Unreleased and New Card Discussion

[Serenade]

We have too much art. There should be one alt art of one card per set. It can be the box topper. No extra borders. I'm not memorizing the millions of new cards we get every year, and I'm definitely not learning their various artworks and borders. They need to simplify this stuff.

[DirkGently]

If you don't feel the same way about all alternate frames it sounds like you're just a boomer hater.

How so? I don't follow your logic.

My opinion on each frame depends on the frame. Though novel frames aren't riding on nostalgia like neo old frames are.

lol upvote button next to multiquote button.

I like the old border treatments. I like most of the alternate/novelty frames they've come out with. Of the three 'main' borders we've had since Alpha, I think they've only gotten better. The M15 frame smokes its predecessors.

The first half of that seems contradictory with the second half?

@Serenade on one hand, I agree, on the other hand, if wotc is hellbent on wringing every drop of money from its customers I guess I'd rather they exploited the whales with alternate super mega unreadable special serialized foil edition cards rather than releasing 50 sets per year.

[Serenade]

Eh, I'd rather have 50 sets with one art for each card than 10 sets with five arts per card.

[Hermes_]

i like the rusted look for artifacts over the new shiney non-rusted. the world artifact makes me think it's old and should be a bit rusted.

[Jemolk]

Old borders are best borders. I wasn't even playing at the time they were originally used; they just look cool. They have personality. They're uniquely MTG. You can see this on more recent frames too, but to a somewhat lesser degree... and the most recent frames have that ugly and ever-so-slightly asymmetrical black gap at the bottom. It looks like something's been chopped off in the clumsiest way possible, with no concern for what's left. I look at that area and all I can think is that something's missing. It's awful. Far as I'm concerned, it goes like this: Old borders > Post-Mirrodin borders > Borderless >>>>>>>> water damage on your cards > Post-M15 borders. So any time modern cards get released with old border versions, I'm happy. I don't care nearly as much when it's cards from between Mirrodin and M15, and will more often sacrifice having the nicer border for what I consider the nicer art, though, and that's most of the Ravnica cards. Still, there's some really nice new arts here, and also some old-border versions of some good cards from the most recent visit to Ravnica, so I'm quite happy with what I've seen so far.

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

The new art for Keening Apparition is amazing; not that there's anything wrong with the old one, but it now shows an ironic twist for the little story depicted

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on Cartel Aristocrat and Cruel Celebrant.

[Lifeless]

Anime art Protean Hulk almost makes me wish Flash was legal.

[PrimevalCommander]

I'm heavily annoyed they printed the shocks with the original Ravnica art. Kind of takes a dump on my heavy investment of getting the foil shocks when the original art was the only printing and foils were a 5x premium. Having the old art was a way to make that feel worth it since they change it every set and the originals had some uniqueness to them.

I do need a BoP though, so this reprint is good for me.
Guardian Project as MYTHIC is stupid though. That is not a mythic level card. Just because it is $10+ they have to slap it in the mythic slot to keep the value artificially inflated or what? I don't even need one, I'm just curious.
Anime art was cool when it was the Japanese promo War of the Spark cards. I'm already over it after only the third iteration.
/end rant

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

I do appreciate anime Protean Hulk and Tomik though. Maybe Tomik got mangafied so anime Ral Zarek wouldn't feel lonely?

[Serenade]

I was hoping for the Starter Emmara and Guild Kit Zegana 2.0 as non-foil reprints in this set. Dang.

[Rumpy5897]

I love the old border, and am happy they're printing stuff in it again. That said, there's no confusing the new oversaturated take for the original. Nevertheless, the creation of this new form of bling has become more desirable than original new border printings for me. I'm only keeping one deck decked out with these as I'm an adult with a mortgage now, and Patron of the Orochi is my oldest surviving deck and holds a special place in my heart. That, and the "new old border" stuff that comes out for that deck tends to end up cheap.

Speaking of original printings actually, that's a pretty easy desirability category. So what that they reprinted the shockland art 18 years later? The originals still have that OG set symbol and there's no returning to that (at least in a way that doesn't involve a little planeswalker stamp in the bottom left corner of the card). That should still have them retain collectability. You're not the first person to bring up art in this context, but wouldn't this first printing business work better?

[RxPhantom]

I like the old border treatments. I like most of the alternate/novelty frames they've come out with. Of the three 'main' borders we've had since Alpha, I think they've only gotten better. The M15 frame smokes its predecessors.

The first half of that seems contradictory with the second half?

Only if you're intentionally missing the point. I like multiple frames. It's crazy, I know.

Anyway, complaining about new frame treatments is pissing into the wind. Your old cards are still available. You're fine.

[folding_music]

I love alt art and alt borders for stuff. might make it slightly harder for instant recognition of a particular card but that ship sailed years ago so they might as well go all in on project booster fun or whatever it's called.
only semi-relatedly but, y'know... the way M:TG is now an anything-goes hundred-property party game really clashes with the way that casual's dead? they have to try and relaunch sixty card chaos if they want the game to have the same "fun" aura the cards currently do

[DirkGently]

I like the old border treatments. I like most of the alternate/novelty frames they've come out with. Of the three 'main' borders we've had since Alpha, I think they've only gotten better. The M15 frame smokes its predecessors.

The first half of that seems contradictory with the second half?

Only if you're intentionally missing the point. I like multiple frames. It's crazy, I know.

Anyway, complaining about new frame treatments is pissing into the wind. Your old cards are still available. You're fine.

Huh? You said the post-m15 frame is much better than its predecessors, meaning the older frames are much worse than the current frame. But then you say you like the old frame. I guess I just don't understand what you're saying. Do you prefer the current frame or the old frame?

I think people are reading a broader statement into what I wrote than what I intended. I just don't like neo old border cards because they look wrong to me. I'm not trying to say they're objectively worse or anything. It's just my personal preference.

With the caveat for colored artifacts having the same border as nonartifacts. That's a loss of visual information which I would argue makes them worse.

[RxPhantom]

The first half of that seems contradictory with the second half?

Only if you're intentionally missing the point. I like multiple frames. It's crazy, I know.

Anyway, complaining about new frame treatments is pissing into the wind. Your old cards are still available. You're fine.

Huh? You said the post-m15 frame is much better than its predecessors, meaning the older frames are much worse than the current frame. But then you say you like the old frame. I guess I just don't understand what you're saying. Do you prefer the current frame or the old frame?

Come on.

I like the old frame. I like the newest frame much more.

[DirkGently]

I like the old frame. I like the newest frame much more.

So if you opened a card from this set in old border, you'd prefer it was in new border?

I guess I just don't understand why you'd say you like an alternate frame unless you like it more than the default.

[TheGildedGoose]

I guess I just don't understand why you'd say you like an alternate frame unless you like it more than the default.

Am I the only one who really doesn't care for these old border versions of new cards?

Because you %$#% asked!

[Guardman]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but in terms of frames, the best were the sketch frames from Modern Masters II followed by the Planar Chaos frames.

As for the old frames on Ravnica, as much as I like the old frames, I like them more when they make sense. The old frames worked in The Brother's War because it fit the feel of the set. I also think the old frames would work on cards from Kamigawa that look at the past and tradition. But Ravnica was never printed in the old frame and it doesn't have a theme of history or tradition. In fact, Ravnica always felt like one of the more forward looking planes with the Simic looking to evolve and most of the guilds looking to twist the rules of the world (guildpact or Prismatic Niv) into their favor, tradition be damned.

[DirkGently]

I guess I just don't understand why you'd say you like an alternate frame unless you like it more than the default.

Am I the only one who really doesn't care for these old border versions of new cards?

Because you %$#% asked!

If I like a frame less than the default frame I would not describe myself as liking that frame.

What's your frame of reference if not the default frame? If I like a frame more than that, I like it. If I don't, then I don't like it. I don't like neo old frames because I like them less than the default frame.

If the default frame was the d&d frame then I'd love neo old frames.

[PrimevalCommander]

If I like a frame less than the default frame I would not describe myself as liking that frame.

What's your frame of reference if not the default frame? If I like a frame more than that, I like it. If I don't, then I don't like it. I don't like neo old frames because I like them less than the default frame.

If I like Pizza more than Spaghetti, that doesn't mean I don't like Spaghetti. It just means I like Pizza more than Spaghetti.

[DirkGently]

If I like Pizza more than Spaghetti, that doesn't mean I don't like Spaghetti. It just means I like Pizza more than Spaghetti.

That isn't analogous to this situation though, because pizza isn't a default. The lack of spaghetti isn't pizza. But the lack of an alternative frame is the modern frame. If an alternative frame didn't exist it would just be printed in the default frame. So if you prefer the default frame I don't understand why you'd "like" the alternative frame. Its existence makes you like the cards less than if it didn't exist. Unless it's literally just variety for variety's sake.

[yeti1069]

If I like Pizza more than Spaghetti, that doesn't mean I don't like Spaghetti. It just means I like Pizza more than Spaghetti.

That isn't analogous to this situation though, because pizza isn't a default. The lack of spaghetti isn't pizza. But the lack of an alternative frame is the modern frame. If an alternative frame didn't exist it would just be printed in the default frame. So if you prefer the default frame I don't understand why you'd "like" the alternative frame. Its existence makes you like the cards less than if it didn't exist. Unless it's literally just variety for variety's sake.

You seem to be having difficulty with degrees of like. I DON'T like the neon Hidetsugo treatment from NEO, and would definitely trade it away for a normal copy if I had one and wanted to play it. I like the modern frame, but like full-art better when I can get it. I don't mind the old frame, but I prefer the modern one. I would take the old frame of, say, Onslaught era, over something from ABUR, because I like cleaner, sharper lines, text, and artwork. I don't dislike the modern frame because I like full-arts better.

Someone is allowed to like something less than something else, and more than something else.

[DirkGently]

@yeti1069 wotc isn't forced to make different frames all the time. They choose to deviate from the default - the modern frame. If I prefer the modern frame to a frame they make an active choice to create, their choice is making my experience of opening packs or trading worse. So I would prefer they didn't make that decision to deviate from the norm. So I would say I don't like that decision.

I mean sure, there were worse decisions they could have made theoretically, but I don't thank a bully for hitting me just because he could have body slammed me. He made a decision and it made my life worse, so I don't like that decision. Wotc chose to use an alternate frame and it makes my experience of the game worse.

Jfc I'm gonna fail my flight test trying to explain this instead of studying lmao.

[duducrash]

I DON'T like the neon Hidetsugo treatment from NEO, and would definitely trade it away for a normal copy

If you ever coe across a neon hidetsugu and want to trade for a normal copy, hit me up. I'm your guy

[tstorm823]

Wotc chose to use an alternate frame and it makes my experience of the game worse.

Do you believe that the existence of cards you don't want to play with makes your experience of the game worse?