168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering’s ‘Booster Fun’ scheme has felt a lot less fun recently. What started out as a neat new art treatment in Throne of Eldraine has become a tangled mess of trying to work out which cards can be found in which booster packs, and every set has so many different art styles vying for your attention that it’s easy to lose track. Phyrexia: All Will Be One had six different versions of Elesh Norn alone, which was about five too many♚.
For 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:March of the Machine, the next major set and the climax of the current Phyrexian invasion arc, Wizards is trying something new. Instead of dumping yet another wave of alt-arts on us, it is instead revisiting some of 🀅the best showcases we’ve seen since Throne of Eldraine. It’s a genius move that♊ keeps all the flashy booster fun Wizards thinks we want, while also pulling back the scale and remembering why we all loved those early Eldraine, Theros, and Ikoria frames so much.
When Throne of Eldraine launched, showcase frames were a way to tie together the major theme of the set with a cool, setting-appropriate art style. For Eldraine’s fairy-tale world, it was art nouveau-style storybooks placed on cards with the set’s debut mechanic, adventures. For Theros: Beyond Death,ꦓ it instead looked up into Theros’ night sky and reimagined the gods of the world as constellations. A particular favourite of mine is Zendikar Rising, which took landfall cards and turned them into retro travel posters to reflect the plane’s intrinsic connection to the land and environment.
Sometimes the themes were a bit looser – Ikoria’s showcase frames gave creatures with the set’s mutate mechanic a comic book makeover for reasons I’m still not entirely sure of – but they were small inclusions that gave that set a great sense of identity. Although we’ve had a few big winners since, like Dominaria United’s stained-glass, those early showcaᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚses still stand out as among the b🅺est the game has ever produced.
Unfortunately, like all good things in Magic, Wizards saw this success and push𒊎ed it way too far, way too fast. Before long, sets were using multiple showcase frames for different things. Innistrad: Midnight Hunt and Innistrad: Crimson Vow had two each, with the Eclipse art style shared between them. Then we hit New Capenna and its Art Deco, Skyscraper, and Golden Age frames.
Sets that had no intrinsic identity were getting them, like Modern Horizons 2’s reintroduced etched foil showcases, retro frames, and artist proofs. The issue came to a head in Phyrexia: All Will Be One w🍷ith its six styles𓆏: Ichor, manga, Phyrexian language, borderless concept art, and Oil-slicked raised foils.
Time Spiral Remastered, a rerelease of an older group of sets focused on time travel, reprinted newer cards ꦿon the old retro frames. It made sense and was a cool, nostalgic thing to see - but showcase frames were also reused where there was no reason꧂ for them to be. Modern Horizons 2 – a set for a format defined by using cards after that retro frame was retired – and The Brothers’ War had two complete Commander decks given the retro frame style.
Repetition makes showcase frames not only less exciting, they weaken the effect they haꩵve on giving a set its iden𝕴tity. Manga art was a cool inclusion for the Japanese-inspired Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, but then we saw it twice again in Jumpstart 2022 and Phyrexia: All Will Be One, and now my interest dies the second I see a manga card.
All of this explains why, ꦛdespite March of the Machine arguably having the most differing showcase styles in a single set, it manages to pull it off so well. March of the Machine is a huge battle set right across the multiverse. Instead of being based in one plane like usual, we’ll be seeing the war as it rages across everywhere from Alara and Dominaria to Kamigawa and Zendikar. Finding ways to quickly signpost to players which planes cards take place on will be tricky, which makes the return of older showcase frames absolutely perfect.
Take Omnath, Locus of All. The long-awaited fiv🏅e-colour Omnath card is finally here, and, as one of the most iconic creatures from Zendikar, it’ll get Zendikar Rising’s travel poster style. Heliod, the god of the sun from Theros, will instead see Theros: Beyond Death’s constellation style.
We’ve also seen Dominaria United’s stained-glass for Muldaya and Yargle, Innistrad: Midnight Hunt’s Equinox frame for Thalia and the Gitrog Monster, and Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty’s Ninja frame for Goro Goro and Satoru. With dozens of showcase frames already printed, there’s a deep w♔ell of styles for Wizards to pull from.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this is Ixalan. We haven’t visited Ixalan – a Dinosaur-ridden, Mesoamerican world where Merfolk, Pirates, and conquistador Vampires search for hidden treasure – since 2018, before Throne of Eldraine introduced booster🍸 fun. It doesn&rsquo🤪;t have its own showcase frame yet, and so March of the Machine is introducing it ahead of the full-scale return to that world later this year in Lost Caverns of Ixalan.
By printing the🥂 portrait of the card’s characters into a golden doubloon, this showcase immediately gives newer players a hint of what Ixalan might be: a world of treasure, gold, and danger. Instead of a refresher of what we’ve already seen, Ixalan is using showcases as a teaser of what🎶’s to come.
March of the Machine remembered why showcase frames were so popular in those early days: they’re flavourful as hell. They get invested by distilling 𓆉that setting’s core themes into a visual shorthand. Getting people invested in these characters is hard enough in sets only based on their home planes, let alone one where any character could be from anywhere – with just one look at a showcase card, you get an idea of not just who they are, but also the world they’re fighting for.
March remembered that planes are just as much a character of Magic: The Gathering as the people who inhabit them, and I can’t wait to see what other showcase frames ꦫmake a comeback.