Intro / Yap

This post is to show of my portable magic the gathering “gameplay facilitation” or “Accessories” kit, the idea was simple, to take everything (minus the actual cards) that was either needed to or useful for playing magic the gathering (within reason), get it all into little boxes so they would be contained on a table top, and then fit all of that into 1 case that I can throw in a backpack with a deck box and head down to FNM / game nights.

I will be breaking down each element of the setup, including what I use each component for, where I got them from, and how I have customised them (when applicable). Where possible I will be including links to products I am using, but please be aware that none of these are paid promotions.

The Case

The case itself is the “Bolt card case” by Quiver case This is a magic the gathering case intended for carrying several decks / bulk cards at once, the little brother to the full sized quiver case. There is nothing uniquely suited to this case that would make it the only applicable case for the job, but quiver from what I can tell have a good reputation amongst MTG players for keeping their cards and trinkets safe, it was also on sale when I put this kit together so- there’s that.

The Contents - Packed

Nothing much to say here until I get into the individual boxes, but this is how I have the case packed, I keep the bulk of the items in the main section below, and I keep the case shoulder strap and a dry erase pen for dry erase cards in the top zipper section.

The Contents - Unpacked

Here is the contents of the box all laid out, you may be wondering why have it all in separate boxes rather than just using the bolt card case’s included Velcro dividers to keep things separated, and the answer is because it was important to me that each individual set of stuff could be placed around the small gaps of available space on a table. When you play magic at home this does not come up much, but when you are playing at a pub or on a blank bulletin board you lay across your bed for balance (don’t judge me), being able to deploy all your stuff without needing 1 big clear space is excellent. (also the little boxes and stuff just look cool)

Component Breakdown

The Counters Box

The counters box itself is a cheap latched balsa wood box I got from a dollar store, I then used some felt and iron on vinyl to pad the inside and add the text on the lid, this not only makes the box look a lot nicer, but also drastically reduces the noise from the dice shaking around inside the box.

As for the counters, I found this 48 pack of modifier dice on amazon, I find myself having a need for positive dice more often than negative dice so I keep 27 positive dice in the box and 18 negative dice. These little dice work great, and the numbers are in order (kind of like a spin-down but a D6), but if you are emulating this setup at home I recommend you hold off on order these as one of the products I will show a bit later includes them.

The Dice Box

The box itself is the exact same as the counters box with different felt so I won’t ramble on about it.

Inside this box I keep a collection of spin-down dice, along with a couple regular D20s for rolling for turn, and some regular D6s for game based cards like concession stand or bobbleheads.

The Modifiers and Miscellaneous Counters Box

The clear box here is a latched card box that contained some singles I ordered online from card kingdom, given that the bolt card case was made to hold MTG cards, this was the perfect fit, for anyone who wants to obtain one but is not in the market for some new cards, I tracked down a similar (if not the same) product here.

The little coloured counters I keep on the side of the box are for tracking miscellaneous counters that a specific card / deck might require that are not common enough to need a dedicated type of counter, such as the time counters from the doctor who cards. These are not a specialised product, just generic teaching supply math counters. Though in future I do intend to replace at least some of these with dry erase counters.

The modifier dice on the right of the box track 12 of the more common modifier in MTG, I picked them up in a 63 piece set on amazon which includes those dice, along with counter dice. Since there are 2 different dice types, I created a colour coded label for them to show which modifier is on which coloured die without needing to check all the sides, if you are following along and would like the label scaled to correctly on an A4 page to fit this box- here you go!

The Dry Erase Tokens & Pens

Not much to say on this one, these dry erase cards are excellent for when you are playing and realise you don’t have a token you need, I personally use these completely blank dry erase cards, However depending on your preference you may prefer these bordered ones which also have a printed section for strength and toughness.

For the pen I use a black dry erase pen from this dry erase pen pack I bought ages ago to use on D&D maps. the eraser on the lid is very handy for cleaning up the cards when you are done.

The Gold bars?

Yeah this one might seem a bit strange, they are a recent addition to my kit, and I use them for situations where I have more tokens on the board than my play mat can accommodate for, or for when I need to put a modifier / counter on every token of a certain type and don’t want to slow down the game placing a million dice around, I just put 1 bar on the token card for each token I have, and put the counters / modifiers on the card. I personally prefer this to just keeping a die on the card to show the number of tokens you have, as having little rectangles means you can keep track of which tokens are tapped.

There is no particular reason to use mini gold bars for this over anything else, This was just what I found when I was searching for “small rectangles” online and I thought they were kind of fun.

Outro / More Yapping

That about covers everything! it’s perhaps a random thing to have a dedicated kit for, but people who know me know I ADORE having little kits for different scenarios, and being able to throw this in a bag with a deck box and go play sparks much joy.

Hey here’s something mildly interesting! in order to make sure everything would fit in the case before I bought it, I made a box that matched the interior size of the bolt card case in blender and created boxes the same size as all the little boxes I had and arranged them until I found a collection and arrangement that worked, you could work this out on paper if you wanted, but like- this is cooler. that’s all I got to say, if you found this interesting then maybe go check out my other MTG posts, or my D&D posts.

Thanks for reading my random nerdy stuff :)