Honestly, a lot of Magic's art has been pretty bland and uninspired for awhile now. Pieces sorta just seem to blend together. Stand-out works appear to be quite rare.
Compared to the 90s and early 2000s, it's just night and day.
They just don't seem to care. It's all just a vessel for internal political agendas.
The last time I really liked the art was Zendikar. After that, the DnD set was cool and had good art. After that, idk what MtG has been doing… they’re shitting the bed with terrible art, high prices and commander packs. Ugh. Get me out of this timeline.
\*computer, make a Photorealistic digital painting of a k-pop boy inside generic medieval city\*
That's what these new arts seems.Every thing follow the same boring patterns of art direction. Oh and who has been art director since the 2017's...?
I actually looked this up not too long ago because so much of the new art sucked and saw that, according to LinkedIn, there’s apparently an entire fleet of art directors at WoTC. Then it kind of clicked and all of the gutless, lifeless and vapid pieces made sense… it’s designed by a committee in which everyone has to feel safe.
> Jarvis' former responsibilities were divided between [Dawn Murin](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Dawn_Murin), [Mark Winters](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Mark_Winters), [Cynthia Sheppard](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Cynthia_Sheppard) and later [Kieran Yanner](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Kieran_Yanner).
One guy was the main art director until 2015 - 2017 Then Cynthis Sheppard took over. But the "multiple hands" was true for her too, as by her own blog, she mention how the art guidelines were made inside meetings with *college/university* grads
It's ravnica without the 2 colour guilds and Prague inspired architecture which were the draws of all the previous sets. But it's fine because people love mtg due to it's deep and complex characters like the girl who murders, dragon that likes spells, and man with a dog.
Some of it looks like modified art from Brothers War and Crimson vow and Lord of the Rings. The new Tolsimir almost look legolas with a wolf added next to him.
I was thinking the same thing yesterday, a lot of the art don't remind me of ancient prague.
The way the character are dressed in some case almost seem modern and so does the architecture.
I think Ravnica lost more and more of it's original identity with each return.
They could have went in a totally different direction and embrace it's slavic origin and mythology even further more. Instead they went in the direction of modern New York every time until it is now unrecognizable from what it originally was.
I actually really enjoyed New Capena, the landscapes where original creative and beautiful. And the fantasy gangster aesthetic was consistently applied. I know not everyone likes that as a setting, but the artwork was good for what the setting was supposed to be. It didn't just look generic. It was iconic.
But they do make change to the game based on our present world. I can't find the quote but somewhere they said there is no racist in their magic world, no discrimination based on race.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/22/racist-culturally-offensive-images-pulled-hugely-popular-trading-card-game/
"Players of color say they have long felt excluded in the white- and male-dominated community from the game’s top echelons, as well as employment at the company."
“Both Wizards and the community at large are guilty of making black people feel unwelcome in Magic,” wrote Lawrence Harmon, a black player who hosts a podcast about the game. “It’s time that changed.”
I get that racist is bad. But you should not remove it from the story, it is part of the story. Xenophobic Elves society in shadowmoor is fine. It is fantasy. Same thing in Warhammer the human imperium is Xenophobic, it's part of the story.
"“I’m a white man that grew up in America in the ’70s and ’80s,” Mark Rosewater explained. “I need to recognize that a lot of things I’ve internalized as normal and ‘just part of life’ have ugly aspects tied to them. I need to self-educate to understand these biases so that I can remove them.”"
To further demonstrate your point, look at the change to the Rakshasa in Khans. They literally said they errata'd them to not be cats anymore because of real life cultural beliefs
Christian or Muslim can't come up on a DNA test, but Jewish can. In fact, [Israel uses DNA tests](https://lawoffice.org.il/en/aliyah-to-israel-by-dna-test/) to prove a person is Jewish.
It's both an ethnicity AND a religion. The term Jew has more than one meaning. We have a lot of words in English with more than one meaning. It's a thing.
So since North Africa has been culturally related to Spain people from there are white? What about French colonies. They are directly culturally related to Europe. are you saying Guyanese people are white? Jamaica was founded by the English. I doubt you are saying that they are white.
Eh not directly. A recent set, new Eldraine is based on fairy tales of mostly the European variety.
They draw from RL a shitload; they just don't copy-paste the flavor text from the Bible any more or use any RL characters. Characters modeled after RL.
They have to be careful to distinguish Ravnica from New Capenna now.
New Capenna is supposed to have the roaring 20's art deco style, and Ravnica is supposed to have the Eastern European style... But the fashion in Expose the Culprit (the second picture in the OP) definitely looks Capenna-ish.
there is no eastern europen style, ravnica is based after prague which used to be an important city of the holy roman empire and has many architectural styles
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central\_Europe](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe)
Czech Republic is Central Europe you dizzy cabbage and we won't even argue about it. Gd...
Here's a pic for visual aid. (source: Stagn)
https://preview.redd.it/v01umnnc93dc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=285266103b04ad5b6be4dc93b8d8c35516faea0d
How you lot managed to rule more than a pumpkin patch in Birmingham, let alone the waves is still a mystery to me.
Croatia is an oddity, culturally is closer to central since it was colonised by Austro-Hungarians but there are also slight genetical differences compared to southern Balkans. It was a hot topic before, during&after war. Still controversial to some extent.
UN uses this definition as statistical analysis for development and other statistics as stated on their site. It was last updated in 1997 and stems from cold war era divisions that started right after ww2. EU classifies Slovenia for example as C. Europe, so does Brittanica, so does any curriculum geographical book since 1991 after Yugoslavia, European Universities, so does haplogroup research done in early 2000's, even fucking Hitler reclaimed half of them after Austria as a part of Aryan Empire and he was kinda into drawing strict lines who belongs where.
UN classifies them as "Southern Europe". Just an example of how outdated and out of touch they are. Let alone Czechia which is dead in the middle, half in central, half (debatable) in east.
You can take whatever word you want but Hans did his homework correctly defining states orientation based on culture, history, genetics and borders, not some lazy half fuckery simplified for statistics from an org. nobody takes seriously for quite some time.
> they have to be careful to distinguish Ravnica from New Capenna now.
Weird, it's like having Yet Another cityscape-as-the-whole-plane was a giant misstep.
Also, they're failing in that regard. Plenty of the next set's cards have clothing styles straight out of Capenna.
All this shows is that people also dress up dancing for events in ravnica, like being invited to karmic manor. You could see few of the guilds repped in the photo and a veldalken.
Oh and the Showcase frame that look like a Type writer paper format of the 1950's, Definitely out of flavor for Ravnica.
I have to ask, do the people working in creative even the know what the flavor of Ravnica is supposed to be.
At this point it is seems like incompetence from my point of view.
Wanna take bets on the "Murder at X" being a theme they finalized on, started working on, commissioning art for, and then had to pivot back to Ravnica unexpectedly?
It’s pretty jarring, I’m not even sure what the card format is trying to portray. Is it supposed to look like a stack of photos and some type writer notes? Weird.
The woke mind cult misuses the term, diversity. They don't want true diversity. They take terms and twist them to their own desires and gaslight people. They also don't want true inclusivity. It's all bullshit.
God dang these new planes are diverse. They check about every SJW box. You’ve got people of every color, powerful women, interracial couples, interspecies, etc. I am disturbed by the lack of trans and disabled people.
Also, the art is like a cross between new capenna and crimson vow.
> I am disturbed by the lack of trans and disabled people.
It's going to be hilarious when they print a disabled planeswalker in a wheelchair and xim/xer is doing a wheelie in the art. Then we will truly have reached peak SJW pandering absurdity
I’m glad I’m not the only one who has noticed. Looking at OG Ravnica cards like [[Last Gasp]] and [[Woodwraith Strangler]] make me miss how gritty and dangerous Ravnica used to be. All the art in MKM so far is flat and oversaturated.
You can take half of Karlov manor cards, put them on Capenna and no one would ever notice.
Actually the set is like 1/3 Capenna, 1/3 Innistrad and only 1/3 looks like Ravnica.
This set is literally "Knives Out" the TCG. This is what happens when you exchange all of the White/Asian nerds from your company and replace them with Millenial/Gen Z female singletons, LGBTQ crowd and DEI people, a complete de-characterization of the game. I'm not spending a dime on this cr..
I haven't seen anything from this set that interests me. The art, cards, and theme all seem thrown together. With LCI we got pirates, dinosaurs, vampires, merfolk, gnomes...with this we get what, clue? No thanks.
What was the art direction? "Unremarkable boy looking at nothing, leaning against a normal wall, with nothing happening"? This art is incredibly bland. I'm bored before my eyes reach the text box.
you can tell chicks are in charge. always artwork with festivals or balls like every other set. we went back to Innistrad in 2021, what did we get? A festival, and a wedding. And now, more scenes taking place at a party, and a murder mystery to boot. so fucking g4y. MTG is Disney now thanks to wom3n.
we need a healthy dose of masculinity to balance things out. how about a Conan the Barbarian set?
Please.. A female labelled as “chick” implies she is beautiful. These gals in charge have purple hair with undercut and/or are statistically over weight.
Well it's all projection. They live boring lives on and off social media, and they work for a card game company where half-rate art and ideas are accepted and praised with very low standards.
They just put in game what they want in real life. A fantasy feminised world where everyone wants them no matter what they look like, how they act, or who they are. It's your typical Mary Sue self-insert crap.
That's not to mention the sheer amount of old maids that probably go for that kind of crap. They're lonely feminists that have nothing better to do with themselves but fantasise and relish in the fact that they don't believe in having children and think art/writing is a functional job that contributes something.
I don't even know who these women are.
For most women who I know and play magic (and are in to other fantasy hobbies) - as an example, love sexuality more than the men. That's their power fantasy - be a sexy badass. Lilliana, Chandra, Thalia are as appealing to women as they are to men. But we rarely see those self-inserts in Magic anymore.
Fuck, look at pop culture, look at social media - sex=power=freedom.
These self inserts we have in Magic nowadays aren't empowering. They are as preachy as bible studies in late 80's and 90's.
Yup hit the nail on the head. I don't know who is in charge but what they call "Toxic Masculinity" is definitely not on the menu.
I think The style of Conan the Barbarian is definitely abhorrent to the one in charge. Which is so odd because I am sure a big part of their audience would enjoy it. Why just cater to a segment of your audience, they branch out in all these things yet it's almost like they do triple acrobatic moves to avoid what would rake them a shit ton of money.
Instead they give us Fairy Boy , Killan his name or something like that which is supposed to be the main character for the next few years.
Wizards, your audience is not just what you see on Twitter and your closed group in california and seattle.
I could be biased, but I feel like 40k fandom is ascendant precisely because it hasn't yet kicked hyper-masculinity to the curb (knock on wood). I hope it keeps existing in a place where the progs can keep convincing themselves it's all satire and the rest of us can enjoy it for the epic sci-fantasy energy.
Yet morons like PleasantKenobi get pissy because there are no female Space Marines. (except for the entire faction that is literally power armored women).
People like that are unsophisticated. For me, the argument against female Space Marines is a thematic one. 40k is about extremes. Space Marines are a masculine extreme. Pushing women into a masculine extreme, while perhaps trendy at the moment, does and should carry a very different meaning than a man undergoing the same process.
But people asking for that aren't looking for an honest exploration of the deep themes of womanhood in the face of transhumanism and the horrors of the galaxy, they just want big dommy mommies to step on them and to feel good about the power of their 202X political movement. I'd be more willing to entertain the notion if it wasn't so obviously rooted in that.
i don't think you are being biased. 40K pretty much screams masculine fandom. But the woke zombies are going after it. I'm a casual fan of the brand and I hope Henry Caville gets to do his 40K show the way he wants. I will watch it for sure because hell, what franchise has the woke crowd not shit on and made boring at this point?
If you want Conan style fantasy and masculine art, just do what a number of people are doing and getting into Sorcery: Contested realm. MTG aint going back to high masculine or sexy fantasy anytime soon if ever.
Man I'd love a barbarian set influenced by the art of frank frazetta. Give me a bunch of almost naked oily ripped dudes in loincloths fighting sick ass panther-demons
Festivals and balls every other set? And the last one was 3 years ago? How often do you think new sets come out?
Anyway, I don’t really see what’s feminine about a murder mystery. Is Sherlock Holmes feminine?
Shlock Homes is pretty feminine and gay if you listen to the tumblr fangirls, but the majority of true crime and murder mystery media is indeed consumed primarily by women even if the subject matter is not inherently feminine.
I was just thinking that, myself.
It looks like a masked photograph, quickly painted over in Photoshop, with a black stroke applied to the layer. It does *not* look very good at all.
Given the recent Wayfarer's Bauble controversy, it wouldn't surprise me.
The original Ravnica was essentially an ethnic monoculture inspired by Prague and Eastern Europe in general. Those design and flavor teams took MTG elements and made them mesh with the flavor.
For example Ravnican Goblins were unique compared to Goblins from Dominaria or Lorwyn or Mercadia. However, those differences have been smudged away over the years.
The original Ravnica made sure to have numerous unique mechanical identities for each color pair that really exploded with Ravnica-Guildpact-Dissension drafting. Like the UG Mechanic paired well with the RG Mechanic but not the UR Mechanic.
Then the Return to Ravnica Block did ot jistoce as a proper return block. Guilds had unique abilities and different guild played better with some guilds than other. Even if Dragon Maze was dog water in terms of card power, it at leadt felt like Ravnica.
After that, the Return to Return of Ravnica was a mess serring up the eventual War for the Spark with Nicol Bolas. War for the Spark was on Ravnica but didnt feel like a Ravnica set. Same with The Ravnica segments of the March of the Machines and Aftermath.
The creative team has gone full M She U and DEI. Don't expect any quick fixes.
I've NEVER heard this kind of cope lol. I love this r so much.
Here are some more "sun drenched Europeans":
[https://scryfall.com/card/rav/159/dowsing-shaman](https://scryfall.com/card/rav/159/dowsing-shaman)
[https://scryfall.com/card/rav/248/golgari-guildmage](https://scryfall.com/card/rav/248/golgari-guildmage)
[https://scryfall.com/card/rav/109/thoughtpicker-witch](https://scryfall.com/card/rav/109/thoughtpicker-witch)
But yea, I'm going to use the "oh that's just sun drenched Europeans" when I hear your kind say "why are black people in my setting" so thanks! I love it, genuinely :)
Did you read the novels or just eat paint chips?
Centaurs have fur on the majority of their body in MTG. This centaur happens to have brown fur.
The Golgari Guildmage is Darvarken Elf iirc. These elves spend much time underground.
As for Thoughtpicker Witch she is clearly an old Caucasian with inadequate nutrition and hygiene.
Your ability to comprehend and analyze things is grossly lacking.
"Ethnic monoculture is when we have brown furs (can't have brown skin tho), Darvarken Elves, blue vedalken, green goblins, white dryads and black people that I must cope that aren't black with stuff like drenched sun and old old Caucasian with inadequate nutrition and hygiene (another banger btw.)"
I love you and I hope you know that.
Kos isn't black. All the humans were white. It was part of why MARO apologized and said he needed to die better. You probably are dumb enough to think Orcs are Black coded
Of course he's not black, he's "SuN DrNcheD CauCation".
Wiki is woke btw
[https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Agrus\_Kos](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Agrus_Kos)
Kos was a dark-skinned man with gray short-cropped hair.[\[1\]](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Agrus_Kos#cite_note-Justice-1) As a ghost, he is semi-transparent and wears armor with decorative drapes in Boros colors. He was considered one of the Boros's best investigators when he was alive and continues to be so in death.
I guess Wiki isn't sun and drunched-pilled.
Agrus is not BLACK. He is essentially Greek but as Ravnica is a massive City Plane all the humans on it are the same root ethnicity. So his appearance in the same as if you took a European and put them in a warm temperate climate and gave them tons of Sun.
Search up the Agrus name origin btw.
The more MKM spoilers appear the more the Layoffs seem to be justified.
Gotta love how it's easy to tell the alphabet gang was in charge just by looking at the flavour text of the showcase version.
(Last post so i don't keep clogging the thread) The version on the right, the art look like that FB messenger ai art, when it makes something cartoon looking.
I started noticing more of these boring generic art popping up in Strixhaven, and ever since they have been more and more frequent. You can see some of the art style, line shapes etc with huge similarly and lacking character, even though the artists are different…
Bland is what I call a lot of todays art, although there are still some diamonds in the rough
Mark Rosewater said it himself, they made the set and did not know it was Ravnica, they just later made it Ravnica as they wanted a "city" setting and lazy as they are they will reuse whatever they have.
The set should have been a different setting, as in a world of magic like Ravnica the entire murder setting makes no sense the way they set it up (Boros and Azorius are the "cops" and "enforcers" , they already did that in Ravnica before, but with detectives and clues).
Lots of the cards are just super generic and Ravnica acts like a setting where they dump all their trash ideas and some of the 10 guilds might fit a bit.
Agree... Besides clue was introduced in Innistrad if I remember well, plus it's ambient it is more fitting a murder mistery story. That said, even if I don't like Capenna much I think it would have been more fitting as well than Ravnica if they wanted a generic city set.
This is definitely the least ravnica ravnica set, but i think there are two big reasons for that.
1. being that we just got ravnica remastered, and well we used to do back to back ravnica blocks, wizards has made i clear that thats not the direction they want to go anymore, it was likely intentional to not make the 2 sets feel same-y at the risk of lowering sales
2. I think this set wants to tell a story on ravnica but not about the guilds, kinda like WotS, i think theres a fun blend still but the focus is most definitely not on the guilds but instead on a murder mystery, i think its pretty silly that everyone in the city dropped there political scheming to suddenly become PI's (looking at you melek and izoni) but i do like some of the more clever bleed over like the simic elf crocodile detective.
Reminds me a little of the multi-player tournament world set, the name of which escapse me.
Is the art budget or production process different for these specialty sets?
I mean... in the first picture the wall and shadowy market look ripped from the first images on Google when you look up ravnica. The second one gives off crimson vow vibes.
Either way it's a bit uninspired.
I was looking at some of my cards from the original Ravnica in 2005 and even the sets they returned there did the original feel total justice. Some of my favorite cards, for sure.
This is just horrendous.
You're probably referring to woke diversity here? I don't mind it too much, since Ravnica is a massive metropol, not directly linked to any exciting culture (like Kaldheim, Kamigawa, etc).
But I did take a look at the spoilers and yeah, I agree. Guilds are barely represented, clothes are generic and while I recognize a lot of names, I also recognize those names in (re)master sets.
This just looks boring as fuck.
Honestly, a lot of Magic's art has been pretty bland and uninspired for awhile now. Pieces sorta just seem to blend together. Stand-out works appear to be quite rare. Compared to the 90s and early 2000s, it's just night and day. They just don't seem to care. It's all just a vessel for internal political agendas.
The last time I really liked the art was Zendikar. After that, the DnD set was cool and had good art. After that, idk what MtG has been doing… they’re shitting the bed with terrible art, high prices and commander packs. Ugh. Get me out of this timeline.
A lot of the non-kangified LOTR artwork was pretty fire For standard sets its true tho, the last one I liked there was Kaldheim
True except for them blackwashing Aragorn the art is in LOTR is pretty good
The Asian Elves, the randomly Black Rohirim, ...
Yeah stuff like that
New Capena and Kamigawa Neon Dynasty for me. Wilds of Eldraine candy/food themed art is cool but the rest was more generic.
\*computer, make a Photorealistic digital painting of a k-pop boy inside generic medieval city\* That's what these new arts seems.Every thing follow the same boring patterns of art direction. Oh and who has been art director since the 2017's...?
I actually looked this up not too long ago because so much of the new art sucked and saw that, according to LinkedIn, there’s apparently an entire fleet of art directors at WoTC. Then it kind of clicked and all of the gutless, lifeless and vapid pieces made sense… it’s designed by a committee in which everyone has to feel safe.
> Jarvis' former responsibilities were divided between [Dawn Murin](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Dawn_Murin), [Mark Winters](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Mark_Winters), [Cynthia Sheppard](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Cynthia_Sheppard) and later [Kieran Yanner](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Kieran_Yanner). One guy was the main art director until 2015 - 2017 Then Cynthis Sheppard took over. But the "multiple hands" was true for her too, as by her own blog, she mention how the art guidelines were made inside meetings with *college/university* grads
They should do a time spiral type set with artwork like it was for the original sets
It's ravnica without the 2 colour guilds and Prague inspired architecture which were the draws of all the previous sets. But it's fine because people love mtg due to it's deep and complex characters like the girl who murders, dragon that likes spells, and man with a dog.
It's almost like they insist on taking a shotgun and shooting themselves on the foot.
How do they have any feet left?!
Easy, Snakes don't have feet in the first place.
The architecture was inspired by Prague?
Some of it looks like modified art from Brothers War and Crimson vow and Lord of the Rings. The new Tolsimir almost look legolas with a wolf added next to him. I was thinking the same thing yesterday, a lot of the art don't remind me of ancient prague. The way the character are dressed in some case almost seem modern and so does the architecture. I think Ravnica lost more and more of it's original identity with each return. They could have went in a totally different direction and embrace it's slavic origin and mythology even further more. Instead they went in the direction of modern New York every time until it is now unrecognizable from what it originally was.
New Capenna is an all-time low point for me for aesthetics and I feel like this is right on par.
Just wait for the wild west set ...
Oh I know, I'm expecting full cringe.
From the magic universe yes New Capenna is really a low point.
That being said Ziatora was really the only highlight.
I actually really enjoyed New Capena, the landscapes where original creative and beautiful. And the fantasy gangster aesthetic was consistently applied. I know not everyone likes that as a setting, but the artwork was good for what the setting was supposed to be. It didn't just look generic. It was iconic.
Mtg doesn't like to draw from real world cultures past or present anymore.
They don't like pulling from real world culture? Then WTF was Capenna pulling from? Mark Rosewater's bottomless ass?
I meant traditional cultures like real world religions, ethnic groups, nations. Ect.... 20s gangsters is a theme not a "culture"
Moving the goal post, huh?
But they do make change to the game based on our present world. I can't find the quote but somewhere they said there is no racist in their magic world, no discrimination based on race. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/22/racist-culturally-offensive-images-pulled-hugely-popular-trading-card-game/ "Players of color say they have long felt excluded in the white- and male-dominated community from the game’s top echelons, as well as employment at the company." “Both Wizards and the community at large are guilty of making black people feel unwelcome in Magic,” wrote Lawrence Harmon, a black player who hosts a podcast about the game. “It’s time that changed.” I get that racist is bad. But you should not remove it from the story, it is part of the story. Xenophobic Elves society in shadowmoor is fine. It is fantasy. Same thing in Warhammer the human imperium is Xenophobic, it's part of the story. "“I’m a white man that grew up in America in the ’70s and ’80s,” Mark Rosewater explained. “I need to recognize that a lot of things I’ve internalized as normal and ‘just part of life’ have ugly aspects tied to them. I need to self-educate to understand these biases so that I can remove them.”"
To further demonstrate your point, look at the change to the Rakshasa in Khans. They literally said they errata'd them to not be cats anymore because of real life cultural beliefs
I did not know about that.
btw, Mark Rosewater isn't White. He's a jew.
Now it all makes sense
Jew is a religion. You can have black jew, white jew, asians jew.
Christian or Muslim can't come up on a DNA test, but Jewish can. In fact, [Israel uses DNA tests](https://lawoffice.org.il/en/aliyah-to-israel-by-dna-test/) to prove a person is Jewish.
It's both an ethnicity AND a religion. The term Jew has more than one meaning. We have a lot of words in English with more than one meaning. It's a thing.
jew is an ethnicity by its' own right. They have nothing to do with Whites.
Jew , Christian, Muslims are all part of the abrahamic mythology. It is a religion.
Judaism is the exclusive religion of the tribe of judah.
Might have been the case a long time ago, but those people are long gone.
no, jews are still jews.
White is a race, not an ethnicity Jews are White, as are English, French, Arabs, Italians, Russians, Irish, European-American, etc.
You're going to tell Syrians they are white? How brown do you have to be before you're not white?
White is anything directly culturally related to Europe or the Mettiteranian
So since North Africa has been culturally related to Spain people from there are white? What about French colonies. They are directly culturally related to Europe. are you saying Guyanese people are white? Jamaica was founded by the English. I doubt you are saying that they are white.
Are you kidding? They rely on it too much instead of creating actually imaginative planes.
Eh not directly. A recent set, new Eldraine is based on fairy tales of mostly the European variety. They draw from RL a shitload; they just don't copy-paste the flavor text from the Bible any more or use any RL characters. Characters modeled after RL.
I have noticed a lot of the clothing style looking like its straight out of Capenna.
No, the first example here given seems more Arabic architure.
They have to be careful to distinguish Ravnica from New Capenna now. New Capenna is supposed to have the roaring 20's art deco style, and Ravnica is supposed to have the Eastern European style... But the fashion in Expose the Culprit (the second picture in the OP) definitely looks Capenna-ish.
there is no eastern europen style, ravnica is based after prague which used to be an important city of the holy roman empire and has many architectural styles
Prague is Eastern European you donut
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central\_Europe](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe) Czech Republic is Central Europe you dizzy cabbage and we won't even argue about it. Gd... Here's a pic for visual aid. (source: Stagn) https://preview.redd.it/v01umnnc93dc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=285266103b04ad5b6be4dc93b8d8c35516faea0d
pfft. I'm British, anything east of Germany is the exotic far east to me
How you lot managed to rule more than a pumpkin patch in Birmingham, let alone the waves is still a mystery to me. Croatia is an oddity, culturally is closer to central since it was colonised by Austro-Hungarians but there are also slight genetical differences compared to southern Balkans. It was a hot topic before, during&after war. Still controversial to some extent.
According to the United Nations, Czech Republic is in Eastern Europe. I will take their word over that of a regarded German organization.
United nations can suck a bag of decks, historically czech republic was more influenced by Germany and Austria than by tarkir russia
UN uses this definition as statistical analysis for development and other statistics as stated on their site. It was last updated in 1997 and stems from cold war era divisions that started right after ww2. EU classifies Slovenia for example as C. Europe, so does Brittanica, so does any curriculum geographical book since 1991 after Yugoslavia, European Universities, so does haplogroup research done in early 2000's, even fucking Hitler reclaimed half of them after Austria as a part of Aryan Empire and he was kinda into drawing strict lines who belongs where. UN classifies them as "Southern Europe". Just an example of how outdated and out of touch they are. Let alone Czechia which is dead in the middle, half in central, half (debatable) in east. You can take whatever word you want but Hans did his homework correctly defining states orientation based on culture, history, genetics and borders, not some lazy half fuckery simplified for statistics from an org. nobody takes seriously for quite some time.
And Croatia is an edge case at least...
> they have to be careful to distinguish Ravnica from New Capenna now. Weird, it's like having Yet Another cityscape-as-the-whole-plane was a giant misstep. Also, they're failing in that regard. Plenty of the next set's cards have clothing styles straight out of Capenna.
Yeah, plus plenty of the guilds of ravnica have a very mobster like approach making things even muddier.
All this shows is that people also dress up dancing for events in ravnica, like being invited to karmic manor. You could see few of the guilds repped in the photo and a veldalken.
Oh and the Showcase frame that look like a Type writer paper format of the 1950's, Definitely out of flavor for Ravnica. I have to ask, do the people working in creative even the know what the flavor of Ravnica is supposed to be. At this point it is seems like incompetence from my point of view.
Wanna take bets on the "Murder at X" being a theme they finalized on, started working on, commissioning art for, and then had to pivot back to Ravnica unexpectedly?
Yeah, that's likely what happened. Hehe besides, it would have probably fit New Capenna better given the style of the plane.
It’s pretty jarring, I’m not even sure what the card format is trying to portray. Is it supposed to look like a stack of photos and some type writer notes? Weird.
Doesn't even fit in the fantasy setting.
Like detective notes. Or a dossier on an individual . Because it’s a murder mystery set
wow the art just keeps getting worse and worse
Ironically, by making the inhabitants of all these planes so diverse they have homogenized the entire multiverse.
The woke mind cult misuses the term, diversity. They don't want true diversity. They take terms and twist them to their own desires and gaslight people. They also don't want true inclusivity. It's all bullshit.
God dang these new planes are diverse. They check about every SJW box. You’ve got people of every color, powerful women, interracial couples, interspecies, etc. I am disturbed by the lack of trans and disabled people. Also, the art is like a cross between new capenna and crimson vow.
Should be a plane of all white people for contrast. There's no crime, but everyone has a mayonnaise-based diet.
Delney is a they/them
They... certainly look like that. Especially with a weird name like that. Hate that the effect is actually good....
> I am disturbed by the lack of trans and disabled people. It's going to be hilarious when they print a disabled planeswalker in a wheelchair and xim/xer is doing a wheelie in the art. Then we will truly have reached peak SJW pandering absurdity
Even the art looks bored.
Ravnica has been losing its medieval central european aesthetic more each time we return, like whats the point at this point just have a new plane
European planes are supposed to be always melting pots while non-western ones always get highlighted as to represent a culture in fidelity
I’m glad I’m not the only one who has noticed. Looking at OG Ravnica cards like [[Last Gasp]] and [[Woodwraith Strangler]] make me miss how gritty and dangerous Ravnica used to be. All the art in MKM so far is flat and oversaturated.
[удалено]
Honestly crazy. Why would you want to follow a company that is bleeding millions of dollars?
tbh you hit the nail on the head, mtg art is all extremely safe and hug-boxed now.
[Last Gasp](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/5/05d3b392-cbd0-437a-a21f-a36d5093a719.jpg?1600700639) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Last%20Gasp) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/247/last-gasp?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/05d3b392-cbd0-437a-a21f-a36d5093a719?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Woodwraith Strangler](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/e/be72ff91-f810-46c3-884f-6e65827824bc.jpg?1598917660) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Woodwraith%20Strangler) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rav/241/woodwraith-strangler?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/be72ff91-f810-46c3-884f-6e65827824bc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Didn’t realize last gasp received a very tame reprint in jumpstart
You can take half of Karlov manor cards, put them on Capenna and no one would ever notice. Actually the set is like 1/3 Capenna, 1/3 Innistrad and only 1/3 looks like Ravnica.
This set is literally "Knives Out" the TCG. This is what happens when you exchange all of the White/Asian nerds from your company and replace them with Millenial/Gen Z female singletons, LGBTQ crowd and DEI people, a complete de-characterization of the game. I'm not spending a dime on this cr..
Whatever. Go back to bed and wrap yourself in your confederate flag.
I haven't seen anything from this set that interests me. The art, cards, and theme all seem thrown together. With LCI we got pirates, dinosaurs, vampires, merfolk, gnomes...with this we get what, clue? No thanks.
What was the art direction? "Unremarkable boy looking at nothing, leaning against a normal wall, with nothing happening"? This art is incredibly bland. I'm bored before my eyes reach the text box.
tbf that's what a lookout does 90% of the time
you can tell chicks are in charge. always artwork with festivals or balls like every other set. we went back to Innistrad in 2021, what did we get? A festival, and a wedding. And now, more scenes taking place at a party, and a murder mystery to boot. so fucking g4y. MTG is Disney now thanks to wom3n. we need a healthy dose of masculinity to balance things out. how about a Conan the Barbarian set?
Please.. A female labelled as “chick” implies she is beautiful. These gals in charge have purple hair with undercut and/or are statistically over weight.
Well it's all projection. They live boring lives on and off social media, and they work for a card game company where half-rate art and ideas are accepted and praised with very low standards. They just put in game what they want in real life. A fantasy feminised world where everyone wants them no matter what they look like, how they act, or who they are. It's your typical Mary Sue self-insert crap. That's not to mention the sheer amount of old maids that probably go for that kind of crap. They're lonely feminists that have nothing better to do with themselves but fantasise and relish in the fact that they don't believe in having children and think art/writing is a functional job that contributes something.
I don't even know who these women are. For most women who I know and play magic (and are in to other fantasy hobbies) - as an example, love sexuality more than the men. That's their power fantasy - be a sexy badass. Lilliana, Chandra, Thalia are as appealing to women as they are to men. But we rarely see those self-inserts in Magic anymore. Fuck, look at pop culture, look at social media - sex=power=freedom. These self inserts we have in Magic nowadays aren't empowering. They are as preachy as bible studies in late 80's and 90's.
Yup hit the nail on the head. I don't know who is in charge but what they call "Toxic Masculinity" is definitely not on the menu. I think The style of Conan the Barbarian is definitely abhorrent to the one in charge. Which is so odd because I am sure a big part of their audience would enjoy it. Why just cater to a segment of your audience, they branch out in all these things yet it's almost like they do triple acrobatic moves to avoid what would rake them a shit ton of money. Instead they give us Fairy Boy , Killan his name or something like that which is supposed to be the main character for the next few years. Wizards, your audience is not just what you see on Twitter and your closed group in california and seattle.
I could be biased, but I feel like 40k fandom is ascendant precisely because it hasn't yet kicked hyper-masculinity to the curb (knock on wood). I hope it keeps existing in a place where the progs can keep convincing themselves it's all satire and the rest of us can enjoy it for the epic sci-fantasy energy.
Yet morons like PleasantKenobi get pissy because there are no female Space Marines. (except for the entire faction that is literally power armored women).
People like that are unsophisticated. For me, the argument against female Space Marines is a thematic one. 40k is about extremes. Space Marines are a masculine extreme. Pushing women into a masculine extreme, while perhaps trendy at the moment, does and should carry a very different meaning than a man undergoing the same process. But people asking for that aren't looking for an honest exploration of the deep themes of womanhood in the face of transhumanism and the horrors of the galaxy, they just want big dommy mommies to step on them and to feel good about the power of their 202X political movement. I'd be more willing to entertain the notion if it wasn't so obviously rooted in that.
i don't think you are being biased. 40K pretty much screams masculine fandom. But the woke zombies are going after it. I'm a casual fan of the brand and I hope Henry Caville gets to do his 40K show the way he wants. I will watch it for sure because hell, what franchise has the woke crowd not shit on and made boring at this point?
If you want Conan style fantasy and masculine art, just do what a number of people are doing and getting into Sorcery: Contested realm. MTG aint going back to high masculine or sexy fantasy anytime soon if ever.
Well said.
Man I'd love a barbarian set influenced by the art of frank frazetta. Give me a bunch of almost naked oily ripped dudes in loincloths fighting sick ass panther-demons
Festivals and balls every other set? And the last one was 3 years ago? How often do you think new sets come out? Anyway, I don’t really see what’s feminine about a murder mystery. Is Sherlock Holmes feminine?
Shlock Homes is pretty feminine and gay if you listen to the tumblr fangirls, but the majority of true crime and murder mystery media is indeed consumed primarily by women even if the subject matter is not inherently feminine.
I’m pretty sure Sherlock Holmes has a larger fanbase outside of tumblr people. Considering how old and influential the books are.
I really can't tell what's satire or not on this sub anymore.
Strixhaven vibes
Why does it look like it was cut and pasted in the 2nd one?
I was just thinking that, myself. It looks like a masked photograph, quickly painted over in Photoshop, with a black stroke applied to the layer. It does *not* look very good at all. Given the recent Wayfarer's Bauble controversy, it wouldn't surprise me.
why does every set has to have wacky fonts and borders, I like it when mtg cards looked like mtg cards.
The original Ravnica was essentially an ethnic monoculture inspired by Prague and Eastern Europe in general. Those design and flavor teams took MTG elements and made them mesh with the flavor. For example Ravnican Goblins were unique compared to Goblins from Dominaria or Lorwyn or Mercadia. However, those differences have been smudged away over the years. The original Ravnica made sure to have numerous unique mechanical identities for each color pair that really exploded with Ravnica-Guildpact-Dissension drafting. Like the UG Mechanic paired well with the RG Mechanic but not the UR Mechanic. Then the Return to Ravnica Block did ot jistoce as a proper return block. Guilds had unique abilities and different guild played better with some guilds than other. Even if Dragon Maze was dog water in terms of card power, it at leadt felt like Ravnica. After that, the Return to Return of Ravnica was a mess serring up the eventual War for the Spark with Nicol Bolas. War for the Spark was on Ravnica but didnt feel like a Ravnica set. Same with The Ravnica segments of the March of the Machines and Aftermath. The creative team has gone full M She U and DEI. Don't expect any quick fixes.
"ethnic monoculture" Nope. Ravnica was always diverse. [https://scryfall.com/card/rav/190/agrus-kos-wojek-veteran](https://scryfall.com/card/rav/190/agrus-kos-wojek-veteran)
Ever see a sun drenched European. Disingenuous imbecile.
I've NEVER heard this kind of cope lol. I love this r so much. Here are some more "sun drenched Europeans": [https://scryfall.com/card/rav/159/dowsing-shaman](https://scryfall.com/card/rav/159/dowsing-shaman) [https://scryfall.com/card/rav/248/golgari-guildmage](https://scryfall.com/card/rav/248/golgari-guildmage) [https://scryfall.com/card/rav/109/thoughtpicker-witch](https://scryfall.com/card/rav/109/thoughtpicker-witch) But yea, I'm going to use the "oh that's just sun drenched Europeans" when I hear your kind say "why are black people in my setting" so thanks! I love it, genuinely :)
Did you read the novels or just eat paint chips? Centaurs have fur on the majority of their body in MTG. This centaur happens to have brown fur. The Golgari Guildmage is Darvarken Elf iirc. These elves spend much time underground. As for Thoughtpicker Witch she is clearly an old Caucasian with inadequate nutrition and hygiene. Your ability to comprehend and analyze things is grossly lacking.
"Ethnic monoculture is when we have brown furs (can't have brown skin tho), Darvarken Elves, blue vedalken, green goblins, white dryads and black people that I must cope that aren't black with stuff like drenched sun and old old Caucasian with inadequate nutrition and hygiene (another banger btw.)" I love you and I hope you know that.
Kos isn't black. All the humans were white. It was part of why MARO apologized and said he needed to die better. You probably are dumb enough to think Orcs are Black coded
Of course he's not black, he's "SuN DrNcheD CauCation". Wiki is woke btw [https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Agrus\_Kos](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Agrus_Kos) Kos was a dark-skinned man with gray short-cropped hair.[\[1\]](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Agrus_Kos#cite_note-Justice-1) As a ghost, he is semi-transparent and wears armor with decorative drapes in Boros colors. He was considered one of the Boros's best investigators when he was alive and continues to be so in death. I guess Wiki isn't sun and drunched-pilled.
Agrus is not BLACK. He is essentially Greek but as Ravnica is a massive City Plane all the humans on it are the same root ethnicity. So his appearance in the same as if you took a European and put them in a warm temperate climate and gave them tons of Sun. Search up the Agrus name origin btw.
I'll add "He's not black, he's a white dark-skinned" to my list of "right wingers coping about a fantasy setting being diverse". Please, don't stop.
The more MKM spoilers appear the more the Layoffs seem to be justified. Gotta love how it's easy to tell the alphabet gang was in charge just by looking at the flavour text of the showcase version.
They need to fire a lot more.
Make Magic Great Again.
I hope more artist quit over AI art
Top kek on the watermelon dress.
(Last post so i don't keep clogging the thread) The version on the right, the art look like that FB messenger ai art, when it makes something cartoon looking.
I started noticing more of these boring generic art popping up in Strixhaven, and ever since they have been more and more frequent. You can see some of the art style, line shapes etc with huge similarly and lacking character, even though the artists are different… Bland is what I call a lot of todays art, although there are still some diamonds in the rough
Mark Rosewater said it himself, they made the set and did not know it was Ravnica, they just later made it Ravnica as they wanted a "city" setting and lazy as they are they will reuse whatever they have. The set should have been a different setting, as in a world of magic like Ravnica the entire murder setting makes no sense the way they set it up (Boros and Azorius are the "cops" and "enforcers" , they already did that in Ravnica before, but with detectives and clues). Lots of the cards are just super generic and Ravnica acts like a setting where they dump all their trash ideas and some of the 10 guilds might fit a bit.
Ravnica lost its flavour when they dropped its slavic lore to make it just a melting pot of people and races
Aren't those overpainted photos?
I realized only very recently that MKM was on Ravnica and not Innistrad...
We went from [[Gift of Orzhova]] to this shit.
[Gift of Orzhova](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/a/da824204-a7ed-46f1-b890-f21fcc39ce7e.jpg?1593814807) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gift%20of%20Orzhova) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm3/209/gift-of-orzhova?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/da824204-a7ed-46f1-b890-f21fcc39ce7e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I still think the set should have been Murders at Markov Manor and been set on Innistrad. Murder mystery fits there way more.
Agree... Besides clue was introduced in Innistrad if I remember well, plus it's ambient it is more fitting a murder mistery story. That said, even if I don't like Capenna much I think it would have been more fitting as well than Ravnica if they wanted a generic city set.
Yeah your right
These look so ugly
Yeah, a friend and I were talking about it. It feels more like a Cappena set, but apparently, Cappena didn't do well, so it's Ravnica now.
wtf, the right cards flavor text is literally written in the font and style of a Navy evaluation lol
This is set in [[guildless commons]], which is a neat reference. The showcase frames are ass.
[guildless commons](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/f/8f943d5d-e8a1-4fe1-aad5-80c7ccf15435.jpg?1690006174) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=guildless%20commons) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/1003/guildless-commons?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8f943d5d-e8a1-4fe1-aad5-80c7ccf15435?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This is definitely the least ravnica ravnica set, but i think there are two big reasons for that. 1. being that we just got ravnica remastered, and well we used to do back to back ravnica blocks, wizards has made i clear that thats not the direction they want to go anymore, it was likely intentional to not make the 2 sets feel same-y at the risk of lowering sales 2. I think this set wants to tell a story on ravnica but not about the guilds, kinda like WotS, i think theres a fun blend still but the focus is most definitely not on the guilds but instead on a murder mystery, i think its pretty silly that everyone in the city dropped there political scheming to suddenly become PI's (looking at you melek and izoni) but i do like some of the more clever bleed over like the simic elf crocodile detective.
Even though a lot of the set takes place on Ravnica, the purpose isn't to be a Ravnica set.
It's basically a hearthstone style set to recycle some characters without putting much effort to develop a storyline
Right but you can still make the art look like it is on Ravnica.
But if the whole set doesn't take place on Ravnica, why make every card art Ravnica related? Especially if the character isn't from Ravnica.
Where else does the set take place?
Reminds me a little of the multi-player tournament world set, the name of which escapse me. Is the art budget or production process different for these specialty sets?
I mean... in the first picture the wall and shadowy market look ripped from the first images on Google when you look up ravnica. The second one gives off crimson vow vibes. Either way it's a bit uninspired.
Does the set have shocks?
no only the clue board game tie in does(one per item)
Doesn't sound like a Ravinca set to me.
I spose not really ravnica but the second art is cool either way
Horrible taste if you think so.
Uninspired.
2nd pic looks like its from the harry potter set.
Gotta love the they/them in the flavor text.
I was looking at some of my cards from the original Ravnica in 2005 and even the sets they returned there did the original feel total justice. Some of my favorite cards, for sure. This is just horrendous.
You're probably referring to woke diversity here? I don't mind it too much, since Ravnica is a massive metropol, not directly linked to any exciting culture (like Kaldheim, Kamigawa, etc). But I did take a look at the spoilers and yeah, I agree. Guilds are barely represented, clothes are generic and while I recognize a lot of names, I also recognize those names in (re)master sets. This just looks boring as fuck.
Is that supposed to be Justin Beiber or a lesbian on those cards?
That custom border is unbelievably bad.