Magic The Gathering

[PonderosaPete]

I really agree with you.

I happened to find out Dominaria Remastered had some updated arts.
View attachment 6515936

What's the card's original art?
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The new is just.... awful. And almost exhibit A of how soulless LLM art can be compared to human made. (I'm not accusing Mila Pesic of using A.I. art - just that their piece there looks exactly like what you would expect a LLM to generate.)

I miss the original Radha design so much guys it's unreal

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I miss the original Radha design so much guys it's unreal

I miss when she united the Elves of Skyshroud and the Keldons..which was undone offscreen in the Return to Dominaria storyline.

 

[Polock]

The midriff is the most obvious cover, but then you convinced me to go back and look, and they lengthened her sleeves and gave her knee-high boots as well! Got to cover up those arms and gams, gents!

The whole current SJW nonsense has done more to convince me than any historian that the victorian and puritian fads must have been driven by women. "Look at that slut showing her ankle."

EDIT: Oh gods it's even worse on the tomb raider thread! I'm going to start claiming that big boobs and bare midriffs are my kink. Then scream at people for kinkshaming me.

You reminded me of a recent Massacre Girl reprint


This card was clearly censored. The arm was moved to cover up her (modest) bust at the very least - you can tell by the weird backlighting it has that doesn't seem to fit anywhere. I also feel like the gap between the top of her stockings and her pants was also filled in as well and if that's the case its highly likely her midriff was also exposed which was covered up in a revision.

 

[Flexo]

You reminded me of a recent Massacre Girl reprint
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This card was clearly censored. The arm was moved to cover up her (modest) bust at the very least - you can tell by the weird backlighting it has that doesn't seem to fit anywhere. I also feel like the gap between the top of her stockings and her pants was also filled in as well and if that's the case its highly likely her midriff was also exposed which was covered up in a revision.

I think you make a compelling argument.

I did a search to see if there was any statement by the artists or rumors out there but none on the initial find.

I did find this though.

https://boards.cgccomics.com/topic/513960-the-banning-of-earthbind-and-the-censorship-of-artistic-expression/

 

[Oddjob OTP]

I really agree with you.

I happened to find out Dominaria Remastered had some updated arts.
View attachment 6515936

What's the card's original art?
View attachment 6515937

The new is just.... awful. And almost exhibit A of how soulless LLM art can be compared to human made. (I'm not accusing Mila Pesic of using A.I. art - just that their piece there looks exactly like what you would expect a LLM to generate.)

Funny part is even the flavor text is a miserable soy-filled imitation of the original

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Oh lovely there is now another flash deck for Trannies to shit up the que with in Standard.

 

[Lizard Machine Bugs]

Every artist except for Magali Villeneuve and the Anime artists should be replaced by Terese Nielson and Seb McKinnon, If a troon or soyboy gets uppity about those choices then we should convince JD Vance to send right wing death squads to kill them.

I feel like Mike Jordana also deserves a mention as his art is pretty good, although he hasn't done a lot of art the only piece I dislike from him is Haughty Djinn. He's also the first artist to give us a female devil in the form of the New Capenna devil token. He also posted some sketchs Commander alt-arts he's worked on in his free time on his Artstation.
The female devil thing does look to be something he fought for, as the art we did get is the "b" art with the "a" being a male devil and WOTC really dislikes female devils and demons, alongside male angels. For reasons?
Personally I don't get it, but if we ever get Miss Highwater in paper I'd want him to do the art.

 

[Polock]

Every artist except for Magali Villeneuve and the Anime artists should be replaced by Terese Nielson and Seb McKinnon, If a troon or soyboy gets uppity about those choices then we should convince JD Vance to send right wing death squads to kill them.

Nah there's lots of new and OG MtG artists that are really good that are put on cards.

Wylie Beckert is an up and coming one (relatively speaking, first appeared in ELD) which I like for her use of soft watercolor tones alongside geometric themes.


I quite like Igor Kieryluk too, he has that gritty feel that Seb does and you have to respect him for how long he's been making art for cards as well.



And you can't go wrong with my nigga Johannes Voss. He has a certain energy to his compositions that I love. Usually quite positive energy from him and he is definitely a fan of the female form.




I get that Seb and Neilsen are beloved (for good reason). I also get that its socially acceptable in current year to bash MtG for how bad and pozzed its art has become but there's still good stuff being made. I guess that makes it more depressing for disillusioned people like me, it would be a lot easier to let go if literally everything that comes out from Wizards was completely irredeemable shit.

 

[Maratus volans]

I don't think the issue is that Magic has poor artists - the game has always had work by artists who were generic or subpar - but that the art direction these days is terrible. The juxtaposition between the two Radhas posted previously really sums it up: the new piece is technically competent and probably not AI generated, but it is absolutely soulless and especially bad when you compare it to the original (which, for my money, was a perfect card in all but mechanics).

 

[Polock]

absolutely soulless

Yeah I know what you mean.
The biggest culprit is blatantly digital art that looks cheap even when its scaled down to the appropriate size to put on a card. Ultimately I think its a failure of having a strong art director.


I can forgive stuff for being uninspired or boring but what the hell is this even supposed to be? At least the terrible art on Faithless Looting (you know the one I'm too lazy to get it) is so bad its a meme.

Don't even get me started at the absolute travesty that is modern flavor text.

 

[Retink Retunk]

Random thought struck me tonight, Crusade is banned because it's racist or some shit, but Templar Knights were just printed and they're encouraged to be played without restriction. I hate modern day virtue signaling.

 

[Flexo]

I think you all are spot on about art direction.

So like... if you've even lightly dabbled in the visual medium, you'll come across the rule of thirds. Basically you almost never want anything exact center of frame - you always want to have the focus be on the left or right third of the frame.

Igor here nails it exactly. If you draw a line down the center of the image, you'll notice every one of these has the main focus to the right of that. QB there is most obvious with it's three heads being the right third mark, with it's full body then flowing to the rest of the card. Anticognition is the closest to a center frame shot, but even then the subject of it is leaning right and has spillover into the left of the frame. It's all very visually interesting and great for the eye to look at.

Now compare to:

Draw a line down the middle and you'll notice the subject is dead center of it. Even the angle is very nearly square on making it just look not that interesting.

Contrast that with Johaness here with stuff in center frame and you can already see the difference. For one, he also bothers to have visually interesting backgrounds and surroundings. You'll also notice he plays with it such that while the focus is center frame, the art is still "weighted" such that things feel off-kilter. Like Sphere of safety, the angel wings giving more weight to the right side than left (also encouraged by more puff balls on that side than the left). You'll notice similar effects on Thalia and Gallia. Meanwhile the commander up there, even when it has flames on the left, they wash out everything. The piece is just red on left, purple on right in very nearly equal amounts. Very dull.

Again I return to what sparked this off: Radha

Nu radha: Dead center of frame. Nearly symmetrical background. Classic Radha? Dutch angle. She stretches across the center line. Yeah those washboard abs are dead center, but the more interesting focal points - her face, weapon, the severed head - are all positioned in the left and right thirds. Neither the classic's background is symmetrical nor is her outfit. Her arms and legs are each distinct from the other (notice how nuRadha the arms and legs are almost uniform). Heck even that sexy midriff has blood on one side, a pouch on the other. It's very nearly a masterclass in composition.

It's all why classic is visually more interesting while the nu one feels dull as dishwater.

Anyway I'm sure I've triggered some art nerds now with improper terms or mixing up some ideas I've just absorbed by being in proximity to them. But it's a demonstration of art done by artists, vs art done by accountants.

 

[Polock]

Again I return to what sparked this off: Radha

We can go a little more meta and analyze the card based on the flavor of the card itself.

Ability wise, I don't feel like either card strongly reflects her text box but I think if we look at the color of the card there's something there.

Old Radha is absolutely a Gruul card - sex (for obvious reasons), violence (for obvious reasons), and a irreverent attitude about order (the dutch angle). There are tribal motifs with the scrappy leather armor, broken sword, and dreadlocks.

Nu Radha has none of this. If you looked at just the art on the card and had no idea about anything else, what color(s) would you guess it would represent? I'd say its mono black or perhaps Rakdos. Her posture is strong and proud, but in a conceited or smug way (after starting at her face for a while I can't unsee the Gachimuchi face "she" has). She has not been bestowed her titles for her good works, she has assumed them through conquest or deceit. The background further emphasizes this with its composition. The rocks are pointed inward towards her while the lightning spreads out from behind - it is quite menacing but in a sinister way, not in the way that a growling animal menaces you but in the way an evil person smiling causes you to become on edge.

Anyway who knows if any of this was a deliberate choice on the artists part but it doesn't matter what they meant to convey since we don't have that luxury. The art should speak for itself. We have the luxury of nitpicking post facto, I guess. That just means its even more important that the art director does their job properly.

 

[Maratus volans]

To further dogpile the Radhas:

It's worth noting that nuRadha's use of a muted color palette basically requires lightning behind her head to help her stand out from the background; she'd really blend in without it. Old Radha, meanwhile, stands out on the colors alone. Funnily enough, the choice of that particular shade of gold matches with the old, fully wrap-around gold frame to make the entire card feel like it's part of the art, which is a superb touch. The new legend frame, meanwhile, looks weird with nuRadha: the thin red stripe matches her sash, but there's no green anywhere in the art, so you end up with a weird matching-and-contrasting effect that isn't helped by the gold being a lot more yellow than anything in the art.

 

[Flexo]

There are tribal motifs with the scrappy leather armor, broken sword, and dreadlocks.

Oh yeah. Every time I notice but I forget to mention that classic Radha has a clearly broken sword, but nuRadha seems to have a whole sword. It's almost a metaphor for the art direction. LoL

 

[macrodegenerate]

So like... if you've even lightly dabbled in the visual medium, you'll come across the rule of thirds. Basically you almost never want anything exact center of frame - you always want to have the focus be on the left or right third of the frame.

I don't think the rule of thirds matters so much here as composition.

New Rahda and Rush Blade, have poor composition. You could trim the subject out and put it anywhere in any background. With the other cards art, you can't do that. The subject in the cards you like, are part of a greater scene. Thalia,Questing Beast, and the Demon are constrained to the scene via exceptional lighting, and a consistent color palette which creates the illusion of depth.

The rest adhere to showing concepts which the subjects simply embody the most in the work. For example, Sphere of Safety, conveys a world in which all of the objects in the frame cannot harm a person. With the subjects being a knight being embraced by an angel, protecting him in an already safe world.

 

[Cats]

Currently building a Legacy Pyrogoyf list and came across this piece of work today in image search. The old border is so simple and perfect.




I still think my favorite old border imagining of a "new" card will always be this Lili though. The art fits well with the style of the old school portrait artwork, which I love. Infinitely better than any of the digital crap they put on cards nowadays.

 

[Dewey Decimal]

I don't think the issue is that Magic has poor artists - the game has always had work by artists who were generic or subpar - but that the art direction these days is terrible. The juxtaposition between the two Radhas posted previously really sums it up: the new piece is technically competent and probably not AI generated, but it is absolutely soulless and especially bad when you compare it to the original (which, for my money, was a perfect card in all but mechanics).

Fairly sure most of them are AI generated too. Especially the anime cards.

Building a Velociraptor deck is fun but I'm sick of everyone just spamming boardwipes and petty shit like murder. The game would be more fun if it focused more on creature vs creature combat with enchantments and sorceries to buff/debuff them. Might make a popular gametype to focus on that so new and intermediate players don't get overwhelmed and it puts a lid on the P2W speedrunner faggots who use their entire hand before you've even gotten to finish shuffling and you tell them to kill themselves.

Since I did not get introduced and invested into the game by facing turn 1 victory speds and their sycophants that aren't worth playing with. I got into it by playing random decks focused mainly on creature combat with friends and it kept the game very enjoyable overall.

 

[Dewey Decimal]

Imagine the milk that could be had if only those worthless sacks grew some balls. But of course, their balllessness is kind of the entire point. They didn't want to ban WotC pet cards designed to rotate commander, they didn't want to keep the game fun for casual and they didn't want to police the CEDH trannies. They were just useless to everyone all the time.

I don't get the drama around sol ring. Its fairly easy to deal with. Must be more grifter bullshit. Glad I checked out and just enjoy the cards I have.

 

[DootSkeleton]

Fairly sure most of them are AI generated too. Especially the anime cards.

Building a Velociraptor deck is fun but I'm sick of everyone just spamming boardwipes and petty shit like murder. The game would be more fun if it focused more on creature vs creature combat with enchantments and sorceries to buff/debuff them. Might make a popular gametype to focus on that so new and intermediate players don't get overwhelmed and it puts a lid on the P2W speedrunner faggots who use their entire hand before you've even gotten to finish shuffling and you tell them to kill themselves.

Since I did not get introduced and invested into the game by facing turn 1 victory speds and their sycophants that aren't worth playing with. I got into it by playing random decks focused mainly on creature combat with friends and it kept the game very enjoyable overall.

If you think Murder is annoying card wait until you see a good removal spell like Swords to Plowshares, Fatal Push, or Prismatic Ending.
Out of curiosity, when did you start playing? I ask this because complaining about removal and board wipes is extremely common among new players. If it's really recent I'd be curious to hear your ratings of certain cards and decks/archetypes.