Eternal Weekend is upon us, and what better way to celebrate than by looking at another group of my “Better Art” segments.

Due to the Reserved List being the de facto deck-building list for both Legacy and Vintage, many of the cards played most often, such as dual lands and Power 9 cards, don’t have different versions for which you could “choose” the better art. There exist the originals, and that’s about it.

Yes, there are alternate artworks that Magic Online uses, but those aren’t in print. You could always commission alterations of them, but the cost is astronomically high to have four to sixteen cards altered by someone who will do it justice, even if they are altered to look like the prize paintings given out to the winners of each event.

Mox Emerald and Tundra paintings, the Vintage and Legacy prizes, respectively

Starting with the O.G.

I have dipped my toe into Vintage before and found that while many archetypes are possible, there is definitely a short list of decks that you have to find answers to beat. Stax, Dredge, anything Time Vault and turn-one Blightsteel Colossus bring Magical Christmas Land’s most broken, unbalanced cards into the fray. If it’s overpowered, it’s in Vintage. That also means that the most crippling cards ever printed are less likely to have additional printings.

Blightsteel Colossus by Chris Rahn

From Grandpa Belcher, also known as Nat Moes, who has begun his Vintage decks, here is the fuel for the engine:

From this list, four of the cards have only one printing.

Brainstorm is such a difficult choice, as the two iconic works are both fantastic. I hope we’ll one day get to see Chris Rahn’s alternate artwork prize one day. I like the Christopher Rush version in a new border, mixing old art with a new graphic design. I think the purples show up a little better.

As for Ponder, Steve’s moving stars is a super-fun art description compared to the other versions. While Dan Scott’s three orbs are iconic, having a less recognized card art is just one tactic in very tight and tense Vintage games in which you might gain an edge!

The new Preordain is just a beautiful concept. I wish we saw more hexagonal metallic plates in Magic because it immediately means Mirrodin/New Phyrexia without doing anymore more. Even hexagons connote that plane. The painted reflections are lovely when you see the full art, shown below.

Preordain by Scott Chou

As I dove into more Vintage decks, using Tinker to fetch a Blightsteel Colossus, formerly Darksteel Colossus, has Jhoira of the Ghitu in one version, but seeing a Planeswalker in Tezzeret repairing his arm is a triumph of a mundane duty giving us insight into his life.

Show and Tell underwent a huge upgrade with young buck Zach Stella doing a massive commissions as one of his first Magic works. While the original Laubenstein work definitely had whimsy, it wasn’t as fitting for the brand after twenty-five years of Magic. Zack hit the art description and mechanic quite nicely.

I always struggled with the Phyrexian Metamorph art because it didn’t feel Phyrexian enough to me. The promo version sure does though! Wow! The rough sinew and the Phyrexianized core behind the character place it exactly on Mirrodin, and the creepy is up to 11.

The new Repeal artwork is seemingly the exact same art description as the original but with a creature more visible. I kept seeing a tree in the original version.

Melting eyes? Okay, Bud Cook, you get it. Conceptual draw spell? I’m in.

Mind's Desire added a more literal mechanic that says, “You want to learn things? Okay, then learn all the things.”

Both artworks remove the setting and strip the location away to focus in on the art. Kev Walker is known for doing this, and I love when other artists use the tactic.

Both images below show pivotal storyline moments, and I it find fantastic that flavorful choices can be made in Vintage decks. Normally, they’re super-old artworks with zero reprintings.

Fire // Ice has another version? Okay then. The Izzet people look awesome with larger arts. I really enjoy having different genders appear on each side as well. It can show costuming for characters of a guild better. Great move there, Dan.

These two arts show the differences in digital versus traditional art. One is clean, smooth, and deadly. The other is gritty, friendly, and dusty. I think both can fit into decks looking for a little extra flavor while also adding to the rare/pimp factor.

I’ll admit that I love Seventh Edition foils. They’re just so clean feeling that, in any deck I build, if there is a Seventh Edition option, I try to use it. Some of that art is just atrocious, as it was the first core set with new artist contracts that had no royalties attached, but in other cases, such as with these two examples, if you’re needing a Merfolk lord or a City of Brass so good that Modern Masters copied it digitally, you know they’re on point.

Dredge is the worst to play against, and I was slightly revolted even looking for card art for the deck, but I do like this Golgari Thug. It appears to fit into Steve Belledin’s Overgrown Tomb in the undercity of Ravnica, and I want to see artworks seem to be in the same world with art that echoes each other.

Demonic Tutor is hard, but I’m just over the original version. I want to see Planeswalkers weaving themselves into my decks, and there is no more evident version than Liliana with Kothophed, the demon whom she blew up with the help of The Chain Veil.

Notice the difference of quiet and loud in pieces. While neither is played extensively in Vintage, both can and will be seen in decks.

The Balance is one of Randy Gallegos’s best works for Magic. Conceptual and quiet? Those pieces I hope never go out of rotation. Terese Nielsen has that role locked down as of late, but a few examples slip in, and this older From the Vault card begs to be noticed.

The Glistener Elf feels more Elf than Argyle’s version, which is completely Phyrexianized. This is more “on the way to corruption,” which feels right to me.

Elves are in Vintage, right? I’ve mentioned Winona’s excellent Elvish Mystic before, and it needs to be repeated. It’s stellar, and you should be playing this over any Llanowar Elves because of the art.

If you need a fifth to eighth copy of that same card, Igor’s Fyndhorn Elves add some snow, which could totally be an elf thing in my home state of Minnesota. (Really, how often are depictions of elves in snow not in the Ice Age block? It’s astonishingly low.)

As I hang this forest panorama on my wall, of course I think it’s the best one. Also, it’s a weird old promo using Mirage’s really beautiful art.

The other four artworks were all chosen by Spectrum, an art annual, as the best landscapes in their respective years. I had forgotten about Ant Scott Waters’s Ravnican Swamp. It really is a delight. It’s interesting to see how varied judges will be from year to year, no?

What does the Vintage player in Nat Moes choose?

I can dig that.

Legacy

Moving to Legacy, the same issues arose, but with less focus on the color blue. Vintage loves it some blue. I blame Delver of Secrets for being format-warping, and the choices reflect some of it!

Terese is well loved by fans, and taking on what is arguably green’s second all-star 2-drop is a study for her. Her creatures made for tarot decks and other games have a grace that drawing from life always possesses. It’s just a snake without the card frame, but with her characteristic additional elements, you know it’s special, and that elevates the entire painting’s value—and also the card’s cost!

I feel bored with the normal Elvish Visionary, and if you’re in Legacy, being the norm is far too ordinary. This DCI promo adds a little flavor to the overused original artwork, beaten to death by overpromotion via the Duels of the Planeswalkers game. I say add a little value with this version.

Counterspell sure is a tough pick, but taking Gao Yan’s softness really shines in foil. Also, it’s oddly still quite affordable. Pro tip: The hands glow!

Stifle always felt odd to me since I didn’t play in the block it was original printed. The creature is normal in the block, but like Kithkin outside of Lorwyn, it looks super-weird in Snapcaster anything decks. While a promo exists of Stifle, using a foil out of Magic: The Gathering—Conspiracy nets the same injunction art while saving a boatload of money.

Gitaxian Probe follows the line of feeling more Phyrexian than the original, as mentioned before. It should be more creepy than always functional!

Also on repeated thoughts, Izzet Charm gives some insight into more costuming of the Izzet guild while actually showing steampunk implements being used! Awesome!

Volkan Baga studied under Donato Giancola, arguably one of Magic’s top artists ever. How Donato ever accepted Magic work is still mind-boggling to me. He was a man among boys back in Mirage. His hands alone just clowned on people. Volkan picked up his torch and elevated his game to make this entire From the Vault package be worth mega bucks with his art alone. Add in some bad-ass marble sculpture behind him, and Vintage never looked back for new Magic Online artworks for years.

Engineered Explosives is by far the best art teacher in the game. Lars is always underappreciated because no one looks at the art close enough. Notice the Myrs being blown up in the image? Sure, that’s in the art description, but he didn’t hit you over the head with it. He lets you walk into the work and find a feast instead of wagging it in front of your face. That narrative, the easily recognizable thing, and then deeper layers, is visual storytelling at some of its best.

Speaking of Lars, that’s a nice-looking crypt, no? Use this one! It’s of the actual crypt, not just a cross within!

Ratchet Bomb’s Buy-A-Box promo is just delightfully cheesy, as any goblin can attest to seeing. I like the ramshackle creation as any goblin should definitely be proud of making!

Searing Blaze stripped down to just the core mechanics of the card-land affecting fire? Yup, add that beast to your set of sixty fire burns to the face.

I had utterly forgotten about Greg Staples making a new Punishing Fire. This card means Zoo to me, and adding a dragon feels really on flavor—that, and I’m sure since others missed it, too, you could a playset and also probably buy the original painting, which is nice.

I never quite understood why a hasted goblin gave you lands. This explains it to, me and it’s everything I wanted in the best 1-drop red has had in recent years. Confused goblin? Attacking? Maps? An interesting face? I want all of this in all my Red Deck Wins and Burn deck.

I’ve mentioned this IDW Comics Duress before, and it’s so much better in person. These promos, unlike the 1990s comics, will become incredibly rare soon, so if you’re even on the fence, I’d pick up playset immediately.

Conceptual art is the best art. When I hear people complain that Magic art all looks the same and is so dreary and one-dimensional, they mean card art either shows or means what it is. These two card artworks show the card concept, but not in always a literal way. Yes, Guay shows us three people to represent the three black mana, but that’s about it. In foil, that Dark Ritual looks incredible; I wish I could show you a better picture online.

As for Hymn, I really wish they tried to foil these older versions. With some selective gold leaf, you could alter one into being a Byzantine icon, no doubt, and this weird painting of two wizards “battling” over a table has always stuck with me as being really odd in a deck with Hypnotic Specters back in the 1990s—and even more so now with other discard outlets, keeping it significant to groan over.

Lightning Helix doesn’t need a huge color palette to show that something is being blown up. The life-gain mechanic really is secondary in the art description to keep the muted colors in check. I think its simplicity is the best feature in this textless promo.

Dryad Arbor is the weird inclusion for some infect decks, among others, and the From the Vault version played up the Dryad factor to more of a storybook aesthetic. I’m not sure we’ll see Grimms’ Fairy Tales of Lorwyn again, but we will see inclusions such as this one in the future. I can dig singletons to round out a deck to feel similar looking.

I like the new Path to Exile judge foil, but I love Guay’s allusions to nineteenth-century Romanticism art. So many knights were so sleepy, with maidens swooning and oddly placed fruit ever nearby.

If you’re paying life to gain knowledge, that library won’t be clean and sure as hell won’t be indoors. I want my green libraries to be out of place in an overgrown area but distinct enough to be recognized across the table. Add in a valuable first-time foiling, and it’s hitting art value and MTG finance value in one swing.

Those arms get me every time. I should ask Dan for his other sketches to see what other thing he tried to hide under this ever hungry ooze, which frankly, is what it is.

This Courser of Kruphix plays up the Future Sight with a tiny eighth of the painting. I tried to find a larger image, but like many promotional artworks, artists aren’t ever sure when they can post them because dozens of players aren’t asking like normal. It’s a literal mechanic transcribed onto a card, yes, but it adds to the illusion, and I like seeing mechanics from time to time on utterly stellar cards. Often, there’s a stiffness because the card will be played so heavily, meaning risks are out.

I hope you enjoyed looking at some Eternal-format artworks. Did I miss any? Let me know in the comments below. Did you notice I omitted ones that most people already knew about? I hoped you would—you always know.

Enjoy those arts!

-Mike