Duskmourn's Premium Effects on MTGO
Posted on Sep 17, 2024
By Ryan Spain
One of our big development efforts this year has been what we call the “Frame Refactor,” a re-engineering of how we take in assets from Wizards of the Coast and construct our digital cards from them. Most of the benefits of this undertaking are in the form of internal process efficiencies that will significantly reduce the time needed to make new Magic sets. But there is also a major authenticity upgrade to most Magic Online foils that will come with it as well—and you get a preview of it with the premium cards in Duskmourn: House of Horror!
White Underprints: A Game-Changer for Foil Effects
The Frame Refactor project will introduce the ability to incorporate an art layer of Magic cards called the “white underprint” (WUP). This layer is a hand-crafted mask for each Magic card that determines what parts of the frame and art will be printed with the foil effect and what parts will stay unfoiled for tabletop cards. Generally, foil is applied to lighter areas of the art and left off darker areas so the bright areas pop dramatically against the darker sections.
Currently on MTGO, we do not incorporate this information in the presentation of our foil cards. Foils have a general “rainbow sheen” effect applied, with a touch of programmatic light/dark masking added. After the Frame Refactor, they will automatically use the WUP to determine what parts are foiled, producing an authentic foil effect for each card on MTGO with a WUP layer. This includes most of the existing MTGO catalog, so it will upgrade almost every foil card in the game!
While the full upgrade won’t make it to Magic Online until later this year, we incorporated the WUP masks manually in some of the custom premium treatments that will be available with Duskmourn. Let’s take a look at these new effects, and when we get to examples incorporating the WUP, we will show you what the effect would look like without it using our current foil effect.
The cursor is not captured in the videos, but the middle section of each “with WUP” video shows what happens when you mouse over one of these cards and move the cursor around it.
Paranormal
Things found within the House have a strange quality about them. Paranormal frames bring that quality to the cards. These have a retro-tech appearance, and an animation cycle that includes a disrupted signal and a static glitch. This cycle of cards doesn’t use the foil effect, so we did not incorporate the WUP layer here.
Paranormal frame cards appear in Play Boosters, Premium Boosters, and for just 3 weeks in Treasure Chests.
Double Exposure
The Double Exposure treatment appears on select legendary cards, paying homage to horror photography and featuring subjects overlayed in an eerie “haunted photo” style. There are two styles of Double Exposure cards, and the first incorporates the WUP in the foil effect.
Ridiculously better, right?! Here’s another before-and-after:
There are also five “haunted” Double Exposure cards, with an idle cycle in which a demonic influence comes becomes stronger and stronger.
Double exposure cards also appear in the same products: Play Boosters, Premium Boosters, and for just 3 weeks in Treasure Chests.
Fracture Foil
Fractured Foils from the Japan Showcase are another Duskmourn premium card type that incorporates the WUP layer. There are a lot of other things going on with this effect such that there isn’t a “without” version, but now that you’ve seen the difference above, you can see how and where the mask affects the Fracture foil effect on the card.
Fracture foil cards appear in Premium Boosters and for just 3 weeks in Treasure Chests.
A New Era for Magic Online Foils
We hope bling lovers out there are as excited as we are about the across-the-board upgrade to Magic Online foils that’s right around the corner. We’ll have a larger article with more details at that time. But for now, enjoy a taste of the future with these fantastic Duskmourn premium cards!