Hey, all! If you’ll indulge my nerd hobby for a moment, I’ve got something cool to share with you. As you may know, I wrote a little story called Children of the Nameless last year—something of a gift to the community and a way of being involved in Magic the Gathering, which has been a big part of my life over the last 25 years.

Well, Wizards decided to offer me a couple of preview cards for their upcoming set, and I thought I’d show them off here. (I’ll also post them to reddit, so if you want to talk about them, head over to r/magicTCG.)

First, the cards themselves.

When I got these a month or so ago I was quite interested, because the planeswalker is very unlike any I’d ever seen before. However, it turns out all of the planeswalkers in this set (and there are a lot of them) are doing interesting things, so I encourage you to have a look at the other spoilers and the story implications they imply. (The trailer for the new set is, hands down, the best Wizards has ever done.) Once you’re already up to date on what’s going on, we can have a little chat about my man Davriel.

Back? All right, the question that arises here is pretty obvious: How in the multiverse did Davriel let himself get caught up in the mess happening on Ravnica. Well, the events of the story I wrote kind of blew his cover—and, just as feared—soon after, he got several visits from extra-planar entities looking for planeswalkers to recruit for their cause. He also got a very cryptic message that I’ll, perhaps, get into some time in the future.

Suffice it to say that in the end, he decided to show up and do his best to encourage everyone that he was useless. He figured that way, next time everyone decided to go murder one another, they’d neglect to invite him. Unfortunately, he arrived, and everything has basically gone to hell. (And, having been there before, he’s not a fan.)

We can therefore summarize Davriel’s opinion on events with the following list:

1. OH BOTHER.
2. Zombies. Why is it always zombies? Aren’t there any evil, power-hungry overlords out there with good taste in minions?
3. He wonders what the Ravnican insurance policies look like. It would be curious to have a look at the fine print, and see how likely the local actuaries rated “Extra-planar invasion by megalomaniacal dragons.”
4. Said megalomaniacal dragon really needs to be more careful with his rampaging, as he quite nearly destroyed Davriel’s favorite local noodle shop with his latest destructive tirade.
5. Did anyone get the name of that Demon in the loin cloth? You know, the fellow with the glowing face and a mouth that looks like it can toast its own bread while consuming it? Because Davriel currently has a hole in his staff and is offering very competitive rates on his soul.

Now, if you’ll excuse him, he’s going to go see if Cruel Celebrant’s party has any snacks not infused with the blood of the innocent. (It really tastes far worse than everyone claims, and he’s convinced they just like to look trendy by consuming it.)

Adam here. Nominations for the 2019 Hugo Awards close tonight at 11:59 Pacific Daylight Time. A few months ago Brandon wrote short blog about his works that were up for various award eligibility which you can read in full here, but I will give brief bullet points below.

• Skyward is eligible for various awards, including the Andre Norton Award and the award for Best Young Adult book that is given out alongside the Hugos.
• Children of the Nameless would be eligible in various novella categories. As it was released for free, you can download it here.
• Legion: the Many Lives of Stephen Leeds was released as a novel, and is eligible as such.
• The graphic novel White Sand Vo. 2 is also eligible for nomination this year.
• And as usual, you can nominate Writing Excuses in the Best Related Work category.

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Magic Systems, Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mahtab design magic systems! They talk about how they do it, and how the principles of magic system design apply to the science fiction systems they create, and vice-versa.

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread of Oathbringer, featured Hoid, our favorite world-hopper who’s never straight forward about anything, and he’s certainly in rare form dropped hints about everything from his age to his role in the Cosmere. And along the way, he imparted a bit of wholesome advice to Shallan, nestled in amongst the jokes and snark. This week, in chapter sixty-nine, Kaladin experiments with Stormlight to determine what will draw the Voidbringers, and determines that Lashing a rock is out of the question. The team returns to the tailor’s shop to change their clothing, and Shallan sets their disguises to match. The men are off to a party, which makes Kaladin no end of grumpy; he ducks out of the party gig and ends up meeting the Wall Guard.

Today’s featured cosplay of Vin is brought to you by 17thsharder Stormwatcher.

Introduction: The Short Version

I’ve got a new story out for you to read. It’s free, and you can dive into it by going to this link. Enjoy! Once you’ve read it, here are some links of places to talk about it, all of which are likely to contain spoilers.

• Discussion on Reddit
• Discussion on the 17th Shard

I’ll be doing an AMA about the story on Reddit and I’ll also be appearing on the Wizards of the Coast Twitch stream tomorrow, talking about the story.

Introduction: The Longer Version

Back in January this year, Wizards of the Coast approached me. Knowing of my love for their game, Magic: The Gathering, they were wondering if I would be willing to write a tie-in story for them. They mentioned since it was the 25th birthday of Magic, they wanted to do something special—and might be able to splurge on a Brandon Sanderson story.

I was, of course, interested—but went back to Wizards with a proposal that I think surprised them. You see, I knew they’d been doing some very interesting things with their stories in recent months. (The multi-part Dominaria sequence by Martha Wells is a good example, if you are interested.) I liked how they were using free stories on their website to both enhance the lore and give some work to talented writers.

Way back in the beginning of my career, one of the things I liked to do was periodically release free stories. Defending Elysium, Firstborn, and even Warbreaker are examples. Over the years, though, I’ve gotten busy enough that I haven’t found a good opportunity to do this again. I liked the idea of doing a story for Wizards in part for this reason.

So I went back to them with a proposal: I didn’t actually want payment for this story. I just wanted them to put it up for free on their website, and then if (later down the road) it generated any money by being in a collection or in print on its own, I wanted my portion of that donated to charity. In exchange for doing it for free, I wanted to be allowed to write the story my way. That meant me picking one of their settings, then developing my own characters and plot to happen there. (As opposed to writing the story for one of their official releases, as most of the other writers they hired were doing.)

It wasn’t that I had anything against writing one of the main-line-setting stories. I just felt that in this case, I wanted greater flexibility. Beyond that, for several years now, I’ve had a story brewing in my head that I felt was a perfect match for one of their settings—a story I couldn’t make work in the Cosmere, but which I really wanted to write.

Wizards was on board immediately—and so, “Secret Project” was born.

Regarding the Story

Wizards has a lot of great settings for the card game, so I had plenty of options. The story I’d been brewing was specifically inspired by their Innistrad set—a gothic horror setting with some magepunk elements underpinning it. It has had a very interesting evolution over the years, and was the setting for one of the best Magic sets of all time. Ever since writing Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, I’ve wanted to do another horror/fantasy hybrid, and so I dove into what became Children of the Nameless.

I don’t know exactly what Wizards was expecting of me, but I suspect a 250-page behemoth of a story wasn’t it. (At 50k words, the story is roughly half the size of something like Skyward.) I have to say, though, working with them was an absolute pleasure. They jumped on board with the main character pitch I made, integrating him right away into the larger Magic story. They even went so far as to loop me in on conference calls, where I could explain my character concepts so they could develop art. I’d thought they might be worried about letting me go off on my own like this, but they were instead enthusiastic and supportive.

So, it is with great pleasure I present Children of the Nameless. Consider it a Christmas present from me and from Wizards of the Coast to you. I hope you enjoy it!

PFAQ (Possible Frequently Asked Questions)

Q: Do I have to know anything about the Innistrad setting to enjoy this story?
A: No. The story was written to be a standalone, and though it uses a MTG setting, everything you need to know about that setting is presented in the story itself. Just like you don’t need to know Roshar before picking up The Way of Kings, you don’t need to know Innistrad before picking up Children of the Nameless. (And as an aside, if you’re unfamiliar with Magic, you should at least check out some of the art books they’ve done for their settings. The creative team over at Wizards includes some of the best worldbuilders in fantasy, and their settings are incredible.)

Q: What about the game itself? Do I need to know anything about Magic to enjoy the story?
A: Again, no. Going into the story, I was a little worried about how I’d balance the card game mechanics with a story—but the creative team quickly put me at ease. They explained that they find stories in their worlds work better without the author trying to present game mechanics. The explanation I got was something along the lines of: Imagine that the card game is trying to represent things happening in a fantasy story—rather than the fantasy story trying to represent things happening in a card game.

If you are a fan of Innistrad and MTG, you might be able to catch some nods I made to cards, but many of my alpha readers had never played a game of Magic before in their lives—and they loved the story. In fact, most didn’t realize this story was a tie-in piece until I explained it to them. Note that I’m not trying to say that Wizards doesn’t care about continuity. In fact, they provided a large number of lore resources to me, and sent my story through numerous continuity fact-checks. They worked with me from the get-go to make sure that I didn’t break lore or continuity, and were quick to offer suggestions of things I could change to make sure the story worked in their setting.

The end result is a story that’s in line with their overarching lore, and doesn’t break the fundamental magic system rules of their universe. At the same time, it’s a story that’s very much a Sanderson piece.

Q: Can I get this on my Ereader of choice?
A: Yes! I’ve been told that the page for the story will include a downloadable version in epub and PDF. That said, the intention was always to put it up for free on Wizards’ website—so we didn’t even talk about propagating it to places like the Kindle/Nook/Kobo stores. I don’t anticipate it appearing there, but maybe we’ll decide to do so eventually.

Q: What about a physical edition?
A: I suspect that we’ll do one of these eventually. Wizards did, after all, commission some awesome cover art for the story—and they have a publishing deal with Random House (one of my publishers) for releasing novels. (Including the upcoming Ravnica novel.) I have told everyone I’m fine with this, so long as the free version remains available, and I have asked for my proceeds from any physical editions to be donated to Child’s Play. That said, we haven’t really talked about this, so it will depend on numerous factors.

Q: Will these characters or places get their own cards?
A: That’s up to the card design team to decide. I worked primarily with the creative team, and can’t really say when/if cards related to this story will appear in the game. (Though a little bird tells me that fans should keep an eye on upcoming sets.)

Q: When will we get the sequel?
A: I’m putting this question on here because, dear readers, I know you very well. But let’s not put the cart before the horse. I would not be opposed to doing something more with these characters in the future, if Wizards is amenable, but I’ve also got a lot on my plate. I suspect that if I were to do something more with Magic in the future, it wouldn’t be for several years. (I have Stormlight 4 to write, after all.)

Anyway, enjoy the story!

A larger State of the Sanderson update will be released next Wednesday (aka Koloss Head Munching day).

Brandon

I’m back, and feeling somewhat behind on my writing projects, but I had a wonderful time overseas! (And up north too.) If you missed me, I left signed books in many places I visited. I’ll post a full list below, but do want to give special mention to the Sentry Box in Calgary—who kindly sponsored my Magic draft at When Words Collide—where I hid one of the very last Szeth punch-out figures I have! All of the books they have there are signed, with prizes inside, but one copy of Words of Radiance has the Szeth card. Thank you, Calgary, for a wonderful reception!

The start of this trip was in Avilés, Spain at Celsius 232, where (despite having to fight off Rothfuss fans at every corner) we had a wonderful, and relaxed, convention experience. If you live in Europe, I highly recommend this convention. They were friendly, the weather and scenery were great, and I had a lot of fun. I even worked on a novella on the flight home, much as I did for Legion (written on the flight home from France sevearal years back) and The Emperor’s Soul (done on the flight home from Taiwan). You should see it eventually, though right now I have other projects to get to. (More on that below.)

The next stop was London, at the ever-awesome Forbidden Planet store. I did a new Stormlight reading (if you missed it, Tor posted it here) and afterward headed to a local pub to play a Magic tournament. This one was particularly cool since Wizards of the Coast’s European branch showed up with cards and extra prizes for everyone.

If you’ll indulge me, I want to talk about an epic game we had during this tournament. We played late enough that the pub kicked us out and we headed to my hotel lobby, where I finished up a few games with fans waiting to try their hand against me (and hoping to win one of these cool foil signed cards.)

This was Conspiracy, and I had a really solid [card]Vent Sentinel[/card] control deck. I was dominating the board against the fan, whose name I believe was Jason. (Might be some other J-name. Sorry if I got it wrong!) Well, I was feeling pretty confident and then suddenly, he played [card]Magister of Worth[/card]. This wiped out all creatures, but more importantly, wiped out the little creatures I was using with [card]Secrets of Paradise[/card] to create white mana.

I looked at my hand, which was full of white cards, and made the snap decision to tap one of my guys for mana before they died, then [card]Swords to Plowshares[/card] his Magister. This left us both with completely empty boards, and him with an empty hand.

I was still feeling all right about this. I had almost full life, while he was under ten.

Then, he top-decked a 30/30 [card]Cogwork Grinder[/card], flipped over a conspiracy that gave it haste, and smashed my face. Instant game over. I’d done an okay job of defending the expensive cards Wizards sent (only losing the Foil [card]Brainstorm[/card] so far) but this stomped me flat, and so, I present to you the winner of the foil [card]Dack Fayden[/card].

Warning! This is a Magic: The Gathering post. If you’re interested in the game, particularly if you want to play some Magic with me in Spain or the UK in the next few weeks, read on. Otherwise, I promise I’ll post a writing-related update here soon.

Anyway, I’ve been in contact with Ryan Spain over at Wizards of the Coast, and he offered to do something ridiculously awesome for me. From time to time, WotC sends me prizes to give away to people who play Magic with me. I was running low, and Ryan offered to get me some cards signed by the Magic team to give out.

That sounded awesome. But I didn’t know how awesome. A few weeks back, I got several hundred cards in the mail—including a complete foil set of Conspiracy, with most of the cards signed, and a large stack of rares and mythic rares from Theros block and M15. (Along with a few other goodies.)

I’m blown away by how awesome this is; check out the pictures below for just a few pages of what we’ve been sent, along with the key listing people’s signatures so you know who has signed what. (Ryan says he told them to sign cards they personally had a hand in designing or developing.)

I want to give a big thanks to the Wizards team.

It’s my intention to give these all away to fans over the next year or so. I’ll probably be giving some away randomly, while in other cases if you beat me, I’ll let you thumb through the binder and pick one to take. (In addition, I intend to give some of the more expensive cards to be used as prizes for the charity Magic draft I’ll be doing at Salt Lake Comic-Con.)

Magic the Gathering in Spain and London

Now, at the end of July and beginning of August I’ll be in Spain and the UK. I know that playing Magic at my US conventions works very well, and I can pretty much tell how many people will show up to play along. But when it comes to traveling to other countries, I really don’t know what to expect.

On August 4th I’ll be in London signing at Forbidden Planet, as part of my UK tour, and I might have some time after the signing to play Magic. We would limit the signup to eight players, but others would be welcome to come and ask questions while we played.

I’ll also be in Avilés, Spain starting July 30th as part of the Celsius 232 science fiction and fantasy festival. What I want to know from my readers in the UK and Spain is whether there is enough demand for me to set up a Magic event in Avilés and another one after the Forbidden Planet signing in London.

Let me know through the contact form if this is something any of you are interested in. We’ll then judge the demand and plan accordingly. (And if you’re not interested in Magic at all, you can still use the contact form to tell me your city so I can send you an email when I’m signing nearby.) UPDATE: The London draft is happening and is now full. If you got into the draft, I’ve sent you an email. Other people will still get to hang out and ask questions while the draft is going on. See you there!

Warning! This is a Magic: The Gathering-related post, so those of you not interested in my random hobby need not read further. (Well, not much further, since I ended up putting a writing update next. For those wondering, I’m currently doing the last revisions on Firefight—sequel to Steelheart—and working on the sequel to The Rithmatist. I’m still planning to start Stormlight Three, Stones Unhallowed, late summer. Follow along on the progress bars!)

As many of you know, I like to play Magic at conventions, and drafting is my favorite format. Drafting does a good job evening the playing field, and the one-on-one games tend to go quickly enough that I have a chance to play against a lot of different people. It’s really nice to be able to do something with readers other than sit across a table from them and sign their books.

We commonly set up a drafts as one of my events at a convention—and come Westercon this July, I’m going to make certain I’m doing at least one draft. Lately, I’ve been looking for a way to make these games a little more unique and fun. During a previous tour, I brought Archenemy and played games with fans after signings—challenging them to gang up against me. That was a blast, but wasn’t very balanced, and got old fairly quickly.

And so, I’ve been developing a new format, and we’re going to be trying it out at my convention appearances during the next year. (In the next twelve months, I should be making it to Calgary, London, Minneapolis, Kansas City, the United Arab Emirates, Avilés Spain, Atlanta, New York, Chattanooga, and Washington D.C. at the very least.) The goal is to do a standard draft—but with a twist. I’m calling it Augmented Draft, and I sure wouldn’t mind the help of Magic players out there to help me refine the format.

The great news is that Wizards of the Coast is going to be sending me prizes to give away at these Augmented Drafts, so we should have a very fun time.

The Pitch

I’m very excited about the draft-altering cards from Conspiracy (see them here on the Wizards site) which came out last week. I’ve heard a lot of people wishing they could do something more with these cards after playing a draft, and I was planning to add a few to my cube. However, traveling to conventions with my cube is next to impossible—the cube is too big and far too valuable. Beyond that, I really like drafting the new Magic sets when they come out, and conventions are one of the places where I get to do this. What I wanted was a way to do the newest sets, but add a little bit of cub fun to the draft.

I started thinking about how [card]Dragon’s Maze[/card] replaced the basic land with mana fixing, and how Conspiracy is replacing the land with a draft-altering card. It seems like it would be very possible to mimic this effect in any draft by just tossing out the land and replacing it with a random card from a cube designed for the purpose. This would require building a “mini-cube” of about sixty to seventy cards, which I could then bring to drafts. When everyone opens their packs, they toss out the basic land and then draw a random card from the mini-cube to add to the pack. (And if the set we’re drafting already has a land replacement built-in, we would just add a card anyway and have sixteen per pack instead of fifteen.)

I think the idea has a lot of potential. Using the Conspiracy draft-altering cards is one way to go, but that seems only the beginning of where Augmented Draft could go. One could build a mini-cube full of mana fixing and see how a draft format changes when you make playing four or five colors viable. You could build one full of favorite “build-around” cards that would benefit from common mechanics (mill, lifegain, defender matters) and see if you can build [card]Spider Spawning[/card] or Walls.deck in Theros. Stick a few “creature type matters” cards and all the changelings together, and see what tribes are viable in a set when they have extra support.

Obviously, this isn’t something to do with every draft. But for me someone like myself looking to add spice to drafts, I think this fits the bill. Having a few mini-cubes lying around could help keep formats from going stale—and if you’ve been thinking of building a cube, but are daunted by the scope of the project, putting together a sixty card mini-cube for Augmented Drafts could be a good way to start.

The Problem

The idea is not without its wrinkles. The biggest one is sleeves. If I’m going to bring a set of sixty cards to a draft and add them to the packs, will I take them out of the sleeves for drafting? If so, they’ll get worn over time, and become marked cards anyway. So it might be best to a stack of sleeves to be used in play by those who didn’t bring their own. It’s kind of clunky, but I’m not sure if there’s a better way. (Perhaps someone reading has a suggestion here.)

In addition, sets designed by Wizards are carefully playtested—and so throwing in something like a lot of dual lands could completely break a format in half. Worse, building a mini-cube full of powerful cards could “over-bomb” a format, and risk making it unfun. (Of course, some playgroups may love the idea of everyone opening an extra bomb rare each pack.) Finally, it seems like a poorly balanced mini-cube could reward only one play style, to the detriment of others.

I think overcoming the problems will be worth the effort, but obviously this format won’t be for everyone. For now, though, I’m going to be bringing one of the following mini-cubes with me to my convention appearances over the next year. At each event, we’ll probably run two pods (groups of eight) with one group drafting straight, no alterations, and the other playing Augmented Draft—then I’ll solicit feedback on what worked and what didn’t.

So come see me, play with the mini-cubes, win some prizes courtesy of Wizards of the Coast, and help me figure out how to make this format better!

CUBE #1: Conspiracy Mini Cube (60 cards)

This is the most obvious of the three mini cubes I’ve built for testing. I’ve started simple, adding all of the “draft changing” artifacts and conspiracies from the set, included in a 1-rare, 2-uncommon, 4-common distribution. This means that in a given draft, two of each common will show up, one of each uncommon, and half of the rares. (But, of course, because it’s randomized, we could get four of a given common and none of another.)

With playtesting, I foresee adding in a few more of the fun rares and dropping quantity on some of the commons if they end up going last pick fairly often. But we will see how it plays.

(34 Conspiracies)
2 x [card]Advantageous Proclamation[/card]
1 x [card]Backup Plan[/card]
4 x [card]Brago’s Favor[/card]
2 x [card]Double Stroke[/card]
4 x [card]Immediate Action[/card]
2 x [card]Iterative Analysis[/card]
4 x [card]Muzzio’s Preparations[/card]
2 x [card]Power Play[/card]
2 x [card]Secret Summoning[/card]
4 x [card]Secrets of Paradise[/card]
4 x [card]Sentinel Dispatch[/card]
2 x [card]Unexpected Potential[/card]
1 x [card]Worldknit[/card]

(25 Creatures)
1 x [card]Æther Searcher[/card]
2 x [card]Agent of Acquisitions[/card]
1 x [card]Canal Dredger[/card]
1 x [card]Cogwork Grinder[/card]
4 x [card]Cogwork Librarian[/card]
4 x [card]Cogwork Spy[/card]
2 x [card]Cogwork Tracker[/card]
1 x [card]Deal Broker[/card]
1 x [card]Lore Seeker[/card]
4 x [card]Lurking Automaton[/card]
4 x [card]Whispergear Sneak[/card]

(1 Land)
1 x [card]Paliano, the High City[/card]

CUBE #2: Good Fixin’ Mini Cube (66 cards)

Here is a stab at the dual-lands mini-cube, which can turn any draft format into a multi-color set! I feel that that adding good fixing risks help control decks more than fast decks, so to compensate I added in the painlands—to give aggro decks access to fixing that control decks won’t want—and wastelands to help the one and two color decks punish those who stretch their mana base. With playtesting, we’ll see if some fulimator mages or other nonbasic land hate is needed to help balance things.

3 of each guildgate
2 of each “painland” like [card]Sulfurous Springs[/card]
1 of each Ravnica block shockland
1 x [card]Maze’s End[/card]
4 x [card]Wasteland[/card]
1 x [card]From the Ashes[/card]

CUBE #3: Mini Uncube (72 cards)

With the uncube, I wanted to be careful to include a wide variety of silver-bordered cards that would complement a variety of playstyles. Some aggressively costed creatures with silly drawbacks, some build-around-me cards, some fatties, some bizarre randomizing effects, and some skill testers. I stayed away from the “gotcha” mechanic and its cousins, as well as cards that felt too powerful ([card]Frazzled Editor[/card]) or discouraged fun gameplay. Any card that seems like it will inspire a chuckle, or one that changes the game in an odd—yet strategic—way, was top on my list for inclusion.

White (12 cards)
[card]Knight of the Hokey Pokey[/card]
[card]Staying Power[/card]
[card]Wordmail[/card]
[card]Look at me, I’m R&D[/card]
[card]Cheap Ass[/card]
[card]Frankie Peanuts[/card]
[card]Mesa chicken[/card]
[card]Fascist Art Director[/card]
[card]Emcee[/card]
[card]Ladies’ Knight[/card]
[card]Prismatic Wardrobe[/card]
[card]Circle of Protection: Art[/card]

Blue (12 Cards)
[card]Loose Lips[/card]
[card]Richard Garfield, Ph.D.[/card]
[card]Cheatyface[/card]
[card]Greater Morphling[/card]
[card]Magical Hacker[/card]
[card]Carnivorous Death-Parrot[/card]
[card]Fowl Play[/card]
[card]Free-for-All[/card]
[card]Avatar of Me[/card]
[card]Framed![/card]
[card]Double Header[/card]
[card]_____[/card]

Black (12 cards)
[card]Duh[/card]
[card]Infernal Spawn of Evil[/card]
[card]Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil[/card]
[card]Vile Bile[/card]
[card]Mother of Goons[/card]
[card]Tainted Monkey[/card]
[card]ZZZyxas’s Abyss[/card]
[card]Bad Ass[/card]
[card]The Fallen Apart[/card]
[card]Phyrexian Librarian[/card]
[card]When Fluffy Bunnies Attack[/card]
[card]Poultrygeist[/card]

Red (12 cards)
[card]Blast from the Past[/card]
[card]Yet another Aether Vortex[/card]
[card]Strategy, Schmategy[/card]
[card]Pygmy Giant[/card]
[card]Goblin Tutor[/card]
[card]The Ultimate Nightmare of Wizards of the Coast® Customer Service[/card]
[card]Hurloon Wrangler[/card]
[card]Curse of the Fire Penguin[/card]
[card]Spark Fiend[/card]
[card]Ricochet[/card]
[card]Goblin S.W.A.T. Team[/card]
[card]Orcish Paratroopers[/card]

Green (12 cards)
[card]Old Fogey[/card]
[card]Incoming![/card]
[card]Our Market Research Shows That Players Like Really Long Card Names So We Made this Card to Have the Absolute Longest Card Name Ever Elemental[/card]
[card]Symbol Status[/card]
[card]Fat Ass[/card]
[card]Monkey Monkey Monkey[/card]
[card]Squirrel Farm[/card]
[card]Mine, Mine, Mine![/card]
[card]B-I-N-G-O[/card]
[card]Elvish House Party[/card]
[card]Gerrymandering[/card]
[card]Elvish Impersonators[/card]

Colorless (8 cards)
[card]Giant Fan[/card]
[card]Chaos Confetti[/card]
[card]City of Ass[/card]
[card]Water Gun Balloon Game[/card]
[card]Bronze Calendar[/card]
[card]Ashnod’s Coupon[/card]
[card]Toy Boat[/card]
[card]My First Tome[/card]

Multicolor (4 cards)
[card]Who/What/When/Where/Why[/card]
[card]Ass Whuppin[/card]
[card]”Ach! Hans, Run!”[/card]
[card]Meddling Kids[/card]

A Final Word and a Request

We’re going to start there, though eventually I’d like to build a Mistborn-themed mini-cube. This would require me to pick existing Magic cards that I feel represent characters or concepts from the books, then get them altered by a talented artist to depict the characters. That way, we could play any draft set with a few Mistborn running around as well. For this, I’d like to hear your suggestions to help me decide which cards to pick! Feel free to email me, but do keep the following guidelines in mind:

Existing Magic cards only. (Not ones you’ve made up.) I’d prefer to use cards Wizards has already playtested for this idea, as the mini-cube already has power-balance issues.

Speaking of Power balance, try to make the cards good in draft—but not overbearing. Stay away from [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] or [card]Pack Rat[/card], and instead look toward strong but beatable cards like [card]Jace Beleren[/card] or [card]Mirri the Cursed[/card].

Look for cards that will play well in any set.

I’d love to hear your suggestions here, or on this thread on the forums.

In addition, if any of you build mini-cubes of your own, I’d love to hear about your experiences playtesting them and doing Augmented Drafts. What’s your work-around for the sleeves issue? How many cards do you find optimal in a mini-cube, and what styles of mini-cube have you tried?

As always, thanks for reading, and I look forward to drafting with you in the future!!

Brandon Sanderson
6/9/2014

ans have asked about tonight’s event: Why pay money to play Magic with me when they often can come and play Magic with me for free? So in lieu of me coming tonight, I’m sending an early signed copy of Words of Radiance to auction off for the charity Junior Achievement, which helps 80,000 kids each year. (Please also consider donating to them here.) The copy of Words of Radiance will be auctioned at 9:00 p.m. at Epic Puzzles & Games in West Valley City.

The original flyer is below.

Hey, all! This evening I’m going down to Dragon’s Keep’s Orem store. They’ll have books for sale, including the The Emperor’s Soul hardcover and the Firstborn/Defending Elysium hardcover. You can also bring any number of books from anywhere else. I’ll sign books and talk to you, even if you’re not interested in playing Magic.

If you want to sign up for the Magic draft, register by calling the store at (801) 225-5039. The cost is $15.

Date: Thursday, November 21, 2013
Time: 6:30 p.m. until very late
Place: Dragon’s Keep
Address: 48 W 300 N
Orem, UT 84057

Just a quick reminder that I have a signing up in West Valley tomorrow, followed by a Magic draft. The signing is focused on the Mistborn RPG, but I’ll have my other books there too. Hope to see many of you there! Details below.

Signing & Magic Draft, Epic Puzzles & Games, Salt Lake City

Date: 12.22.12
Time: 1:00 pm-7:00 pm
Place: Epic Puzzles & Games
Address: 3612 West 4700 South #4
West Valley City, UT 84129
Phone: (801) 982-0167
Schedule:
1:00 p.m.: Signing
3:00 p.m.: Magic Draft. Call for buy-in registration information.

Writing Excuses has two new episodes this week due to a goof on our part. We had planned to hold Mary’s brainstorming episode back until the spring, but we forgot that there was a direct followup episode. The followup got released first and people were confused, so we’ve gone ahead and made it a two-episode week. Here are the episodes in chronological order: episode 51, Brainstorming with Mary, and THEN episode 50, Outlining the Mary Way.

InkWing has a new blog post up about their December deadlines and the Windrunner pin, which they’re giving away in each T-shirt order, or which you can get by entering the contest in the blog post comments.

I have two events in Utah this week.

Dragons Keep Magic The Gathering Draft & Signing, Orem

Date: 12.13.12
Time: 6:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m.
Place: Dragons Keep
Address: 48 W 300 N
Orem, UT 84601
Phone: (801) 225-5215
Schedule:
Draft: 6:00 p.m.
Signing: 9-10 p.m.
Limited amount of potential draft participants; sign up now.
Cost: $12.00 Dragon’s Keep Standard Draft Pricing and Prizes
This one will focus on ALL of my books, and while there might be a few copies of the Mistborn Adventure Game for sale, this is my holiday signing for Utah Valley. Because of that, we’ll bring a lot of copies of various things to sell.

Worlds of Fantasy at the Salt Lake City Library

Date: 12.15.12
Time: 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.
Place: Salt Lake City Library
Address: 210 East 400 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Phone: (801) 524-8200
Schedule: See the library website for the full schedule, which begins at 10:00 a.m.. My events are as follows:
Fantasy Literature and the Re-imagined Myth with Brandon Sanderson
12:00 noon-1:00 p.m., Nancy Tessman Auditorium
Sponsored by Utah Humanities Council
A discussion exploring the questions; from whence did Fantasy Literature Rise? What is its place in contemporary culture? Where is it going?
Brandon Sanderson Q&A: World Building
1:30-3:00 p.m., Lower Urban Room
Brandon Sanderson Signing
3:30 p.m., Night-Flight Comics at Library Square
Bookplates for A MEMORY OF LIGHT will be available.

Here is the Salt Lake Library’s press release on the event:

Popular Fantasy Author Brandon Sanderson Speaks at The City Library
Highlights Worlds of Fantasy Exhibit on Display

December 10, 2012—Salt Lake City—Fantasy is a major component in our cultural zeitgeist. The past decade has been filled with literature, film, games, and art that capture society’s desire for the exploration of magical worlds. From Harry Potter to Game of Thrones, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time, Dungeons and Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, our pop-culture world is one obsessed with fantasy. Join The City Library for a series of events highlighting the mystical and magical.

On December 15, The City Library will be transformed. An ongoing exhibit featuring sets and pieces from a locally-produced fantasy film, Flight from Shadow, will be the backdrop for a series of fantastic events, including an all-ages costume contest—from the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Robert Jordan, wand-making classes, film screenings, book browses, tours of the exhibit, and a performance by the Salt Lake Pops Orchestra.

The feature of the December 15 celebration is a lecture with famed author Brandon Sanderson, beginning at 12pm in the Main Library Auditorium. Sanderson is best known for finishing Robert Jordan’s epic series, The Wheel of Time. The final installment of this series will be released on January 8, 2013. Sanderson will also host an intimate Q&A, focusing on world-building, followed by a book signing.

Other Worlds of Fantasy events continue through the month of January, including Dungeons and Dragons at the Chapman Branch, and a continuation of the Fantasy Genre Speaker’s Series, focusing on art, film, and deconstructing Middle Earth.

The Genre Speaker’s Series is funded by the Utah Humanities Council, and Worlds of Fantasy has been sponsored by The City Library, University of Utah Department of English, Fort Douglas Military Museum, McGrew Studios, Wagonland Adventures, Absinthe Hair and Grooming Parlor, Razor’s Edge, Abbie Warnock Photography, Badali Jewelers, Wheel of 9 Productions, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, The Downtown Alliance, Gryphon Games, Night Flight Comics, Utah Film Commission, and Marcela Torres.

For more information on Worlds of Fantasy at The City Library, visit www.slcpl.org/fantasy.