Is there some way that I can specify which set I want the card I'm displaying the card art of to be from?
Like, if I want to show the card art of "Cave People" from, say, 4th Edition or The Dark, for example, but if I just do the bracket card bracket cardname bracket slash card bracket thing, it'll show the most recent (5th edition) version of it. How can I (if it's possible) type it in a way where it'll show the 4th edition version?
Eh, I wouldn't have any problem with a female MTG-version-of-King-Arthur character.
As long as a character feels well done and realistic and not just like some blatant checkbox-checker quota-filler type of thing, then if it looks plausible relative to the vibe of the storyworld, I'm cool with it.
So, for example, if there's some plane on which women are much bigger and stronger than normal women, and one of them beats up some huge buff dude, and lifts him over her head and cracks him over her knee to finish him off. That's fine. Whereas, if it happens with some regular human woman, who isn't nearly as buff as he is, and she doesn't have any plausible supernatural abilities or anything that would make it seem plausible, and it just comes off as some silly checkbox move, then, THAT I would find eyeroll-worthy. So, it really just depends from case to case.
So, in regards to something like this, I don't think it would necessarily have to feel particularly forced or unrealistic for the head MTG-version-of-Arthur person to be female, given that there have been famous, powerful/well-respected Queens or Female-Rulers/Leaders/etc who really have ruled in various times in human history. I.e. Queen Elizabeth (the first one), Nefertiti, etc, and as you mentioned, people like Joan of Arc, on the more military side of things.
And even if there hadn't been a plausibility-standard set in real life history in regards to that, I'd still potentially be cool with it, depending on how it was done, and whether it felt forced/cheesy or not, in the same way as how I don't necessarily have a problem with a Robot/Golem/Artifact-creature being sentient and having emotions (Karn, or what have you), or ditto re animals, like Ajani being a lion, or so forth. You can do pretty much whatever you want in Fantasy, as long as you do it well, and it feels "real" (relative to the setting/situation at hand), and not just forced and silly.
I can see how people who are big fans of literally-The-Legend-of-Kind-Arthur on a super literal exact-equivalency-retelling sort of way would have an issue in that sort of a way, but, then when it comes to that, I just feel like if anything it would be kind of weird/bad for WoTC to actually try to follow famous books/tales THAT closely/literally when they MTG-ize them into MTG-ness. I actually prefer it if MTG doesn't follow the stories/genres that are inspiring their sets/stories TOO closely. I like it when they diverge enough that they are doing their own thing that is merely inspired by a theme or niche, but not outright mimicking or copying it.
For example, as much as I love the artwork and flavor and everything of a set like Arabian Nights, I actually don't like the fact that they went sooooo direct with it. I strongly prefer the merely-inspired-by method, and then coming up with their own unique MTG-universe thing that is in the same general genre, but not actually mimicking it character-per-character/point-per-point.
The whole "subverting expectations" fad in media/Hollywood/gaming and so on is getting extremely tiresome.
Yea, so that's the key nuance here.
So, despite what I just said in my previous post, I DO have an issue with THAT routine that they keep doing.
People might think it's the same exact thing as what I just said I'm cool with in my previous post, so how could I be cool with the one, yet NOT cool with that.
Well, it's a subtle difference.
So, in this "subverting expectations" thing that Hollywood is CONSTANTLY doing (to the point that it would actually be subverting expectations in the rare instances that they DON'T do it), there's a certain self-conscious "vibe" thing they do, a kind of negative-assumption-on-your(the audience's)-behalf thign they do where they are like "OMG, you clearly THOUGHT such and such character/dynamic HAD to be XYZ, because expected-norms, but wait for it... waiiiiit for it... SURPRISE, we did it the OTHER WAY AROUND! OMGGGGG. Are you MINDBLOWN!!??!? You never saw it coming, am I right!? Doesn't that totally make up for the insanely lazy/bad writing because the shock of it just makes it inherently fascinating and powerful and mindblowing and stuff!?!?!?!? (no... no it doesn't. Maybe the first few times they ever did it. THEN sure. Back in the 1940s or 60s or whenever they did whatever that thing was for the first few times. Yeah, back THEN it was a huge mindblowing subverting expectations-ey thing. But now? No... not even close.
So, I don't like when they do that sort of smug, cheap-tactic-ey feeling sort of a version of it where it just feels forced and more-ideologically-motivated-than-artistically/storytellingly-motivated and comes off like poorly made propaganda of some sort. Of course that's no fun, when it comes off like that.
But, as long as it doesn't come off that way, then, by all means, they can have as much diversity of whatever kind as they want, and if it feels natural and they take artistic advantage of it from a depth of storytelling standpoint, and don't go into cringey pander-mode with it, then I'm totally cool with it.
Let's say a set took place on Jamuraa, and there were no white people in the entire set. Like, let's say Mirage had no white people in it or something. I would be totally fine with something like that. Like, the physical environmental setting is set in a way where it would feel totally natural and non-forced, like, you could totally imagine a continent or plane like that, where there really just didn't happen to be any white people. (Or conversely if it took place on a snow/Viking plane, and all the vikings were white, again, I'm fine with that too. It swings both ways). Or some plane with no humans at all, and all the sentient creatures on it are sentient birds or something. Fine, no problem as long as its WELL DONE and feels NATURAL relative to itself/the setting/vibe/story/etc at hand. Ditto if there was some setting where everyone was female. Totally can imagine a way it could be done that wouldn't come off forced and pandering, but rather, just like a weird Fantasy-world setting where any bizarre scenarios could happen, as long as you have an interesting, plausible backstory for why the setting is the way it is, and it isn't just rushed and crappy just to check some boxes off.
Now... that being said... if they get a little too carried away and do like NOTHING but that, or almost-always do that and only with groups that they are trying to ideologically "push", and they do it to an extent that it gets super blatant and cringey, well, then that changes things. But, as long as it feels like they are just mixing things up and being random, and sometimes it happens to be such and such thing, and next time it happens to be other such other such thing, and so on, then that's totally fine and I'm cool with it.
It's Garbage Pail Kid Version of Fairy Tales. The dark, twisted, funny, boy instead of girl, PUN of existing story.
Not inspired at all....a little dissapointed
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Been a member here for over a dozen years. Playing since '95 just got lost in the twitch shuffle.
Female King Arthur... Either she is Sabre or the set is dead to me
Anyway, everyone with a drop of good taste knows that King Arthur can only be depicted in the likes of Graham Arthur Chapman.
...The set really needs a Killer Rabbit, tho...
If WotC is going to take pretty much every popular public domain fairy tale and switch it around in order to "subvert expectations", the gimmick is going to grow old very soon.
It is pretty early to jump to conclusions, but with WotC being WotC, I don't expect them becoming creative with this kind of source material. At most they will switch some roles around (Goldilocks becoming a bear hunter) and the little mermaid being a human girl turned into a mermaid. All "damsel in distress" tropes will either be genderbent or removed outright (because there otherwise would be a twittermob calling for their heads at the cry of "toxic masculinity" and "kissing Sleeping Beauty / Snowwhite is sexual assault!").
I would have been hyped for the setting as long as it was just high fantasy... Put in the fairytales and WotC adding a "twist" on them and you lose me...
Oh crap, I just realized this site is closing (I lurked on this board every so often to see people's theories on what they thought the next unannounced upcoming sets might end up being, over the years, but only joined up to post in here a few days ago, so I didn't know about this).
Just read the articles on the main page and it said it was closing on like July 8th or something, but it's now July 22nd, and then the other article said they got bought out and thus aren't (or still are?) closing?
So, what's the deal, is it closing or not? And if so, when? Or is it totally unknown at this point? Or does it seem like 99%/1% chance in one direction or the other (if it's not known for-sure-for-sure)? And if so, then in which direction (in terms of closing vs not closing, I mean)?
Seb McKinnon's art reminds me a lot of the old abstract kind (Deliver Unto Evil) of Drew Tucker. Not clearly defined but makes the mind think. I am personally happy to see a diversity of art styles as per the older ways of Magic's original days.
If people are upset about the feminization of Magic, I remember reading something online stating that WOTC was hoping to increase its hold and attraction of female players. So that's pretty much a combination of progressivism and marketing.
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'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
Yea, I loooooooved Drew Tucker's art in those old sets.
I mean, I wouldn't have loved it if that's the ONLY art style there had been. I would've gotten tired of it in the same way I've been getting tired of the same general cgi-videog-game-screenshot-realism art-style being done by like 90% of the artists over and over nowadays. But, given that the card art was just randomly varied with all sorts of very drastically different art styles, scattered all over the place, I loved having his art be a part of that mix. Some of it looked very cool, and much more mood-evoking than most of the current stuff. I wanted to post his "Cave People" card art from The Dark/4th Edition, but I'm not sure how to use the formatting thing so that it won't show the 5th edition version which had different art on it by some other artist.
The site is not closing. Somebody bought it. mtgnexus exists too now.
And Seb McKinnon saved MTG art from a world of singular mediocrity. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but the sentiment is true. Every time one of his images comes out, it is stunning. There is nobody else like that in Magic right now (which is more the fault of the art direction than anything).
The site is not closing. Somebody bought it. mtgnexus exists too now.
Ah, alright cool. I wasn't sure, because I was browsing some other threads and saw not one but TWO different people saying stuff like "it's shutting down/about to shut down" and "just getting a few last posts in before it goes to archiving" or something, so I thought it was literally just about to close down or something.
But then I saw in the 2nd main page article it said it was getting bought out/not closing(maybe?), so, now I really don't know what the situation is with it.
And Seb McKinnon saved MTG art from a world of singular mediocrity. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but the sentiment is true. Every time one of his images comes out, it is stunning. There is nobody else like that in Magic right now (which is more the fault of the art direction than anything).
On a sidenote (since I agree that Seb is the best of the current crop), I will note that I was VERY impressed by Bastien's Cruel Celebrant. Most of the other cards I've seen him do so far weren't quite my cup of tea, even though he's clearly pretty talented, since they were too closely in line with the general category of style of many of the other artists (just done at a much higher level of execution than most). But that Cruel Celebrant really was pretty damned good. So, hopefully he'll go on a creative upswing of some sort after having done that. After all, as was pointed out earlier, Seb is the same guy who was making cards like Attended Knight not too long ago, so you never know.
I also like some of Mark Zug's art, as far as some of the less "interpretive" artists go. Mainly when he gets creative with the surface-textures of the objects in his paintings (which he often does). For example, (most famously) the tree trunks in his Gaea's Cradle, although in my opinion, his magnum opus in this regard was actually probably his High Priest of Penance which I think is pretty spectacular, and really shows off his object-texture/detail talents to the max. There's also a very strange neo-retro Rennaissance-era-meets-21st-century thing going on with it, and a bunch of his other card arts, which I like. He's definitely hit or miss though, with a significant portion of his card seeming relatively ordinary and rank-and-file MTG-churnout-ish by comparison, and only like 1/3rd or maybe 1/5th of the time he'll do cards where his signature style and hyperdetail and surface textures and mixed foreground/background contrast-disparity thing really shines through. I also thought his Oppressive Rays was pretty good from a "macro" standpoint. Most of his other cards are more impressive on the micro level than the macro (although still often good macro-wise as well). But that one is the other way around, with the overall scene being pretty impressive looking.
So yea, I guess I'm a Zug fan as well (when he's on his game, at least), as far as artists who are still (in his case only somewhat) actively painting MTG cards. Seems like he's pretty sporadic and not doing as much MTG stuff lately, which is unfortunate.
Is there some way that I can specify which set I want the card I'm displaying the card art of to be from?
Like, if I want to show the card art of "Cave People" from, say, 4th Edition or The Dark, for example, but if I just do the bracket card bracket cardname bracket slash card bracket thing, it'll show the most recent (5th edition) version of it. How can I (if it's possible) type it in a way where it'll show the 4th edition version?
Yes. [card]CARD NAME|SET NAME[/card] is what you are looking for. For example:
[card]Cave People|4th Edition[/card] yields Cave People.
[card]Cave People|The Dark[/card] yields Cave People.
Yes. [card]CARD NAME|SET NAME[/card] is what you are looking for. For example:
[card]Cave People|4th Edition[/card] yields Cave People.
[card]Cave People|The Dark[/card] yields Cave People.
Yea, I loooooooved Drew Tucker's art in those old sets.
Drew Tucker's artstyle is extremely impressionistic and it bugged me how disproportionately people hate it. I'm not saying everyone has to like it, obviously, but people get way too fired-up about art in Magic when they don't like it and I'm surprised I haven't ended up in more fistfights over things like the old The Dark Ashes to Ashes, or Winds of Rath, or... wow, he did things in the Lorwyn era too? (He also did Psychotic Episode and a couple more cards in the Time Spiral block, which is perhaps something that makes more sense in a way because throwback block)
Like, if I want to show the card art of "Cave People" from, say, 4th Edition or The Dark, for example, but if I just do the bracket card bracket cardname bracket slash card bracket thing, it'll show the most recent (5th edition) version of it. How can I (if it's possible) type it in a way where it'll show the 4th edition version?
As long as a character feels well done and realistic and not just like some blatant checkbox-checker quota-filler type of thing, then if it looks plausible relative to the vibe of the storyworld, I'm cool with it.
So, for example, if there's some plane on which women are much bigger and stronger than normal women, and one of them beats up some huge buff dude, and lifts him over her head and cracks him over her knee to finish him off. That's fine. Whereas, if it happens with some regular human woman, who isn't nearly as buff as he is, and she doesn't have any plausible supernatural abilities or anything that would make it seem plausible, and it just comes off as some silly checkbox move, then, THAT I would find eyeroll-worthy. So, it really just depends from case to case.
So, in regards to something like this, I don't think it would necessarily have to feel particularly forced or unrealistic for the head MTG-version-of-Arthur person to be female, given that there have been famous, powerful/well-respected Queens or Female-Rulers/Leaders/etc who really have ruled in various times in human history. I.e. Queen Elizabeth (the first one), Nefertiti, etc, and as you mentioned, people like Joan of Arc, on the more military side of things.
And even if there hadn't been a plausibility-standard set in real life history in regards to that, I'd still potentially be cool with it, depending on how it was done, and whether it felt forced/cheesy or not, in the same way as how I don't necessarily have a problem with a Robot/Golem/Artifact-creature being sentient and having emotions (Karn, or what have you), or ditto re animals, like Ajani being a lion, or so forth. You can do pretty much whatever you want in Fantasy, as long as you do it well, and it feels "real" (relative to the setting/situation at hand), and not just forced and silly.
I can see how people who are big fans of literally-The-Legend-of-Kind-Arthur on a super literal exact-equivalency-retelling sort of way would have an issue in that sort of a way, but, then when it comes to that, I just feel like if anything it would be kind of weird/bad for WoTC to actually try to follow famous books/tales THAT closely/literally when they MTG-ize them into MTG-ness. I actually prefer it if MTG doesn't follow the stories/genres that are inspiring their sets/stories TOO closely. I like it when they diverge enough that they are doing their own thing that is merely inspired by a theme or niche, but not outright mimicking or copying it.
For example, as much as I love the artwork and flavor and everything of a set like Arabian Nights, I actually don't like the fact that they went sooooo direct with it. I strongly prefer the merely-inspired-by method, and then coming up with their own unique MTG-universe thing that is in the same general genre, but not actually mimicking it character-per-character/point-per-point.
Yea, so that's the key nuance here.
So, despite what I just said in my previous post, I DO have an issue with THAT routine that they keep doing.
People might think it's the same exact thing as what I just said I'm cool with in my previous post, so how could I be cool with the one, yet NOT cool with that.
Well, it's a subtle difference.
So, in this "subverting expectations" thing that Hollywood is CONSTANTLY doing (to the point that it would actually be subverting expectations in the rare instances that they DON'T do it), there's a certain self-conscious "vibe" thing they do, a kind of negative-assumption-on-your(the audience's)-behalf thign they do where they are like "OMG, you clearly THOUGHT such and such character/dynamic HAD to be XYZ, because expected-norms, but wait for it... waiiiiit for it... SURPRISE, we did it the OTHER WAY AROUND! OMGGGGG. Are you MINDBLOWN!!??!? You never saw it coming, am I right!? Doesn't that totally make up for the insanely lazy/bad writing because the shock of it just makes it inherently fascinating and powerful and mindblowing and stuff!?!?!?!? (no... no it doesn't. Maybe the first few times they ever did it. THEN sure. Back in the 1940s or 60s or whenever they did whatever that thing was for the first few times. Yeah, back THEN it was a huge mindblowing subverting expectations-ey thing. But now? No... not even close.
So, I don't like when they do that sort of smug, cheap-tactic-ey feeling sort of a version of it where it just feels forced and more-ideologically-motivated-than-artistically/storytellingly-motivated and comes off like poorly made propaganda of some sort. Of course that's no fun, when it comes off like that.
But, as long as it doesn't come off that way, then, by all means, they can have as much diversity of whatever kind as they want, and if it feels natural and they take artistic advantage of it from a depth of storytelling standpoint, and don't go into cringey pander-mode with it, then I'm totally cool with it.
Let's say a set took place on Jamuraa, and there were no white people in the entire set. Like, let's say Mirage had no white people in it or something. I would be totally fine with something like that. Like, the physical environmental setting is set in a way where it would feel totally natural and non-forced, like, you could totally imagine a continent or plane like that, where there really just didn't happen to be any white people. (Or conversely if it took place on a snow/Viking plane, and all the vikings were white, again, I'm fine with that too. It swings both ways). Or some plane with no humans at all, and all the sentient creatures on it are sentient birds or something. Fine, no problem as long as its WELL DONE and feels NATURAL relative to itself/the setting/vibe/story/etc at hand. Ditto if there was some setting where everyone was female. Totally can imagine a way it could be done that wouldn't come off forced and pandering, but rather, just like a weird Fantasy-world setting where any bizarre scenarios could happen, as long as you have an interesting, plausible backstory for why the setting is the way it is, and it isn't just rushed and crappy just to check some boxes off.
Now... that being said... if they get a little too carried away and do like NOTHING but that, or almost-always do that and only with groups that they are trying to ideologically "push", and they do it to an extent that it gets super blatant and cringey, well, then that changes things. But, as long as it feels like they are just mixing things up and being random, and sometimes it happens to be such and such thing, and next time it happens to be other such other such thing, and so on, then that's totally fine and I'm cool with it.
Not inspired at all....a little dissapointed
We weren't going to Vryn. It's been known for a while that this set would be on a new, never-before-visited plane.
Anyway, everyone with a drop of good taste knows that King Arthur can only be depicted in the likes of Graham Arthur Chapman.
...The set really needs a Killer Rabbit, tho...
If WotC is going to take pretty much every popular public domain fairy tale and switch it around in order to "subvert expectations", the gimmick is going to grow old very soon.
It is pretty early to jump to conclusions, but with WotC being WotC, I don't expect them becoming creative with this kind of source material. At most they will switch some roles around (Goldilocks becoming a bear hunter) and the little mermaid being a human girl turned into a mermaid. All "damsel in distress" tropes will either be genderbent or removed outright (because there otherwise would be a twittermob calling for their heads at the cry of "toxic masculinity" and "kissing Sleeping Beauty / Snowwhite is sexual assault!").
I would have been hyped for the setting as long as it was just high fantasy... Put in the fairytales and WotC adding a "twist" on them and you lose me...
Just read the articles on the main page and it said it was closing on like July 8th or something, but it's now July 22nd, and then the other article said they got bought out and thus aren't (or still are?) closing?
So, what's the deal, is it closing or not? And if so, when? Or is it totally unknown at this point? Or does it seem like 99%/1% chance in one direction or the other (if it's not known for-sure-for-sure)? And if so, then in which direction (in terms of closing vs not closing, I mean)?
If people are upset about the feminization of Magic, I remember reading something online stating that WOTC was hoping to increase its hold and attraction of female players. So that's pretty much a combination of progressivism and marketing.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
I mean, I wouldn't have loved it if that's the ONLY art style there had been. I would've gotten tired of it in the same way I've been getting tired of the same general cgi-videog-game-screenshot-realism art-style being done by like 90% of the artists over and over nowadays. But, given that the card art was just randomly varied with all sorts of very drastically different art styles, scattered all over the place, I loved having his art be a part of that mix. Some of it looked very cool, and much more mood-evoking than most of the current stuff. I wanted to post his "Cave People" card art from The Dark/4th Edition, but I'm not sure how to use the formatting thing so that it won't show the 5th edition version which had different art on it by some other artist.
The site is not closing. Somebody bought it. mtgnexus exists too now.
And Seb McKinnon saved MTG art from a world of singular mediocrity. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but the sentiment is true. Every time one of his images comes out, it is stunning. There is nobody else like that in Magic right now (which is more the fault of the art direction than anything).
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Ah, alright cool. I wasn't sure, because I was browsing some other threads and saw not one but TWO different people saying stuff like "it's shutting down/about to shut down" and "just getting a few last posts in before it goes to archiving" or something, so I thought it was literally just about to close down or something.
But then I saw in the 2nd main page article it said it was getting bought out/not closing(maybe?), so, now I really don't know what the situation is with it.
Get Out of My Swamp! BB
Instant
You can only pay for ~ with mana produced by Swamps.
Destroy target creature or planeswalker.
On a sidenote (since I agree that Seb is the best of the current crop), I will note that I was VERY impressed by Bastien's Cruel Celebrant. Most of the other cards I've seen him do so far weren't quite my cup of tea, even though he's clearly pretty talented, since they were too closely in line with the general category of style of many of the other artists (just done at a much higher level of execution than most). But that Cruel Celebrant really was pretty damned good. So, hopefully he'll go on a creative upswing of some sort after having done that. After all, as was pointed out earlier, Seb is the same guy who was making cards like Attended Knight not too long ago, so you never know.
I also like some of Mark Zug's art, as far as some of the less "interpretive" artists go. Mainly when he gets creative with the surface-textures of the objects in his paintings (which he often does). For example, (most famously) the tree trunks in his Gaea's Cradle, although in my opinion, his magnum opus in this regard was actually probably his High Priest of Penance which I think is pretty spectacular, and really shows off his object-texture/detail talents to the max. There's also a very strange neo-retro Rennaissance-era-meets-21st-century thing going on with it, and a bunch of his other card arts, which I like. He's definitely hit or miss though, with a significant portion of his card seeming relatively ordinary and rank-and-file MTG-churnout-ish by comparison, and only like 1/3rd or maybe 1/5th of the time he'll do cards where his signature style and hyperdetail and surface textures and mixed foreground/background contrast-disparity thing really shines through. I also thought his Oppressive Rays was pretty good from a "macro" standpoint. Most of his other cards are more impressive on the micro level than the macro (although still often good macro-wise as well). But that one is the other way around, with the overall scene being pretty impressive looking.
So yea, I guess I'm a Zug fan as well (when he's on his game, at least), as far as artists who are still (in his case only somewhat) actively painting MTG cards. Seems like he's pretty sporadic and not doing as much MTG stuff lately, which is unfortunate.
[card]Cave People|4th Edition[/card] yields Cave People.
[card]Cave People|The Dark[/card] yields Cave People.
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Nice. Thanks
Drew Tucker's artstyle is extremely impressionistic and it bugged me how disproportionately people hate it. I'm not saying everyone has to like it, obviously, but people get way too fired-up about art in Magic when they don't like it and I'm surprised I haven't ended up in more fistfights over things like the old The Dark Ashes to Ashes, or Winds of Rath, or... wow, he did things in the Lorwyn era too? (He also did Psychotic Episode and a couple more cards in the Time Spiral block, which is perhaps something that makes more sense in a way because throwback block)
That was utterly ridiculous.
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Yeah it looks like someone has forgotten that there is not only a straight tutor but a wish in standard right now.
Aaaand is gonna rotate when throne of eldraine hits