5.1. Generic vertical frame

For something that appears in every single set and I can’t put my finger on why really, I ran out of comments. Just know that Wizards commissioned some of the more classic artists to artworks in this subset, much in the same way a big chunk of this set is. This time, these words certainly don’t have quite the same cynical negative connotations as they usually do in those overpriced boosters, because we have a very clear focus with these pieces, being a specific plane with a specific feel and all.

Cards selection wise, it’s pretty light in the grand scheme of things. At rare, we got the DFC cycle, and at mythic, we get the Incarnations cycle, two DFCs and one single faced planeswalker. All of these cards are deeply wordy so ain’t no way they would have any flavor text.

And art wise, the characters also break out of the frame. The two planeswalkers barely break out, so does the Orzhov god. You need to get to the two black Incarnations to see the first breaks at the name and the mana cost. It’s the five rare commanders that take the most advantage of the breakage, starting from a flying potion to a distinctly drawn blossoming sword to culminate in Ashling bringing the fire or rime to most of the name box. The only major case of the character reaching for the typeline is blue Sygg’s spear really.

5.2. Reversible shock lands

The frame is the typical generic vertical frame with the same glow whether on the front or on the back, so at least that might feel more normal than whatever the Gatecrash guilds’ lands got eternities ago. At which point, are we due for another giant box to fix this asymmetry?

Each land has the same artist making two pieces taking place on the same place but at different times, where you can definitely feel the different between the two forms of this world. The two green lands come about this in the simplest way: Lively greenery becomes black husks, natural light becomes purple glows at specific spots. Much of the same can be said about the Azorius land, where the centerpiece from standing out blends in with the night’s palatte. Meanwhile, the red lands opt to show the industrial revolution and its consequences: Whether from trunks sending smoke out becomes italic to send fire, or a functional building also become italic due to fire.

Each face also have a different flavor text from the character of that color pair. Four of these pieces fit in two lines nicely, three move needs an additional line to fit one more word, two at least has two words and one last one needs a 4th line. Repeated words in both sides are “I” for Azorius, “my” for Rakdos, “fire” and “water” for Izzet and “grief” for Golgari.

5.3. Fable frame

This is basically Bloomburrow’s woodwork frame but you build the frame out of actual barks instead of leaves. Which gives way for some pretty deep textures and strange tints: White feels more woody, Blue feels more like cyan, Black is this really pale purple, Red feels more like orange, Green feels more like lime, Gold is the typical yellow and Artifacts have a little cyan to them. Thankfully, dual colored cards get the full gradient so you’ll fully know their colors. One con to this frame however: The side edges of the text boxes are darker than usual, and with lots of text pushed there, it can be a little harder to read.

Let’s look at the cards selection, where you realize that, for one, all of the mythics that haven’t gotten the generic vertical frame gets one here. Sounds nice right?

Then come to the rare, where each monocolor get four cards. Except which one? Well, the two cycles I talked about, plus four of the five random cards I picked to talk about too. I have suspected the red instant as the odd one out, then I decided I don’t have that interesting of words to say about it, so I changed to the Goblin. Meanwhile, there’re only six multicolored represented: The 5 commands I’ve already talked about, and one last Treefolk tricolor commander. I’m feeling a strong observations section at this point.

Finally, surprisingly, we get ten uncommons too. They’re the two multicolored cycles of the five RTR kindreds. Which may raise a little dilemma: I like the gradient of these showcase frames, but we originally intend this to be the way hybrid cards look to distinguish themselves from the gold cards. So now both kind of cards use the gradient, how would you know which is which?

Moving onto the flavor, one gripe I have with these cards, word wise, is that a few of them lacks flavor texts. While some less wordy cards managed to get in some excerpts from in-world literature, we have a few cards that’s frankly just as simple yet still leave a bunch of dead space not having any flavor text. I’m calling one blue card, two red rares, and also a few cards I can’t fully check on that had flavor texts in their normal versions but none anymore. If I had to guess why, it’s because those cards’ flavor texts were one liners and it’s decided that this frame is too serious for that or something, you can’t do citations with one liners or something.

Let’s now look at the artists distribution, where we certainly can see a very unique list in the grand scheme of things. Maybe there’s one artist in this list you might be familiar, but most the others are certainly new to this game. And they surely have brought a fair share of matte to Magic. Well, some of them still offer the black lines or intense fantasy details too, so it totals to quite the wide palatte.

5.4. Anime bareframe cards

Somehow, we managed to finally have another full cycle in this frame design, wasn’t the last time literally Duskmourn – the first time? It’s the cycle of kindred convokes. For most of these artworks, I do see a group of people with one big focus and many surrounding, except for the black one.

The rest is random nonsense obviously. There’s a single additional rare, it’s a faerie that uses 2 lines of texts for 2 different keywords and the artwork seems to have the victim more focused on than the actual faerie, so it leaves a lot to be desired.

The green mythic is the reprint, it’s an easy win. The other three cards are strange picks to say the least. Black one is an eldritch horror woman, so that makes a lot of sense for once. Red has two carsd and I’m still left wondering why. I guess, the last mythic was really esoteric and whatever white has isn’t interesting enough to make color balance out of.

One last note, the convoke cycle haven’t double dipped, everything else did.