Alter 49 - Earthquake

My buddy Nick (@Hawzzy) loves Earthquake. He eagerly awaits spoiler season to see if they are bringing back this beloved sorcery. I'm not sure which he enjoys more; winning a game off the back of a surprise Earthquake, or getting a draw in a game he couldn't have won otherwise.

I wanted to spice it up a bit so I decided to try for night-time Earthquake. I sketched it out in Photoshop and was pleased enough that I decided to give it a go. I don't normally bite off quite this much with my alters but figured why not, if you don't press on sometimes you get bored anyway.

It came out OK. This is the first time I have tried to go to a black night sky from a very bright one, and I honestly just sort of made it up. I'm sure I'll learn to do night clouds, moons, some patterns and better stars sometime. For now however, the sky is dark while the stars are not.

I'll try this idea on some more cards in the future I'm sure, but for now this will have to be good enough I suppose :)

(I realized the conundrum of having a light source that was above before change to below instead. I had some ideas about glowing lava and changing some lighting around, but realized that it was more than I was able to do for one card)

Alter 48 - Strangleroot Geist

I think this guy is one of those Uncommons that looks good at first, but eventually it will show that it's actually just very very good. He isn't a Kitchen Finks, but it took a while for that to really shine as one of the better creatures ever printed too.

But about the alter, I just liked the artwork and the fact that this is getting play in Standard in some decks. I wonder if this is cubeworthy? It doesn't seem like it would fit in Commander very well, just not enough impact I would assume.

I am also trying to work on improving my edges and borders. After looking closely at some of the work by the master himself, Eric Klug (http://klugalters.blogspot.com/) I realized that while I thought I was being fairly clean around the edges, I A) wasn't and B) was picking different edges for different cards sometimes. So I am attempting to clean that up.

Alter 47 - Endless Ranks of the Dead

I still haven't really gone off with this thing in limited, but a bunch of friends have. It's not really my style but I would certainly try it if the situation arose.

Beyond that, the artwork is just very good on this card. Such a cool scene. I have no clue what I am going to do with this one, (maybe it goes in a zombie themed Commander deck?) but I just wanted this because of the art.

I will note that the non-English cards seem to have a different makeup to them. They are far more fragile than the English ones. When you do these alters you usually use a toothpick to clean up the edges, and I do that on mine. But on these cards you get through the topmost part of the card very quickly compared to English cards. I don't know why. (You can see it on this card where it looks like there is extra paint on some parts but really it's just that the layer is gone there)

Alter 46 - Moorland Haunt

This card seemed unassuming to me at first, and even when people started playing it in Standard I kind of scoffed. It has proven it's mettle however and is now a staple in even a few other formats. I liked the spooky art on this right away and wanted to alter it for a while.

I finally go around to it when I picked up a neat Italian one. Problem is, I punted it pretty hard. I had to start it over a few times, was never happy with it, and ended up scrapping it. That sucked, and I wanted to jump right back in right away, but it got too late so I had to shelve it. I gave it another shot the next night with a fresh copy of the Haunt. THis is the first time I had attempted, failed, then retried the same card.

I am pretty content with the outcome, always learning from these things!

Alter 45 - Cruel Ultimatum

There are few things my buddy Zaiem (@zbeg) loves more in this world than savoring the expression on an opponents face after he resolves a Cruel Ultimatum against them. This card is insane. It's like they made a really mean laundry list of great stuff for you and awful stuff for your opponent and the first one that resolves this gets to read the list to the other player.

It's just disgusting. What could make this even worse for the opposing player?

"I get back Snapcaster Mage from my graveyard."

Ugh.

That said, it brings him so much joy I figured I would bring him a little more by altering this powerhouse of a Magic card for him :)

Alter 44 - Twilight Shepherd

This is a card that has been around for a while now, and I have it in an Commander deck. If I ever played Commander I would probably even like this card more, but really this one is about the artwork. My gf said this is her favorite artwork, and since she doesn't play Magic at all that's probably saying something. The more I looked at the art, the more I liked it and this seemed like the logical conclusion :)

Alter 43 - Drogskol Captain

I really like these captains it turns out. At first I viewed them as a way to please the masses by giving them one thing they love; tribal lords. But after having played this in limited a bunch, I came around on them just being sweet, well designed cards on their own. My favorite is this guy however. Having 2 of these on the battlefield lifts my spirits like few other plays can.