The fastest way to spot an amateur custom card isn't the art or the frame — it's the rules text. Magic's oracle text follows a tight, learnable grammar that Wizards' editing team has refined for thirty years. Match it and your custom card reads like it fell out of a booster pack. Miss it and the card feels off before anyone evaluates the design.
This guide covers the conventions that matter most, in the order they'll bite you.
The three ability types and their shapes
Almost every line of rules text is one of three things, and each has a fixed shape.
Static abilities simply state a fact. No trigger, no cost, no colon.
- Flying
- Other creatures you control get +1/+1.
- Spells your opponents cast cost
{1}more to cast.
Triggered abilities always begin with one of exactly three words: When, Whenever, or At.
- When this creature enters, draw a card. — one-shot events
- Whenever you cast a spell, scry 1. — repeatable events
- At the beginning of your upkeep, lose 1 life. — turn-structure events
If your ability fires on an event and doesn't start with one of those three words, rewrite it until it does.
Activated abilities use the strict form Cost: Effect. The colon is load-bearing — it's how the rules know the difference between a cost you pay and a thing that happens.
{T}: Add{G}.{2}{B}, Sacrifice a creature: Each opponent loses 2 life.- Discard a card: This creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
Multiple costs are separated by commas, and the order is conventional: mana first, then tap/untap symbols, then other costs (sacrifice, discard, pay life).
Keywords are capitalized; actions are not
Keyword abilities — Flying, Trample, Deathtouch, Lifelink, Vigilance, Menace, Haste, Cascade, Convoke — are proper nouns in oracle text. They're capitalized and listed on their own line, comma-separated:
Flying, lifelink
(Note: only the first keyword on the line takes a capital letter in modern templating.)
Keyword actions — scry, surveil, mill, fight, exile, sacrifice — are ordinary verbs and stay lowercase mid-sentence: "When this creature dies, surveil 2."
Reminder text goes in italic parentheses
Reminder text restates a keyword's rules for newer players. It's always parenthesized, always italic, and always optional — real cards drop it at higher rarities where space is tight.
Deathtouch (Any amount of damage this deals to a creature is enough to destroy it.)
In the PipGlyph editor, wrap reminder text in parentheses and it renders in italics automatically, exactly like the printed treatment.
"You" means the controller; the card names itself
Oracle text is written from the controller's point of view. "You" is always the card's controller; "an opponent" is anyone else. A card refers to itself by name on the first mention historically — but modern templating increasingly uses "this creature" / "this spell," which has two advantages for custom cards: it survives renames, and it reads cleanly on remixes. PipGlyph recommends the modern form.
- Old style: "Lightning Elemental deals 1 damage to any target."
- Modern style: "This creature deals 1 damage to any target."
Numbers, symbols, and the small stuff
- Spell out one through... actually, no — Magic uses numerals almost everywhere: "draw 2 cards" is wrong; it's "draw two cards" for card counts but "deals 2 damage" for damage and "+2/+2" for stats. The working rule: damage, life, counters, and power/toughness use numerals; counted card actions ("draw two cards," "sacrifice three artifacts") spell the number out.
- Mana symbols are always braces in source notation —
{2}{U}{U},{X},{W/P}— and the mana pip editor renders them as proper discs both in costs and inline in rules text. - "Target" placement matters: "Destroy target creature" (the spell targets) vs. "Destroy a creature" (a non-targeting effect, often on triggers). If a player can respond to the choice, write "target."
- Durations close lines: "until end of turn" sits at the end, not the start.
A worked example
Say you want: a red creature that gets stronger when you play spells, and can throw itself at a player.
First draft (typical mistakes):
If you play a spell this gets +1 until turn ends. Pay 1 and sacrifice: do 3 damage.
Templated:
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, this creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
{1}{R}, Sacrifice this creature: It deals 3 damage to target player.
Every change is mechanical: the trigger word, the stat bonus format, the duration phrase, the cost-colon-effect shape, and an explicit target.
Let the assistant do the templating
PipGlyph's built-in AI assistant accepts plain-English descriptions — "when this attacks, my other goblins get +1/+0" — and returns properly templated oracle text using real keyword vocabulary. It's the fastest way to learn the grammar: describe, compare, absorb. You can try it free in the card creator.
FAQ
Should every custom card have reminder text?
No. Follow rarity conventions: commons and uncommons carry reminder text for any keyword beyond the evergreen basics; rares and mythics usually drop it. If the text box is crowded, reminder text is the first thing to cut.
How long is too long for a text box?
Real cards rarely exceed four lines of rules text plus flavor. If your design needs more, it usually wants to lose an ability — the best custom cards do one or two things crisply. PipGlyph's preview shrinks text to fit, but if you're relying on that, take the hint.
Where do I check how a real keyword is templated?
Search any real card with the keyword on Scryfall and copy its phrasing. PipGlyph's Scryfall import can pull a real card's oracle text straight into the editor as a reference starting point.