 1 03/04/2026

Febru-Air Challenge Review, part 1 This month's challenge standardizes the cost and size: 5 mana, 4/4 flier. From there, our designers could go wherever they want! Plenty of fun designs and great discussion, plus a thorough look into the nature of humanity. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/40308865

What Makes a Teenage Turtle Mutant? 02/25/2026

What Makes a Teenage Turtle Mutant? Juliet poses a philsophical question on the nature of identity and gets a crash course on TMNT from turtle-expert Riley Hopkins. In the face of Ooze, does patience or pizza win out? Did you know that Splinter is a cross-universe pun the whole time? Along the way, they design a quartet of fun new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Magic the Gathering cards. Check out Moonshot streams at: Get even more Moonshot (including more Juliet) at: Watch their Silent Hill f vids too: Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/40200870

Following Signposts - Lorwyn Eclipsed, plus Hybrid Talk 02/18/2026

Following Signposts - Lorwyn Eclipsed, plus Hybrid Talk Our usual Following Signposts faces its biggest challenge yet: Lorwyn Eclipse's crazy draft structure! Part traditional set, part hybrid nonsense, with 8 archetypes instead of 5 or 10. Tons of hybrid talk, which is looking to be a key part of the UB small set era. Khord's stuff: Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: Intro music by Dee Culp /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/40148655

Janus-uary Challenge Review, pt 2 02/11/2026

Janus-uary Challenge Review, pt 2 Flip over last week's episode because we've got a whole extra pod on the back! More of your two-sided noncreature cards this week. We've got references to Alpha, 1500s paintings, multiple Rakdos goopy trash cards, and a Battle for the finale. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: Intro music by Dee Culp /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/40070040

Janus-uary Challenge Review, pt 1 02/04/2026

Janus-uary Challenge Review, pt 1 This month's challenge asked you to submit double sided cards where neither side is a creature. The star of the show, though, is the bonus challenge, which was to also make the card easy to read! Along the way Juliet talks about reading Tolstoy, Tim asks for a famous web app, and Guff rewrites history. Check out community member Xena's new game, Surreality Check: Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: Intro music by Dee Culp /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/39989790

Shadowmoor and Horror in Magic: the Gathering 01/28/2026

Shadowmoor and Horror in Magic: the Gathering Juliet and special guest horror author Nat Silveira talk about what makes horror as a genre work in speculative fiction and Shadowmoor as a setting, then design two different Shadowmoor-themed body-horror cards! You can check out Nat's new book The Chrysalis Body at or Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: Intro music by Dee Culp /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/39907095

Lorwyn and Peace in Magic: the Gathering 01/21/2026

Lorwyn and Peace in Magic: the Gathering All this Lorwyn in the air has got Juliet thinking about the works of 1894, which also leads to thoughts of nonviolence. Follow our train of thought to hear a discussion of new player's aversion to combat, the joy of changelings, and the diet of Mirrans. Then we each design a new Lorwyn card building on all we talked about! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: Intro music by Dee Culp /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/39808840

What We Learned From Power Cube 01/14/2026

What We Learned From Power Cube Power Cube is back on Arena and as wild as always. There's lessons to take away from designing high powered cards and formats. Also make sure to stick around for our fun new game of "B or F?" where Peter has to guess whether a card is 60% winrate or 50% winrate in Power Cube data from 17lands. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: Intro music by Dee Culp /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/39725660

December the Titans Challenge Review 01/07/2026

December the Titans Challenge Review Another hefty design review ep for all of you! Hear our reactions, feedback and insight on the latest crop of submissions. This time, we're getting cards that (mostly...) have the "enters or attacks" titan text. This is the souped up merger of the "value now" and "value later" angles to creature design, and it leads to some powerful cards. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: Intro music by Dee Culp /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/39639295

Revising Revised Edition! Retro Design Philosphy 12/31/2025

Revising Revised Edition! Retro Design Philosphy Every amateur designer is tempted to mess with the past... What if you could change broken cards? Customize a draft format more to your liking? Provide the perfect on-ramp for new players? Tim brings Peter on to go in-depth on his long-simmering project of overhauling early Magic through the lens of Revised aka 3rd Edition. How do you create the feeling of awe and mystery of early Magic? What cards can change and what have to stay the same? Can we bring back Ante?? Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: Intro music by Dee Culp /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/39572805

Live Design! Designing Commanders for Secret Sram-ta 12/24/2025

Live Design! Designing Commanders for Secret Sram-ta This week Gaby is on the pod to talk about a deck swap we're doing with our local friends. Like a Secret Santa, we were each given a mission, and needed to build a deck to that spec. After finishing our decks, we couldn't help but think of what we'd do with some custom magic energy. Join us as we each design a commander, first for "Mischievous Chaos" and then for "If you've got the money honey i've got your disease". Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: Show Notes and Images: Intro music by Dee Culp /episode/index/show/beaconofcreation/id/39526075

Beacon of Creation

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