Style Guides part 2, and my reply

[Matt]

The new Style Guide column is up, and I had this to say about it:

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Dear Matt Cavotta,
 Regarding your article "Style Guide Part 2":

I specifically wanted to take issue with your assessment of the five Balduvian illustartions versus the five Leonin, and the concept of uniformity. I feel that uniformity is AT BEST a necessary evil, and certainly not a feature!

First, "Balduvia" clearly refers to a place, not merely a race, and so we might very well expect to find a variety of creatures living there. In that light, I don't find those cards' lack of unity perplexing at all. In fact, I can take that further - why should a Balduvian Shaman look the same as the warriors, and why can't his magic keep him warm, obviating his need for clothing? Why SHOULDN'T we expect fire in a cold place? People gotta stay warm!  Why is it a problem to have the larger 5/5 barbarians be much more fit and trim than the portly 3/3 barbarians (the barbarian national guard, if you will)? It makes perfect sense to me!

You might say that I'm reaching a bit here; I say that this is precisely the point! One of the primary points of Magic illustration should be to inspire the audience's imagination, to have them build the world in their minds - not to have figured out every little detail beforehand. When you put things that don't match together, the imagination wheels start turning and you wind up with something that feels much more real than the too-homogenous-to-be-believed Leonin. Rather than say what this or that SHOULD look like, I think it would be far better to give instruction only in what SHOULDN'T be done (i.e. no winged non-fliers, no tiger Leonin).

Next, we have the Leonin. These guys (like most races and tribes since about the time of Tempest) are hellishly boring, because they all look the same, and also very much less believeable BECAUSE of that uniformity. No society is actually like that! Real societies have variation in their weapons, armor, physique, mode of dress, and so on. With these clowns, if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all, and frankly when people's immediate reaction is to fast-forward through the art like that they are going to miss all the "good composition, color and mood."

Which brings me to my final point. I think most of that technique and skill is lost when reducing the artwork to the size of a card. On a piece that small, the musculature of each cat is totally lost; what people pay attention to are the color and subject matter, ONLY (or nearly so).

It seems like you're spending all this effort in areas that don't translate well to the actual product, and are neglecting or downplaying the features of the artwork which the consumer actually notices/cares about.

Thank you for your time,
Matt Hargis

[Jacob Orlove]

Mercadian goblins are a real twist. Not only are they tall and lean, and somewhat stately, but they are also NOT STUPID. That's a real curve ball, since goblins have been Magic's jesters and comic relief since the beginning. This was an interesting change of pace for our little red pals.

Oh man, so much hate. The Rundvelt goblins from The Dark used rock sleds and had a complex society. In Matt's words (since he just IM'd me), they are "actually scary, and mean, and violent, and the hurt-you kind of violence, not three stooges violences." THAT is the example magic should have been following for years and years, not "haha let's make these guys into stupid comic relief lololol".

I agree with your point that some variety is good, but he does have a valid counterargument that they need to differentiate the sets. There should be a workable compromise, though.

I think some of the details that you're scorning are actually pretty relevant. The different designs for the male/female leonin, for example, showed up pretty well on the cards, mostly via the mane (or lack thereof)

That reminds me, though. Is it only me, or is their whole "put breasts on anything female" policy just silly?

[Matt]

I think some of the details that you're scorning are actually pretty relevant. The different designs for the male/female leonin, for example, showed up pretty well on the cards, mostly via the mane (or lack thereof)

That's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about stuff like the markings on their clothes, and how all their capes and sashes were the same color, and their musculature (which he sounded so proud of). Stuff like that. I don't think people really differentiate between elves who have metal growing out of them and elves which just have some funky armor. That level of detail is something you see only in the paintings themselves, not on the cards.

Are there no fat Leonin? For that matter, are there no skinny members of The Cabal (odyssey block)? Odyssey was a real high water mark for the "doughy white guy" set index.

[forests failed you]

Do you think that part of the reason that the art direction for Magic has become so rigid is because the actual cards within the sets have to fit into the context of the novels?  With earlier sets, all the way up to where the novels started, it seemed like a player was being given merely a glimpse of a strange new world; rather than a completely defined and manufactured  place with an entire backstory already premeditated.

Personally, I almost feel like the novels demand that the artwork become super unified, otherwise it would seem contradictory to people who read the books.  However, I completely agree that the new direction sucks in comparison to what came before.  The fact that every race in magic is so engineered and not open to any kind of artistic interpretation makes the actual artwork droll and unexciting.  The Leonin are a good example;  in fact there are many Leonin cards (and Dross cards for that matter) where the artwork is so stale that it could be almost interchangeable.  By that I mean the artwork for Leonin Shikari and Leonin Elder (or whatever) could be on either card, neither is particularly distinctive.

It is the same story for most of the Kami creatures in Kamigawa.  It almost makes no difference which green spirit card illustrates any give card in the set, because they all look so much alike.

I also feel that when there are such stringent predetermined restrictions on what can be painted it takes away a lot of the flare of the artwork in general.  With the way that the style guide explains how  pictures should be done, there is no room for illustrators who actually have generally unique and interesting styles to do anything related to magic.  Can you imagine an Amy Weber or Drew Tucker Leonin Elder illustration that meshes with the standards set up in the style guide?  Probably not.  In fact there really doesn't seem like there is room for any really good, interesting artwork in the new Magic the Gathering future.  Or, perhaps it is just really difficult to work within the predetermined set of rules and end up with anything that is really great.  There are always exceptions, but they are just that exceptions. 

In older sets you picked out the lame artwork, in the new sets you pick out the pictures that are good. 

One of my friends has an old issue of the duelist where JM being interviewed about being the art director for Ice Age.  In the article they had some of the specific directions he had given to particular artists regarding how they should be portraying art for a particular card.  The direction for Jesters Cap was something similar to:

"It is a hat that a court Jester would wear, you might consider keeping to cold colors, blues and purples, to match the Ice theme of the set"

Sorry to ramble, but the quality of the imaginative images possible while working in that kind of enviornment have got to be infinitely better than when somebody tells the artist:  "Paint a cat guy who looks exactly like this one, holding a sword that looks exactly like this one, in front of this particular building that looks exactly like this."

I prefer cards where it doesn't feel like every little thing has to match up with a novel.  Like Matt implied in his letter, it creates a really narrow, boring, and unrealistically whitewashed version of Magic that is severely lacking in  imagination. 

[Necrologia]

I've actually been thinking quite a bit about the flavor in Magic recently. I agree wholeheartedly with Matt that the style guide is a necessary evil at best. The flat, one dimensional planes/nations/characters they've been cranking out for years now just don't do it for me like what was produced in the early days of Magic. The best example of this phenomenon are the books, I think.

When I first started to get back into Magic around Masques or so, I heard that Wizards was going to be printing books set in the early days of Magic.The flavor text from Ice Age, Fallen Empires, and the Dark gave you a glimpse into these really amazing fantasy worlds. Having Wizards print books about them meant I'd be able to see in depth all the stories that the cards only hinted at. I remember piecing together flavor text about how the Order of Leitbur and the Order of the Ebon hand seemed to have some common origin. Back when I first started playing, I made it a point to snatch up every artifact I saw because the Brothers War fascinated me. Seeing the inner workings of Urza's mind, and understanding how he progressed from the lowly Ornithopter to the mighty Avenger was what I was trying to accomplish with collecting all those artifacts years ago. While hardly the epitome of modern literature, I really enjoyed those early stories. After that I promptly went out and got the books based on the newest block, Invasion. Boy was I disappointed.

The problem was once they reached the modern sets, the cards no longer had enough depth to really last an entire book. Where the older sets would give you a view of an entire world, modern sets  just follow along with whatever the current hero (Gerrard, Khamal, Glissa, etc) is up to. It's much easier to write a story when you have a whole world to mess with, rather just having to follow a given character around and record what's already been said straight out in the cards.

Perhaps compounding this, is that the newer books had hard schedules to work around, ie they had to have the book ready for all the fat pack orders, where the older ones could come out whenever. As a result of this, the stories are just really, really crappy. I haven't read a Magic book since Invasion, but from what I've been able to make out, Onslaught, Mirrodin, and Ice Age all have the exact same story: someone's going to turn into a plainswalker, evil mage tries to exploit this to become one himself, evil mage fails spectacularly, the end. Honestly, are these books being so rushed that they have to copy+paste the same story 3 times?

The message I get from that is that the flavor and art of the game have been completely tossed out in favor of cranking out as much of the same old, same old as possible. Early magic was about fantasy, and things being generally cool/flavorful. Modern magic is all about appealing to the 14+ demongraphic. We're supposed to be Mage Punks, remember? I really wish that wasn't the current direction Magic was heading, but when it's so much more profitable to target young kids full of Ritalin and his week's allowance than broke 20 somethings trying to make it through college without starving, can you really blame them?

[Matt]

Like Matt implied in his letter, it creates a really narrow, boring, and unrealistically whitewashed version of Magic that is severely lacking in  imagination.

Yeah, that was my main point:

You don't wind up with a creative world by pouring your creativity into it at the design stage, then following that design. You do it by haphazardly going in every direction, forcing the audience to use its creativity and imagination to reconcile the disparate elements you've presented them.

They have the creativity process totally upside-down - the audience has this vast pool of imagination, much larger than anything they could tap into directly, so they should use an art plan which incorporates that latent natural resource instead of trying to fabricate it in-house.

True creativity isn't something you hang on the wall to admire. Truly creative works don't make you applaud the maker's imagination; they inspire the audiences' imagination!

I have a lot to say about the books but that will have to wiat while I go take a nap.

[Dozer]

Where the older sets would give you a view of an entire world, modern sets  just follow along with whatever the current hero (Gerrard, Khamal, Glissa, etc) is up to.

I agree here, to a point. Up until Weatherlight, Magic just portrayed a world, a fantastic world that was easy to delve into and get lost in it. Then, from Weatherlight to Fifth Dawn (that's 20 sets!), the cards and the books (which I never read) followed a storyline. It is blatantly obvious from the flavor texts: The Love Song of Night and Day or the Balduvian journal entries or the Sarpadian Empires books were unique to their worlds and made them interesting, deep and rich in flavor. What Hanna, Gerrard and Karn had to say was mostly unimaginative and uninspiring (and formed the most tiring storyline of Magic, ever).

But when Kamigawa came along, I think that Wizards did well. They made a leap away from a person-centered storyline on the cards, at least. It is now that the flavor texts set the world in which the novels take place. Kamigawa felt more holistic than every other set before it since Weatherlight, and I think that is mostly due to the richness and variety of the flavor texts. "Observations of the Kami War" and the letters to (from?) Konda are exactly what Fallen Empires had, too. Sure, there are characters that appear in the novel, but it is easily possible to form a world of one's own imagination seeing the characters represented in the cards and the snippets of flavor text together. It's just that Kamigawa was a world that has not much to do with our classic western fantasy, so the whole effect was rather spoiled for those looking for a return of old principles.

Also, I think that Magic has matured. The game, as a product, has become more streamlined and focused, and the style guide illustrates that very well. I think that is necessary. The game has survived ten years, longer than every other TCG, and it is still growing and going strong! A return to the fuzziness of the past would look wrong. Magic has evolved beyond that. It shows in each aspect of the game: A more unified flavor makes the blocks more distinguishable. The templating has become tighter; gone are the fantasy-like descriptions on the cards, making way for more technical descriptions. For the game to grow and to thrive, that is a huge part of it. Games that don't streamline and exist in a very loose framework of templates and rules often start to unravel, to blather and to fade.

Imagination in Magic is currently bound by very strict guidelines. Magic has become smooth (just like the new cardface is) and has lost many of the craggy features that initially drew us towards this game. It's not just fantasy anymore, or if it is, it's a different kind of fantasy from what we experienced ten years ago. I'd go so far as to say that Magic is a mirror of our society: Everything conforms within a certain variance, rogue and different ideas have to find their place instead of just sticking out -- best if they bundle together, then they become a set. And in addition, Magic's variance is so great that it is difficult for anything to truly stick out.

Ravnica looks to be great flavorwise. I think Magic is back on a good track, or rather has advanced toward it, starting with Kamigawa. Back to a world that is created on the cards in which stories take place which might or might not be written down in the novels. But I know what I would really love to see: A good ol'fashioned fantasy set. Ravnica is close, but it has that city motiv and those fancy "guild" idea. Sure, it's fantasy. But after the Japanese themed block, why not do a Western based block anytime soon? I'd love it, and from that break, Magic could jump off again to new and exciting heights.

Dozer

[Matt]

A more unified flavor makes the blocks more distinguishable. The templating has become tighter; gone are the fantasy-like descriptions on the cards, making way for more technical descriptions. For the game to grow and to thrive, that is a huge part of it.

I can buy the argument that we need a style guide - Cavotta has explained that fairly well. What I disagree with is the specific nature of THIS style guide.

That kind of sweeping visionary stuff sounds good, but it falls apart in the actual details. You say the more unified flavor helps distinguish the blocks. Do you have any problem figuring out what block Goblin Snowman comes from? Or what about Mtenda Herder?

I claim that "unified flavor" leads to homogenity. What fraction of players do you think could correctly match up the names to these cards?



I don't know about you, but any one of those could be a Crypt Creeper or Gluttonous Zombie or Zombie Harpsichord Player. When the cards all look the same, their collective identity (zombies from Otaria) may grow -a little- but their individual identity is subsumed. The card's art only becomes remember-able when it's strong enough to see play. Anything that isn't a strong card in the game becomes just another card to filter through when looking through a stack of commons to find that last Consume Spirit.

I think Kamigawa block started reversing this trend - I know [card]Teller of Tales[/card]' artwork, though I've never played it in constructed nor drafted it in Limited. Why? Because that artwork was eye-catching -- it doesn't look anything like the other Kami. When I see a Kami of the Painted Road, I think "Hey, it's that Painted Road kami!" not "Hey, it's one of those spirit guys from Kamigawa block." You can't say the same about Leonin Squire's artwork - it's just some leonin guy. Not that CHK block was entirely good that way - the akki guys are pretty much interchangeable.

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With the way that the style guide explains how  pictures should be done, there is no room for illustrators who actually have generally unique and interesting styles to do anything related to magic.  Can you imagine an Amy Weber or Drew Tucker Leonin Elder illustration that meshes with the standards set up in the style guide?

I definitely agree. I think that the restriction in art style is the centerpiece of what needs fixing in the style guides. There's really no room in their world for anything but Realism - we never see any illustrations except those that look like we took a video camera to the plane and switched it on. There's none of the impressionism of Drew Tucker, or the flowing paintings of Richard Kane-Ferguson.

Look at the fifth edition Time Bomb, and think about how different that is from today's art. No one is using the time bomb. It's not exploding. What we see is not even probably how the bomb looks, but rather, Pratt has painted how the bomb feels. The exaggerated, wild numbers; the scythe-looking "1"; replacing the numeral '3' with a trio of skulls. None of this is actually what a time bomb LOOKS like but it's still a great art piece. Or check out Armageddon Clock. The clock itself is portrayed in a real-looking way, but it's not sitting in a room on a table. It's viewed in front of a map, but do you think that's some map on the wall? No, it's representative art. Which is not allowed very often in today's Magic. Cards like [card]Time Stop[/card] are the exception that proves the rule. Do you think that representative art hurts the brand in some way? I definitely do NOT.

[Bardo]

I think some of the details that you're scorning are actually pretty relevant. The different designs for the male/female leonin, for example, showed up pretty well on the cards, mostly via the mane (or lack thereof)

That reminds me, though. Is it only me, or is their whole "put breasts on anything female" policy just silly?

Breasts should only be used on gender of the species that breast feeds. Cats are mammals, of course, but if something isn't a mammal or doesn't nurse its young similarly, boobies are silly and out of place.

But cats usually have 5-9 young or so. And 10 massive boobies would clearly get in the way of fighting. It'd look really distrubing too...

Apparently, the Leonin give birth to only 1-2 young, like humans... Or, more likely, it's wank fodder, etc.

Are there no fat Leonin? For that matter, are there no skinny members of The Cabal (odyssey block)? Odyssey was a real high water mark for the "doughy white guy" set index.

Most certainly -- they're just not suitably "mage punk" enough. Whatever the fuck that means.

You don't wind up with a creative world by pouring your creativity into it at the design stage, then following that design. You do it by haphazardly going in every direction, forcing the audience to use its creativity and imagination to reconcile the disparate elements you've presented them.

Cavotta's point about the uniform appearance of Ixidor is relevant. That kind of consistency is certainly appreciated. But your point about the fashion diversity of Balduvians deserves their consideration as well.

Not that CHK block was entirely good that way - the akki guys are pretty much interchangeable.

Well, the akki are all of the same species, but I don't think Kamigawa spirits reproduce through sexual reproduction, there's something much more mysterious in their incarnation than Goblin sperm/ovum, etc.

Look at the fifth edition Time Bomb, and think about how different that is from today's art. No one is using the time bomb. It's not exploding. What we see is not even probably how the bomb looks, but rather, Pratt has painted how the bomb feels. The exaggerated, wild numbers; the scythe-looking "1"; replacing the numeral '3' with a trio of skulls. None of this is actually what a time bomb LOOKS like but it's still a great art piece.

The 5th ed Time Bomb is no doubt a reinterpretation of Amy Weber's Time Bomb from Ice Age, it didn't happen in a vaccuum.



(Parenthetically, Weber is my favorite MtG artist -- she even did my favorite creature card of all time, [card]Phelddagrif[/card]).

Do you think that representative art hurts the brand in some way?

I think the 'realistic art' is actually more harmful to the brand, since so many of those cards are so damn forgettable.

Cards like Time Stop are the exception that proves the rule. Do you think that representative art hurts the brand in some way?

Any card with the word 'time' on it seems to receive special treatment. That's must be part of the 'unwritten style-guide'.

[ctthespian]

Do you think that representative art hurts the brand in some way?

I think the 'realistic art' is actually more harmful to the brand, since so many of those cards are so damn forgettable.

That's my feeling too.  One of the things I've noticed lately is the lack of the iconic pictures of old.  Sure there still around in cards like Darksteel Colossus, and such, but when you have style guides and everything looks similar.  You see a card drop and go ok that's a leonin, I'm just not sure what the hell one it is.  Can I read that.  Where as in the old days cards like Serra, Sengir, Shivan, Armageddon Clock, Holwing Mine, Vise, and Rack to name more than a few were all iconic pictures.  They had a clear focal point and made the picture stick out in your mind.  Even cards like Kane-Ferguson's Sol'kannar is very iconic eventhough the picture itself is not sharp.  You see Sol'Kannar as the icon he's supposed to be.  Most of the cards I've mentioned are Artifacts or creatures.  But what about Storm Seeker, Counterspell, Mana Drain?  Maybe it's just the art for the old days sticks in my minde better because it's been around longer.  However over time I've been having to pick up cards and read them because I think I know what it is as opposed to definetly knowing what it is from the art.

[Bardo]

Most of the cards I've mentioned are Artifacts or creatures.  But what about Storm Seeker, Counterspell, Mana Drain?  Maybe it's just the art for the old days sticks in my mind better because it's been around longer.

It's more likely that those cards are so 'iconic' since that's when you started playing and it's around in your brain longer. I started playing during Revised/Fallen Empires and those early cards are certainly iconic to me, but largely because of my memory.

That said, I think the art direction in the intervening decade has become more 'kid friendly' and there seems to be a greater effort to reel the more abstract artists in (or not contract with them at all) to produce the far more bland garbage we've seen over the past five years. Though wizards still produce some real gems every now, like this one:



Too bad that doesn't cost at the trade-off being a sorcery instead.

[Matt]

Not that CHK block was entirely good that way - the akki guys are pretty much interchangeable.

Well, the akki are all of the same species, but I don't think Kamigawa spirits reproduce through sexual reproduction, there's something much more mysterious in their incarnation than Goblin sperm/ovum, etc.

D'oh, I meant to say "wasn't."

Though wizards still produce some real gems every now, like this one:

Yeah, I should have mentioned that when they DO dive into abstract, representational art these days, it's really really good:

[Bram]

I totally agree with Matt on this.

'Telling Time' is not representative of Wizards' current policy; it's just Scott Fischer being awesome. He's done incredible art for ChronX too, almost a decade ago now.

[dandan]

Artistic impression is very low down on my cranial checklist. At the louvre I found myself imagining lines from the corner of the frames to anything remotely angular and then looked to see if any cerubs' wings got clipped. Either one side of my brain is disfunctional or the other is dominant.

Even I saw Time Stop and thought 'Nice-looking card'.

I completely agree that too many cards are too similar. Let the artists use their imaginations and let us use ours.

[Jacob Orlove]

Though wizards still produce some real gems every now, like this one:

Yeah, I should have mentioned that when they DO dive into abstract, representational art these days, it's really really good:

Actually, that is entirely Fischer, and pretty much not any other artists. His art on Death of a Thousand Stings, Freed from the Real, and the previously mentioned Time Stop and Telling Time are all spectacular. His other Kamigawa Block work is also really, really good and in many ways better than many of the pieces he's done for other sets. I suspect the Kamigawa style guide may have actually been quite conducive to good art, and Ravnica looks like it will also do well in that department.

[Matt]

New article. My reply:

Dear Matt Cavotta,
Regarding your article "Honeymoon in Dominaria":
I think you're missing a legitimate criticism of recent Magic art just because it's being drowned out by lots of players who really are simply pining for the good old days. There's a very real, very demonstratable difference between older art and newer that has nothing to do with the "golden age" effect.

Magic nowadays allows virtually only one art style - realism. Every card has an almost "photographic" look to it - every picture is supposed to look just as a camera would see it. I suppose this is intended to make the audience feel like they're "in" the setting, but it just feels boring when juxtaposed with pre-Tempest sets.

Take a look at the Fifth Edition Time Bomb, and think about how different that is from today's art. No one is using the bomb. It's not exploding. What we see is not even probably how the bomb would actually look to a person in the room, but rather, Pratt has painted how the bomb FEELS. The exaggerated, wild numbers; the scythe-looking "1"; replacing the numeral '3' with a trio of skulls. None of this is actually what a time bomb LOOKS like but it's still a great art piece. Or check out Armageddon Clock. The clock itself is portrayed in a real-looking way, but it's not sitting in a room on a table (as I would expect if the card were redone today). It's viewed in front of a map, but do you think that's an actual, physical map on the wall? No, it's representative of the entire world - it's representational art. Which is not allowed very often in today's Magic. Cards like Time Stop are the exception that proves the rule.

There used to be many different styles in sets. The bulk have always been semi-realist (as real as fantasy art gets), but we used to also have goofy-cartoony (the Foglios), serious-cartoony (Quinton Hoover), impressionistic (Drew Tucker, Harold McNeilll), abstract (Mark Tedin's Braingeyse), and still life (Dingus Egg, Tedin's Jayemdae Tome). Along the way we picked up Rebecca Guay...and dropped all the others! Urza's Saga had a neat little jaunt into whatever Henry G. Higgenbotham's style is called (I'm no art student, so please forgive me if I'm misusing some of these terms) but that was featured on only four cards.

I think when you say you appreciate the "technique and color and composition" of newer art, you're missing the point. Those things are difficult to appreciate when shrunk down to the sixe of two postage stamps, and furthermore I think that's the art student in you - I don't think most players are well-versed enough to appreciate those aspects of Magic art. But they sure do notice the (lack of) styles I'm talking about, and that's not rose-colored glasses speaking.

I hope to see this addressed at some point. Thank you for your time.

-Matt

[Bram]

Again, I concur.

From Cavotta's article:

The theory is that Magic is a personal and precious thing to those who play it,
and the strong feelings they have for this amazing game can warp their objectivity.

What nonsense. A fallacious argument if ever I heard one. One could use this to 'prove' virtually anything. If it is true, then either a. Cavotta has no strong feelings for the game, or b. he cannot judge if the art is objectively better any more than us 'Golden Age' fans can.

I am reminded of a lecture I recently attended where the lecturer stated 'there is a difference between reality as it is and reality as we percieve it'. I called shenanigans! Implicitly, we cannot know this, since our only means of examining reality is perception.

Regarding art, how can he speak of objectivity anyway? It's like saying 'OK, well Bram likes Van Gogh the best, but that's only because he grew up with a poster of Van Gogh's Sunflowers on the wall. OBVIOUSLY Rembrandt is the objectively better painter!'. Bah.

[forests failed you]

It seems really bizarre that shortly after the style guide went up, Cavotta publishes an article basically saying "No, No, No the art is good really...  You guys just don't see it because you are still hung up on the golden age..."  He must have gotten a bunch of letters similar to Matt's that were critical of his Style Guide. 

BTW, mad props to you for writing him in the first place.  I thought you did a really nice job clearly critiquing the Style Guide.

[Matt]

Thanks. I like my second reply better.

[Bardo]

I am reminded of a lecture I recently attended where the lecturer stated 'there is a difference between reality as it is and reality as we percieve it'. I called shenanigans! Implicitly, we cannot know this, since our only means of examining reality is perception.

It's Kant's whole noumena and phenomena-thing. That is, things as they are in themselves vs. how things appear. Things still exist whether or not we are around to experience them after all. Don't be so solipsistic Bram.

There used to be many different styles in sets.

This is lamentable. Especially for players of the eternal formats who pick and choose which cards to incorporate into their decks, and don't give a wank about the uniformity of block "technique and color and composition." Bollocks.

Anyway, that was nicely written Matt.

[Bram]

It's Kant's whole noumena and phenomena-thing. That is, things as they are in themselves vs. how things appear. Things still exist whether or not we are around to experience them after all. Don't be so solipsistic Bram.

My point was that, even when conceding this, there's know way of knowing if 'things as they are' are different from they way we percieve them since perception is our only tool. While the nomen (or 'res') may well exist seperately from the phenomenon, they may well we identical, and we'll never know it, is all I'm saying

Hence, Cavotta is wrong. QED.

[Matt]

I am not familiar with your philosophers, but...there actually is a way to test whether perception is the same as reality. The very existence of the phrase "optical illusion" attests to that!

Just because it LOOKS like there's water on the road from afar, but up close it doesn't, doesn't imply that the water just up and moved. The water was never there at all!

I kind of suspect I am not using the word "perception" in the same way as you two however.

[Bardo]

My point was that, even when conceding this, there's know way of knowing if 'things as they are' are different from they way we percieve them since perception is our only tool.

Cold, hard logic, that's how.

I'm not a philosopher (not moreso than anyone else), but my operating defintion for perception here is: the mental reconstruction of an object (even an idea) delivered to our brains through our sense organs.

But yes, things are not always as they seem.

For instance, I have a habit of thinking many women are quite attractive at a distance. (I'm an optimist after all). But upon closer examination, I'll often wish I kept my distance and retained my previous mental image of their beauty.

This might have something to do with Magic art. Or maybe not. Nice thread though.

[ctthespian]

Most of the cards I've mentioned are Artifacts or creatures.  But what about Storm Seeker, Counterspell, Mana Drain?  Maybe it's just the art for the old days sticks in my mind better because it's been around longer.

It's more likely that those cards are so 'iconic' since that's when you started playing and it's around in your brain longer. I started playing during Revised/Fallen Empires and those early cards are certainly iconic to me, but largely because of my memory.

That could be true however, I think new players unfamiliar with ever playing magic would find it much easier to remember the older art styles than the newer one.  The older cards like Storm Seeker, Counterspell, Jade Statue and many others had very stark, iconic, images that stood out as opposed to cards like the Leonins from the Mirrodin block.  I'm sure the new player would have a much easier time remembering and differentiating between Counterspell and Mana Drain over a cards like Leonin Battle Mage and Leonin Elder.  I think by trying to streamline the look of cards into looking similar you can cause confusion easily.   Sure the player might say oh that's a Leonin, but he'd not be sure what one it was easily.

-Keith

[Bardo]

I think by trying to streamline the look of cards into looking similar you can cause confusion easily.   Sure the player might say oh that's a Leonin, but he'd not be sure what one it was easily.

Yes, that's a good point*. I think Alpha had the best overall art of all of the MtG sets ever-printed. And I can't put my finger on it since I'm not an art student, but yeah, the style is distinctly "classic." Whatever that means.

This either says a lot of Jesper Myrfors (the first art director, I think) or says a lot of shitty things about subsequent directors. It's probably a little bit of both, but more the latter than the former.

By and large, Magic art post-Tempest or so blows.  There are some notable exeptions, which even rival the earlierst art in terms of sheer awesomeness, but those pieces (like Time Stop) are rare exceptions. And even the best of the "new" art is on cards with those nasty-ass looking frames. And even the coolest art on the new frames pales when placed side-by-side with a Beta Sol Ring.


edit - * your post as a whole, not just the chunk I quoted.