You Make the Card 4 is finally back under the public eye. This time around, while the development team works behind the scenes to figure out what the card can and/or can’t be, we get to start down the creative process. To find out what that means, take the jump.
First off, let’s go ahead and take another look at our as it currently is.
Right, the ability that won is “Revenge of Necromancy” a discard oriented enchantment. While the development team makes sure there are no problems with the card and figure out where mana costs should/could be we are being given a vote for Art Description. What does that mean you ask, well, how about we let Ethan, the man in charge of the contest, explain.
When we commission an illustration from an artist, we send the artist an art description along with the concept name. This tells the artist the color of the card; what card type it has; and describes the action, the focus, and the mood that the piece should have. The creative team wrote a selection of concept names and art descriptions for Revenge of Necromancy. Choose your favorite and vote for it! The polls close Wednesday evening at midnight. Remember, these are not the final card names, just the names that the artist will see to help him or her illustrate the card!
With the explanation out of the way, let’s jump to the descriptions themselves.
[Necromancy Ascendant]
Color: Black spell
Location: An ancient cemetery
Action: We see an old cemetery, but there are ornate stone sarcophagi instead of dug graves. The lids of several sarcophagi have been moved, exposing the rotting corpses inside. A dark, purplish-black mist rises out the mouths and eyes of the corpses like dry ice. It billows out onto the ground, corrupting the cemetery grass.
Focus: The necromantic mist
Mood: There is no peace in this rest.
[Waste Not]
Color: Black Spell
Location: A nasty trash heap outside a small settlement
Action: We see a RAG MAN, a hunched and withered humanoid figure who appears to be held together by frayed ropes and worn leather straps. The being is standing triumphantly atop a heap of bones, broken armor and weapons, and other less identifiable trash. It is holding up a skull in one hand; the other hand clutches a filthy sack that is bulging with “treasures.” A glow of purplish power surrounds the Rag Man and the skull.
Focus: The glowing figure.
Mood: Creepy yet eco-friendly.
[Season of the Lich]
Color: Black Spell
Location: A misty clearing between withered trees
Action: This is a mood piece, set at night. The background of the image is an enormous full moon which touches the horizon… very bright, but slightly ominous in its tint. Most of the image is in silhouette against the moon’s light, but in the foreground we can see enough to know that we are in a dense pumpkin patch to give us a sense that this is a specific time of year. In the center of the image is a figure, very tall and impossibly thin, who is seen in hard silhouette against the moon. His posture is regal, his face slightly upturned to the night.
As the pumpkin shapes become more back-lit we realize that some of the curved silhouettes aren’t pumpkins at all, but are the hunched backs of several zombies who are starting to rise from among the patch.
Focus: The scene
Mood: “In the first hour of the third day of the seventh season, dim your lamps. Hush your infants. And lock your doors.”
[Necromancer’s Call]
Color: Black spell
Location: A field of corpses on a blasted wasteland.
Action: A necromancer stands with her arms outstretched. Ghostly energy is coursing up from the bodies that are strewn about. The energy converges around her where it begins to turn purplish. Maybe in the background we can see silhouettes of zombies rising out of the ground.
Focus: The energy rising out of the corpses and the ground.
Mood: Supernatural, eerie
[Liliana’s Wake]
Color: Black Spell
Location: Outdoors, during a colorful dusk
Action: Liliana wades toward camera through murky waist-deep water. Her body language is graceful and confidant, there is a smirk on her face. Her hands are outstretched just enough to agitate the surface of the water on both sides of her as she wades. Behind her two trails of zombies have just begun to rise from the water and follow her, as if awakened by the ripples caused by her hands.
Focus: The scene
Mood: Placid. Pretty. And frightening
THE OPINION
While all of these are interesting, only two of them are something I truly like. The first of the two I find interesting is [Season of the Lich], but this is more due to the resemblance to one Jack Skellington than a desire to see that artwork for this particular card, however, if it wins I wouldn’t be disappointed. The art I have decided to vote for is [Waste Not]. All of the others focus on the zombie aspect of the card, which is likely to be the gameplay focus as well, but this doesn’t just focus on zombies. [Waste Not] focuses on the use of the discarded material, which I find to be the more evocative extension of what the spell will be doing.
Whatever your opinion, we’d like to see it in the comments down below. And don’t forget to go over and vote, the polls close at midnight on Wednesday.
1 Comment
I had the same opinion, voting for Waste Not. All the other concepts boil down to “look evil necromancer dude with zombies” and don’t address the other aspects of the card. Lots of players don’t like discarding actual spells (even when it’s right to do so), so I think you might be more likely to get mana than zombies out of it.
Since they usually concept discard as some sort of mental trauma, I would have loved if the card concept was actually manifesting the psychic energy of the opponent into a Nightmare/Horror, more Black mana, or a spell. Understandably, they’ll stick with a Zombie creature type to keep with the standard 2/2 black creature token.