<3
In March of 2025 a dream of mine came true: I organised a Cube Invitational weekend. 16 talented players from the Netherlands (well 15 actually but we’ve adopted our dear Belgium friend Mark, he is one of us) together in a house for the whole weekend playing cube. Sometimes battling instead of playing, but that is the friendly competitive vibe I’m after. I like to surround myself with players who are better than me, who keep me on the edge of my seat at all times, who I can learn so much from. I don’t like competitive in the sense that people do everything to win, I don’t like all the grey areas that people step into. We are still at the end of a day a group of (aspiring) friends that play a game. But not just any game. The game of Magic the Gathering is so beautiful, especially in the form of Cube, that it deserves to be played at its fullest. At maximum potential.
I love solving puzzles. I like escape rooms, I enjoy sudoku’s, and I love Magic the Gathering. Magic offers us so many puzzles each and every game. It starts ‘should I keep this hand’ and then every decision you make can change the outcome of a game. Just something so seemingly unimportant as sequencing your landdrops can be an extremely difficult puzzle on its own, and I love it. I love it so much that I think Magic deserves it that players do everything in their capabilities to solve these puzzles the best they can. They owe it to how freaking great this game is.
On the evening of 29’th of March 2025 I sat down for my third draft of that day. I had a good record thus far, I was on track to make the top 8. Which in a field of these talented players is a feat on its own. The Cube I was drafting was my dear friend Frank his Boomer Cube. An old border only cube capturing the premodern feel of Magic. I got the opportunity to draft mono red aggro in this draft, and it’s one of the best archetypes in the cube, so I did just that. And one of the best pieces for mono red aggro in a premodern style of magic, is you Ankh of Mishra. People absolutely hate you, and they did that day. You tax people for doing that which is the most basic part of Magic: playing lands. People don’t like it when you touch their lands. Heck, a lot of Commander play groups have the unwritten rule that you don’t play land destruction. But that is not what friendly competitive is about. No. You, Ankh of Mishra, gave my opponents so much more beautiful puzzles to solve. The seemingly unimportant puzzle of how to sequence your lands. And I love you for it.
With love,
Hanjo
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