I don't think that's completely true; plenty of the new cards are quite imaginative. I think there's just a greater degree of imposed consistency in the design.

For some counterexamples to your point, look at any of the art by Seb McKinnon.

>For some counterexamples to your point, look at any of the art by Seb McKinnon.

His stuff looks fantastic, and does look a lot like the more "tarot" inspired art of early magic. Thanks for telling us about him! Link for the curious. http://www.sebmckinnon.com/illustration/2019/5/29/2019/5/29/...

(I'm not very good at responding to HN comments, but hopefully you'll see this!)

A few of my favorite pieces by him are Deliver Unto Evil [1], Soulherder [2], and String of Disappearances [3]. His art is just so wonderfully fantastical and different from everything else. I love it.

[1] https://scryfall.com/card/war/85/deliver-unto-evil

[2] https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/214/soulherder

[3] https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/72/string-of-disappearances

There's an extra date in your link.

http://www.sebmckinnon.com/illustration/2019/5/29/answered-p...

I totally agree. I also think the newer art looks like it was made to be wall sized, and really just looks muddy, dark, and obscures details when it’s the size of a card. Looking back at old art, it soooooo much clearer and more flavorful.

The varied art in the old sets made the game feel "big" to me, like it was this giant bazaar of oddities that I was sifting through and piecing together in a unique way. Nowadays it feels more like assembling parts in a carefully curated environment. That's not an entirely bad thing, but a lot of the mystique is lost.

Exactly. I always felt like the world of magic was bigger than my imagination of it, that the cards were a tiny window into an unfathomably strange world. "Eldritch" is maybe the best word I can think of to describe it.

Agree completely. The redesign of the card format ruined the game for me. IMO the old format made it feel like you were holding some ancient and special.

The introduction alongside Mirrodin made sense IMO, but I really hoped they would revert after that. I also lost interest around the end of Mirrodin / start of Kamigawa.