Mountain - Basic Land Reprints

Well, I've just gotten back from some traveling, and what better way to welcome myself back home than by continuing my analysis of the pieces of art on Basic Lands that have been reprinted the most times in the game of Magic: the Gathering? This time, rather than going around the color wheel, I'm skipping to Red, because I had already taken screenshots of the most commonly-reprinted Mountain arts before my trip. As always, below is a chart of all the Mountain artworks that have been reprinted more than once (including a quick correction). Also, if you've already read my Basic Lands Reprints "Hub world" post, you will have already seen the first paragraph... but you could always read it again as a little refresher.

Not only is Karl Kopinski's artwork on Magic 2010 #244 the most frequently reprinted piece of art on a Mountain, it's the most frequently reprinted piece of art on any basic land in the history of Magic. I don't know if it's the snow-dotted peaks, the mist in the valley below, the flock of winged creatures to the right, or the band of adventurers to the left, but something about this gorgeous landscape got it reprinted a whopping 14 (fourteen) times! And that's only counting paper sets in English - a search on Scryfall will show you a Spanish version (Montaña) from Salvat and a Magic Online theme deck version, in addition to the original printing. Next on the list for Mountains, and tied for third overall amongst basic lands, is Magic 2012 #242, whose majestic yet topple-worthy rock formation by Cliff Childs has been reprinted ten times. Maybe the folks who decide which lands get reprinted really like traversable mountains from Core Sets, as this one also features a staircase. Mountain is the only Tierra básica not to feature art from an expert level expansion in its top three most reprinted artworks, as we have yet another entrant from M10 finishing in third place. The most stereotypical of landmasses, Nils Hamm's #242 shows a plethora of jagged red-orange peaks, which have appeared nine other times throughout Magic's illustrious history of sets.

The next four examples on the list of most common Mountain arts are tied at seven reprints apiece. You'll recall from the many times I've explained this situation that Magic's first print run (Alpha) had two pieces of art for each basic land, while the second print run (Beta) added a third (or rather, included the one that was mistakenly left out of Alpha). The first of the two above Mountains illustrated by Douglas Schuler (his name was misspelled on the actual paper cards) is from Alpha, while the second one was added in Beta (note the slightly more vibrant colors, especially in the white text). Speaking of printing errors, it's interesting to note that the Beta Mountain made its way into the Arabian Nights expansion by accident, even though that set was not supposed to include any basic lands, making "Basic Land - Mountain" the most-printed card amongst expert-level expansions. This doesn't explain why one Alpha Mountain was printed more times than the other, but the computer I used to create this database won't currently start up, so I can't exactly show my work.

Moving to the left, we see a good chronology of the evolution of rules text on basic lands. John Avon's art on Urza's Saga #344 - a haunting pastel depiction of a mist-enswirled range - features the "Tap" symbol followed by a colon, replacing the worlds "tap to" that appeared up until Fourth Edition. By the time we get to Magic 2014 (which was released in 2013), the game's designers had long since replaced any rules text on basic lands with an overlarge mana symbol; the change actually happened in 1999's Sixth Edition, the set immediately following Urza's Saga. However, you might also notice a difference in the type line between the third and fourth images above - up through mid-2003, all basic lands were denoted simply as "Land," but in Eighth Edition, they were changed to the more descriptive "Basic Land - [TYPE]" as is the case with Jonas De Ro's semicircular mountainous valley on Magic 2014 #243.

The above image is a little confusing in terms of number of reprints - the artworks on the entire top row and the one on the bottom left have been reprinted six times, while the last three on the bottom row have five reprints apiece - but I just couldn't resist a nice 2x4 grid. The silvery-white snow-covered peaks at the top left is the second Douglas Schuler Alpha Mountain I mentioned above. Next to it is yet another piece by John Avon, a sunset-inspired study in yellow, dark red, and black from the African-themed set Mirage. Seventh Edition was the second Core Set to include new art on lands (Fifth Edition did it first, but Classic Sixth Edition went back to reprints), of which Rob Alexander's starkly vertical slope rising above the clouds is one. I already mentioned the specifics of the basic lands from Shards of Alara in my post about Plains, but Aleksi Briclot's lava-soaked chasm in front of a red sky on #244 is one of two Mountains representing the Black-Red-Green shard known as Jund. Andreas Rocha's view down on some excessively sharp peaks in Magic 2014 #245 is the second entrant from that particular set in the top-12 of most-reprinted Mountain artworks.

Mercadian Masques #346 features another mountain by Rob Alexander, only this one is shown from a much longer distance away, such that you can clearly see its pointy top against a red-orange sky. I went over some of the blue tribes from the MMQ expansion in my post about Islands, but you would most likely find Goblins inhabiting the mountains in this set. We'll see more about the Onslaught expansion (set on the Dominarian continent of Otaria) when we get to Swamps, but suffice it to say, Sam Wood's art on #344 continues the theme of Mountains with footpaths on them, as this one has both a foot bridge in the foreground and a carved-in switchbacking ramp further towards the back. Speaking of Swamps, the most commonly reprinted art on which comes from Ravnica: City of Guilds, Richard Wright's #302 from that set rounds out our five-times-reprinted Mountains. Based on the Magic Premiere Shop watermarks on the RAV lands, this from-the-bottom view of jagged buildings resembling mountain peaks represents the militaristic Boros Legion.


MLB All-Star Game Season is coming up in the near future, so I will likely take a break from art for tabletop games for a moment to focus on that, but when I come back, the next land type featured will be the murky Black mana-rich Swamp.

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.

Magic Basic Lands Reprints - HUB

I wrote an untruth in my last post: I said that my next post would go clockwise around the color wheel and profile Islands next in my series on the most frequently reprinted pieces of art on Basic Lands. Instead, I've decided to create another one of those "hub world" posts I like so much, including a blurb about the top reprinted lands of each type. I've already published the one about Plainses, and I'll repeat that one at the very end, since here I'll go in descending order of most reprinted land arts. And that distinction goes to the always Red...

Mountain
(47 arts reprinted more than once)

Not only is Karl Kopinski's artwork on Magic 2010 #244 the most frequently reprinted piece of art on a Mountain, it's the most frequently reprinted piece of art on any basic land in the history of Magic. I don't know if it's the snow-covered peaks, the mist in the valley below, the flock of winged creatures to the right, or the band of adventurers to the left, but something about this gorgeous landscape got it reprinted a whopping 14 (fourteen) times! And that's only counting paper sets in English - a search on Scryfall will show you a Spanish version (Montaña) from Salvat and a Magic Online theme deck version, in addition to the original printing. Next on the list for Mountains, and tied for third overall amongst basic lands, is Magic 2012 #242, whose majestic yet topple-worthy rock formation by Cliff Childs has been reprinted ten times. Maybe the folks who decide which lands get reprinted really like traversable mountains from Core Sets, as this one also features a staircase. Mountain is the only Tierra básica not to feature art from an expert level expansion in its top three most reprinted artworks, as we have yet another entrant from M10 finishing in third place. The most stereotypical of landmasses, Nils Hamm's #242 shows a plethora of jagged red-orange peaks, which have appeared nine other times throughout Magic's illustrious history of sets.


Forest
(46 arts reprinted more than once)

Boy, there was just something about those basic lands from Magic 2010, wasn't there? Steven Belledin's classic nature scene that found its way onto #248 in that set - with its single large-trunked tree dominating the right side of the frame, flanked by several smaller varieties (including a fern!) on a leaf-strewn floor - leads all Forests (the same set that leads all Mountains), and comes in second overall in basic land art reprintings with 12 instances. Next, we have a two-way tie with eight reprints each. The earlier of these is Glen Angus's bird-swarmed treetop village from #350 in the Invasion expert level expansion. Not only is Invasion from the pre-modern era (notice the older card frame?), but it's also very important to Magic lore, having been the culmination of the iconic Weatherlight Saga. Like Mountain, Magic 2010 lands occupy two of the top three most commonly reprinted artworks on Forest cards: the second one being Jim Nelson's single giant tree from #249.


Swamp
(45 arts reprinted more than once)

The most-reprinted Swamp artwork - tied for third most amongst all basic land reprints with Cliff Childs's M12 Mountain - is from a set that takes place on the same plane as Magic's most recent expert level expansion, War of the Spark: Ravnica: City of Guilds. While it's not explicitly stated in the set itself that Richard Wright's sprawling, towered, bridged, underground cityscape on card #298 represents one of the city-plane's ten two-colored guilds, there is evidence that it depicts a dwelling place of the Black/Red Cult of Rakdos. Like Forest, we have a two-way tie for second place in Swamp, and also like Forest, they are tied with eight reprintings apiece. ALSO like Forest, the earlier one is also from a pre-modern expert level expansion, this one from the second Otaria-focused block called Onslaught. Dan Frazier, the artist of pale, pink-flower-including pale bog on #341, has the distinction of also being the illustrator for the very first ever printed Swamp. Like Mountain, there is also a Magic 2012 land art in Swamp's top three, and it's the third land so far to feature a flock of birds, this one flapping over some green brackish water and in front of some dead gray trees. I'm assuming that Jung Park, the illustrator of #240, pronounces his name like Jung Ho Kang (or, more appropriately, as in Jund), rather than Carl Jung, given that both Park and Kang are Korean names, but I might be making an ass out of you and me by jumping to that conclusion.


Island
(45 arts reprinted more than once)

Picture 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. That's the scene on John Avon's #336 from the above-mentioned Invasion set, which I didn't mention before focuses on the Phyrexian invasion of Dominaria. Now imagine you're on 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. That's what you'd be seeing if you imagined Cliff Childs's artwork from #235 from the Magic 2012 Core Set. Also, both of those pieces of art have been reprinted nine times.


Plains
(43 [REALLY!? SKIPPING ONE!?!?] arts reprinted more than once)

We're here at the end, because the co-leaders in Plains art reprints are the smallest among all basic land types, appearing in just seven sets each beyond their original printings. The earlier of the two aforementioned original printings was from Invasion, a set that featured top-two art reprints for three of the five basic lands. John Avon's art for Plains #331, depicting a low angle shot of a field of wheat, conjures up images from the film Gladiator. However I imagine this is merely a coincidence, since the Ridley Scott-helmed Best Picture winner was released just five months before Invasion's print run, which means the artwork must have been commissioned long before that. While the overly-represented Magic 2010 was the first ever Core Set to include new art printings of basic lands, it wasn't until four years later that we got a Core Set Plains with real sticking power. Plains #233 from M14 features art by Andreas Rocha, which does a great job of conveying the expansiveness associated with prairie, steppe, and grassland, while also giving us a sense of perspective of the surrounding landscapes.

Plains - Magic Basic Lands Reprints

Last year, I did a deep dive into an aspect of Magic: the Gathering that has always fascinated me: new art reprints. If you don't want to click the link and read my previous post(s), the general idea is that I covered the top five cards (in terms of frequency) that have been reprinted with a piece of artwork that's different from its original printing. When I say "cards" above, I'm referring to spells and nonbasic lands; while Basic Land is the card type that has the most new art reprints, with four to five different versions of each appearing in many sets, they're also fundamentally different from any other card in Magic, given that a player can have as many as they want in their decks. What's more, each basic land type (Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest) features many pieces of art that appear in multiple sets, sort of the opposite of a new art reprint. Considering this distinction, it's much more interesting to look at which lands' art pieces have been reprinted the most amount of times. At least that's what I kept telling myself when I put together the database from which the following excerpt has been taken:

The above image is a list of every Basic Land - Plains that has had its artwork reprinted more than once. Plains is a good place to start, not just because white mana sits at the top of the color wheel, but because the leader - or rather, co-leaders - in Plains art reprints is the smallest among all basic land types, appearing in seven sets beyond their original printings. The earlier of the two aforementioned original printings was Invasion, a very important set in Magic's history, it being the culmination of the iconic Weatherlight Saga. John Avon's art for Plains #331, depicting a low angle shot of a field of wheat, conjures up images from the film Gladiator. However I imagine this is merely a coincidence, since the Ridley Scott-helmed Best Picture winner was released just five months before Invasion's print run, which means the artwork must have been commissioned long before that. Magic 2010 (released in 2009, like new car models) was the first ever Core Set to include new art printings of basic lands, but it wasn't until four years later that we got a Core Set Plains with real sticking power. Plains #233 from M14 features art by Andreas Rocha, which does a great job of conveying the expansiveness associated with prairie, steppe, and grassland, while also giving us a sense of perspective of the surrounding landscapes.

Another reason why Plains is a good place to start this feature is that its next-most-common group of same-art-reprints (with six reprints each) includes a good reason to talk about the mistakes in Magic's first ever Core Set. Originally released in August 1993, the Alpha printing of Limited Edition included only two of each type of basic land, the Plains versions of which (illustrated by Jesper Myrfors) appear above. While they look very similar in terms of color and composition, notice the subtle addition of trees in the second one. In the Beta printing (October 1993), a third basic land of each type was added, after being mistakenly left out of the first print run. See the next section for the third "original" Plains.

2008's Shards of Alara expansion - which is based on three-color combinations known as "shards" - had a fun gimmick regarding the art on basic lands: one artist was assigned to illustrate four lands per shard, two from the central color and one each for the two flanking colors. Michael Komarck got the lands for the Bant shard (Green-White-Blue), which means he illustrated two Plains, one Island, and one Forest. The second of these two Plains (#232, depicting a tree-dotted hill with a castle in the distance and a tranquil stream in the foreground) is the third card pictured above. In an even more fun basic land gimmick, the following year's Zendikar expansion featured full art lands (a concept that debuted in 1998's parody set Unglued). Our old pal John Avon provided the pillar-esque art for Plains #230, although every subsequent reprint of the image featured a cropped version with the traditional card frame.

Rounding things out, five Plains have pieces of art that have been reprinted five times, three of which are from expansion sets we've seen before. First on the list (i.e. the earliest to be released) is the aforementioned Beta Plains that was unintentionally left out of the Alpha print run, this one with a flat foreground, as opposed to the U-shaped ones from Jesper Myrfors's two Plains from Alpha. Number two is the first of Michael Komarck's Plains from Shards of Alara (#231), which leans more into the Green mana side of Bant (hence all those trees). And number four is another full art land from Zendikar, and unlike John Avon's above installment from the same set, this hedron-filled one by Vincent Proce (#233) has been reprinted in its full art version, for 2015's return to the plane, Battle for Zendikar. Speaking of John Avon, his art for Plains #231 in the Magic 2010 Core Set shares many elements of his above-pictured Invasion Plains, most notably the overall burnt-umber coloring and its placement in a field. The main differences are that the path is emphasized, the point of view is slightly wider, so we see more of the sunset in the distance, and the vegetation looks more like tall grass than crops. The final Plains on this list is also from a Core Set (#232 from Magic 2013), and while Nils Hamm's artwork doesn't feature much in the way of details in the landscape, the color scheme and gentle lines present a very pleasant-seeming environment indeed.


Next time I'll continue around the color wheel and take a journey into Magic's most-reprinted artwork for Islands.

Ultimate Masters New Art Reprints

I am in the middle of recaps for the 2018 Fantasy Astrology Baseball signs, but due to the questionable political actions of the corporate side of MLB, I'm taking some time off baseball content. Instead, I'm switching gears to preview the upcoming Magic: The Gathering expansion, and looking at the new pieces of art in Ultimate Masters. The newest addition to the Masters Series has 49 new art reprints, an overwhelming 38 of which are getting a second piece of unique art for the first time. Another ten cards got their third unique illustration, while just one went into rarefied air with new art number four - and you won't have to search your library to find out what it is...

Demonic Tutor was so iconic that any effect that allows you to search your library in Magic is colloquially known as "tutoring." This sorcery appears in the very first set in Magic's history (Limited Edition, Alpha printing) with a depiction of a demonic bookworm by Douglas Schuler (sic), and a set of rules text that was lightly errata'd in subsequent printings. (Notably, the inclusion of "You may" in the original version means that, rules as written, this card has the potential to do absolutely nothing when cast.) The first of these was among the promo cards given as gifts to Magic judges in 2008, with an updated piece of art by Daarken, which again shows a literary demon, but also adds its tutor in the background... or is it the other way around? The first Tutor showed up again the very next year as part of the third Duel Deck: Divine vs. Demonic, this time with art by Scott Chou showing the original black planeswalker Liliana Vess in the moment of having her demonic contract drawn onto her skin. The full frame format of Zack Stella's art for Ultimate Masters is an example of one of the 40 promo box toppers that come with Ultimate Masters booster boxes.

The ten three-timers in UMA include at least one of each color, plus an artifact and a land, so we might as well go around the color wheel. Faith's Fetters originally appeared in Ravnica: City of Guilds, the home plane of Magic's current story. Although the effect on the card would fit perfectly in Azorius, the blue/white guild wasn't introduced until the third set in the block (Dissension), which means that Chippy's art could either go with Boros or Selesnya. This card also has a similarity to Demonic Tutor in that they were both reprinted in the Divine vs. Demonic Duel Deck, although on opposite sides. The new art by Kev Walker follows the theme of Brian Despain's art from DD #3 in that they both show a generic angry horned demon being restrained by bonds of light.

Unstable Mutation has the honor of being the oldest card to have its third unique art reprint occur in UMA, as we first saw this aura in Arabian Nights. I'm not sure exactly what the figure on the ground has to do with the mutation in its original piece of art, but it's interesting to note that artist Douglas Shuler is credited with the correct spelling of his name. Charles Gillespie's art for the Fifth Edition printing takes away some of the ambiguity - I find it funny to imagine the -1/-1 counters coming as an effect of the enchanted creature being strangled by their freakishly long tongue. The art by Slawomir Maniak on the Ultimate Masters version is the first piece of unique art to appear on a card frame with the new and improved "Enchantment - Aura" subtype - Shuler's art appeared on the Time Spiral - Timeshifted version of the card back in 2006.

I haven't run all the numbers, but Lorwyn is likely the non-Dominaria plane most represented among UMA new art reprints, with nine cards originally from the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor mega-block - although none from the eponymous Lorwyn set. Rebecca Guay lent her trademark watercolor-style artwork to the first printing of this card, from 2008's Morningtide expansion, which also included a Faerie Rogue token with art by Jim Nelson. (While Guay's same art was used in the Modern Masters 2015 reprint, that version did get its own unique token, this one illustratd by Dave Allsop. I can only imagine that we'll get a new one when Ultimate Masters hits shelves on December 7, 2018.) Like Demonic Tutor before it, Bitterblossom was also included in the Judge Gift promo program, this time in 2011, and with art by Nils Hamm. And also like Demonic Tutor, and as you can see from the full frame surrounding Jesper Ejsing's art, this one is also available as a promo box topper.

Red leads this group with three cards, so it makes sense to go chronologically. Seismic Assault first showed up in Exodus, where Dermot Power's art shows our heroes desperately trying to escape the artificial plane of Rath in the skyship Weatherlight, in what would quite likely be tabbed as a "Story Spotlight" card in the current format. It's interesting to note that the Ultimate Masters art by Adam Paquette appears to be an updated version of what's happening in the card's first piece of art, although this could be the newly-constructed Weatherlight from the recent Dominaria expansion. In between these two printings, Greg Staples created a more generic volcanic piece of art for the Seventh Edition printing.

Gamble was originally printed in Urza's Saga, one of four cards from that expansion set to get new art reprints in UMA - along with one more from Urza's Legacy and an additional two from Urza's Destiny. There's nothing story-specific happening in Andrew Goldhawk's art in the card's original version - likewise, Winona Nelson's artwork for the Eternal Masters reprint leans heavily into the Indiana Jones-style treasure hunting aspect rather than depicting a recognizable event from the Magic multiverse. The newest printing, with art by Even Amundsen, sets the card on the plane of Ixalan, as The Belligerent is the ship captained by the Golgari gorgon Vraska, as chronicled in the DailyMTG stories published during that block.

Through the Breach was first seen in the Japanese-inspired Champions of Kamigawa, with art by Hugh Jamieson depicting an otherworldly kami (i.e. vengeful spirit) emerging into the material plane. The ornate frame in the card's second unique art printing (accompanying art by Darek Zabrocki) is unique to the Amonkhet Invocations, the somewhat ill-defined entry of the Masterpiece Series that goes with the ancient Egyptian-themed Amonkhet block. In our third example of an Ultimate Masters box topper, Randy Vargas's art shows a scene from the Shadows over Innistrad block, wherein the Kor planeswalker Nahiri summons the plane-destroying Eldrazi titan Emrakul onto the gothic horror-themed plane of Innistrad as revenge against the vampire Sorin Markov.

Eternal Witness has perhaps the most utility of any card getting its third new art reprint in this set, especially considering that UMA has a strong graveyard recursion theme, at least in Black. Four years after she illustrated the card's first printing in Fifth Dawn, Terese Nielsen created another piece of art for one of the Friday Night Magic promo cards in 2008, which essentially depicts the same character in the same pose, just with slightly different lighting and shading. Chris Rahn goes in a decidedly different direction in his art for the Ultimate Masters box topper, showing the shaman actually using magic to reconstitute a creature, apparently using autumn leaves to stand in for any material that was lost upon its initial death.

Tarmogoyf represents the exact point at which tournament competitiveness takes a backseat to real world monetary value. You can buy a copy of the original "futureshifted" version of the card from the Future Sight expansion (with art by Justin Murray) for just under $100 online. However, the stamped foil version of the card from Modern Masters 2015 that Pascal Maynard selected during a high-profile draft tournament sold for nearly $15,000 on eBay. Given that financial windfall, it's understandable that Maynard would have picked that card (which uses the same art by Ryan Barger from the initial Modern Masters set) instead of taking a card that would have helped his deck. In his art for the Ultimate Masters version, Filip Burburan pushes the limit of how many teeth he can fit into the special box topper card frame.

I always found it strange that Gnomes refer to certain Artifact Creatures in Magic, while they are a flesh and blood race in Dungeons and Dragons. The distinction becomes less clear when you look at the art for the first two printings of Patchwork Gnomes: Mike Raabe's metal contraptions on the Tempest version are decidedly artifactual, while Jerry Tiritilli's illustration from the Odyssey expansion shows more anthropomorphic figures... despite the windup cranks and replaceable limbs. Filip Burburan's art from Ultimate Masters gravitates back to the machinery-focused look, while moving in a more scarecrow-ish direction overall.

And to round things out, Ancient Tomb is another card that made its first appearance in the Tempest expansion, this time with a quite spooky illustration by Colin MacNeil. The next time this double-painland got a new piece of art was from Howard Lyon as part of the Zendikar Expeditions, the first ever Masterpiece Series, which stayed on-theme by including only lands. In yet another UMA box-topper entry, Yeong-Hao Han eschewed the ghostly undertones of his predecessors, instead emphasizing the foreboding elements of the eponymous tomb.


I'm sure I will get back to baseball content soon enough, because I feel no need to punish the players and other employees of an organization just because of stupid decisions by the people at the top. It's also notable that MLB tried to reverse course, but only after intense public backlash. And who knows, maybe the top brass at Wizards of the Coast will make (or have already made) some insensitive political donations of their own, and I'll have to focus exclusively on Batman-related content. Which shouldn't be a problem in a few weeks, given what I have in the pipeline...

Magic Cards vs Dungeons and Dragons Spells

Abstract: Exploring the link between the five (5) colors of mana in Magic: The Gathering and the eight (8) schools of magic in Dungeons and Dragons, through specific names shared by both spells and cards.

Methodology: Using a proprietary database I made of D&D spells from various Player's Handbooks, and a lot of copy-pasting into Scryfall, I determined that nearly 200 spells had names that were the same as, or extremely similar to, Magic cards. By adding the colors of those cards into my database, I was able to sort by both color identity (which all cards have) and school of magic (to which all spells belong) to determine any correlations between the two.

I am also aware that in the flavor of Magic, cards are also technically "spells," but I'm using CARD to refer only to the strategy game side of the equation, while reserving the term SPELL only for the role-playing game side. For reference, the players handbookses I used for my database are from Advanced D&D (printed in 1980, hereafter referred to as 2nd edition), Third Edition (printed 2000, 3rd), and Fifth Edition (printed 2014, 5th).

Findings (listed alphabetically):

Abjuration (protection, disruption) is the least well represented school among Magic cards, with just three spells sharing exact names, and three more sharing partial names (or similar ideas). Only one of the top three spells appear in multiple editions: Death Ward was in 3rd and 5th, but was only in the Abjuration school in its latest version - it started out in Necromancy (see below). Meanwhile, the card Death Ward is a White instant from Magic's very first set (Limited Edition Alpha and Beta), that basically mirrors the effects of the 5e spell. If that doesn't cover the "protection" aspect of abjuration enough, consider that White also has a cycle of cards all titled Circle of Protection, and the majority of the cards in the game that refer to the static ability Protection (cf. rule 702.16) are White.

As for the disruption side of ABJ, let's look at the phenomena of countermagic and bounce. Counterspell, also from Limited Edition, is an exact match for the spell in 5th of the same name (countering spells was a much more complicated process in 2nd and 3rd). Then there's the spell from all three D&D editions Dispel Magic, the effect of which is actually more similar to the White Magic card Disenchant than it is to the Blue Dispel, which is just a conditional counterspell. In another strange yet appropriate disconnect, the 3rd edition spell Dismissal is basically as close as you can get to a D&D phrasing of "return target creature to its owner's hand," which is an effect commonly found in Blue mana (e.g. Unsummon). Incidentally, there are four cards with dismissal in the name, three of which are Blue and contain either counter of bounce effects. In terms of utility spells, the card Intruder Alarm shares some important similarities with the 3rd and 5th edition spell Alarm.

Conclusion: White and Blue pretty accurately sum up Abjuration, full stop. This one was like the tutorial level of a video game.

Conjuration (creation, summoning) has one of the clearest connections to Magic of the schools, but somewhat of a disconnect between specific card names. On the one hand, Summoning is a subtype of Conjuration in 2nd and 3rd editions (not just a descriptor, like the two words next to Abjuration), and Magic's oldest Creature cards all have "Summon" printed on them. So technically, the relative majority of all Magic cards correspond to the Conjuration school. While all colors of mana obviously have access to Creature cards, the one that immediately comes to mind is Green, since the relative majority of all creature spells are Green. Although it's worth noting that five 2nd edition spells outline the type of creature being summoned, which line up with Creature cards that are either Red (Conjure Fire Elemental and Conjure Earth Elemental), Blue (Aerial [Air] Servant and Invisible Stalker), or Black ([Dread] Cacodemon).

On the other hand, there are ten other Conjuration spells with Magic card names, out of which all five colors of mana are represented. But the most puzzling part of this school is that nine of these spells appear in all three D&D editions, but NONE of them are part of the Conjuration school more than twice. Fog Cloud (originally Alteration) and Web (originally Evocation) are the only two-fer's, as they are CONJ spells in both 3rd and 5th, but the former of these is a bit of a stretch, since Fog is an effect in Magic that's most associated with Green, but the summoning (i.e. creature focused) element also points to a Blue element. The only one-for-three I think really belongs here is Teleport, which was originally in the Alteration/Transmutation school in 2nd/3rd (see below for details on the name change), and then made the switch to Conjuration in the latest edition. I guess they thought that when one teleports, they effectively summon themselves to a different location, rather than altering their position in space/time? Makes sense to me. I'll be sure to cover the other eight of these spells in the ensuing schools where they're more appropriate.

Conclusion: While all colors use Conjuration for casting Creature cards, Green is clearly at the top, not just because of the abundance of Green creatures, but also for effects that focus on finding creatures and bringing them into play (e.g. Summoner's Pact, Savage Summoning, Lurking Predators).

Divination (information, prediction) is not only the name of a spell in the Divination school in all three D&D editions (I know, very meta), it's ALSO the name of a Magic card... I mean, what more do you need? And that card lets you draw cards, which IS exactly Magic's version of information. Well, it's technically information AND resources; scrying (rule 701.18) is closest to Magic's approximation of pure information, and most of the cards that involve scrying are Blue. Another Blue card that has to do with information is Clairvoyance - the DIV spell version was paired with Clairaudience in 3rd, but in 2nd the aural version was its own spell.

Looking at the other aspect of this school, we see that Foresight is about as perfect a Magic synonym for "predication" as possible, even though the spell only showed up in 3rd and 5th. As a notable exception, we should look at another so called three-for-three spell, Commune with Nature, which is, predictably, a Green Magic card. Green has a lot of "look at the top X cards of your library" type cards (not as many as Blue), but they generally only allow you to pick a creature or a land from them, showcasing a form of selective, nature-based Divination.

Conclusion: Divination is Blue -- it works for the card and the school. Also maybe with a small Green splash.

Enchantment (mind-affecting, compulsion) has by far the largest disconnect between D&D and Magic, since Enchantment is also the name of a card type, which encompasses many various strategies, only some of which are covered in the Enchantment school. In fact, some of the top Enchantment spells correspond to cards that aren't even Enchantments, such as [Ray of] Command. I stretched a little bit with the name because the effects are so similar - gaining control of a creature's actions for a limited time. While Ray of Command is of course a Blue spell, it's notable that this effect shows up a lot more in Red (e.g. Threaten, Act of Treason, Enthralling Victor - Enthrall is also an Enchantment spell in 3rd and 5th). However the more permanent control effects (e.g. Control Magic, Mind Control, which are actually more akin to charm spells in D&D) are mostly Blue.

That takes care of the mind-affecting subtype, but the compulsion aspect also has roots in Blue mana (beyond it being the name of both a card and a 5th edition spell). The only true exact-name card/spell combo to appear as an ENCH spell in all three editions is Sleep, the Magic version of which taps creatures, effectively removing them from usefulness in the most Blue way possible. Going back to Red, the most on-color way to compel creatures out of the way is to make them confused, such as the 2nd edition spell Chaos and the Apocalypse split card with half of the same name. Adding a new color into the mix, Black has an even nastier way to get into the minds of creatures with a spell like [Tasha's] Hideous Laughter, the Magic card version of which is significantly more deadly than the 3rd/5th edition spell.

Hey, remember all those Conjuration spells that became associated with different schools? The first one that's coming back is Bless[ing] (moved to ENCH for 3rd and 5th), which increases the blessed (i.e. enchanted) creature's ability to fight, and thus I don't see how it ever really made sense in CONJ to begin with.

Conclusion: Enchantment is mostly Blue (even though most Enchantment cards are White, but by a slim margin), with a sprinkling of Red and Black in there. In Magic, this combination is also the color identity of the story mode's main antagonist, Nicol Bolas.

Evocation (energy - both damaging and healing) has perhaps the strongest connection between spells and cards, since the strategy of energy manipulation is ubiquitous and effective in both competitive-strategy and role-playing environments. One need only look at the iconic spells/cards Fireball and Lightning Bolt to see both that Evocation is primarily Red, and the immediate link between color and school. But the similarities don't stop there: Fire Storm (i.e. Firestorm) is the only other Red card that's 3-for-3 in terms of editions, but Shatter and Earthquake are classified as Evocation in both 3rd and 5th (they were Alteration in 2nd - see below), and Chain Lightning is 2-for-2 in the same editions, having not been added to the PHB spell list until 3rd.

But while Red has the most cards that are also EVOC spells, the school is actually represented by spells in all five colors of mana. White is easy to explain because all healing spells as a group moved from Conjuration to Evocation in 5th edition, such as Heal - which actually started as Necromancy in 2nd (see below), then later moved to Conjuration in 3rd (see above). There's also the more general mostly-White-aligned practice of life gain (such as in the card Hallow) and some damage buffs that are also associated with the Enchantment school (i.e. Divine Favor), both of which appear as spells in 3rd and 5th. But White also has some holy-themed damage dealing of its own, such as the 3rd edition spell Searing Light (and also generally any D&D spell that deals radiant damage). Across the color wheel, the only Black Evocation spell is Darkness, but just in 3rd and 5th, as it too was listed under Alteration in 2nd.

A particular disconnect between some Red and Green EVOC spells and cards can be chalked up to a quirk in the Magic rules. Three different spells refer to walls - Wall of Fire, Wall of Ice, and Wall of Stone (the latter of which was actually originally in Evocation in 2nd, then jumped to Conjuration in 3rd, then back to Evocation in 5th). Wall is of course a unique Creature types in Magic, and thus subject to the Conjuration school. However, when you put Red and Green together, as in the card Meteor Storm (which I've linked to the spell Meteor Swarm, for obvious reasons), the distinct Evocation feel is on point. The same is true for the Green card Ice Storm, although it's strange to me that both the above cards involving ice aren't identified with Blue mana. Speaking of Blue, the only Evocation cards in that color are Telepathy and Contingency [Plan], although for me both of those spells seem like they should surely be in the Divination school.

Conclusion: Due to its damage dealing element, Evocation is Red first and foremost, then White for healing... and I honestly don't see a great thematic reason to branch too much into Green or Black. Blue is right out.

Illusion (deception, perception) as a school is all about tricking creatures into seeing/believing things that aren't there. On the contrary, the term Illusion in Magic describes a Creature type, one that is generally either hard to block or easy to remove. There are a couple of card/spell combinations that combines these two aspects: the first core set's Phantasmal Force[s] (which appears as a spell in 2nd and then again in 5th, after skipping 3rd for some reason) and the most recent core set's Mirror Image (from all three editions). But if we're looking for cards that more closely mirror Illusion spells, look no further than Invisibility, Misdirection, and Simulacrum, which are Blue, Blue, and Black, respectively. Speaking of Black mana, one card that is sort of an inverse of the spell of the same name is Fear: the spell makes its target afraid, whereas the card makes its target fearsome to creatures trying to block it. Incidentally, the spell Fear is only in the Illusion school in 2nd and 5th, as it took a brief trip to Necromancy (see immediately below) in 3rd. The only White ILLUS spell is Silence, at least two-thirds of the time, as it began its tenure in the Alteration school (see farther below).

Conclusion: Even not taking into account the fact that most Creature cards of the Illusion subtype are Blue, it's pretty clear that messing with perception and reality is a Blue mechanic. Black is a strong secondary color here.

Necromancy (death, rebirth), as with Divination, has a Magic card with exactly the same name, which pretty clearly sums up what color the school is associated with. Furthermore, there are eleven Magic cards with Necromancer in the name, and all but one of them are mono-Black. What's more, is we have one of the most iconic spells AND cards in Animate Dead, from Limited in Magic and in all three D&D editions. Other Black cards that are Necromancy spells in two of the three editions are the more straightforward Raise Dead (this spell is a 3-for-3 overall, but for some reason found itself in the Conjuration school in 3rd), [Ray of] Enfeeblement (which started out in Enchantment in 2nd, but quickly migrated to Necromancy), Contagion, and Vampiric Touch (both of which appeared only in 3rd and 5th).

The one Necromancer-titled card that wasn't mono-Black has White as its second color, which makes sense when we consider the flip side of Necromancy's focus on death. In Magic, this is only seen in the card Resurrection, which represents another one of those Conjuration-in-3rd-edition-only spells. But believe it or not, there's also a Blue and Green element to NECRO. In Blue we have Clone, which is more battlefield-focused than graveyard-focused in Magic. Green actually has two cards that share names with Necromancy spells, but both are only in that school in 2nd edition: Reincarnate (i.e. Reincarnation), which moved to Transmutation in 3rd and 5th, and Regenerate, which has been all over the map, starting in Necromancy (or Necromantic as it was known in 2nd), then moving to Conjuration (the final one of those eight spells I mentioned earlier), and finally settling in Transmutation in 5th. However I'm listing them here, because I feel like they both have a distinct Necromantic feel.

Conclusion: Given all the graveyard/reanimation shenanigans going on in Black, it's clearly the primary color of Necromancy. White is a strong secondary, though, with Green's involvement a little questionable due to the above-mentioned changes in schools.

Transmutation (Alteration, transformation) might not have the widest representation in the color wheel (it's lacking a compelling Black option), but it is for sure the most prolific school in terms of D&D spells. Considering that this school was formerly known as Alteration in 2nd edition, there are 302 combined TRANS and ALT spells, compared to 196 spells on the Conjuration list, the second-most common. (Necromancy is in last place with just 81 spells across all three editions.) The best example of spell(s) to epitomize the top colors of Transmutation is (are) Enlarge/Reduce, which were encompassed by the same spell in 2nd and 5th, but broken up in 3rd. In Magic terms, Enlarge is a Green spell that gives a creature a huge bonus to power and toughness, while the Blue Reduce is actually a class of counterspell (which as we've seen is clearly in Abjuration territory), but as one half of a split card, wordplay was perhaps more important than content. These colors largely make sense: buff cards like Enlarge have been ubiquitous in Green mana since Magic's very beginning - starting with one of the "boon" cycle Giant Growth - and the converse "de-buff" style cards are a staple of Blue - one that comes to mind is the Core Set 2019 card Dwindle.

The only other Green card that corresponds to a Transmutation spell from all three editions is Spider Climb, which is a pretty specific example of changing the properties of something in a beneficial way that's not just "better at fighting." But there are five Blue spells that link up sickeningly well to iconic 3-for-3 Transmutation spells. The first is not a perfect match, at least name-wise, but the effects are exactly the same: the spell Fly and the card Flight. The card Jump is basically a short-term Flight, while it's a bit more literal in D&D. Telekinesis is strictly defensive in Magic, but it has a wider application in D&D. Time Stop is a game-breaking spell in D&D, while the Magic version combos nicely with the upcoming Guilds of Ravnica card Chance for Glory. And perhaps the biggest stretch is from Animate Object(s) to Animate Artifact, but it's basically the same in spirit, right? To further Blue's case, we have two spells from 3rd and 5th only, Gaseous Form and Fabricate. To round things out, Polymorph and the various spells with Polymorph in the name are some of the most powerful spells in all of D&D, while it's considerably more chaotic in Magic.

The Red element of Transmutation is a bit muddied, since while you definitely change the properties of something if you Disintegrate it, and while Pyrotechnics requires a fire to transmute in D&D, those cards in Magic each deal direct damage, which is the foray of Evocation. There's only one White card with a name that corresponds directly to a Transmutation spell: Erase from 2nd and 3rd, which is spot on flavor-wise. But the 3-for-3 spell Blink recalls the mostly White-aligned mechanic known as Flicker, and which appears on the similarly named card Momentary Blink. The only mono-Black Transmutation spell is the 2nd edition version of Darkness (see Illusion, above), which also specified that it covered a 15-foot radius in its full name. But the upcoming set Guilds of Ravnica has a multicolored Black/Green half of a split card called Statue, which is fairly similar to the 2nd and 3rd edition spells of the same name. (The other half of that card, Status, actually corresponds to a 3rd edition Divination spell, but they have wildly different effects, so I'm just going to ignore it for now.)

Conclusion: Green and Blue cards dominate the effects generally seen on Transmutation spells, but there is a good case to be made that all colors make use of some Transmutation magic, with White, Red, and Black bringing up the rear, probably in that order.


Final Tally:

It's no surprise that Blue shows up in the most schools of any color (five by my count) since Blue is the color of most Wizards (in Magic) and Wizards are the class that's most concerned with the schools of magic (in D&D... confusing terminology, I know). White is next, with three schools as either the clear primary or secondary color - Green and Black feature prominently in three schools total, but one school for each of those colors could be described as a splash. And Red only really features prominently in one school (with one more as a splash), but it's such a powerhouse in that one school that it almost makes up for what it lacks in diversity.

Of course, by focusing only on names shared between D&D spells and Magic cards, I'm really only scratching the surface of this subject. I'm sure there are dozens of cards that have similar effects as some spells, but with completely (or just slightly) different names. And of the ones I did cover, I didn't even get into what classes can cast those spells (and at what level) or how many times (and when) those cards were printed in Magic's history. But as far as I'm concerned, I think we've drawn some pretty solid conclusions here today, and this whole exercise will surely make me think of both casting spells and playing cards in a new light.

Magic The Gathering Tokens - Soldiers

Rounding out the "big three" of Magic tokens, so to speak, is a key component of the evocatively-named "white weenie" strategy: the 1/1 White Soldier. Dating back to the Alliances expansion from 1996 (the same set that saw the debut of Zombie tokens, which was two years after the first Goblin token from Fallen Empires), this token has appeared in 29 different sets throughout Magic's history, with 12 different unique art printings. These little guys have represented members of the Kjeldoran army, the Mercadian security force, gladiators in the Otarian fighting pits, allies of angels in the fight for justice, Auriok nomads on the plane of Mirrodin, and Benalish standing troops, among others. And that's all before set-specific soldier tokens were included as promotional material in booster packs.

If you've been following along, you'll notice that the first four printed soldier tokens follow the same pattern as Zombies and Goblins: first in Unglued (a spiky boy illustrated by Daren Bader, top left), next as part of the Magic Player Rewards program (this one from 2002), then included in Tenth Edition boosters, and finally corresponding to specific cards in the Shards of Alara set. Interestingly enough, the middle two of these tokens both go with the card Mobilization, which originally showed up in Onslaught - the expansion symbol that shows up on the Ron Spencer Player Rewards token (top middle) - and then was reprinted in Tenth Edition - you can clearly see the artistic similarities between the figures in Carl Critchlow's card art and those in Paolo Parente's token (top right).

The first two tokens on the bottom line of the image have the distinction of both being created by an Elspeth planeswalker - Elspeth, Knight Errant and Elspeth Tirel, respectively - however, they both have different visual styles. While Alan Pollack's token from Shards of Alara has gear that clearly identifies him with the army of Bant (the Green/White/Blue faction on the plane of Alara), the Scars of Mirrodin token, illustrated by Goran Josic, is equipped like a classic medieval crusader, except with a sword that is reminiscent of Elspeth's spear. The triumphantly bloody token from Magic 2013, with art by Greg Staples (bottom right), has been reprinted the most times of any soldier in Magic's history, appearing in six sets altogether.

The soldier that goes with Precinct Captain in the Return to Ravnica expansion (top left) is the best example of diversity - in terms of both gender and ethnicity - that we've seen in these tokens so far. In a clever bit of synergy, you can see the character from the token in the art of the card that creates it (and vice versa), which are both illustrated by artist Steve Prescott. The next two soldier tokens on the list are both from the Theros expansion, making it the first set to feature multiple printings of the same type of token since zombies in Innistrad. (NOTE: I was actually incorrect when I said the Innistrad zombies were the first tokens to get the multiple printing treatment; that honor actually goes to the 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn tokens from Rise of the Eldrazi.) The Greek mythology-themed set has just three cards that create soldier tokens, but it's pretty obvious that Seb McKinnon's token (top middle) goes with the Trojan Horse-inspired Akroan Horse, as you can clearly see an army of soldiers descending from a wooden structure under the cover of night. Svetlin Velinov's soldier token, on the other hand (top right), is the third such token to be paired with an Elspeth planeswalker, this one of the Sun's Champion variety.

While the bottom left token on the above image also bears the Theros expansion symbol, like the M13 Goblin before it, the magnificently bearded Zoltan Boros-illustrated token was a prize for finishing in the top 10 of the corresponding Magic League. The token in the bottom middle was printed for the Modern Masters 2017 expansion, even though such compilation sets include only reprints. In this case, Magali Villeneuve's art featuring an epic female soldier standing alone in front of a burning sky doesn't quite fit the theme of the mild-mannered squire in the art for Attended Knight (originally from M13), but this token was also reprinted in the latest core set. Sticking with the female soldier theme, the bottom right token, illustrated by Jakub Kasper, corresponds to two Benalia-themed cards in the Dominaria expansion (as well as featuring as a character in my latest Magic fan fiction).

While soldiers are a supported "tribe" in Magic, one thing that is never explicitly stated in the type line of these generic 1/1 white soldier tokens is their race. Judging by their art and some contextual clues on the cards that create them, all but one are clearly human - the only one leaving any room for ambiguity is Goran Josic's helmeted soldier from Scars of Mirrodin. However, the only soldier token that explicitly states that fact is from Shadows over Innistrad (bottom right), which has a "humans matter" subtheme. In chronological order, the other races to receive soldier tokens are Kithkin, which are basically Magic's version of Halflings, or Hobbits. The two unique art versions represent the day-night aspects of the dual plane Lorwyn-Shadowmoor. Soldiers of the birdlike Aven race fight alongside the human soldiers of Bant in Alara Reborn. The humanoid-but-not-quite-human Kor appear on at least two planes in the multiverse, but they didn't get their own token until Zendikar. The first two tokens on the bottom line of the image (one from Born of the Gods, the other given away as a Magic League prize) might look human, but given that they're also Enchantments, you can't put them in the same category. The second set in the Theros block also introduced the tokens of the Cat Soldier type, known locally as Leonin.

There are a handful of other soldiers that appear to be human, but that have some subtle differences from the generic 1/1 white version. Worldwake, the second set in the original Zendikar block, features a Soldier that is also an Ally, a creature type unique to the adventuring party-themed plane. Two cards with the Boros watermark from Gatecrash, the second set in the dual-colored guilds-themed Return to Ravnica block, create soldier tokens that are both red and white. (There was actually a second RW Soldier token printed for Magic League, but I left it out of the above image since Scryfall doesn't let you arrange cards in groups larger than four.) In addition to the two white soldier tokens from Theros, there is a red version created by Akroan Crusader. And finally, the Conspiracy Hold the Perimeter (which we've seen before) creates not only a unique Soldier token (1/2 with defender), but a unique Goblin as well.