Trading card games

Extended Art

Also written: Extended-art · EA

A Magic printing where the artwork is stretched to the left and right edges while the frame and text box stay in place.

ArtThe picture changes

An extended art card is a Magic: The Gathering printing in which the illustration has been stretched sideways to the left and right edges of the card, removing the side margins — while the frame, the type line and the text box all stay exactly where they normally are.

How to spot one

1. Look at the left and right edges. The picture touches them. On a normal printing there is a margin of frame colour on both sides.
2. Look at the bottom. An extended art still has its ordinary text box, type line and bottom bar. That is what separates it from borderless, where the frame is gone altogether.
3. Look at the top. The card name and mana cost sit in their usual bar, not over the art.

Why it exists

It is the middle step of the alternate-treatment range: more presence than the standard frame, less disruption than dropping the frame entirely. Extended-art printings are made of cards that also exist in a plain printing, so the buyer is choosing the nicer copy of something they already need rather than acquiring a different card.

That is exactly what sets the price. Demand for the card comes from play; demand for the treatment comes from wanting a better-looking copy of it. Where those two overlap on a heavily played card, extended-art printings carry a strong premium; where the card sees no play, the treatment carries almost nothing on its own.

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