#amonkhet invocations

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Avatar of Woe

Artist: Igor Kieryluk TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[art-of-mtg]

The Scorpion God (Amonkhet Invocations) - Grzegorz Rutkowski

More cards with art by Grzegorz Rutkowski on Scryfall

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Consecrated Sphinx by Lius Lasahido

[commandtower]

Consecrated Sphinx (Amonkhet Invocations) ~ art by Lius Lasahido

[arcadesuperturbo]

Divert, from Magic: The Gathering’s masterpice series, Amokhet Invocations, by IGOR KIERYLUK.

[dodnyjv]

Amonkhet Invocations art in a regular modern M15 frame.

[magicjudge]

How do you feel about the Border Art for the Amonkhet Invocations?

I like the border art just fine. It’s very different from the typical Magic border, but that’s OK. I feel the border reflects the theme of Amonkhet well and is elegant. I’ll need to see how it looks in person, of course. I also really like the font used for the rules text of the spells.

That said, there are two elements of the design that I strongly dislike: 

The first is the font used for the card name and on the type line. I find it very hard to read and I know that it won’t be much help to players that happen to be dyslexic or have vision impairments. Surrounding these pieces of text with the faux hieroglyphics doesn’t help either, nor does the text starting in the middle of the card. It literally took me a good 5 seconds to find the card name in the name bar. I get what they’re trying to do here, but I think utility took a hit here in service to some misguided desire to achieve an aesthetic result. Honestly, a simple continuation of the same font used in the text box would have been fine here. (I would have been fine with a more legible font surrounded by the hieroglyphics, or with the font standing out more, but that’s not what they went with.)

The second thing I dislike is the loss of color to the mana symbols both in card text and text box. It can make the cost a bit harder to read and again sacrifices too much in service of an aesthetic  that was strong enough on its own. Yes, the stripes on the border indicate the card’s color, and that’s nice, but the mana symbols should be colored too.

All that said, I won’t be looking to divest myself of any Invocations that I open. In fact, I might want to collect these ones just because of the Egyptian aesthetic.

TL;DR: They look cool, and the frame is fine, but the choice made for the name and type line hinders their utility as playable cards.

[sam-keeper]

Amonkhet releases tomorrow, and Sam wants to break down what exactly the Invocation frames are doing!...

Amonkhet’s Invocations are doing some radical things graphically. Has the fandom been too quick to judge them?