One of the biggest shakeups to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering's identity in recent years was the introduction of 'Showcase Frames'. Debuting in 2019's Throne of Eldraine as part of a push to make opening 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:booster packs꧋ more engaging, showcase frames are unique altern💎ate art styles that tie together some theme of the set, and are (usually) included in every kind of booster pack.
Sometimes it's a mechanical connection, sometimes it's more to do with the story, and sometimes it's to do with the development of the set. No matter what the connection, showcase frames are always interesting, as they let Magic's artists play around with the usual presentation of cards and help give that set its own identity in the deluge of that year's releases. That being said, some are definitely better than others, and so here is every Showcase frame since Throne of Eldraine, ranked.
Because this list is only listing frames identified by Wizards of the Coast as being 'Showcase' frames, there are a few big omissions here. The biggest ones are Strixhaven: School of Mage's Mystical Archive and Time Spiral Remastered's Timeshifted cards. While both were collections of alternate frames that tied together the theme of their sets, they differed from showcase frames in that they featured reprints of cards not included in the wider set. Also missing are the Godzilla and Dracula cards from Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths and Innistrad: Crimson Vow respectively. Although these really should be considered showcase frames, Wizards doesn't treat them as such, and so they're not here.
Updated October 27, 2022 by Joe Parlock: Since this article's last update, we've had four sets with their own Showcase frames. While Commander Legends: Battle For Baldur's Gate merely reused the same style as Adventures In The Forgotten Realms without doing much in the way of anything new, we've also had Double Masters 2022, Dominaria United, and Unfinity each bring fantastic new Showcase styles to the game.
24 Core Set 2021 – Signature Spellbook Frame ♐
Core sets are made to be approachable to newcomers, with lower mechanical complexity and much more frequent reminder text to explain what each keyword does. For some reason, though, that simplicity also translated to the set's Showcase frames, which are borderline boring.
The theme for these showcase cards were the set's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Planeswalkers, and their 'signature spells'. Liliana, Chandra, Garruk, Teferi, and newcomer Basri Ket each represent one of the five colours (black, red, green, blue, and white respectively), and their frames are modified to fit their themes. Teferi's is whispy to show his time-manipulating skills, Chandra's are singed for her pyromancy, Garruk's have plants growing in the background, and so on.
The frames had to not change the readability of the cards too much – after all, newcomers need to know which bits of text they need to read – but it worked around that by plastering gaudy patterns on top. It just doesn't look that good – particularly Liliana's purple, ghoulish frame and whatever Basri's got going on.
23 D&D: Adventures In The Forgotten Realms And Battle For Baldur's Gate – Classic Rulebook Frame
As a celebration of all things Dungeons & Dragons, one of Adventures in the Forgotten Realms' two showcase styles saw iconic creatures given art reminiscent of the original rulebook. Offset against solid colours to match the card's colour identity, these sketchy, beige creatures are a decent callback to a memorable part of D&D's history. In Commander Legends: Battle For Baldur's Gate, this frame made a comeback, specifically for the set's many legendary creatures.
They're just also not that exciting; not in their lack of colour, but in which creatures were chosen for it. There are a few cool inclusions, like the legendary creatures that help give a Commander deck a bit of extra bling. But there are also a lot of underwhelming, common-rarity creatures filling it up – was anyone asking for a showcase Bulette, Pixie Guide, or Celestial Unicorn?
22 🍬Unfinity – Retrofuturistic Frame
Unfinity's showcase frames had all the makings of being an all-timer. They played up to the set's dramatically different aesthetic incredibly well, with its many legendary creatures pressed through the lens of 1950s and 1960s cartoons. On paper, the idea is fantastic, giving everything a Jetson's flare and a new, more angular card frame to complete the spacey feel.
In practice, a lot of the art is underwhelming. David Semple's work stands out as a high point, with his art having a texture and style to it that looks vastly more appealing. The rest severely lets Unfinity down, though, and feels less the retrofuturistic style it was aiming for, and more like mid-2000s flash animations, or, worse, soulless corporate art.
21 ܫ Double Masters – Full-Art Box Toppers ꦉ
Double Masters was an ultra-luxury set that featured doub🌠le the number of rare cards to a normal pack, and its showcase style is, in comparison, pretty tame: alt𝔉ernate full-art box toppers.
The cards given the treatment are incredible, full of staples like Doubling Season, Exploration, Atraxa Praetors' Voice, Blood Moon, and Toxic Deluge, and the art is varied but mostly fantastic. Some of the most valuable cards not on the reserved list are among the box toppers, making finding a few a real treat.
The reason Double Masters is so low down here is that they were never found in standard booster packs, which goes against the spirit of showcase frames. These cards were only available in two places: in non-foil as buy-a-box promos for those who bought an entire booster box, and in foil in the $100+ VIP Edition booster pack. The whole point of showcase frames is that they make opening booster packs more fun, but they weren't included in the already more expensive basic Double Masters boosters.
20 💙 Modern Horizons 2 – Retro Frame 🌳
Although Time Spiral Remastered's Timeshifted cards aren't considered showcase frames, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Modern Horizons 2's visually identical retro frames are.
Cards from both Modern Horizons 2 and the first Modern Horizons are included in this style, which puts them onto the original Magic card frame. For veterans of the game, they're a cool nostalgic point, and the inclusion of the five fetch lands of the set was a fantastic decision. They also received etched foil versions in some booster packs, which looked really nice.
However, we'd just seen retro frames only a few months earlier, making their comeback feel less special. Timeshifted cards were one of the best things about Time Spiral Remastered, but in Modern Horizons 2, they didn't make a whole lot of thematic sense. It felt almost pandering, made worse by the fact Modern Horizons 2 already has another showcase frame unique to it. This was the set where we hit peak showcase saturation.
19 🌜 Streets of New Capenna – Art Deco Frame
The first of the three Streets of New Capenna showcase frames on this list is this very simplistic Art Deco design. Found mostly on cards not directly tied to one of the five factions, such as Ob Nixilis, Giada, and Urabrask, it's lacks much of the splendor and glamour that makes New Capenna such a compelling setting.
The choice of cards included in this frame is also bizarre. It generally represents characters from outside New Capenna's crime families, but then it also includes characters like Errant – daughter of the new Maestros leader Anhelo – and Tenacious Underdog, a Riveteers-aligned boxer. The lack of a cohesive theme for the frame, and the overall simplicity of its design, make it not pop quite as much as the others in the set.
18 Ze🍒ndikar Rising Expeditions – Hedron Frame 🌱
Continuing Wizards' trend of labelling some things showcases and not other, similar things, Zendikar Rising's buy-a-box promos, Expeditions, got their own unique 'Hedron' frame, where the sides of the cards were full of the Zendikar plane's iconic stone Hedrons.
Although every card in this style is a land, there are some incredible lands here that make it worthwhile. All ten of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:fetch lands were the highlight, but also stuff like the allied-colour bond lands (the enemy-colour ones wouldn't be released until Commander Legends later that year), Wasteland, Strip Mine, and Valakut the Molten Pinnacle.
The only problem with these is that the frame feels too contrasting with the gorgeous art on them. Had these just been full-art lands showcasing those incredible Zendikar vistas, these would've been way up the top of the list. As it is, the Hedrons feel almost cartoon-y in comparison, and it doesn't quite work as a whole piece.
17 🔜 Innistrad😼: Crimson Vow – Fang Frame
The last showcase frame of 2021, Fang frames were given to most of the vampires of Innistrad: Crimson Vow. Combin♈ing decadence and ferocity, their smooth curves and sharp points were a really ni🐓ce, and pretty subtle, way to cap off the year.
The main criticism of these frames isn't with the actual frame itself, it's with the alternate art paired with them: a lot of them are dark and muddy. Cards like Blood Petal Celebramt Olivia's Attendants, Dominating Vampire, Welcoming Vampire, and Markov Purifier tend to blur together into one mass of brown and grey, especially when compared to standouts from the style like Cemetery Gatekeeper, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Odric Blood Cursed, and Runo Stromkirk.
16 💮 Streets of New Capenna &ndꦜash; Skyscraper Frame
Rising from the middle of a desolate wasteland, New Capenna is an enormous, city-containing tower. From the base of Caldaia to the very top of Park Heights, the city is connected by a network of elevators carrying its citizens around. A city-wide skyscraper needs a suitable frame to represent that, which is why the Skyscraper fram🥀es are pretty great.
Found only on the multicolour lands of the set, it imagines what it would look like to a New Capennan emerging from those lifts. The art is incredible, and arguably highlights the set's art deco motifs better than the actual Art Deco frame. BEMOCS' dreamy take on the normally-brutal Tramway Station and Elektrodeko's geometric boxing ring on Ziatora's Proving Ground are standout examples of this.
Unfortunately, the frame itself is still a tad bland, and part of this might be because the lands don't have too much text in them. The bottom half of the card feels sparse in comparison to the gorgeous art going on above it, and it would have been nice to see a bit more of a merging of the two.
15 Innistrad: Midnight Huntꦚ and Innistrad: Crimson Vow – Eternal Night Frame 🍃
To tie together 2021's two visits to Innistrad, Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow shared the Eternal Night frame. Referencing the story, where the sun stopped rising on Innistrad, this frame features lands and legendary creatures in a high-contrast monochromatic style. Beautiful and offputting in equal measure, they swung from the more comic book-y cards like Torrens Fist of the Angels and Jerren Corrupted Bishop to almost wood carving-feeling ones like Sigarda Champion of Light and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Halana and Alena, Partners.
The real stars of this showcase frame, though, are the full-art lands rendered in the same style. Full-art lands in booster packs are always nice, and with these showing off the atmo📖spheric and eerie scenes of Innistrad, they quickly became a fan favourite.
