When Amonkhet was released, I started getting worried about the visual design of Magic card frames.With the aftermath cards and, specially, the invocations being too much different from what is expected from traditionally a "normal" card, it made me realize how complex the visual design of the game was getting. Looking back, they were experimenting with the frame almost every year since 2010. After Amonkhet, Ixalan also introduced a totally unique card frame. Dominaria follows up changing it again.
I'm not arguing here if the frames are beautiful or not. Neither I am against changing the frame. But I do think the graphic design in Magic is going against its game design principles: creating complexity instead of fighting it.
Thinking of this, I wrote an article on the subject, and I would like to hear your opinions.
It somewhat started with "Double-Faced" cards and from then on they just made more and more crazy changes to some special cards.
Something like double-faced cards can be used in many cases so thats a change that is at least somewhat reasonable.
However, they still use it to try out somewhat different almost in every set and only on some cards and even worse, they just dont repeat the designs as a lot of them just fail (as people just hate it).
Then forever and ever you sit on some wonky special card frames.
----
If someone includes a lot of them in an EDH deck you can see very well how insane it is.
If almost any card has a "special" design that only that card has, all the cards look different and its not like the same game at all.
A friend of mine has made such a EDH deck, even the lands are different, some Masterpieces, full-art, old-border, white, black, etc.
The moment you have a board of a double faced card, with a Amonkhet Masterpiece, Full-Art Cryptic Command, Full-Art Basic lands and other weird misprint stuff, its really clear that the game really really benefits from a unifying look and feel, messing with the borders too often becomes a serious burden that is just unnecessary.
I haven't, but I did now. Thanks for the link
It's nice to see a different opinion on the subject, although he seems to be focusing more on the aesthetics then on its game design impact. I'll try reaching to him.
I'd actually say that Wizards got a bit too loose with the card frames when it came to the lotto cards and it's part of the reason the lotto cards failed. The problem with the amonkhet invocations is that it ran opposite of the feedback people were originally giving on the full art expeditions. People actually hated the frames and wanted the art to stick out more, but instead of doing that with the later invocations, Wizard card design went by their own beat and created the unreadable invocation frames and added a unique frame for inventions. I'm also unsure that they are doing the right thing with the new legendary frame, but that remains to be seen. We've only seen the digital version of the card frame and no player has seen the frame in paper yet.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm not arguing here if the frames are beautiful or not. Neither I am against changing the frame. But I do think the graphic design in Magic is going against its game design principles: creating complexity instead of fighting it.
Thinking of this, I wrote an article on the subject, and I would like to hear your opinions.
https://medium.com/@raphaelaleixo/the-graphic-design-for-magic-the-gathering-card-frames-b3b6da4cd003
Thanks a lot,
Something like double-faced cards can be used in many cases so thats a change that is at least somewhat reasonable.
However, they still use it to try out somewhat different almost in every set and only on some cards and even worse, they just dont repeat the designs as a lot of them just fail (as people just hate it).
Then forever and ever you sit on some wonky special card frames.
----
If someone includes a lot of them in an EDH deck you can see very well how insane it is.
If almost any card has a "special" design that only that card has, all the cards look different and its not like the same game at all.
A friend of mine has made such a EDH deck, even the lands are different, some Masterpieces, full-art, old-border, white, black, etc.
The moment you have a board of a double faced card, with a Amonkhet Masterpiece, Full-Art Cryptic Command, Full-Art Basic lands and other weird misprint stuff, its really clear that the game really really benefits from a unifying look and feel, messing with the borders too often becomes a serious burden that is just unnecessary.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOE-lNs6qe4
Spirits
I haven't, but I did now. Thanks for the link
It's nice to see a different opinion on the subject, although he seems to be focusing more on the aesthetics then on its game design impact. I'll try reaching to him.
Spirits
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!