Looking Back

Hapless Researcher card art

2022 is nearly in the books; it is time to take a look back at the year in Magic.

Like last year, Wizards released a ton of product in 2022. I complained about that several times this year (that first link, Foiled Again and Overwhelmed, Glutted and Gutted). But, as I've said several times, nobody is forcing us to buy these things. So I am frustrated but must be better about being content with my collection. The new cards are fun but I don't *need* them. 

The one nice thing about flooding the market is the potential for reprints dropping prices. Brothers' War is a good example- their retro artifacts reprinted a lot of cool cards that wound up dropping prices for a lot of them.

According to Card Market, here are the most-sold singles in 2022:

It is interesting that the top three are Commander staples and the other two are staples for red and blue, and have been around since the beginning. The card pool grows, but the fundamental cards remain.

Ignoring the humorous set Unfinity, the main pack-based releases this year were:

- Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty

- Streets of New Capenna

- D&D: Battle for Baldur's Gate (commander draft)

- Double Masters 2022 (compilation set)

- Dominaria United

- Brothers' War

- Jumpstart 2022 (compilation set)

I largely ignored the first two, collecting some staples but not playing much. Baldur's Gate disappointed me; I was hoping it would be more like the first D&D release, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. Double Masters 2022 had some powerful cards (as it was intended to), but was really expensive. Dominaria United was fun. Brothers' War is decent. And Jumpstart 2022 looks great, like its predecessor.

They released four Warhammer-based commander decks and five starter commander decks. I ignored the former (though I've heard good things) and enjoyed the latter quite a bit. Again, the fundamental cards can be the most fun.

Personally, my year in Magic was centered on the inventorying (and subsequent analysis) of my collection that I did in August using the Dragonshield scanner. That took forever but was worth it (I think/hope). On the blog, I did the standard smattering of posts, looking at various things, to include rules, artists, formats, history, and 'farewells' to sets rotating out of standard. Other than the inventory, I enjoyed doing the creature types and prevalence analysis. And I tried adding some 'old frame' cards to my collection in addition to buying some of the new releases. 

Here are my Arena stats for the year:

I wish they included how many of those games I played were test runs against the bot. I suspect half. That would then tell me my overall winning percentage against real opponents . . . under .500, to be sure, but hopefully not much less than that.

It was a fun year, but overwhelming. I plan to treat next year differently; more on that tomorrow.

Artist: Kev Walker

Next up on the artists of Magic, today I look at Kev Walker.

Kev Walker holds the distinction of illustrating the most Magic cards- by a lot (almost 200 cards ahead of Pete Venters). As usual, we use Scryfall to look up Maddocks' work:

artist:“Kev Walker” not:digital

And find that he illustrated 465 unique cards. Wikipedia claims he was active from 1996-2020, but this is inaccurate- he is still active. And his work has been reprinted quite a bit.

To look at how frequently his work has been reprinted, we add unique prints to the syntax in Scryfall:

artist:“Kev Walker” unique:prints not:digital

You can peruse all of the reprints here. From this, it appears that his 465 unique pieces of art have been reprinted across 1034 cards (this includes tokens). The top cards reprinted the most times with a Kev Walker illustration appear to be:

- Rancor and Sengir Vampire (15 times),

- Krosan Tusker (12 times),

- Lightning Elemental, Llanowar Elves, Wrath of God (10 times)

I am not skilled in art . . . though so prolific, I have trouble identifying a Kev Walker card on sight. That either means his style/abilities are impressively varied, or I'm just missing something obvious. Either way, below are a handful of cards that are either iconic or personal favorites.

Artist: Anson Maddocks

Continuing my series on the artists of Magic, today I look at Anson Maddocks.

Anson Maddocks was one of the game's 25 original artists. He illustrated 30 cards for the first Magic set, Alpha, making him (I think) the artist whose work featured most frequently in that initial set. His Hurloon Minotaur (above) was featured on the booster box (below), making it one of the games initial iconic images.

Per the first artist post, I use Scryfall to look up Maddocks' work. He illustrated 115 unique cards. Per Wikipedia, he was active from 1993-2006 and thus produced art for the game up through the Time Spiral set, illustrating 3 cards for that. 

His work continues showing up in reprints, too. Use this syntax in scryfall:

artist:“Anson Maddocks” unique:prints not:digital

You can peruse all of the reprints here. From this, it appears that his 115 unique pieces of art have been reprinted across 578 cards. The cards reprinted the most times with an Anson Maddocks illustration is Llanowar Elves (23 times), Disintegrate (18), and Elvish Archers (17). I suspect his most iconic card, outside of the Hurloon Minotaur, is the Sengir Vampire, whose image (below) is visceral and disturbing- as a vampire should be, I would argue.

Maddocks illustrated a number of minotaurs, a tribe I enjoy. (I collect copies of Hurloon Minotaur and have it in several languages. It's not a great card, but I like it.) I also liked his depictions involving skeletons and artifacts. These and some of his other iconic images are below.

Anson Maddocks is still active today, per his official website.

Artist: Christopher Rush

Continuing my series on the artists of Magic, today I look at Christopher Rush.

Christopher Rush was one of the game's 25 original artists. He, with Jesper Myrfors, created the design that is featured on the back of every single Magic card (minus double-sided cards and commemorative products). He also designed the mana symbols:

image from here

But he is best known for illustrating the Black Lotus (Alpha edition shown at top), the game's most expensive card (an autographed version sold for over $500K last year).

Per the previous post, I use Scryfall to look up Rush's work. He illustrated 123 unique cards. He was employed by Wizards through 1999 and thus produced art for most of the first 21 sets. His work continues show up in reprints, too. You can look at his work in toto from that latest hyperlink, or check out his art from sets I randomly chose:

- 10 cards in Alpha

- 7 cards in Arabian Nights

- 13 cards in Legends

- 10 cards in The Dark

- 9 cards in Ice Age

- 14 cards in Fourth Edition

The card reprinted the most times with a Christopher Rush illustration is Lightning Bolt, with Canopy Spider close behind.

Rush tended to do close-ups of creatures/objects with simple backgrounds. Below is a sample of either iconic or personally nostalgic cards he has done:

He passed away in 2016, aged 50. Rest in peace.