Favorite mtg art
General forum
Posted on Aug. 2, 2023, 11:49 a.m. by Jimmithee
Taking a break from mechanical MTG stuff, let's talk about art! What is all your favorite art from recent sets?
I personally really liked the ravinca series from Multiverse Legends, and Strixhaven Mystical Archive. If I had to pick a card from each, i'd choose Niv-Mizzet Reborn and Day of Judgment
I never get tired of threads like this... the artwork is one of my favorite things about this game; even when I was a child and had no clue how to play I used to love looking through my older brothers rubber banded together cards and just look at them... Memory Lapse always intrigued me for some reason.
Now as an adult I tend to get drawn into art for 3 main reasons
- sheer awesomeness Keldon Marauders
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pretty ladies Vulshok Sorcerer
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outright adorable Canyon Jerboa
In recent sets I think my favorite would probably be Chandra, Dressed to Kill... it's my first alternate/borderless art that I've ever picked up and I'm pretty fond of it.
August 2, 2023 1:46 p.m.
Crow_Umbra says... #4
So many cards have "pet card" status for their art, but I'm always glad to see them in my binders. I'd say I'm definitely a sucker for foil versions of Red cards; I just love how the flames pop. A few favorites off the top of my head in no particular order:
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Demonic Tutor - I don't own this version, but I hope this is an art style we will get more of in future Secret Lairs, or alt treatments where it makes sense.
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Flameshadow Conjuring - Specifically the foil version.
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Cemetery Puca - Gorgeous in foil.
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Kazandu Blademaster - An early fav of mine when I first started playing.
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Baleful Strix - Another early favorite.
August 2, 2023 2:26 p.m.
When I was going through the Lord of the Rings stuff, I found lots of good stuff, but Wake the Dragon looks pretty impressive for a new card. I usually like older card art, but there is some really inspiring Secret Lair art that's come out that can compete with just about anything, Mistbind Clique and Bitterblossom both stand out to me, but I like MtG Faerie art. I liked Bitterblossom's SLD art more because it actually features poppies in it, the poppy is a source of famously bitter alkaloids that are known to induce weird dreams in heavier users, ones that are hard to tell from reality, so I thought it was a nice reference. I also love Wrath of God, it's a bit on the nose but it's the exact fit for certain decks.
I generally am a big fan of the art from the early days of Magic, but especially the first few expansions, the ABUR is fine, but Legends and The Dark is crawling with gorgeous cards.
I don't like 'edgy' or 'x-treme' type art, glad to see some Magic sets that move away from that. I very much prefer this over this, less can easily be more. Not everyone needs to dress like a murder hobo that's got more equipment than a regiment! How many long stick things does a druid need??
August 2, 2023 2:33 p.m.
AstroAA I do really like that art, but I don't see why they had to remove the text there. A transparent box would've worked, there's not much going on at the bottom.Looks like it would look very nice in foil though
Icbrgr Chandra is definitely Awesome and Pretty, and Cute.
Crow_Umbra I can agree that foil red cards are amazing. I also love the Kawigama fullart basic lands, wish I could make every deck with them.
DreadKhan Speaking of red cards looking amazing in foil... Wake the Dragon looks like it was made for it. Too bad the precon would have it printed normally.
August 2, 2023 11:45 p.m.
My favourite is still Open the Armory because it depicts the Cathar wielding a man-sized crossbow that appears to shoot bear traps. I want a bear trap crossbow :(
August 3, 2023 6:35 p.m.
Crow_Umbra says... #8
Just the Cathar essentials for workplace supplies, Lordeh.
Yoooo I almost forgot about Wake the Dragon, DreadKhan. I might have to pick up a foil copy for my binders just so I can peep it every once in a while.
I recently got my foil copy of Goro-Goro and Satoru, and am really enjoying how much the lightning dragon pops in the art. The foil version of Call of the Ring also looks great.
August 3, 2023 6:49 p.m.
Is there a foil of Wake the Dragon? I just went with the Extended Art, it's pretty breathtaking as is, but yeah, it'd pop as a foil I bet. I thought maybe the Extended Art might have a foil version, but I couldn't find evidence of it.
August 3, 2023 7:14 p.m.
Crow_Umbra says... #10
Oh, you're right DreadKhan, there isn't a foil version. I didn't initially realize it was from the LotR precons.
August 3, 2023 7:24 p.m.
Really? I'm pretty sure the commander only cards are in set and collector boosters too, so they should have a chance of being foil like any other card.
August 3, 2023 7:50 p.m.
Honestly Jimmithee that's what I thought, but I couldn't find foil versions, even sold out versions. I'd love to find a foil of the card if it exists!
August 3, 2023 9:23 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #13
I’m the biggest sucker for the old paintings, like the original (I don’t know how to link the specific one) Will-o'-the-Wisp. Also the more conceptual ones like Stasis. And basically anything Margaret Organ-Kean did. I really love the border-framing she put in many of her pieces; Spore Flower being a great example. A lot of that old art didn’t seem to try to distract me with wild costumes or elaborate character poses... it really leveraged my imagination into both what the card’s mechanics were and (maybe) how the artist -felt- about it. NOTE: it’s likely the artist didn’t always know what card they were representing or what it did, but that only makes what WotC did with the art even better. It really was a wild time back then. I do miss it. A more recent card that gave me some of that feel was Deliver Unto Evil, which was really close, but still fell prey to the “screenshot from the official movie” syndrome. I’m not going to get into my pet peeves again, so I’ll end with how refreshing Seb’s art was. Thanks, Seb!
August 3, 2023 10:15 p.m.
Tagging the specific version is a hassle because you need to know what the code is for it, for most cards it's just the set, but more recent stuff also will have the set and number for variants. It also requires it to be on the platform, some stuff never gets added.
Anyways, for Will-o'-the-Wisp you would type ]card:will-o'-the-wisp (LEA)[, you just have to fix the brackets. That's the one, right?
I often sneak Spore Flower into decks in the early stages, the art is cool and the effect isn't actually terrible (it's very power crept at this point, but the raw effect is strong enough that it's still 'a card'). Fallen Empires cards are often pretty fun to play, it's much harder to 'break' Flower vs breaking a Spore Frog.
August 4, 2023 11:46 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #15
DreadKhan yes - that’s the one and thank you! Yeah, a lot of fallen empires, the dark, even homelands has really fun flavor. It’s a shame they can’t see play in decks that are actually trying to win ;p
August 4, 2023 1:45 p.m.
I've often been surprised how much mileage you can get out of old cards, provided they are either doing something very unusual (like Preacher) or do something you often want to be doing (like Phyrexian Purge), but it's true that most old cards aren't the best at what they do, and you take a hit in power level to run them. If you are building some 6s instead of 7s and 8s you can get away with more old cards, and if you mix new (and extremely pushed) stuff with some of the better old stuff you can certainly do okay, but it's hard to find a proper home for Spectral Bears or Dwarven Pony, even in an 'anything goes' format like EDH, too bad they have such cool art!
August 4, 2023 1:52 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #17
I don’t know the rankings very well, but I do feel like there is an option that people can choose to put some of those in a deck as more of a conversation piece than anything. Just for the interpersonal value. Not everyone wants to socialize and visit, which is totally fine, but I feel like it’s kind of a lost opportunity. When I throw down something like a Tornado we always get to have a fun talk about MtG generally, whether it’s art or mechanics. Seems to loosen the table up some, and give us an opportunity to talk about that one thing we’re all guaranteed to like: playing magic.
AstroAA says... #2
Being honest I haven't really paid any attention to new MtG cards since maybe Modern Horizons 2 back in 2021. Really the only "new" card I can think of whose art I really like isn't even out yet - the textless promo version of Moonshaker Cavalry found here. The base art is cool, but that textless promo art is just exquisite.
August 2, 2023 12:43 p.m. Edited.