Community Card Bash Update

Written by IgnitedxSoul and TVP

Hello everyone! IgnitedxSoul and TVP here to talk to you about our recent endeavors in Custom Magic’s own community project, Community Card Bash! (CCB). CCB has been live since December 3rd 2024. It’s been a wild ride and we’re excited to tell you about the current state of affairs. If you’re out of the loop, CCB is a project that aims to have designers from all throughout our server participate and help build a set filled with their own existing designs, as well as some made for this event specifically! We recently finished making the commons suite, so let's get to talking about what we’ve learned so far!

The commons for CCB were selected through four rounds of STAR voting (which you can read about in detail here: https://www.starvoting.org/). In summary, every voter scored a card on a scale of 0 to 5. "0" represents "Disapproval". "1" to "5" represent "Approval" of varying degrees with "1" being "I'm neutral on this card" to "5" being "I really want to see this card added". The cards with the highest sum of scores are compared. If a voter gave one of the candidates a higher score then they voted for that candidate. If they gave the candidates the same score they essentially voted “no preference” for the two options. The cards with the highest votes made it into the project! The cards with the lowest “Approval” (percentage of votes greater than 0) were removed from the voting pool.

We added all of the cards into the project through a set of four voting rounds. Each round had a different objective for how it would inform the environment as a whole.

In Round 1 we added 18 cards—three of each WUBRG/C. This was to establish a baseline of what mechanics or themes players were interested in. There were ~170 cards in the voting pool this round! Here are some of the winners of this round.

The participants were really happy with the outcome of Round 1 and were excited for Round 2, so we got into it quickly. This time we aimed at fleshing out each color with a more precise approach. In Round 2 we added 26 cards. 5 of each color (1x Small Creature (MV 1-2) / 1x Medium Creature (MV 3-4) / 1x Large Creature (MV 5+) / 1x Instant or Sorcery / 1x Noncreature Permanent) And 1x colorless card. Here are some of the round 2 winners!

The conclusion of Round 2 showed us an eclectic bunch of designs with a complex weave of interactivity. We had a heavy dose of Artifact and Enchantment creatures / enablers that opened the way for the prominence of “Out of this world” as featured on Out the Airlock. It was at this point people began formulating what the two color archetypes would do exactly. Once we solidified that plan we moved onto Round 3, which included the final set of monocolor cards. Here are some of the Round 3 winners and our chosen archetypes.

With the addition of the final set of mono-color cards the participants began planning the 10 common gold cards! There was a lot of back and forth of people sharing designs, critiquing them, and settling on what the commons needed to bring the whole project home. We added 15 cards in the final round, 10 gold cards, the final 2 colorless, two utility lands, and a card representative of a full cycle of common dual lands. Here are some of the winners for Round 4.

By the conclusion of Round 4 it is safe to say everyone was excited about this project. Our end suite of commons are truly a fascinating set of cards with unique interactions. The CCB team is still working in the background putting the final touches together, but here soon we will have the inaugural commons-only draft of the set!

We would love for you to join us! Just head on over to the Custom Magic Discord server, check out #community-card-bash, and get the @CCB role to be notified when it is time to play and when we start designing the uncommons!