[Poll] What looks better? Old cards or new cards?

[Evenpence]

Here's a list broken up into blocks starting at the most recent if you need help:

Guildpact
Ravnica: City of Guilds

Saviors of Kamigawa
Betrayers of Kamigawa
Champions of Kamigawa

Fifth Dawn
Darksteel
Mirrodin

Scourge
Legions
Onslaught

Judgment
Torment
Odyssey

Apocalypse
Planeshift
Invasion

Prophecy
Nemesis
Mercadian Masques

Urza's Destiny
Urza's Legacy
Urza's Saga

Exodus
Stronghold
Tempest

Weatherlight
Visions
Mirage

(the remainders weren't really in blocks)

Alliances
Ice Age
Homelands
Fallen Empires
The Dark
Legends
Antiquities
Arabian Nights
Our Beloved Alpha Sets

Also, do you have a favorite artist?  If so, tell us!  My personal favorite is Douglas Schuler (you should be able to tell from the Force of Nature for my avatar.)  Christopher Rush is a close second, with DannyMox being third.

Quinton Hoover is very high up there as well.

As you can tell, I definitely liked the Alpha-The Dark era.  The cards are just so beautiful, and everything flows, and everything is exactly what it is - not some story going on inside a card or anything like that.  I love the backrounds on the artifacts, especially, just having the artifact there, not being held by someone or anything like that.  A beta Rod of Ruin or Disrupting Scepter are where my tastes lie.

[vartemis]

This poll leaves alot to interpretation.  What exactly do you mean by aesthetics?  I chose mirage-destiny because I thought the art and colors were cool.  The blue and green borders really jumped out at me.  Mirage was also the first box I ever got (christmas present).  I remember opening up the packs.  In the first pack I opened was  a SotN.  I must have stared at that art for ages. The dragons were cool, the Dreadnought was awesome, and even horrible hordes had cool art.  I think Mirage IMO was when artists started to make humans look "real", for example the 2 green enchantment poppers in Mirage.  Flavor wise the set was cool.  The majority of creatures were safari like. Mtenda Lion was cool because its rules made sense in real life.  Yes it was a powerful cat, but throw a bunch of water at it and it turns into a harmless kitty.

[Klep]

I just prefer anything from the period before Cranston took over as art director.  He's a real screwup.

[Matt]

I voted FE-AL. I like the post-Dark cardface, with the less blurry everything, and the copyright date. What puts this over the Mirage era is how they colored the lands - the purple pinline in IA/AL was awesome, as was the blue in HL.

[Evenpence]

After The Dark, cards just started looking poor.  I started playing during Unlimited, and I thought the cards were amazing looking.  Everyone remembers seeing Shivan Dragon for the first time and going, "Holy crap, how can they get cards that detailed?"

Fallen Empires came out, and I bought a ton because I loved the cards, (it's probably my favorite set aside Alliances,) but I HATED the art.

I liked some of the cards from the Mirage block, but not the majority by any means.

Tempest block rocked my world, though.  All those pictures of Gerrard, you could make a freaking story with your magic collection.  That's just genius.

Hated the pictures from Saga.  They're crap.

I had just started to get used to it [the new crap art] when Masques came out.  I was pretty disappointed with the Masques art.  Another strike in my book for the memoribility of magic.  I don't want to remember throwing down Port and winning the game with it.  Looks like crap.  I want to win with beauty, like the majestic Lotus, or Old School Juggernaut.

You should have seen me when I saw the new cardface.  (8th edition/mirrodin).  Absolutely furious.  I couldn't stand the way anything looked.  Chalice of the Void looked like a white card.  I was irate.

I got out of type II and haven't returned.  I'm not joking.  Affinity made me leave too, but I just couldn't take staring at these horrible looking cards.  That's a stupid reason, I know, but I hate the new cardface to no end.

Red, Blue, and Artifact Cards are really the measure of a great card for me.  You have your occasional beauties (Beta Balance, Beta Instill Energy, Beta Dark Ritual) in other colors, but the real meat of good looking cards from the sets I like are all Red, Blue, or Artifacts, and Mirrodin screwed me over on that one.

Btw, Klep, who's Cranston?  When did he take over?  Mirrodin?

[Matt]

Jeremy Cranston is the art director, and has been for awhile. Long before Mirrodin.

[Evenpence]

Oh.  When'd he start?  Like, Masques, or something like Fallen Empires?   

[Matt]

Heh it's actually Jeremy Cranford.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/authorarchive&author=JeremyCranford

[Klep]

Heh it's actually Jeremy Cranford.

Whatever it is, he's a tool and he's done nothing good and much detrimental to the art.

[Evenpence]

After reading all of his articles, I can say that I definitely disagree with him on some aspects, especially on Mirrodin.

The first picture of the Vault of Whispers, with the Industrialization is FREAKING AWESOME.  I mean, it's an ARTIFACT LAND.

The finished, Vault of Whispers that you see now SUCKS compared the prototype.

What was his explaination?  It needed more green - methane gas.

WHAT!?

Klep, you are so right.


EDIT: 

Oh, and the idea for flat rooftops to be plains:  BRILLIANT.  That sketch looks amazing.  Why did he choose to scrap it?

[Anusien]

The set Mirage has, overall, better artwork than any other set.  Especially reprints.  You can put up any card in Mirage-Visions versus any other reprint and the Mirage-Visions wins, except for Mirage lands versus APAC and Unglued/Unhinged.

versus

Actually, as far as aesthetics go, that Quicksand with the weird text box color is one of my absolute favorites.

[jpmeyer]

I voted FE-AL. I like the post-Dark cardface, with the less blurry everything, and the copyright date. What puts this over the Mirage era is how they colored the lands - the purple pinline in IA/AL was awesome, as was the blue in HL.

[Machinus]

I really like the look and feel of older cards, but my personal favorite are the super-saturated cards that came out of Exodus and Saga. I have a lot of cards with way too much ink/dye and they just look badass compared to the regular versions.

[Evenpence]

I do love the way they did the pinstripe on the lands.  Arabian Nights and Alliances had to be my two favorites with this.

Alliances is my favorite set.  I love the art in it, I really do.  The whole set is just amazing, however, it's in a separate era.  Ice Age/Homelands/Fallen Empires, etc were not all that impressive for me.  Alliances was like doing it old school for me.

[dandan]

Putting the old textured backgrounds in the new card text boxes would help a lot, as would having a long hard look at the card background colours (too 'bubbly' compared to the old cards). I think that it is very hard to judge the artwork as some newer cards are awesome whereas some older cards sucked. I do have the impression that overall art has gone downhill with too many similar cards.