Our letters

<3

Sometimes, just sometimes, Wizards make these cards where I get the idea they made them especially for me. Where they just fit one of my Cubes just a bit too good it’s almost suspicious. You, Skyrider Elf, are one of those cards. 

You fit just a tad too good in my Hanjo Masters #2 Cube. It’s easy to explain:

• You cost blue and green at a base level
• You are an Ally
• You get +1/+1 counters
• You support 5 color decks

I have built 6 Masters Cubes by now. In some of them I’ve put a couple of Tribal themes, usually 2. Once upon a time I tried my hand at a Tribal Cube and I found out what every other person ever found out: Tribal Cubes are boring. They have such a low replayability, they steer the drafters so much. But having 2 tribal themes in a Masters Cube works out great. Some drafters really focus on trying to get their Tribal theme to work, but the challenge as a designer is to keep them flexible. That a lot of the tribal cards are also good in other decks so they can read the draft and pivot. Because if too many people are trying to draft the same Tribal deck, they all end up with a train wreck. But you also don’t want all the Tribal cards to be free pickups for the person drafting them. 

And in my Hanjo Masters #2 I support an 5 color Ally theme. It really rewards the drafters that get there, because if you alone get to pick up all the Ally bangers, you get an insanely strong deck. But quite some Ally creatures actually work great in other themes as well, and you do in 2 others. You support the +1/+1 counter theme and you are also a great pickup for the 5 color landfall/domain deck. You fit so perfectly in this Cube that I think Wizards is spying on me.

With love, 

Hanjo 

<3

You are such a fun card, a real part of an engine. There are 2 copies of you in my Hanjo Masters #2. A Cube where there are 3 of every common, 2 of every uncommon and 1 of every rare. Trying to mimic the draft and gameplay of the Modern Masters sets. The Cube is really synergy based, supporting all 10 color combinations. But sometimes with these Cubes it’s hard to connect every color combination to a certain theme, and in this Cube with black and green, that was the case. Green has a very strong +1/+1 counter theme together with white and blue. But because of you I give drafters the choice to go for a black splash, because combining you with +1/+1 counter cards makes for such a strong engine. 

And that is what is fun about you, combining you with +1/+1 counter cards like Young Wolf, Abzan Falconer or Cloudfin Raptor. Building an engine, like actually building one. Because that is something Commander has given Magic that I don’t like. Commander has tempted Magic designers to build cards that are complete engines on their own, they don’t need any help. Take Ka-Zar of the Savage Land for example, getting extra lands and getting a way to benefit from those extra lands. You don’t have to build that engine, Ka-Zar is an engine. As much as I like playing with engines, I like building them more. 

Imagine this. You are drafting my Hanjo Masters #2 Cube. The first booster went well, you’ve picked up a whole bunch of sweet green and white +1/+1 cards like Dromoka, the Eternal, Kami of Whispered Hopes and Experiment One. A solid start to your draft. You open up the second booster and see you, Korozda Gorgon. Your heart jumps, because you can imagine completely demolishing the opponent in the late game with the engine you offer. Deciding to splash black, because you are worth it. 

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

I have a Grixis Cube. And what I try to do with this Cube is to find cards, usually creatures, that fly under the radar. What I mean with this, is that I feel like there are a whole lot of cards that are very strong or potent, but just below your normal ‘power maxing’. Because that is still the main way Cubes are being built: choose a limitation and power max it. 

That was how an earlier version of this Grixis Cube looked like, Legacy power maxed. And it was boring. Everyone knew these cards, only the whole ‘it’s a Grixis only Cube!’ changes the context. That wasn’t enough for my design goals, I wanted more. So I slowly have been changing a lot of the more generic staples in favour of the ‘just below the power max bar’ cards. 

I was looking at Consecrated Sphinx and I was thinking, this is the type of power maxed card I don’t want anymore. When you look at the statistics on CubeCobra, Consecrated Sphinx is being played in 17948 Cubes. I think that is a lot. It’s fallen out of favour for the MTGO Vintage Cube, but it still has more played Cubes than Kappa Cannoneer has for example. So I wanted to cut the Consecrated Sphinx from my Grixis Cube and replace it with another blue 6 drop. Of course I turned to Scryfall. 

And my heart jumped when I saw you, All-Seeing Arbiter. You are perfect. You draw cards every turn, you even control the board with your minus ability. Plus, the nice added bonus, I had the feeling you are flying under the radar. CubeCobra swiftly confirmed my suspicion: only 1960 Cubes play you currently. Perfect. Make that 1961.

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

The past weeks I’ve been very busy making a paper Cube draft video with my Gimmicky Cube. When making such a video you have to watch the same match multiple times. First to edit the match, then to do commentary, then to edit the commentary and finally when doing the final check. I drafted this amazing blue and white proliferate deck featuring you, Aven Mimeomancer. 

I got to watch you win me 2 games 5 times. Once playing those matches, four times during the making of the video. And the beautiful thing is, I can watch you win me those matches in such amazing fashion for the rest of my life, thanks to that video. Because those lines of play were really amazing. 

You turn creatures into 3/1 flyers. The really cool synergy in this Cube, and my deck, is with pingers. Cards like Serrated Arrows, Monoskellion and Contagion Clasp are really cool with you, so you match up perfectly in the proliferate theme. I had all 3 of those cards in my deck. In the first game I was really caught up about the Sheoldred, Whispering One my opponent had just cast. Because I had 3 proliferate cards, Serrated Arrows and you, Aven Mimeomancer, in play. I could actually try to just kill the Sheoldred by end of turn giving it a -1/-1 counter with Serrated Arrows, then activating my Contagion Clasp. Then in my turn I could give it a third counter with Serrated Arrows, then activating the Contagion Clasp and connecting with both Guildpact Informant and Grateful Apparition. Or I could just give it one -1/-1 counter with my Serrated Arrows and give it a feather counter with you. 

What took me a while to realise, is that my opponent was at 6 life. I could just also give one of my other creatures a feather counter and attack my opponent for 6 damage through the air. I was so caught up in all the awesome synergistic things I could do with you, I just completely forgot the other cool stuff you allowed me to do. Win games. 

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

Well I announced I was going to write about you a few letters ago. Because it is so wrong that I don’t have a Cube yet that features you. I used to have a Cube featuring you, I did really like the concept of that Cube. It was a shame I never really got it working. Let me tell you about it. 

My friend Rudy, a well known trader in Europe, is well known for his ‘Rudy Drafts’. You would keep what you draft, but you can’t call these drafts repack drafts. He carefully designs these Rudy Drafts, they are basically Cube drafts. So back in the day he would put a Dual land or two in the draft. Famously he put an Underground See in a pack together with 14 Nix. Because ‘nothing’ translates to ‘niks’ in Dutch which is pronounced the same. The unfortunate thing was, that I was building a Living End deck in that draft, and this booster popped up in the 3rd pack and not in my hands. 

I loved the way he encaptured these very specific strategies in his Rudy Drafts. I remember 3-0’ing a Rudy Draft with a control deck winning with cheating a Progenitus into play with the help of Riptide Shapeshifter. I drafted 4 Brainstorms, including shuffle effects, so I could play around drawing Progenitus easily. But Rudy could also include very funky and specific hate cards against these very specific strategies. It was always a lot of fun to figure out what kind of weird stuff Rudy had been brewing on and to see if you could play the dreams he was having for his drafters. 

So me and my friend Tim tried to capture this feeling in a Cube experience. We would construct a lot of these packages. Each package contained 12 strategy specific cards, 15 more generic cards and 3 hate cards, breaking singleton. We would grab 2 packages for each player, shuffle them up, and draft 3×20 cards. And for every draft we did we constructed a new package or two. The problem we found with this Cube is a problem Rudy found very early on himself. It is not as much fun to play these drafts ourselves. Because we could see in Booster 1 most of the packages that were in the Cube and know what was available in the Cube this time. And since there are a lot of very specific cards for a package, the draft was pretty prescriptive. The re-playability was therefore quite low. 

You, Death Cloud, were one of the packages. No surprise there, I built a Death Cloud Standard deck when I was 15 years old and you were my first FNM 4-0. I also played you to death in Extended. You were my first big love in Magic. The black Upheaval, Wildfire, Balance. I’m glad after all these years I am finally going to have a Cube for you in this Love Letter Cube I am going to be working on the coming 265 days. Can’t wait to draft you! 

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

I’ve played you a lot. A lot. I didn’t play you much in standard, back then I was enjoying Cruel Ultimatum too much. But I did play you in Extended together with Sun Titan and with Restoration Angel in Modern, two of my other favourite white cards. But I played you the most, by far, in Cube. 

The reason I think about you so much is a funny reason. I am a nostalgic person, especially when it comes to Magic. I love the old stories and that is the power of these pieces of cardboard: they spark the memories. I remember building my first Cube, my Peasant Cube, inspired by this Google Spreadsheet my friend Tim sent me. I remember you were the newest card in that Cube when I built it early 2009, you are the reason why I remember when I built the Cube. And since I love to tell stories, I have to remember a lot when I built my first Cube, so I think about you a lot. 

I pick you up higher than I should in Power Cube when I draft it. I do think you are a very solid card and still close enough to Swords to Plowshare. I feel that one mana no restriction removal is still a prime pickup in Power Cube. But I do think my heart jumps just a bit too much when I see you in a pack. Because you are not just a one mana no restriction removal to me, you are a little package of nostalgia always reminding me of playing with Sun Titan in Extended, reminding me of playing with Restoration Angel in Modern, reminding me of my first Cube project that I am still actively curating and playing 17 years later. With you still in it.

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

My first Cube is my Peasant Cube that I’ve built almost 20 years ago. So I’ve got my fair share of reps in with that Cube and I’ve got my fair share of feedback. One of my friends who played it a lot, nicknamed FW, always hated the bouncelands (like Simic Growthchamber) in that Cube. I always loved bouncelands, maybe because of a bit of nostalgia watching my friend Micha-el brewing around them, but also because I love the play patterns they offer. FW on the other hand, thought they were out of tune for that Cube based on their powerlevel. 

This was in a time when, for Peasant, the better one drops were still cards like Jackal Pup. Magic was a lot clunkier back then, especially Peasant. FW did teach me 2 valuable lessons. First: feedback on a Cube isn’t personal. He just didn’t like the bouncelands in the Cube, he was not saying I was a bad Cube designer. Second: Bouncelands could be an actual problem in that environment. So I tried to balance them a bit, I added cards like Molten Rain and Tectonic Edge to try to balance them. 

When building my Cube Mich-Masters, an ode to all the amazing decks my friend Micha-el used to make, I worried about balancing having 30 bouncelands in that Cube. I added cards like Wrecking Ball and Temporal Eddy in that Cube to give players tools to battle their opponents on the bounceland axis. 

Time taught me something else. I was doing a Scryfall search this morning in preparation for this amazing event my friend Mark is organising. His LGS, Outpost Ghent, is turning 20 and he is giving a party and has invited a bunch of my Cubes for this party, including Mich-Masters. So I was iterating the Cube. I was browsing all blue cards with cycling, because there is a strong cycling theme in the Cube, and I stumbled on you Trip Up. And I realised I should cut both Temporal Eddy and Wrecking Ball, because land destruction sucks. In that Cube the 30 bouncelands are the prime source of fixing and my drafters should not be punished for trying to fix their mana. So I’m sorry FW, maybe this Cube isn’t for you, but I’m not going to try to balance these 30 bouncelands in this Cube. I’m going to embrace them fully. And you Trip Up, is going to help me do so because you are the perfect fit for this Cube I didn’t have 12 years ago. 

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

I was 15 years old when you were printed, just a little kid playing the local FNM every week. I remember seeing you and being in love. I was an Arc-Slogger enjoyer in the amazing Big Red deck and it was easy to draw the parallel to you. But there was something else really cool going on with you. You could combine you with this other really cool card that was just printed: Horobi, Death’s Wail. 

The two of you were a real Johnny dream. Having a Terminate at my disposal for each 2 mana I had left, that just sounded awesome. I started brewing with the two of you, and I was very unsuccessful. It sounded more awesome than it actually was, because I could never really find a shell where the two of you could actually shine, but those dreams never left. 

Inset Cube. The two of you are in my Gimmicky Cube and man you, Kumano, are still so awesome. The other night I was playing against you and my opponent also had Onyx Mage in play and the two of you were wrecking havoc on my board. And I just loved to see it, my dreams coming true. Because that is the great thing about Cube, having those kid Johnny dreams having an actual home instead of failing horrible in a competitive envoirement. I tried to maximise the fun Johnny dreams my drafters can have with you, Kumano, because you are such an amazing card. Your friends in this Cube are:  

• Embermaw Hellion
• Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
• Mechanized Warfare
• Gratuitous Violence 
• Basilisk Collar
• Onyx Mage
• Horobi, Death’s Wail

And even though it’s a lot of fun as a Cube designer to see your players live your 15-years old Johnny dreams, next draft I just have to make sure it’s me that is living that dream. Because next time I want to be controlling you, wrecking havoc. It looked way to much fun. 

With love, 

Hanjo

<3

You are in 3 of my Cubes, but I love you for sure the most in my Gimmicky Cube. These days I am very busy editing my 2nd draft video ever, a draft with my Gimmicky Cube. My friend Daan is the featured drafter and he drafted you. I thought he picked you up too early in the draft, you were in a very strong booster for his deck. But he did so anyway and during the games, which I watched multiple times by now because of editing and commentary, you proved why. 

I always loved Basking Rootwalla’s play patterns. Yes of course the 0 Madness cost is what makes the card awesome, but I really always enjoyed that activated ability. It always offers a little puzzle to solve. Do I attack, if he blocks is it worth it to me to spend 2 mana on the ability, what if he then has a trick in response, is he bluffing, am I bluffing. I really love combat tricks as I wrote earlier in my love letter to Thrill the Hunt, and both Basking Rootwalla and you, Festerleech, have a combat trick printed on your card. 

But the reason why I love you so much as I do is that your second ability is also absolutely awesome. Because in my Gimmicky Cube I try to tempt my drafters to explore the Gimmicky synergies and combos Magic has to offer. And Daan, as I have seen multiple times by now, in my match against him, he milled Squee, Goblin Nabob. My heart jumped every time with joy when I saw it happening, even in my own match against him. 

With love, 

Hanjo