Lands Ahoy

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We hope all had a great weekend.  As we head on into the Holidays, we suggest you pop by one of our sponsors - CCG House, MTG Mint Card, Cardhoarder, BCW Supplies, Ideal 808, or Ultra PRO to finish up any left-over shopping you may have for presents.  Over on the mothersite, they are running previously published articles as staff take a well-deserved break for the next two weeks.  

For today's post, we wanted to take a look back to MaRo's 'mailbag' article last week, when he had solicited questions from the Magic: the Gathering community.  More specifically, a question posed by Don Wiggins (of Don's Magic and Sundry) - a particular question we ourselves had been wondering about since 2009 . . .

I'm writing a mailbag column today and I need your help. Please send me a question that's a single tweet that starts with "When".
— Mark Rosewater (@maro254) November 14, 2014

@maro254 When will we see full art basic lands again?
— Don Wiggins (@TheSundry) November 14, 2014

When will we see full art basic lands again?  To which MaRo responds -

I can't tell you an exact date just yet, but I can say this: They are currently planned for an upcoming block that I know about. Nothing's definitive until it sees print, but I have a lot of confidence they will see the light of day again.

This, for us, is very exciting.  We've been playing with the Zendikar full-art basic lands ever since they had come out and were fortunate enough to pick up two full sets - enough to have several decklists fully furnished with these beautiful cards.  

Anywhoos - let's yatter a titch about full art basic lands.  A lot of players we know personally love to include these and it's all about the aesthetics and the cred you may acquire at the gaming store for having such very lovely swag.


Unglued - August 11, 1998

These full art lands are technically extended and are framed inside an oval frame stretching from near the the top to bottom of the card.  Again, there were only five separate illustrations - one for each land type and were done by artists Terese Nielsen, Daren Bader, Tom Wänerstrand, Christopher Rush, and Mark Zug.

Unhinged - November 20, 2004

The Unhinged lands are simply gorgeous.  These were true 'full art' basic lands from the first (of two) fun 'joke sets' as the art stretched from almost top to bottom.  The illustration for each of the five different lands (Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain and Forest) were all by artist John Avon.

Zendikar - October 2, 2009

Technically not quite full art with this one, but none the less very beautiful.  These were thought necessary as this set and block had a land theme.  There were four of each of the five basic land arts commissioned and executed by Vincent Proce, Véronique Meignaud, Jung Park, and John Avon.  
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