Magic Set Editor (MSE) is a free, GPL-2.0 program for designing your own cards for Magic: The Gathering and other card games. This guide walks the full workflow in the order you will actually use it: create a set, choose a template, edit cards, check the set with the built-in statistics, and export the finished cards as images or in formats other programs can read. If the program is not installed yet, start with our installation guide — the template step below assumes you already have at least one template pack in place.
Step 1 — Create a new set
A set is MSE’s project file: it holds every card, the set information, and the style choices for the whole project. When you start a new set, the program asks which game and which template (stylesheet) to use. That choice matters more than any other in this guide, because the template decides the card frame, the fields you can edit, the available symbols, and the resolution of everything you export later. You can change styles later, but fields that only exist in one template do not magically appear in another.
Next, open the Set Information tab and fill in the basics: the set name, its code, and the card language. The card language is set per set, here in the set info — it is separate from the program’s interface language, which you pick in the welcome window. Getting the language right at the start saves re-editing reminder text and keywords across dozens of cards.
Step 2 — Add and edit cards
Cards live in the card list on the Cards tab. Add a card, select it, and fill in its fields: name, mana cost, type line, rules text, power/toughness where the template has them, rarity, and artwork. A few editing behaviours are worth knowing from day one:
- Keywords are automatic. MSE has a keyword system: type a recognised keyword and the program can expand it with its reminder text. The Keywords tab is where you review and adjust the keywords used in your set.
- Symbols are inserted, not typed as pictures. Mana and other symbols come from the template’s symbol font. Use the Format menu’s Insert Symbol options (and the Symbols toggle) instead of pasting Unicode look-alikes, so the symbols scale and print like real ones.
- Formatting is tag-based. Bold and italic are applied from the Format menu, and the underlying text system uses lightweight markup tags — the same system that powers reminder text and list markers.
- Artwork is a field, not a background. Each card’s image sits in its own field defined by the template. Pick the highest-resolution source image you have; MSE will scale it to the template, and it cannot invent detail that is not in your source.
Step 3 — Check the set with the Statistics window
Before exporting, open the Statistics window. This is one of MSE’s documented strengths: it summarises your set with figures such as the average mana cost (mana value) of your cards and how many cards you have at each rarity, and the program can chart set data in several graph styles. Use it as a design tool, not decoration — a custom set where half the cards are rares, or where one colour’s average cost is far above the others, plays very differently from how it reads card by card. Fix the outliers in the card list, then check the statistics again.
Step 4 — Export your cards
MSE can output a finished set in several ways, all from the File menu’s export options:
- Card images: render cards as png, jpg, bmp or tiff files — a single card, or the whole set in one batch export (All Card Images). PNG is the right default for anything that will be printed or edited further, because it is lossless.
- HTML: export the set as an HTML spoiler — a web page presenting the whole set, made for publishing your set online.
- Play online: export to LackeyCCG or Cockatrice (older export options also mention Apprentice) so you can actually play games with your custom cards instead of only looking at them.
That is the whole loop: set up the project once, edit cards against the statistics, then export in whatever form the cards are for — images for printing and sharing, HTML for a spoiler page, or a LackeyCCG/Cockatrice export for playtesting. The guides below go deeper on each stage.