The alt art card model is the best model if done like pokemon because it makes game pieces accessible and affordable for players while letting collectors have a their value chase.
@gerharddamm5933 while i can agree with this as someone who plays card games, (I'd buy a blank card art if it cost me the cheapest for my deck) I think it's fair to still wanna push for good card art throughout the gane. This video was not about the economics of card games and was just the art direction of these games taking a hit when you prioritize variants too much (more of a slippery slope than where I think the industry is now).
@@pymbette I can agree to both points, but as a player who trades with my collector friends, I think the blandness of the most common cards is genuinely to keep them out of casual collectors' hands to the point they're so accessible to players that they cost mere cents. Like I can basically take all common trainer cards from my friends when we meet to trade, and they don't even want anything in exchange for them, but if they were pretty at all?? probably wouldn't be the same
@Dokkiish and that might be what the industry requires at this point, and I don't judge the pokemon company for the practice, rather i am lamenting a bygone era. (Though i also I think companies are able to keep prices down with reprints, without sacrificing the quality of the art, but that's a whole other side of the TCG economic model)
Pokemon tcg has some of the most fun and fantastic alt art I've ever seen. The massive veriaty in not just styles, but even artistic mediums is an absolute joy to see.
One small point that you made 9:45 that I cannot agree with more is the idea that some cards have been created with foil prints in mind so that their non-foil counterparts look dull and lacking in their artwork. Foil cards definitely add a cool visual and collectible element but many times it ruins the non-foil cards appeal in many ways.
I believe they were saying this specifically in the context of *old* yugioh cards. Ones were the backgrounds are just solid colors or strange patterns and gradients. More modern yugioh cards look good with foiling or without it, because the card art is so much more dynamic and detailed
@@matthewcolosi7606 I'd even argue that, especially for Yu-Gi-Oh, there are a lot of cards where the basic version just looks better. I'm surprised he didn't mention Ghost Rares in particular at all, as those basically completely overwrite the actual card art.
It's criminal to talk about TCG card art, especially Pokémon, without mentioning the amazingly creative cycles of real life models like the clay ones by Yuka Morii and the knitted ones by Asako Ito. I love when TCGs use alternative artstyles for cards but Pokémon truly takes this to another level with these artists. Not even MTG's Secret Lair has stuff this creative in my opinion!
Yeah it's a great idea but I don't know a lot of people who actually enjoy that style? Personally I really dislike it, but I'd say my personal experience is quite universal as these cards never fetch any real prices...
MTG has some cool stuff too (some Saga artwork is actually just photos of woodburning or actual carvings, there was a Secret Lair that is photos of dioramas), but yeah, the clay models and knitted figures in the PTCG have fascinated me even when I first saw them way back when.
@Ivan2Jura What are you talking about? I've had several conversions from hardcore players to the most casual collectors about the art of Pokemon cards and Yuka Morii's cards always come up without fail. The reason why the cards she has done the art for typically aren't worth much is simply because they're almost always on unplayable commons. The line of dittos she did in the Delta Species set are iconic and are pretty expensive for commons for what it's worth.
some of my favourite art in card games comes frm Yugioh, specifically from very specific archetypes and the artstyles they take upon themselves; my favourite of these archetypes, both gameplay and art-wise, is Vanquish Soul. Vanquish Soul, being an archetype inspired by 3v3 Anime Fighting Games, has a sharp and dynamic style that makes each of the 6 main deck monsters pop in their own way - as if they were part of a fighting game's Character Select menu, striking their cool poses with their flashy effects upon being selected - with the exception of Valius Caesar, who is seen clutching a blaze of energy in his card art, grinning madly at the camera - fitting for the would-be final boss of the archetype's fictional fighting game The spells and traps too play into this greatly, depicting Special Moves and finishers from the various characters - Snow Devil for Jiaolong, Caesar Calamity for Valius Casear or Dust Devil for Razen for example; or alternatively, straight up the "CONTINUE?" screen with the appropiately named spell - depicting the Standard Mook/Player Custom Character stand-in (Vanquish Soul HG Pluton) as a decomposed puddle of slime under a spotlight - like a Fighting game's Continue screen! showing your character defeated as the timer counts down from 9, waiting for you to go at it again (which translates to the effect, summoning a monster from grave or putting it to the hand) It's a very cool archetype with very distinct looks and quite fun mechanics that play into the inspiration as well as the Everything, it's Quite cool
That's something I really love about Yugioh: I don't like Vanquish Soul, I think they're ugly and dumb. But I am also forced to acknowledge that they know what they're trying to depict and they do a great job depicting it. I wouldn't play the archetype myself, but I can understand why someone else would, and if I play against them, I'm not going to be turned off by it. There are vanishingly few archetypes in Yugioh that are incomprehensible, just archetypes that aren't my personal taste. With a game like MTG though, because the art is unfocused and uncreative, there are quite often moments of visceral repulsion at an opponent's card, and I suspect that's going to especially be the case post-Spongebob.
There's also the "reveal [attributes] in hand" gimmick to represent button combos, and the quick effects to tag out are a reference to MVC style tag team fighters. Really, it's impressive how much work goes into archetype design.
I’m so glad that you used New Capenna as a reference. It was my first MTG set that I bought a booster box. I absolutely loved that plane. And it’s always fun when people have good things to say about new Capenna
Why are we complaining about alt arts? It makes the base card more affordable. Have you SEEN the price of competitive Yugioh??? A tournament winning Snake-Eye Fiendsmith deck at its peak costed as much as a top of the line gaming PC. Like, there's a REASON why Pokemon has correctly chosen to monetize its game based on the collectors market as opposed to the player base. It creates the least amount of friction. Pokemon literally gets to have its cake and eat it too, and I really wish Yugioh would make alt arts of their modern cards more often and release them in their debut sets. It'd do a lot to bring down the price of the game and make getting into the game more accessible, as well as it'd increase the importance of the collector's market. Like, you're looking at this from an entirely ass-backwards perspective. I get what you mean by wanting shit to look internally-consistent and I'm all for some quality control, but if it brings down the cost of the game and doesn't exactly hurt the integrity of the IP (like Universes Beyond does with MTG), then who the fuck cares? Like, i might nitpick about the art of some Yugioh cards given that i'm an artist, but i'm still gonna buy the deck and play it if it's affordable and looks like fun. Psychic-End Punisher may look like ass, but its one of my favorite cards to use in that game. Its incredibly busted. What really gets to me is the fact that Yugioh doesn't credit its artists. It makes researching them and looking into their other works basically impossible.
no, selling the game at an affordable price makes the game affordable. Alternate arts give the shareholders gratuitous profits they don't actually need to make. It's certainly preferable over locking mechanically unique cards behind high rarities, but in the hypothetical world where good game design comes before excessive money-making, we could have a cheap base game *and* affordable alt arts.
As a person that's played on the competitive side of pokemonntcg since 2009, this hits on the money. Majority of the cards I've owned has always been afforadable to me, and has never affected the collector aspect of the higher rarity cards of my collextor friends from then too. Going from the full arts peak in the gen 5/6/7 era, to the gen8 and current gen 9 with illustration/alternate arts. Alt arts? Not for me. I find them unappealing in decks, but I adore full arts. Art wise they appeal to me more for the same blowup in card art, while being simplistic to their alt art counterparts. And the prices being absurdly cheaper thanks to said alt arts makes my wallet happy.
Mtg and other card games are so intrenched in modern culture that I can see them thriving for generations to come. There will be future eras with some banger art for sure.
Love to see videos that the creators have clearly poured their hearts into! TCG art really is something special. I’ve grew up playing and owning mtg primarily, and I’ve always loved the worlds forged in that game. As a kid and teenager, I found it hard to see the appeal in yugioh’s seemingly random, disconnected monsters and events. But I can see it now!
Old Yugioh though was so gritty. I want movies sent in the mess that are the first 8 sets. For now we have Forbidden Memories though… Nothing hits like old pokemon CGI. My man Keiji Kinebuchi knew exactly where the good stuff was at.
The art and the old school vibes is what I love about Sorcery: Contested Realm. It's like reliving the TCG golden years back in the 90s. It's a great game, it has amazing art, and it's great for collectors too. 🔥❤ If you haven't heard about it, I highly suggest you look into it - it wont disappoint! It has many of the original MTG artist...
Hey man, Im not sure if youll get to see this comment, but I wanna say I really appreciate you making this video. It really reminded me what I love so much about collecting cards, and brought me back to when I was a kid and I'd just stare at my binders for hours. The art is truly the best part of any TCG.
It really depends. Pokemon cards were pretty fenomenal ever since Base Set, but Trainers really show how boring many of the modern cards' art looks in comparison to the older sets. A few of my favorite Trainers are from Gym Heroes/Challenge and Team Rocket, specifically because they feature many unique artworks by Ken Sugimori there aren't found in the games nor the anime. Nowadays, many of the regular Trainers are just a piece of concept art over a generic background, and its pretty boring to look at, and it sucks that the cooler artworks are locked into the ultrarare, 1-in-a-million cards to cather to the richest collectors.
I used to love trading rare or fan favorite Pokémon for the cheaper cards that I thought had better art. When I eventually organized my collection and put the whole thing into a huge binder I saw it more as a collection of art not just pieces of cardboard. Gave it that much more value considering I never actually played the card game
Great video! I think the one artist that shoul've really been mentioned in the Pokemon section is Yuka Morii, because her 3D handcrafted artworks are really one of a kind and a huge standout within the tcg artwork space as a whole. I'd also encourage you to take a look at the Digimon tcg, because that's honestly a game with a strong art direction. For example they try to keep the art for an archetype within the hand of a single artist, at least within a set, giving each line a strong visual character. Also the Alt-art problem is less prominent in the Digimon tcg, because, while there are great expensive alt-art cards, the normal art variations quite often are on par with the Alt arts. I heard the sentence "yea the alt art is great, but the normal art is pretty fantastic, too" in my local community more than once, and I personally keep copies of normal art QueenBeemon along the Alt Art in my Royal Base deck, because both are just damn good pieces of artwork. My personal favourite artist is Kazumasa Yasukuni, whose dynamic high contrast usage of colour is really a sight to behold.
I think it’s interesting to consider how Modern YuGiOh has changed its world building philosophy While it’s not MTG levels by set, looking at the Duel Terminal, Abyss, Sinful Spoils, World Legacy, and Visas storylines and how modern set design works around them, and especially going into Series 13 (future Chronicles anime, Abyss and Sky Striker focused), I think there’s elements of that Magic focus seeping into the game
helloo, awesome video it hit my nostalgia when you showed soul release it was like a splash to those early 2000 of mine. Hey im making my own homemade tcg and im doing the game with heavy importance to numbers with different names (4 of daggers, 3 of apples, etc) and i thought that the base card could be epic numbers with different fonts and alt arts with photos i take from the things from their card names, a tcg with photos as art? i mean it's also art, what do you think?
I had some of the og mtg set.. bummed almost everyday I let them go 😔 lesson to everyone; never get rid of your nerd stuff. Even if your new gf thinks it’s lame, she’s actually lame.
You have a 1/17 chance of getting an ultimate rare when you open an ots pack. A lot of my tournament ultis end up being from the sign up packs. I've topped a couple locals but gotten nothing while 23rd place opened the ulti exodia head.
IMO you should also check out cardfight vanguard artworks! to keep the comment short: I think they're amazing and even some of the most complex arts are still very "smooth" to the eye (Unlike ygo where as the clip said "A guy with a sword, a gun, Giant wings, messy armor..")
The art is a huge reason why i collect anything and i totally agree that it should be held to a higher respect like art pieces,sure its printed to death but still,today all we get it digital
I think the greates display of this trend in pokemon is how pokémon GX and V even in their default card art looked amazing and now all ex cards are traped i a rectangle trying to escape with translucent text background and reaching outside the frame
So in regards to Pokemon at least, I actually really like alternate arts, and I don't feel like the regular art versions suffer because of them. There's still some great art to be found there, at least for the Pokemon. The issue you brought up, where the regular art for a card is bland, but the alt art is really good, only really applies to trainer cards, and even then, there's still some good ones (though usually only for stadiums). The thing I do agree with you on is them changing the art from a square to a rectangle. More room for the art would be nice, so long as they can still fit all of the important info on the card without shrinking the text or something.
Id never really thought about the negative aspect of multiple art treatments in pokemon. I always looked at it positively as a non-collector as it made the chase cards expensive, but the competitive cards tend to be cheaper. So i never considered that lower rarities tend to have less interesting art for many cards as a negative.
If it's not on your radar already, Sorcery Contested Realm sounds like the perfect game for you to rekindle your nostalgia. They're doing the total opposite of the everything you said in the final breakdown. Highly recommend checking it out!
Sorry in advance for the wall of text. I think blue eyes was popular mostly because of the anime rather than on the art, because for me is just a dragon in a weird pose in a somewhat boring space. The whole thing of the art having too much in it: In recent memory the only cards that do that are the heavenly prison and end punisher (cannot be bothered to search the whole names) Machinax is not that hard to read what's going on and i can't quite tell why the guy was having problems with the blackwing card. I was going to bring up that i prefer the sanitization that archetypes brought, but then i realized that i was having a player mentality, not a collector one. I can understand a bit, but i prefer the cohesion over the mix bag that was early yugioh. One thing i don't understand, why is Poplar used as a example of uncreative and repetitive? Again, sorry for the wall, but i wanted to vent(?) here because when somebody talks about art and yugioh, they always praise the old art, while i found it boring. There are some other things i want to just get out of my chest, but I'm really tired now, so i leave at this for now.
i can't think of a single Universes Beyond card art that's actually impressed me the way real magic cards can and do routinely. and because of the style guide and licensing issues it poses, i really don't expect that to change. it's just pink slime from a tube, man
I think the Dr Who set had some cards that do look interesting, but yeah, overall it often also falls into the pitfall of "trying to capture real humans/extensively style guided characters" where it can look a little uncanny (or a lot uncanny, with much of the Hatsune Miku art). I'm sure the artists are still doing the most with what they're given but I imagine working on UB is micromanagement hell sometimes.
It's interesting how poorly MTG has aged, in terms of art. Where every other card game has only really become better at giving cards evocative and engaging images, MTG seems to have fallen down a pit of high resolution photorealism, which doesn't translate well to tiny pieces of paper at all. The instants and sorceries usually work, but the creatures often look lifeless, with awkward poses and bizarre facial expressions. For sake of the first card I saw filtering by the Human type, "Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward". This is a legendary creature from a commander set, something I'm supposed to feel inspired to build an entire deck around, and it features a picture of a guy who can't muster the enthusiasm to even raise his sword. Actually, I just had a new thought. I wonder if MTG creatures actually aren't *allowed* to feature dynamism or action shots because these are reserved for instants and sorceries, resulting in overcorrection towards the lifeless? In contrast, virtually every Yugioh monster looks like it's excited to exist, looks like it's designed to be on a card, even the anime girls - to such a degree that it's actually very difficult to find suitable art for custom cards because very little of it is framed like a yugioh card art is framed. Even Weiss Schwarz, which is straight up using screenshots for most of its cards, is better at picking images that look like they belong on cards than MTG is. Hell, even Pokemon with it's crazy ideas like using photographs of real models as card art still knows how to frame a card image properly.
I have to agree with the Pokémon card using the worst and best model. They had something great in the Ancient Trait cards in Primal Clash through Ancient Origins. And even in the GX and V days when even the regular versions of those cards came across as pseudo full arts, or just extended arts. The new lower case ex cards are reminiscent of the old upper case EX cards from BW-XY, and not in a good way. It's not really a nostalgic style, it's an outdated one. And when TCGs like Digimon make the art window take up almost 2/3 of the card, even for commons, the new ex's feel boring. Hell, with all the amazing art from the thousands of artists, if Pokémon felt so inclined, they can make every card be just one big art piece, closer to what Digimon is doing these days. But, they won't. Which is a shame
As a magic player. I’m terribly sad about the current state of the art at the moment. When they do sets that are original like Duskmourn and Bloomburrow, they do an overall good job. At the moment im glad that the super rare variants are unattractive to me. I do hope someday they have a renaissance and bring back some of that earlier magic, but I fear for a future that embraces so-called AI art tools.
@@solaris_cc4353 I have been meaning to try that out. I like some of the art but as weird as this sounds, I really loved the way magic frames look. It adds a level of consistency to the total card pool. My favorite ones were some of the old ones where the artist would draw in flourishes to go along with the picture frame itself. Margaret O’Keane and Quinton Hoover do this a lot.
I started hating the Yu-Gi-Oh Art at age 13 or 14... It's so inconsistent and seems random and often ugly 😅 I love that in MTG every new set is very consistent and tribal decks have a really good feel to it despite them being from different sets
MTG's art is a huge draw, for sure. Cardgame art, in general, is amazing. Especially to own it and be able to ogle it whenever you want. Loved this analytical video of it. Thanks for sharing your perspective!
Seeing the old Pokemon and YuGiOh card art definitely gives me feels. I miss the small collection of Pkmn and YGO card I used to have. Thankful I still have the memories, at least.
making worse card arts for basic versions of the card is good imo. it makes it so the people who only want to play the game and not collect cards for their artwork can do so at a reasonable price, while those who do enjoy to collect pieces of art that just happen to be tcg cards have cool stuff to look for in the game
Complaining about alt art is crazy. It's harmless. You engage with alt art culture as much as you deem fit. Companies need money to survive. If it's not affecting gameplay, it's not something to whine about. People will literally complain about anything.
Making a video where I talk in depth about a thing I love and then making a tail end about how it's changed in the modern day is not just whining. Talking criticality about things you're a fan of is actually very normal!
I see the lack of artist credits on yugioh cards as a positive. If people can see universes beyond as immersion-breaking, then I argue that copyright lines and artist credits on every card are equally so. Having references to how the card was made on the card naturally pulls you out of the experience. You’re not wondering about the card, you’re wondering about the printing factories and shipping lines, about artist pay-rates (which are fine tbh, there’s too many artists for them all to get paid any better) and about quality control
I'm pretty anal about art and whenever a tcg has censored or toned down because of religious concerns, violence, or fan service I drop them. I get why they do it, ratings boards and appealing more to kids I guess. Just doesn't feel good to be favored less than a new targeted audience.
@SapphicSara i agree! Which is why wasn't trying to do it, that's just a common criticism of Yugiohs card art currently (which is how i hope I phrased it). I could have gone more in depth into what "waifus" actually means, and why it's dismissive but it wasn't really the focus of the video. It's well beyond my scope to actually have an intelligent critique of the whole anime-girl-is-waifu subculture that yugioh fans intersect with. I was just talking about some of the newer art I find interesting.
@@pymbette I mean why is it beyond your scope, your love for mtg is cool and all but like theres so much to talk about in Japanese tcgs. Dead ones like Aquarian Age to Duel Masters, Wixoss, Vanguard, Battle Spirits. Pokemon and Yugioh dont live in a bubble like mtg does
The alt art card model is the best model if done like pokemon because it makes game pieces accessible and affordable for players while letting collectors have a their value chase.
Agreed!
This is facts.
@gerharddamm5933 while i can agree with this as someone who plays card games, (I'd buy a blank card art if it cost me the cheapest for my deck) I think it's fair to still wanna push for good card art throughout the gane. This video was not about the economics of card games and was just the art direction of these games taking a hit when you prioritize variants too much (more of a slippery slope than where I think the industry is now).
@@pymbette I can agree to both points, but as a player who trades with my collector friends, I think the blandness of the most common cards is genuinely to keep them out of casual collectors' hands to the point they're so accessible to players that they cost mere cents. Like I can basically take all common trainer cards from my friends when we meet to trade, and they don't even want anything in exchange for them, but if they were pretty at all?? probably wouldn't be the same
@Dokkiish and that might be what the industry requires at this point, and I don't judge the pokemon company for the practice, rather i am lamenting a bygone era. (Though i also I think companies are able to keep prices down with reprints, without sacrificing the quality of the art, but that's a whole other side of the TCG economic model)
The art is what draw me to yugioh at the begging, as a kid i thought that having a mini portrait of a powerful monster was very cool.
Pokemon tcg has some of the most fun and fantastic alt art I've ever seen. The massive veriaty in not just styles, but even artistic mediums is an absolute joy to see.
One small point that you made 9:45 that I cannot agree with more is the idea that some cards have been created with foil prints in mind so that their non-foil counterparts look dull and lacking in their artwork. Foil cards definitely add a cool visual and collectible element but many times it ruins the non-foil cards appeal in many ways.
I believe they were saying this specifically in the context of *old* yugioh cards. Ones were the backgrounds are just solid colors or strange patterns and gradients. More modern yugioh cards look good with foiling or without it, because the card art is so much more dynamic and detailed
@@matthewcolosi7606 I'd even argue that, especially for Yu-Gi-Oh, there are a lot of cards where the basic version just looks better. I'm surprised he didn't mention Ghost Rares in particular at all, as those basically completely overwrite the actual card art.
It's criminal to talk about TCG card art, especially Pokémon, without mentioning the amazingly creative cycles of real life models like the clay ones by Yuka Morii and the knitted ones by Asako Ito. I love when TCGs use alternative artstyles for cards but Pokémon truly takes this to another level with these artists. Not even MTG's Secret Lair has stuff this creative in my opinion!
Yeah it's a great idea but I don't know a lot of people who actually enjoy that style?
Personally I really dislike it, but I'd say my personal experience is quite universal as these cards never fetch any real prices...
MTG has some cool stuff too (some Saga artwork is actually just photos of woodburning or actual carvings, there was a Secret Lair that is photos of dioramas), but yeah, the clay models and knitted figures in the PTCG have fascinated me even when I first saw them way back when.
@Ivan2Jura What are you talking about? I've had several conversions from hardcore players to the most casual collectors about the art of Pokemon cards and Yuka Morii's cards always come up without fail. The reason why the cards she has done the art for typically aren't worth much is simply because they're almost always on unplayable commons. The line of dittos she did in the Delta Species set are iconic and are pretty expensive for commons for what it's worth.
Universe Beyond is like going to the MOMA and finding out every other space on the wall has been sold for ad revenue
Nonsense
some of my favourite art in card games comes frm Yugioh, specifically from very specific archetypes and the artstyles they take upon themselves; my favourite of these archetypes, both gameplay and art-wise, is Vanquish Soul.
Vanquish Soul, being an archetype inspired by 3v3 Anime Fighting Games, has a sharp and dynamic style that makes each of the 6 main deck monsters pop in their own way - as if they were part of a fighting game's Character Select menu, striking their cool poses with their flashy effects upon being selected - with the exception of Valius Caesar, who is seen clutching a blaze of energy in his card art, grinning madly at the camera - fitting for the would-be final boss of the archetype's fictional fighting game
The spells and traps too play into this greatly, depicting Special Moves and finishers from the various characters - Snow Devil for Jiaolong, Caesar Calamity for Valius Casear or Dust Devil for Razen for example; or alternatively, straight up the "CONTINUE?" screen with the appropiately named spell - depicting the Standard Mook/Player Custom Character stand-in (Vanquish Soul HG Pluton) as a decomposed puddle of slime under a spotlight - like a Fighting game's Continue screen! showing your character defeated as the timer counts down from 9, waiting for you to go at it again (which translates to the effect, summoning a monster from grave or putting it to the hand)
It's a very cool archetype with very distinct looks and quite fun mechanics that play into the inspiration as well as the Everything, it's Quite cool
That's something I really love about Yugioh: I don't like Vanquish Soul, I think they're ugly and dumb. But I am also forced to acknowledge that they know what they're trying to depict and they do a great job depicting it. I wouldn't play the archetype myself, but I can understand why someone else would, and if I play against them, I'm not going to be turned off by it. There are vanishingly few archetypes in Yugioh that are incomprehensible, just archetypes that aren't my personal taste. With a game like MTG though, because the art is unfocused and uncreative, there are quite often moments of visceral repulsion at an opponent's card, and I suspect that's going to especially be the case post-Spongebob.
There's also the "reveal [attributes] in hand" gimmick to represent button combos, and the quick effects to tag out are a reference to MVC style tag team fighters. Really, it's impressive how much work goes into archetype design.
I’m so glad that you used New Capenna as a reference. It was my first MTG set that I bought a booster box. I absolutely loved that plane. And it’s always fun when people have good things to say about new Capenna
Why are we complaining about alt arts? It makes the base card more affordable.
Have you SEEN the price of competitive Yugioh??? A tournament winning Snake-Eye Fiendsmith deck at its peak costed as much as a top of the line gaming PC. Like, there's a REASON why Pokemon has correctly chosen to monetize its game based on the collectors market as opposed to the player base. It creates the least amount of friction.
Pokemon literally gets to have its cake and eat it too, and I really wish Yugioh would make alt arts of their modern cards more often and release them in their debut sets. It'd do a lot to bring down the price of the game and make getting into the game more accessible, as well as it'd increase the importance of the collector's market.
Like, you're looking at this from an entirely ass-backwards perspective. I get what you mean by wanting shit to look internally-consistent and I'm all for some quality control, but if it brings down the cost of the game and doesn't exactly hurt the integrity of the IP (like Universes Beyond does with MTG), then who the fuck cares? Like, i might nitpick about the art of some Yugioh cards given that i'm an artist, but i'm still gonna buy the deck and play it if it's affordable and looks like fun. Psychic-End Punisher may look like ass, but its one of my favorite cards to use in that game. Its incredibly busted.
What really gets to me is the fact that Yugioh doesn't credit its artists. It makes researching them and looking into their other works basically impossible.
no, selling the game at an affordable price makes the game affordable. Alternate arts give the shareholders gratuitous profits they don't actually need to make. It's certainly preferable over locking mechanically unique cards behind high rarities, but in the hypothetical world where good game design comes before excessive money-making, we could have a cheap base game *and* affordable alt arts.
As a person that's played on the competitive side of pokemonntcg since 2009, this hits on the money. Majority of the cards I've owned has always been afforadable to me, and has never affected the collector aspect of the higher rarity cards of my collextor friends from then too. Going from the full arts peak in the gen 5/6/7 era, to the gen8 and current gen 9 with illustration/alternate arts. Alt arts? Not for me. I find them unappealing in decks, but I adore full arts. Art wise they appeal to me more for the same blowup in card art, while being simplistic to their alt art counterparts. And the prices being absurdly cheaper thanks to said alt arts makes my wallet happy.
Pokémon full arts really are soooo good!
Mtg and other card games are so intrenched in modern culture that I can see them thriving for generations to come. There will be future eras with some banger art for sure.
Love to see videos that the creators have clearly poured their hearts into! TCG art really is something special.
I’ve grew up playing and owning mtg primarily, and I’ve always loved the worlds forged in that game. As a kid and teenager, I found it hard to see the appeal in yugioh’s seemingly random, disconnected monsters and events. But I can see it now!
Excellent analysis. Refreshing to find some novel content that hasn’t been covered to death already
Old Yugioh though was so gritty. I want movies sent in the mess that are the first 8 sets. For now we have Forbidden Memories though…
Nothing hits like old pokemon CGI. My man Keiji Kinebuchi knew exactly where the good stuff was at.
The art and the old school vibes is what I love about Sorcery: Contested Realm. It's like reliving the TCG golden years back in the 90s. It's a great game, it has amazing art, and it's great for collectors too. 🔥❤ If you haven't heard about it, I highly suggest you look into it - it wont disappoint! It has many of the original MTG artist...
Hey man, Im not sure if youll get to see this comment, but I wanna say I really appreciate you making this video.
It really reminded me what I love so much about collecting cards, and brought me back to when I was a kid and I'd just stare at my binders for hours. The art is truly the best part of any TCG.
hey, just wanna say you had an absolutely phenomenal soundtrack choice
was just shocked by the moon river climax mix, really great video!
I’d loved the antiquated look of yugioh when I first saw them in 03. It was like finding a powerful relic
THE SENTIMENTAL BAKA MITAI PIANO 😭
I disagree that the non-alt Pokemon trainer art is boring. It's well done and expressive.
I also love the alt art model because I love alt art. I like seeing more art of cards, even if sadly I'll never get one.
It really depends. Pokemon cards were pretty fenomenal ever since Base Set, but Trainers really show how boring many of the modern cards' art looks in comparison to the older sets. A few of my favorite Trainers are from Gym Heroes/Challenge and Team Rocket, specifically because they feature many unique artworks by Ken Sugimori there aren't found in the games nor the anime. Nowadays, many of the regular Trainers are just a piece of concept art over a generic background, and its pretty boring to look at, and it sucks that the cooler artworks are locked into the ultrarare, 1-in-a-million cards to cather to the richest collectors.
I used to love trading rare or fan favorite Pokémon for the cheaper cards that I thought had better art. When I eventually organized my collection and put the whole thing into a huge binder I saw it more as a collection of art not just pieces of cardboard. Gave it that much more value considering I never actually played the card game
Thanks for the nuanced perpective!
Great video! I think the one artist that shoul've really been mentioned in the Pokemon section is Yuka Morii, because her 3D handcrafted artworks are really one of a kind and a huge standout within the tcg artwork space as a whole.
I'd also encourage you to take a look at the Digimon tcg, because that's honestly a game with a strong art direction. For example they try to keep the art for an archetype within the hand of a single artist, at least within a set, giving each line a strong visual character. Also the Alt-art problem is less prominent in the Digimon tcg, because, while there are great expensive alt-art cards, the normal art variations quite often are on par with the Alt arts. I heard the sentence "yea the alt art is great, but the normal art is pretty fantastic, too" in my local community more than once, and I personally keep copies of normal art QueenBeemon along the Alt Art in my Royal Base deck, because both are just damn good pieces of artwork.
My personal favourite artist is Kazumasa Yasukuni, whose dynamic high contrast usage of colour is really a sight to behold.
One of the best card arts of all time 25:57 👏🙌✍
Ironically the Kingdra card with Clair you showed at the end was a card I got for $1, and it's easily one of my favorites
I think it’s interesting to consider how Modern YuGiOh has changed its world building philosophy
While it’s not MTG levels by set, looking at the Duel Terminal, Abyss, Sinful Spoils, World Legacy, and Visas storylines and how modern set design works around them, and especially going into Series 13 (future Chronicles anime, Abyss and Sky Striker focused), I think there’s elements of that Magic focus seeping into the game
Great video! Subbed!
helloo, awesome video it hit my nostalgia when you showed soul release it was like a splash to those early 2000 of mine. Hey im making my own homemade tcg and im doing the game with heavy importance to numbers with different names (4 of daggers, 3 of apples, etc) and i thought that the base card could be epic numbers with different fonts and alt arts with photos i take from the things from their card names, a tcg with photos as art? i mean it's also art, what do you think?
I clicked on this video because Word of Command is my all time favorite magic art ❤
Excellent overview of the card art trends of these games. I'd love to hear you present your ideas on any card game's art after watching this.
awesome video!
banger video bro
I had some of the og mtg set.. bummed almost everyday I let them go 😔 lesson to everyone; never get rid of your nerd stuff. Even if your new gf thinks it’s lame, she’s actually lame.
You have a 1/17 chance of getting an ultimate rare when you open an ots pack. A lot of my tournament ultis end up being from the sign up packs. I've topped a couple locals but gotten nothing while 23rd place opened the ulti exodia head.
It's unfortunate the Exodia ulti was very low effort
Basically only embossed the barely visible background with none on the him at all.
IMO you should also check out cardfight vanguard artworks!
to keep the comment short: I think they're amazing and even some of the most complex arts are still very "smooth" to the eye (Unlike ygo where as the clip said "A guy with a sword, a gun, Giant wings, messy armor..")
The art is a huge reason why i collect anything and i totally agree that it should be held to a higher respect like art pieces,sure its printed to death but still,today all we get it digital
Have you seen the tcg flesh and blood ? I’d love to hear your opinion on their art
I think the greates display of this trend in pokemon is how pokémon GX and V even in their default card art looked amazing and now all ex cards are traped i a rectangle trying to escape with translucent text background and reaching outside the frame
So in regards to Pokemon at least, I actually really like alternate arts, and I don't feel like the regular art versions suffer because of them. There's still some great art to be found there, at least for the Pokemon. The issue you brought up, where the regular art for a card is bland, but the alt art is really good, only really applies to trainer cards, and even then, there's still some good ones (though usually only for stadiums). The thing I do agree with you on is them changing the art from a square to a rectangle. More room for the art would be nice, so long as they can still fit all of the important info on the card without shrinking the text or something.
Id never really thought about the negative aspect of multiple art treatments in pokemon. I always looked at it positively as a non-collector as it made the chase cards expensive, but the competitive cards tend to be cheaper.
So i never considered that lower rarities tend to have less interesting art for many cards as a negative.
10:11 just gonna ignore the duel terminal, albaz, visas starfrost, and diabellstar storylines?
Those are the exception and only happened relatively recently
@DourPrize duel terminal started in 2008. There is also six samurai and other archetypes with lore.
nice
If it's not on your radar already, Sorcery Contested Realm sounds like the perfect game for you to rekindle your nostalgia. They're doing the total opposite of the everything you said in the final breakdown. Highly recommend checking it out!
Absolutely love Sorcery! Can't get enough of it.
I basically sell Pokemon cards based solely on artwork
Sorry in advance for the wall of text.
I think blue eyes was popular mostly because of the anime rather than on the art, because for me is just a dragon in a weird pose in a somewhat boring space.
The whole thing of the art having too much in it:
In recent memory the only cards that do that are the heavenly prison and end punisher (cannot be bothered to search the whole names)
Machinax is not that hard to read what's going on and i can't quite tell why the guy was having problems with the blackwing card.
I was going to bring up that i prefer the sanitization that archetypes brought, but then i realized that i was having a player mentality, not a collector one. I can understand a bit, but i prefer the cohesion over the mix bag that was early yugioh.
One thing i don't understand, why is Poplar used as a example of uncreative and repetitive?
Again, sorry for the wall, but i wanted to vent(?) here because when somebody talks about art and yugioh, they always praise the old art, while i found it boring.
There are some other things i want to just get out of my chest, but I'm really tired now, so i leave at this for now.
i can't think of a single Universes Beyond card art that's actually impressed me the way real magic cards can and do routinely. and because of the style guide and licensing issues it poses, i really don't expect that to change. it's just pink slime from a tube, man
I think the Dr Who set had some cards that do look interesting, but yeah, overall it often also falls into the pitfall of "trying to capture real humans/extensively style guided characters" where it can look a little uncanny (or a lot uncanny, with much of the Hatsune Miku art). I'm sure the artists are still doing the most with what they're given but I imagine working on UB is micromanagement hell sometimes.
I like the art of the mind flayer
Bat I do agree thet all the people card are not very good
It's interesting how poorly MTG has aged, in terms of art. Where every other card game has only really become better at giving cards evocative and engaging images, MTG seems to have fallen down a pit of high resolution photorealism, which doesn't translate well to tiny pieces of paper at all. The instants and sorceries usually work, but the creatures often look lifeless, with awkward poses and bizarre facial expressions. For sake of the first card I saw filtering by the Human type, "Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward". This is a legendary creature from a commander set, something I'm supposed to feel inspired to build an entire deck around, and it features a picture of a guy who can't muster the enthusiasm to even raise his sword. Actually, I just had a new thought. I wonder if MTG creatures actually aren't *allowed* to feature dynamism or action shots because these are reserved for instants and sorceries, resulting in overcorrection towards the lifeless?
In contrast, virtually every Yugioh monster looks like it's excited to exist, looks like it's designed to be on a card, even the anime girls - to such a degree that it's actually very difficult to find suitable art for custom cards because very little of it is framed like a yugioh card art is framed. Even Weiss Schwarz, which is straight up using screenshots for most of its cards, is better at picking images that look like they belong on cards than MTG is. Hell, even Pokemon with it's crazy ideas like using photographs of real models as card art still knows how to frame a card image properly.
I have to agree with the Pokémon card using the worst and best model. They had something great in the Ancient Trait cards in Primal Clash through Ancient Origins. And even in the GX and V days when even the regular versions of those cards came across as pseudo full arts, or just extended arts. The new lower case ex cards are reminiscent of the old upper case EX cards from BW-XY, and not in a good way. It's not really a nostalgic style, it's an outdated one. And when TCGs like Digimon make the art window take up almost 2/3 of the card, even for commons, the new ex's feel boring. Hell, with all the amazing art from the thousands of artists, if Pokémon felt so inclined, they can make every card be just one big art piece, closer to what Digimon is doing these days. But, they won't. Which is a shame
I would say team rocket has some of the best art for pokemon trainer cards....
As a magic player. I’m terribly sad about the current state of the art at the moment. When they do sets that are original like Duskmourn and Bloomburrow, they do an overall good job. At the moment im glad that the super rare variants are unattractive to me. I do hope someday they have a renaissance and bring back some of that earlier magic, but I fear for a future that embraces so-called AI art tools.
You might like the recent Sorcery TCG, where older MtG artists were specifically instructed to draw everything by hand. The game is also good imo.
@@solaris_cc4353 I have been meaning to try that out. I like some of the art but as weird as this sounds, I really loved the way magic frames look. It adds a level of consistency to the total card pool. My favorite ones were some of the old ones where the artist would draw in flourishes to go along with the picture frame itself. Margaret O’Keane and Quinton Hoover do this a lot.
@zachwilson768 it's not weird at all, I completely agree! Mtg's old frame was so immersive. That's why Shandalar is such a good game imo.
Excellent, sovlful video.
I started hating the Yu-Gi-Oh Art at age 13 or 14... It's so inconsistent and seems random and often ugly 😅
I love that in MTG every new set is very consistent and tribal decks have a really good feel to it despite them being from different sets
MTG's art is a huge draw, for sure. Cardgame art, in general, is amazing. Especially to own it and be able to ogle it whenever you want. Loved this analytical video of it. Thanks for sharing your perspective!
Seeing the old Pokemon and YuGiOh card art definitely gives me feels. I miss the small collection of Pkmn and YGO card I used to have. Thankful I still have the memories, at least.
making worse card arts for basic versions of the card is good imo. it makes it so the people who only want to play the game and not collect cards for their artwork can do so at a reasonable price, while those who do enjoy to collect pieces of art that just happen to be tcg cards have cool stuff to look for in the game
But if it wasn't for unnecessary profit motive, people who just want to play the game could also have good artwork, without having to pay more.
Complaining about alt art is crazy. It's harmless. You engage with alt art culture as much as you deem fit. Companies need money to survive. If it's not affecting gameplay, it's not something to whine about.
People will literally complain about anything.
Making a video where I talk in depth about a thing I love and then making a tail end about how it's changed in the modern day is not just whining. Talking criticality about things you're a fan of is actually very normal!
One Piece art clears
I see the lack of artist credits on yugioh cards as a positive. If people can see universes beyond as immersion-breaking, then I argue that copyright lines and artist credits on every card are equally so. Having references to how the card was made on the card naturally pulls you out of the experience. You’re not wondering about the card, you’re wondering about the printing factories and shipping lines, about artist pay-rates (which are fine tbh, there’s too many artists for them all to get paid any better) and about quality control
I'm pretty anal about art and whenever a tcg has censored or toned down because of religious concerns, violence, or fan service I drop them. I get why they do it, ratings boards and appealing more to kids I guess. Just doesn't feel good to be favored less than a new targeted audience.
Dismissing art of women as waifu art is geniuly awful art critique
@SapphicSara i agree! Which is why wasn't trying to do it, that's just a common criticism of Yugiohs card art currently (which is how i hope I phrased it). I could have gone more in depth into what "waifus" actually means, and why it's dismissive but it wasn't really the focus of the video. It's well beyond my scope to actually have an intelligent critique of the whole anime-girl-is-waifu subculture that yugioh fans intersect with. I was just talking about some of the newer art I find interesting.
@@pymbette I mean why is it beyond your scope, your love for mtg is cool and all but like theres so much to talk about in Japanese tcgs. Dead ones like Aquarian Age to Duel Masters, Wixoss, Vanguard, Battle Spirits. Pokemon and Yugioh dont live in a bubble like mtg does
Just be grateful that women are still allowed to be beautiful on yugioh cards
it is tho? the intent is clearly to appeal to a straight male audience
(or heck even a women audience) with Cute and attractive women
@alexspeedwagon3701 Classic Jojo’s fan behavior. And by that I mean being based.