Online Poll: The Old Card Design vs. the New Card Design

**Magic-Poll** · 04-08-2012, 05:52 PM

Hi to ALL

we've launched an online survey concerning the following topic: Design of MTG-Cards.

This poll consists of only 5 very simple questions (Checkbox clicking only) - so it'll take you less than a minute.
We would be very happy, if you would participate in this.

Link to the poll: www.magic-poll.de.vu

What's the purpose of this? We'd like to carry out a small inquiry concerning the players' attitude/opinion about the design of MTG cards. Many players started to play MTG a long time ago and are "old hands". Some of them might prefer the style of the old cards. On the other hand: players who started to play MTG recently might prefer the new design anyway. We want to put that into numbers ... so we created this poll. This survey will be online for exactly one month. We'll publish the results here - and of course we'll email the result to WOTC. So: thank you for your support in this - have a lot of fun!

**DarkRequiem** · 04-09-2012, 05:13 AM

I enjoyed the old card design quite a lot. I admit that many times the art was just lackluster but I believe it had more to do with the depth of the game and its target than to anything else. Today's card if respecting the old design "rules" would require better art instead of some childish art that we were presented with in some cases. But it was more credible in some cases, more simplistic (again, not into childish art, which is different) and more enjoyable to me.

**FuDaWg45** · 04-09-2012, 06:39 AM

I liked the original card design - the idea was that your deck was like a book (take a look at the original starter deck boxes) and each card is a page in the book.

**ThunderHog** · 04-09-2012, 07:34 AM

Did anyone here actually take the survey? I did, but I'm not entirely sure that my answers went anywhere. After I submitted my answers, it simply sent me to the homepage of the website. There was no 'Thank you for your time' page, or anything.

I dunno; I don't think anything bad came out of it. None of my virus-protect stuff threw up any alarms and it really is only 5 questions, so I answered em'.

**DarkRequiem** · 04-09-2012, 08:45 AM

I did answer them. By the end it directed me to a webpage saying that I could always submit my own polls for free too... So I think it registered my answers.

---------- Post added at 02:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:38 PM ----------

Originally Posted by FuDaWg45

I liked the original card design - the idea was that your deck was like a book (take a look at the original starter deck boxes) and each card is a page in the book.

Never thought of that. Yeah, they do look like book pages. They don't look that much like pages now.

**FuDaWg45** · 04-22-2012, 04:22 PM

Originally Posted by DarkRequiem

I did answer them. By the end it directed me to a webpage saying that I could always submit my own polls for free too... So I think it registered my answers.

---------- Post added at 02:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:38 PM ----------

Never thought of that. Yeah, they do look like book pages. They don't look that much like pages now.

And suddenly, it makes sense that Richard Garfield called the deck a "library." Funny how that works.

And what's more, you used to "summon" creatures. Another little flavory bit I enjoyed that was stripped away.

**Vigilance** · 04-22-2012, 04:30 PM

Wowa. That's new indeed.

**DarkRequiem** · 04-22-2012, 06:14 PM

Originally Posted by FuDaWg45

And suddenly, it makes sense that Richard Garfield called the deck a "library." Funny how that works.

And what's more, you used to "summon" creatures. Another little flavory bit I enjoyed that was stripped away.

Yeah, I know you were supposed to summon creatures. And I know that the library is a spellbook.

I just never connected the way cards looked with an actual book page. I never looked at a card and thought "hey, this looks like a page". But now that it was pointed out, yeah. It does look like one.

**Scythe2** · 05-09-2012, 05:11 PM

Played from Unlimited thru Ice Age and again from Planeshift to present.
I also like the old design.
On the new one the frame is more on the same tonal level as the art so he new ones seem to detract from the art, and I liked the brown Artifacts border being very different from white ones.

**DarkRequiem** · 05-09-2012, 06:00 PM

Ok, I tend to be minimalist on things and I just noticed that that's why I prefer the older card design: less borders, plain colors, less contrast... It made it somewhat easier to the eye. In one word, it was simpler.

**Streetz** · 05-09-2012, 10:42 PM

I like the newer design better myself. It's new-age and artistic. The old frame was semi-boring and unexciting.

**Grumpherys** · 05-10-2012, 03:38 AM

I'm gunna get so much hate for this...

I liked the Planar Chaos style. Except where the mana cost was, they should have kept that the same.

As far as the old and the current design. I didn't like how washed out they seemed. They felt fragile, and the art didn't have the amount of detail put in (depending on which ones). Over all I personally admire both, for different reasons. In the end it's the present ones or a possible fusion of the present ones with planar chaos.