Mulldrifter (Magic Monday)

Lorwyn

First Printing: Lorwyn (October 2007)

Last Printing: Time Spiral Remastered (March 2021)

    Here's a fun one and a favorite of cube builders everywhere. Mulldrifter is some kind of flying carp from the whimsical fairy-tale plane of Lorwyn. I love that artwork. Eric Fortune manages to depict a creature both elegant and silly. But what really makes Mulldrifter such a standout is the versatility the card presents.

    For five mana you get a 2/2 flying elemental, a creature type with modest synergy potential in some formats, that draws you two cards when it enters the battlefield. An evasive body that replaces itself and draws you an additional card. That's a lot of utility for five mana, especially for a creature card printed at common. Sure, not necessarily a card that you play in most constructed formats, but a great card to pick when playing limited formats like cube draft. The fact that this card was printed at commons means it gets included in a wide-variety of cubes, including my personal favorites, pauper (all commons) and peasant (all commons and uncommons).

    But this is all just a consideration of the card played for its full-cost. Lorwyn introduced the Evoke keyword mechanic, which is included on this card. Evoke functions as an alternate casting cost on permanents, with the stipulation that a card cast for its Evoke cost is "sacrificed when it comes into play." So for three mana you can "Evoke" Mulldrifter and draw two cards, but losing the creature in the process. Sure, drawing two cards for three mana is a bit overcosted, but the flexibility this can provide when you aren't hitting your land drops, particularly in limited formats where it's easy to stumble if you don't capitalize on the early turns, makes this is an excellent fail-case.

Llanowar Elves (Magic Monday)

Alpha

First Printing : Alpha (August 1993)

Last Printing: Core Set 2019 (July 2018)

    Arguably one of the most iconic cards in the history of the game, Llanowar Elves has been a staple card since the beginning. Graced by the unsettling illustration of Anson Maddocks, which typifies the unusual bizarro-fantasy stylings of early Magic the Gathering artwork, this simple creature card has managed to stay relevant across nearly thirty years of development.

    The elves of Llanowar reside on the plane of Dominaria. For all intents and purposes, this makes them a sort of vanilla interpretation of the typical fantasy race, which later planes would iterate upon and subvert.¹ They are noted for being fierce warriors and intensely xenophobic, attributes which are perhaps not adequately displayed in this card, but which would come to inform future cards depicting the elves of Llanowar.

    For one green mana you get a 1/1 Elf, the characteristic creature type of green.² More importantly, this creature can be tapped to produce one green mana. If the creature is not answered, it's owner can thus play a 3-CMC card on turn two, a 4-CMC card on turn three, and on and on. It's impossible to oversell the importance of this acceleration, or "ramp" as it's typically called, to many playing styles. Indeed, ramp is one of the strategic attributes that players often look for when incorporating green cards into their deck.

    Incidentally, when I first picked up Magic the Gathering I had a copy of Llanowar Elves. It was included in a green precon deck called "Custom Creatures," which was released during Ninth Edition.³ I recall very intentionally choosing green as my color of choice at the time, and in retrospect it's easy to see why. Green contains many powerful, if costly, creatures, and I would have absolutely been drawn to the artwork of gargantuan monsters and behemoths.

The copy I owned when I was 10.

    I was an entirely unexperienced player at the time, only ever able to play games against older kids at the local library. It's entirely plausible that I would have looked at this card and removed it, preferring to fill my deck with only the biggest baddies available to me. This, of course, would have been a significant error. You have to start off by playing Llanowar Elves if you want to be able to play those big beaters in the long-run.

¹ https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Elf

² https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Magic_slang#Iconic_and_characteristic

³ https://mtg.wtf/deck/9ed/custom-creatures