Dear Yavimaya Dryad, 

<3

I forgot that I loved you. Talking to reader Joe about his cube made me remember. I commented on his ‘Kamigawa-Time Spiral Museum: Golden Age of Standard’ cube that I missed the good old Scryb Ranger and Spectral Force combination in there. As an example of a list from that time I found this article, describing Naoki Shimizu’s run with Scryb&Force at Worlds 2007. Shimizu explains why he chose you, Yavimaya Dryad, for his deck. Reading made me remember. 

Back in 2007 I played multiple variations of Blue and Green decks in Standard. I built versions with Scryb Ranger and Spectral Force and also versions without. I also built versions with you, because you are a great card. On the face you are just a ramp spell packed in a body. But you are so much more. You are reach to a green deck like it has never seen before. Giving the opponent a Forest, thus making yourself unblockable to get in for the last points of damage is such a fun little quirk about you. And I love that about you. 

At the same time that I was talking to Joe about this, I was also updating my Duplicate Sealed Cube for my upcoming Cube Invitational. I wanted to add Wood Elves to that cube, but to my surprise, getting 8 copy’s wasn’t actually all that cheap and I didn’t have any copies laying around. Then I checked how many copies I still had of you and to my surprise I had more than enough. So now I am happy to say that I have not forgotten about you and will never forget again, because after all these years you’ve finally made it into one of my cubes. 

With love

Hanjo