The school of magic archive#
The school of magic full#

The school of magic archive#

That Japanese frame lets the art shine (especially with the vertical title bar).'Д«oth frames accentuate the art to make these Mystical Archive cards bring an illuminated manuscript feel onto a Magic card in a stunning way. We hired all the artists from the Japanese agency called Kogado, an art agency for 100 years! The results were equally as awesome as the global versions.

'For the Japanese versions, we made sure to lean into classic styles with some graphical elements, similar to how we did with the global versions. But a talented scribe! Or at least one who knew a lot of good artists.' I imagine some scribe drawing these in a dark, rarely used library corner. Tom Jenkot, principal art director and lead art director for both versions of the Mystical Archive, shared that he loved 'the whole idea of these depictions of the first time a spell ever been cast. This was going to be Swords to Plowshares as penned by the hand of someone who had lovingly researched and recorded the spell for the greatest archive in the Multiverse.' The gilded pages of texts from ages long ago, the reverence those stylized images hold in our collective imagination, it made sense that an accomplished magical scholar would work in such a way. 'The grand library of Strixhaven had been an awe-inspiring image since it first appeared on the concept art wall many months prior. 'We wanted to capture the narrative element uniting the frame when working on Strixhaven, and we kept coming back to that question, simple but difficult to answer: why? Yes, it was an incredible, powerful collection of spells, but why did it exist and for what purpose? James Arnold, senior graphic designer, shared his inspiration around creating the Mystical Archive frames. The Mystical Archive includes both a global version (available in Chinese Simplified and Traditional, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish) and a Japanese alternate-art version with a special frame and printed only in the Japanese language. For example, Duress is currently legal in Standard due to Core Set 2021, but the inclusion of Duress as a Mystical Archive card doesn't change the fact that Duress rotates out of Standard with the release of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt later this year. The inclusion of the Mystical Archive cards in Strixhaven doesn't change the formats in which these cards are legal. There are 18 uncommon, 30 rare, and 15 mythic rare Mystical Archive cards. Each Collector Booster will include at least 3 Mystical Archive cards. These are so exciting that we made sure that every Strixhaven Set and Draft Booster has at least 1 Mystical Archive card. Wow! The Mystical Archive cards are all instants and sorceries from throughout Magic's history.

The forbidden section of the Biblioplex, called the Mystical Archive, houses manuscripts for the most iconic spells in Magic. At Strixhaven, the library is called the Biblioplex, said to hold the knowledge of the Multiverse as it contains archives of each spell cast in Magic, often depicting the very first time the spell was cast.

The school of magic full#

Full of wonder, mystery, and providing endless possibilities for incoming students to explore.'ДЄn important feature of any prestigious university is the library. We wanted the world to feel vast and exciting, and for Strixhaven University to feel awe-inspiring. Taylor Ingvarsson, the lead art director for the set, shares, 'Creatively, Strixhaven was an incredibly fun challenge to approach with the team. Strixhaven is the school that all aspiring young mages dream about attending for university. Strixhaven University and the Mystical Archive In this article, I'll be showing off and talking about where you can find borderless cards, extended-art cards, Mystical Archive cards and their Japanese variants, MTG Arena treatments, and more! I'm Mike Turian, principal product designer for Magic and lead architect for Strixhaven: School of Mages. As Strixhaven: School of Mages is unveiled over the next weeks, I hope the new cards and new treatments excite you as much as they have excited everyone who has worked on bringing Strixhaven: School of Mages to life. With Magic, exploring the new cards, the new characters, and the new worlds will always capture our attention and affection. My mom used to say that I spent college majoring in Magic. I loved finding the synergies that I had thought of and, even better, discovering combinations that I had overlooked. I couldn't wait to get back to my place and go through my collection of cards to try out my brand-new creation. Was I listening to the lecture? No! I was brewing up a new Magic deck. I was sitting in class scribbling furiously into my notebook. Thinking back, I remember being in university in one of those vast lecture halls.