Will there ever again be a Magic set that understands how to create a sense of dread as much as the original?

This one. New Magic art can't even compare.

Yeah, because it's crap

I really like the old Icy Manipulator.

Red mana battery looks neat as hell too,I think there's just something about old artifact art that I just liked.

Easily this one (it's bog wraith), but ABU Dark Rit comes close as well. I'm , I love the look of the old black stuff

innistrad got close.

zing

The borders help. The rusty brown looked much better.

>The borders help. The rusty brown looked much better.

This is very true, the old artifact borders remind you of actual artifacts - the new ones you'd expect to see in some sort of space-age game.

I try to get old artifact frames of artifacts where possible for this very reason.

Shame about the bad CGI art.

Stasis.

>No, Lovecraft is now racist and le slenderman is the pinicel of horror.

When was Lovecraft not racist?

This card actually gave me nightmares as a kid.

This fucking thing

This isn't exactly terrifying, but it's a step in the right direction, in my opinion.

>Donaldtrump joins a cult

What the fuck, I didn't know Bill Sienkiewicz did Magic art

That's gotta be a false flag.

Digital is only the medium. That's like saying watercolor is inherently bad or something.

Except for the fact that they keep Terese Nielsen around (and Johannes Voss to a lesser extent) I agree with you. It's a damn shame.

>false flag
Do you mean ironic, as in, the card art isn't that good but the poster is saying it's good?
False flag is more so a situation where one party pretends to be another knowingly, in order to make that second party look bad. Jews pretending to be Nazis to make Nazis seem more extreme, etc.
That's different from the literary irony, meant to draw out reversals and contrasts, while in life it is an alter to unpredictability.

I'm not attacking you, I just don't think you're using the term right.

I'm using it exactly as you understand it.

Apparently he was a lot less racist around the end of his life. Even married a Jewish girl.

Doesn't Richard Kane Ferguson work entirely in watercolor?

Richard Kane-Ferguson and Drew Tucker did that, yeah.

I always liked Richard Thomas' cards.

Hey you're right

Funny, they both worked on Eventide and I think that was the last set they both did new pieces for. I can't think of an MTG artist since that has worked in watercolor

Most artifacts with the old border do it for me. AB dark rit is also fantastic and recently i've been digging on the tempest printing too.

Metal as fuck, but I like the Ice Age Dark Ritual better.

The Mirage one was always my favorite. The biggest thing that disappoints me about Magic today is the lack of reprints: I like playing with old cards. The only old cards I can run in a standard deck are basics and painlands.

While it is only a medium, the reason for picking it over more classical mediums is not because it looks better. This is the primary strike against it in my opinion

(Tempest) Counterspell is my favourite counterspell, what's yours user?

And honestly I wouldn't worry too much over lack of reprints, since the reprint will just completely change the card borders and cardboard. I mean just feel the old cards and how solid they are, compare this to the new inky cards they make.

You take that back!

>And honestly I wouldn't worry too much over lack of reprints, since the reprint will just completely change the card borders and cardboard. I mean just feel the old cards and how solid they are, compare this to the new inky cards they make.
I think that's exactly what he means. He wants to run his old printings of cards in new formats.

So do I.

I like the tempest one a lot, but I think the Ice Age and Masques are both pretty and underplayed.

Exactly. When I could run my FBB Bolts, I played standard. Now that nothing I have is standard legal, I dont even think about it.

>Even married a Jewish girl.

If I understand right, he also constantly talked bad about Jews in front of her.

Urza's Saga was fucking amazing

Apparently his racism roughly matched how depressed he was.
He was a NEET fuck for much of his life and that's when he wrote all that NIGGERSNIGGERSNIGGERS stuff but when he actually started corresponding and going out and meeting people it subsided quite a bit.

...So you're saying that his life was a mirror of the modern anonymous imageboard user. Some things never change.

>mirror
We're the shadow, HPL is the ideal.
The flame is Pepe and the cave is memes.

Terrible card, but possibly my favorite piece of MtG art. The Dark, in general, had great flavor.

The Dark, Ice Age and Arabian Nights all had really cool flavor. As much as people liked Innistrad, to me it still paled in comparison to what came before.

Shadows over Innistrad was pretty pitiful, flavorwise. Just because a creature has the creature type "Horror" does not make creature horrific.

There was a thread a long while back I remember where people were debating different printings of cards and which had the best art. There was a lot of back and forth on some of them, others had clear winners, but it wasn't always the old cards that won.

I usually say old art always wins, but I think the only stinker in that bunch is the promo one. Beta Plows are pretty boss though.

Well obviously most people prefer the new art direction. Veeky Forums is not indicative of Magic players in general. I know that a lot of people prefer the new border and don't like to play with old-bordered cards.

>Obviously most people
I would disagree with this. Most people that I play with prefer the old border cards, but that might be because I only play legacy.

I did hear some people talking about how much they liked the new pyroblast art, and I had no idea why.

looks like moebius

Well it makes sense that Legacy players prefer the old borders but there are a lot more Standard players than Legacy players.

rip

Nils hamm is amazing

No, because we've grown as a culture and gotten better at it, so we really wouldn't want to take such a big step backwards.

Having a coherent theme and discernible art style isn't a bad thing. There are plenty of other places you can get abstract art.

Lovecraft was exceptionally racist for his time, and while I haven't actually seen anything to confirm the fact that he was less racist in his later years, his marriage of a Jewish woman had more to do with the fact that she was "well integrated". He still worried her with some of the vitriol he'd spew if he got started.

They picked it over the classical media (the plural of medium) because it's cheaper, and yes, it does look better for what they want, which is a cohesive art style. A lot of these more abstract cards wouldn't fly, aside from the one or two callbacks on hard to depict spells. And it's important to keep in mind that cards like Spirit of the Night and Stasis were never the norm, or even an intentional stylistic choice. Also important to keep in mind is the fact that there are still a few traditional artists, but ultimately if you don't need to buy paint and brushes and canvases, you're going to be a lot cheaper and able to create the art within the deadline.

These threads always end up being a lot of people bitching that a) the art is clear and makes sense, instead of being abstract and weird, and b) its digital, even though the difference is barely noticeable anyway, doubly so on a tiny card frame.

>No, because we've grown as a culture and gotten better at it, so we really wouldn't want to take such a big step backwards.

What? You're saying that we've developed as a culture, therefore everything that came before was worse?

The problem is that the coherent style is relatively bland. If you take every artist and ask them to "Draw like this" where "this" is the expected style, you do not get as much of each individual's style.

Examples: the Mark Tedin cards from Alpha are all pretty amazing, but specifically Time Vault and Winter Orb are both very distinctive cards which would not exist if there was an art style at the time. Although an art direction does not kill creativity, it does stifle it.

Jumping straight to you final points, on a) you oversimplified the argument and I would disagree with b). Looking at the latest spoiler, such hits as Duskwatch Recruiter and Pious Evangel really stand out.

Art on stuff like Stasis and its ilk are not the primary concern, its things like Cave People, City of Shadow and Blood Moon. The straightforward art is still way more evocative than shit like Dauntless Cathar. The sterility of a uniform art direction kills the mystery or the mood that any individual card could create.

I might have a different frame of reference, but I play with a lot of people who just play with their cards from when they first started playing and turn up their noses at new border cards. I believe that it has more to do with when you started. How many pre 8th people still play, I do not know.

I'm saying that what you think was better is not better.

>Art on stuff like Stasis and its ilk are not the primary concern, its things like Cave People, City of Shadow and Blood Moon. The straightforward art is still way more evocative than shit like Dauntless Cathar. The sterility of a uniform art direction kills the mystery or the mood that any individual card could create.
Except that the cards you listed look amateurish, and Dauntless Cathar is not meant to be a single card standing alone, it's supposed to be one card of many that sells a world, which it does. You act like it's a horrible terrible card. It's not even like every card isn't evocative, although, again, it's not even a bad card, and I could point to hundreds of shitty cards from around the time of the ones you listed; at least they don't let Phil or Kaja Foglio near cards anymore.

I mean, let's compare Blood Moons.

The first one is honestly pretty plain. It's head on, the art is flat, and the ground is a vague shapeless mass that's maybe some smooth, rock ground. The colour is faded and washed out looking, and the real glow seems to be coming from behind the moon.
The second one is angled, with the curve of perspective used to highlight the moon, which glows a bright, hellish red. The landscape is visible and distinct, and it actually *is* bathed in a deep crimson light. The details on the moon itself are stronger as well, and while it may be intentional, to me it looks like a skull.

Let's also throw Paraselene in for comparison, since it's a similar Lunar focus. Once again the viewpoint is on the ground, looking up. The moon is close, but trees are in the way, showing how close it is in the sky. The titular phenomena is on full display, and it actually looks like moonlight scattered and shining through ice crystals. You can also practically hear the ring of holy light.

This, even though Eldritch Moon is almost clickbait on youtube right now, and making the vids are good for my channel, I personally hate the set. Same with every new set where old characters/creechas I was fond of get reprinted and ruined. Sets on new planes are fine.

This is some whiny bullshit.
Are you unaware that Magic used to be on the same five planes over and over?

Yes, but The characters and their stories were never ruined by reprinting stupid shit
>b'cuz magik

>inb4 muh lore

No, they were just ruined by being bad stories to begin with.

They were decent.
>kamahl goes from an ambitious fighter to a reverant druid.
Acceptable
>ulamog and kozilek goe from lovefraftian gods to oversized dumb monsters from the Rampage videogame series.
SOILED IT!!!

man I hated that card as a kid, hell it still gives me the jibblies even looking at just a thumbnail

I remember that too. I lost all of my oldies except my birds and my ruby. Would love to get my hands on a vintage collection with the good prints of classic black art.

Except the original Magic plotlines were dumber than the ones now. And the Eldrazi are even more interesting the second time around. I don't see how they look anything like Rampage, either.

>Look like rampage
No, get out.
They turned them into the equivalent of rampage characters, because all they did was destroy shit.
Atleast emmy will pay homage to her lovecraftian origin.

Did we see the same sets?
Nothing drastically changed for Ulamog and Kozilek, other than a few design tweaks to make their Broods stand out.

have no idea how people can unironically prefer the old borders, from alpha and ice age and such, they were ugly and the text boxes were also poorly formatted

they got a lot better around the time of Urza's saga and after, like torment and onslaught era, but i still prefer the modern border most of the time

that said, there was a lot of great art in the older sets and in general the art direction was better, rather than having everything be the same, cgi, sterile look, with no stylistic pieces at all, there was diverse art and artists like rebecca guay and Richard Kane Ferguson were allowed to work their magic

the most beautiful of magic cards combine the best of the two, the clean modern border look but before the art became sterile and uninteresting, rebecca guay's work in the lorwyn block comes to mind

...

...

this art is excellent, too bad the card is beyond shit

this art is awful, but the card is playable

I've seen this meme all around, but where does it come from?
His shapes are amazing and his painting technique is pretty solid.

i have to say, i agree with you about paraselene, that card has beautiful art

but i disagree about the blood moons

the redness of the newer art is pretty hamfisted in my opinion, it fits the flavor text more but i think the older art has a better moon itself and i think the subtle red is spookier than the ultra saturated red of the new blood moon art

>there was a lot of great art in the older sets and in general the art direction was better, rather than having everything be the same, cgi, sterile look, with no stylistic pieces at all, there was diverse art
This is factually untrue and relies on rose tinted glasses.
There literally wasn't any art direction in early sets. Shit, Terese Nielsen even wrote an article comparing the direction she was given for the first Force of Will and the one she was given for Eternal Masters.
originalmagicart.com/art-in-focus-force-of-will-by-terese-nielsen/
Also, I just learned that Terese Nielsen is queer. She's got four kids, but she's had a wife since the first Force of Will. Weird that she only ever gets mentioned in passing. She's in none of Terese' bios, but she doesn't have a problem namedropping Dawn on her blog or twitter.

Because his stuff is very comic booky and anime and "modern" and people hate that because they've got bad taste. Although he does tend to do big stylized clunky boots, and characters carry tons of junk dangling from them. Personally I like that. They actually look like they're adventurers.

The first Blood Moon is very plain looking, while the second is the kind of dynamic and dramatic card you'd want in a high fantasy game. The original's moon is also washed out and flat. It doesn't feel spooky to me, it feels boring. The new one isn't so much spooky as it is dramatic. It feels impressive, while the first one feels boring, and isn't even as red as a real life blood moon.

>Because his stuff is very comic booky and anime and "modern" and people hate that because they've got bad taste.
Anime? I don't see it. And I work in an art-related sector so wut.
>Although he does tend to do big stylized clunky boots, and characters carry tons of junk dangling from them. Personally I like that. They actually look like they're adventurers.
Yeah, i like that too.

i misspoke when i said the art direction was better

ive also heard as you said that art direction was quite lacking in the old sets and sometimes cards were even accidentally given art that failed to depict what the card intended do to ambiguity in the name of the card

what i meant was only that they let the artists make stylized pieces that showed off their talents, as opposed to every card being uniform but none of them being interesting

the old blood moon art looks like a real blood moon, sometimes they can be more red but in general they look like the original blood moon art

i dont know what to tell you if you think its boring, except to say that you're wrong

you can reply and say thats not much of an argument but "boring" is not either, we simply disagree

dont see how anybody could possibly think the moon in the new art is better done than the moon in the old art

maybe you prefer the red landscape of the new one, but the old art has a truly beautiful moon while the new one has a stupid caricature of a moon

>big stylized clunky boots, and characters carry tons of junk dangling from them. Personally I like that. They actually look like they're adventurers.
Thieves and rogues are best drawn this way. It just looks better.
While I'm on the topic, the newer Jhessian Thief art is qt.

Kaja foglio has done some great cards though, rainbow vale comes to mind

Phil foglio art is always garbage tho I agree

Phil Foglio is fun but i aggree that it should be reserved for unglued/unhinged editions or promotional art.
I don't mind different styles but this is just too much for official art.

That promo one is horrible

Nils Hamm says fuck you.

I like Meat Planet. The card isn't called Full Moon.

I know Blood Moon is a real thing, but fantasy.

let me tell you about nightmares

But uniform art direction is better. It creates cohesive, coherent sets that work together with each other, creating a distinct style for the setting and conveying the sense of the world. The blood moon doesn't look like a real one, it's washed out and faded. The ground doesn't even look like real ground, it looks flat and lifeless. More than that, this ISN'T supposed to be real, it's supposed to be fantastical.

Almost every old card that gets brought up in these threads is a terrible example of selling what the card is supposed to represent, and an even worse way of selling what the setting is like.

No, the original looks flat. It's literally displaying poor technique. When I say "flat", I don't just mean lifeless, I mean that the image literally doesn't have enough texture. The moon itself is only vaguely detailed, and the landscape doesn't look like real land. It looks smooth and grey, with sharp lines. It's like volcanic glass, but without the sheen and a grey colour instead of deep black.

I like all adventurers like that. People who actually look like they live out of a backpack. Valeros (the Pathfinder iconic) looks really good. In Magic, Rafiq, although he kind of looks like he belongs in Warhammer, with all those sigils. NONE PURER.

Yes, it's fantasy. And one of them is bland and the other is fantastical. The first one literally puts the moon at eye level. Christ, if you linked it in /ic/ people would shit on you.

And being vulnerable to friendship fire.

Oh no, the ages 10+ game wasn't gritty and dark, how terrible.
I have zero problems with teamwork making the dream work. Or with the mana of Zendikar's entire plane being used to pop an Elder God like a zit.

They jumped through more hoops than Lovecraft ever did when he had the victims win.

It just ruined the point of their existence and removes all the dramatic tension from defeating Emrakul as well. Seriously, Innistrad is my favorite plane and I can't make myself give a shit about EMN. At least the Phyrexians still seem threatening (until Mirrodin 3.0 has Jace defeat them and become the Living Mirrari or some shit).

I love Eldritch Moon so far.

Also, seriously, people who bitch about Jace constantly and act like he's everywhere and everything are the worst Magic fans.

Jace is ok as a MC, but not really interesting as a support char.
Gideon is boring as a MC but he's really enjoyable as a support char.
More or less the same for Chandra.
Nissa is really boring as a MC and pretty boring as a support.

So out of the four I'm glad it's Jace who have the more spotlight.

Eldrazi already convinced me to quit Modern during EW (format was sick before, that was just the last straw) and unless the value is very high in Eldritch Moon, they will keep me from buying any sealed product for it. And I really liked SoI drafts.

I wish they had kept Ajani as the flagship White walker. I find him much more interesting than Gideon.

My friend refuses to use Ajani cards because he's a lion person and he doesn't like animal people.

This is the sort of person that makes WOTC make the main 5 all humans.

I like Gideon's mechanical gimmicks (making people punch him, becoming a dude), but his character is pretty dull. Oh and his BFZ card didn't really feel like a Gideon to me.