Aside from upgrading the duals from questionable-condition Alphas to NM Betas (something my wallet is NOT excited to do), after getting these two alters in the mail, I'm only looking forward to new sets and unbanned cards (come on, Kokusho!) to modify the deck. Speaking of which, Innistrad prerelease is right around the corner, so look forward to an "Innistrad's Top X Commander cards" style post in the near future. There's definitely some cool cards in the set, and I'm going to have a tough time fitting them into this deck!
For today, however, I want to spotlight the last two cards to go into the deck, and the man who made them happen. Eric Klug is a well known, fulltime card alterist - meaning his main 9-5 (or whatever hours he decides) is actually taking Magic cards and modifying them. He's got some insane skills, and you should absolutely check out his website here and see all of his incredible alters. Here's what he did for me:
These two cards, if you can't tell, are Chaos Warp and Command Tower, both from the Commander preconstructed decks. If you've read my previous article on collecting in which I outlined my personal hierarchy of "pimp" (and if you haven't, you should go ahead and check it out here), you'll understand precisely why I had to get these altered - If they can't be Japanese and Foil, they have to be one or the other and altered, with preference given to foils.
It's really tough for a card to even make it into a built and tuned Commander deck these days, and I hope to touch more on that in the future. But these two were easy picks from the Commander precons - Chaos Warp is a fun and powerful tuck effect that might have the chance of winning a game out of nowhere in a last ditch effort targeting something of my own. Command Tower is a shoe-in in most Commander decks (mono-color ones being a bit of an exception - a lot of mono-color decks would just rather have a basic land!), and certainly in a wedge colored deck which previously had no lands of their own three colors. This made it very easy to pick out an alter for Oros' very own land - let's just put him on it! Klug used a very distinct art style with subdued colors which really makes the card stand out. And you can see Oros has his personal flock of scale birds with him, as usual! It's just too bad he built his tower so small. I wonder who lives inside?
The Chaos Warp alter is a bit more farfetched. I had brainstormed with several friends in my local playgroup, and after throwing out such hit ideas as Ian Malcom ("Chaos Theory" guy from Jurassic Park), Chaos (the Final Fantasy boss), and - my personal favorite - Tuvix, a character from Star Trek (I'm not even a fan of the series!) who was "chaotically" merged from two people while they were warping back to the ship, I think we finally hit gold when we thought about the Warp Pipes from Super Mario Bros. I adjusted the idea a little to be referencing the Warp Whistle from Super Mario Bros 3, as it's simply hard to find any acceptable art for any Mario game before that, and it's probably the most well known and loved. We even got to work in the tornado that warps Mario and get that "chaos" idea from that. Overall, I'm very pleased with the idea, and as always, Klug's execution is simply flawless.
Once more - Klug's art can be found at http://klugalters.blogspot.com/. The guy seriously deserves your money, his work is crazy good!
So now I've got everything I need, and I'm finally back to playing this deck again. It's been a while, and the deck is still a blast to play. And Innistrad is just in time to ruin that victory for me, forcing me to fit more cards in where there is no room. Next update is going to focus on precisely that - Innistrad's impact on Commander, and the swaps I will be making in the Oros deck - if I can decide in time!
Thanks for reading!
Until next time,
Day 2 Dan
It's really tough for a card to even make it into a built and tuned Commander deck these days, and I hope to touch more on that in the future. But these two were easy picks from the Commander precons - Chaos Warp is a fun and powerful tuck effect that might have the chance of winning a game out of nowhere in a last ditch effort targeting something of my own. Command Tower is a shoe-in in most Commander decks (mono-color ones being a bit of an exception - a lot of mono-color decks would just rather have a basic land!), and certainly in a wedge colored deck which previously had no lands of their own three colors. This made it very easy to pick out an alter for Oros' very own land - let's just put him on it! Klug used a very distinct art style with subdued colors which really makes the card stand out. And you can see Oros has his personal flock of scale birds with him, as usual! It's just too bad he built his tower so small. I wonder who lives inside?
The Chaos Warp alter is a bit more farfetched. I had brainstormed with several friends in my local playgroup, and after throwing out such hit ideas as Ian Malcom ("Chaos Theory" guy from Jurassic Park), Chaos (the Final Fantasy boss), and - my personal favorite - Tuvix, a character from Star Trek (I'm not even a fan of the series!) who was "chaotically" merged from two people while they were warping back to the ship, I think we finally hit gold when we thought about the Warp Pipes from Super Mario Bros. I adjusted the idea a little to be referencing the Warp Whistle from Super Mario Bros 3, as it's simply hard to find any acceptable art for any Mario game before that, and it's probably the most well known and loved. We even got to work in the tornado that warps Mario and get that "chaos" idea from that. Overall, I'm very pleased with the idea, and as always, Klug's execution is simply flawless.
Once more - Klug's art can be found at http://klugalters.blogspot.com/. The guy seriously deserves your money, his work is crazy good!
So now I've got everything I need, and I'm finally back to playing this deck again. It's been a while, and the deck is still a blast to play. And Innistrad is just in time to ruin that victory for me, forcing me to fit more cards in where there is no room. Next update is going to focus on precisely that - Innistrad's impact on Commander, and the swaps I will be making in the Oros deck - if I can decide in time!
Thanks for reading!
Until next time,
Day 2 Dan
