I'm not talking textless, I mean for example game day promo Abrade, or champs serra avenger Where the blocky text boxes are removed and the Text is simply printed over the art, which extends to the bottom of the card.
I was there when they changed from the original border to the new one, I apposed it. I've watched them continue to tweak and change the frame in small ways over the years afterwards, ( always for the worse IMO ). The newest frames with the black strip at the bottom bear the least color Identity that they've ever had, and are at an all time ugly.
However, these full art cards are stunningly beautiful and would make this game look so much more attractive. I feel like this is a no brainer and a change that even I could get behind. I understand that everyone is in this game for something different, I've always been a casual player and deck building more of a creative outlet for me, this is the kind of thing that could make me start buying packs again.
Can you imagine what this game would look like played with all full art?
It's tempting, but text-over-art can be terribly hard to read depending on what's being depicted. Just look at the way that Serra Avenger promo art is situated. Her leg placement and dark lower half with white text work well, but trying to pull that off every single time would require an awful lot of extra effort. A miscue can cause serious legibility problems.
Can you imagine what this game would look like played with all full art?
Yes. It would be hard to read. Every piece of art would have to have the lower half spcifically designed not to interfere with text. Artists will have to ensure that every inch of artwork is presentable without a need for layouting, a skill that's separate from painting (that is, people who do card layouts are not the people who do the artwork). This is further complicated by the art being commisioned BEFORE rules text is made, which means it's very likely that the artist will NOT know what the text will say and as such won't know if his artwork will accomodate the text.
To put it another way, there's a reason why speech balloons on comics exist, rather than having full frame artwork with just text of the dialogue on top, and artists have to make sure that their artwork won't get in the way of the speech balloon.
Readability is by far the biggest issue, besides the cropping and layout issues and diluting the specialness of full arts... yeah, there are a lot of reasons why not.
Comic books and text bubbles: Comic books also can't switch so easily between white and black text on the same page without looking weird, and most importantly you need to know "who" is doing the talking, this is a whole different ballgame.
Nothing dilutes the specialness of full arts like cutting off the bottom half.
On legibility. People don't squint to try and read a card upside down and across the table they just pick up the card and examine it if they don't know what it does. After that it's just recognition by art.
Anyway, I'm not seeing the difficulty in this, but I've always been a go getter when it comes to my work. If it all sounds too difficult then whatever. We live an an age of entertainment saturation, if you can't be bothered to try and compete for my time and money.
Why not something like what I attached instead? Remove the borders, reduce the opaqueness for the ability text box, keep a section for copyright and the artist.
Why not something like what I attached instead? Remove the borders, reduce the opaqueness for the ability text box, keep a section for copyright and the artist.
Well, the black border/white border/silver border/gold border division is still an important distinction to determine legality. Borderless cards would probably be fine in small numbers of masterpieces and promos, but not so much in greater numbers. Borderless un-cards would be particularly hard to distinguish. Anyhow, the OP's beef was with everything that competes with art for cardboard equity, so I doubt that he would find a semi-opaque textbox compromise appealing.
Why not something like what I attached instead? Remove the borders, reduce the opaqueness for the ability text box, keep a section for copyright and the artist.
Well, the black border/white border/silver border/gold border division is still an important distinction to determine legality. Borderless cards would probably be fine in small numbers of masterpieces and promos, but not so much in greater numbers. Borderless un-cards would be particularly hard to distinguish. Anyhow, the OP's beef was with everything that competes with art for cardboard equity, so I doubt that he would find a semi-opaque textbox compromise appealing.
Then mix it with the unstable black border. The one for the land is all that is needed to distinguish "legality" but otherwise knocking away the rest of the borders only serves to expand the artwork.
Also yeah, as someone who has experimented with card creation, slight opaqueness is better than none.
i personally really dig the costum made cards you can google where the black border and basically anything not a textbox (or art technically) has been replaced with art.
I think full art are the most disgusting cards there are. Full arts look like a cluttered mess. Maybe one day we get the artless island card. Now that would be perfection.
I think full art are the most disgusting cards there are. Full arts look like a cluttered mess. Maybe one day we get the artless island card. Now that would be perfection.
That... would be an interesting thing to see. Basically just the name, type, and a giant mana symbol?
I probably wouldn't use it myself but it would be interesting.
I think full art are the most disgusting cards there are. Full arts look like a cluttered mess. Maybe one day we get the artless island card. Now that would be perfection.
That... would be an interesting thing to see. Basically just the name, type, and a giant mana symbol?
I probably wouldn't use it myself but it would be interesting.
I think full art are the most disgusting cards there are. Full arts look like a cluttered mess. Maybe one day we get the artless island card. Now that would be perfection.
That... would be an interesting thing to see. Basically just the name, type, and a giant mana symbol?
I probably wouldn't use it myself but it would be interesting.
Actually I wouldn't mind full art if they only did it at the uncommon common level for vanilla or French vanilla creatures. Anything that needed rules text to be written should then have a regular text box so as to keep legibility high. Would make getting the base creatures a little more special for newer players.
That... would be an interesting thing to see. Basically just the name, type, and a giant mana symbol?
I probably wouldn't use it myself but it would be interesting.
I have a Maze's End deck where I use the Guild Logo Cards that came in the Dragon's Maze Prerelease packs as 'textless Guildgates' (I have 2 full sets, unlike the linked image- was the first one I could find), so far everyone I've played it with has been totally cool with them.
Why not something like what I attached instead? Remove the borders, reduce the opaqueness for the ability text box, keep a section for copyright and the artist.
I like the Un-Concept but they've already perfected what they need to be doing with full art. And your work is nice but I feel like it's the solid Windows style text boxes that are holding back the look and therefor feel.
Google Collected Company Alter by Tomasz Jedruszek, ( I'd post the image myself but I don't know about the rules ) It has all of those terrible attributes we've talked about, Lots of text, white text over light background, you name it all of that terrible stuff. Still it's amazing and represents a game I want to be playing. I don't enjoy gambling and I need to feel like I'm purchasing a product inside the pack even if it has no monetary value ( money cards ). I just bought one of the Steel Leaf Promo's just because, and I really dig the art direction on the Dominaria Saga cards ( not talking about the template, I'm talking strictly art ) If they really wanted to get it right, they would have made the text box look like parchment "old frame style"
Actually, somebody beat me to it, I just googled the image for phyrexian scriptures and found a side by side Alternate comparison.
It's possible to ensure that cards would be legible if they all used the full-art promo frame, sure. But, contrary to what 90% of gamers seem to believe, games are made by flesh and blood people that you have to pay to do things. If Wizards wanted every card to be full art they'd have to devote more individual attention to each card during layout, which would require more resources to do (=money). Those resources would be better spent elsewhere, like on paying designers to make the game actually play well, or paying artists to make the art on the cards actually good.
But the real reason is just legibility. You're never going to make text over an image as legible as text over a clean background, and the more legible the cards can be the better. Yes, the full art promos aren't outright unreadable, but they do require more squinting and looking at them more closely than a regular card, and if all cards looked like that it would quickly snowball over the course of any game with lots of complicated cards being played, or any game between two players that are still learning the cards (say, at a prerelease). Vision impairments and dyslexia are also things that exist, and having the text be as readable as possible also makes the game more accessible.
Besides, yes, Wizards wants to preserve the "specialness" of full art promos so those cards functions... as promos. Otherwise they'd have to come up with some other thing to do to make those cards special. There's a concern about "wow creep" as much as power creep.
Now on the "borderless" style used in Unstable lands and contraptions, I could definitely see a variation of that becoming the norm in the future. The reason why it's not the norm is that the black border around cards is, on an uncut sheet, literally contiguous between one card's border and another, so the small inconsistencies in how cards are cut (inevitable, no machine is perfectly precise) don't create a misprint. I'm not sure how the Unstable sheets get around that, but I suspect it probably involved either printing technology that wasn't available until relatively recently, or making the sheets slightly bigger and giving the cards a bigger "bleed," which is costly.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
It's possible to ensure that cards would be legible if they all used the full-art promo frame, sure. But, contrary to what 90% of gamers seem to believe, games are made by flesh and blood people that you have to pay to do things. If Wizards wanted every card to be full art they'd have to devote more individual attention to each card during layout, which would require more resources to do (=money). Those resources would be better spent elsewhere, like on paying designers to make the game actually play well, or paying artists to make the art on the cards actually good.
But the real reason is just legibility. You're never going to make text over an image as legible as text over a clean background, and the more legible the cards can be the better. Yes, the full art promos aren't outright unreadable, but they do require more squinting and looking at them more closely than a regular card, and if all cards looked like that it would quickly snowball over the course of any game with lots of complicated cards being played, or any game between two players that are still learning the cards (say, at a prerelease). Vision impairments and dyslexia are also things that exist, and having the text be as readable as possible also makes the game more accessible.
Besides, yes, Wizards wants to preserve the "specialness" of full art promos so those cards functions... as promos. Otherwise they'd have to come up with some other thing to do to make those cards special. There's a concern about "wow creep" as much as power creep.
Now on the "borderless" style used in Unstable lands and contraptions, I could definitely see a variation of that becoming the norm in the future. The reason why it's not the norm is that the black border around cards is, on an uncut sheet, literally contiguous between one card's border and another, so the small inconsistencies in how cards are cut (inevitable, no machine is perfectly precise) don't create a misprint. I'm not sure how the Unstable sheets get around that, but I suspect it probably involved either printing technology that wasn't available until relatively recently, or making the sheets slightly bigger and giving the cards a bigger "bleed," which is costly.
You make a lot of good arguments. I disagree on the economic side that you've pointed out though, I can't imagine a card made in the last 10 years that could not have been made with the art extended downward, there are an uncountable number of people on the internet doing these kinds of alterations for the fun of it and many of the pieces are probably cropped to begin with. As for templating and font, I don't see this being a particularly time consuming task. I feel like I could do a full set on my own in a few days. Again I'd point to the legions of fans producing this stuff on their own for fun.
Your point about wow creep aligns more with my view on whats going on. The decision to have the product follow the lottery model is part of the overall strategy. And I feel sorry for anyone with visual impairments and would be willing to accept the game as is if that were truly the driving factor, however, I have no desire to buy the current product at the current " wow " point.
If numbers droop, and you want to compete with fortnight or whatever is popular these days, then I don't know what to tell ya wizards. You've gotta step up the "wow creep" a few notches. Full art sets would in my opinion, take the game to a whole new level.
And let me make another point right quick. Lets face it, MTG has a sort of nerdy image attached to it. But people don't find awesome fantasy art nerdy. MTG could advertise one of it's strongest assets if people didn't have to ""squint"" to see the art from a distance. It might change the way a lot of people look at the game. Just a thought.
You're grossly underestimating the time it takes to lay out cards. If every card was full art, they would all have to be individually checked for the readability of the text and either given a card-specific text treatment to make it readable, or art would constantly have to be sent back to be altered to fit those constraints. Is that impossible? No, but WotC would have to dedicate more person-hours to it and therefore more of the budget of the set, which would have to come from somewhere. They could do it, the question is whether it's a good use of resources.
Ultimately Magic is a game and games are meant to be played. Making the cards prettier while making them less readable (and full-art cards are invariably less readable) isn't good for the long term health of the game as you're creating a worse experience particularly for the people who need to read the cards, new players first sitting down to play a game. Having things like the Amonkhet masterpieces or full-art promos exist as promos lets enfranchised players who don't need to read the cards have access to those things without impacting the experience for newer players.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
I'm not talking textless, I mean for example game day promo Abrade, or champs serra avenger Where the blocky text boxes are removed and the Text is simply printed over the art, which extends to the bottom of the card.
I was there when they changed from the original border to the new one, I apposed it. I've watched them continue to tweak and change the frame in small ways over the years afterwards, ( always for the worse IMO ). The newest frames with the black strip at the bottom bear the least color Identity that they've ever had, and are at an all time ugly.
However, these full art cards are stunningly beautiful and would make this game look so much more attractive. I feel like this is a no brainer and a change that even I could get behind. I understand that everyone is in this game for something different, I've always been a casual player and deck building more of a creative outlet for me, this is the kind of thing that could make me start buying packs again.
Can you imagine what this game would look like played with all full art?
They can solve a lot of problems having the sets do full art cards. Technically, they could seriously drop the price of standard and modern in general if they added a single full art card per pack, even if they use some system where the majority are full arts of commons, uncommons, and rares. The value of a full art foil would be astronomical considering they could do foils and then have maybe one full art foil per case. Albeit, I'd probably only do this for the initial set a card appears in or it would probably flood the market with too many full arts of the same common.
Basically, doing something like this:
15 cards per pack
1 Rare / Mythic slot, with the Mythic being one per four packs.
1 Full Art slot that can be any card from the set including basic land. One per case will be a foil mythic or rare land, and 6 per box will be a rare or mythic. One of six packs will have a full art basic or non-basic land from the set.
1 token card per pack. 1/4 packs will have this replaced with a regular foil.
3 uncommon cards
8 common cards
1 Basic land / common card (if a pack has a full art basic land).
As for the mental gymnastics required to get this to work on a track printing process... You guys figure it out!
As for the design of the frame and text box, THAT is another story. I think the game day promos are terrible as far as full art goes for text. I'd honestly go more the direction some of the custom artists have gone...
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!
You're grossly underestimating the time it takes to lay out cards. If every card was full art, they would all have to be individually checked for the readability of the text and either given a card-specific text treatment to make it readable, or art would constantly have to be sent back to be altered to fit those constraints. Is that impossible? No, but WotC would have to dedicate more person-hours to it and therefore more of the budget of the set, which would have to come from somewhere. They could do it, the question is whether it's a good use of resources.
This work I believe is already done on an individual basis. As for art being sent back for alterations to accommodate text, I think guide lines are already set before the pieces are commissioned. Besides, light over dark, dark over light, just like the custom alters are doing. I think your over estimating the hassle involved in comparison to what's already done, and you think I'm underestimating it, fair game, no hard feelings.
Ultimately Magic is a game and games are meant to be played. Making the cards prettier while making them less readable (and full-art cards are invariably less readable) isn't good for the long term health of the game as you're creating a worse experience particularly for the people who need to read the cards, new players first sitting down to play a game. Having things like the Amonkhet masterpieces or full-art promos exist as promos lets enfranchised players who don't need to read the cards have access to those things without impacting the experience for newer players.
This is a bold statement.
For many of us the games art design is more than just a fringe benefit or something pretty to look at while playing. The game is a creative outlet, not just a game and the overall experience should be greater than the sum of it's parts. Just look at how much money people spend, and go out of their way to seek out specific art and bling for their decks.
The argument could be put side by side with graphics in video games. Just look at the price of a modern GPU.
I'm not saying Magic wouldn't be successful if it looked completely utilitarian. I'm saying that making the game look prettier to the detriment of gameplay isn't a good use of resources.
It's the same thing in video games all the time - You can make scenes prettier by turning up post-processing effects really high, or by making them very very contrasty, but that will often make it hard for players to make out what is actually happening in game (especially in an action game that requires quick reactions). Visual design in any game is about balancing attractiveness/beauty versus the utilitarian needs of playing the game.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
I'm not saying Magic wouldn't be successful if it looked completely utilitarian. I'm saying that making the game look prettier to the detriment of gameplay isn't a good use of resources.
It's the same thing in video games all the time - You can make scenes prettier by turning up post-processing effects really high, or by making them very very contrasty, but that will often make it hard for players to make out what is actually happening in game (especially in an action game that requires quick reactions). Visual design in any game is about balancing attractiveness/beauty versus the utilitarian needs of playing the game.
My bad.
I'm just not seeing the detriment side of it like you are. I look at the existing Full arts. I look at the worst case scenarios's like the Custom Alter Collected Company I referenced, and I look how lopsided the cost benefit could be in favor of the games overall success/image. And if a couple of cards had an awkward light text over a light spot in the art thing going on, so be it. Just imagine what could be. Do you really need to be able to read every card upside down and at a distance without picking it up every day? How often do you even read a card in the formats you play, let alone like your opponent won't let you pick it up and look at it.
We'll never meet eye to eye on this I guess, but I think we would survive the full art apocalypse, WOTC would get good at it, and I'd play standard again.
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I was there when they changed from the original border to the new one, I apposed it. I've watched them continue to tweak and change the frame in small ways over the years afterwards, ( always for the worse IMO ). The newest frames with the black strip at the bottom bear the least color Identity that they've ever had, and are at an all time ugly.
However, these full art cards are stunningly beautiful and would make this game look so much more attractive. I feel like this is a no brainer and a change that even I could get behind. I understand that everyone is in this game for something different, I've always been a casual player and deck building more of a creative outlet for me, this is the kind of thing that could make me start buying packs again.
Can you imagine what this game would look like played with all full art?
Yes. It would be hard to read. Every piece of art would have to have the lower half spcifically designed not to interfere with text. Artists will have to ensure that every inch of artwork is presentable without a need for layouting, a skill that's separate from painting (that is, people who do card layouts are not the people who do the artwork). This is further complicated by the art being commisioned BEFORE rules text is made, which means it's very likely that the artist will NOT know what the text will say and as such won't know if his artwork will accomodate the text.
To put it another way, there's a reason why speech balloons on comics exist, rather than having full frame artwork with just text of the dialogue on top, and artists have to make sure that their artwork won't get in the way of the speech balloon.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
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Nothing dilutes the specialness of full arts like cutting off the bottom half.
On legibility. People don't squint to try and read a card upside down and across the table they just pick up the card and examine it if they don't know what it does. After that it's just recognition by art.
Anyway, I'm not seeing the difficulty in this, but I've always been a go getter when it comes to my work. If it all sounds too difficult then whatever. We live an an age of entertainment saturation, if you can't be bothered to try and compete for my time and money.
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Well, the black border/white border/silver border/gold border division is still an important distinction to determine legality. Borderless cards would probably be fine in small numbers of masterpieces and promos, but not so much in greater numbers. Borderless un-cards would be particularly hard to distinguish. Anyhow, the OP's beef was with everything that competes with art for cardboard equity, so I doubt that he would find a semi-opaque textbox compromise appealing.
Also yeah, as someone who has experimented with card creation, slight opaqueness is better than none.
That... would be an interesting thing to see. Basically just the name, type, and a giant mana symbol?
I probably wouldn't use it myself but it would be interesting.
We already know what that looks like.
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝
Was going to link to the same thing but I decided I was too lazy.
I have a Maze's End deck where I use the Guild Logo Cards that came in the Dragon's Maze Prerelease packs as 'textless Guildgates' (I have 2 full sets, unlike the linked image- was the first one I could find), so far everyone I've played it with has been totally cool with them.
I like the Un-Concept but they've already perfected what they need to be doing with full art. And your work is nice but I feel like it's the solid Windows style text boxes that are holding back the look and therefor feel.
Google Collected Company Alter by Tomasz Jedruszek, ( I'd post the image myself but I don't know about the rules ) It has all of those terrible attributes we've talked about, Lots of text, white text over light background, you name it all of that terrible stuff. Still it's amazing and represents a game I want to be playing. I don't enjoy gambling and I need to feel like I'm purchasing a product inside the pack even if it has no monetary value ( money cards ). I just bought one of the Steel Leaf Promo's just because, and I really dig the art direction on the Dominaria Saga cards ( not talking about the template, I'm talking strictly art ) If they really wanted to get it right, they would have made the text box look like parchment "old frame style"
Actually, somebody beat me to it, I just googled the image for phyrexian scriptures and found a side by side Alternate comparison.
But the real reason is just legibility. You're never going to make text over an image as legible as text over a clean background, and the more legible the cards can be the better. Yes, the full art promos aren't outright unreadable, but they do require more squinting and looking at them more closely than a regular card, and if all cards looked like that it would quickly snowball over the course of any game with lots of complicated cards being played, or any game between two players that are still learning the cards (say, at a prerelease). Vision impairments and dyslexia are also things that exist, and having the text be as readable as possible also makes the game more accessible.
Besides, yes, Wizards wants to preserve the "specialness" of full art promos so those cards functions... as promos. Otherwise they'd have to come up with some other thing to do to make those cards special. There's a concern about "wow creep" as much as power creep.
Now on the "borderless" style used in Unstable lands and contraptions, I could definitely see a variation of that becoming the norm in the future. The reason why it's not the norm is that the black border around cards is, on an uncut sheet, literally contiguous between one card's border and another, so the small inconsistencies in how cards are cut (inevitable, no machine is perfectly precise) don't create a misprint. I'm not sure how the Unstable sheets get around that, but I suspect it probably involved either printing technology that wasn't available until relatively recently, or making the sheets slightly bigger and giving the cards a bigger "bleed," which is costly.
You make a lot of good arguments. I disagree on the economic side that you've pointed out though, I can't imagine a card made in the last 10 years that could not have been made with the art extended downward, there are an uncountable number of people on the internet doing these kinds of alterations for the fun of it and many of the pieces are probably cropped to begin with. As for templating and font, I don't see this being a particularly time consuming task. I feel like I could do a full set on my own in a few days. Again I'd point to the legions of fans producing this stuff on their own for fun.
Your point about wow creep aligns more with my view on whats going on. The decision to have the product follow the lottery model is part of the overall strategy. And I feel sorry for anyone with visual impairments and would be willing to accept the game as is if that were truly the driving factor, however, I have no desire to buy the current product at the current " wow " point.
If numbers droop, and you want to compete with fortnight or whatever is popular these days, then I don't know what to tell ya wizards. You've gotta step up the "wow creep" a few notches. Full art sets would in my opinion, take the game to a whole new level.
And let me make another point right quick. Lets face it, MTG has a sort of nerdy image attached to it. But people don't find awesome fantasy art nerdy. MTG could advertise one of it's strongest assets if people didn't have to ""squint"" to see the art from a distance. It might change the way a lot of people look at the game. Just a thought.
Ultimately Magic is a game and games are meant to be played. Making the cards prettier while making them less readable (and full-art cards are invariably less readable) isn't good for the long term health of the game as you're creating a worse experience particularly for the people who need to read the cards, new players first sitting down to play a game. Having things like the Amonkhet masterpieces or full-art promos exist as promos lets enfranchised players who don't need to read the cards have access to those things without impacting the experience for newer players.
They can solve a lot of problems having the sets do full art cards. Technically, they could seriously drop the price of standard and modern in general if they added a single full art card per pack, even if they use some system where the majority are full arts of commons, uncommons, and rares. The value of a full art foil would be astronomical considering they could do foils and then have maybe one full art foil per case. Albeit, I'd probably only do this for the initial set a card appears in or it would probably flood the market with too many full arts of the same common.
Basically, doing something like this:
15 cards per pack
1 Rare / Mythic slot, with the Mythic being one per four packs.
1 Full Art slot that can be any card from the set including basic land. One per case will be a foil mythic or rare land, and 6 per box will be a rare or mythic. One of six packs will have a full art basic or non-basic land from the set.
1 token card per pack. 1/4 packs will have this replaced with a regular foil.
3 uncommon cards
8 common cards
1 Basic land / common card (if a pack has a full art basic land).
As for the mental gymnastics required to get this to work on a track printing process... You guys figure it out!
As for the design of the frame and text box, THAT is another story. I think the game day promos are terrible as far as full art goes for text. I'd honestly go more the direction some of the custom artists have gone...
Example from an artist.
Choice of background texture for the text boxes aside, that is probably the better direction to go since it lets the artwork really shine.
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!
This work I believe is already done on an individual basis. As for art being sent back for alterations to accommodate text, I think guide lines are already set before the pieces are commissioned. Besides, light over dark, dark over light, just like the custom alters are doing. I think your over estimating the hassle involved in comparison to what's already done, and you think I'm underestimating it, fair game, no hard feelings.
This is a bold statement.
For many of us the games art design is more than just a fringe benefit or something pretty to look at while playing. The game is a creative outlet, not just a game and the overall experience should be greater than the sum of it's parts. Just look at how much money people spend, and go out of their way to seek out specific art and bling for their decks.
The argument could be put side by side with graphics in video games. Just look at the price of a modern GPU.
It's the same thing in video games all the time - You can make scenes prettier by turning up post-processing effects really high, or by making them very very contrasty, but that will often make it hard for players to make out what is actually happening in game (especially in an action game that requires quick reactions). Visual design in any game is about balancing attractiveness/beauty versus the utilitarian needs of playing the game.
My bad.
I'm just not seeing the detriment side of it like you are. I look at the existing Full arts. I look at the worst case scenarios's like the Custom Alter Collected Company I referenced, and I look how lopsided the cost benefit could be in favor of the games overall success/image. And if a couple of cards had an awkward light text over a light spot in the art thing going on, so be it. Just imagine what could be. Do you really need to be able to read every card upside down and at a distance without picking it up every day? How often do you even read a card in the formats you play, let alone like your opponent won't let you pick it up and look at it.
We'll never meet eye to eye on this I guess, but I think we would survive the full art apocalypse, WOTC would get good at it, and I'd play standard again.