Nameless Inversion

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I’m really turned on by full art cards. The lack of text adds mystery. You’ll probably have to read “I’m really turned on by full art cards” once every three or four Arting Arounds. They’re just the best. The mystery involved in what the card actually does is fantastic. Even when we know what the cards do you the lack of text is an element of surprise, the full art is potentially distracting, and I’ll take all the art induced advantages I can whilst gathering my Magics.

Anyway, I was building this Doran deck a hundred years ago and Mikey Scovatz told me to use Nameless Inversion. It was a time when painting sales were much sicker for me than they are today and I had disposable income of some quantity. I bought every Modern card that wasn’t blue and even some that were. I built all the decks I could in search of the perfect one. This search continues today on significantly limited means. My love for the art of magic dies not.

Mikey said I needed Nameless Inversion in the deck cuz it’s a tribal instant and that’d be good for my Tarmogoyfs. I tried to get some from Luis but he was out. I went on TCG Player and saw there is a full art player rewards version of the card and I ordered a playset. Full art Magic Player Rewards cards are so specific to the time the card came into being that it adds an extra level of hilarity to its casting cost from time to time, as what the card actually does sort of deletes itself from one’s memory over time. Nameless Inversion, by the way, gives a creature +3/-3 until end of turn.

The original art, by Jeff Miracola, depicts the changeling mechanic and the +3/-3 affect of the spell by transforming into Popeye. As everyone knows, Popeye’s +3 is his forearms and his -3 is his stumpy legs. How either fantasy character can support forearms and hands of that size probably requires Giant Growth targeting their biceps, deltoids, and trapezoids.

He’s illustrated 110 Magic cards so this is just a tiny bit, most of which come from my heyday as a Magic player (Tempest Block). This one’s my favorite:

I can’t help but think of Dikembe Motumbo now when I see Propaganda.

Because of this:

But I digress. We’re here to talk about Nameless Inversion becuase, well, I picked Nameless Inversion to talk about this week. It’s a shapeshifter and we all love shapeshifters.

Here’s the full art Magic Players Rewards card:

I’m pretty sure this human elf rabbit creature has fallen to the dark depths of a Lorwynian lake, the glowing eye of a Benthecore shining down upon it as the human elf rabbit’s face wrinkles off due to prolonged exposure to water.

The extra border patterning is a waste of space, much like basic lands from Unglued.

Why use filler when the artwork can be used? Wizards probably had these thoughts, “Hey look at all of these great Photoshop filters we can use to cover up all of this amazing artwork! We have a basic understanding of Art Nouveau, let’s do this!” and then acted on them. That is the story of Unglued basic lands and Player Rewards full art cards and their borders. What if they made something like this instead?

or this:

or even this?

Jess and I swapped time slots so I’ll be posting Power and Toughness (mostly video this time) next week on Monday at 1:30pm and Arting Around Wednesday mornings. I have a new Twenty Sided Story focused column on 20ss’s blog that will go up once weekly on an off-Hipsters day. I’ve been playing lots of Magic and there’s always something to write about. Thanks for reading!

Lots of love,
Matt
MTGO: The_Obliterator