Dear Butch DeLoria, Tunnel Snake, 

<3

I have a lot of Cubes, 19 to be exact. That means that I also have a lot of curating to do. I can’t keep my Cubes up to date with the new sets, heck I think I even gave up updating my main Cubes with the new sets regularly. The set release schedules have become so insane, the spoilers non-stop, I can’t keep up. My main way of updating Cubes is by organising my own Cube Invitational tournaments. 

I like designing Cubes for the competitive minded players. I like organizing tournaments that I play in myself. And I like to surround myself with players that are better than me, so that I feel uncomfortable, that I am on the edge of my seat the whole game, that I can learn as much as possible. The challenge as a designer, designing Cubes for the people I like to play with, is that these people tend to find any weakness to your design. If I misjudge a (set of) card(s) or a strategy and it’s not in tune with the rest of the Cube, they will find out, they will abuse it and they will complain about it. 

These tournaments are a great place to showcase, play and motivate updating my 19 Cubes. So when I organise a tournament, I start updating the Cubes we are going to play. But yesterday, browsing my Cubes to find my subject for my next love letter I found myself suddenly doing Scryfall searches to update a Cube: my Hanjo Masters #2 Cube. The beautiful thing about not touching a Cube for a couple of years, is that there are so many new gems for that Cube. In my Hanjo Masters #2 there is a Rogue theme, giving the long forgotten Prowl mechanic from Morningtide its retirement home. I was only 19 years old when Morningtide was released so I feel a lot of nostalgia with that mechanic, I really like it. 

I know you already, Butch DeLoria, because you are in my Peasant Cube. I really like you there, you offer a lot of interesting play patterns. But in a Cube with a dedicated Rogue theme you are an absolute beast. You are like the Goblin Piledriver for Rogues. But you are so much more, because of the Prowl mechanic it is very important to have Rogues deal damage to opponents. You have the very elegant evasive mechanic in Menace, and you are even able grant it to other creatures. When seeing you in that Scryfall Search I didn’t just like you anymore, I fell in love with you. I can’t wait to play you in that Cube. All I’ve got to do now is organise another Cube Invitational to do so. 

With love, 

Hanjo