Island

The Island card from the Return to Ravnica set, released in 2012, serves as a foundational land card within the Magic: The Gathering trading card game. It was commissioned as part of a cycle of basic lands intended to visually represent the cityscape of Ravnica, a world-spanning urban megalopolis. The design process focused on translating the block's core aesthetic, which centers on towering architecture and dense, layered metropolitan vistas, into the iconic top-down perspective familiar to players of the game.

This specific illustration was created by John Avon, a long-standing collaborator with Wizards of the Coast. Known for his ability to render expansive landscapes with distinct lighting and depth, Avon aimed to depict the island as a shimmering, structured body of water integrated into the city’s complex infrastructure. Upon release, the card was well-received by the player base, particularly for how it complemented the broader artistic direction of the set, which successfully broke away from the traditional, naturalistic depictions of lands typically found in fantasy gaming.