Danny’s Hate Letters

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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