Sets (AFR) Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Previews- Dripping with Flavor, and Excess Words!

“Level 17-20”

I wonder what that is about. Super ugly card. The non-showcase card will probably look beautiful.

Could this be one of those special cards that doesn’t really belong to the set but is only there to create a fun little game for prereleases and such like the Hero cards on Theros or the Garruk on Innistrad?
 
I thought this was the showcase frame?
Which I liked much better as it is possible to identify this as a magic card

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Designed to look like the cover of a module book, and I think it succeeds a little too well lol. Very busy design, art does not look like a land.

The "For characters level 17-20" is just a callback to the books noting what levels the module was designed for in a campaign.
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Actually, according to the vocabulary wotc uses, mh2 had only 2 showcase frames. Retro and sketch cards. Both of the full art versions are ... something else.

Does it really matter to you what the names of the frames are? Does it matter to anyone? They are all alternate card frames of already existing cards in the set.

I thought like any sane person would that you asked if the card above was the alternate card frame for the set.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Does it really matter to you what the names of the frames are? Does it matter to anyone? They are all alternate card frames of already existing cards in the set.

I thought like any sane person would that you asked if the card above was the alternate card frame for the set.
You're always very precise with language so I would have thought you might appreciate ravnic's additional insight :) So, according to this article, Sword of Hearth and Home is an example of the borderless treatment, Damn is an example of the extended art treatment, Timeless Dragon is an an example of the showcase retro frame treatment, and Flametongue Yearling is an example of the showcase sketch treatment. Regardless, your point still stands. Modern Horizons 2 had two different showcase frames, so Adventures in the Forgotten Realms could easily have two different showcase frames as well!
 
As a conclusion: Modern Horizons 2 had four different alternate frames besides the normal frame we use in 2021.

If Ravnic was very precise and only meant ‘Showcase’ frames and nothing else, then fine :p I thought he meant it was an alternate frame and therefore I answered his question with the knowledge I had.
 
I think the deal with showcase frames is, that they're special to this set (although technically, that's not wuite correct for the retro frames). Like, the eldraine showcase frame looks (very) different from the kaldheim or z3ndikar version. The borderless/extended art treatments are something, that most/all sets these days get and they have nothing specifically matching this set's flavor.

By these standard, if AFR would give us two showcase frames, it would be something new for a premier set :)
 
It would get the point across and be a lot more successful without the dead text up top. It's just a distraction.

A black one might look alright. That color of red is kind of an assault to the eyes.
 
Good for people who enjoy them, but the dozens of alternate frames over the last few years have left me mostly indifferent whenever we get a new one. Except when they're super ugly like Amonkhet Invocations or this new DND frame.
 
@Brad, I totally agree about the color not being great, but I think this specific shade of red is a callback to some of the original D&D materials, specifically the "Red Book."

Agreed that it's awesome and yet that I don't want it at all, and not only because it would probably be too strong for my tastes.

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I'll have you know that that's one of the most iconic D&D monsters in existence, the beholder, and that it's conception predates Doom by almost 20 years.
i dont know if you or jason were intentionally doing a joke of this, but the cacodemon in Doom is actually traced off an "astral dreadnought" off the cover of one of the editions of d&d's "manual of the planes". Doom itself was originally based off the d&d campaign of the team (combined with ideas from Aliens and Evil Dead).

Beholdercaco.jpg


so the connection is a bit more than accidental
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
i dont know if you or jason were intentionally doing a joke of this, but the cacodemon in Doom is actually traced off an "astral dreadnought" off the cover of one of the editions of d&d's "manual of the planes". Doom itself was originally based off the d&d campaign of the team (combined with ideas from Aliens and Evil Dead).
I was definitely joking, but also didn't know this history. Thanks 'tak!
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
i dont know if you or jason were intentionally doing a joke of this, but the cacodemon in Doom is actually traced off an "astral dreadnought" off the cover of one of the editions of d&d's "manual of the planes". Doom itself was originally based off the d&d campaign of the team (combined with ideas from Aliens and Evil Dead).

so the connection is a bit more than accidental
I wasn't joking, but I also didn't know that the Doom monster was actually based on the astral dreadnought (which is an entirely different monster from the iconic beholder, by the way) :)
 
I'll be honest, I wish they sold alternate borders separately.

I mean, what I really wish is that they wouldn't make nearly as many alternate borders. I know that it isn't going to stop, but I'm seriously starting to feel fatigued here.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I'll be honest, I wish they sold alternate borders separately.

I mean, what I really wish is that they wouldn't make nearly as many alternate borders. I know that it isn't going to stop, but I'm seriously starting to feel fatigued here.
They don't fatigue me at all because I can completely ignore them :D
 
They don't fatigue me at all because I can completely ignore them :D
I can't because I primarily play on Cockatrice, and I have to manually replace the card image if I want to avoid them.

I wouldn't mind if there was some checkbox that let me opt-out of alternate frames entirely... but that would probably be hard to automate.

EDIT: The really annoying thing, though, is that the "use the most recent art" setting (or, rather, the "load the card images dynamically" option) also grabs the card images for Arena, which look terrible alongside normal magic cards.
 
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