Skip to main content
PipGlyph
Guides

Articles

Long-form guides on the craft of custom card design — templating rules text, mana symbols, balance, frame history, and community challenges.

11 min read

The MTG Nyx Frame Explained: Theros Lore and Frame History

Explore the MTG lore behind Nyx, the gods of Theros, and the history of Magic: The Gathering's starfield enchantment frame. Create your own in PipGlyph.

loreframesreference
Read the guide
11 min read

The Best Card Conjurer Alternative in 2026 (Free MTG Card Maker)

Looking for a Card Conjurer alternative? PipGlyph is a free, browser-based MTG card maker with a live preview, custom pips, AI help and proxy printing.

card makerscard design
Read the guide
8 min read

An MTG Templating Cookbook: Common Rules Text Patterns

A cookbook of correctly-templated MTG rules text patterns: ETB and dies triggers, tap and sacrifice costs, modal, anthems, and replacement effects.

oracle textcard design
Read the guide
9 min read

The MTG Guilds and Color Pairs Explained

The ten MTG two-color pairs and their Ravnica guild names, allied vs enemy colors, each guild's identity, and how to use them in custom card design.

color piereference
Read the guide
9 min read

MTG Card Types Explained

Every Magic card type explained — land, creature, artifact, enchantment, instant, sorcery, planeswalker, battle, and tokens, with a quick reference table.

card typesreference
Read the guide
8 min read

MTG Card Layouts Explained: Split, Adventure, Saga, and Double-Faced

How non-standard MTG card layouts work — split, adventure, saga, and double-faced cards — and when each layout earns a place on a custom card.

framesreference
Read the guide
9 min read

MTG Ability Types Explained: Triggered, Activated, and Static

A clear reference to MTG ability types — triggered, activated, and static abilities, plus spell and keyword abilities — for players and custom card designers.

oracle textreference
Read the guide
8 min read

How to Design Custom MTG Lands

Design balanced custom MTG lands: why lands are costed by downside not mana, dual-land levers, utility and creature lands, and land color identity.

card typesmanacard design
Read the guide
8 min read

How to Design Custom MTG Enchantments and Artifacts

Design custom MTG enchantments and artifacts: Auras, Sagas, Equipment, Vehicles, and mana rocks — the color pie, costing static effects, and giving lock pieces counterplay.

card typescard design
Read the guide
6 min read

How to Design a Custom MTG Set

How to design a custom MTG set — scoping, the set skeleton, color balance, rarity, the ten draft archetypes, and playtesting your Limited environment.

formatsplaytestingcard design
Read the guide
8 min read

How to Design a Custom MTG Cube

How to design a custom MTG cube — cube size, power level, the ten color archetypes, singleton tradeoffs, and the draft-test-iterate loop that tunes it.

formatsplaytestingcard design
Read the guide
7 min read

How to Design a Custom MTG Creature

Design balanced custom MTG creatures: the power/toughness baseline, the stat-vs-ability tradeoff, keyword budgets by color, tribal synergy, and rarity.

card typescard design
Read the guide
8 min read

Designing Multicolor MTG Cards

How to design multicolor (gold) MTG cards that earn both colors: gold vs hybrid costs, the color pie, costing, color identity, and a worked example.

color piecard design
Read the guide
8 min read

Designing Custom MTG Tokens

Design custom MTG tokens that play right: what a token is, the traits that define one, balancing the maker card's cost, and token-matters synergies.

card typescard design
Read the guide
8 min read

Designing Custom Commander Cards

How to design custom MTG cards for Commander (EDH) — the color identity rule, building a legendary commander, multiplayer balance, and singleton.

formatscard design
Read the guide
11 min read

The MTG Color Pie Explained for Custom Card Designers

The MTG color pie explained for custom card designers: each color's philosophy, strengths and weaknesses, allied vs enemy pairs, and breaks vs bends.

color piecard design
Read the guide
9 min read

MTG Keyword Abilities: The Complete List by Color

The complete list of MTG keyword abilities by color: all 18 evergreen keywords defined, color-pie distribution, and evergreen vs deciduous explained.

oracle textreference
Read the guide
8 min read

Designing Custom Instants and Sorceries

How to design custom MTG instants and sorceries — timing as a cost, card advantage math, color-pie-correct removal, spell archetypes, and clean templating.

card typescard design
Read the guide
7 min read

How to Design a Custom Planeswalker

How to design a custom Magic planeswalker — starting loyalty, plus/minus/ultimate abilities, loyalty math, templating, and a full worked example.

card typescard design
Read the guide
8 min read

Common Custom Card Design Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)

The seven mistakes that mark a custom MTG card as fake — undercosting, sloppy templating, color-pie breaks, kitchen-sink design, strictly-better cards, parasitism — and a concrete fix for each.

card designbalance
Read the guide
8 min read

Anatomy of an MTG Card: Every Part Explained

Every part of a Magic card explained top to bottom — name, mana cost, art, type line, set symbol, text box, power/toughness, loyalty, and the legal line.

framesreference
Read the guide
7 min read

MTG Rarity Explained: Common to Mythic Rare

MTG rarities in order — common, uncommon, rare, mythic — what each expansion-symbol color signals, and how to use rarity as a custom-set design tool.

referencecard design
Read the guide
8 min read

How to Playtest Custom MTG Cards

How to playtest custom Magic cards: goldfish solo, play real games with proxies, read your playgroup, iterate one change at a time, and test a whole set.

playtestingprintingcard design
Read the guide
13 min read

How to Print Proxy MTG Cards at Home

Print MTG proxies the right way: a PDF or print sheets at 100% scale, a bleed for print shops, files sized for MakePlayingCards, cut to 2.5 × 3.5 in.

printingplaytesting
Read the guide
5 min read

How to Write MTG Oracle Text That Reads Like the Real Thing

The templating conventions behind Magic's rules text — keyword capitalization, trigger words, activated-ability syntax, reminder text, and the phrasing patterns that make a custom card feel printed.

oracle textcard design
Read the guide
4 min read

The Complete Guide to MTG Mana Symbols

Every mana pip explained — generic, colored, hybrid, twobrid, phyrexian, snow, energy, tap and untap — what each one means in a cost, how color identity works, and how to build them on a custom card.

manareference
Read the guide
5 min read

Designing Balanced Custom MTG Cards

A practical framework for costing custom Magic cards — rate baselines, the color pie, downside design, rarity as a balance tool, and the playtest questions that catch broken designs before your playgroup does.

balancecard designplaytesting
Read the guide
4 min read

MTG Card Frame Eras Explained: 1993 to Showcase

How Magic's card frame evolved — the 1993 original, the 1997 'retro' classic, the 2003 modern redesign, the 2014 M15 holofoil era, and today's showcase treatments — and how to pick an era for your custom card.

framesreference
Read the guide
4 min read

How to Run a Community Card-Design Challenge

A playbook for design challenges that people actually enter — writing briefs with creative tension, sizing the window, picking tags, judging by community vote, and keeping a weekly rhythm alive.

playtestingcard design
Read the guide