#magic:the gathering

[harpagornis]

Its a shame Bloomburrow's story only had five chapters ans no side stories. This is one of the MTG stories I'm most invested on

[dude1818]

[wizardsmagic]

We want to know what you think of March of the Machine in our latest survey!

[gay-little-izzet]

Have you ever thought about doing magic: the gathering fanart?

No not really, seems kinda niche lol

[vlepkaaday]

A lineart for an elf token I am working on

The first thing I ever sold from my fantasy/scifi art were Magic:the Gathering tokens. Those were quite popular but by this point they got a bit outdated :D so I thought I might revitalise them a bit and redraw the ones I liked best. Here’s a lineart and lightwork for the first one that started it all: a 1/1 elf warrior I needed for my disgusting elf overrun modern deck:)

[donatoarts]

ast year I was contacted by Jacob Covey, an Art Director with Wizards of the Coast, to work on a special Magic:The Gathering card project to honor Sheldon Menery, a player and judge credited as the 'Godfather of Commander” format for the game.

Sheldon was in a fight against throat cancer and Wizards' wanted to get this commission (a portrait of Sheldon casting one of his favorite instants Inkshield) out as quickly as possible. It was an honor to be considered by Sheldon for this project, as unknowingly he had chosen another person affected by cancer.

I was a cancer survivor myself (testicular cancer, 33 years ago as a young man) and embraced this portrayal of Sheldon as a way to pour my love of painting and appreciation of the game into this image, and to celebrate our mutual fight against cancer.

Unfortunately Sheldon lost his battle back in September, 2023 as I was working on this card.

I was saddened to now be creating a memorial portrait, a tribute to someone who has helped give great pleasure to millions through his dedication to Magic.

In Sheldon's honor and in his spirit of helping others, I will be auctioning off this portrait with all proceeds going to benefit the American Cancer Society (Sheldon's preferred charity) and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (my preferred choice).

May we see the day when cancer is defeated.

Details on the auction will follow in approximately another week.

Sheldon Menery - Inkshield

20" x 16" Oil on Panel

[patmax17]

I can't overstate how much I love the color wheel (or color pie) from Magic:The Gathering

I started playing magic back in 2001 when I was 14, Odyssey had just come out. I knew a bit of English, and I soon started reading Magic's website for news and spoilers. That's when I discovered @markrosewater 's column Making Magic. MaRo is both a great game designer and an impressive writer, his column was entertaining, witty, fun and informative. I consider Magic and especially his column to be the main reason I learned to read English so fast.

Now, 2001 was a period of transformation in Magic. The main saga in the story had just ended (consider Avengers:Endgame), and the people at WotC were reconsidering and rebalancing the color wheel. I remember there being weeks dedicated to the single colors, and MaRo's comulumn being deeeep dives into those colors.

Now, what's the color wheel? You see, in the universe of Magic: The Gathering the primordial energy and building block is mana, which comes in one of five colors: white, blue, black, red and green. Mechanically, each card is associated to one (or more) colors, and each color has mechanics that are typical for it, like green being the color of growth and big creatures, blue being the color of spells and flying, and black being the color of death and zombies. But the people at WotC put a lot of effort to also distinguish each color thematically, defining *why* each color has certain mechanics, what it says about the color's philosophy and values. Green is the color of nature and community, where the small ones help the big ones grow and foster. Blue is the color of knowledge and artificiality, black is the color.

It's pretty intuitive most of the time, but here's where it gets even better: the placing of the colors on the wheel has a meaning. Colors that are close to each other are "allied" colors and have something in common, while colors that are opposite of each other represent the two opposites on an axis:

I don't have the time (or skill) to go into detail here, but this system is so damn elegant. It has five basix building blocks but allows to represent an incredibly vast array of concepts, characters and behaviors.

The color wheel is still my favourite system to define/describe fictional characters, it's miles better than the alignment chart of D&D (or, like, hogwarts houses).

I find it incredibly fun to discuss what color(s) certain character fall into: is superman white, green? Is batman white, black, blue? A combination of those? Ryuko Matoi is red, Satsuki Kiryuin is white. Do you disagree? Perfect, tell me why, it's always super interesting to see which aspects of a character people consider the most prominent!

My favourite Magic blocks and sets were those playing with the color wheel and its concepts, mainly Planar Chaos but ESPECIALLY Ravnica. Man, I really need to play some rpg campaign set on Ravnica sooner or later.

I played magic for 5-6 years (until I finished high school), but the color wheel is ingrained in my mind. It was the main chitchat topic when I first started going out with my SO more than 15 years ago xD

So yeah, not sure who this is for, it's mainly me rambling and fanboying about one of my favourite game design and character creation concepts. If you don't know the color wheel, I suggest you try to read a bit about it. And if you do know it, what do you think? Is there anyone out there who used it as a basis for an rpg or foe writing?

[talonabraxas]

'thousand year storm' in the swirling clouds of Jupiter! Magic:The Gathering by Donato Giancola

[kunosoura]

brandon sanderson keeps writing mid fantasy books but it's so clear to me that his heart's calling is in designing new magic:the gathering cards with obscure synergies

[gammarailgun]

missing an arm cat ears

so was anybody going to tell me that Winota (magic:the gathering) is literally just Bumbleby (rwby; yang + blake ship) but merged into a single blorbo

or did i have to figure that out myself

[harpagornis]

Honestly can't handle people bitching about Duskmourn and the modern tech. The whole set is filled with magical ENCHANTMENT CREATURES, it feels like MAGIC

[technofinch]

nearly every fox in magic:the gathering is white, except the nine-tail white fox, which is blue.

[supersoftly]

Til of Subete no Jinrui wo Hakai suru. Sorera wa Saisei Dekinai. The new series by Ise Katsura of Onani Master Kurosawa, really great highly reccomend btw. It's about a dude that grows closer to his rival after learning they both love Magic:the gathering.

Way ahead of you buddy, absolutely adore the series, been following it since basically its conception. Currently hooked on the artist's other series too called the Story Between a Dumb Prefect and a High School Girl with an Inappropriate Skirt Length, if you enjoy romcom stuff.

[kozyndan]

kozyndan Secret Lair drops for Magic the Gathering!

Magic the Gathering has released two sets of cards designed by us as Secret lair drops that are only available to order for one month - December 5th 2022-January 6th 2023.

Get them HERE!

The art director at Wizards of the Coast first emailed us about doing some cards for Magic:the Gathering @mtgsecretlair way back May 2020.  We were in limbo at the time having come to Japan the before the first lockdown in Los Angeles to finish work on our house here in Yamanashi, but coming to the realization that maybe we would be in Japan for a long time.  

We didn’t really get to work right away - at the time we thought maybe we should learn how to grow our own food in case shit got worse!  So we spent most of our days outside and away from our sketchbooks.  But eventually toward the end of summer, I finally sat down and really had a look at the cards that had been settled on and just started sketching.  This first sketch came out pretty fast and by the time 

We fleshed out this first illustration, 8 months into what was supposed to be a 2.5 month long trip to Japan, the overall theme for the whole set of cards started to take root as we settled into actually living in the Japanese countryside, here where kozy was born and raised. We’d make an homage to our immediate surroundings, to Kozy’s home prefecture Yamanashi, and to the traditions of Japanese ukiyo-e art that have always informed our work together.  Planting the world of historic Japan into the world of Magic:the Gathering (or is it vice versa?) to make “Another Story”. 

  Instead of the traditional Western-style swords and sorcery theme, we opted for vibes more reminiscent of Edo era and for the most part tried to limit ourselves more or less to coloring that could have been achieved by master of ukiyo-e printmaking techniques of the time. The connections vary from small details to quite specific overall scenes. The overcoat of the main Llanowar Elf bears the same dove and bamboo crest as the one on our kura (home storage building), and is set in a bamboo forest much like the massive grove that runs along the creek in our backyard. The Mountain card depicts a view from above the village of Hirabayashi, Yamanashi, where kozy has gone to fire her ceramic sculptures in traditional. Wood-firing kilns for the last 3 years. 

If you are a Magic player or a kozyndan fan (or both!), consider pre-ordering a set!