I have an analysis on two current Kickstarter campaigns, but in a month, this info will be crazy-old. But what won’t be old is how I interact with two artists: with a decklist. So let’s dive in.

Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded by phasechan on deviantART

I want to like Tibalt. I really do. He’s such a different experiment that I wanted to mash him into a Red Deck Wins shell and just make it work with straight-up new tech. That flavor fit well on a conceptual basis.

I chose to try him out when I built a Skred Red deck for the Magic Modern format. I found the deck really needs a little more card-draw to close out the speed of the Modern format. Yes, it is a weird, midrangey control situation that used to have Stuffy Doll in it. Frankly, Blood Moon is utterly backbreaking in our local metagame, but if I power that out, I kind of sit dead.

My original idea was to swap out the Relic of Progenitus duo, which was replaced by a pair of copies of Tibalt. I wanted to test how the Planeswalker worked as a digging tool after I dropped a Magus of the Moon or a Blood Moon and while I was searching for Stormbreath Dragon.

Skred Red ? Modern | Mike Linnemann

• Creatures (12)
• 2 Magus of the Moon
• 2 Stormbreath Dragon
• 4 Boros Reckoner
• 4 Simian Spirit Guide

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Koth of the Hammer

• Spells (21)
• 2 Volcanic Fallout
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Skred
• 3 Pyroclasm
• 4 Blood Moon
• 4 Mind Stone

• Lands (23)
• 21 Snow-Covered Mountain
• 2 Scrying Sheets

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Boom // Bust
• 3 Relic of Progenitus
• 3 Combust
• 1 Shattering Blow
• 2 Molten Rain
• 2 Shatterstorm
• 2 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Stormbreath Dragon

Buy This Deck

Tibalt didn’t work out well. Far too often, I was sitting on 3 mana, paying for a 2-mana Planeswalker instead of playing a dude to help me win the game. I swapped in two Mind Stones and bumped up the Pyroclasms up to three, removing a Stormbreath Dragon into the sideboard—and man, it just feels smoother.

My sideboard is still a mess, but it’s tuned for the local metagame. I would have to really do some mega-testing before a major event. Four copies of Koth of the Hammer crush locally, but would I want more ways to deal with the damn Pod decks? Would I be main-decking two Relic of Progenitus instead of the four Mind Stones? There is really only one Grixis control player, and main-decking hate for one deck is just silly with no Deathrite Shamans in the Modern format.

I am testing Boom // Bust considering I have four Mind Stones, and, thus far, when I board them in, I utterly hammer people playing three-color hands who are having to deal with a Blood Moon. I haven’t tested it against Zoo players yet, but info will be forthcoming. I think that, with Blood Moon, it’ll gain me a turn because Skred costs 1, and Mana Leak with Snapcaster Mage cost a billion in comparison.

Double Kickstarters

In my Skred deck above, I tried Tibalt—which is Pete’s card—ad it didn’t work out so well. Biscuits!

In my Skred deck above, I tried Pyroclasms. I obviously use John Avon’s art.

I respect these two artists for their odd numbers of playable cards across formats and for their business acumen as of late. You can’t swing a cat and not hit at least one of their artworks on a major Modern- or Legacy-playable card. As of late, Pete’s cards are all over Standard. I’m sure he “loves” signing piles of copies of Brimaz, King of Oreskos and Erebos, God of the Dead to his heart’s content.

As for John, my Commander decks are all about his weird land art. I wrote about John Avon some time ago in “John Avon, Artist, Businessman, Mogul,” but I was remiss in talking about Kickstarter.

We’re here today because Pete Mohrbacher just launched a Kickstarter campaign. John Avon also just launched a Kickstarter campaign. (Pete is the younger guy above.)

To recap who these Magic artists are:

• Pete is a newer face to the Magic scene, exploding out this past year for his card art in the Theros block. He worked on the design style guide push, and his designs really helped to define the set, as seen below.

• John Avon’s name is synonymous with Magic landscapes and environments. He’s made fifty-eight unique nonbasic lands and oodles of basic lands from the ever-popular Unhinged to the Magic 2015 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and my favorite Mountain, the purple-mountain-majesty from Mirage.

Mohrbacher – Kickstarter

Pete is embarking on his second Kickstarter campaign. He wishes to have these on an annual basis, which seems pretty smart.

His first Kickstarter campaign, this past November, had 167 backers with a $6,000 goal. He doubled that amount to $12,138 off eighteen tiers with no original paintings—he’s all digital. It has become increasingly difficult for digital artists to push profits without a $2,000–$3,000 bump from a single backer. Digital prints can always be made, so the uniqueness has to be upfront, such as the way Pete is offering: embellishments on every piece with some Kickstarter-only prints. I can see a Disney comparison of being available for a limited time and having them put in the vault for years before anyone could legally buy another play mat or canvas print.

His new campaign has a mere week under him, and he already has over 150 backers off an $8,000 goal. He’s staying conservative, which is utterly wise in my opinion. He’s hit the $10,000 mark, and with a hair under three weeks to go, he’s still climbing. He bumped his number of tiers up to twenty-two, with new original art play mats that are like cousins to famous art of his.

Word.

Pete’s video is just so passionately genuine that it’s heartwarming. This is what happens when a Magic artist makes some strong forays into our community and finds people very welcoming, even excited, to have an artist care. It’s the same feeling Steve Argyle tries to convey to new Magic artists, saying that investing in your fans will not only result in feeling better about your art and lot in life, but it will also place an artist in a better place financially.

I find his first few lines of honesty very helpful. Also, his updates are comically genuine:

This is what I would get if I were you:

To know whether that’s in line with the market, let me give you a historical example.

Wizards made limited-edition canvas prints for $300 apiece. They were framed and numbered, but that’s all you got. They sold okay, and my local shop Universe Games still has the Hypnotic Specter piece up on the wall. I can’t quite get myself to pull the trigger to get it. I can obtain real art from Magic for $300. Really.

18"×24" canvases with black wood frames, and a certificate of authenticity, for $299 each

Choose from the following classics. Or avoid such a tough decision and purchase all five. (Click on “print” or “canvas” to have a closer look at what they will look like.)

• "Mahamoti Djinn" by Greg Staples – print | canvas
• "Serra Angel" by Greg Staples – print | canvas
• "Hypnotic Specter" by Greg Staples – print | canvas
• "Viridian Shaman" by Scott Fischer – print | canvas
• "Shivan Dragon" by Donato Giancola – print | canvas

Make sure that you act fast. There are only one thousand limited-edition prints and two hundred fifty limited-edition canvasses. The prints are sequentially numbered and signed by the artists; the canvasses are hand-signed and also hand-numbered.

In Peter’s case, for $290, you have a canvas print . . . of a Planeswalker, with two artist proofs and a pencil sketch. If this level lasts the week, I will be utterly shocked. That’s the kicker on this one—not close. Get it. Now.

Journeys to Somewhere Else by John Avon

I’ve written extensively on how much Magic needs a new art book. I wrote on this in my “Magic Art Book – Let’s Do This” article. In short, after personally trying to have a book made, bringing in professionals, joining with an artist, and writing formal proposals, I can say a Magic art book isn’t going to happen in the near future. I hope that, with the new Magic movie in development, we will have a concept-art book from the film. It’s really the best choice at this point. I know there’s a longer reason, but I haven’t gotten it yet.

The closest thing we have is a wafer-thin book from the 1990s and, now, a Kickstarter book by John Avon.

John has thirty-eight tiers to his campaign. He named it Journeys to Somewhere Else, which makes sense considering he paints environments for imaginative realistic worlds. He also placed more information on his website.

I know John has been working on this project for years with his agent Guy Coulson, who is not a Marvel Comics character, much to my surprise. The book will be fine-art quality; this I know for sure. It’s a coffee-table book you show off to friends and family. If you’re an artist, you “mysteriously” acquire one of these from your local library once the bigger print run in the far future becomes made.

I’m happy to say that he also has already hit his goal with over 300 individual backers. £24,000 is a helluva lot more than more than $24,000. John had a goal of over $40,000. Now, he easily hit that due to his original paintings. Notice that all the Magic sketches were scooped up in under a week. I sat on my hands, not picking up the Mirage sketches with the purple Mountain. (I’m not really a sketch guy, but I will think about this a lot in the future.)

This is what I would get if I were you:

I’d get the book, despite it not being cheap. Most really well made artist books are crazy-expensive, around $200 or more, and the print run is abysmally low. The main “value” is the giclée attached to the book:

I say this because art books with prints have value and, well, books are hard to make. John may not make ten books all with limited-edition prints. In fact, if he makes five, I’ll be shocked. They’re a pain in the ass, but the print run of those prints, those giclées, will become collectible, or even valuable, in time. Write that down.

To explain that more, you have to learn about my favorite non-Magic artist. His name is Robert Indiana.

He’s the LOVE guy.

I have a few of his seriagraphs (fancy prints) that are signed and were attached to a book he made in 1997. The prints are worth a few hundred dollars apiece! I’m still considering if I want to trade a trio of them for another piece of art, a boom-boom painting. Sadly, I also know that Indiana is well into his 90s and, as with any artist, when he passes away, his artworks will become visible, and the prices of the art will shoot up due to newfound demand. These three framed prints are worth a pretty solid Magic original artwork. If I sit on them, they might be worth two originals. That’s my speculation game, Vorthos-style.

I hope you back one or both of these projects, and I hope that you aren’t caught with your pants down, staring down a turn-one Blood Moon, unsure of what’s across the table from you.

Enjoy!

- Mike