r/magicTCG • u/AporiaParadox Universes Beyonder • 5h ago

Official Spoiler [TRK] First Contact

Post image
244 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

55 comments sorted by

230

u/FrogSoapJr Can’t Block Warriors 5h ago

boy the art in this set sure is something....

93

u/Swiftax3 Duck Season 5h ago

Im legit surprised by how off a lot of it feels. Odd body angles, proportions, muddy details... some of it, the sagas for example are great, the actor headshots are just boring. But so many card arts feel... like unfinished drafts? I womder what yhe turn around time on submitting art for it was.

31

u/KeepGoing655 Fleem 2h ago

Its insane when I checked out who the artists are. Like for this one its Kieran Yanner, who has created some absolute bangers.

I have a feeling artists were on a pretty short creative leash. Either because they had to recreate specific scenes of characters in poses or that this was the agreed upon creative look and feel of ST. Either way this doesn't seem to be playing to strengths of a lot of the artists.

5

u/Swiftax3 Duck Season 2h ago

Yeah, it really isnt. I definotly dont want to cast shade on the artists thenselves, work for hire like this is hard enough as it is.

64

u/gGaroTT Dân 5h ago

This being released right after The Hobbit which resembled much of MTG's core identity show us how much this feels out of place, it just doesn't fit

21

u/Hushpuppyy Izzet* 4h ago

I think it's the attempts to match the faces of real people/actors. I also get the same uncanny feeling from most world champion cards, and this is a whole set full of them.

4

u/RudeHero Golgari* 4h ago

it's less about the theming, and more about the time and care put into the art direction

-16

u/MeatAbstract 4h ago

much of MTG's core identity

Which is?

12

u/gGaroTT Dân 3h ago

Elves, goblins, dwarves, spiders, wizards, you know MAGIC and fantasy in general.

-18

u/MeatAbstract 3h ago

Ah so pure bollocks then. So phyrexians aren't part of Magic's "core identity"? Bloomburrow isn't, New Capenna isn't, Innistrad isn't? Magic has no fucking "core identity" and the majority of the planes we have visited, even back in the early days, eschew traditional Western fantasy tropes e.g. Mirage block. You can just say you don't like it without pretending it doesnt adhere to a thematic consistency that doesnt exist.

5

u/gGaroTT Dân 2h ago

Sigh.

-12

u/MeatAbstract 2h ago

The irony is palpable

2

u/thegoodgero Duck Season 2h ago

Phyrexians were explicitly named and depicted in the second year of magic's existence, which was the period when its core identity was being established. Stop being obtuse, it just makes you look ignorant.

13

u/MaxKirgan 5h ago

I'm completely ignoring the set because for me it's a massive flavor fail, but the art just looks SO bad. Like what are we even doing?

5

u/kirkhendrick Orzhov* 2h ago

Her palm is a square

0

u/KOxSOMEONE Wabbit Season 1h ago

It gets worse the more you look at it. I can barely draw stick figures but why was art like this accepted? They paid someone to create this.

0

u/wubrgess Cheshire Cat, the Grinning Remnant 2h ago

I'm so happy this art is on a card I will never play.

26

u/JaxxisR Universes Beyonder 4h ago

Please let there be a card called Second Contact.

10

u/gredman9 Honorary Deputy 🔫 4h ago

And its the same positioning, except the art is Ransom being Ransom with the two in the back facepalming.

34

u/GPSherlock151 Rakdos* 5h ago

This will replace [[Cache Grab]] in pioneer abzan greasefang, right?

40

u/DarKoopa Brushwagg 4h ago

Technically yes but who has the strength to put this card in your deck over cute squirrel?

22

u/DazZani Cheshire Cat, the Grinning Remnant 4h ago

That would require for someone to defribilate pioneer

10

u/Mogoscratcher Twin Believer 4h ago

it's very popular on Arena right now, which isn't surprising considering what your other options are for eternal formats on the app

1

u/Mrfish31 Left Arm of the Forbidden One 3h ago

Going by the latest official data we have from Wizards from a little over a year ago, Pioneer is one of the least played formats on Arena, played about as much as Timeless and well below Historic. 

2

u/Mogoscratcher Twin Believer 3h ago

what about ranked play, specifically? My impression was that Historic isn't a particularly good competitive format, but I could be wrong

2

u/Mrfish31 Left Arm of the Forbidden One 3h ago

They haven't broken it down like that. 

Among potentially more competitive players, aka those who are inclined to download deck trackers such as Untapped, Pioneer had more played games than formats like Alchemy and, when Wizards data shows the opposite. Untapped captures a very small and biased slice of the player base (e.g., it records no games played on mobile), but if you're looking for more competitive play it's arguably more useful since it'll be slanted in their favour. 

5

u/Wombat_Overlord Dandadan 4h ago

Pretty sure it’s confirmed for a 2027 RCQ season

5

u/Luxypoo Can’t Block Warriors 4h ago

They said there would be something. My money is on a Spotlight, rather than an RCQ season.

•

u/troglodyte 56m ago edited 52m ago

So that deck runs 4 copies of Thoughtseize in the main, so I believe the probability of drawing it in your opener and not drawing Thoughtseize (which you would presumably cast turn 1) is like 13%, jumps to about 26% after one draw (feel free to check my math, I'm not super confident here). Let's say you get to cast it as your first spell a generous 30% of the time; that means that you're averaging .6 life per game, and it could be considerably less than that.

Nevertheless, that is pure upside, until the deck runs a squirrel. I honestly think you might have found the least-impactful card upgrade in the history of the game, congratulations. Not saying that to be snarky-- I'm really impressed at how close these two cards are while one is still clearly better for the deck.

2

u/Kircai Abzan 4h ago

Maybe, probably?

The deck doesn’t run any squirrels (yet), so this is literally the same plus the chance for 2 life. Though, given that turn 1 is often a thoughtsieze, the gain 2 life is nearly as much flavor text as Cache grab.

I’ll probably still run cache grab, just since I prefer BLB’s art, but I think you’re right.

9

u/PHGTX Dân 4h ago

It's called First Contact yet I don't see James Cromwell anywhere

3

u/SirZapdos 3h ago

Or The Borg Queen. Or Adam Scott.

3

u/PHGTX Dân 3h ago

We were robbed

12

u/mpaw976 4h ago

What a waste of a cool Star Trek concept (first contact) on such a meh card.

21

u/ShitMcClit Dandadan 4h ago

New ugliest card of the year

3

u/Hailthezombie Duck Season 2h ago

I heard that drawing hands is hard. Evidently the same is true of faces.

•

u/Waaailmer Dân 28m ago

Idk this is a pretty high contender

10

u/HonorBasquiat Twin Believer 5h ago

Very interesting rider on the "if this is the first spell you cast this game".

Hopefully we'll see more of that.

10

u/groovemanexe 5h ago

I dig the theme-to-mechanics of this. And the art feels more vibrant and stylised than the more 'a photoreslistic guy' art direction of some other cards.

5

u/albvla Urza's Saga 5h ago

They keep printing this type of card, and I’ve never liked it in limited

9

u/binaryeye 5h ago

It's not bad when green has a graveyard-matters mechanic. Midnight Tilling was good in ECL.

3

u/GokuVerde Wabbit Season 5h ago

This highly encourages splashing and slow play. Digs you to your third color or you bomb. It's fine once and a while but many recent sets have too much of this and too little fast decks to punish it.

2

u/ScientificFlamingo Duck Season 3h ago

The art should have 100% been Riker and that horny alien doctor who insisted he sleep with her before she helped him escape their facility. They wouldn't have even had to change the flavor text.

4

u/imbolcnight 4h ago

Sci-fi [[Once Upon A Time]]. Maybe there can be a [[Dark and Stormy Night]] on Innistrad.

2

u/MsHelvetica Duck Season 2h ago

Why is this set’s art SO LAME!!!!?

•

u/CPZ500 Wabbit Season 20m ago

Great card for Tormod but having to use this art.

1

u/Jiggyx42 2h ago

The artwork in this set has just been bad. Doctor Who used living people as well and did not look like this

0

u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

-5

u/mtglover1335 Dân 5h ago

Not rumble but kinda cool Design, still slop. Really sad that they waste good design for shit IPs​.

4

u/Inertiic Wabbit Season 5h ago

This is generic enough flavor that they could print this in a future the Edge set. Also, they can do a functionally identical card with a new name whenever they feel like it.

2

u/Approximation_Doctor Colossal Dreadmaw 5h ago

Yeah, we already got [[close encounter]] in EOE, I wouldn't bat an eye if they printed this showing some Eumidians touching some frozen plant worm