[sshine]

They have a lot more narrative control over the artwork now.

A thing I disliked (as a kid) about the old cards, as they transitioned to these more homogenised styles, was how wildly different the cards looked. It didn’t feel like one game, and there were many artistic styles I simply didn’t like.

But looking back now, the old cards artwork is so much more iconic; in part because of the nostalgia, but in part because each card is different from those drawn by other artists, you remember them better apart.

[sebastos]

I was going to write something similar: if I had been in creative control back in 1993, I definitely would have fallen for the trap of thinking that I was making things better by forcing the artwork to have a homogeneous, consistent feel to it. In retrospect, the idiosyncratic uniqueness of each card made it like a little piece of art that you could own. As a young kid, that made it so cool! I think a lot of young kids only bought a relatively small batch of cards and never even played the game much. I remember owning a scant few cards but that made me treasure my favorites that much more.