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.

Alter 42 - The Mimeoplasm

Altering Commander generals has become quite a thing. I have done quite a few now, and when my favorite Renton based employee wanted this one, who am I to say no? :)

BUG and RUG are 2 of my favorite color combos, but I don't currently have a BUG deck so making this for a friend seemed necessary.

This guy has a freakin' T-rex for an arm. Nothing else needs to be said here right? :)

Alter 41 - Spider Spawning

Spider Spawning is a card with a lot of history behind it. This innocuous uncommon started as a later pick, sometimes weird splash but became the cornerstone for one of the coolest and strongest decks in Innistrad draft.

The deck spawned out of nowhere it seemed. We had Brian David-Marshall (@top8games) on Limited Resources where he talked about the archetype in detail, and that same week LSV had an article about it along with other outlets covered it too. Next thing you know you couldn't find any of the pieces in an 8-4 on modo.

As a tribute to the first place I heard about this deck, I did this alter and gave it to the guy that told me about it ;)

(reason picture is crappy is because I forgot to take one before delivering the goods, this will have to do)

Alter 40 - Gideon Jura

I recently got a commission for this guy. I have been wanting to alter him anyway so it was a nice coincidence to get the commission anyway. I tried to make the feel a little more dramatic. It took me quite a while but I am happy with the result and look forward to doing more of these :)

Alter 39 - Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

Tezzeret was an instant favorite of mine. I am always looking for excuses to play him and I figured making an alter of him would only encourage that.

I have been enjoying altering planeswalkers and might have a commission lined up for yet another potentially. :)

Alter 38 - Delver Of Secrets(es)

Delver is a card that when I initially saw it I just thought "Bad for limited, next." It turns out it is pretty bad for limited. It's made a surprising splash in constructed, specifically in Standard and Legacy, and as a result I have grown to appreciate this card more and more.

I also thought this was one of the best uses of the Transform mechanic, as you can really get a feel for the change from "normal curious guy with a penchant for bugs" to "horrific buglike mutation".

Also as a result, I have gotten some alter requests for this card. My first inclination was to just alter both sides, but after asking around I decided against it. I think that the best way to make the most impact here would be to make the difference from the front to the back the biggest gap possible. That meant leaving the front it's normal innocuous art and card frame. Then when he gets flipped, it's all "BLAM" and he is even more dark and scary than normal. I kept the alter fairly simple as I just wanted to enhance the dark scene and spotlit bug we have in the original.

While I was working on this my friend Nick (@hawzzy) half jokingly said "Make me one where the flip side is the bug guy wearing a party hat"..

Party bug!

Alter 37 - Rafiq of the Many

The first card that I ever really latched onto as far as power level was this fella right here. I worked on a deck with him in it for my first big sanctioned tournament, which was Regionals. I ended up with a pretty sweet list, but a few days before the tournament people realized how good Finest Hour was. I used a modified decklist that basically combined what I was running already with both Finest Hour and Rafiq. I went X-2 at that tournament, even though I had zero clue what I was doing. I remember 2 main things now from it:

1. Beating people down with Birds Of Paradise for 6+ damage.
2. Losing to Jon Loucks, now my fellow Limited Resources podcaster and friend.

I will always have a soft spot in my heart for old Rafiq :)