When Magic was still just an anonymous pet project, published by graduates in a garage on a shoestring budget, the artwork was their huge gambit - the one thing they committed money to, besides the cardstock itself. Commissioning original fantasy artwork for a game had never been done on that scale in 1993 and 1994, but art director Jesper Myrfors insisted, going so far as to offer his old classmates from art school company stock in return for their paintings!

The artwork, he said, was what helped people to comprehend a game with so many unique cards. Long before a new player had memorized the complex rules for Island Sanctuary, they would recognize Mark Poole’s painting of a pegasus above the island. And it would be much harder to forget that your Shivan Dragon has flying when staring at the starry sky in Melissa Benson’s iconic art.

Myrfors turned out to be correct, and Magic was an immediate smash hit, with those original paintings becoming powerful symbols for the game and valuable in their own right. Since then, every Magic set has continued to feature original artwork for each new card, and even a good number of reprints. In the formative year of 1994, each of the five new sets Wizards of the Coast released used their art style to create a distinct visual identity, showing off the diversity of fantasy worlds Magic rules could capture. It was groundbreaking.

Over time, another trend has risen which also helps to illustrate the vital, unsung role card art plays in endearing Magic to its audience. Invested players began to commission artists to paint over parts of their cards with new or extended artwork, creating a unique and functional treasure. These “alters” predated the rise of cosmetic items in digital games by a decade, but the principle in both cases is the same - allowing players another means of self-expression, and a way to claim a sense of special ownership over a card which exists in millions of other collections around the world.

REMIXING REVISED & ALTERING ANTIQUITIES

While we know the mint-condition cards in our #MTG94BOX offering all bear their original art, we wanted to take this opportunity to celebrate some of the incredible work the altering community has done using 1994 cards as their canvas. Presented side by side with their original look, here are some of the coolest reimaginings of MTG history!

Most MTG alters start with a simple formula: take a classic card people identify with strongly, and then think of a clever twist on its presentation which will resonate with players who see it! The most obvious way to do this is to extend or enhance the original artwork - it’s immediately recognizable as itself, but still impresses, like this take on an electrified Lightning Bolt by artist “bigup”.

The next most common concept for alters is to add references to pop culture. Many players share similar a similar cultural sphere and geeky interests outside of Magic, so your opponents will probably still be impressed by your homage - and you get a cool conversation-starter with your fellow fans! Here’s another Lightning Bolt done in such a style, courtesy of “tutiwakalaka” and Marty McFly.

You’ll notice that both of these Lightning Bolts make an effort to leave at least some of the original Christopher Rush art intact. This is to be expected - not only is Lightning Bolt one of the most instantly recognizable and beloved cards of all time, but the late Rush is perhaps the prestige Magic artist, having illustrated Black Lotus as well as the five colored mana symbols and many other cards besides. Even his artwork on less famous cards is worth preserving and paying attention to, as we see in this alter of The Wretched.

This nasty-looking beast from Legends is able to possess and dominate opposing creatures in combat. The altered art shows a clever understanding of that effect, with a creepy puppet-creature showing us the fate of The Wretched’s victims. At the same time, the eerie-green silhouette in the background and jagged black foreground rocks call to mind enough of Rush’s original art to feel genuinely connected, even when the entire card has been painted over!

Of course, not every alter needs to make a conscious connection to the original artwork. The Rob Alexander Underground Sea art is also among the game’s best-known, a standout even in Alexander’s impressive and prolific body of work. But there are a great many possible interpretations of a blue-black dual land, and Brossard Alters has tapped into a popular one among Magic players with this Lovecraft-inspired scene! One common reason alter artists quote for choosing this work is the unique challenge and appeal provided by creating pieces to fit such a charged context as these famous and familiar cards. No matter what art you put on a Black Lotus or Underground Sea, people are going to care about it.

Classic discard spell Hymn to Tourach is the most visible card from the oft-maligned Fallen Empires set. One gimmick experimented with in that expansion was the idea of printing some commons, Hymn among them, with up to four different alternate artworks. But why settle for choosing from four options when you can commission a fifth, especially if that new option depicts a beautiful woman? This sort of glamor alter - tasteful or otherwise in its composition - is extremely popular. Who knew that sex sells?

Demonium’s work here combines that same genre of pretty woman with the knack for reimagining the context of original artworks, in this case Sylvan Library. The new art is wholly original and a delight in its own right with these brilliant, flowing colors. But it’s even more cool when you imagine it as taking place just inside the library-tree shown on the original card!

Widely-known alterer Eric Klug has built a reputation through his skills as an artistic chameleon! His most popular alters imagine key cards like Maze of Ith illustated with the visual styles of other, historically famous painters. Here’s one adopting the look and feel of MC Escher - a perfect choice for the concept of the endless Maze.

For other alters, the spark of inspiration is a comedic or tongue-in-cheek one! This alter uses the space occupied by the card’s text box while leaving Jesper Myrfors’ delightfully menacing Atog largely intact. Taking this alter in is like being told a joke by another Magic player in real time - you can clearly see how someone looked at their Atog one day after listening to Hamilton and had a gloriously dumb idea.

For much of MTG’s history, covering up the original text box of a card when altering made it illegal for tournament play, which limited the creativity possible in designs like that Atog or this more abstract Armageddon by CardKitty. This was a somewhat absurd state of affairs considering the large number of official promo cards which also lacked a text box or their usual artwork, but were still legal. Fortunately, the powers-that-be eventually relented and changed the rules to allow any alter which retains the original card name and mana cost - which really allowed the most detail-minded of alter artists to flourish.

AN ALTERED STATE OF MIND

So there you have it - a wafer-thin cross-section of the vast gallery of beautiful art created within the MTG community. If you have an interest to see more, the various social media and e-commerce platforms used by artists are filled to bursting with hidden gems, mostly tagged under #mtgalters or similar. Or if you’re an artist yourself and you think you might have the steady hand to pull off painting at card-scale, you can quickly find yourself pulling in a lot of money - there is a constant high demand for alter commissions and more than one well-known artist has made this their full-time gig!

*A beautiful foil “alter” created by gluing together many foil copies of Holy Strength and Unholy Strength, and then slicing away specific parts of each layer with a scalpel to create depth.*

You will also find that these older cards only represent a baseline for what can be done with alters. When it comes to modern, more available cards, there is a greater willingness to completely transform them into art pieces. While not really useful for most Magic-playing purposes, these cut-away 3D cards and card-based dioramas are fantastic to display and will garner instant kudos from players and non-players alike!

*“Life//Death” sculpture alter - credit: Max “Amon” Richiero*

Let it never again be said that Magic: The Gathering fans are not an artistic or creative bunch!

All of these cards (and more!) could be contained in mint-fresh condition within the treasure trove that is Mythic Markets’ 1994 Booster Boxes.

The Best Old-School MTG Alters

REMIXING REVISED & ALTERING ANTIQUITIES

AN ALTERED STATE OF MIND