Custom Masks

A mask is the shape a card or token is cut to on the table: a rounded rectangle, a hexagon, a star, or any outline you draw. Alongside the built-in shapes, you can design your own reusable masks in the Mask Editor.

Custom masks are private to your account and can be applied to any card or token. Because a component only references a mask, editing the mask updates every component that uses it, everywhere it appears.

Opening the Mask Editor

Open your account menu (top right) and choose Mask Editor. The page has two parts: Built-in shapes (always available) and Your custom masks.

Built-in shapes as a starting point

The built-in shapes (Rectangle, Square, Circle, Diamond, Triangle, Pentagon, Hexagon, Octagon, Star, and their rounded variants) are always available and never change. From any built-in you can:

• Customize — open it in the editor and save it as a new mask of your own. The built-in itself is left untouched.
• Duplicate — copy it straight into your custom masks so you can tweak it.

Creating a mask

Click New mask (or Customize a built-in) to open the editor.

• Start from a shape: pick a preset in the right panel to drop in its outline, then reshape it.
• Move points: drag any node on the canvas. For precise placement, select a node and type its X / Y (0 to 1 across the box).
• Add a point: click a blue dot on an edge to insert a node there.
• Delete a point: select a node and click Delete node (a shape needs at least 3).
• Round corners: select a node and drag its Corner radius, or use Apply radius to all to round every corner evenly.
• Undo / Redo sit at the top of the panel.
• Zoom and pan: scroll or use the zoom controls to zoom. In Transform mode, drag empty space to pan. The reset button re-centers.

Modes

The three buttons at the top of the editor decide what a drag does. The handles change to match, so you can see which mode you're in at a glance.

• Transform — edit one point at a time, as described above. Handles are round dots.
• Scale — resize the whole shape about its centre. Handles are squares. Hold Shift for 10% steps.
• Rotate — turn the whole shape about its centre. Handles are rings. Hold Shift for 15° steps.

In Scale and Rotate you can drag a handle or anywhere on the canvas; either moves the entire shape.

Whole shape

Above the canvas are one-click actions that act on the entire outline:

• Fit to box — stretch the shape so it touches all four edges.
• Centre — centre it without changing its size.
• Mirror H / Mirror V — flip it left-to-right or top-to-bottom.
• 90° / 90° — turn it a quarter turn.

Fit and Centre grey out when there's nothing for them to do. A shape is always kept inside its box: anything outside would be cut off the component rather than hanging over the edge.

Give the mask a name at the top, then click Save as new mask (or Save changes when editing an existing one).

Aspect ratio

The Aspect ratio (width : height) tells the editor the proportions of the component the mask is for. A standard 2.5 by 3.5 inch card is 5 : 7; a token is 1 : 1. This is what makes a rectangle read as a card rather than a square. It is saved with the mask, so set it deliberately. A test image previews inside this ratio and never changes it.

Test image

Under Test image, choose an image from My Files to preview how real art looks inside the mask.

Paste a clip-path or SVG path

If you already have a shape, expand Paste a clip-path or SVG path and paste either a CSS polygon(...) value or an SVG path (M ... Z), then click Convert.

Applying a mask to a component

Masks are applied per component, wherever you set a shape:

• In the component editor or the new-component wizard, the Card Shape Mask dropdown (for cards) and the Token Shape dropdown (for tokens) list your custom masks right alongside the built-in shapes. Pick one and save.

Once applied, the mask shows everywhere the component appears: the playtest room, component thumbnails, the Deck & Stack Builder, and Print & Play PDFs. See Components and Component Types for where these settings live.

Flipping and asymmetric masks

If a mask is not symmetric (like a swoosh cut to one side), it is mirrored automatically when a card or deck is flipped, so the back lines up with the front instead of pointing the wrong way.

Editing and deleting

• Editing a mask updates every component that references it, everywhere, at once. There is no need to re-apply it. Renaming one keeps every component pointing at it, but any spreadsheet that referred to it by name needs the new name; a spreadsheet using custom:{id} keeps working.
• Deleting a mask unlinks it from the components using it: those cards go back to no mask, and those tokens go back to a circle. The delete prompt tells you how many components will be affected first.

Importing with masks (Dextrous, CSV, JSON)

Imports can apply your custom masks. A shape or mask column can hold either the mask's name or its custom:{id} reference, and that component is set to use that mask automatically. This works for a card's mask column and a token's shape column.

Names are matched ignoring case and extra spaces, so My Swoosh, my swoosh and My Swoosh all find the same mask. Because a name is a reference, two of your masks cannot share one — saving a mask under a name you have already used is refused and asks you to pick another. Built-in shapes and other designers' masks are unaffected; the rule is per-designer.

Each mask in the editor shows its reference underneath it, and clicking it copies it. Your own masks read custom:{id}; the app's built-in shapes read default:{shape}. Either form works for a custom mask, but they behave differently when things change: the name is the readable one, while the id keeps working even after you rename the mask.