#retro frame

Imagine my delight when I heard that they were finally bringing Planeswalkers to the old frame in a Secret Lair called Teferi's Time Trouble. Imagine my absolute disgust when they used the newer frames with pseudo-Alpha wording. (Alpha cards had dull and muddy colors when compared to later iterations of the frame. It also had different mana symbols.)

This is a complete betrayal of what a Planeswalker is. Confined to the box, with wording that was never used, on a card that was made last year. It doesn't feel exciting. It feels like someone is playing a prank on me. I'll admit they did a little better with the new Elspeth card from the 30th Anniversary Kit and the trio in Time Trouble Two. But there are still five to six lines of completely unnecessary text, with wording that doesn't just ignore but actively mocks decades of game design evolution. At least they're modal now.

As someone who lived through the whole retro video game craze, I embrace the idea that a retro style doesn't mean being confined to archaic limitations. Games like Mega Man 9 and Shovel Knight illustrate that point perfectly. Besides that, though, WotC proved that they were willing to use newer technologies with retro borders!

There's modes! There's a little loyalty symbol in the text box! Modern wording! These are things they can work with, and should be working with if they want to use the retro frames to represent Planeswalkers. Using unnecessary obtuse wording for something that was designed after 1994 isn't cute. It's obnoxious.

And I know this one is greedy, but would it kill them to have art that pops out of the frames just a little? Again, it's not like they've never done it before.