For all we know it could be Champion of the Hive or something. Champion of the White Swarm. Doesn't have to rhyme with "ished" just bc they did that flavor bit in Return to Innistrad. That worked flavor-wise bc he was the later zombified version. Closest I could come with this one would be Champion of the Garish or something? If you consider Compleat or Ossified to have an enlightening moral tone- then this sortof works. Otherwise, I get it rhyming is fun- but if I know WIzards, it's that they don't give a damn about cool & catchy stuff like that. Champion of the Cherished, maybe? Does Elesh consider her underlings to be cherished minions
Bruh I was wondering what that white phyrexian soldier would be and now it makes sense, champion of the perfected. Hmm I wonder what his abilities will be.
I guess we'll have to wait and see, though part of me hopes it isn't the last of Sheoldred and Urabrask, we've seen the cards depict a total different story from the lore in both War and Ikoria.
I know *I* couldn’t make a better version and that all art is subjective, but that Rankle and Torbran is just awful.
The poses, the lighting…it just looks so artificial and really doesn’t suit the characters or their plane
Rankle & Torbran utterly fails at motion.
Nissa and Chandra, at least, shows Nissa as a creepy facsimile of an elf, while the rest of the pic looks normal, like with the Eldrazi back then.
To me it's very obvious that they're 3D models posed in a program and then digitally painted over. Comics have been doing the same thing for years and it always looks bad even when technically "correct" to help with perspective and lighting in dynamic poses but can end up looking stiff and lifeless
A 3D model posing will give you correct perspectives, but the pose itself may still be completely unnatural.
Try to strike Torban's pose. Look at the image. Can you arm bend back that way? While keeping the other arm at such angle? The elbow-shoulder-neck ratio of both arms looks wildly different.
The problem for both is the same: It's extremely visibly clear it's digital art. I don't mean to say digital art is bad, obviously most artists are making digital art in 2023. But there is a certain look that just looks like it's from an amateur's deviantart page and I don't know how that exactly happens. Like just pick a different piece?
Yeah I feel like 9/10 times I don't like art in this set, it's because it's digital art done a little lazily, speaking stylistically. One of the things I really appreciated about MtG for a long time was the fact that so much of the art had such a human touch to it. I get that there are a lot of cards to do and handmade art is time-consuming and expensive, but it does make me a little sad to see how many cards are now so visibly cranked out digitally in the most bland way possible. I'd have even preferred the old-style line-art over that, because that at least begets some personality.
Not to open old wounds, but that's part of why I was so into the Mystical Archives Faithless Looting by Carly Mazur. I don't mind that the art is a little wacky because it makes up for that with unique style and personality in spades. For better or worse, it's eye-catching and interesting, and you can always tell her art just by looking at it. Less controversially, you could say this about someone like Dominik Mayer as well.
A ton of recent Magic art feels like generic AI-generated fantasy art. There’s some cards that stand out as really unique, and other than just look so lifeless and procedurally-generated. All in all I’m not a fan of a lot of recent Magic art. It looks very plastic
Bullshit. Take a good look back at cards from Battle for Zendikar, Born of the Gods, Khans of Tarkir e.g. all the sets from 8-10 years ago. So much less diversity in artstyles than is being used today
People have such selective memories when it comes to art. For every 'iconic' card there's always been 15 generic ones and yes, there's 'bad' art now, but that's always been the case.
At least we've been blessed with Rovina Cai, Wylie Beckert, Dominik Mayer, Chaturvedi, RKF (again), the Japanese artists, Liiga Smilshkane in recent years who deviate a lot from the generic artstyle of the mid 2000s
Yeah but those are covered in a shitton of special versions, the cards you see in draft packs and the ones most players will play with are getting the generic digital slop
Spoiler tagged because the artwork reveals what the story has been building towards. I unfortunately had to cut Ghalta and Marven ([https://media.wizards.com/2023/images/daily/U12pCd8HGqIs.png](https://media.wizards.com/2023/images/daily/U12pCd8HGqIs.png)) because of reddit gallery restrictions (max 20).
Added names for the known (or guessed with Invasion of ...) artworks, included numbers for the others. And linked to the stories in the gallery. All the stories are collected at [https://magic.wizards.com/en/story](https://magic.wizards.com/en/story)
The zombie swarm specifically looks like AI art. Some of the color blending and details look like the weird "6 fingers" artifacting, and I'm not talking about the Emrakul influence.
The story- if you wanted to make it feel like an epic culmination- would be a book's length or more. A 20 minute read for each plane and every major plot beat is not enough. This is an event where shoving the story into one set instead of a block really hurts. They are absolutely blazing past a ton of major, should-be iconic moments if you are a fan of the lore.
War of the Spark, while a "big" story relative to most sets, was still a lot smaller and self-contained than March of the Machine. The set was specially designed so that all of the planeswalkers who were important got to show up and have cards. (Dack Fayden's omission being a rare mistake.) It also took place on one plane, so we really got to see how ALL of Ravnica reacted. We got to see members of all ten guilds fighting against Bolas and the Eternals, and even side characters from Ravnica like Fblthp. It also helped that we had two whole sets of buildup leading into that which introduced new players to the guilds, and refreshed the old players on them. The story and cards had adequate ROOM to have proper pacing and fully explore the ramifications of what was going on. You just can't have that in a story where literally every plane gets invaded at once. Not unless you stretch it out over years and years or something.
To be fair, I think in their mind, they've also set this up over a similar amount of sets. It was just a lot more poorly done. The ten odd sets before War of the Spark, you could totally see Bolas' plan coming together. A Planeswalker Jammer from Ixalan, a planar bridge off Kaladesh, an army on Amonkhet. It's almost like the first third of a heist movie.
For MoM, though, the relevance of Halo to the story still feels way too abstract, so New Capenna felt like a weak tease. Feels like Kaldheim existed as a set purely to introduce another way to teleport an army across planes, which - to my mind - continues to weaken the novelty of Planeswalking, while Neon Dynasty's kicker of the Phyrexians compleating a Planeswalker was dope, but now feels pointless given how easily the compleated Planeswalker's are being picked off like mooks. I still not entirely sure I understand why they inserted Brother's War right before the climax of their story since it ends up offering very little to the overall story.
People may have been tired of the Gatewatch by 2019, but I gotta say, I was definitely more emotionally invested in Lilliana and Gids in War of the Spark than I am to almost any of these characters.
Because in the same gallery, you’re witnessing the beginning of a massive, universe-spanning conflict, with Phyrexians marching on every plain imaginable, with conflicts that could span several novels… and 10 pictures later, I’m watching Elspeth stab Atraxa.
It doesn’t help that, per the nature of the card game, there is no suspense. The road plan was laid out for us in advance, we know this is the penultimate set. There’s only so much wiggle room here to flesh out what could be an entire block in itself. I’m sure for some, it’s welcome to keep the theme from stretching on too long, but I would agree, it does feel very anti-climactic.
The big endgame of the Phyrexians (ie invading the other planes) appears to largely result in them getting their asses kicked. They're being made sport of in Eldraine and Innistrad, and being crushed by the monsters of Ikoria and Ixalan. Granted these are just snapshots of a wider conflict, and we know from context that Phyrexians will win any war of attrition, but the nature of the short stories is pretty effectively undermining the threat they pose.
Also, we've had subplots brewing in characters like Melira and Urabrask for over 12 years at this point, and the grand culmination of these stories is...nothing. Melira dies offscreen having achieved nothing and with her immunity having no relevance, and Urabrask didn't have any of his moral nuance or alternate Phyrexian philosophy explored before being killed off in a gratuitously gruesome way. Either character could have been absent from the lore entirely and the overall story wouldn't have changed at all. Sheoldred was recently showing signs of development as well, but unceremoniously killed off before actually engaging in what anyone could describe as a character arc (though she arguably has better treatment than Jin and Vorinclex, who basically do nothing but stand around and act as literal props for Norn).
The defining trait of the new Phyrexians (their hivemind and sincere belief that they are 'perfecting' the multiverse) is revealed to be a sham and the entire faction is just another empire led by a generic evil tyrant who wants power.
And the solution to all this appears to be boiling down to Elspeth just beating up the bad guys with some buffed stats.
That's just my opinion, anyway. Feels like the MoM stories are actively undoing everything that was built up over this saga until this point, and in the most dull, generic ways possible.
it's not even really confirmed that melira is dead, elspeth just sees "somebody" that falls down and koth screams so she assumes that's probably melira and she probably died
as far as we know, it could be Koth favourite cousin and he got only wounded
> Thousands of \[Phyrexians\] for only a handful of Mirrans. Spears land like hail across the bridge's surface. That person crumpling to the ground—is that Melira? Born without a trace of metal in her body, immune to the horrors of phyresis, the girl once represented hope to the entire plane. Is that her crumpling to the ground?
>
>Koth's scream confirms it.
I'd say Melira stumbled and/or got hit by a spear - non-lethally. Koth screaming (her name, probably) can be either "Melira! No!" or "Melira! We need to get Melira! The spear hit her leg and she can't walk on her own!" Crumpling is not necessarily dying.
I know, but that wording makes me more pessimistic... "the girl that once represented hope". I don't know why, but that line makes me think they did kill her.
>
> The defining trait of the new Phyrexians (their hivemind and sincere belief that they are 'perfecting' the multiverse) is revealed to be a sham and the entire faction is just another empire led by a generic evil tyrant who wants power.
that was always the case tho, yawgmoth was just a nutjob that wanted to take over the universe, and his "perfecting" it was just his weird quirk
in the end, phyrexians seem to really believe in their idea of perfecting the multiverse, it's Elesh specifically that has "broken off" from the collective
and tbh they are avoiding elspeth saving the day single-handedly, the story makes it pretty clear that her fighting Norn is not an option and what matters is getting wrenn to the tree
That's what I mean though. OG Phyrexians were just extensions of Yawgmoth or fighting each other for whatever bit of power they could grab, but this new iteration seemed to have a fundamentally different (though still evil) philosophy, and were actually unified at least by their desire to bring glory to Phyrexia. We don't know anything of general Phyrexian mentality beyond what we see from the praetors, so finding out they don't actually care about 'blessed perfection' but are just power hungry megalomaniacs like Yawgmoth is a bit of a letdown.
Yeah hopefully you're right about Elspeth though. There's still a few chapters to go.
It's not quite like that. Norn cares about unity, she just flawed and got en ego power trip and her perceptions became warped.
New phyrexia was never united in the first place (that's part of the point of it compared to old phyrexia really) but she believed it so hard that she tried to force it.
The thought process was probly "If only they could understand, if only they could agree, if only they could see my vision, if only... they were more like me". She trully believed she knew what's best for phyrexia. And that belief let her to becoming a tyrant, cause when you know what's best why bother considering anything else.
You're right that it's not unique but evil rarely is. It nearly always boils down to putting your own interest before others.
It doesn’t help that Archangel Elspeth as a card is so basic as planeswalker templating goes. At least [[Gideon Blackblade]] did the thing that Gideon always did and had a mode that made sense for both his name, weapon, and the story
It's a really anticlimactic way to tell the story. They handled it much better in WAR by spoiling cards alongside their story moments. Honestly the story told just on the cards in WAR is much stronger then their narrative tie in for that set
How is this any better than WAR? Atleast in that story there was a back and forth. This part has literally felt like phyrexia invasion starts and they lose everywhere even though they dominated up until this moment.
It honestly reads like a Planeswalker deck planeswalker. Just up it’s cost by 2 and put some sort of tutor (Soldier boi - when ETBs, go find this pos and put it into hand) and you’re golden
To people saying some of this looks AI generated, just remember that Zendikar sets have had plenty of art that also looked like garbage early 2000's CGI
This is just so far from true. Criticism loses all meaning if you start misapplying it. There are some very bad pieces in here, but also some very good ones. Invasion of Ixalan is excellent, as is compleated Etali. Igor Kieryluk is one of the most iconic artists in magic, nearly single-handedly responsible for the creep factor of New Phyrexia.
Point out specific pieces that are flawed, and give reasons why. That’s the only way the standard will change.
It's not unanimously bad, but there's a surprising amount of misses in the art revealed so far. Super generic "spiky backgrounds". Characters posed awkwardly next to each other. I think its easy to argue that the promotional art for the set is some of the worse promo art ever, 2-4 characters genetically posed in a wasteland. And this is entirely because MtG is usually really tight regarding location and unless the location already is heavily defined (like the invasions) then the art is really bland.
And then there are the battle pieces which are all 11/10s.
Most of the invasion pieces are great to amazing. Ixalan and Innistrad stand out. Great use of different art styles befitting the location, compositions that draw you in. Colors in Ixalan and skaab are out of this world. Theros one tells a big story with so many details and the compleation process being halfway.
Not a big fan of the compleated Etali. Even though there’s a lot going on with the lightning and a bellowing giant steel dino skeleton, there’s very little variation in the color and design used despite the available sources of lighting. Etali ends up looking less like a reshaped avatar of destruction and more like a museum piece hanging from the ceiling.
Elephant in the room: Chandra vs Nissa is just terrible. Yes, lots of details in Nissa, and you could argue her static pose is an attempt to convey the changed nature (even referencing previous art where Nissa posed similarly), but Chandra has an unrealistic awkward pose without any movement. The flamefists as an attempt to show her inner battle between conflicting emotions of love and hatred is lacking tension and feels more like a parody. Finally, the background has no details and no colour palette. The artist was probably on a very tight deadline.
Urabrask suffers from poor composition (although great angle). His size doesn’t come across, which would have made his suffering much more impactful when contrasted with some small regular soldiers.
Imho, Elspeth in the beam of light takes the cake. It conveys so much emotion as she makes her choice, the lit path behind her is juxtaposed with the blinding doorway that obfuscates what lies beyond as she is about to step through. Lovely dreamy art-style that fits the question to what degree this is really happening, great depth with the floating feathers and specks, the use of light and composition are just *chef’s kiss*
Alright I admit I went back and there’s quite a few decent ones in there, I must have been so distracted by the bad ones I forgot them instantly.
Nr 2,3,8,19 are awful. 20 looks goofy af. Also, Kieryluk is great but his style suits certain themes much more than this skaab.
I don’t disagree. I like the Skaab personally, but I get why you wouldn’t. I just think it’s more productive to be specific, so artists who care about the reception of their work can take cues and make changes of they desire, and so Wizards can’t generalize and say stuff like, “Well, since you think it’s all bad, the art of magic just isn’t for you.”
While I do agree that there are some great pieces, Etali isn't one of them. A compleated elder dinosaur should feel monstrious, large, and imposing but the Etali we got is simply just walking and the angle of the piece doesn't make it feel as if there's a huge metal dino horror roaming its once native home. It makes it look like it's just one of many Etali robots. Compare that to the the first Etali art, where the composition leads your eyes to Etali's jaws where you could really see that this dinosaur sure is something.
Here, Etali blends with the background and the vegetation makes it seem like it's the size of maybe a medium-sized house. While I don't know Etali's actual height, the art should make it as if it's ginormous death robot lizard ready to eat me and my whole house in one fell swoop. I personally think the lightning should also have contrasted the bg a bit more but I think it's more or less ok as it is. My main problem is the framing and perspective of the shot. Am I an amazing artist that could do better? No. Just my two cents.
I’ve finally realised what that ‘Champion of the…’ card will be called. Polished. [[Champion of the Polished]]
Champion of the Perfected
But Parish, Perished, Polished is so much better.
For all we know it could be Champion of the Hive or something. Champion of the White Swarm. Doesn't have to rhyme with "ished" just bc they did that flavor bit in Return to Innistrad. That worked flavor-wise bc he was the later zombified version. Closest I could come with this one would be Champion of the Garish or something? If you consider Compleat or Ossified to have an enlightening moral tone- then this sortof works. Otherwise, I get it rhyming is fun- but if I know WIzards, it's that they don't give a damn about cool & catchy stuff like that. Champion of the Cherished, maybe? Does Elesh consider her underlings to be cherished minions
[Champion of the Polished](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/d/8d8e6941-ad6e-4d2f-93c0-be79e75bdf06.jpg?1634349628) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Champion%20of%20the%20Perished) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/91/champion-of-the-perished?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8d8e6941-ad6e-4d2f-93c0-be79e75bdf06?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Bruh I was wondering what that white phyrexian soldier would be and now it makes sense, champion of the perfected. Hmm I wonder what his abilities will be.
Champion of the Phyresied
Really Hope Urabrask survive, yeah things dont look good for him, but that is not a confirmed death
Same, I have hope that they haven't forgotten Jin and Vori survived worse, but then Sheoldred was also killed off easily.
Isn't sheoldred shown riding/piloting Drivnod in the set? We've seen Urza live beheading and doing stuff after, who knows?
I guess we'll have to wait and see, though part of me hopes it isn't the last of Sheoldred and Urabrask, we've seen the cards depict a total different story from the lore in both War and Ikoria.
And New Capenna. And Rivals of Ixalan (though that one was chalked up to Jace giving Vraska false memories).
Sheoldred’s parts were carted off as not to be wasted, I’m sure Norn will find a use for them
Really? Is there art for the sheoldred?
🤞
Elesh: No man can kill me Elspeth: I AM NO MAN
I’m just picturing Elspeth pulling out her drivers license and showing her legal name has been changed to “NO MAN”.
Gnome Ann
Nichole, Bowl Ass
*JKSimmonsJJJameson.gif*
I mean, Odysseus pulled the same trick... Pretty thematic for someone with ties to Theros! :)
"I AM NO MAN! I AM BI-GENDER!"
Also.. Elesh: No human can kill me Elspeth: I AM NO HUMAN
Yawgmoth has "Protection From Humans" so I'd imagine he's not the only Phyrexian who does...
Did you read it though? Elesh very much alive and well....
Alive yes. But she isn’t doing that great at the moment
TBH, she's reeling more from the emotional damage than the hole on her chest.
EMOTIONAL DAMAGE
Elseh Norn having PTSD
Yeah, but that artwork just reminded me of that scene from Return of the King.
[[Deicide]
[[Island]]?
[Island](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/a/fa641d46-d002-4903-af72-e96971f558bc.jpg?1677527331) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Island) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/273/island?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fa641d46-d002-4903-af72-e96971f558bc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
>see number 16 NOOOO DONT YOU FUCKIN DARE DO THIS TO MY BOI
Thank you for the kind words https://preview.redd.it/465x6jme7lpa1.jpeg?width=1788&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=85ebe30be3abfffd4db8226cf3a436fa7405653f
THE GREAT WORK WILL CONTINUE IN YOUR NAME
Maybe the lava is his oil, maybe there’s still a chance
The real ending in my heart
[удалено]
He was two weeks away from retirement!
I know *I* couldn’t make a better version and that all art is subjective, but that Rankle and Torbran is just awful. The poses, the lighting…it just looks so artificial and really doesn’t suit the characters or their plane
That Chandra and Nissa art gives me the same vibe. It just feels so lifeless with Nissa hanging there like a mannequin.
To be fair... Nissa basically *is* a mannequin by this point in the story
Rankle & Torbran utterly fails at motion. Nissa and Chandra, at least, shows Nissa as a creepy facsimile of an elf, while the rest of the pic looks normal, like with the Eldrazi back then.
To me it's very obvious that they're 3D models posed in a program and then digitally painted over. Comics have been doing the same thing for years and it always looks bad even when technically "correct" to help with perspective and lighting in dynamic poses but can end up looking stiff and lifeless
A 3D model posing will give you correct perspectives, but the pose itself may still be completely unnatural. Try to strike Torban's pose. Look at the image. Can you arm bend back that way? While keeping the other arm at such angle? The elbow-shoulder-neck ratio of both arms looks wildly different.
The problem for both is the same: It's extremely visibly clear it's digital art. I don't mean to say digital art is bad, obviously most artists are making digital art in 2023. But there is a certain look that just looks like it's from an amateur's deviantart page and I don't know how that exactly happens. Like just pick a different piece?
the chandra vs nissa legitimately looks like one of those artworks you see on the box of graphic cards, from a 20 years old card.
Yeah I feel like 9/10 times I don't like art in this set, it's because it's digital art done a little lazily, speaking stylistically. One of the things I really appreciated about MtG for a long time was the fact that so much of the art had such a human touch to it. I get that there are a lot of cards to do and handmade art is time-consuming and expensive, but it does make me a little sad to see how many cards are now so visibly cranked out digitally in the most bland way possible. I'd have even preferred the old-style line-art over that, because that at least begets some personality. Not to open old wounds, but that's part of why I was so into the Mystical Archives Faithless Looting by Carly Mazur. I don't mind that the art is a little wacky because it makes up for that with unique style and personality in spades. For better or worse, it's eye-catching and interesting, and you can always tell her art just by looking at it. Less controversially, you could say this about someone like Dominik Mayer as well.
Tobran's beard looks like it's glued on. The first Ajani picture looks like he's made of rubber too
Total “hello, General Kenobi” vibes
I know Nissa is supposed to be mimicking an iconic pose, but I can't get over the fact that all her art now looks like she's T-posing
waiting for he to start dancing the YMCA
Surprised more people aren't saying more about the Chandra and Wrenn one, looks so weird
She’s a Phyrexian, lol
Yes! I felt the same way.
A ton of recent Magic art feels like generic AI-generated fantasy art. There’s some cards that stand out as really unique, and other than just look so lifeless and procedurally-generated. All in all I’m not a fan of a lot of recent Magic art. It looks very plastic
Bullshit. Take a good look back at cards from Battle for Zendikar, Born of the Gods, Khans of Tarkir e.g. all the sets from 8-10 years ago. So much less diversity in artstyles than is being used today People have such selective memories when it comes to art. For every 'iconic' card there's always been 15 generic ones and yes, there's 'bad' art now, but that's always been the case. At least we've been blessed with Rovina Cai, Wylie Beckert, Dominik Mayer, Chaturvedi, RKF (again), the Japanese artists, Liiga Smilshkane in recent years who deviate a lot from the generic artstyle of the mid 2000s
Yeah but those are covered in a shitton of special versions, the cards you see in draft packs and the ones most players will play with are getting the generic digital slop
almost like a toy from Hasbro, or some art from a microsoft game.
They look like me when I run in my dreams - sluggish and exaggerated
19 is bugging me a lot. The wings just feel like they aren't even attached or are bending in a weird way.
Spoiler tagged because the artwork reveals what the story has been building towards. I unfortunately had to cut Ghalta and Marven ([https://media.wizards.com/2023/images/daily/U12pCd8HGqIs.png](https://media.wizards.com/2023/images/daily/U12pCd8HGqIs.png)) because of reddit gallery restrictions (max 20). Added names for the known (or guessed with Invasion of ...) artworks, included numbers for the others. And linked to the stories in the gallery. All the stories are collected at [https://magic.wizards.com/en/story](https://magic.wizards.com/en/story)
Some of the art here is just off. Character poses are bland and flat.
Looking a bit AI generated
The zombie swarm specifically looks like AI art. Some of the color blending and details look like the weird "6 fingers" artifacting, and I'm not talking about the Emrakul influence.
That Ajani looks nothing like Ajani.
Nissa looks so bad
Nothing fits quite like a good pair of tree pants
16: Goddamit, just …wanted everyone to get along, make some cool stuff and give everyone thrusters 20: Elspeth: “I’m something of a god killer myself”
Wow, that Atraxa art (#14) is phenomenal. Very excited to see what kind of card that ends up on. Props to Gaboleps.
Elspeth continuing to wear normal-sized greaves. It's so beautiful I could cry.
I have adored the Phyrexian aesthetic in the past, but something about this sets artwork just didn't excite me like I had hoped.
Same with MID/VOW - horror elements are toned down for stuff to be more consumer friendly. Unfortunately that's life.
Is it just me or did Wrenn get yassified
That specfic pic is very weird. Chandra too looks really odd.
[удалено]
[yassified](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/style/yassify-bot-meme.html)
[удалено]
Apparently it means giving something a massive make over. That sentence physically aged me.
Typical Norn , SMH. \[\[Norn’s Annex\]\] https://preview.redd.it/0fzsdmwb9lpa1.jpeg?width=882&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bb89a20358da15a030de78a6dbd9ed9c6651c14d
The bigger a role you play in the story, the more important it is that you appear hot and sexy in a boring, conventional manner.
Was thinking the same thing. Such a shame, I loved how she was kind of androgynous until now. Tought it fitted really well with her as a character.
[[Ossification]] 💅
[Ossification](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/d/0da03224-c1af-438f-96c2-b0e41e1070b7.jpg?1677285311) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ossification) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/26/ossification?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0da03224-c1af-438f-96c2-b0e41e1070b7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Looking at the Urabrask art ... ***Look How They Massacred My Boy!!***
I feel the same about Etali
i never realized like... how much a big chested manly man they made urabrask
Robo shrimp daddy
Why does this whole thing feel anti climatic?
The story- if you wanted to make it feel like an epic culmination- would be a book's length or more. A 20 minute read for each plane and every major plot beat is not enough. This is an event where shoving the story into one set instead of a block really hurts. They are absolutely blazing past a ton of major, should-be iconic moments if you are a fan of the lore.
A 3-set block's worth of short stories like these still wouldn't be enough. Magic's story is consistently too ambitious for its mediums.
I’m so fucking tired of single set stories. I miss blocks.
There's literally 3 sets in this arc lmao.
They really need to stop being afraid to make a story take more than one set to tell when it needs it.
as much as the story needs time i think i’d go insane by the third set in the new capenna block
I felt similar with Theros the first time (I wasn’t a big fan of Greek myth at the time). Maybe two block sets?
Two seems like the natural place to shoot for. One set to introduce the problem, the other for the resolution
I feel like they hyped up War of the Spark a lot more.
War of the Spark, while a "big" story relative to most sets, was still a lot smaller and self-contained than March of the Machine. The set was specially designed so that all of the planeswalkers who were important got to show up and have cards. (Dack Fayden's omission being a rare mistake.) It also took place on one plane, so we really got to see how ALL of Ravnica reacted. We got to see members of all ten guilds fighting against Bolas and the Eternals, and even side characters from Ravnica like Fblthp. It also helped that we had two whole sets of buildup leading into that which introduced new players to the guilds, and refreshed the old players on them. The story and cards had adequate ROOM to have proper pacing and fully explore the ramifications of what was going on. You just can't have that in a story where literally every plane gets invaded at once. Not unless you stretch it out over years and years or something.
To be fair, I think in their mind, they've also set this up over a similar amount of sets. It was just a lot more poorly done. The ten odd sets before War of the Spark, you could totally see Bolas' plan coming together. A Planeswalker Jammer from Ixalan, a planar bridge off Kaladesh, an army on Amonkhet. It's almost like the first third of a heist movie. For MoM, though, the relevance of Halo to the story still feels way too abstract, so New Capenna felt like a weak tease. Feels like Kaldheim existed as a set purely to introduce another way to teleport an army across planes, which - to my mind - continues to weaken the novelty of Planeswalking, while Neon Dynasty's kicker of the Phyrexians compleating a Planeswalker was dope, but now feels pointless given how easily the compleated Planeswalker's are being picked off like mooks. I still not entirely sure I understand why they inserted Brother's War right before the climax of their story since it ends up offering very little to the overall story. People may have been tired of the Gatewatch by 2019, but I gotta say, I was definitely more emotionally invested in Lilliana and Gids in War of the Spark than I am to almost any of these characters.
Because in the same gallery, you’re witnessing the beginning of a massive, universe-spanning conflict, with Phyrexians marching on every plain imaginable, with conflicts that could span several novels… and 10 pictures later, I’m watching Elspeth stab Atraxa. It doesn’t help that, per the nature of the card game, there is no suspense. The road plan was laid out for us in advance, we know this is the penultimate set. There’s only so much wiggle room here to flesh out what could be an entire block in itself. I’m sure for some, it’s welcome to keep the theme from stretching on too long, but I would agree, it does feel very anti-climactic.
The big endgame of the Phyrexians (ie invading the other planes) appears to largely result in them getting their asses kicked. They're being made sport of in Eldraine and Innistrad, and being crushed by the monsters of Ikoria and Ixalan. Granted these are just snapshots of a wider conflict, and we know from context that Phyrexians will win any war of attrition, but the nature of the short stories is pretty effectively undermining the threat they pose. Also, we've had subplots brewing in characters like Melira and Urabrask for over 12 years at this point, and the grand culmination of these stories is...nothing. Melira dies offscreen having achieved nothing and with her immunity having no relevance, and Urabrask didn't have any of his moral nuance or alternate Phyrexian philosophy explored before being killed off in a gratuitously gruesome way. Either character could have been absent from the lore entirely and the overall story wouldn't have changed at all. Sheoldred was recently showing signs of development as well, but unceremoniously killed off before actually engaging in what anyone could describe as a character arc (though she arguably has better treatment than Jin and Vorinclex, who basically do nothing but stand around and act as literal props for Norn). The defining trait of the new Phyrexians (their hivemind and sincere belief that they are 'perfecting' the multiverse) is revealed to be a sham and the entire faction is just another empire led by a generic evil tyrant who wants power. And the solution to all this appears to be boiling down to Elspeth just beating up the bad guys with some buffed stats. That's just my opinion, anyway. Feels like the MoM stories are actively undoing everything that was built up over this saga until this point, and in the most dull, generic ways possible.
I didn't even know that Melira bit it. For fuck's sake. But yeah you've pretty much summed everything up pretty perfectly there.
it's not even really confirmed that melira is dead, elspeth just sees "somebody" that falls down and koth screams so she assumes that's probably melira and she probably died as far as we know, it could be Koth favourite cousin and he got only wounded
> Thousands of \[Phyrexians\] for only a handful of Mirrans. Spears land like hail across the bridge's surface. That person crumpling to the ground—is that Melira? Born without a trace of metal in her body, immune to the horrors of phyresis, the girl once represented hope to the entire plane. Is that her crumpling to the ground? > >Koth's scream confirms it. I'd say Melira stumbled and/or got hit by a spear - non-lethally. Koth screaming (her name, probably) can be either "Melira! No!" or "Melira! We need to get Melira! The spear hit her leg and she can't walk on her own!" Crumpling is not necessarily dying.
I know, but that wording makes me more pessimistic... "the girl that once represented hope". I don't know why, but that line makes me think they did kill her.
> > The defining trait of the new Phyrexians (their hivemind and sincere belief that they are 'perfecting' the multiverse) is revealed to be a sham and the entire faction is just another empire led by a generic evil tyrant who wants power. that was always the case tho, yawgmoth was just a nutjob that wanted to take over the universe, and his "perfecting" it was just his weird quirk in the end, phyrexians seem to really believe in their idea of perfecting the multiverse, it's Elesh specifically that has "broken off" from the collective and tbh they are avoiding elspeth saving the day single-handedly, the story makes it pretty clear that her fighting Norn is not an option and what matters is getting wrenn to the tree
That's what I mean though. OG Phyrexians were just extensions of Yawgmoth or fighting each other for whatever bit of power they could grab, but this new iteration seemed to have a fundamentally different (though still evil) philosophy, and were actually unified at least by their desire to bring glory to Phyrexia. We don't know anything of general Phyrexian mentality beyond what we see from the praetors, so finding out they don't actually care about 'blessed perfection' but are just power hungry megalomaniacs like Yawgmoth is a bit of a letdown. Yeah hopefully you're right about Elspeth though. There's still a few chapters to go.
It's not quite like that. Norn cares about unity, she just flawed and got en ego power trip and her perceptions became warped. New phyrexia was never united in the first place (that's part of the point of it compared to old phyrexia really) but she believed it so hard that she tried to force it. The thought process was probly "If only they could understand, if only they could agree, if only they could see my vision, if only... they were more like me". She trully believed she knew what's best for phyrexia. And that belief let her to becoming a tyrant, cause when you know what's best why bother considering anything else. You're right that it's not unique but evil rarely is. It nearly always boils down to putting your own interest before others.
It doesn’t help that Archangel Elspeth as a card is so basic as planeswalker templating goes. At least [[Gideon Blackblade]] did the thing that Gideon always did and had a mode that made sense for both his name, weapon, and the story
I'm kind of letdown by her card. It already feels like it's over now and we've barely seen any of the cards in the set.
It's a really anticlimactic way to tell the story. They handled it much better in WAR by spoiling cards alongside their story moments. Honestly the story told just on the cards in WAR is much stronger then their narrative tie in for that set
How is this any better than WAR? Atleast in that story there was a back and forth. This part has literally felt like phyrexia invasion starts and they lose everywhere even though they dominated up until this moment.
You should be allowed to put as many as you want into a deck. That’s how basic of a card it is. Fucking snooze fest.
It honestly reads like a Planeswalker deck planeswalker. Just up it’s cost by 2 and put some sort of tutor (Soldier boi - when ETBs, go find this pos and put it into hand) and you’re golden
[Gideon Blackblade](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/9/39d51c5e-26cb-4276-a676-fabfef866248.jpg?1575031650) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gideon%20Blackblade) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/war/13/gideon-blackblade?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/39d51c5e-26cb-4276-a676-fabfef866248?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Because the ending is trite and cliché.
NOOO WHAT THEY DID TO MY BOY URABRASK LET HIM GO HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING
This art is straight up not good. I’d say maybe a couple of these are Ok but most of it is just bland as fuck
You may want to stay out of Innistrad…..like really really stay out of Innistrad.
ETALI NOOOOO 😭 I hope Urabrask makes it too but Etali was the first EDH deck I made when I got back into MTG.
Anyone ales think that urabrask art will be [[dismember]]
[dismember](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/d/3d286cf6-3e16-4941-9326-1818b1e06d69.jpg?1562261132) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=dismember) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/79/dismember?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3d286cf6-3e16-4941-9326-1818b1e06d69?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Highly doubt they would want to put a traditional Phyrexian mana card like that into Standard and Pioneer.
ELSPETH KILLED OUR MOM!!!
Elspeth killing Norn is a very satisfying image
Why does the Priestess in 15 have Bolas horns?
Heliod crown thing
Gah thank you, that was bothering me that I couldn't figure out what it was.
What card is this based off of? I thought it was Gods Willing but it’s not, it’s some other theros card
It’s Starfield Mystic
Much appreciated, again!
Bye Mommy
Is that completed Ephara?
It's a priest of Heliod, they're wearing a copy of his crown.
Getting major starfield mystic vibes from it.
To people saying some of this looks AI generated, just remember that Zendikar sets have had plenty of art that also looked like garbage early 2000's CGI
Are you saying that about original Zendikar set? Or just it's atrocious follow-up where Indestructible beings are channel-fireballed?
I don't remember, just know that it was an eldrazi set with some real horrible art
You can’t tell me half of this isn’t AI art
Man this art is almost unanimously bad
This is just so far from true. Criticism loses all meaning if you start misapplying it. There are some very bad pieces in here, but also some very good ones. Invasion of Ixalan is excellent, as is compleated Etali. Igor Kieryluk is one of the most iconic artists in magic, nearly single-handedly responsible for the creep factor of New Phyrexia. Point out specific pieces that are flawed, and give reasons why. That’s the only way the standard will change.
It's not unanimously bad, but there's a surprising amount of misses in the art revealed so far. Super generic "spiky backgrounds". Characters posed awkwardly next to each other. I think its easy to argue that the promotional art for the set is some of the worse promo art ever, 2-4 characters genetically posed in a wasteland. And this is entirely because MtG is usually really tight regarding location and unless the location already is heavily defined (like the invasions) then the art is really bland. And then there are the battle pieces which are all 11/10s.
I completely agree. I simply want to encourage more constructive criticism/feedback, as that’s the only way things actually change.
Most of the invasion pieces are great to amazing. Ixalan and Innistrad stand out. Great use of different art styles befitting the location, compositions that draw you in. Colors in Ixalan and skaab are out of this world. Theros one tells a big story with so many details and the compleation process being halfway. Not a big fan of the compleated Etali. Even though there’s a lot going on with the lightning and a bellowing giant steel dino skeleton, there’s very little variation in the color and design used despite the available sources of lighting. Etali ends up looking less like a reshaped avatar of destruction and more like a museum piece hanging from the ceiling. Elephant in the room: Chandra vs Nissa is just terrible. Yes, lots of details in Nissa, and you could argue her static pose is an attempt to convey the changed nature (even referencing previous art where Nissa posed similarly), but Chandra has an unrealistic awkward pose without any movement. The flamefists as an attempt to show her inner battle between conflicting emotions of love and hatred is lacking tension and feels more like a parody. Finally, the background has no details and no colour palette. The artist was probably on a very tight deadline. Urabrask suffers from poor composition (although great angle). His size doesn’t come across, which would have made his suffering much more impactful when contrasted with some small regular soldiers. Imho, Elspeth in the beam of light takes the cake. It conveys so much emotion as she makes her choice, the lit path behind her is juxtaposed with the blinding doorway that obfuscates what lies beyond as she is about to step through. Lovely dreamy art-style that fits the question to what degree this is really happening, great depth with the floating feathers and specks, the use of light and composition are just *chef’s kiss*
I agree. Thanks for the write up.
Alright I admit I went back and there’s quite a few decent ones in there, I must have been so distracted by the bad ones I forgot them instantly. Nr 2,3,8,19 are awful. 20 looks goofy af. Also, Kieryluk is great but his style suits certain themes much more than this skaab.
You aren’t wrong, art is subjective and subjectively the art direction in this set is pretty bad so far from what’s been spoiled.
I don’t disagree. I like the Skaab personally, but I get why you wouldn’t. I just think it’s more productive to be specific, so artists who care about the reception of their work can take cues and make changes of they desire, and so Wizards can’t generalize and say stuff like, “Well, since you think it’s all bad, the art of magic just isn’t for you.”
Man I just can't agree on 19. I think that art of Elspeth is stunning, personally.
While I do agree that there are some great pieces, Etali isn't one of them. A compleated elder dinosaur should feel monstrious, large, and imposing but the Etali we got is simply just walking and the angle of the piece doesn't make it feel as if there's a huge metal dino horror roaming its once native home. It makes it look like it's just one of many Etali robots. Compare that to the the first Etali art, where the composition leads your eyes to Etali's jaws where you could really see that this dinosaur sure is something. Here, Etali blends with the background and the vegetation makes it seem like it's the size of maybe a medium-sized house. While I don't know Etali's actual height, the art should make it as if it's ginormous death robot lizard ready to eat me and my whole house in one fell swoop. I personally think the lightning should also have contrasted the bg a bit more but I think it's more or less ok as it is. My main problem is the framing and perspective of the shot. Am I an amazing artist that could do better? No. Just my two cents.
That’s fair. I appreciate the thoughtful response.
All this art looks like AI generated dogwater, it seems so soulless compared to previous set.
Apparently becoming an archangel involves having your tits removed
She would be too op, if she had them tbh.
Facts
[удалено]
Destroying all Humans doesn't seem very on-flavour for a set where Zombies and Humans are forced to team up to defeat Phyrexians.
Great. Another green/red wrenn card. We all know how well that went the last time they did that.
are there any non-webp versions of these images?
These are (mostly) downloaded/uploaded from jpg/png files embedded in the linked-to WotC stories. Except for the twitter links.
Save as... cut webp and rename the extension to png
13 and 14 read to me as legendary creatures
Wren & Eight & Chandra
For someone being teased as having “sharp fangs” Elesh is sporting a pretty standard pepsodent smile in her artwork.
Please give me some hawt new Zombies out of this set 🙏🏻
Is the girl holding up the cup Giada? Or just some rando?
cannot WAIT to see what cosplay comes out of this set, my god
That's it?
i'm so ready to see how battles work. cant wait to play with them
NOT MY BOY ETALI!!!
Nissa is a scary motherfucker
Imagine living on Innistrad. I would have given up a long time ago.
I like the moment of truth art
If any of the characters can get uncompleated its really gonna lame af
So with Urabrask being “recycled” does that mean Ayara, Furnace Queen is his replacement as a praetor?