Magnifying Glass is one of the Illustrations I made for Magic the Gathering.
It’s part of the Murders at Karlov Manor set, that will be released on the 9th of February.

The set isn’t out yet, but since the cards are already being teased I’m allowed to show it around.
Wizards of the Coast just let me know that the artists’ proof are about to be shipped, so I can’t wait to see how the print turned out!
In the meantime, here’s the digital version.

Since lately I’ve been super diligent, I have even kept the sketches.

Since I haven’t seen the set yet, and art briefs don’t usually include gameplay or cards stats, the information I have about Murders at karlov Manor are mostly from the MTG Wiki:

“Murders at Karlov Manor is a top-down designed murder mystery set, featuring the tropes of the genre. Murders and mysteries are woven into the game itself. Play detective as you collect evidence, don disguises and identify suspects to decipher the deadly murder mystery at the heart of Ravnica”.

“This set is the first to feature 15-card Play Boosters that replace both Draft Boosters and Set Boosters (one card being a marketing card or art card). Because of the decrease in common cards in a pack, the total amount of common cards in a given set is also going down. R&D lowered the number of commons from 101 to 80 (and increased uncommons from 80 to 100). The rare surveil lands are put in the “wild card” slot of the boosters rather than taking the “rare” slot”.

As it happens, Magnifying Glass was an artifact already present in the game, Illustrated by Dan Scott for Shadows Over Innistrad I believe in 2016.

Anyway, thanks to Art Director Deborah Garcia for the super smooth and pleasant direction.

As usual, the production times for Magic the Gathering cards are super long. I delivered the final illustration on the 12th of November 2022 and the set is coming out just now.

I have to confess I almost forgot I made this. Checking in my Archived Work folder I also realized that there are five other cards that I made about that time that haven’t been released yet, so I hope I’ll be able to post them soon!

by Paolo Puggioni