Magic: The Gathering - Ixalan

[TomWToyForum]

Next Magic: The Gathering set is called Ixalan and comes out in September. Features dinosaurs pretty prominently (as well as pirates, vampires, and merfolk), as part of an Aztec-inspired world.

[stargatedalek]

Looks very ARK: Survival Evolved, which is nice, it's a style that works.

[TomWToyForum]

It's pretty neat. The world of Ixalan seems to be pretty heavily inspired by the Aztecs, so the dinosaurs have a feathered serpent look to them.




Some more (official) art I've found. A lot of the set was leaked a few months back but I don't want to post anything because the pictures were blurry. But in those you can tell that they've given ceratopsians and sauropods feathers too which is interesting.

[TomWToyForum]

New cards posted:

[CityRaptor]

Looks like everything has feathers. I think I will pick up a booster pack or two when I see it. Not going for a complete set since I don't have an interest in M:TG otherwise.

[TomWToyForum]

[The Atroxious]

I really, really do not like the glued on feather look of most of these, but I do fancy the ripjaw raptor. Ignoring the wonky, ratlike tail, the feather tracts look a bit more natural than they do on the others.

The sun-crowned hunters are okay, but also suffer a bit from glue-on feathers a bit.

On the other hand, Kinjalli's sunwing really bugs me. Feathers do not work like that.

[Neosodon]

When awesomebro and feathers become one.....

[Brontozaurus]

I absolutely do not mind feathers being slathered all over awesomebro dinosaurs. I mean, they're all like 'hur dur dinosaurs with feathers suck' but I'm like 'have fun getting your life points eaten by my Burning Sun's Avatar, morons.' 

[TomWToyForum]

Some of the dinosaurs have the weird glued on look but others look pretty good. I'm just happy they're dumping feathers on at all. They don't have any obligation to make them accurate - I mean, it's a "Goring Ceratops" from the mythical world of Ixalan, not Triceratops. It lives alongside merfolk and vampires, pirates and wizards. They could do the dinosaurs however they wanted. So I'd much rather have inaccurate awesomebro feathered dinosaurs than inaccurate awesomebro naked ones. Putting feathers on sauropods and ceratopsians is pretty neat and really rarely seen, especially in things aimed at popular consumption.

Gishath's art ticks off so many cliches - mouth agape, dead Tyrannosaurus under its foot, covered in unnecessary spikes. But they didn't go conservatively on the feathers at all. Not just a few quills, or a mohawk and wing feathers. I'm pretty stoked to build and run a commander deck with him at the helm.

[The Atroxious]

Some of the dinosaurs have the weird glued on look but others look pretty good. I'm just happy they're dumping feathers on at all. They don't have any obligation to make them accurate - I mean, it's a "Goring Ceratops" from the mythical world of Ixalan, not Triceratops. It lives alongside merfolk and vampires, pirates and wizards. They could do the dinosaurs however they wanted. So I'd much rather have inaccurate awesomebro feathered dinosaurs than inaccurate awesomebro naked ones. Putting feathers on sauropods and ceratopsians is pretty neat and really rarely seen, especially in things aimed at popular consumption.

Gishath's art ticks off so many cliches - mouth agape, dead Tyrannosaurus under its foot, covered in unnecessary spikes. But they didn't go conservatively on the feathers at all. Not just a few quills, or a mohawk and wing feathers. I'm pretty stoked to build and run a commander deck with him at the helm.

I mean, the whole point of complaining that dinosaurs are being under-feathered is for the sake of accuracy, so in my opinion, gratuitously feathered dinosaurs are just as bad as featherless ones because they miss the whole point of adding feathers in the first place.

To be honest, I don't think that any of these dinosaurs have "wing feathers" so much as feather sleeves. The pteranodon does have wing feathers, but uh, we don't talk about those.

[stargatedalek]

I mean, the whole point of complaining that dinosaurs are being under-feathered is for the sake of accuracy, so in my opinion, gratuitously feathered dinosaurs are just as bad as featherless ones because they miss the whole point of adding feathers in the first place.

To be honest, I don't think that any of these dinosaurs have "wing feathers" so much as feather sleeves. The pteranodon does have wing feathers, but uh, we don't talk about those.

I disagree. The reason people complain about dinosaurs being under-feathered isn't because the designs are inaccurate but rather because the company in question is claiming that they are accurate. These designs aren't even using the names of real dinosaurs, it's a step above and beyond what most sci-fi brands do in that regard.

I actually rather like the Sunwing. It looks like what a pterosaur would if it had shafted feathers instead of pycnofibers (even the wings). The only thing that bugs me about it is the bald neck with feathered body and head, creates a strange disconnect in the design.

[TomWToyForum]

I mean, the whole point of complaining that dinosaurs are being under-feathered is for the sake of accuracy, so in my opinion, gratuitously feathered dinosaurs are just as bad as featherless ones because they miss the whole point of adding feathers in the first place.

To be honest, I don't think that any of these dinosaurs have "wing feathers" so much as feather sleeves. The pteranodon does have wing feathers, but uh, we don't talk about those.

Honestly, if you're going to market things at the general population and decided to make it more "badass" I think the better route is to go with too many feathers. At least it doesn't make feathers alienating for lay people. It's much easier to accept bird-like dinosaurs if you're used to feathered dinosaurs. I'm just sick of people saying "feathered dinosaurs don't look cool" - props to Wizards of the Coast for actually trying to show those people wrong, even if in the process they make inaccurate designs.

And like Stargatedalek said, these aren't actual dinosaurs.

[ITdactyl]

It seems Jonathan Kuo did some of the art for Ixalan.


https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/exploring-ixalan-regisaur-alpha-2017-09-06

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-preview/enraptored-2017-09-07

It's easy to see how much his style differs from the other artists.

[TomWToyForum]

The whole set can be viewed here.



This is probably one of the most creative ways to depict the classic swinging tail of the Stegosaurus in card form and I'm really excited by it.

[CityRaptor]

Hmmm, don't like the compostion of the set. Why add Pirates, Vampires and Merfolk? Aren't Dinosaurs alone not awesome enough for them? Indeed Dinosaurs are way more awesome than all three of them combined!

[TomWToyForum]

Hmmm, don't like the compostion of the set. Why add Pirates, Vampires and Merfolk? Aren't Dinosaurs alone not awesome enough for them? Indeed Dinosaurs are way more awesome than all three of them combined!

I agree, but I've read articles on it. First, they wanted a set with multiple factions against one another. Second, they didn't feel they had enough to devote an entire set to dinosaurs or pirates, which may sound weird, but keep in mind that their dedicated Dragons block "Dragons of Tarkir" had 26 dragon cards in a 264 card set, and an additional 11 that actually care about you controlling dragons.

Honestly, this is the best way that dinosaurs could've been represented in the game. I can happily make a Gishath commander deck and not worry about too many filler cards because most of the dinosaurs are worth playing together. It could be like my birds deck, which is literally the best bird cards there are and a few "pick a creature type" cards to tie them all together.

[CityRaptor]

Hmmm. But since only plan to buy a few packs at best, it would be rather disappointing to not get a Dinosaur, but only the other junk. At first looked like Wizards wanted to make up for the Kaiju debacle a few years ago. Well, in  a way, but now they bring in Dinosaurs like that. Anyways, trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOcCTSL7dmw

Also this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yew4BzEkzbQ

[ITdactyl]

I enjoyed Ixalan and its Aztec themed "Dinosaurs", but Magic has moved on to newer sets.

The good news is (well, "good" is a matter of opinion) dinosaurs will now be a common card type in MTG moving forward.
Here are 3 dinosaur themed cards from the newest set (1 was recycled from Ixalan's expansion)



look at Jonathan Kuo's Gigantosaurus.

[ITdactyl]

The adventures in Ixalan may have ended a long time ago, but one of its big contributions to MTG is that "dinosaurs" are now a common card type in the series that followed. (sadly, some people are using the art with feathered ceratopsians and sauropods to mock the "some dinosaurs are feathered" crowd)

I've started following the work of MTG artists - I know a lot of members here are familiar with Jonathan Kuo (his work is on some of the BoTM "raptor" boxart).

Another artist I've started following is Chase Stone.  His dinosaur art for Ixalan have a very organic feel.  Here's "Ghalta, The Primal Hunger".


And then he produced this image of "Chromium, the mutable" - and I thought, wow, this guy knows his pterosaur wings. (I know, I know... Chromium is a dragon.  'Just pointing out this artist knows his paleo-anatomy)


On a strange twist of early Christmas, Scientific American released this new piece of art from Chase Stone in their latest issue (included in an article devoted to Pterosaurs by Mike Habib: "Pterosaurs Were Monsters of the Mesozoic Skies")


There goes the mic, jaw and floor.