Great cards with wack artwork

[reaperbong]

Hello,

I have a stupid problem. Even if a card is great i have a hard time playing it if the artwork sucks. I hope i'm not alone or this topic is pretty pointless. It's gotten so bad I don't even own the all time second most important card because the artwork is annoying. I own and run all the Moxen needed, Walk, Lotus and the badass-Mark-Tedin-blessed-Timetwister but can't seem to keep a hold of an Ancestral Recall. Is that crazy or is that crazy? Come tournament time i proxy one up but other than that i usually don't play them, i just can't feel proud owning one.

Why do so many Vintage staples have terrible artwork? some quick examples, WOTC please reprint:

Fastbond (cartoon wizard guy please retire already)
Daze (bondage dude crying bubbles? is that the gimp with his mask off?)
Flooded Strand (that's a strand i guess, is it even flooded?)
Tendrils of Agony (way too badass card to have such goofy artwork, why is the fat tendrils guy the main feature here?)
Duress (i guess i'm used to it by now but two artwork versions and they both suck? try again please)
Force of Will (i actually like this one although people bitch about it a lot i'm thankful it's not worse. it'd still be nice to have a cool variant though)
Tarmogoyf (kinda cool in an abstract way, it goes with the theme.. well except for that doll he's holding wtf?)
Dark Confident (too badass not to play, but DAMN sorry Bob but dude looks like a dork, is he wearing eye-liner? and who is the fat Star Wars prequel character he's hanging out with? GET OUTTA HERE)

On top of that basically every good Blue card got the shaft. You name any viable blue card and chances are it's a picture of some people sitting around or having a discussion. and now the worst of all, worst then Mystical Tutor, Tinker, worse then Intuition, even worse then Ancestral Recall? STRATEGIC PLANNING> WTF IS THIS HORRIBLE TRAVESTY? and i don't even mind white borders...

The problem with Blue is that the cards are usually some simple but very general action that require the artist to get really creative in order to depict, which usually they cop out of and instead draw some people sitting around performing said action. It's not all bad though, look at Sifle, now there is something creative. The artist could have just drawn a picture of a couple of guys standing around...uhh.. stifling... but look how it turned out. Stifle take a bow!

[Smmenen]

Why do so many Vintage staples have terrible artwork? some quick examples, WOTC please reprint:

Fastbond (cartoon wizard guy please retire already)

WHAT???

I could not disagree more.

To me, Fastbond is the archetypical, fantastic Magic artwork.   It has a clear foreground, a background, compositional clarity, amazing rendering, great colors. 

Fastbond, is to me, the template for what Magic cards should look like.   Not too much going on.  Simple beauty rather than comic book action.   

[reaperbong]

yea i was a little harsh on Fastbond.. I've probably been looking at my Revised version for too long. Damn Revised made all the art look crappy.
 
Still would look cool as a promo foil as long as it kept the old card face! (goddamn don't get me started on that...)

more ugliness: Null Rod This goofy pirate guy in a vest (on top of the worst background of all time) shuts down my Moxes? GET OUTTA HERE

Recently: Demigod of Revenge. ok they struck out hard with the pre-release so they decided to just copy the original Lord of the Pit? Is the Demigod the Lord's cousin or something? I little too similar.....

[vartemis]

Recently: Demigod of Revenge. ok they struck out hard with the pre-release so they decided to just copy the original Lord of the Pit? Is the Demigod the Lord's cousin or something? I little too similar.....

The funny part is that he has no hands, and yet has a similar aura that shows gauntlets. I think it was on Wizards site.  The regular art looks a helluva lot better than the promo one.

j

[Norm4eva]

I'm sort of on the same page with you.
For a while I was going to try and play that weird Astral Slide + Humility deck in Legacy, and then I saw a Humility.  Guess I'm not a fan of the Foglio stuff.
I also hate hate hate hate white borders.  I am pretty much bound and determined to Sharpie the shit out of any playable, non-money WB cards until they're passable.  Like, never Tundra, but definitely Duress.