Welcome to the 2nd part of “Drafting History”. We have assembled an exceedingly rare museum of signed Magic cards from the personal collections of some of the most iconic players, game designers and Magic personalities from the last 30 years. Most of these cards are coming directly from Pro Tour winning decks, famous top decks or other exciting moments in Magic history. 

You can read about the first 12 cards in Part 1.

Raphael Levy - Isamaru Hound of Konda

Raph Levy holds one of the craziest records in Magic history.

Between the 1998 World Championship in Seattle and Pro Tour Hour of Devastation in Kyoto 2017, Levy played 94 consecutive Pro Tours. NINETY-FOUR. The only reason why he didn’t attend PT Ixalan, which was next on the list, is because his son was born two days before the Pro Tour started, which made him prioritize staying at home with his wife and their newborn son over continuing the streak. 

One could argue that his Hall of Fame induction in 2006 would do the heavy lifting here, considering it came with free Pro Tour invites for life, but Raph has actually finished high enough in the Pro Player Club every single season during this streak to never need to use his HoF invite at all.

With 4 Pro Tours per season, it would take you more than 23 years to break Levy’s record. Given how hard it is to qualify and that the Hall of Fame only awards 1 qualification per season these days, I am fairly confident Raph’s record will never be broken. 

Levy is the only person who has played over 100 Pro Tours and he is one of the only 13 players with over half a million dollars in prize money. 

Raph’s card in the Vegas Cube is his signed copy of Isamaru, Hound of Konda, which was one of the key cards in the Zoo deck he used to win 2 Extended GPs with on back to back weekends in Dallas and Singapore in 2007. 

Ben Stark - Stoneforge Mystic

Ben Stark is widely regarded as one of the best Limited players of all time. 

Ben’s breakout year was the 2003-2004 season where he made the top8 of back-to-back Pro Tours. He took a break from the game after that and returned in 2009, fighting his way back to the PT through the PTQ and GP circuits. It only took Ben two years to get back to the top, winning Pro Tour Paris in 2011. 

In 2013, Ben was inducted in the Hall of Fame. He is one of the most successful GP players of all time with 25 top8 appearances. 

Ben’s card in the Vegas Cube is yet another piece of history, a signed copy of Stoneforge Mystic from his personal collection that was in his PT Paris 2011 winning deck. 

Guillaume Wafo-Tapa - Cryptic Command

Guillaume is one of the best control players in Magic history. 

Wafo’s approach to deck building was typically to take a control list, cut 4 removal spells and add 4 card draw spells like Careful Consideration, Esper Charm, and Think Twice. And it would always work out. One thing was for sure, he would never miss a land drop and he would never lose a control mirror. 

At some point, Wotc printed Cryptic Command and Wafo decided he was going to play with the card at every possibility. I don’t think I can remember a single tournament where Cryptic was legal in the format where Wafo didn’t register the full 4 copies of it. And he had the results to back it up. 

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that for as long as Cryptic Command was legal in Standard, Wafo was the best player in the world. 

Wafo’s 5 Pro Tour top8s, highlighted by a win in Yokohama 2007 earned him a Hall of Fame induction in 2014. 

It is only fitting that Guillaume’s card in the Vegas Cube is his signed copy of Cryptic Command from his personal collection that has probably countered more spells at competitive events than any other Cryptic in history. 

Frank Karsten - Mox Opal

Frank is one of the most analytical players in Magic history, putting his PhD in cooperative game theory and stochastic operations research to great use when it comes to deck selection, analyzing metagames, expected win rates and individual card choices. 

Frank has written some of the most bookmarked strategic and analytical articles ever like How many sources of each color do you need to consistently cast your spellsor How many lands you should be running in your deck. This type of reference material has been helping Magic players build and tweak their decks for over a decade. 

Frank was inducted in the Magic Hall of Fame in 2009. He is also the first Disney Lorcana European Challenge Champion from Lille earlier this year. 

These days Frank is a member of Wizards' Coverage Staff for professional events. 

Since Frank is well-known for his love for Artifact Affinity decks, his card in the Vegas Cube is a signed copy of Mox Opal from his personal collection.

Simon Nielsen - Urza’s Saga

Simon managed to put together a Hall of Fame worthy career in just the last year alone, making the top8 of 4 out of the last 5 Pro Tours and also the World Championship in between. 

This epic run earned him the title of Player of the Year 2023 and he is once again in the running for it in this season thanks to winning Pro Tour Amsterdam four months ago. He could become just the 4th player to win this title multiple times. 

Simon is also a World Magic Cup champion and won a Modern GP in Vegas five years ago in the same building where this year’s Magic Con is taking place.

His card in the Vegas Cube is one of the 4 copies of Urza’s Saga from his PT winning deck in Amsterdam. 

Javier Dominguez - Bomat Courier

Javier Dominguez is another player who is pretty much a shoe-in should the Hall of Fame ever come back. 

His resume includes being a National Champion, 2-time Grand Prix Champion, Arena Mythic Championship Champion, Pro Tour Team Series Champion and a 2018 World Champion (in Las Vegas) after losing in the finals in the previous year. 

Out of the last 5 Pro Tours, Javier top8ed three of them and also has a 9th place, making him one of the hottest players on the planet at the moment. 

Javier’s card in the Vegas Cube is another piece of history - one of the Bomat Couriers straight from his Worlds 2018 winning deck. 

Gerry Thompson - Baleful Strix

Gerry Thompson is one of the most influential Magic writers and deck builders of the past two decades. But Gerry wasn’t just good at theorycrafting, he was able to turn his ideas into a very successful Magic career. 

Never being one to travel far for tournaments, Thompson initially found the most success at the SCG Tour events where he absolutely dominated, racking up 7 Invitational top8s, including 2 wins, setting many records in the process. 

Known for his innovative decks and the ability to perfectly predict the metagame, success on the Grand Prix and Pro Tour level quickly followed. Gerry has 12 GP top8s, including 2 wins, and most importantly 3 Sunday appearances at the Pro Tour level with a victory in Nashville 2017. 

Gerry’s card in the Vegas Cube is a signed copy of his favorite Magic card that has contributed to his many wins over the course of his career, Baleful Strix, straight from his personal collection. 

The Professor (Tolarian Community College) - Tolarian Academy

The Professor is a character portrayed by Brian Lewis, the host of the famous Youtube channel Tolarian Community College. This channel covers everything from product reviews, recent Magic news, unboxing videos, gameplay tips, tricks and strategy, lore, online analysis, and lately Commander game play with some of the most popular content creators as well. 

Tolarian Community College is the first and only Magic Youtube channel with over 1 million subscribers, a truly remarkable feat. 

Tolarian Community College will be represented in the Vegas Cube by the most on-brand card possible signed by the Professor, a Tolarian Academy!

Mike Turian - Consecrated Sphinx

Mike Turian is a former professional player turned game designer. Mike has 5 Pro Tour top8s, including a win at Team Pro Tour New York 2000 with his teammates Scott Jones and Gary Wise. In just the 2003-04 season alone he managed to make the final day of three limited PTs, cementing himself as one of the best drafters of all time. In addition to that, Mike is also a two-time Grand Prix champion (both in Limited, of course) and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2008.

Mike put his competitive Magic career on hold in 2004 to join Wizards of the Coast, where he has had an even greater impact on the game as a designer, developer, manager and executive producer for Magic.

Mike has never been content with simply making and supporting the game through his many roles over the years - he has always recognized Magic's power to change the world for the better beyond the tabletop.

Always looking for ways to help Magic give back to the world, Mike volunteered to lead an early Extra Life fundraising event for Wizards of the Coast that raised tens of thousands of dollars for the charity, and was enjoyed by those involved as a great success, including Mike.

But "great" wasn't enough for Mike when he recognized that Magic had the power to do even better, and championed his idea for an Extra Life Secret Lair release with actual Magic cards that people could get as a thank-you gift for contributing. This innovation turned a "great success" into a staggering one, and Wizards of the Coast has donated over $6,000,000 since incorporating Mike's idea into the fundraising.

Mike has contributed a signed copy of the Extra Life Secret Lair version of Consecrated Sphinx from his personal collection to the Prize Cube. Mike was also on the Mirrodin Besieged development team that finalized the design of this iconic card, so Mike has double credits on this one!

Mark Rosewater - Lotus Petal

Mark Rosewater has been the Head Magic Designer for over 20 years, and his first set credit is for development on Alliances, released in 1997! It’s hard to distinguish his list of design and development credits from a list of all the Magic sets.

As you might expect from someone with his design credentials, many of his card designs have become staples of Vintage Cube.  

* Ancient Tomb

* Bribery

* Corpse Dance

* Dream Halls

* Entomb

* Exploration

* Goblin Welder

* Lotus Petal

* Metalworker

* Phyrexian Tower

* Reanimate

* Recurring Nightmare

* Show and Tell

* Sneak Attack

* Treachery

* Turnabout

* Wasteland

Have you ever gone off with Dream Halls while your helpless opponent waited to learn how they would lose? 

Have you ever stolen your opponent's game winning creature with a Treachery and then untapped your lands to protect it? 

Thank Mark.

One classic form of Vintage Cube staple is the “fixed version” of a busted card, like Lion’s Eye Diamond as a fixed Black Lotus, or Wasteland—another MaRo design—as a fixed Strip Mine. When the fixed versions of broken cards become staples of the Vintage Cube, it says a lot about the power of the originals.

Mark has signed a copy of another “fixed version” staple he designed, Lotus Petal, for the Vegas Cube.

It turns out a third of a Black Lotus is still powerful enough to hang with the best cards in the game in the right deck.

Aaron Forsythe - Deranged Hermit

Most Magic players know of Aaron Forsythe as a longtime steward of the game and current Vice President of Magic Design at Wizards of the Coast. Aaron has been a Magic design innovator for so long now, a lot of players may not remember that he was also a deckbuilding innovator as a professional player before he joined WotC.

Is there a more compelling goal for the deckbuilding innovator than having one of their brews become an important metagame choice to consider? It has to be high on the bucket list for any serious brewer, but it's not on Aaron's at all, because he's already done it!

After a warm up at Regionals, Aaron played his “Angry Hermit” deck to a breakout third-place performance at the US Nationals in 2000, earning him a spot on Team USA at the 2000 World Championships alongside John Finkel, Chris Benafel, and Frank Hernandez. Team USA went on to bring home the championship, with Aaron again piloting Angry Hermit.

After that run, the Angry Hermit deck became a much-copied and much-beloved part of the metagame. Aaron has signed and contributed a copy of Deranged Hermit directly from his 2000 US Nationals deck, which he has kept intact since!

Due to some unforeseen circumstances the last 24th card will be announced on Friday. 

17 Hall of Famers. 17 Pro Tour/World Champions. The entire top 10 best players of all time that have ever touched a Magic card and 20 of the best to ever play. The most successful content creator the game has ever seen. Three of the key Magic designers and executive producers that are instrumental to continually growing the game and making it so successful 31 years after its release. 

Each contributing their part of Magic history. 

We would like to extend our gratitude to everyone on this list for digging through their collections for something truly unique and going out of their way to deliver these cards to us in time so we could put them in the Vegas Cube.

A special thank you goes to Shuhei Nakamura who was able to obtain most of the cards from the Japanese players, as many of the former pros either do not attend too many events anymore or have stepped away from the game completely. 

Assembling all these historical pieces has been a fun and exciting challenge. We truly hope you are as excited about these cards as we are and we cannot wait to see how it all plays out in Vegas. Make sure to tune in this Friday and Saturday, right after Worlds, at www.twitch.tv/UltimateGuardLive!