On this website Hanjo writes a love letter for a Magic the Gathering card every day. Danny writes hate letters for a Magic the Gathering card every now and again. You can read about our feelings here.
There isn’t really anything like you in Magic. That is in the context of my cost reduction emblem Cube: Alles-2. A 2 mana draw 2 at instant speed. So clean, so strong, so efficient. Ancestral Recall is one of the most broken cards in Magic. Brainstorm and Ponder are often credited with drawing 1,5 cards. Nights Whisper comes close, but sorcery, life loss and black mana are a lot of downsides. But as simple, clean, powerful, yet fair as you, Magic hasn’t seen yet. Until now.
I love playing you in that Cube. I love playing these clean, forgotten, utterly useless draft chaff of cards and giving them a new powerful purpose. I think this is just going to be a short letter for today. You do not kill people, you do not have any history, you don’t have interesting play patterns. There isn’t much story to you, yet. You just do what you do. But what you do, you do so well when you do it at 2 mana. You are an Inspiration in your new context.
I am absolutely in love with Rhox Veteran. I love how it dominates combat. I put it in my Duplicate Sealed Cube thinking it would be fine there. After the first time I played Rhox Veteran in that Cube (it was in the first ever pool) I learned how crazy strong he is. After that I swiftly added Territorial Hammerskull to that Cube aswel. I fell in love with these on-attack-tappers. Not that long ago I also fell in love with you.
I was so happy when I found you for my Alles-2 Cube, where every player gets a cost reduction emblem. Terrirorial Hammerskull would have been to good in that Cube. I have this guideline that the maximum power and toughness for a one mana creature in that Cube is a 2/2. Because that is the thing, because of the emblem you are a one mana creature. And I wanted to test my hypothesis that a one mana 2/2 on-attack-tappert would be amazing this Cube.
I’ve tested the hypothesis. And let me tell you: you are amazing even in that Cube. You dominate combat. It’s so amazing for me that a random draft chaf common is such a strong and fun card to play in such a high power level Cube. As both a designer and a player it’s such a cool experience.
My dear friend Frank and I love analysing Magic. When we prepare for a Rotisserie draft at one of my Cube invitationals we do actually like to talk it through with each other because you can really do a deep dive. Making a top X list of choices, writing pick orders for each of those choices, making lists of important cards for certain strategies. We love it. We also love making top 50 picks lists for our Cubes.
At first we both wouldn’t have put you, Phyrexian Vault, as a top 50 card for my Alles-2 Cube. But all of that changed after a couple of drafts with this Cube. Normally you are quite an inefficient card, having to pay 2 mana for each activation, and don’t get me started about your 3 mana casting cost. But with the cost reduction emblem from my Alles-2 Cube you are a mere one mana and your activation is free. You get so much stronger in this new context. You are the best card in any sacrifice deck, you are the reason to jump into that archetype and you are easily a top 50 card.
Combining you with Reassembling Skeleton or Clay Revenant creates a very strong card drawing engine (and I do love me some engine building). And you can build on that engine with cards like Voldaren Bloodcaster, Scavenger Drake or Savra, Queen of the Golgari. But what I love most is what Frank and I realised later, after a couple of drafts. You are also very strong outside of the sacrifice theme. Combining you with token generators like Propagator Drone also creates a very strong engine. Or even as a sideboard card against very removal heavy control decks you can totally dominate certain matchups. That is why you are a top 50 card for us in this Cube, because you are more than just a cornerstone for an archetype. You are a cornerstone of the whole Cube.
In your current form you are condemnd to draft chaff. To cards people will never look at again. Because you are to inefficient. A 2 mana 1/1 prowess is just not good enough. If Monastery Swiftspear, Elusive Otter and Soul-Scar Mage have thaught us anything it is that a small guy with prowess has to be one mana. Even with all your extra fluff with flashback, +1/+1 counter, triggering prowess, a 2 mana 1/1 prowess just isn’t going to cut it.
I play you in my Alles-2 Cube, where each player starts with a cost reduction Emblem. Now you do become a one mana 1/1 prowess, so we’ve got your baseline covered. But now your flashback isn’t 4 mana anymore, no it’s only 2 mana. So you are now one card that covers a players turn 1 and turn 2 curve, creating 2 very potent threats. You are the perfect turn one play for the very powerful prowess deck in this Cube.
Because it isn’t just your context change that matters for your power. Yes, getting the reduction both on your regular mana cost and you flashback cost is amazing, both in terms of fun and strength. But in this Cube there is quite a high density of cheap spells. In this Cube a Prismatic Vista isn’t just a land, no, Traveler’s Amulet also triggers prowess. There is a whole suite of these type of fetches. Combined with all the now free trinkety artifacts like Ichor Wellspring, they create very potent prowess decks and you are the corner stone of those decks. The reason this Cube makes my heart jump so much is that forgotten cards, draft chaff, get a new life as corner stones of some really cool draft decks that are so much fun to play. I love it and I love you.
When building my Alles-2 Cube, where each player starts with a cost reduction Emblem, I was looking for inspiration in the history of Legacy Cube. Since I didn’t want to maximise the potential power this emblem can offer, I was looking for guidance on how to asses cards for this environment. I choose Legacy Cube as an inspiration because I thought it’s hard to stay at a low power level but I did want non-power type gameplay.
Goblin Guide has always been a posterboy of red aggro to me. I know that a card like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer completely outshines my dear old friend, but I’ve first picked a whole lot more Gobin Guide’s in my life. So I know what Goblin Guide has to offer me. In my search for red aggressive one drops I stumbled on you, Red Herring. I immediately fell in love with you.
You are a one mana 2/2 with haste, already great base stats. You can be sacrificed for free to draw a card, which is perfect in red aggro decks because you can dig for those last points of damage in the form of burnspells. I’ve had so much fun combining you with Chainer, Nightmare Adept, I kinda like it that there is still a little downside to you, that you have to attack each turn. It fits perfect with your free ‘draw a card’ ability, and it fits perfect in red aggro because you always want to attack anyways. But what I love most about you is that you are an artifact.
There is a big artifact theme in this Cube. Combining you with a card like Drafna, Founder of Lat-Nam or Emry, Lurker of the Loch creates such fun little engines. I love it that it isn’t just red aggro wanting you, because that has always been the downside with Goblin Guide from a designers perspective. The red aggro drafter always got him for free. The red aggro drafter here doesn’t always get you for free, because the Jeskai Artifact drafter wants you just as bad. I love that a draft chaf common is such a corner stone of this Cube and that you play amazing in it.
Ever since you were printed in 2010 I have always found you an interesting little card. It’s clear what should be done with you: build an engine. And I love me some engine building. The thing is, there are so many more efficient parts for that engine that fulfill the same role you do, for example: Bloodghast, Forsaken Miner, Nether Traitor, Cult Conscript, or Scrapheap Scrounge. They are all just so much more efficient in some way or another.
Until now that is. Because reducing both your casting cost and your activated ability cost to a single black mana is the fix you need to become the prime building block for any sacrifice engine. I play you in my ‘Alles-2 Cube‘, where each player starts with a cost reduction emblem, and you are insane in that Cube. Combining you with Lampad of Death’s Vigil, Legion Vanguard or Phyrexian Vault (all with now free abilities thanks to the emblem) makes for such a strong engine and I love playing those engines.
It makes me happy that after all this time, because I have been dreaming about building engines with you since 2010, I finally found a home where you are perfectly intune for my design goals. And you are perfect for all the engines I want to build with you in that Cube.
I play you in my Alles-2 Cube. In this Cube every player starts with an emblem: Each of your spells, activated and triggered abilities cost 2 generic mana less. This emblem reads wonderfully with you, because spells keep their original mana value. So casting a card with mana value 6, only costs 4, which makes it very easy to trigger you.
The most played Cube, especially if you look at the best players the game has ever seen playing it, is your classic Power Cube. I think there are 2 authorities on the subject of how to draft a Power Cube: Luis Scott-Vargas and Caleb Gannon. And both couldn’t be further apart in strategy and card evaluation. Both create a lot of Power Cube content and have made top 50 lists. Personally I think the truth is some in between both of them. LSV doesn’t like green in Power Cube, Caleb loves it. He even ranks Ancestral Recall in the same category as the Birds of Paradise type of cards. I strongly disagree with this, but I do think there is a lot of truth that the good mana Elves are very strong when all your 3 and 4 mana cards are very strong.
And in a Cube where all your 3 and 4 mana cards are actually 5 and 6 mana cards, a mana Elf is, in my experience, even more potent. Especially when it starts drawing you cards. In this Cube you are THE mana Elf, Gilanra, and in this Cube you are so unique and amazing.
You were quite a late addition to my Alles-2 Cube (I’ve made a video about this Cube explaining its unique concept), you’ve been added on the 15th of April 2025 with the beginning of this Cube dating back to early 2024. You are such a fun and banger card in this Cube with your new context: costing only 3 mana.
I was searching for an additional removal for black. Because there are so many potent creatures in this Cube removal is at a premium. I didn’t want 1 mana removal to be (semi) hard removal like Dark Banishing. I reserved that for the 2 slot with cards like Bake into a Pie and Oblivion Strike. At three mana the Wrath of God type effects already take shape with cards like Nightmare Unmaking. But I wanted a removal with a little splash, with some extra sauce. I really like the little additions like the scry 1 on Reaver Ambush, or the Menace counter from Blood Curdle adding this little extra layer of complexity to the game. It is a difficult space to design in.
Especially since I’m not power maxing here. I’m evaluating each card based on my gold standard: Author of Shadows. The power level should always feel intune with that card being 3 mana. I was turning through the potential 1 and 2 mana options but nothing really made my heart jump. Then I decided to also do a 3 mana search, because why not. And my heart did jump when I saw you. But it jumped a bit too much, I got scared. Is an essentially free removal not too much in this Cube? The tempo swing is really insane. Maybe you were not intune with this Cube.
Sometimes I have to get over that hump of just testing a card out. I don’t want my drafters to have a feel bad experience of everyone loosing to a card that is not intune with the Cube, that just feels unfair. Luckily I did just buy a copy of you and tested you out. Because you are so amazing in this Cube, really strong, but not too strong and really intune with the sauce design goals I have. Because man you are a lot of sauce for a simple removal spell.
Fetchlands are crazy high pickups in high power level Cubes like the MTGO Vintage Cube. Luis Scott-Vargas always has them in his top 50 list for Vintage Cube. And rightfully so, because together with Duals, Shocks, Triomes and Surveil lands they are crazy good. And yet you, Furnace Host Charger, are better.
You are better in the context of my ‘Alles-2 Cube’, where all players start with the following Emblem: ‘all spells, activated and triggered abilities cost 2 generic mana less’. In this new context you basically become a fetchland, for only Mountains that is. But you are so much more than just a fetchland, you are a modal card now. And modal cards are always crazy strong, and you are one of the strongest versions of it.
If you look at Fire//Ice, the most classic and one of the strongest modal cards ever made, both modes cost 2 mana. What is very strong about Fire//Ice is that especially the base level, Fire, is on its own already a strong Magic card. Which makes the card as strong as it is. Your base level, Furnace Host Charger, is a fetchland for mountains. Which is crazy strong. But your other mode is a 4-mana, 5/5 haste creature, is also very strong. But what makes you so much better than Fire//Ice is that your modes are very far apart in the moments you want them in the game. You are good on turn 1, and you are good in the late game. I think not just having the choice of what mode to play, but also choosing what part of the game needs you the most is such a fun puzzle to solve. Plus having modal lands that also double as a mid to late game banger gives so much texture to the game. I absolutely love you in my Alles-2 Cube.
Yesterday I wrote about Traveler’s Amulet in my Alles-2 Cube (my reduction emblem Cube). I forgot to mention one of my favourite cards to combine Traveler’s Amulet with (on purpose), and that is you. Having a 3/2 flyer that fetches up a basic land (essentially, but we know the Traveler’s Amulet is so much more than that) is already really cool. But also you offer so much more.
You have the potential to be a toolbox in a Cube. There is a reason why Cube designers and players love narrow tutors (LuckyPaperRadio made a very good episode about this). Drafting a little toolbox around a narrow tutor is such a fun experience. It adds this layer of complexity to your draft, and you get rewarded with these very fun (and complex) play patterns during the games. Which I love both as a designer and player.
You can (essentially) fetch up a basic land. But you can also draw a card with something like Ichor Wellspring. You can draw a card and make a lethal attacker unblockable with Sleeper Dart. You can control a board state with a card like Siren Song Lyre. You are a removal spell with Pyrite Spellbomb. You straight up make a mana with Springleaf Drum. But the best thing you do, in my experience, is trigger Fae Offering all by yourself. I did this at my last Cube Invitational against my friend, and eventual winner of that Invitational, Tristan. And the best thing was, I did it each and every turn with the help of First Responder. It was so much fun, I loved it.
