Card Spotlight - Klug Alters

The deck has finally been completed!

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

Card Spotlight - Poxy14 Alters

Out of all the cards in the deck, there is one that I can safely say will always get the greatest reaction, and that is the Maze of Ith.

This is an alteration done by Earl Grant de Leon, a card alterer from the Philippines who goes by the screen name Poxy14. For those unfortunate enough to be unaware, this is an homage to the movie poster for Labyrinth, a classic 1986 film starring David Bowie. Here's a poster-to-card flowchart for your enjoyment:

To add to how phenomenal this card already is, due to the positioning of the figure on the foil pattern of the card, his eyes shine. This card is by far my favorite in the deck because the idea was original, well recognizable, and included David Bowie, and the execution was beyond perfect. Poxy14 has a knack for close-up faces (though that is far from all he can do well - see his gallery here if you think your jaw could use a Power Tower ride) and his skill is further reflected in the other alters he did for the deck, all of which have their own stories.

I had conferred with several friends about exactly what to commission for each of these pieces. The Vampiric Tutor was one of the fastest decisions - there was just no way it couldn't be Twilight. Note that the opinions of every person who contributed to this decision, myself included, ranged from complete indifference to absolute hatred. But that was exactly why it had to be done - it's a shock value card. It's hilarious to see it when you draw it, and the reactions from the table are stellar and usually include a resounding, "Oh, God!". Check out Poxy's work on Edward's coat, too! Doing it in black and white was a great call on his part!

The Demonic Tutor was an idea that I was pretty set on from the start. I've always been a big Star Wars fan (who, among us, isn't?), and actually my first card game - my gateway game, as it was responsible for starting my cardboard addiction - was the very complex but super cool original Star Wars CCG by Decipher. Despite sharing the rather unanimous distaste for Hayden Christensen (though I do think he was much improved in Revenge of the Sith), this alter was too flavorful to pass up. Emperor Palpatine acting as the evil tutor of impressionable young Anakin Skywalker - it had my inner Star Wars fan tingling. Again, Poxy nails it - check out Palpatine's face! This one he was also going to do in black and white, though I intervened and asked for a red tone to be added as well, because I like to make references to the Commander's color identity as much as I can. After seeing the end result, I was very glad I asked for it, and Poxy was too. It gave it an awesome ominous feel.

The Swords to Plowshares is the one that is the most out-of-nowhere. The card name is a Biblical reference, so why is Gandalf on it? Originally, the idea was to take the farmer figure in the original card art and turn him into Gandalf, redoing his scythe as the staff and adding wizard garments and plenty of white hair. Poxy informed me that it would be very difficult to detail at that small angle, and it would turn out a lot nicer if he just did a close up. He sent me a mock up and I thought it still was pretty cool and went with it. It turned out very nicely! As an added bonus, I can now say, "You shall not pass!" every time I Swords something.

Volrath's Stronghold was the card for which I had the hardest time coming up with an alter idea. It's really difficult to make out what's going on in the original art, and the card is entirely soaked in Magic lore so there aren't a lot of clever puns to work with. I gave Poxy some idea of putting it in space or something, and basically let him run free with it and trusted his creativity. What came out is probably the most beautiful card in the deck that does not have David Bowie on it. I'm still not entirely sure what's going on in the art, but I definitely adore it.

Poxy14 is actively taking commissions, though he has a day job as well, so he can be pretty backlogged at times. His email to take commission requests is here. He's fantastic to work with and amazing at what he does, so if you are looking to get some alters done, I highly recommend him! And just in case you missed it the first time, here's another link to his gallery where you can find all his alterations and his other original, not-related-to-Magic-but-still-awesome works.

I hope these stories (and pictures of David Bowie) have entertained you as much as they entertain me!

Until next time,
Day 2 Dan

Card Spotlight - CardKitty Alters

Though I'm glad I have it up now, the one thing that has been bothering me is I really wish I had started this blog earlier! It would be much more fun and interesting to detail the pimping journey from beginning to end. That doesn't mean I should deprive readers (do I have those yet?) of the stories and forget to give my regards to those who have contributed in some way to completing this project, though. Which leaves us with two options:

1. Acquire plutonium from Libyan terrorists to power time machine (risky, to say the least)
2. Actually use my memory (oh fine, if I have to...)

So welcome to the first of several spotlights on a card or more in the deck. I intend to write these whenever I feel like it, and the purpose is to give some insight into how the deck formed, explain why I have the cards I do, and to give some credit where it is due.

Today we're going to take a look at two of the more striking cards from the deck!

These two cards are none other than Oros, the commander himself, and Sol Ring, probably the first card that goes into every Commander deck! CardKitty is a duo of card alterers (Dereck and Eva) from Canada who are just stellar. If you haven't before, go ahead and browse their website. Their gallery is vast and they have a few great tutorials if you are looking to get into card altering! They are always taking commissions with competitive prices.

Only one of these cards was actually commissioned by me, and that was Oros. The Sol Ring, interestingly, was one of the first acquisitions for the deck and more or less solidified the plan of pimping it out. Two years ago around the holidays, I had started to search eBay for some of the cards I wanted in foil (I'm not sure if I was even seeking out Japanese at the time, though I was aware that I preferred to get those versions!) and I stumbled across a player who had basically pieced apart his or her Commander (EDH at the time, I suppose) deck and put them up for $0.99 starting bid auctions. I found the Sol Ring there and it was basically the first card alter I had seen. They weren't hot like fire like they are now - back then you didn't find several alterists hanging at their own booths and taking commissions at 5K tournaments! I've always been a big Lord of the Rings fan and was looking for a judge foil Sol Ring anyway with little luck finding it, so I sniped it and won. Of course, the Eye of Sauron Sol Ring variants are about a dime a dozen, however the depiction of Sauron on this one is pretty amazing. Even though I didn't commission it myself, I'm not sure I would have asked for it any differently if I had!

Oros, then, came not long after the Sol Ring arrived. I was totally hooked on card alters and was determined to get a CardKitty alter done on my general as well. First I had to find the Japanese Foil Oros - again, eBay was kind to me, and back then these Dragons didn't go for $50 a piece like they do now. I found one and bought it - I think in the $25 range - and arranged a deal with CardKitty. They've got some great burn effect cards, so the basic idea was to just add a burn effect and embellish Oros' birds - giving full art or borderless treatments to modern foil cards is actually a bit hard to do and can look pretty weird at angles, so they turned me away from that idea and towards the more simple alter. Cards sent, painting done, scan sent to me, money sent to them, card sent back, and I had myself a pimp Commander!

There's one more thing to these, though - you may have noticed that these both have artist signatures as well. In both cases, those came after the alterations were done. Some have heard horror stories about artists who are more strict with the use of their work and despise or even attempt to file lawsuits against the alterers. That's not always the case - I met Mark Tedin at GenCon 2010 and warily showed him the altered card - to my surprise he was just amazed at the alter and thought it was incredible! He gladly found a spot to sign the card, which is really simply a form of homage to his original work anyway. As for Oros, a few months ago I contacted Daren Bader and arranged a signing through the mail, and hoped for the safety of the precious cargo as it shipped down to Texas and back again. Daren also had no problems whatsoever with the alterations, stating that he'd simply have to find a different place to sign the card! I was pleasantly surprised with his great choice of white sharpie on the burn effect. He also signed the Scourge of Kher Ridges and did the fantastic alter on the MPS Plains - but I'll save that for another time!

Hope this has been an interesting read. Please use the comments below and let me know what you think!

Until next time!
Day 2 Dan