Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I voted for the Baxa art. Of the four, I feel it best depicts a metal substance that can morph into any form. None of the other three arts really speak to me.
General Aesthetics Debate Club: Optimizing Art in Cube (Daily!)
- Thread starter MilesOfficial
- Start date
This is one of a very short list where there is no wrong answer - every single one is fantastic in its own way. I voted for the NPH set printing only because my cube features my Japanese copy that won me many games in Pod decks in Standard. There were two of the prerelease foil in that deck too, but I have fewer concrete memories of those for some reason.
FWIW, I agree with you that the LotR art is a fantastic update to the card - but that border is ugly as sin and I'd rather not have the Theoden flavour text.
Day 9: Phyrexian Metamorph | Results
Jana Schirmer & Johannes Voss | NPH - 5 votes (36%)Thomas M. Baxa | 2XM - 5 votes (36%)
Yoji Shinkawa | SLD - 3 votes (21%)
Jung Park | PNPH - 1 vote
Our first tie! The original and the Double Masters full art version both take the cake today. I was anticipating the votes to go very differently; again, based mostly on what I've seen from browsing a lot of cube lists on Cube Cobra, I would have put money on Jung Park's promo being a contender here.
Admittedly, I never gave the full art version much of a look, but @Onderzeeboot made an excellent point: it really does reflect the mechanics of the card better than any of the other options.
Day 10: Faithless Looting | Survey
Gabor Szikszai | DKA
Karl Kopinski | PIDW
Carly Mazur | STA-EN
Shiro Yayoi | STA-JP
Karl Kopinski | BRC
Miklós Ligeti | LTC
Douglas Shuler | CMM
For the survey, click here!
It's time for my favorite card! We've been spoiled with choices when it's come to Faithless Looting recently, which feels more unnecessary than most since the original Dark Ascension version is a fine piece of Magic art on its own. That said, I used to get every new MtG comic that came out, so when the Greatest Thief in the Multiverse™ popped up on the greatest sorcery of the modern era, I knew I had a new favorite.
I love the Japanese Strixhaven Mystical Archive version, but have not had an opportunity to make it into English in a way I find personally satisfying, and I don't know that I'd want it to take Dack's place anyway. I'm in the camp that the Carly Mazur version is unfairly maligned; I may not prefer it, but when it's an alternate version of a card, I want WotC to go outside of their comfort zone like this! The beauty of diversity!
Conceptually the Lord of the Rings version is nice, but the art is a bit bland for my taste. Ditto for the Commander Masters full art - it feels very static for the action that's supposedly taking place, and doesn't take advantage of the full scope of the card granted by the semi-transparent text-box.
I won't normally put different frames of the same art in unless they're quite unique and also not the original printing, as is the case with the delightful Brothers War commander deck, one of two precons I've bought in the last decade of play. Like so many of you, I am an old-border preferrer to my death, and to get my preferred art in the frame was *chef's kiss*. That's the version I run now.
As a note: I'll be holding off from posting new surveys on the weekend going forward.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I prefer the new border and will update any cards I can to match the feel of my cube, but! But the old frame did one thing right that I dearly miss in the new frame, and that’s the tombstone icon. Besides, like you, I think the Dack art is by far the coolest, so my vote went to the Brother’s War Commander reprint!
JP Archive every time
I am of the opinion that each cube that benefits from running a Faithless Looting benefits more from running two because of the play pattern the card yields and the decks that typically wants that play pattern.
Thumbs up
Thumbs up
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Zero love for running cards so textless I can't even read the name
Unfortunately I don't really have anything positive to say about these.
Comic promo is very ACTION POSE, Mystic Archive is way too out there for me, my beloved borderless frame is being hamstrung by the hammiest flavor text since Odyssey...
I think my vote is for the LoTR version, since it actually looks like looting, though I acknowledge there's some frame concerns and that flavor text might just send you the same way the borderless one sends me
You're already in Custom Gang, you might as well language swap that version of the card. If you like it.Zero love for running cards so textless I can't even read the name
Original art EZ, love the burning book in the foreground and the amount of movement in the picture
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I will give credit to the original art for actually depicting Faithless Looting!
Mystical Archive Faithless Looting is one of my favorite-looking Magic cards of all time. I love love love the creepy mixed-media look, the flat shading combined with the highly realistic shading makes for one of the most unique cards I've ever seen. I was like, kinda surprised when I found out that this version of the card is like a meme to a lot of people and they think it's goofy and make fun of it. It is unbelievably striking to me, and is the version I will put in basically any cube that wants Flooting. Unmatched vibes on that card. In general I'm a big fan of the more abstract and surrealist cards, my fav artists in the game are people like Drew Tucker, Carly Mazur, Nils Hamm, and Dominik Mayer.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Absolutely! But miles doesn't have that luxury, or (I assume) there'd be a whole bunch more versions to vote on
You know, a lot of the reasons you like it are the reasons I don't like it, but that's art baybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Still love Dominik Mayer though
Okay rant incoming:
Sidebar to this whole discussion, I stay away from flooting mostly off of how hard it can be to get a full card out of discarding 2. Faithless looting isn't worth it in a random deck that gains no value, and since I don't run madness, there's not a ton of cards that provide a worthwhile amount of value.
How many cards in your deck do you need for you to run flooting? Do cards like memory deluge even count for that number?
Are you just on reanimator and this doesn't even matter because it won't matter what even happened in the game before you dumped Griselbrandin play?
I get that there's basically nothing else. Conceptually thrill of possibility accomplishes what flooting doesn't, but it's also a 2 mana cantrip, and therefore quite low power. Magmatic insight is an option but basically removes all agency, etc etc
Like I eventually landed on this:
And it's strong sure, fine for my power level, but there's not a lot of nobs to tweak that don't lead me back to flooting.
I like my cubes running on the spell velocity angle with a cheap(ish) curve. That means that I run payoffs for casting spells and lots of them. It also means that extra lands lose value relatively quickly and are easy to pitch.
Then when you factor in GY/discard synergies it really gets powerful. Other flashback spells, delve/escape, delirium, eternalize/embalm/unearth, Tarmogoyfs, Magmatic Channelers, Vengevine, Goblin Welder, Life from the Loam and so many others.
Flooting is a single mana and has flashback for 2 spell casts. It’s looting rather than rummaging. It’s the first card I want to break singleton on when I chose to go down that route (I have 4 in my MP cube!). Agree with Velrun’s point of wanting more if you have one since nothing else plays as well.
We are getting more solid options with Bitter Reunion and Scrapwork Mutt, but those still cost double the mana!
While I run a foil copy of the Mystical Archive version, I do slightly prefer the BRC for all the reasons Miles mentioned - and I love the inclusion of the little tombstone. If I find a single of the BRC version at either of my FLGS I'll make the swap, but until then am very happy with the beautifully wonky looking STR print. Kinda makes me wish WoTC still made use of Higginbotham, or other concept artists and designers who work with more physical media.
To be fair to the LotR print, Grima Wormtongue also wasn't keeping faith with his sworn lord. Sure it's a secular use of the word 'Faithless' but I like neat little recontextualizations like that.
I like the original Flooting the best, followed by the Dack Fayden version. I also like the new Full Art version and will be getting one for my Cube when I have the chance. Probably will be getting a Dack Art as well so I can finally switch with Art singleton.
Day 10: Faithless Looting | Results
Gabor Szikszai | DKA - 13 votes (62%)Shiro Yayoi | STA-JP - 3 votes (14%)
Karl Kopinski | BRC - 3 votes (14%)
Miklós Ligeti | LTC - 1 vote
Douglas Shuler | CMM - 1 vote
Karl Kopinski | PIDW - 0 votes
Carly Mazur | STA-EN - 0 votes
Wow, did not expect such overwhelming love for the original! It's quite an evocative piece and it is the "OG", but with so many exciting options, I didn't anticipate a majority - 62%!! - of love.
Day 11: Terramorphic Expanse | Survey
Dan Scott | TSP
Dan Scott | Salvat 2005
Andreas Rocha | JMP
Full-Text | SLD
Kekai Kotaki | 40k
Adam Burn | ONE
Dan Scott | BRC (Old Border)
Alexander Gering | LRC
Dan Scott | CMB (Extended art)
Take the survey here!
Thought today would be an easy one for me, but both more arts than I remembered mixed with more aesthetic variations means that to get the right mix, I needed to include 9, 4 of which with the same art!
Do you want white border? Classic border? Less border? Original printing? Or do you want no art whatsoever? Or one of the weird, alien planes of Middle Earth, 40k, or New Pyrexia?
I'm currently on the BRC version of Dan Scott's art. I briefly switched to the Jumpstart version when it came out - never had been a huge fan of the OG art, and Rocha's rendition was more representative to me of what the card does. I then switched to the artless version, because it was funny. However, unlike the basics, not everyone knows what Terramorphic Expanse actually does, so while it was a good goof, it was the opposite of accessible, and that's really not what I want for my Cube. When The Brothers' War Commander set came out, as I've mentioned before here, I was happy to upgrade (I've still got 8 reprints from the expansion in my list) and I doubt I'll be switched off it any time soon.
Worth noting: I hate extended art, mostly for what it does to the composition of one version or another of the original piece. And while this one is still more intact than most, you're still cropping a good 5-10% of the art to make it "bigger", which is a real shame, and a shitty thing to do to a piece of art imo. And yet.......I did not notice that the same sin also applies to the version I use until I made this........
Write-in ballot:
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Unlike Evolving Wilds, none of the newer arts are really improvements over the original art for me. My favorite choice (New border with flavor text bar and current wording, e.g. Dominaria United Commander) isn't there, so I'll go with the TSP version.
i like the one thats more colorful
For your information, for the first time you have uploaded the arts in non-chronological order of release date.
You have probably thought this through. But in case you didn’t, you can use Evolving Wilds which has plenty of varied art. Easy to pick 9 really good arts.
You have probably thought this through. But in case you didn’t, you can use Evolving Wilds which has plenty of varied art. Easy to pick 9 really good arts.
I am surprisingly ambivalent on this one. Usually, I have a somewhat strong opinion but here... I just don't.
I voted original but only because I like the "normal" modern/m15 frame more than the Universes Beyond frame. I think I like the art on the WH40K printing slightly more than the TSP art, but only marginally.
I voted original but only because I like the "normal" modern/m15 frame more than the Universes Beyond frame. I think I like the art on the WH40K printing slightly more than the TSP art, but only marginally.
I was getting a high ratio of responses that were commenting beyond the art so I kind of leaned into it; open to feedback though