[johtso]

I agree, I find so much of the art of modern magic cards completely uninspiring. They all look the same. Old magic cards had an element of the strange and the quirky. Sometimes the designs bordered on naive. Hand painted illustrations had a distinctly human touch. And the illustrations were punchy and had contrast. You knew exactly what a card was from a distance. A lot of the modern art is just polished, air brushed fantasy cliche. Muddy. Too much detail. A distinct lack of the surreal or abstract. Too thematically consistent.

Just compare an old set to a modern set: 1995 https://scryfall.com/sets/4ed 2024 https://scryfall.com/sets/mkm

An abstract oil painting https://scryfall.com/card/4ed/104/stasis An unsettling watercolour https://scryfall.com/card/4ed/181/cave-people

Sometimes less is more! Realism is boring.

[rendaw]

My favorite thing about the cards is they were little windows into a deep and mysterious world, hinted at further by the mechanics of the cards.

I thought it was just nostalgia, but looking at the sets you linked the 1995 one (I'd never seen) excites me while the 2024 does nothing... it could almost be AI. It's not just the same faces, but the same framing, same expressions, same "grand fantasy architecture", same MMO-esque magical swirls and sparkles, etc.

The abstract pieces weren't just whimsy, they felt like they could be based on vastly different local traditions or culture, history, or come from different time periods.

[schrectacular]

Note also that all those old cards were done on physical media, whereas today almost all the cards are done digitally. So the modern cards are much more _detailed_. Check out the Jesper Ewing cards like Frantic Scapegoat. He's notable for creating real paintings. To me they capture a bit of the old feel.

[tommit]

Minor correction: Jesper Ejsing