ell, it's time to wrap up our "Selecting Eighth Edition" promo. R&D is putting the finishing touches on the set, the editing department is giving it a good scrubbing, and all the flavor text and art choices made by those of you that participated in our polls are being dropped into place.

So let's go over everything that has happened over the past too-many months.

Individual Card Votes

The main draw of the promotion was the ability to select which one of a pair (or sometimes more) of cards would go into Eighth Edition, and which would be left on the sidelines. These were decisions that R&D was debating making themselves, but realized it would be more interesting to let the players decide instead. The winners:

• Two-Headed Dragon defeated Crimson Hellkite
• Nekrataal defeated Dark Hatchling
• Rewind defeated Dismiss
• Ensnaring Bridge defeated Static Orb
• Noble Purpose defeated Orim's Prayer
• Birds of Paradise and Vine Trellis defeated Llanowar Elves and Utopia Tree
• Worship defeated Pariah and Kismet
• Obliterate defeated Jokulhaups
• Blood Moon defeated Dwarven Miner
• Natural Affinity defeated Nature's Revolt
• Yavimaya Enchantress defeated Rabid Wombat
• Glorious Anthem defeated Crusade

Some of the votes were exciting and close, others were blowouts, and others were met with a level of chagrin from the players. (Many people lamented the Birds vs. Elves vote, but it perfectly illustrates the difficult decisions R&D makes every day.) And some of the results surprised even us--we all thought Crusade was a shoo-in!

Individual Art Votes

Running concurrently with the card votes were twelve votes that let players choose which of two illustrations would be used on some of the cards in the set. The winners:

• Thorn Elemental: Urza's Destiny defeated Seventh Edition
• Angel of Mercy: Portal Second Age defeated Invasion
• Gravedigger: Tempest defeated Seventh Edition
• Telepathy: Urza's Saga defeated Seventh Edition
• Eastern Paladin: Urza's Saga defeated Seventh Edition; and
• Western Paladin: Urza's Saga defeated Seventh Edition
• Spined Wurm: Stronghold defeated Seventh Edition
• Goblin Chariot: Seventh Edition defeated Starter 1999
• Steal Artifact: Seventh Edition defeated Fifth Edition
• Phyrexian Colossus: Seventh Edition defeated Urza's Saga
• Shatter: Tempest defeated Fifth Edition and Seventh Edition
• Trained Armodon: Tempest defeated Seventh Edition
• Boil: Tempest defeated Seventh Edition

In most cases, players preferred the original card art to the reprint art, but in some instances (most notably Phyrexian Colossus), the newer art won.

Flavor Text Submissions/Votes

The next phase was flavor text. We accepted fan-submitted text for six cards (two of which had to be real-world material), and then our creative department pulled out the best submissions and put them to a popular vote. The vote winners will appear on the cards in Eighth Edition.

Aladdin's Ring

After going through editing, here is the quote as it will appear on the card:

"A good lamp will light your way. A good ring will clear it.”
—Nervan, royal jeweler

Nervan is the name of the jeweler that sold Aladdin the ring in 1001 Arabian Nights. Ok, no it wasnt. We made it up.

Orcish Artillery

Editing cleaned the quote up as such:

“So they want to kill my men? Well two can play at that game.”
—General Khurzog

That's great stuff. General Khurzog was an Orc general from Fallen Empires flavor text, resurrected for duty on this card.

Persecute

After finding a physical copy of the original source material, editing will be putting this version on the card:

“Of all the tyrannies on humane kind / The worst is that which persecutes the mind.”
—John Dryden, “The Hind and the Panther”

Note that some of the original archaic spelling has been restored. For those interested, John Dryden was an English critic, playwright, and poet laureate that lived in the late 1600s, and was the most celebrated literary figure of the Restoration.

Verduran Enchantress

The quote as it will appear on the card:

“Graceful? Yes. Beautiful? Absolutely. Harmless? Definitely not.”
—Fyndhorn elder

The attribution to "Fyndhorn elder" was done by the editing department before the vote began.

Confiscate

As a fan of real-world flavor text, I must say I am tickled with this quote.

“It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.”
—Mark Twain, More Maxims of Mark

For the handful that don't know, Mark Twain (penname of Samuel Longhorne Clemens) was one of the great American authors of the nineteenth century. His most popular works include Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Serra Angel

The last card up for submissions was the player-favorite Serra Angel. The winning quote will look like so:

When she flies above the good, they consider themselves blessed. When she flies above the wicked, they consider themselves dead.

To make sure your real name appears on the web whenever we use one of your submissions, update your user profile here. Or else we'll call you stuff like "zeppelinrules" for the rest of your life.

Land Art Votes

Last week we put up the final piece of the Eighth Edition puzzle, the options for basic land art. And now that the votes are final, I'm sure John Avon is very proud. With 12 out of a possible 18 lands of his receiving enough votes to be included in the set (he only had two Plains up for consideration), it is clear that Avon is the most popular land artist ever. No other individual artist had more than one land voted into Eighth Edition.

The winning selections:

Plains
Seventh Edition John Avon	Onslaught Matthew Mitchell	Invasion John Avon	Portal Second Age Fred Fields
Islands
Invasion John Avon	Seventh Edition John Avon	Invasion Tony Szczudlo	Mercadian Masques Scott Bailey
Swamps
Mirage Bob Eggleton	Urza's Saga John Avon	Onslaught Dan Frazier	Seventh Edition Larry Elmore
Mountains
Fifth Edition John Avon	Mirage John Avon	Mirage John Avon	Mercadian Masques Rob Alexander
Forests
Invasion John Avon	Portal John Avon	Portal John Avon	Onslaught John Avon

The numeric vote tallies follow. Remember that each voter chose four of each land; if one piece got 6% of the total votes, that means 24% of the voters chose it.

Plains

Islands

Swamps

Mountains

Forests

And that, as they say, is that. We here at Wizards of the Coast thank you for your participation in this unique promotion, and we hope you'll enjoy the fruits of your labors when Eighth Edition is released next summer. Nekrataal, Mark Twain, and John Avon--sounds like a hell of a set already!

Remember to stay tuned to MagicTheGathering.com for more ways to influence the game you love.