EDIT: For some reason I could see images in the preview and on my screen but no one else could! Trying a re-upload and thanks for everyone's patience
So, I'm hoping that Art and Collecting is the right place for this!
The recent announcement that the words "Mana Pool" will no longer be part of rules text is just yet another nail in the coffin for nostalgia-fiend Vorthos folk like myself, who still think the whole 8th edition border was a huge mistake.
So, a while ago I started to to try my hand at alternative (not altered) art proxies for cube. I thought that since my friends for the most part share my feelings about Magic design, that it would be fun to remake some staples in the style of cards from the nineties, with all of their ambiguous/extraneous wording and old school art that makes them so much fun to read and play with. I thought I'd post these here and invite people to try the same with their favorite cards! Please remember this is an exercise in flavor, attempting to capture the function of the card, occasionally with intended inaccuracies for nostalgic effect, so make of that what you will! Without further ado:
First off, Shaun Tan is such a fun illustrator that when I was looking for a good Golem, I thought of The Lost Thing as a great place to start, and I've used his art on several occasions for cube proxies. Wizards in the early days tended to overexplain things, so I thought it was a fun chance to do just that! I know that creatures could cover artifact creatures, but this felt like something where eratta would probably have eventually been written for it to prevent Gamma testing Time Walk "Target Player Loses Next Turn" effects
Ah Crucible, we shall never see your like again (Am I the only one still groaning about Waste Not?)...oh but wait, what's that you say? Now you're a snake guy?.... Anyhow, I love the silly reminder text that Wizards always added to early cards so wanted to take a stab at what this might have looked like.
I picked this one because I liked the thought experiment of how you might have described Phyrexian Mana in the 90's. The ambiguity around the words sacrifice and discard (as mentioned in the recent SMIP review of Arabian Nights) gives me warm fuzzy feelings for some reason. I also wanted to use the flavor of the original Clone here, as Upon Summoning makes you feel a lot more like a Wizard than ETB.
So this one shouldn't require much explanation except to say that modern oracle text, while I understand is important for clarification etc etc, loses a lot of the original flavor of the game, as does the reliance on incredible over-directed artwork. I liked this iconic art for Chalice, because early magic was ever so slightly Pythonesque in a way that current design simply ignores.
I miss the humor and occasionally cartoonish sensibilities of the early sets, it really gave the game such an element of fun that the modern game sacrifices (or discards?) and leaves me feeling frequently like I'm playing a giant game of Mountain Dew advertising.
Anyhow, I hope folks enjoyed these, and if not, thanks for tolerating them! I've done some other cube stuff that I'd be happy to share if there is any interest, but would love to see what others here would come up with for ways to make your favorite modern face cards more Old School Garfieldian.