Alters & Oddities

Lately, I've begun to really develop an appreciation for altered artwork on iconic cards. Initially I preferred only mint condition, unaltered vintage cards but one of a kind artwork featuring original artists is even more special in many respects.

Impressions & Artwork

Fireball Chaos Orb Alter by Mark Tedin, 2023

Perhaps my favorite alter is from Mark Tedin painted in April 15, 2023 Seattle Washington Commandfest. Although I haven't been to a MTG convention myself, I've heard that the line for Tedin's art is typically many hours long and getting something done by him is quite a time investment. A friend who frequents events got this done for me when the lines were only a couple hours. I had seen a few chaos orb fireball alters in the past, but I specifically requested a chaos orb on the leading face of the fireball and he spent extra time on this artwork. I felt like it was a great way to marry two iconic cards painted by Tedin. In particular, I love the lava splash into the text box and his signature in orange gives it the finishing touch this beautiful one of a kind card deserves. Chaos orb remains one of my favorite cards and I feel very fortunate to have it painted by the original artist.

On Father's Day June 18, 2023 I was able to attend the local Command Fest in Anaheim, CA and meet Mark Tedin himself. It was a smaller event and somehow there was absolutely no line for the artist. I spent an hour and a half chatting with him about his artwork and purchasing a couple cards from the nearby Tier 1 stand where they were selling copies of Beta Sol Ring (HP) and Braingeyser (NM+).

I asked him to make a cold color-altered Sol Ring with the characters from the iconic Time Vault artwork. He explained that the character holding a hammer was breaking hourglasses to harness and manipulate the element of time. What better way than to depict them drawing energy from a cold sol ring (time and space) to fill their hourglasses!

Cold Sol Ring Time Vault Alter

As we continued our chat, I asked Tedin what his favorite artwork that he made was. He said that it was a tough question but did appreciate the more modern Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. The female Eldrazi 15|15 plane destroyer so powerful she could only be trapped on the moon seemed to be a good connection to Braingeyser, as the tentacle and brain Illithid Mind Flayer theme has deep roots in Dungeons and Dragons. I felt a little guilty altering a grade-able (and very expensive) copy of Braingeyser but knew that I would cherish this forever.

Emrakul the Aeons Torn Braingeyser Alter

The Original Emrakul Artwork

Here is Tedin altering the Sol Ring and Braingeyser.

Another extremely special card that is dear to my heart is the Black Lotus alter on top of the Alpha Forest (mushrooms) painted in 2013 by the late Christopher Rush. Although Rush had painted around 25-50 copies of the Black Lotus on forests around this time period, this one was signified 1/1 as it is a larger artwork covering much more of the front of the card. Daniel Chang had these all commissioned by Christopher Rush in 2013 and he passed before he made any more.

Black Lotus Forest (Mushrooms) Alter by Christopher Rush, 2013

Black Lotus Forest (Pathways) Alter by Christopher Rush, 2013

The picture below shows both Forest A and B alters by Christopher Rush. I feel incredibly fortunate to own both renditions along with the Beta and International Edition copies.

Black Lotuses

My favorite dual land is Tundra. Something about seeing the artwork takes me to another place, escaping life for just a brief moment. I was lucky enough to find a Beta artist proof of the card from 2010 and asked Jesper to landscape paint the back of the card. The Aurora Borealis is beautiful and adds a mystique to my favorite land card of all time.

DUAL LAND ALTERS

Beta Tundra Artist Proof Front (Signed 2010)

Beta Tundra Artist Proof Commissioned Back (2022)

I recently got the idea to have Jesper Myfors (the original MTG art director) alter Alpha Plains to dual lands after seeing my friend commission them. The small details that he goes through to alter the card into dual lands are incredible- including the text and even colored bar around the artwork to match. Below are copies of Underground Sea, Bayou, Tropical Island and Tundra. I find the Tundra particular beautiful and brighter than the original artwork. Tundra also seems to have more detail than the original and it's nice to see how much Jesper's skills as an artist have improved over the last 30 years.

UNLIMITED TEST PRINT

One of the most unique cards I own is this copy of Shivan Dragon shown below. The story of how this card came to be is that when Unlimited edition was printed in late 1993, there were two test print sheets that had gone through printing a sheet of Antiquities and Unlimited on the back while the front was printed the unlimited rare sheet. This resulted in this crazy Mishra's war machine/swamp combination being printed on the back of a Shivan Dragon. The first sheet was cut at the factory with round corners and was glued to a regular magic back sheet (which was later removed). The other sheet was cut outside of the factory with square corners. Another cool aspect of this card is that because there were no Unlimited edition square cut artist proofs, this would be the only Unlimited Shivan with a square cut. The value of this card is very high given how iconic and unique this card is. This particular card was sold to a global Shivan collector from the original owner in 2005 and I was able to obtain it from the dealer who the Shivan collector sold his collection to in 2023.