#rkf

RKF Laurel

A drone/nexus/melee combination

"Squire, fetch me my Charged Blade"

It is clear you do not remember me, which makes sense. It's been a long time. I will not bother you any more.

You’a drop a shadow crystal in my living room while I’m’a sick.

You’a give no context and’a run away before i’a can even see you.

You’a send mysterious yet threatening messages.

I’a think You’re’a The Roaring Knight Fan.

I’ve always been a big fan of old style fantasy art in the realm of trashy sci fi and fantasy novel covers, and even though I’m about 10-20 years removed from what feels like the heyday for this style, being introduced to Magic the Gathering let me have access to some of the last remaining goliaths who shaped and changed fantasy art as we know it.

As Magic the Gathering modernizes to try and attract new players, the art style shifts, and many of the newer artists to the scene take a more modern approach to art design as well. I think whenever something like this happens you run the risk of a community losing its identity and the pillars that support it. When art institutions adopted Impressionism as the forward movement of the time it involved a rejection of other art heritages spanning 100s of years.

MtG is also a much more profitable corporation now. When artists are picked to design a card, I’m sure they have much less freedom in card design than they did 20 years ago. They’ve compartmentalized. An artist like Phil Foglio wouldn’t (and doesn’t) get to make cards for MtG anymore (besides a new alternate art for Chaos Warp) just because his style can’t fit into any check boxes for what MtG art is supposed to be anymore.

This post was really brought on by the newish brothers war set which is based on one of my favorite sections of MtG lore, and almost all of the art is rather uninspired. Urza and Mishra are just dudes. No sense of Shakespearean drama happening in their cards. No sense of Cain and Abel among them, just what looks like a regular old wizard fight. Even the alternate art cards, which are the design choice to fill the hole for people that care about card art, feel lacking. If this is a topic of any interest to the reader, I’d encourage you to compare the art from The Brother’s War with a set like Mirrodin Besieged.

Caroline holds up a picture postcard to Maria Shriver, who screamed:

“This is the President.”

Caroline disagreed: