Quinton Hoover is the original artist in this case. He died in 2013.
IANAL. That doesn't matter. I believe his family or estate can still retain ownership over the art and renegotiate if WotC approached them. Just because someone dies doesn't mean their art is suddenly "inaccessible".
Look at any music artist that passed away, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Prince, whatever and look at the music ownership. Books, movies, etc all have the same thing, Frank L. Baum Foundation and Disney are notorious for some underhanded tactics to retain ownership.
IIRC Quinton Hoover specifically had a falling out with WotC over art rights while he was alive, his estate would continue those wishes.
Not exactly, Quinton would have loved to continue doing art for Wizards, but his style was too unique, and he couldn't make his art match the style guides (Look at Leaf Gilder as a Hoover card, that looks nothing like a Hoover card, and imo a bit awkward)
Unfortunately, Wizards wasn't on promo products band wagon yet that could have leveraged his style for collector.
this means that the Urza's lands are not in the set.
I guess they'll just have to reprint them the next time Standard makes a visit to that plane... now lessee, which plane is Standard headed to next... WHAT LUCK!
I cannot imagine a world where they reprint Urza lands back into standard. I am getting a little tired of the lack of Urza lands in these master sets though. It's not like they need printings, there's tons of them out there, but Foil ones are basically impossible to come by/ridiculously expensive.
All I have to do now is patiently wait two months for people to come back to FNM
People actually stopped coming to FNMs because of the tokens, and you expect them to come back when promo cards return? Who are all these people that only come to FNMs for the chance of winning a foil alternate art Noose Constrictor? I have such a hard time accepting the narrative that FNM promos have a huge impact on attendance, except maybe the cream of the crop like Push and Path.
Some competitive players like to play fancy, competitive cards.
When you remove the "competitive" pool of players from attending FNM, you don't even have enough people to run FNM half of the time.
I don't play Standard, so typically don't go to FNMs, but when Path and Serums were up for grabs, the stores were packed, and I made sure I had a deck to attend those. Promos definitely drive attendance. Especially when they're 5$+ bills.
There's certainly seems to be a disconnect with what they think people want, what sorts of people that go to FNM, and the people who actually absorb their announcements.
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Valid point. I would expect it to be in the set, but as the Buy a box promo is NOT, it's very possible they gave it the unique (returning) mechanic.
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Not exactly, Quinton would have loved to continue doing art for Wizards, but his style was too unique, and he couldn't make his art match the style guides (Look at Leaf Gilder as a Hoover card, that looks nothing like a Hoover card, and imo a bit awkward)
Unfortunately, Wizards wasn't on promo products band wagon yet that could have leveraged his style for collector.
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I cannot imagine a world where they reprint Urza lands back into standard. I am getting a little tired of the lack of Urza lands in these master sets though. It's not like they need printings, there's tons of them out there, but Foil ones are basically impossible to come by/ridiculously expensive.
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Some competitive players like to play fancy, competitive cards.
When you remove the "competitive" pool of players from attending FNM, you don't even have enough people to run FNM half of the time.
I don't play Standard, so typically don't go to FNMs, but when Path and Serums were up for grabs, the stores were packed, and I made sure I had a deck to attend those. Promos definitely drive attendance. Especially when they're 5$+ bills.
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