Our letters

<3

Since the day you were printed back 2010 with Rise of Eldrazi you have been part of my Peasant Cube. You always felt unreal powerful for an uncommon. The thing with the high end of the Peasant spectrum is that in the lower mana value cards there are a whole lot of great options. But the higher you get up the curve, the less good cards you get. The cutoff is at about 4 – 5 mana. You don’t really get many good creatures above that at either common or uncommon, especially in those days. The high end finishers were reserved for the (mythic) rares. You were way too good at uncommon for those times. Wizards agreed, reprinting you at rare in Core 2019.

In 2013 I was so high on my Peasant Cube that I wanted to do everything Peasant. One of the things I wanted to do Peasant was Modern. I actually found my old document full of brews, the decks look so much fun. I remember I built a whole bunch of decks back in the day, to create a gauntlet, and that I needed like 16 copies of you Pelakka Wurm. Because you were the best high end card in Peasant for decks like French Rites, GR Tron, Mono Green Tempo and GR Ramp. I don’t have those decks anymore, but I found good use for a lot of those copies of you.

I play you in quite some Cubes. You are not just perfect in my Peasant Cube, but also in my lower power level Masters Cubes. Yes, sometimes an opponent just answers you with a Doom Blade. Tempo wise quite horrible, but it feels fair, because you always leave me with 7 life and a card. And usually green has a way to recur you to take over the game with those additions. Seeing despair in our opponents eyes facing your 7/7 trample while gaining all that life crushing any hopes of actually winning the game is one of my favourite things to do.

With love,

Hanjo

<3

I remember when you came out, my mentor Rinke was so hyped. He compared you to fetch lands. Going on about how important it is to filter lands out of your deck to improve your late game draws. Then someone reminded him that you fetch up lands tapped and he wasn’t as enthusiastic anymore. But over 20 years later and I still love you so so much.

Yesterday I wrote about Thraben Inspector, tied for the 2nd most played card in my 20 Cubes with 8 Cubes. There are 2 cards left that have 8 Cubes that didn’t have a letter yet, and those are you, Terramorphic Expanse, and your identical twin Evolving Wilds. You are such flexible lands to play in lower power level Cubes. I love lower power level Cubes, where actual Magic skill has more room to prove who are the best players instead of winning by casting Channel intro Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. I don’t always like Power Cube all that much (despite owning 3 versions myself). I like Magic with a little less variance, Magic where you actually shine.

When designing a Cube the manabase is a very interesting part of designing it. Especially for lower power level Cubes, when you don’t just fall back on fetches, duals, shocks and triomes. Offering players the choice between slower, but very flexible, fixing lands vs very specific but fast fixing lands gives so much more depth to the draft in my opinion. It forces the drafters to be so much more aware of the strategy they are drafting, instead of just picking up a crazy good fixing land in any scenario. You ask so much more of my drafters, and I love to force these insights on them.

With love,

Hanjo

<3

You’ve entered this world around the same time I stopped playing competitive Magic. I at least never played you in any regular competitive tournament, my history with you is purely Cube. So I don’t have any good old stories about you, but I do really love you. 

You are peak Magic design to me. I think the artifact trinket tokens are such good Magic design, I absolutely love them. The play patterns are just so good, so much fun, so clean. I love adding cards like Voldaren Eppicure, Fae Offering and you, Thraben Inspector, to Cubes. Your design is so basic, but so perfect. We need cards like you in Magic. You don’t have a wall of text, you don’t feel like you’ve been made by an AI, you are not designed for hype. You just do what you do. But you do it so well. 

Starting on turn 2 you offer your players a choice each and every turn: spend their 2 mana on casting a spell, or cracking a Clue to draw a card. There is so much depth to that choice, so much gameplay. And then I’m not even talking about artifact or flicker synergies. You’ve got it all, you are a perfect Cube card. No wonder you are in 8 of my Cubes and I’m so happy you are going to be in a 9th. 

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

You are one of those dreams a Magic player would love to live one day. There is basically one player who ever really did: the master himself, Raphael Levy. It’s so amazing to me he just did it, played you in a big constructed tournament and actually made the top 8. I’m sure a lot of Commander players feel like they lived that dream, but as an old competitive player there is just that type of itch Commander will never scratch. That is where my big love comes in: Cube. 

I play you in exactly one Cube: my Masters #5. In that Cube there is an Elementals theme. It is mostly Temur, but you can go full 5 colors if one feels like living a dream. Your dream. There is also a very strong Gates theme in the Cube. Because there are 3 copies of each common, the fixing is there to support you. For my players to live your dream. 

I like building my Cubes to be played by players who want to give it their all. You can call them competitive players, the spikes. I call them the people that play Cube the way Cube deserves to be played. And as a Cube designer I like to offer those players dreams, but I love to offer those players realistic dreams. Because that is the thing about my Masters #5 Cube: it is actually realistic to draft a good competitive deck with you, Horde of Notions. I would love that dream to be in a second Cube, so here we go, Horde of Notions, welcome to my Love Letter Cube. 

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

I have a couple of Gauntlets. I chose a time and format in Magic that I absolutely loved and built the decks viable in that format. I love making these Gauntlets. They are pure nostalgia, playing with all my old decks, playing against all my old opposing decks. And for the first time even trying out those decks I’ve played against hundreds of times for myself. And let me tell you, they are all so, so awesome. One of those Gauntlets is 2009 Extended with one of my great loves Death Cloud control. But this letter is not about that deck, it is about the deck playing you Trinket Mage: Tezzerator. 

My dear friend Frank his big love in this format is the menace of the format: Elfball. Luis Scott-Vargas won Pro Tour Berlin in 2008 with Elfball. His quarter finals matchup was one of the craziest matches I’ve ever seen in my life against the designer of The Tezzerator: Kenny Oberg. Seriously, if one has never seen this match, they should. I did, multiple times, to prepare myself to play Frank in this matchup. We planned on playing some one on one in this format and he (of course) really wanted to play his beloved Elfball. I really, like really, wanted to play some Tezzerator. 

I lost. But it was one of the best matches I’ve ever played. Frank and I spent hours analysing our match, the matchup and sideboard plans. I love how Kenny Oberg in his decktech video calls Tezzeret ‘bassicly a Trinket Mage’. Because that is the thing Trinket Mage, you are awesome. I absolutely love you. Funnily enough I only run you in my 3 Power Cubes, because you are that good. But I do miss you in one type of Cube, I would love to see you in one of my Masters Cubes. But you are not yet, and I think that should change. I’ve just written you down on my draft file for my new Masters Cube. The one I promised Mystical Teachings I would make in one of my first letters. You are going to be in that Cube, 3 copies of you, and it’s going to be awesome. 

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

Rituals and Cube are a somewhat unlucky combination. They have the reputation of being needed for Storm strategies before Underworld Breach was ever printed. But they also have the reputation of only being good in Storm strategies and so often are just semi-dead cards in your Cube. This reputation is for a reason, I think it is very true. Dark Ritual is the exception to the rule. A turn one Hypnotic Specter, Phyrexian Arena or Coalition Relic in old Power Cube or Barrowgoyf or Liliana of the Veil in new Power Cube will always be a strong play. Or just a turn one Entomb into Exhume will do, new and old. 

I run you in my old Power Cube. I run a whole bunch of rituals there for the Storm strategy. Because that is what was available back in those days, it is what works. But it’s not the kind of history I have with you. Sure I’ve played some Dragonstorm in Standard back in the day. I enjoyed my fair share of Belcher in Legacy. But my best memories with you are casting a turn 2 Arc Slogger with the help of you and Chrome Mox back in 2005 Standard. I loved those play patterns. I hate it that Arc Slogger just doesn’t cut it with 40 cards decks, I really love that card. In the spirit of those play patterns I recently added you to my OverPowered-2 Cube. 

In Overpowered-2 I want to explore a type of Magic that I have never seen before. I didn’t want to maximise the -2 emblem, that sounds very boring to me. I wanted to create a type of Magic that was still Magic, but would beat the shit out of ‘Power Maxed Cube’. One extra mox in Gleemox? Boring. I’ll have a Mana Cylix and I’ll have 10 2-color moxen: Talisman. So a Dark Ritual for only 3 mana? Boring. I’ll have mine make 5, and they are 5 red mana. The other weekend I was away for the weekend with my old Magic mates. They passed me you, Seething Song, while drafting my Overpowered-2 and I was very grateful. We may not have cast an Arc Slogger together that weekend, but let me tell you, in that Cube there are a lot of awesome things to do on turn one with 5 red mana. 

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

You used to be one of the choices for the flex slot in my UW control deck in Modern. I always had 2 slots to spare. Path to Exile was the prime removal in those times in Modern, and also was in that deck. Sometimes I played 2 Dissmember as Path to Exiles number 5 and 6, sometimes I played you, Oust. I always thought you were quite strong, but everyone always doubted you. Sometimes I did too. I shouldn’t have. 

I did play 4 copies of you in my Gifts Ungiven control brew that played 4 Spreading Sea’s. Path to Exile didn’t fit with the 4 Spreading Sea’s and 4 Tectonic Edge plan in that deck. I actually did pretty well with that deck, it was a lot of fun. You were perfect in that deck, I loved you in that deck, because I didn’t have to control the whole game, just stall it till I found room to cast a Gifts Ungiven to take over the game with either Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or Iona, Shield of Emeria with the help of Unburial Rites. Stalling a creature for a couple of turns was exactly what that deck needed. 

The other day I was watching a LSV Vintage Cube draft video. He was having a rant about you. The good kind. He thinks you are actually very good in Vintage Cube. The case he was making is that putting an early creature, like a Birds of Paradise, second from the top to be drawn at a later point in the game when they are a bad draw, is exactly what he wants to be doing. I felt very validated to be still running you, after all these years, in my Peasant Cube. To be you were still, and always have been, just the 3rd best white uncommon removal ever printed for that Cube. A memory of those days playing Path to Exile numbers 5 and 6. But to LSV you are apparently number 2, and that made me smile. Thanks to LSV you are no longer Path to Exile numbers 5 and 6 to me, you are Oust. 

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

In 2005 I played my first tournament outside of my LGS: The 2004 Dutch Junior Super Series. The owner of my local LGS, Patrick, told me about this qualifier he was running and that I should attend. I did, made top 8, got my foil Slith Firewalker promo that I still run in my Peasant Cube till this day, and went on to play the JSS. 

I was such a bad Magic player back then. I didn’t know anything about a meta, I just played decks that looked cool. Of course me and my brother tried to look decks up online, talk to the other players at our LGS, and try to trade up for some important cards. I really liked the Gifts Ungiven decks that had been roaming Block Constructed. You were a really cool cool card, and still are till this day. Let’s be honest, you are one of the coolest cards ever made. I was really enthusiastic to play you. 

You could have been a really good choice. Frank Karsten got 2nd place at Worlds with you after the JSS. I wasn’t playing that deck unfortunately. My build, more mirrored to the Block Constructed builds, wasn’t as good. But I can’t imagine I’ve played you correctly a single time that day. Because these days, every time I cast you, I still have the feeling I don’t know what to do with you. That was until the other day. 

I drafted you in my 2nd cost reduction emblem Cube, making you a mere 2 mana. I’m not even going to start to try and explain how overpowered you are at only 2 mana. I drafted you in my OverPowered-2 Cube. The pitch for this Cube is easy: imagine you shuffle the 2 better halves of 2 MTGO Vintage Cubes together and get this awesome overpowered pile of cards. The only thing is, there are so many new and funky infinite combo’s. I drafted (among others) an infinite mana combo. And when I had infinite mana I casted you, and in true fashion, only found 2 cards: Dryad’s Revival and Zoanthrope. Because when only finding 2 cards is enough, one should make a little homage to the Gifts master himself. 

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

When doing research for my explainer video about the design process of my Alles-2 Cube I found out that Anthony, whom I stole the cost reduction emblem from, himself was inspired by the Turbo drafts on Magic Arena. In the Magic Arena Turbo drafts players start with an emblem that makes all spells cost 5 generic mana less. I started looking for old videos about these Magic Arena Turbo drafts and I found some about Ikoria Turbo drafts. You, Sleeper Dart, are printed in Ikoria. 

If you check the 17 lands data on regular Ikoria limited you weren’t even all that bad, Sleeper Dart. But if you check the old Ikoria Turbo drafts you were quite good. Those games were like a Formula 1 race and keeping one of your opponents creatures tapped for a turn, for free, was extremely relevant. It is cool to see that both in regular limited and that extreme -5 turbo format, you had your place. 

I already found you before I did all this research. For me just the concept of a -2 emblem for all spells, activated and triggered abilities was enough to just start doing an insane amount of Scryfall searches. I love all these free artifacts in my Alles-2 Cube because they create such unique gameplay with cards like Drafna, Founder of Lat-Nam, Acolyte Hybrid and Efficient Construction. Or just any card that triggers on non-creature spells (like prowess). I found a whole bunch of these now free trinkets that draw a card like you, and Alchemist Vial and Elsewhere Flask. And you all have these little marginal effects that I see players forget about all the time. But to me it’s these marginal effects that make you trinkets as awesome as you are. Everytime I use your ability it feels like unlocking a hidden little power. It’s so much fun. 

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

I still don’t know how I did it. How I convinced a whole bunch of people to actually play this weird format I created and to actually play a tournament at one of my old Local Game Stores: Magic United in Rotterdam. I used to be a real brewer: I loved to build weird decks, discover new cards, and try out different strategies. I wanted to create a real brewers paradise, so in those times before EDH hit the Netherlands, before Cube found it’s way to my heart, before all of that, I convinced a bunch of people to try out “Build your own Block on a budget”. 

The rules were as follows: Choose a first, second and third set from different blocks. Then build a deck costing a maximum of 50 euros based on the prices on Magic United their website (there was no CardMarket back then, for us in the Netherlands Magic United was one of the prime websites to order our cards and check prices). I was very enthusiastic about this format and I got my friend and owner of Magic United also enthusiastic. So enthusiastic that he even agreed to organise a tournament in this format together with me. 

I remember I built 2 decks. I built a Cloud of Faeries Storm deck and an UG Opposition deck. Because EDH was not hyped back then, there weren’t as many sets, everything still came in blocks, these rules worked. In the UG Opposition deck I needed mana elves and one of my mana elves of choice was you, Heart Warden. You are in the same set as Opposition, so you were an easy include. 

My friend Timo also wanted to play the tournament but being the real spike he was, he just told me he wanted to borrow one of my decks because I probably spend way to much time designing decks (which I obviously did). He really liked the looks of your Opposition deck so I ran the Storm combo deck. We were both having a blast with these decks, and everyone was having a blast with their nice brews in this brewers paradise. Timo and I met in the finals, a great compliment for the decks I’ve built. I did beat Timo with the help of Frantic Search to be able to untap my lands in my upkeep so that I could combo off. But 20 years later I can’t really remember much of my Storm deck and I do remember playing this janky 2 drop common from Urza’s Destiny in the Opposition deck. That day I fell in love with you. 

On the 3rd of January 2024 I fell in love with you again for the second time. That is the moment I added you to my Alles-2 Cube. You are so amazing in that Cube, a perfect Llanowar Elf. ‘Bolt the Bird’ doesn’t really work with you in this Cube, because it’s free to activate your draw ability. And in the late game when you are no longer needed for the mana, you sacrifice yourself in search for some much needed action. My dear friend Frank committed the other day when he saw you in the draft, ‘oh I really love Heart Warden in this Cube’. I couldn’t agree more. 

With love, 

Hanjo