Border Jumping - A Design Review of Core M15's New Card Frame
Welcome
gamers and geeks from all corners and backgrounds! Today, lets take a look at
the recently released new Modern card frame update for Magic: the Gathering
that was announced this January and premiered with this summer's release of
this season's M15 Core. While
this topic has been touched on other sites since the announcement of the change, some to the chagrin of the author writing their article, I'm going
to take a more in depth look at the elements that stand out, my opinion on why
WOTC made the change, and what it means to gameplay both in the current season
and speculating on the future of the game - if at all.
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| 1.21 jiggawatts2! My "insurance cards" from my M15 Game Day deck, both versions were featured in the build. |
First
and foremost what stands out in this major change to the Wizards cornerstone;
the font. Wizards last changed the font to create Magic's "Modern"
border in 2003 with the release of the 8th Edition Core Set, so we were over
due for an update with the game's 20 year history. Originally when the game
released, the cards were titled using Goudy Medieval in the header while
MPlantin was used in the text box. The problems with Goudy were done away with
by the many updates to the previous-Modern, which utilized Matrix Bold for all
of the title text in every core and expansion moving forward to date, including
several updates along the way. Now, Wizards debuts their own proprietary font
developed in-house for use specifically with the Magic brand, "Beleren."
Adapted as an updated appearance from Matrix Bold, this font looks sharp,
literally! Ligatures and extensions on the letters have been created in sharp
lines and angles with little flourish, creating an almost neo-mystical feel
that has been missing from gameplay until now. Aside from the much needed
update, this is the first step against counterfeiting WOTC is taking to protect
their product (and subsequently, the Magic community) moving forward. I really
cannot stress the importance of the moves taken by Wizards here to guard
against the counterfeit market. While I myself have not been burned by purchasing a bad card, I know plenty that have, and this has been a HUGE issue ever since the secondary market has existed. (Especially in
recent years since the Matrix font family went to the free market) Counterfeiting literally steals money from the uninformed consumer that didn't know better. There
are cards already printed that are worth hundreds, even thousands of dollars;
and if you don't know how to spot a fake card...well, there's a reason the
phrase "there's a sucker born every minute" exists. By using a
proprietary font that cannot be bought or found on the market currently, (yes,
admittedly I have gone searching for said font for my own personal,
non-counterfeit purposes, and while I’ve come close it just doesn’t quite hit
the mark) Wizards protects the high-value property in the first way to ID a
fake. Moving forward, this new font safeguards against would-be counterfeit
cards entering the market, plus it looks certified badass!
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| Planeswalker Jace Beleren lends his namesake to the newly designed proprietary font that is being utilized on the new card frame moving forward. |
Moving
on to the rare and mythic rare cards, we find our second update in the
redesign; the foil stamp. While Wizards has been utilizing foil alternate
printing for chase cards since Urza's Legacy released in February 1999. (Or if
you wanna be technical, the prerelease foil promo of Lightning Dragon for
Urza's Saga, Oct '98.) These two rarities obviously carry a higher value for
trades and sales, so it makes sense that they should be extra-protected from
those looking to exploit and steal from within the community, right? Stamp
these high value puppies with a little bit of holographic foil in the center at the bottom
of the card and you can be pretty sure you're holding the real deal. While
posing no real change to the gameplay itself, this little bit of flash can be a
nice touch to winning; just as you tap that rare/mythic rare to deal the final
blow, the foil catches a reflection off the lights above, and adding insult to
injury blinds your opponent! Maybe not, but we can dream.
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| "Take a look at my FOIL (Foil)…You can call me Queen Bee!" (Note the new stamp in the bottom center of the card on the right) |
Probably
the biggest update all around is the card frame as a whole. While still
retaining the black edge border the cards have enjoyed continually since the
release of Ravnica: City of Guilds in October 2005, (cards released in the 9th
Edition Core Set that July had a white edge border) this new card frame features a few
new updates of itself. First, the border and frame are thinner than the
previous modern. But why? Essentially it comes down to esthetics and real
estate; they needed to continue to have the easiest way to be able to identify
the color of a card, while they wanted to place more emphasis on the cards' art
and text. To create this emphasis while keeping identity intact meant reducing
the colored framing and the edge border width, allowing the art and text box to
be made larger. Second, the base of the border rounds "behind" the
text box. Again, this is not only an esthetic choice which adds a new design
element to the cards as a whole, but also increases real estate at the base of
the cards; allowing Wizards to add a second line to the text here and even increase
the font size for legibility. This way, instead of a long line of tiny text
that stretches from corner to corner of the card frame, we can now easily see
the card collector number (along with the addition of the single letter M/R/U/C
rarity ID) over the three-letter set code, two-letter language and the
illustrator's name all in the card's lower left corner, and the copyright info
in the lower right corner. Also worthy of note is the addition of a “designer
credit” that is featured inside the text box for cards that the developers at
WOTC reached out abroad to create. (Such as with Waste Not “Designed by the Magic
community” or the hilarious and offbeat Hot Soup “Designed by James Ernest”) These last
detail updates don’t really affect gameplay as it does the collector, aside
from the better separation offered the Power/Toughness pane – which now gets to
stand out against the black edge border instead of the similarly colored shade
of the card frame it was once contained within.
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| There's starving imps in Dominaria who don't have any soup, so don't spill it! |
These
three update groups make some pretty big strides in updating the look of the cards
overall as well as gameplay; but why did Wizards do it, and why now? As I
mentioned above, the border was overdue for an update from the previous update
(which also could have been considered overdue at the time, given that that
post-8th ed. border had been in development for three years by the time it was released). With this in mind the "when" was important as well, so when better to
introduce a new border than with the new Core release? Though it’s true the Planeswalker
card type was introduced during the Lorwyn expansion October 2007, it makes
more sense to debut a set of redesign elements at the release of the Core which generally sees more new players coming in than at the expansion releases. (Never mind that I
started playing when Ice Age released…and now I just dated myself!) Also, as
previously stated are the anti-counterfeiting measures taken for all cards and
especially the higher value/rarity cards. Now, what does this do to the future
of the game, right? While a good question, mum’s been the word from WOTC on any
changes to the current landscape of the game. What we should keep in mind is,
while following the debut of what came to be known as the Modern frame in 2003, and the new formats of play being created for competitive players differentiating what
would be seen in the formats; these formats weren’t created essentially
because of the new frame, but rather because of the change in power levels of
the cards and certain mechanics – or more so, cards that stated obsolete rules.
The Modern format merely allows a player to build a deck using any card that’s been printed so long as it has
been printed with a Modern (post 8th ed.) card frame, a good example
here is Swords to Plowshares which
recently saw a modern printing with Conspiracy; short of printings in
preconstructed collectors product, this card hasn’t been run in any set release
since June 1995’s Ice Age. Standard won't likely change anymore than it already does with each release, and the end of rotation that comes every play year following the Core Game Day - just before the first release of the new expansion block comes out.
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| Come, son of Jor-El! Kneel before-- wait, that's not right… But these improvements are! |
So
there we have it in a very large nutshell. Ultimately, while often received
with friction from the audience, design changes are inevitable and necessary for the evolution and continued development of the game.
People will whine and complain to their heart’s content until they get used to
the change or move on. For my money, since these changes do very little to
change gameplay I’ll be one that sticks around – hell, I’ve been around this
long anyway! – and I’ll enjoy hearing the comments, remarks, and conversations spurred
while everyone adapts in the mean time. Thanks to Gatherer and WOTC for the images, paired up and edited by yours truly.
Next
week I’ll be switching gears to another topic of high geekery; reviewing the
new printed releases of the books for Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition.
Until then, shuffle well and trade fairly my friends.
-Opaque
-Opaque
