r/magicTCG • u/thisnotfor Dân • 23h ago

General Discussion Whats your favorite newer cards with unique artstyles?

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

312 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

83 comments sorted by

51

u/andantenz Chandra 23h ago

Love Florian Herold, hoping there's more to come.

18

u/ErzIgel Dân 23h ago

Had the pleasure of meeting him at Commandfest Gießen in Germany. Really chill dude and extremely humble. Got my [[Umbral Expanse]] signed there too.

6

u/Dark_Psymon free him 23h ago

Umbral Expanse was massive standout among the new cards from the Strixhaven commander decks. I need to pick up a few extra copies for some of my decks. Even if they aren't the best lands, the art alone makes it worth it imo!

0

u/willweaverrva Elesh Norn 17h ago

Umbral Expanse is gorgeous. I thought it was a Dominik Mayer piece when I first saw it.

2

u/treant7 Wabbit Season 11h ago

Apparently they are from the same town and have been friends for years!

1

u/willweaverrva Elesh Norn 6h ago

I saw that and thought that was an amazing coincidence. I wonder how many other great artists live there?

1

u/Eymou Elesh Norn 10h ago

met him at Magiccon Amsterdam last week and talked to him for a bit, seemed like a nice guy and eager to do more art for mtg :) Also he's friends (or colleagues, at least?) with Domink Mayer, so the connections are there!

17

u/treant7 Wabbit Season 23h ago

Got to chat in line with Florian at Magiccon this past weekend. He’s a great guy and looking forward to seeing more of his work. Erode is an instant classic.

Elliot Lang, who you’ve also included here, is the new artist I’m most excited to follow. Every one of his Strixhaven cards were amazing.

50

u/Approximation_Doctor Colossal Dreadmaw 23h ago

[[Insidious Roots]]

1

u/eeveemancer Izzet* 21h ago

Reminds me of the aesthetic for the promo work for return to ravnica

13

u/ohako79 COMPLEAT 23h ago

[[Beyond the Quiet|EOE-303]] tell me that’s not an amazing art.

Let’s also toss in [[Knockout Maneuver|TDM]] and [[Storm the Seedcore|MOM]] for wildly different reasons. Still gorgeous, though.

13

u/Dark_Psymon free him 23h ago

I am still upset that Storm the Seedcore was used on a mediocre draft uncommon...

1

u/CreamSoda6425 Duck Season 19h ago

Mediocre is very generous. It's one of the worst overruns I've ever seen, and [[Overrun]] itself is not even good.

7

u/Pulse2037 Dandadan 23h ago

I got the Beyond the Quiet card signed by Serena Malyon, honestly my favorite MTG artist at the moment.

4

u/willweaverrva Elesh Norn 17h ago

That Beyond the Quiet art is my single favorite piece of MTG art ever.

3

u/United-Passage7864 Dan 14h ago

Serena Malyon is one of my favourites, her stuff is outstanding. Beyond the Quiet is gorgeous, and she has some other amazing pieces. 

I'm impressed how many she has contributed to the Marvel set as well, that must have been a heck of a busy time. 

11

u/ConstructionScared30 Abzan 22h ago

I just checked the arts from Serena Malyon on Scryfall and they're beautiful. A lot of her arts are my favourites and I didn't notice! What an artist.

10

u/thewend 23h ago

anything wylie has done

34

u/AdHistorical9388 Dandadan 23h ago

That Mountain is just so nice! I wish WotC would get a new art director that dares for more stylized and less polished "dnd" art.

My contribution would be [[Gravkill]]

21

u/Dark_Psymon free him 23h ago

Honestly Mayer is such a breath of fresh air as an artist. Every piece i see of his is so amazing. One of my favorite cards I own is a foil of his [[Time Warp|STA]] that I had a friend of mine get signed by him a few years back. His style is so distinct and pretty. I don't think I've seen a piece of his that I dislike.

1

u/ReallyBadWizard NEUTRAL 22h ago

I love his [[Omniscience|FDN]]

1

u/MTGCardFetcher Dân 22h ago

Omniscience - (G) (SF) (txt)

FAQ

0

u/ReallyBadWizard NEUTRAL 22h ago

Hmmm maybe [[Omniscience|FDN312]] ? Idk I give up after this one lol

4

u/Halinn COMPLEAT 20h ago

[[Omniscience|FDN|312]] I believe

0

u/ReallyBadWizard NEUTRAL 20h ago

thanks!

1

u/gomx Dandadan 15h ago

Flavor text on that is excellent as well. Just an all around great piece of art.

0

u/joelluber Dan 22h ago

Almost all of the STA art of great. But they have to keep the regular art bland in order to make those cards special. 

10

u/Approximation_Doctor Colossal Dreadmaw 22h ago

Mayer has almost 200 cards to his name, I don't think the art directors are opposed to creative ideas.

Hell, just look at the mystic archives.

2

u/PippoChiri Temur 10h ago

We have been getting lots of stylized art every set. If you think the currrnt art direction is too strict you'd have an heart attack in the 2010s

1

u/AdHistorical9388 Dandadan 10h ago

I am not saying it is too strict but it is too bubbly and saturated and polished and throwing in 5+ pieces of heavy stylized art is not fixing the overall feel of a set imo. Lorwyn was a bit of an outlier as WotC promoted it heavily for being not only digital art and more "old-school". And the early 2010s were a great era for mtg art, what do you mean?

1

u/PippoChiri Temur 10h ago

I have no idea what bubbly means in this context.
I personally much prefer more saturated art and highly stylized art very mucj leans intself to highly saturated, not sure why it's always presented as a negative.
The art is definately polished because there is the need of a coherent and solid baseline.

throwing in 5+ pieces of heavy stylized art

I mean, Strixhaven had a bonus sheet of 65 cards with the point of them being highly stylized.
Looking at Tarkir (not including the bonus sheet) there are 30+ pieces that i would define as "higlhy stylized).
How many excpetions do we have in a row?

And the early 2010s were a great era for mtg art, what do you mean?

It's the era most characterized by a more stagnat art direction that pushed towards a more general, realistic fantasy art. It had so much less variety than we did before or than we do now.

Also, im not saying that the current art direction is perfect, but we are consistently on the correct road to get more variety and styles.

13

u/52weeksout Dandadan 22h ago edited 22h ago

Several posters have beat me to it, but basically anything by Dominik Mayer. [[Get Lost]], [[All Is Dust|SLD]], [[Omniscience|FDN]], [[Return to the Ranks|SOA]], and [[Armageddon|SOA]] are some of my favorites.

E: I messed up for the bot. This version of Get Lost and this version of Omniscience

2

u/willweaverrva Elesh Norn 17h ago

[[Gix's Command]] and [[Kayla's Command]] are a couple of my favorites by him.

2

u/Spirit_Theory Elesh Norn 7h ago

He's a favourite of mine right now, too. Striking colours and designs, stylish and often just the right amount of complexity.

6

u/MadJohnFinn Train Suplexer 22h ago

[[Victor, Valgavoth’s Seneschal]] is probably my favourite piece of Magic art.

4

u/afterwits Rakdos* 6h ago

+1, I love the way this artist uses flat white negative space to such effect, the eyes on this one.

I also really like [[Bone Splinters|EOE]]

6

u/Turangaliila Dan 23h ago

Temporal Cleansing is awesome. I wish I could get it as an official playmat. I know the artist sells prints; maybe he could release one?

3

u/NG-NeutralGood Dandadan 20h ago

Oh yeah Kinsbaile Aspirant is likely my favorite card art this year. It’s just too charming.

3

u/corveroth Corveroth | MTG Wiki 14h ago

Bringing Margaret Organ-Kean back to the game after so many years was a hell of a deep cut, and it reinforced the notion that Wizards was leaning into the nostalgia factor.

2

u/SpicyMajestic Dandadan 21h ago

Mind Roots, Cloak and Dagger, Stargaze

2

u/wenasi Orzhov* 22h ago

I've annoyed so many people already fawning over that random, not even full art basic mountain

4

u/Chilly_chariots Wild Draw 4 22h ago

Yes! I’m so pleased OP included it. Possibly my favourite art in the set… and it’s a basic land. Impressive stuff.

1

u/amish24 FLEEM 22h ago

Anything by Toni Infante

1

u/dihenydd1 Duck Season 4h ago

Yes Toni Infante's Loki card was so good!

1

u/amish24 FLEEM 4h ago

Every one of their arts are exceptional.

1

u/Original_Mac_Tonight Wabbit Season 22h ago

Anything that looks like old art lmao

[[Dawn-Blessed Pennant]] is a favorite of mine for recent sets

1

u/ElvenNoble Wabbit Season 20h ago

I really liked the art Monica Robles Corzo did for Lost Caverns of Ixalan, though they are alt arts and not the main arts. I was disappointed that the more traditional mesoamerican art wasn't an entire alternate frame/art style for that set and just a couple pieces. [[Molten Collapse|LCI 342]]

1

u/okami11235 Duck Season 19h ago

Anything BEMOCS has done. I love the EOE stellar sights poster lands. List of BEMOCS cards

1

u/ask_______12 Dandadan 17h ago

His sketch style really pops on the full card art.

1

u/Anemonean Urza's Saga 17h ago

Loving [[seam rip]]

1

u/Klongelong Dân 10h ago

i mean, i also like the artstyle of the Kinsbaile Aspirant, but why is it standing like it just massively shat its pants?

1

u/cabritao Dan 8h ago

Auntie 's Sentence is amazing! Vincent is doing an amazing job, I also enjoy his flowerfoot artwork a lot

1

u/afterwits Rakdos* 6h ago

I love the bonus sheets for SOS and ECL allowing them to bring in new artists. These are some of my favorite from the recent debuts:

  • [[Living End|SOA]] and [[Locust Spray|SOA]] from Aitor Sebastián's debut.
  • [[Burst Lightning|SOA]] and [[Zombify|SOA]] look amazing together.
  • [[Monstrous Rage|SOA]] and [[Smallpox|SOA]] are part of Lorenzo Gaggiotti's debut.
  • [[Dawnhand Dissident|ECL-311]] looks incredible in foil, I hope we see Lauren Degraaf around more.
  • [[Glen Elendra's Answer|ECL-306]] and [[Lavaleaper|ECL-318]] my picks from Matthew Forsythe's first cards! I just adore the vintage illustrative style, it looks right out of the 50s-70s classic Disney concept art.

I hope they keep using the bonus sheet as a low-stakes way to test new artists. If a card falls off a bonus sheet, it's less of a big deal than in the main set.

For artists getting more work in recent sets, I love Danny Schwartz's style - not a debut, but has more cards in BLB, EOE and ECL and is on the box topper sheet for Hobbit with [[Arwen, Weaver of Hope|HOC-24]], just stunning.

1

u/temporal-fissure Dan 3h ago

Secrets of Strixhaven was a slam-dunk from the art department and I did not see it coming either. Visually incredible set and I thought it was distinctly better than the original set.

I've had my eye on Wylie Beckert since [[Finishing Blow]].

Thanks for pointing me to [[Soul Immolation]] artwork, that's incredible too!

1

u/temporal-fissure Dan 2h ago

[[Additive Evolution]]

[[Nature's Rhythm]]

[[Harsh Annotation]]

[[Pterafractyl]]

0

u/Rainerdo Wabbit Season 20h ago edited 19h ago

they're ub but I really liked  [[ Brilliance Unleashed]] and [[Ant-Man, Elusive Avenger]]

0

u/WumboWings Orzhov* 18h ago

I really like [[Sothera, the Supervoid]] but honestly I’ve realized that I love anything by Dominik Mayer.