Magic Library Community Project

[Celebrindor]

I find the idea of creating textless proxies with Latin names is absolutely gorgeous, obviously provided the Art is easily identifiable with the card (I think Time Walk might end up being called something like Deambulatio temporalis - but I don't know Latin very well :oops: - so we'd have to make sure the drawing fits with the card's concept to make it understood by the public.

I might be old fashioned, but I'd really stick to the P10 like Gamingetc. did, the reason also being that the P10 are restricted so we'd "force" people to buy one single set only (if we made Workshop or Mana Drain etc. then either people would need to buy 4 sets which they might not want to do, or they'd have 1 proxy only out of 4 cards in their deck which doesn't make sense).

I believe we'd therefore need to create sets of 10 cards.

Using Hank's friend would be great if he's available, and I am certainly willing to finance part of this project as long as we can likely recover costs, keep at least one set ourselves and use any profits to benefit this website.

Unfortunately I have absolutely no experience with printing similar material, nor any useful connection, so I can't be helpful there.

I can certainly find someone to make accurate Latin translations though... maybe we could include even some flavor text on these ?

We could even do a 'power 15.' After all, that is the standard number of cards in a pack. The P9, Workshop, Drain, Bazaar, and a few others. Since this *IS* Magic Rarities, maybe we can subtly proxy some rarities - like the Schizifuzikan Dragon, or the '96 champion. Obviously these would be unplayable, but still, we ARE the Rarities guys, we gotta do something unique like that.

Also - consider this, Enrico - we may WANT people to buy more than one set apiece. Depending on the printing prices, we may NEED to sell more packs to make our money back.

One final suggestion - P9 proxies have been done, though I have no doubt we can make better ones. How about Dual Land proxies? Everyone wants them! If we create packs of 10 dual lands, and sell them for $10 (a randomly chosen number - what have the neotokens sold for?), people will jump at the chance to own a playset of duals for $40, instead of $600 - these things will fly off the shelves. Or we could get really crazy - make 20 card packs of P9, duals, and Workshop.

Either way, the Latin names idea is great, and EVERY card we print MUST have flavor text ;)

[AXIOS]

after a quick reaf through, great idea!
i'm gonna read through the entire topic tonight.

btw Enrico, you are Italian from Rome and you don't know Latin
your ancestors invented it!










just kidding ;)

[themike314]

I have an idea. Please tell me what you think.

2. A set of proxies- similar to the gamingetc P9 which dont use the actual card names....example: bazaar, workshop, drain

That seems to be the best idea. I don't like how the Gaming, Etc. Power 9 proxies look, though. I think if you're going to do something like this, make them look similar in design to the textless spells put out by WoTC.

What would really be interesting would be Dual Lands.

[ende73]

btw Enrico, you are Italian from Rome and you don't know Latin
your ancestors invented it!

I knew this was coming :(

You might all be amused to know my origins are half-German though (mum's from Stuttgart), so that's my excuse

[hammr7]

A couple of comments - If we want to do both restricted and unrestricted cards, we can always offer 4 of each unrestricted and 1 of each restricted (and maybe banned :evil: ) cards. We can always adapt the prited sheet to have multiple copies of some cards if needed.

One easy way to provide variation (as seen with gamingEtc.) is to offer both foil and non-foil versions. This might limit the printers a bit (foil printers can print non-foil, non-foil printers might not be able to handle foils), but most should be able to do both. I don't know whether random inclusions of foils is better, or having a price premium on foils would be better.

I spoke with my friend, Mike. He's certainly willing to give this a try. He'll scan me a few of his older works when he gets back home (probably early next week). These were probably Tolkein inspired (since there was no Magic when he did them). He's also willing to sketch something if we give him an idea of what would be a good sample. Remember that he has a great background in fantasy, but has no clue about the MTG. It can be a specific card (which I can interpret for him), or a general theme. I briefed him on card "style" changes, so he asked what style we would want (with a card or two as examples of the style - he'll definitely supply unique content).

[Celebrindor]

A couple of comments - If we want to do both restricted and unrestricted cards, we can always offer 4 of each unrestricted and 1 of each restricted (and maybe banned :evil: ) cards. We can always adapt the prited sheet to have multiple copies of some cards if needed.

One easy way to provide variation (as seen with gamingEtc.) is to offer both foil and non-foil versions. This might limit the printers a bit (foil printers can print non-foil, non-foil printers might not be able to handle foils), but most should be able to do both. I don't know whether random inclusions of foils is better, or having a price premium on foils would be better.

I spoke with my friend, Mike. He's certainly willing to give this a try. He'll scan me a few of his older works when he gets back home (probably early next week). These were probably Tolkein inspired (since there was no Magic when he did them). He's also willing to sketch something if we give him an idea of what would be a good sample. Remember that he has a great background in fantasy, but has no clue about the MTG. It can be a specific card (which I can interpret for him), or a general theme. I briefed him on card "style" changes, so he asked what style we would want (with a card or two as examples of the style - he'll definitely supply unique content).

For the sake of completists like myself, i recommend NOT doing random insterts of foils. Its probably cheaper too.

I do like your idea of differing amounts of cards. Perhaps we could include a playset of 40 dual land proxies and a set of P9 proxies, and sell them in some sort of hard-plastic deck box. How difficult would it be to create deckboxes?

[normalbrains]

hey im off to work so i cant type long, but i think that we are getting ahead of ourselves talking about making 20 different cards. 20 different original arts? this is going to be incredibly complicated and i think a very small set is in order for our first outing. ill chime in later.

[normalbrains]

some thoughts:

while the idea of latin names is interesting, i dont think it has much appeal to the average collector. since we will need to recoup costs thru sales, i think that idea would hamper the effort. i can see a card called "workshop" being wanted because everyone knows what it is. these cards will have no trade value if nobody knows what it is. i loved the hebrew "glory", but i think these cards should be in english. as far doing p9 proxies, they have already been done. if this project is a roaring success, i think that a set of p9 has promise, but a p9 proxy set just came out. is their a market for 2 different sets of p9 proxies? i dont know. also the art for p9 is mostly just inanimate jewelry. i think we can have more fun creativity-wise with other subjects. same thing with duals lands. if we are going to commision new artwork, do we want to do landscapes? plus dual lands arent so expensive that people cant get ahold of them. unless youre talking about black bordered duals.

if we did go with a 4-card set:

Workshop
Drain
Mask
Bazaar

perhaps we could throw in 1x of each foil if you buy a playset (4x sets). if you buy 1x set you get a random foil. the way i picture the proxies is a black bordered card filled entirely with art. near the top of the card would have a small black-bordered box with rounded corners with the name of the card in it. just throwing out ideas, let me know what you think.

[ende73]

Personally I insist in considering Latin names a great idea. We could match the real name cards exactly without infringing copyright (are we sure about that ?).

Latin carries with it the awe and mystery typically associated to an ancient language, and is closely related to most modern western languages so that it could be easily understood or at least identified once associated to proper art. I can assure you Italian collectors would love these, though I'm obviously biased since our roots themselves are Latin.

As mentioned before, I'd also stick to the P10 or maybe other top-tier restricted cards.

I would suggest writing the flavor text in English, characterizing the card even further. Given it's a Magic Library community project, we might even include some of our key member there :D

Imagine an Ancestral Recall (something like Evoco Ancestros ? :roll: ) bearing The Disciple of the Library summoned the spirits of Flaminio and Herold, and suddenly their ancient wisdom swirled the destiny of the duel in his favor (yeah, it sucks badly, but you get the idea :| ).

Just throwing in some ideas there like Normalbrains (by the way, all credit for starting all this, it's wonderful !).

Maybe we should get this brainstorming organised somehow through some general polls on language, which cards etc. etc. ?

[normalbrains]

i really dont think that people will want latin proxies. the magic library community is very international, but if we are going to sell these to people outside of "us", i think they will have to be in english. like i said, if you have to explain what it is, nobodys gonna want it. these cards are supposed be getting rid of the confusion of scribbled-on land and latin cards would be very confusing to everyone but the owner.

i was thinking of making a special card or some kind of perk for people who invested in the project. like maybe give them test prints or a special version of the set. perhaps this card could be the elusive latin card.

[Celebrindor]

hey im off to work so i cant type long, but i think that we are getting ahead of ourselves talking about making 20 different cards. 20 different original arts? this is going to be incredibly complicated and i think a very small set is in order for our first outing. ill chime in later.

Not necessarily. The original moxen art shows a trinket on a necklace. If we could get an artist to draw all 5 moxen on one necklace, we could then split that art up among the moxen cards, thus using less art, and having cool interconnected art at the same time. Similarly, if we do dual lands, we may be able to have them all drawn on one or two pieces of art - it worked with the 2003 Arena lands.

I would assume that whatever we do, it will be black bordered (BB is always superior). Thus, I think there WOULD be a demand for dual land proxies. I think the market of people who would rather spend $10-$20 on a set of dual land proxies instead of $400 or $600 on real ones is definately out there. And whats wrong with landscapes? Well-done landscapes rock! (of course, this is coming from the land collector...)

[mintcollector]

I was thinking that if textless proxies are done, what about doing full sized land shots like the Unhinged lands, then having the applicable Mox overlaid on top? For example, a picture of an island with a sapphire amulet on it. This only would work for the 5 moxen though.

Although easier to obtain as pointed out, textless dual lands would be great in my opinion. More so, they are played in many formats unlike cards like Mana Drain, Bazaar, etc.

The key is not to fill promo niches for expensive cards per say, but to create something people may actually seek. Dual lands are considered "affordable", but not by all. With even Revised Duals rising to $20-$30 each easily, dual textless proxies would be something no proxy creator has touched yet. Done correct with nice art and in black border, this is a great idea.

[Celebrindor]

I was thinking that if textless proxies are done, what about doing full sized land shots like the Unhinged lands, then having the applicable Mox overlaid on top? For example, a picture of an island with a sapphire amulet on it. This only would work for the 5 moxen though.

Although easier to obtain as pointed out, textless dual lands would be great in my opinion. More so, they are played in many formats unlike cards like Mana Drain, Bazaar, etc.

The key is not to fill promo niches for expensive cards per say, but to create something people may actually seek. Dual lands are considered "affordable", but not by all. With even Revised Duals rising to $20-$30 each easily, dual textless proxies would be something no proxy creator has touched yet. Done correct with nice art and in black border, this is a great idea.

I feel honored - mintcollector actually agreed with something I said :)

I suggested duals specifically because they haven't been done before. Furthermore, words like Tundra and Plateau don't seem like they could be copyrighted if we just use the word.

[Dilligaf]

i remember there was talk a while ago (4-5 months prolly) about landscape cards (turned sideways) that would serve as mana pool counters.

like a strip, or circle of card with various images related to the colors, WUBRG and Colorless, that you could lay a counter on to keep track of floating mana.. and i think Storm count was also mentioned.

something like this would be unique and really cool.. i know i would buy a set!

[mintcollector]

[quote="Celebrindor
I feel honored - mintcollector actually agreed with something I said :)

I suggested duals specifically because they haven't been done before. Furthermore, words like Tundra and Plateau don't seem like they could be copyrighted if we just use the word.[/quote]

Excellent point on the copyright issue. I agree these words would not be able to be copyrighted. Thus textless duals would not just be cool, but we could even named them as WOTC does.

On a side note, if this project is really going to happen, I think we should have some people nominated to be project leader. A quick poll could help determine a vote and therefore project leader. The reason this is important is this topic is going all over the place. Regardless is duals or other cards would be made, someone should take the reigns on this or we will have the virtual too many cooks in the kitchen. Also I think the project leader should present all ideas in a poll to vote on them. It is important to have the majority of the members behind the project as we will be primary supporters financially. Is anyone interested in taking charge of the project?

If he would be willing, I nominate hammr7. Hank is impartial and I think would do his best to fill the role and not be as biased as others.