Island - Magic Basic Land Reprints

If you've ever countered your opponent's potentially game-winning spell, or bounced their best creature with an expensive Aura on the stack, then you know the importance of having Islands in your deck. If the only word you recognize from the previous sentence is "Islands," then you still might enjoy the rest of this post, which details some of the artistic representations of said watery landmasses that have been reprinted the most times in the history of Magic: the Gathering. Here's a comprehensive list of each piece of art on a Basic Land - Island that has been reprinted more than once:

If you read my post about Magic's most reprinted Plains artwork, you'll likely notice some similarities with the situation regarding Islands. The first is that there is a tie atop both the leaderboards for most reprinted artworks, although while the two top Plains checked in at seven reprints apiece, each Island you see here was reprinted nine times. The second similarity is that the earlier of the two most reprinted lands are both from the Invasion set, and what's more, they were both illustrated by the great John Avon. This one in particular (Island #336) features a beach, with waves gently lapping against the shore, which is strewn with sharp hooked poles, sticking out of... dark rocks, with a foreboding giant outcropping looming in the distance. The other similarity is that the second of the two most frequent art reprintings is from a Core Set, although Island's co-leader was from Magic 2012 rather than Magic 2014. Cliff Childs's Island #235 depicts a somewhat different beach, the orientation of which is the same, only this time the waves aren't gently lapping at the shore: they're spilling over from a humongous bowl-like rock formation that towers over you, seems to have its own weather patterns, and obstructs all view of the horizon.

The arts on the above three Islands are tied for second most among that basic land type, having been reprinted seven times each. Harkening back once again to my Plains post, I talked about how Limited Edition's Alpha print run left out one of the three planned basic land arts, which was added back in the Beta print run. As you might recall, the two Alpha Plains were reprinted the same amount of times, once more than the Beta Plains, which makes logical sense. For Islands, however, one of Mark Poole's Alpha artworks - the numbering varies for Limited Edition, but it's the one with the lush green vegetation and a sparse beach, depicted during the daytime - ended up being printed once more than its Alpha counterpart... which itself was printed once more than the Island added back in Beta. Both of those two pieces of art appear below in the next section.

The middle Island above is from Seventh Edition, which was the last Core Set to use the old fashioned card frame, but it would be two more "Advanced-level" sets before they would abandon the white border. John Avon's art for #334 has a similar color scheme and perspective to his tied-for-the-most-frequent piece from Invasion, except the beach is replaced by tide pool-laden rocks, and there is a flat-top landmass in the distance instead of a tall thin pillar of rock. Even though there are no actual Islands on a plane-wide urban landscape such as Ravnica, Richard Wright's art for #294 from the set that introduced us to the City of Guilds shows a cluster of buildings and waterways that is rife with Blue mana. According to the Magic Premiere Shop versions of the Ravnica: City of Guilds basic lands, this particular Island corresponds with the Blue/Black milling guild House Dimir.

The top three Islands in the above image were each reprinted six times, the first of which being the other Alpha Island illustrated by Mark Poole, this one with decidedly less green, but more pink and yellow, given that it takes place during the sunset hour. The Mercadian Masques expansion takes place smack dab in the middle of the Weatherlight Saga, of which the Invasion block is the culmination. I'm not sure whether Scott Bailey's jagged swept-back mass of rocks on #336 represents a specific place on the plane of Mercadia, but based on context clues, it must be an area near the dwellings of the Rishadan Pirates or the Saprazzan Merfolk. I've said before that Magic 2010 was the first Core Set to receive new art for basic lands, and that's actually incorrect: what I meant to say is that it was the first BLACK BORDERED Core Set to receive new art for basic lands. One of these is Rob Alexander's tranquil cove (but not an actual Tranquil Cove) on #234. On the second row, we get the only Island art that has been reprinted exactly five times: Mark Poole's Beta Island - which is a near copy of one of the Alpha Islands, except the landmass is slightly larger and the sky is slightly less yellow.


It's going to be a little while until my next post, but when it arrives, it will be the tallest of all Basic Lands, and the only one that produces Red mana: the mighty Mountain.