So, we’re here at last. My final article for GatheringMagic is today, and I’ll be as brief as possible. You have many other priorities—such as finding new Zoo tech and where the Funyuns $.99-bag deal is this week.

Long time coming, and as a surprise to no one, a decision was finally made on proxies from Wizards: Okay by us. This will change the entire Vorthos world. It basically allows the community to come up with creative new uses for cards if they do so within the law. I’m very against counterfeiting cards, but if you own the card and want to personalize it and the head judge is okay with it, go nuts.

And as for last year? Let’s see how I did:

1. eBay will become a tertiary area for alteration sales. Nope. If anything, the opposite is true.

2. As alteration becomes more mainstream, social media applications with more personalization will be quite apparent. Etsy? Absolutely. Check it now. Other sites pop up every now and then, but they aren’t systemic . . . yet.

3. A North Korean alteration camp trained to extend the art, strip a foil Island (It’s always an Island, no?), and will make me a personalized hundred-card deck for $30. No camps or art collectives yet.

4. Tournament promoters will be given instructions from Wizards on what exactly is permissible. This just happened here.

5. Judges will receive greater training in not only identifying cards, but they’ll also need to be tested. Nope, not yet at all. It still lies with only the head judge whether to permit them or not.

6. The art-created institutional will feel more altered. Have you seen the full-art cards lately? Uh-huh. Moving on.

7. Art will be created for a holistic view of a setting. This is partially the new state of design, the “top-down” feel. It hasn’t forced the art or moved the Wacom tablet pen yet, though.

8. Wizards of the Coast will embrace alterations. Ok, this won’t happen, but they’ve acknowledged why proxies and alterations have their place in an informal setting.

Thanks to Trick and Stybs for allowing me to finish off this article today. I felt that it needed a second edition for 2012. There is much more to be said, but I’m still under NDA.

For those of you who like this art/storyline/flavorful side of life, please drop the editors a note. Finding weekly writers who last more than a few months is much harder than you would believe.

All my previous articles are always up for debate, and I’d love to talk about them if something tickles your fancy. Though some of my comment sections on older articles have disappeared or turned wonky, I’m always available.

The future is bright for creativity in this community. I wish you all well.

Fish.

1. Alterations will move to other games. Ashcan Pete from the Fantasy Flight Games line in Arkham Horror would be a great start. In fact, why not any character card in any board game? If you invest in an expensive (over $50) game, why not make it better? Ascension is a sleeveable game; it’s not as if it’s that hard to believe.

2. There will be more top-down designs. Relevant to Vorthos, expect more FFL designs to have intentionally powerful creatures to interact with Equipment accordingly. For example, a Tier 1 zombie won’t have a Jitte-strength morning star to use. A strong vampire will logically have a rapier—not a Batterskull.

Art by Inkwell Looter

3. Deck boxes will be altered more. Nearly every two-inch trade binder I now come across has a painted alteration. They’re not always fantastic, but they’re visible. Deck boxes will come soon. They won’t always be massive art projects like the ones below, but paint will be applied for personalization. Hint: It’s harder to steal one that everyone knows. Grand Prix tournaments have artist commission boxes. It’s the first step.

4. Alterations of unplayable cards will become more common. Ahem, Planechase 2 is coming out next summer, showing an investment in the format. Altered planes? Sure, easy. But 6”×9” cards?! If you head over to Troll and Toad, somehow they’re charging $1 or less on these things. If you pick up nine and go 3D, please frame it and display your wonderfully inexpensive and unique wall art. It’ll happen more often; I’ve already seen a few . . .

5. Someone will figure out how to make non-foils into foils. I’m not sure how this will be possible, but someone won’t just strip things—he or she will figure out how to illuminate minor aspects of an artwork, altering the narrative by changing the focal points.

6. I fully expect in the next year for a few ambitious 3D alterers to incorporate other TCGs, CCGs and LCGs into a card. Perhaps someone wants a Wyvern dragon in his commander box or Scion of the Ur-Dragon wants friends . . . a lot of them. You don’t think Vampire the Masquerade honestly has to sit on your shelf—or worse—in your closet, do you?

7. Original Magic art will become more available. The overall prices for most art will go down. Seeing Lion’s Eye Diamond sell for $1,500 or less on StarCityGames in a matter of minutes shows that fantasy art is at an all-time low, despite a dwindling supply from digital art. With the advent of the Magic community using Twitter, discounted sales and insider deals will become more common. If you want to buy art anytime, this is the deal.

8. Magic printed novels will go extinct. Where is Innistrad’s novel? Seriously, where is it? I assume comics will take their place, with viral stories filling in the gaps. Magic’s long-term plan is just a little behind it seems, and they’ll align them perfectly in the future with people frantically picking up a comic or opening one early to get that card preview. I think it’ll be easier to change content, making for fewer retcons and an overall better experience.

9. A comic book promotional card will be made too powerful. Comics will then be bought or made available without the card. It won’t be systemic, but something will slip through. It’s the same way a local game shop sold Agents of Artifice: $25 for a Jace card and a free book, or $25 book and a free Jace. I hope it doesn’t come true. It was sad to see a novel so marginalized. It hurt me.

10. Drew Sitte will innovate on the traditional 3D general design. I know he’s brewing ideas from creating cards that look like triangles to deconstructing entire cards and remaking them into pop-up books that “open” when the Commander is in play. Something huge is coming from him.

11. More players will contact Magic artists before Grand Prix events. Not only is this smart to save on shipping, which is always rising with the USPS, but also due to the proliferations of Grand Prix events, having a signed card or play mat to pick up is a lot more convenient than waiting in line and getting it mailed later. I guarantee an artist will pick up on this and create a groundswell on Twitter first.

12. Considering I mentioned the USPS price increases, I’m sure we’ll see alterations being sent to rise from 1 to 4 cards to 6 to 8 cards at a time. Shipping prices are a minor part, yes, but the more important reasoning is that our economy is improving. (Oh, you still don’t have a job? Been there, man. Keep hustling; you’ll get there.) For those of us who are tired of having to hunker down and wait for things to improve, sometimes having superheroes on cards gets you through another boring month in which nothing changes.

13. Magic art “free agents” will emerge. Finding quality altering artists is actually quite difficult. Yes, you can Google altered art, buy a terrible half-naked anime girl on eBay, or just ante up to Klug or Sandreline, but to find the person who will alter an amazing play set of Force of Wills for $40? They do exist, you guys. Jeremy Froggatt knows nearly everyone, but even he sleeps sometimes. In addition to the altering community, the Magic artist community will always need people to connect buyers to sellers. Say you want an original-art Forest for your house because your wife doesn’t want a half-naked dryad in the living room. How do you find said Forest for $400 framed? Is it possible? How do you negotiate these things? Free agents. I’m telling you, they’re real.

14. More Magic artists and alteration people will be coming to Twitter. The art world moves very, very slowly. The business side of art dealings moves even slower. Expect more of your favorite people to become engaged in 2012.

15. More Vorthoses will be coming to Twitter. Why? See Point 14. How will this change things? More flavor, of course. Consider our community to be twenty percent more seasoned—like a good marinade. Only good things come from that.

16. Grand Prix: Minneapolis will struggle to pull artists from Spectrum Live. They don’t believe me, but check out their artist list here. The usual suspects are all there—even Keyser Soeze.

17. Magic artists will start making more products. John Avon started a soon-to-come avalanche with posters. This doesn’t need to be Magic-copyrighted materials, but could be re-envisioned angels or iconic creatures on play mats and deck boxes.

18. Play-mat alterations from Magic artists will be considerably more common. As artists learn more about their community, prices will stabilize, and general ideas on what to ask for and how will emerge. Yes, Mike, but why? More Grand Prix events will encourage artists to become lucrative.

19. More Vorthos fan videos will emerge, harkening back to Magic’s roots of using Vorthos to lure people into the game. A storm combo doesn’t get you into the game, but big-ass dragons sure do.

20. Trick Jarrett, Magic celebrity, will combine efforts into a more proactive, community voice from the inside. He hustles harder than Rick Ross, and I have great faith in seeing his visions from the outside grease the gears and make dynamic changes.

So long!