I'm not denying that the shrunk-down version that was posted in the arcana is washed out, but the actual artwork is neither flat nor two-dimensional, in my opinion.
Agree to disagree then. I think the new one looks terrible.
Its sad to see people bashing the artist himself. There are so many worse artists and artworks...
No one's bashing the artist himself. On the contrary, every post I've seen that addresses the artist at all has basically said "You're awesome, but this particular piece of artwork sucks."
I don't know why people keep latching onto the outfit. It's the same one he wears in the Return to Ravnica art--it even fits him in the same way. Moreover, Smokestack has mentioned that there are strict guidelines on planeswalker style and attire, and that he has received corrections on that very front. Those corrections may not have been on this piece, but the fact is that this is the outfit that Wizards of the Coast wants Jace to wear.
It's not the outfit, it's the depiction of the outfit in this particular artwork. Compare it with, say, the Jace Beleren artwork. The outfit in the Jace Beleren artwork looks very substantial and three dimensional. The outfit in this artwork looks very flat and two dimensional, like a cheap costume.
It has nothing to do with phoning in. You have to put two characters together in one piece but they have to work separately. There are also some pretty aggravating compositional restraints.
There's a reason I don't do comic covers and, given the reaction I see here,I won't be doing any more VS products for the foreseeable future either. Not my cup of tea it seems.
For what it's worth, I actually really like most of your stuff, including the Elspeth vs. Tezzeret artworks. Elesh Norn is one of my favorite artworks ever. And the Vraska half of the Jace vs. Vraska picture is fine. I really don't like the Jace artwork, but meh, you can't please everyone all the time. That sucks that there are a lot of compositional constraints for vs. deck artworks, though. I can see how that would be aggravating.
To all those people saying that Jace's artwork is perfect because he's a politician now, I disagree. The art is terrible on multiple levels.
First, the colors are washed out and the textures make it seem like it was done with colored pencils or something. This doesn't feel like a high quality, professional illustration, it feels like a mediocre fan art.
Second, as someone already mentioned, the artist used "realistic" proportions, giving Jace a large head and midsection, which makes him look very dumpy. Jace's hairstyle (or lack thereof) and uncharacteristically ugly face also add to him looking below average.
Third, Jace's pose and the composition of the artwork in general is boring. The fact that he's a politician now is no excuse. Artwork depicting politicians can still look cool.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I'm pretty sure that when the person compared Jace's artwork to a politician, he was commenting on how boring and/or ugly Jace looked. The average politician does not make a good model for fantasy artwork, so responding with "Oh well Jace is a politician now" is missing the point.
Yeah, sorry, this Jace art is terrible. Looks very flat, like a bad fan art done in colored pencil. The packaging is equally bad, what with the oversaturated teal coloring and a closeup of the bad artwork. Ugh.
I think they've pretty clearly demonstrated that no card is too big to ban. Jace and Stoneforge Mystic were both banned at the height of their power, when they basically were the standard metagame. Same with Survival of the Fittest in legacy.
I think a ridiculously broken Healing Salve could see play in eternal formats. It would make Tendrils-based storm decks a lot worse and would completely shut down aggro and burn. Storm and aggro are relevant in Vintage, so if this Broken Healing Salve was good enough, it would see play there. And of course it would see play in Legacy and Modern.
There are decks and win conditions that completely ignore life total, though (Splinter Twin combo, High Tide combo, Blightsteel Colossus, etc.), so you could only push Healing Salve so far before you reached a point of diminishing returns. After a certain point, aggro and burn just become straight up unplayable, and no matter how much more life gain you add to Broken Healing Salve it doesn't matter, because the only decks left don't care about your life total.
Of course, if aggro and burn got pushed out completely, then people might stop playing Broken Healing Salve altogether, and then someone could time things right and bring back Burn when the metagame was unprepared for it and crush people. Kind of like that few week period a while back when Burn was winning Legacy opens. That would actually be hilarious.
Has anyone pointed out that it is both night and day in the art? That is a pretty cool backdrop for a w/b card.
I didn't notice it until you pointed it out. I just assumed the background of the arch was "inside," but looking closer it is indeed night. That's pretty cool.
Against aggro, he is often going to be a 3 mana fog (ie, you're going to play him and they're going to kill him immediately). Worst case scenario they can just ignore him and kill you. Sure, there will be some games where he comes down after you killed one of their guys and played a blocker, and you're able to tick him up and then use him to cast some super powerful creature for free, but that isn't going to happen consistently enough to make him worth the card slot. There will also be a lot of times where you don't hit a creature, or don't hit a relevant creature, or don't hit a creature you can cast with him in time, or they just kill him immediately before you can "cast" a creature off him and they just resume killing you. Way too much can go wrong to make him worth playing when you can just play removal and your own finishers instead. Same thing against midrange.
Against control, he mills 3 cards a turn, which is way too slow to be relevant. Nephalia Drownyard is playable because it doesn't take up a spell slot in your deck and you can have multiples in play to make for a reasonably fast clock. You can also mill yourself for value. Jace is playable because he mills 10 cards at once, which means you have at most 5 turns to live by the time he comes down. Ashiok doesn't do any of those things.
So Matt Tabak's explanation on Twitter that a bestow card does NOT get countered if the creature it's targeting dies means that the bestow cards can definitely be playable. If the creature they're targeting becomes an illegal target, they just enter play as a creature. The intro pack one is probably not quite at the power level needed to see constructed play, but hopefully at least one or two will be constructed-worthy.
The bestow cards should make standard pretty interesting. They make wraths a lot worse, since they'll become creatures when the creature they're enchanting dies. It also opens up some interesting decisions for the player who's playing the bestow cards. Do I play it as an aura so I can still have a board presence if they wrath, or am I more worried about having as many bodies as possible (to get past blockers, for instance)?
That's the point. The emphasis and style make a huge difference, which is why I dislike the new artwork and like Jace Beleren's and JTMS's artwork.
It's not the outfit, it's the depiction of the outfit in this particular artwork. Compare it with, say, the Jace Beleren artwork. The outfit in the Jace Beleren artwork looks very substantial and three dimensional. The outfit in this artwork looks very flat and two dimensional, like a cheap costume.
First, the colors are washed out and the textures make it seem like it was done with colored pencils or something. This doesn't feel like a high quality, professional illustration, it feels like a mediocre fan art.
Second, as someone already mentioned, the artist used "realistic" proportions, giving Jace a large head and midsection, which makes him look very dumpy. Jace's hairstyle (or lack thereof) and uncharacteristically ugly face also add to him looking below average.
Third, Jace's pose and the composition of the artwork in general is boring. The fact that he's a politician now is no excuse. Artwork depicting politicians can still look cool.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I'm pretty sure that when the person compared Jace's artwork to a politician, he was commenting on how boring and/or ugly Jace looked. The average politician does not make a good model for fantasy artwork, so responding with "Oh well Jace is a politician now" is missing the point.
There are decks and win conditions that completely ignore life total, though (Splinter Twin combo, High Tide combo, Blightsteel Colossus, etc.), so you could only push Healing Salve so far before you reached a point of diminishing returns. After a certain point, aggro and burn just become straight up unplayable, and no matter how much more life gain you add to Broken Healing Salve it doesn't matter, because the only decks left don't care about your life total.
Of course, if aggro and burn got pushed out completely, then people might stop playing Broken Healing Salve altogether, and then someone could time things right and bring back Burn when the metagame was unprepared for it and crush people. Kind of like that few week period a while back when Burn was winning Legacy opens. That would actually be hilarious.
Against aggro, he is often going to be a 3 mana fog (ie, you're going to play him and they're going to kill him immediately). Worst case scenario they can just ignore him and kill you. Sure, there will be some games where he comes down after you killed one of their guys and played a blocker, and you're able to tick him up and then use him to cast some super powerful creature for free, but that isn't going to happen consistently enough to make him worth the card slot. There will also be a lot of times where you don't hit a creature, or don't hit a relevant creature, or don't hit a creature you can cast with him in time, or they just kill him immediately before you can "cast" a creature off him and they just resume killing you. Way too much can go wrong to make him worth playing when you can just play removal and your own finishers instead. Same thing against midrange.
Against control, he mills 3 cards a turn, which is way too slow to be relevant. Nephalia Drownyard is playable because it doesn't take up a spell slot in your deck and you can have multiples in play to make for a reasonably fast clock. You can also mill yourself for value. Jace is playable because he mills 10 cards at once, which means you have at most 5 turns to live by the time he comes down. Ashiok doesn't do any of those things.
In conclusion, Ashiok sucks.
The bestow cards should make standard pretty interesting. They make wraths a lot worse, since they'll become creatures when the creature they're enchanting dies. It also opens up some interesting decisions for the player who's playing the bestow cards. Do I play it as an aura so I can still have a board presence if they wrath, or am I more worried about having as many bodies as possible (to get past blockers, for instance)?
I'm excited for the bestow cards.