PLAYISM and Lizardry announce card creation card battler Card Make Arena for PC

Publisher PLAYISM and Refind Self developer Lizardry have announced Card Make Arena, a card battler where you create your own cards. It will launch in Early Access for PC via Steam in 2026.

Here is an overview of the game, via its Steam page:

About

What card will YOU forge? The Card Make Arena grows alongside its players. The cards you create, the decks you build, the battles you fight, they all shape this world.

“The one who brings forth the Ultimate Card might just be you!”

Create, Assemble, and Duel

Every card in Card Make Arena is entirely designed by you. The name, the abilities, all of it is YOUR original creation.

• Three Card Types – Servants that attack and defend, Spells that deliver a one-time effect, and Land that makes up the board.
• Effect Combos – Combine up to 60 types of effects such as Damage, Recovery, Summoning, Destruction, Enchantment… and more!
• Set Triggers – Effects can be set to trigger upon a summon, attack, defeat, start/end of turn, etc.
• Design with Conditions, Tags, and Variables – Tricky cards can change drastically depending on the state of the game, such as “No Cards in Hand” or “Gains Attack depending on the size of the discard pile.”

“A Servant that burns your opponent’s hand with every attack. A card that, the moment it’s destroyed, takes one enemy down with it. Whatever card you imagine can be made. Anything you can imagine as your card can be brought to life.”

Then take your created cards to player-versus-player battles. That’s the game.

A Simple-Rule DCG with Your Very Own Cards

The rules are simple. Win by reducing your opponent’s leader to 0 HP.

All you need to do is this: Use your mana to choose which cards to play on your turn and place them.

1. Turn Start
2. Mana Refill
3. Use the Card(s) to use
4. Auto-Battle begins!

What? Does that sound too simple? Well, hold on.

Servant cards placed on the board attack forward.

They deal damage equal to their ATK value and are sent to the discard pile when their HP reaches 0.

“Your positioning will determine if they attack the enemy leader or the enemy Servants.”

You only have four slots for Servants… So, with your custom cards, what’s the best placement?

There’s only one slot for Spell cards.

See that vertical scroll on the left side of the screenshot? That’s it.

So in principle, you can only use one Spell card per turn.

What kind of Spell would be effective? A classic draw card? A powerful card to break through the current stalemate? How about one that stores up mana?

Land cards are cards that activate their effects when a Servant is placed on top of them.

Do you place one in the slot in front to protect yourself from a powerful enemy Servant? Or do you leave that job to Spells and place it in an empty slot to deal more damage to the enemy leader?

…Or maybe, just maybe, your custom Land card is one that you place in your opponent’s slot to disrupt them.

This World is Yours

You can draw the card illustration and even design the name and flavor text.

For example, like this.

—From Card Maker L—

Let’s build a card that’s aggressive but also strong in the long game.

Let me think…

A 4-Mana attacker with ATK 7 / HP 2—big damage. When it’s defeated, it grants

itself the “Lighten” Enchant and heals the Leader’s HP. “Lighten” is a handy

effect type: when the card is sent to the Discard pile, its Mana cost is reduced

by 1 the next time it’s used.

Flavor text goes like this: “Wait here. I’ll return to you soon—.”

It comes back light on its feet, and shows up right when you need it.

How’s that?

But hold on.

You could cover the healing elsewhere and instead make a card you want to kill—but also don’t want to kill. In that case, how about using the “Mana Lost” effect (remove 1 Mana from the target) to build a card that removes one Mana from the opponent when it’s defeated?

Flavor text: “I won’t fall for nothing—.”

It won’t go down for free, and you won’t want it to go down. A fine card.

Plenty of ready-made artwork is provided too, so you can focus purely on designing the card itself.

The number of possible combinations: roughly 10 sextillion (10²²).

Mana, ATK, HP, number of effects, effect type, effect Target, effect Timing, effect Value, effect Condition, artwork, card name, and on and on…

Even if all eight billion people on Earth counted one card per second, together—it would take about 40,000 years to finish counting them all.

And Yet, No “Broken Cards” are Ever Born

“If you can build anything, won’t everyone just make the ultimate card and be done with it?”—The systems that keep that from happening are the very heart of this game. To make “original cards x player-versus-player” genuinely work, Card Make Arena builds in several safeguards:

• Strength Controlled by Cost – An effect’s power, how wide its targeting reaches, how easily it pays off—the stronger the design, the higher the Cost. And there’s a cap on the total Cost you can fit into a deck.
• The More You Stack, the Heavier It Gets – Stack the same effect and the Cost balloons at an accelerating rate. “Load everything onto one card” simply doesn’t work—so a card that wipes out the enemy Leader’s HP in a single blow isn’t something you can build on a whim.
• A Bonus for the Cost Gap – The game measures the Cost difference against your opponent’s deck, and the lower-Cost side receives a bonus equal to that gap before the match begins.
• Put Minor Effects to Good Use – Effects with a low usage rate are designed to award extra points when you win with them.

In short, card creation also has a puzzle-like side: how cleverly can you design within a limited budget? Because there are rules inside the freedom, it’s your imagination and your deckbuilding skill that get put to the test.

“So I can’t even test the ultimate card I dreamed up?”

True—Card Make Arena has Cost restrictions. But in ROOM Battles, “unlimited Cost” matches are on the table! With a friend, or with someone who drops by the ROOM board—as long as you both agree, the battle for the world’s strongest card begins.

So Many Ways to Play

Built around original cards, Card Make Arena takes on all kinds of play:

• Take Your Cards Into Battle! – Play for keeps, wagering RANK points. At the top rank, there’s even a Rate Ranking.
• Share Your Original Cards With Everyone! – The in-game Community Cards feature has rankings by Likes and Copies, too.
• Battle With Cards Made by Others! – Draft a deck at random from cards players have posted to Community Cards, and jump into a match! Casual play with a big helping of randomness.

Card Make Arena is an arena that grows together with its players. The cards you make, the decks you build, the matches you play—all of it shapes this world. The next “ultimate card” might just come from you.

Create. Build. Duel you.

Watch the announcement trailer below.

Announce Trailer

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