Danny’s Hate Letters

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Stop, let’s not start with ‘dear’. Salty boi Wasteland, you suck. Just FYI, you are never fun. People tell me, you are healthy for formats. Healthy? Nobody brings broccoli to a party and expects applause. You are the girl in the front of the class, screaming, ‘Teacher you forgot to give us homework!’

As you know, I loooove Premodern. I love the art, I love the games, I love the nostalgia and meeting with slightly older folks just like myself to have a great time with interactive gameplay. A magical place where people (should) cast Spiritmonger, Mirari’s Wake or Goblin Trenches. Instead we are often stuck with Nimble Mongoose or Goblin Lackey, followed up by you, you piece of trash.

Yes, you are garbage. You make funky decks into unplayable piles. Mana was bad back in the day, like really really bad. You’re like a Strip Mine with a fake moustache and glasses. Let’s say I wanted to play a 3-4-5 color Sliver deck, then my mana base will contain 4 basics, 20 non-basics and a lot of prayer drawing them in the right order. Buddy, I’m already playing Slivers, let me lose with dignity will ya. But it’s not only slivers, it’s every deck with more than 2 colors, every single one of them. Premodern has no Tron deck, no 3-4-5 color deck (Hermit Druid combo that wins on t3 does not count). You are meant to punish greed, however in my favourite format you punish any 2 color deck into non games. Decks like UG Madness, already want to run you, because yay, free non-games if we hit the right ones! Madness! 

But but! Let’s also talk about other formats like Vintage, Legacy, or even Cube. A common gameplay will be: People crack a fetchland, stare at the battlefield for twelve minutes like they’re solving climate change, find the dual they needed and pass the turn. Untap, you show up and immediately develop the facial expression of a chess grandmaster sacrificing a rook. My brother, you destroyed a Volcanic Island. You didn’t outplay Kasparov. But good for you, guess someone is not playing magic today. Peak gameplay, much wow, slowclap. Cubes with wasteland are trash, I said it, Hanjo will probably agree.

I have a dream.

I have a dream, that one day, Sliver Queen will leave the binder and fulfill her Premodern destiny and be cast before turn 12.

I have a dream, that one day, brewers will no longer have to fear this dusty uncommon from Tempest.

I have a dream, that one day, you will be replaced in every deck by a second Rishadan Port because at least that card has the decency to make eye contact before ruining my evening.

I have a dream, that one day, people will stop calling land destruction “interaction” with a straight face.

And when that glorious day comes…

I will rise! 

I will untap!

I will draw!

I will tap my non-basics, I will get all 5 colors into my mana pool. I will swim in it, I will prevail.

Yours as ‘someone who just kept a perfectly reasonable two-land hand’,

Danny

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I hope this letter finds you in a graveyard. There are cards that destroy you. There are cards that counter a spell. There are cards that create more magic cards and more interaction. And there is you.

You’re actually not even a magic card, you are a hostage situation that keeps on repeating. It’s groundhog day, but worse. For the younger kids out there, this was the most infuriating thing that could happen to you. End of turn, Capsize with buyback target your land. My turn? Nobody has ever resolved you, Capsize with buyback, and made people happy. Well, maybe the person casting you. Because this is probably how the game will look like every turn after this one. 

Buyback is one of those mechanics that sounds cute until you realize it was designed by someone who looked at a bounce spell and thought:

“What if this never ended?”

“What if every permanent became a temporary suggestion?”

“What if board presence was just a rumor?”

“What if fun had summoning sickness and then got bounced before combat?”

“Is this real life? Or is this fantasy? Freddy, come in here!”

That’s you, Capsize. Repeat until the opponent starts chatgpt-ing ‘how to get away with murder’. 

The smug part, that’s the real kicker. You’re not excited, but you just keep coming back, and back, and back. The smug face is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Here’s a threat, not today my friend, Capsize with buyback to the rescue. It’s also that you don’t end games, you just show hatred extensively. Are we still playing? You feel like a hamster? Really? Tell me more.

I never conceded soon enough. And when I did it was not because I lost, it’s because I wanted to get out. This was my cry for help. My creatures were stuck in a merry-go-round where they showed up, ready to disappear again.

At some point you realize, we are not even playing anymore. We are just doing a routine, it’s not drama anymore. You don’t do drama, you like repetition. Capsize, you are the magic card that explains our Dutch happy hardcore music the most. For our Dutch readers, you are the ‘Hardcore will never dieeees’ guy screaming on top of his lungs at 04:00 AM putting his nike air max to the endurance test.

Yours in our eternal dance,

Yours in our eternal dance,

Yours in our eternal dance,

Danny

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You are straight-up boring. Yes I said it, this combo aficionado disapproves of you. Channel-Fireball is one of the Oldschool combos and used to be the go to MTG-site for all great content, yet I just called you boring. Was there ever a Channel game that was remotely interesting? Either you pop up on turn 1-2-3 and bring a giant Eldrazi or X-spell, or you pop up on turn 5+ and you are like an elderly guy in Bulgaria’s ‘Sunny Beach’ looking for an interesting conversation about energy consumption, absolutely pointless.

Every time I look at cube decklists and see your great name, but awful effect, I think to myself, yes this cube is trash. Magic is all about the interaction and the gathering. There has never been a good story about you. I’m sure however that you have many badbeat stories on your rap sheet of getting Emrakuled on turn 2 or Pest Infestationed for X, where X is the number of how many days in the week you are stupid, obnoxious and boring.

What a delightfully balanced, well-thought-out, totally-not-game-breaking masterpiece you are. Your design is so elegant. Pay life, get mana. That’s it. No pesky limitations, no awkward timing restrictions, no sense of shame. Just raw, unfiltered chaos. It’s like someone saw the careful balance of strategy and thought, LEEEROY JENKINS, lets speedrun this game.

Maybe I’m a romantic, I like subtle Magic cards. I like trickery, small intricate combinations of funky cards. I like complexity and I wish all cards were like that. So this is what I ask of you: get banned, disappear from cubes, stop being in my matches. Thanks, but no thanks, useless piece of cardboard.

Yours in life-drained frustration,

Danny

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You suck. Your name speaks for itself. It’s quite clear that your name will never be associated with a joyful interaction, yet you somehow manage to outperform even that low bar. Casting you will always result in misery, often on both sides of the table. Your Pit is bottomless, the style is endless, and the pit is hopeless. Hopeless is the word: you capitalize on chaos, making games feel exactly like the seashells on the beach when walking back from the ocean: grindy, annoying, and painful.

In what way have you ever created a smile? Is this a joke to you? Topdeck wars galore? You really like to shrink the game so much that both players have to hope to draw lands, then spells, because drawn in the wrong order, neither will work. Are you a casino employee in disguise? You’re like the Bermuda Triangle of Magic: cards go in, never to be seen again, and everyone just stares awkwardly, wondering where the fun disappeared to.

Let’s not forget the poor soul who casts you, hoping to disrupt their opponent, only to realize they’ve just signed up for the same soul-crushing fate. Mr. Pit, you are the destroyer of planning, the devil of momentum, the herald of hopelessness. Please throw yourself into your own pit. Thanks.

Yours in bottomless frustration,

Danny

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You are trash. You define bad gameplay. I despise you, I loathe you, you don’t deserve any praise, yet you bring fear in every game you are played. I want to shove you into a volcano, with the explanation you were wearing The One Ring, but we all know it was you who needed to melt.

Goblins are the most fun, interesting race to have ever been played within Magic. It’s chaos, they are fun, they are direct, and all bring very interesting games. All have a good place in aggro or midrange decks. All popping at appropriate times in the game, ready to rumble and make a fun, interactive game. Except for you, boring, ultimate enabler of non-games. You drop like an uninvited guest at a wedding, crash the place, and leave everyone guessing if you were the brother, cousin or nephew of the bride, or the groom.

I’ve built so many fun, interactive, interesting pre-modern decks, only to look at your green skin, hating the fact I didn’t draw my Swords to Plowshares or why my Smother costs so much mana. I even tried to block with my Birds of Paradise, only to get set into the Stone Age with your buddy Mogg Fanatic or Gempalm Incinerator. You’re basically the Magic equivalent of stepping on a LEGO in the middle of the night, small but excruciatingly painful.

You’re not just a Magic card. You’re a tiny red nightmare, you’re a Trojan Horse but ugly, you’re the sigh in my disappointed face trying to have a feeling of mental game. My actions didn’t matter, yes, I lost, yes, I’m salty, thanks for nothing Goblin Lackey. No, I don’t want to tell you what I brewed this match and what my strategy could be. Get banned, get away, thanks.

Yours in smoldering frustration,

Danny

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Oh, Thoughtseize, you tiny harbinger of misery, wrapped in a single black mana. Every time you show up, you remind me that my carefully crafted plans are nothing but fragile dreams, waiting to be ripped apart by your spiteful little fingers. It’s honestly impressive how a one-mana spell can dismantle my hand faster than my morning coffee disappears on a Monday.

I hate your guts. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ve played you plenty myself, usually with great shame, a fierce winning mentality, and often success. Since your debut in Lorwyn, you’ve been a mainstay in Faeries, Lorwyn Block Constructed, and basically every black deck ever since. You’re just too powerful. It’s not just that you see all the tricks; your drawback is essentially non-existent, sometimes even beneficial in Death’s Shadow or Reanimate decks. You get to decide which hole in an opponent’s hand becomes an immense chasm. From turn one onward, you let me plan around this stupid midrange trade-for-trade madness. Synergy is something that’s for lesser cards then yourself.

You sneak into my turn like an overbearing therapist who refuses to respect boundaries, poking around, exposing my secrets, and leaving me vulnerable and exposed. Honestly, if I wanted someone to judge my hand that harshly, I’d ask Hanjo.

Trading a measly Thoughtseize for the best card or the perfect timing is such a crushing way to end a fun game of Magic before it even starts. Deep down, everyone secretly wants the “Thoughtseize bug” , to just redraw the same card that keeps getting discarded over and over. Thanks to you, I’ve learned the true meaning of paranoia. Nothing feels safe anymore, and hatred feels inevitable.

May your existence continue to make Magic players question their life choices and reconsider the very concept of “joyful interaction.”

Yours in eternal frustration,

Danny

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Can someone please explain to me the sheer cosmic mystery that is Chalice of the Void? Like, why on earth was this card ever printed? What twisted design philosophy led to the creation of a card that is simultaneously obnoxious, confusing, and borderline anti-fun? Seriously, what purpose does this card serve, other than to turn what could be a dynamic game into a slow, miserable slog where both players are constantly on edge to play magic cards and second-guessing if they missed a trigger?

Is it fun to print cards that force players into this bizarre mental gymnastics of remembering triggers? Because the trigger window is so awkward it’s practically an invitation for both players to forget it exists and then spend the next five minutes arguing over whether the trigger was missed or not. How many judge calls have been made over this exact issue? How much time has been wasted trying to rewind the game and fix a missed Chalice trigger? And don’t even get me started on the chaos this causes when you realise you only have a few seconds to remember it before it’s too late. 

Is it really the kind of gameplay experience Wizards wants to encourage? Cards that create these weird “gotcha” moments, where winning or losing hinges on whether someone remembered the  Chalice trigger? It’s not clever. It’s not skill-testing. It’s just headache-inducing.

And what about the sheer quality of the actual card? Why do we want a colorless card that hoses aggro decks that rely on cards costing 1? Why, oh why, would anyone think it’s a good idea to print a card that completely shuts down entire decks based solely on the number of cards in their hand or on the casting cost, rather than any meaningful interaction? Just “Stop playing spells of this cost.” Great design. So much interaction. So much fun.

In summary: Chalice of the Void is everything that’s wrong with Magic the Gathering design: convoluted triggers, anti-fun stalemate potential, and a never-ending source of judge calls and player frustration. Please, next time you whip up a new card, maybe leave the Chalice in the past where it belongs.

Yours in relentless frustration and casting cost misery, 

Danny