If you love playing Magic: The Gathering but you’re growing tired of whatever deck you currently have sleeved up, the maker community has created a print to decide on your next deck for you.
Maker Tim Chamberlin is behind this project and was kind enough to tell us about how it came together.
“I recently got into Magic: The Gathering after playing a few games with my brother and his house mates. We’re always challenging each other to come up with new and different ways to play the game to keep things interesting,” Chamberlin says. “I got inspired to make this ‘Wheel of Fate’ after watching a couple of episodes of Day[9]’s ‘Spellslingers’ series on YouTube where he uses a similar wheel to determine what kind of decks to use in that episode.”
To make this new version of the wheel Fusion 360 was used. A total of 16 hours were poured into the design before it was complete.
The print is made up of three main parts: the face of the wheel, the icons which slot into it, and a small stand for everything to sit on.
Printing took around 24 hours to complete with the assembled wheel being 23 X 17 X 16 centimetres. Aside from printed plastic, this project requires a bearing, some fasteners, washers and a zip tie.
That zip tie isn’t used to keep parts together, but instead works as the bumper arm which eventually stops the wheel from spinning and makes that familiar clicking noise as it turns.
Back to the printed parts and they required sanding, filling with clay, and more sanding so they would be smooth enough for paint. After spraying on a primer, a metallic paint was used for the stand. The face of the wheel received a stone effect paint and each of the 16 icons were hand painted with a fine brush and acrylics.
“There are 16x different ‘mana’ or colour combinations in total that you can make a deck out of (standard colours: White / Blue / Black / Red / Green / Colourless and the Ravnica guilds which are all made of two different colour pairs),” Chamberlin adds.
The files to make your own version of this project are available on Thingiverse.
Those already happy with the deck(s) they’re currently playing may be interested in 3D printing some accessories instead, such as Sensei’s Divining Top life counter or a geared deck box with a moving base.
