Magic New Art Reprints: Evolving Wilds

If only Gretchen Wieners from Mean Girls had paid more attention to the Magic community, she might not have been so disheartened about her efforts to make "fetch" happen. Despite Regina George's attempt at shaming the phrase, fetch lands have been some of Magic's most powerful and versatile cards since the early days. These lands allow players to sacrifice them in order to search their libraries for a land that produces a specific color of mana, greatly improving a deck's flexibility. Most fetch lands are limited to searching for two or three types of land, but the most new-art reprinted card that can find any type of basic land is Evolving Wilds:

TOP: Rise of the Eldrazi, Dark Ascension, Friday Night Magic Promo, Dragons of Tarkir
BOTTOM: Tarkir Dragonfury Promo, Battle for Zendikar, Amonkhet, Rivals of Ixalan

Despite the nine pieces of unique art associated with this card, Evolving Wilds is not the first time we've seen a card with this exact same effect. By the time this card burst onto the scene in Rise of the Eldrazi (with a very cool, if abstract piece of art by Steven Belledin), Time Spiral's Terramorphic Expanse had already been around for four years, making Evolving Wilds the most new-art reprinted functional reprint (i.e. it has the same exact effects and types and colors, just with a different name) in Magic history. And it's not like Terramorphic Expanse is an unpopular card - as of this writing, it's been reprinted 20 times in various Core Sets, Duel Decks, and Casual Supplements (compared to 26 total reprints for Evolving Wilds). But every single one of those reprints features the card's original Time Spiral art by Dan Scott. My guess as to why Evolving Wilds gets such a radically different artistic treatment is that "Terramorphic Expanse" is just more difficult to say... but who knows what goes on in the heads of Wizards of the Coast development executives.

The first time Evolving Wilds was reprinted with new art was in Dark Ascension, the second set of the gothic horror-themed Innistrad block. While the art by Cliff Childs features a nondescript hinterland chapel, the flavor text quote is from Thalia, one of the main protagonists of that block's story and a foremost warrior for the good guys (i.e. not undead). The next new-art reprint wasn't from an expansion set, but rather a promotional giveaway for players who participated in Friday Night Magic events in October of 2012. In addition to the cool alternate foil card frame and the bright, colorful art by Sam Burley, this printing includes the flavor text that appears on the majority of Evolving Wilds reprints, the majority of which feature Steven Belledin's original art.

If you look closely at the next two new art reprints, you'll notice that they both have the same expansion symbol... and the same flavor text. That's because one (with art by Andreas Rocha depicting a waterfall of lava dumping into a mountain stream) is from the actual expansion set Dragons of Tarkir, while the other (with art by Noah Bradley depicting a river of lava winding towards an oasis) is one of the possible prizes from the Dragonfury Promo, a dexterity-based dice throwing game available at select Dragons of Tarkir prerelease events.

It makes sense that Evolving Wilds would show up in Battle for Zendikar, as this block is the sequel to the block where the card first made its appearance - recognize the reference to the Eldrazi in the flavor text? It also makes sense that the piece of land in the art by Izzy would feature the recognizable blight that follows the Eldrazi titan Ulamog wherever he goes. Amonkhet is Magic's ancient Egyptian-themed expansion, which explains why Christine Choi's art for this version shows a desert sandstorm. The flavor text on this one is the second time that Evolving Wilds gets a quote from a prominent (female) character: Samut starts out Amonkhet as a dissentful initiate (read: warrior), but by Hour of Devastation, the second set in the block, she has activated her planeswalker spark.

Like Naturalize before it, the most recent printing of Evolving Wilds is less than a month old, as it took place in Magic's most recent set, Rivals of Ixalan. The art by Jonas De Ro shows ordered steppes lining a hillside, and the flavor text references the Sun Empire, one of four factions in the Ixalan block, inspired by the Aztec/Mayan empire (but with dinosaurs). The Sun Empire has the same colors as the Naya shard on Alara (White/Red/Green), so fetching a basic land would be very useful for them - more so than the Merfolk (Blue/Green) or Vampire (Black/White) factions, but just as useful as for the Pirates (Red/Blue/Black), however since Pirates spend their time on the sea rather than land, it doesn't make sense for this card to refer to them. The very observant among you will notice that I referenced nine new-art printings for Evolving Wilds above, but there are only eight in the picture. That wasn't a typo - the ninth version (pictured right, with art by Daniel Ljunggren) is a special giveaway for participants in the new easy-entry Magic league system, which has been around for just the last three blocks (Kaladesh, Amonkhet, and Ixalan), and whose promos do not appear in magiccards.info's proxy printing database... yet!


So that's the (non-basic) land that has the most new-art reprintings in Magic's history! There are three other cards with nine total versions of the artwork (Dark Ritual, Disenchant, and Shatter, all originating in Limited), and one with eight (Cancel from Time Spiral, a strictly worse version of Counterspell). But for next time I'm going to skip over these and write about the creature with the  most new-art reprints: the classic Blue flier Air Elemental.