PODCAST · leisure
Beacon of Creation
by 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
Episodes
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Year of Mechanics + Moxtober Combo! Live Design w/rexxer3
We've got three cards to design this week! We pick back up with rexxer3 on their "Year of Mechanics" project, which has official stretched past a whole year due to how many mechanics Magic has! One card per mechanic, and this month there is a special twist. Each mechanic is paired with one of our...
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Love Song of Day and Night
Juliet and Khord celebrate Carly Rae Jepsen's new album by looking back on magic's use of Night and Day, from its first inception of art through the surprises of jelly doughnuts all the way to a midnight hunt before arriving at the Echoverse of Reality Fracture. Then, they turn the tables with a...
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Sup-tember Challenge Review, part 2
We've got bread, pie, coffee and fruit this week for our second review of your Sup-tember submissions! We challenged you to make food that speaks to a setting! You might say these submissions are packed with flavor! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and...
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Sup-tember Challenge Review
This week we're talking about your flavor-blasted food cards! Tell us about your setting through the lens of its edibles. Food themes can be hard to make work in limited, but many of our submitters aimed for the bonus points here and gave us cool uncommons. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord:...
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Talkin' Tolkein! Jump-starting Hobbit Precon Design
Host Juliet and Guest Leo have a grand discussion of the cards from the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit sets, what new players can learn just from a pack of cards, how to design a Jumpstart set that's accessible, whether Blue is the hardest color, how you name a horse's color, and how you name a...
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Talkin' Tokens! The Highs and Lows of Token Design
With the new Empower Jace mechanic from Reality Fracture, we've got tokens on the mind! From format-defining tokens to one-off nostalgia cards, we dive deep into the world of tokens. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com
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Aug-erload Challenge Review, part 2
Our challenge review block comes to a close with some wild text-changing effects! Ogre-load, Servos, Carbo-load, and maybe the hardest to track card we've ever reviewed (in a fun way)! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images: https://beaconofcreation.com
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Aug-erload Challenge Review, part 1
Summer challenge time continues! We've got a whole new set of challenges and cards to review. Text changing effects can be quite tricky and unusual, so it takes a lot of unpacking to get to the root of each of them. Stay tuned for some cool Planechase draft technology! Join Beacon of Creation's...
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Incarnation Challenge Review, part 3
Incarnations embody the feeling of an "exciting cycle". Our community members sent in their exciting cards that also have the potential for 4 more cards in other colors. Tune in for our first "reverse challenge" where our member Xena challenges Juliet! Join Beacon of Creation's Discord:...
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Incarnation Challenge Review, part 2
Tune in as we unpack and understand another crop of alien, ephemeral Incarnations! This challenge really brought out the mind bending rules text. We've got nine powerful cards to review, some of which are shooting for our "could be in Foundations" bar for complexity. Did anyone make it? Check out...
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Format Smorgasbord! Cube, Coop, and and Collusion at Magic Camp 2026
Our trips to the beach for Magic Camp are always filled with some big swings and fun games. Tim's friend Keith hops on to the pod to help recap a successful outing full of inspiration for cube, card design, and formats. Keith's cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/about/Unbound The No Limit Cube:...
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Incarnation Challenge Review, part 1
Our latest challenge asked submitters to submit big, abtract creatures that could fit in a five color cycle. How do you convey vast and unusual in a non-legendary Magic card? Plus, at least one card submitted in jest. Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and...
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Rebel Yell! Learn about New Requiem: Crossfire
Learn all about the newest set from the dynamic duo of Redbay and MonoWhiteBorder! Heavy creature focus, lots of combat rewards, and a free spirit of rebellion. Cyberpunk minus the artifact theme! Lots of fun things to learn about their new project. Browse the cards from the set:...
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Marvel Jumpstart Rules, Let's Talk About Why
The new Marvel Jumpstart product has a ton of special things about it. Lots of unique cards just for these packs, some nice fixing and card flow elements, plus a ton of exciting themes that hook into each other. We catch everyone up on Jumpstart, breakdown strengths and weaknesses, then go pack…
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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...
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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:...
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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: https://moonshotpods.com/ill-be-pod-for-castmas/ Join Beacon of Creation's Discord:...
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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....
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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…
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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: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and…
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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!...
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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...
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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:...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images:...
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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: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes…
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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...
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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:...
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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:...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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.…
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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...
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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...
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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...
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At What Cost!
Juliet's new game has us picking costs from cards, but we don't have all our options available! Can we get a mono-red double striking defender? Abzan direct damage? WB creature stealing? Join Beacon of Creation's Discord: https://discord.gg/t88Vpwh Show Notes and Images:...
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Nov-Embermage Challenge Review, Part 2
Juliet and guest-judge Andrew Sherman finish reviewing the the red-mana-dork Design Challenge, asking fiery questions about whether a Mountain is a card, whether a Creature is a Mountain, and whether Pierre Menard is a better author than Cervantes when it comes to three-drop magic design. Check…
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Nov-Embermage Challenge Review, Part 1
Juliet and guest judge Andrew Sherman tackle Mono-Red Mana Dorks for this month's design challenge review. Treasure, One-hit wonders, and Blitz (but not blitzball) all make fiery-hot appearances. Check out some of Andrew's Magic and other game projects: https://acsherman.github.io/sets/TPW...
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Forging a Format! Learn about Beacon Constructed
Inspiring episode this week! Khord and IgnitedxSoul hop on the pod this week to tell us about Beacon Constructed, a Standard-like format composed of sets from the Beacon of Creation server. This contained setup has a lot of advantages and helps them playtest with each other. Join Beacon of...
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Following Signposts - Avatar the Last Airbender
We're back again on the trail, following where the signposts lead us in draft. This new Avatar set has some new twists on the uncommon gold "archetype" cards and overall has some new ideas on structure. How do you structure a set with four types of elements in a game with five colors and ten…
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Live Design - The Year of Mechanics w/rexxer2
We've got a combo episode this week. Part project showoff, part live design, and all weird old mechanics. Rexxer2 aka Spencer hops on the pod with Tim to talk through this mechanic-a-day project and then dive in to design three of the cards! Fans (if they exist??) of Frenzy, Grandeur, and...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
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
HOSTED BY
Beacon of Creation
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Beacon of Creation have?
Beacon of Creation currently has 488 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Beacon of Creation about?
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:...
How often does Beacon of Creation release new episodes?
Beacon of Creation publishes regularly with 488 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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You can listen to Beacon of Creation on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Beacon of Creation?
Beacon of Creation is created and hosted by Beacon of Creation.
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