Three times in the past, we've allowed the Magic community to come together to collectively design a Magic card in a process called "You Make the Card." These were tremendously popular, a lot of fun, and resulted in some seriously cool Magic cards. People keep asking us, "Whatever happened to those days? When are we going to have another You Make the Card?" Finally, the clamoring voices became too much to resist. For Magic's 20th anniversary, You Make the Card returns today!

Our first You Make the Card resulted in the multiplayer powerhouse Forgotten Ancient, printed in Scourge. Then came the game-bending enigma known as Crucible of Worlds, first appearing in Fifth Dawn. Most recently, Coldsnap saw the appearance of the subtly powerful Vanish into Memory.

You Make the Card is the way that you, the Magic community, can work together to design a Magic card. I'll be along on the journey, facilitating things. You all will vote on each aspect of the card until we have the final version of it (or at least a digital image thereof). Then comes the long wait while we physically produce the set in which the card will appear. The months will feel like months. Then, each of you will have the opportunity to open a copy of the card you helped make in a booster pack. Let me tell you from personal experience: that is a very satisfying thing to do indeed.

My boss, Mark Rosewater, wrote the articles for the first three You Make the Cards. Since then, Mark's responsibilities have increased, so he had to start delegating things. While he was leading Gatecrash design, I was responsible for maintaining the database of the cards. He makes Ken Nagle open his booster packs for him. As the winner of the Great Designer Search 2, I have ample experience working with people to design Magic cards over the Internet, so Mark asked me if I'd like to be the R&D lead for this latest You Make the Card. I jumped at the chance, of course.

This time, we'd like to involve the whole Magic Internet in the process, not just DailyMTG.com. We'll leave plenty of time for discussions to take place and articles to be written. Some of the most interesting votes will be announced before the polls open, to give influential members of the community a chance to shape public perception and lobby for their choices.

This is Day One. Our card is a blank slate. It's time to start filling in those blanks.

Our first vote will be on what type of card we're making. Here are the choices:

  • Artifact: These colorless permanents represent powerful magic items.
  • Creature: These spells summon magical monsters or people who battle on your behalf.
  • Enchantment: These spells remain on the battlefield, warping the nature of the conflict.
  • Instant/Sorcery: These are spells that have single effects and then go to the graveyard. We've collapsed these two options together for now. If these types win, we can decide whether the card is an instant or a sorcery later in the design process.
  • Land: These cards lay the foundation of a deck's mana base. Lands can have special abilities that are deceptively powerful because they don't take up a "spell slot" in a deck.

You may notice a couple of card types that aren't on the list. Planeswalkers are too complicated for You Make the Card. We aren't going to design new cards with the Tribal type in the foreseeable future. So, neither of those options appear on the ballot.

I'm interested in the conversation about this card-to-be! Talk about it on Twitter using hashtag #ymtc for the promotion in general, and #ymtc1 to discuss this particular vote. Send me an email or post in this article's thread. The poll will remain open until 9 a.m. Pacific on Friday. Don't forget to vote!

YMTC Vote #1: Card Type
Thanks all of you who voted! The polls are closed and we are tabulating the final results. Come back Monday for the next step in You Make The Card 4!