Will Magic card art ever be spooky again?
![260[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/0FAR9gq.jpg "260[1].jpg")
>>44555713
Probably not in the same way as it used to be. Have a Wall of Flesh for old time's sake.
No because that would be abilist as it demeans people of non conforming anatomy you shitlord. You need to really educate yourself.
Are you familiar with Phyrexia? Or Innistrad?
>>44555713
Next set is a return to innistrad so there is a good chance we will get some spoopy card art.
>>44555995
Phyrexia a best
>>44555713
Sadly not. Such is the price of success.
>>44555713
That would require surrealism to be allowed back in the card frames, and that's not gonna happen so long as WotC's target audience is hormone ridden teens.
>>44555995
Neither Innistrad or New Phyrexia was particularly spooky or disturbing though, and it's a bit of shame too. Both of those settings would have been great places to go a little crazy with disturbing art. As it were, however, the most disturbing thing about either of them was how so many people apparently got a hard on for Elesh Norn.
this will always be my favourite
>>44556930
>innistrad
>not spooky
look i'm apparently one of those mutant players that thought innistrad was a shit set and a shit block on a shit plane, but even i'll grant it spooky.
>>44557027
By mutant do you mean competent? I mean, the plane being shitty is subjective, but Innistrad was just kinda bad.
>>44557050
every time i say i hated innistrad other magic players look at me like i just grew a second head.
>>44557027
Innistrad had great gameplay. Probably the best, or at the very least one of the best, limited sets in recent years or maybe even ever. But it was not spooky.
>>44557079
>it was not spooky
i just don't believe you.
Phyrexian things are too fantastical to be truly creepy. They're a particular kind of harmless 'alien' from modern fantasy that ends up looking completely non-threatening by way of simply being too... unreal? to be creepy or weird. It is so visibly 'fantasy monster' that it looks like just that: a fantasy monster, something off the cover of a paperback about the endless war against the Dark Lord, and completely non-frightening.
>>44557159
Well, it wasn't. The art on Village Cannibals feels more like something from a sitcom than something actually dreadful or disturbing, and the art on Skeletal Grimace is nothing but silly.
>>44557274
A sitcom about eating people?
>>44557305
I'd watch it
>>44557305
I am a fan of dark comedy, but no, that's not the what the art communicates for me. It seems rather like the POV character is very embarrassed about something, as if all these puritans walked in on him masturbating and are now all giving him their your-dead-to-us-stares.
Macabre Waltz wasn't spooky?
>>44557369
It looked like anorexics doing the tango in a room full of steak sauce.
>>44557305
And that's how we becamethe Brady Brunch
what about gory spooks?
>>44557766
Aww, he looks so cute.
>>44557079
>tfw it's been so long since an actually good limited environment that people think innistrad was the best
>>44557766
If you put that thing in a cleaner environment it'd be sorta cute.
>>44557788
I also like Mercadian Masques, but that might also have something to do with my opponents almost always timing out before the first game ends.
>>44557274
Then what card art is spooky, then?
>>44557823
There aren't many. The art in OP's picture comes close. The main problem is that Magic art currently is so focused on showing you exactly what's happening in a realistic fashion, and that is not conductive for horror. The few times it gets away with stranger it mostly amounts to weird color splotches somewhere on the art which never feels like anything more than a cheap attempt at being artsy.
>>44557823
I always felt like this one was a bit creepy. Must be the eyes.
God I hate /tg/ so fucking much
Fucking wrong opinions trigger me
>>44557346
>this poster unironically came up with this tripe
>>44557346
They look like they've chosen doing something irredeemable over starvation and now they have to murder one of their own.
>>44558317
Those are faces of judgement, not hunger.
>>44558370
Pls stop being so wrong, it's really triggering
>>44555713
What card was it that featured a picture of a guy with his face sliced up to resemble harlequin makeup? I think it was blue.
Just looking at his sliced eyelids made me cringe
I miss the days of Magic art depicting people in extreme pain and agony.
The idea that you just "pay 1 life" has lost significance in modern magic. This cost should be equivalent to getting a big wound or losing a lot of blood. Magic was best when it has grotesque surrealist art that depicted pain and anguish in exchange for powerful spells.
>>44555713
No because we went away from hand drawn art to CGI "Masterpieces"
Gaze of Pain, Ice Age set
This is always the first card I think of when this topic comes up
I always found this Mind Rot art very unsettling.
Some Eldrazi I would consider spooky for their body horror designs and the generally "other" like nature. (Why is it only turning their heads to dust why?)
But I totally get that most of the time we will look at them and say "Oh, that is monster. I fight yes?"
Where as the more effective scary art will be stuff like >>44560052 because "ew ew ew, what if that happened to me ew!"
>>44558970
>dat face
>>44558435
Gaze of pain
What a coincidence, I just got this in the mail
>>44556930
>Phyrexia was not spooky
>>44560428
The Oracle is probably my favorite eldrazi just for how chill it looks.
This has always creeped me the fuck out.
>>44561730
So here, have a good res of it
>>44561730
Th foil looks great
>>44561730
>>44561864
absolute shit
>>44561190
too cool to be spooky
>>44561101
Feels very much like a prog metal cover than anything else, unlike the buy a box promo which felt more like a death metal cover.
>>44561190
I don't know what to tell you man. If you think that art is spooky then maybe you're just easily scared.
>>44562119
I think you have got the wrong idea about magic art
Or you have selective memory or you just have nostalgia glasses on
And spooky/horror will always be subjective just as much everything is
>>44560292
Both the art and the flavor text. Love it.
>>44557274
I agree. I thought the most spooky thing used to be how 'raw' the card art felt in the earlier sets. Nowdays everything is so defined and hyper-realistic, it leaves less for the imagination.
>>44557823
>>44555713
Claustrophobia, Death's Caress, Army of the Damned, Phyrexian Delver (new art), Forsaken Drifters, Banewasp Affliction and probably much, much more.then again this is all subjective so feel free to scream no and call me retarded
>>44562119
Not that guy, but I don't understand how you're not creeped out by that art (the phyrexian one).
>>44555995
Both are over designed as fuck. Throwing a bunch of spikes and teeth on a monster doesn't make it spooky or disturbing. At best it will look metal as fuck but that's not the same thing.
To spook you need something that genuinely feels unnatural or warped, or you need to imply something dreadful. Usually it helps to have something familiar as a base from which alterations are made to make it uncomfortably alien.
>>44556122 looks bad-ass but it doesn't evoke dread or unease. It is too disconnected from my experience to create any kind of personal or primal reaction. It's biology is clearly mechanical, it doesn't make any unpleasant mental connections to organs or animals. It could probably rip any of us apart if it wanted but this image doesn't seem to be trying engage that possibility. It's a static, self-contained design.
>>44556997 this at least has very human shapes: A staring eye and a toothy mouth and the silhouette of a head. The eye and mouth are both very primal and uncomfortable images for most people, familiar but stressed and widened in a predatory way. It adds surreality to the image.
>>44557027 this is actually pretty good for innistrad. The folded flesh gives it a sense of realness, calls back to what was probably a very painful transformation and just makes the whole thing visceral. The ridiculousness of the skeleface makes it all the more weird.
>>44557159 is also pretty good for obvious reasons.
Hmm maybe innistrad was okay for spooky art. I'll have to give it another look.
>>44566420
dog it looks like a nu-metal album from 2002
>>44567369
Both Phyrexia and Innistrad had tons of scary art. It was basically the theme for both of them.
>>44567752
>they gave it flying
>the absolute madmen
I've always liked this one
Sorry for the german card, was too mazy to find the proper one, bit this is pretty cool .
>>44555995
Both I GUESS could qualify as spooky, but they lack a certain surreal aesthetic that early surreal/spooky magic cards had, and that's truly lost. When compared to the old cards, they almost come of... idk... anime? That's not necessarily a bad thing, but they're more JoJo pillar men than what OP meant when he was referring to the lost aesthetic
The amazing art is the only reason I'm excited to go back to Innistrad.
>>44569627
Nielsen's art on Innistrad is the best
>>44561864
Thanks for letting the right one in, anon.
Every time the topic of new Magic art vs old comes up on /tg/ I become a little more convinced you're all being contrary for the sake of it. Moreso than most 4chan arguments.
>>44569627
They nailed the Gothic theme. Werewolves will forever remain unplayable in competitive play but I'll be damned if it wasn't an athmospheric block.
![43[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/8acrKBi.jpg "43[1].jpg")
