Ink & Antiquities #2, Kyle Wells

Ink & Antiquities

    Welcome back to another Ink & Antiquities! This time with beloved OS degenerate and best OS Kyle, Kyle Wells. I have had the pleasure of playing with Kyle several times and he is the definition of "Form over function." Lets take a look at his stuff! 

Kyle always gets first prize pick thanks to a strategy he uses called "come in dead last every time"

    This alter was a prize from last weekend's "Bootleggers Ball," an event I have extreme FOMO from missing. It was both a meaningful pick as his first time meeting Cam, our previous week's subject, in person, and a hot pick just for being a sweet and iconic alter on an A2A menace. He noted he is also going to Disney next week with his wife and kid so Rafiki just felt right. 

What ever happend to sketch books?

    Sketch books used to feel like a more common way to get an original magic artists works, before alters were as popular as they are now. A quick email to Melissa Benson yielded this awesome sketch of Xira for Kyle's sketch book. He promises he will work harder to fill out more of it in the future. 

I hope Kyle recycles, Regrowth shouldn't go to a landfill.

    Kyle is always working on an interesting project. Whenever he purchases a card from Foggie (not so local to Ohio Canadian player) it comes with an altered envelope. Kyle cut out the art and sleeved them up. This art project deck became the winner of "best partnership" in the 2024 Guildhouse choice awards, chosen by judge and "good arter" Slum. 

"Goonies never say die!"

    Speaking of Slum, Kyle met him at thrash bash 3. Slum offered to make him a Goonies alter, which turned into a friendship, and then all of this. Kyle rates him 10/10 alterist and 11/10 human. Kyle also states that The Goonies is the perfect movie. "It has action, Romance, Drama, Comedy, Nostalgia, Frodo Baggins, the lead character from Thrashin whose name I can't think of, and a pirate ship. So so good." - Kyle Wells

Continuation of Slum alters

"Our tour begins here in this gallery, here where you see paintings of some of our guests as they appeared in their corruptible mortal state. Kindly step all the way in, please, and make room for everyone. There's no turning back now."

    Speaking of beloved semi reclusive OS artists, MR created this "Stretching Room" inspired set of black goodies. For the uninitiated such as myself, the "Stretching Room" is a part of the haunted mansion ride at Magic Kingdom. 

Just missing Amy's Sig!

    Everyone has a grail. Anyone who knows Kyle knows he is an addict for anything "Serra Angel." with a minor alteration by Dick and signed by both him and Shuler, all he needs here is Amy's sig for the first legit triple signed card I will have seen. 

Visual clarity be damned

    Kyle's Thrash Bash II winning deck. He boasts that the alters helped confuse his opponents, giving him the win. I will note that to date, I have only seen Kyle get first place, or dead last. Ricky Bobby's father would be proud. 

He went the other way for Thrash III

Kyle's "Prize card" for coming in dead last at Thrash 3. He was rocking a mono green force of nature deck featuring Eureka and Lure. He claims to have pulled it off at least one time. I am not sure I believe him. Card above shows it went exactly as expected!

Baby's first deck

    Kyle's first deck. He had a certified nerd rage moment upon the release of planeswalkers in 2010, causing him to sell out. He had to get this one back given it was his first.  

Kyle's first prize card. 

The first prize card Kyle ever won, provided by the Cleveland Rocs. 

Did not know Kyle was a foot guy, upskirt aside. 

    Last, (and I hope not least!) was my very own secret scare gift to Kyle. Knowing he was a Serra addict this one was easy, shipping her less so (given she broke off her base and had to be reglued.) Created in heroforge and painted by Sargoth Studios. Kyle also has a running list of cards he needs altered for a full altered OS edh deck. Swole Angus joins the fold! (I think he just included this stuff because I'm writing it)

    Thank you Kyle for sharing some of your awesome toys with us! To anyone else who may want to do one of these, feel free to reach out and thank you for reading!