tnx ! i was thinking of starting a new set, and these gave the last push ^^

Here are just the ones about color pairs:
Allies:

Heh, when I read that second Nuts and Bolts article yesterday, I got annoyed at myself because I had never really thought about the fact that different colors had different ratios of creatures to spells. In the set I'm making right now, each color has the same ratio... which will probably remain true, despite evidence to the contrary.

It generally depends, in my experience, on the focus of the set. A "standard" set where the focus isn't towards either creatures or miscellanea will probably have Green, White, Black, Red, and Blue in descending order with creature totals. These ratios will vary depending on the set, but (excepting Legions) Green will always possess the most creatures and Blue amongst the fewest.

I found this article quite helpful. The numbers of cards in sets and such, and rarities.

I second Shiv's posting. In fact, I even took the shards block rarity ratios, and made a little TI-83 program to scale those rarities to sets of other sizes for me.

Pich, is it written in ASM or TI Basic? Would you consider sharing the source so I could use it on my 89?

It is TI Basic. I can't currently get the file off the calc, but I can type the code out for you here.

Input X
(101/229+60/145)/2*X->C
(60/229+40/145)/2*X->U
(53/229+35/145)/2*X->R
(15/229+10/145)/2*X->M
Disp M
Disp R
Disp U
Disp C

The X you input is your desired set size. It then takes the actual rarity ratios for large and small sets in Shards block, sums them, divides by two (to get a single workable ratio for a medium sized set), multiplies by your set size, and spits out numbers.

I used this to scale down rarities for my mini-sets I've done.

Mythic rares should be on a 2:7 ratio with regular rares so that they are one-half as common (an actual print sheet contains two of every rare and one of every mythic rare).

This doesn't have anything to do with print runs or boosters, coppro. It's all about how many rares and how many mythics to put in a set if you want to follow the WotC pattern. That's why it uses actual Shards of Alara/Conflux/Alara Reborn numbers.

It absolutely does. The ratio of commons and uncommons changes from set to set because of the print sheet sizes, but rares and mythic rares are consistently at a 7:2 ratio. 35/10 is 7/2. 52.5/15 is 7/2. If they change the set size in the future, the 7:2 raito will almost certainly remain the same.

Ah, the 2:7 ratio my little TI program has (from the Shards block numbers)? So what are you on about, again?

I was curious what the ratios were for my set, and lack a TI, so I did the math:

0.42742056919138683933142599006169 Commons
0.2689354012949856949254630326755 Uncommons
0.23641017918988104201174521909307 Rares
0.067233850323746423731365758168948 Mythic

Multiply your total set size by the listed number and it will tell you about how many of that type of card to have.

I have two more links. One of them is a summary of why the opposing colors oppose each other, the other one is the role of flavor, and how function and flavor interact. Perhaps not as crunchy as some of the other stuff, but definitely worth a read.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/14
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr60

Would anyone happen to know an average mana curve for a set? About how many spells should be at each mana cost, in general?

Given the massive variance from set to set in terms of mana curve (especially at higher costs), there's no hard-and-fast rule except that there's generally far more 1-, 2-, and 3-drops compared to anything higher in a set.

Rather than consider the stats for an individual set, it might be more informative to look at the last several sets in gatherer. Should be possible to do a few searches and compile some numbers based on a certain number of blocks. I would suggest... Oh... Champions of Kamigawa to now? Of course, you might get better results if you ditched Shards block, with its low cmc multicolor creatures.

Ok, for anyone who cares, looking at just the last three large sets on Gatherer (M10, Zendikar, Rise of the Eldrazi), the average breakdown is this:

17% 1-drops
21% 2-drops (interestingly, all three sets had 46 2-drops)
21% 3-drops
16% 4-drops
13% 5-drops
7% 6-drops
2% 7-drops
2% 8-drops
1% 9+ drops

This might have been skewed a bit by ROE, though, so you might want to lower those last three numbers a bit. Without ROE, the numbers are relatively similar, but add 1% to 4-drops and 5-drops while taking 1% away from 8-drops and 9+ drops.

Thank you HudsonWolf.
Is someone doing this for other sets?

I may do a larger one later today. More like a "grand scheme of things" percentage. But I'm not going to do one for ALL sets, because I think there are just too many sets that either toy with this or are too old.

Okay, I've now taken a little time and did some wider range cmc stuff for more sets. I did non-basic cards from the following sets: Champions, Betrayers, Saviors, Ravnica, Guildpact, Dissension, Coldsnap, Time Spiral, Planar Chaos, Future Sight, Lorwyn, Morningtide, Shadowmoor, Eventide, Zendikar, Worldwake, and Rise of the Eldrazi. I intentionally left out Mirrodin block and Shards block because of my expectations that they would mess with these averages.

Total Cards == 4398
LAND == 195
CMC 0 == 22
CMC 1 == 504
CMC 2 == 885
CMC 3 == 928
CMC 4 == 832
CMC 5 == 539
CMC 6 == 295
CMC 7 == 121
CMC 8 == 58
CMC 9 == 18
CMC 10 == 14
CMC 11 == 3
CMC 12 == 2
CMC 13 == 0
CMC 14 == 0
CMC 15 == 2

Ratios:
LAND == 0.04434
CMC 0 == 0.00500
CMC 1 == 0.11460
CMC 2 == 0.20123
CMC 3 == 0.21101
CMC 4 == 0.18918
CMC 5 == 0.12256
CMC 6 == 0.06708
CMC 7 == 0.02751
CMC 8 == 0.01319
CMC 9 == 0.00409
CMC 10 == 0.00318
CMC 11 == 0.00068
CMC 12 == 0.00045
CMC 13 == 0.00000
CMC 14 == 0.00000
CMC 15 == 0.00045

So, the way to use this table of information is to first settle on a set size (excluding basic lands), then multiply that set size by the ratio for that cmc. That will tell you approximately how many cards at that cmc is appropriate. Note that the zero cmc line does not count non-basic lands - those were held in their own group.

I may do one for colors tomorrow.

All information was taken from gatherer.

Excluding a block from an average sort of defeats the purpose of an average. ALA did probably skew the average to 3-5, and MIR probably did the same. Then again, I'd say if you did it for all sets from Tempest forward, it'd probably look a whole lot the same. Thanks for the stats anyway, I'll make good use of this. Being a math major means that I find this all very interesting.

Yes, thank you Pich.

Except in proper statistics, you're allowed to ignore outliers.

Now, to be fair, I'm not sure that Shards block or Mirrodin block would be properly defined outliers - probably not. But I would expect Shards to have lower cmc's due to creatures having lower cmc's combined with more colors on average in their casting costs. And Alara Reborn had no 1-drops! I would expect Mirrodin to have higher cmc's (because theoretically, artifacts should be more expensive for the same effects that any of the colors can get for cheaper), but I didn't test that to find out.

Point is, I think that it's probably good anyway, using 7 large sets and 10 small sets.

The fact that I started with Champions (rather than Tempest or some other large set) is no coincidence. Overtime, ideas about power level change, fluctuating in different directions. So I decided that Standard was too small of a sample size - instead, I'd go with Extended. Then I made the decision about Mirrodin and Shards.

I'll probably do some similar cutting whenever I do a color analysis. I'll likely exclude Mirrodin block again, due to the reduced number of colored cards. I may also exclude Ravnica block and Shards block for that analysis, but I haven't decided.

I would strongly encourage not including Rise for the same reasons. In general, it is skewed toward larger costs and has less colored cards than a standard set.

You know, I thought about it. But then I got to thinking, most of Rise is composed of perfectly normal cards, both cmc and color wise. It only has 13 Eldrazi clear cards, and while it certainly skews things a bit, I don't think it is as damaging as an entire block full of cards skewed one way or the other. Notably, the two highest used cmc's in Extended currently, 15 and 12, have an Eldrazi, but also another card. The Eldrazi seem to make very little difference, to me.

I redid the entire topic! Thanks!

Quick question: What was the rarity ratio prior to the introduction of the mythic rarity? I'm saying this because I don't know whether they just shaved off a little from each rarity or if it was an uneven deal.

Well, if you look at the article Shiv linked to, A Year of Living Changerously, you'll find that the rarities actually fluctuated greatly prior to the introduction of the Mythic Rarity. So really, there was no true standard, unlike now.

That was because there was no need for a standered, because mythic is only half as rare as rare, it just doesn't seem like it because of the amount of rares compared to the amount of mythics.

I'm surprised nobody found this article yet.

Mark Rosewater's "Just the Artifacts, Ma'am"

Though artifacts aren't a color, their design and purpose are unique and important to the way Magic works. I feel this should be included in the OP for all to better learn from.

It might just be me, but I think this is worthy of getting stickied to the Custom Card forum for easy access at any time.

First, I didn't realize where this thread was. Moved to Card Showcase.

But I can't sticky it. Or rather, it would do little good, unless ATW never edited it again. Because as soon as ATW edits the first post, it will no longer be sticky.

I suppose something else I would recommend here is an old project of mine. http://magicseteditor.sourceforge.net/node/1481

Just an idea on pinning. Why not you pin it when it goes off the recent posts first page. That way it is easy for everybody to find and as soon as somebody makes a suggestion it would be bumped up to the first recent post. Maybe to much work, but just an idea.

The thing is I'd have to re-pin it everytime you edit it ATW. Everytime. Yeah, that gets old fast.

Which raises the question: what happened to the other forum? It appeared it would be easy to sticky a thread like this there.

I'll get with you about that.

Updated with the Fantasy Name Generator.

By the way, I have some good articles for designer. Hope this helps :

And some MTG Salvation articles

http://mtgsalvation.com/417-putting-your-eggs-in-your-basket.html
http://mtgsalvation.com/430-putting-your-eggs-in-your-basket-a-follow-up.html

NONE ARE WRITTEN BY ME

Updated with Zendar's helpful site, and powerroxes articles that I somehow missed.

More generators:

Monster Generator
Technofantasy Monster Generator
Spell Generator

You can get some useful card names from these.

Thanks Icarael, comes up with some brilliant names - Kitten Camel, Villanous Lances of Mud, among others - but there are some decent names coming out of it.

Y'know, I'm looking at the first post and it looks kind of odd with all of those names by the links... At first glance they look like they're the person that wrote them, especially since Pichoro and Ocb both have their names by the ratios, which they actually came up with. I mean I'm pretty sure I've seen other people mention/link MaRo's articles here before, including myself. I don't know if it's all that necessary to have the names of people that merely submitted something from the Magic website (no offense to the people that submitted them).

@Rusty Keyes: That's a good point. I think it would make more since to have the respected author after each post.

Ok, I'll remove all but Pichoro's and Ocb's. I'm also adding those generators.

Just thought I'd suggest an addition to this list. The one sight that I've used more than any other when making cards is http://thesaurus.com/. Talk about a life saver. It really helps when you don't wanna use a generic names like "Ice Dragon" or "Heroic Cadet".

Good plan. I'll add it.

I did some averages for CMCs of commons in recent sets and I got this...

Two 1s, three 2s, three 3s, two 4s, one 5, and then the other can be anything you want (Green will favour a 6-drop fattie, the other colors generally go for a two or three drop card). This isn't hard and true, but this makes sure you've got enough to fill out the curve.

I would be glad to add it, but could you post it like pichoro and ocb in there multiply by your set size.

I was bored and I counted how long the names of the cards are measured in the number of words.

I used all cards in standard right now (Shards of Alara, Conflux, Alara Reborn, M10, Zendikar, Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi)
IMPORTANT NOTE: Space means new word, hyphen doesn't (Example: I counted Herdon-Field Purists as two words)

1 word: (123/1345)= 0,09144981412639405204460966542751
2 words: (1008/1345)= 0,74944237918215613382899628252788
3 words: (150/1345)= 0,11152416356877323420074349442379
4 words: (53/1345)= 0,03940520446096654275092936802974
5 words: (11/1345)= 0,00817843866171003717472118959108