I’m a recent Magic: The Gathering convert after the wife dungeon that I call home got iPads and started to go buckwild in MTG: Arena, which then led us to getting our grubby little mitts on physical cards. It seems like Wizards of the Coast could smell the fresh blood in the water as now I’ve got my hands on some of the new cards from the Phyrexia: All Will Be One collection, and boy oh boy, are they pretty.
The collection is inspired by the beautiful marriage of sci-fi and horror, which is very much prominent in the designs of the cards. Here’s the official description for the Phyrexia: All Will Be One set:
“For thousands of years, Phyrexians have sought to dominate other worlds by propagating their viral gift and turning every living thing into a biomechanical horror. Magic’s heroic Planeswalkers have always succeeded in stopping these invasions… until now! Phyrexia’s leader, The Mother of Machines Elesh Norn has developed a way to infiltrate the entire Multiverse, including the corruption of some of Magic’s most iconic and heroic characters.”
Now, I’m an absolute sucker for a good design on a trading card, and the designs in the Phyrexia: All Will Be One are simply gorgeous. I got the chance to talk to Ovidio Cartagena, the creative content and art lead for Phyrexia: All Will Be One as well as Tom Jenkot, Wizards of the Coast’s principle art director, about the art of Phyrexia.
When discussing some of the inspirations behind the art of Phyrexia, Cartagena explained that due to there being so many cards to illustrate, the team had to create a “toolkit of monstrosities” in the world guide.
“Several awesome concept artists were hired to let their fancy free and give us some awesome ideas,” Cartagena says, “referencing Hyeronimus Bosch and his artistic descendants who picked up from his cue in the 20th and 21st centuries. We tried to keep a balance between hellish and otherworldly, after all Phyrexians don’t view things the same way we do and might find interesting applications for things humans only see in their nightmares.”
Some of my favourite cards in the collection are the borderless, black-and-white, manga-esque designs, which makes sense considering horror manga legend Junji Ito threw his hat into the Phyrexia ring.
These ones are my favourite hehe!
Cartagena gushed about getting to work with so many talented artists for the Phyrexia set, saying, It is quite exciting to get to see these visions come to life in the hands of some of the greatest artists in the industry. It was also great bringing in people who have been fans of the game for their first Magic illustrations. There is a combination here of awesome concept art and a strong personal vision that each artist has. You always want to match the artists’ energy to the right theme to get an amazing result.”
Regarding Junji Ito, Jenkot says that Ito is “one of the most popular manga artists in the world, so working with him was a great honour”. He continues, “We commissioned him for 5 illustrations at the same time: One for All Will be One and the rest for his Secret Lair Drop that were released last year. Due to the language barrier, there were many layers between us and Junji Ito but I can say that he took our concepts and added to them in a spectacular way. Imagining concepts in the most terrifying way, as he is so good at. We had minimal feedback as the illustrations developed as we were looking for authentic Junji Ito, just like we were for the other horror manga artists.”
Another highlight of the Phyrexia: All Will Be One collection are the land cards, which are easily some of my favourite designs I’ve seen in any Magic: The Gathering set ever.
Not only are these gorgeous, but there’s also a whole other set of land cards that are part of the Phyrexia collection: the oil slick raised foils. Sadly, I didn’t get my hands on these ones, but they look like this:
I asked what sparked the creation of these oil slick beauties and what the process of their creation is, to which Jenkot replied that the designs lean into “the Ichor the Phyrexians use to compleat others”, working closely with the innovation team led by Lisa Hanson.
“Developing the idea and commissioning the art was catered to the limitations of the treatment style and the black-on-black designs,” Jenkot says. “We needed to make sure there was a lot of texture, strong silhouettes, and movement in the action of the figures. We commissioned these in black and white bitmap, which means no greys or colour basically. We paid close attention to the line weights and negative space in the illustration as well as reviewing these at card size to make sure the art was readable. Additionally, Lisa’s team did many print tests to figure out what the best way to treat the art and text was. The results are spectacular!”
And I’d have to agree. They truly do look spectacular.
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