Last time I said my next topic was going to be about trophies real vs. virtual. However today I would like to talk briefly about something I have been doing for a little over a year: card alterations. For anyone who is not a collectible card game player (CCG) the most famous game one is certainly Magic the Gathering. The game is balanced between having a wonderful game and something that many individuals treat as an investment. Now not all players invest large amounts of money in the game but many players the longer they play will invest more heavily in their deck or collection. Simply put many players like to have a specialized version of their decks, as such over the last couple years there has been an upsurge in artists doing alterations to the card art. This ranges from simple extensions to making cards appear to have art going all the way to the edges of the borders and completely covering all the text. The alterations range from tiny to massive, well done to well lets just say less well done.
I began altering cards professionally after I left my job with SCUF gaming as I was actually making more money altering cards and had more free-time available. I altered professionally at a number of Starcitygames events including one in Atlanta which I was interviewed at (Leif Paulson or Evil Nerd INC). After that event I stopped attending events as an alterist because the frequency of new alterists was massively increasing. Additionally I was returning to school and knew I would not have the time to alter full time. I still continue to alter cards for commission but more often just for my personal collection. I have a dedicated youtube channel EvilNerdINC which goes into great detail about the process of altering cards as well as free give aways. I also have a facebook page which I post up all the images of my alters. So if your looking for examples of how its done, tips tricks etc. all of this can be found on either of these pages.
I realized however, as much as I enjoy altering cards it seems somewhat unsustainable. Recently there was a rather large issue that hit the Magic community about fake cards surfacing in the community from a printing company based out of China. Essentially a company had figured out the printing process to produce magic cards and had effectively duplicated some extraordinarily expensive cards and massively distributed them on a scale not seen before in the community. I think this will have major rammifications on the community of alterists as often the assurance that the card is genuine has been favorable. However now that these fakes have become apparently widespread and there are only a very few ways to detect that the cards are fake altering becomes much more detrimental to the value of a card. Ironically alterists are probably one of the largest part of the group that can easily detect the fake cards due to working closely with the cards and being familiar with intimate details of the cards. In all honesty I hope the altering community remains strong and vibrant but especially with the announcement of M15 and some of the variations included in the new product design I have a sinking feeling that the community will get much less love then it was when I was altering professionally. I encourage those interested to support alterists as these may be new artists in the gaming industry in a few years. If you need help to find some excellent alterists drop me a message on my facebook.
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