L  E  T  T  E  R  S

compiled by Urza OK, so here's my situation I was sitting in my office sometime at the end of December. Actually, it's more like the Beyond Dominia mail room, but that's where I was in any case. I was searching through the various piles for a certain letter I had received a few months beforehand when I saw a package, unopened, sitting in the "Published" section. Naturally, my first thought was that some idiot had made a mistake while organizing the letters, but I quickly remembered that it was my job to do that. First impressions are always excusable, right? Anyway, my next thought was to open the package and see if it was important. I slowly did so, and was surprised to suddenly vanish. I couldn't believe it! I had fallen for the old "Ebony Horse" trick! Wait, maybe that's "Trojan"… I was never that good at history. The place I had arrived in was very strange, mysterious, and frightening. But to make a long story short, let me just say that I finally escaped - after about four hours. Unfortunately, my short-term prison must have existed in another time frame, because I returned to discover that four months had passed, not hours. Promptly returning home, I found a distressing sight. The mail room was, well, completely empty! The only thing left was a piece of paper lying on the floor, a ransom note, actually. As I read over the demand, I wondered just how important the letters were to me. Could I really trade my Black Lotus for a few months' work? Nah, of course not. I could always start over. So, here I am. I'm letter-less, but with a few ideas for some that you could send here. For one thing, you are free to send rules questions, as always, but I'd like to expand beyond that. It's a lot harder to make a Letters column based solely on those questions than to have a variety. Therefore, here are my suggestions, many of which I have tried to stress before: 1) We here at Beyond Dominia are definitely not perfect (though some of us claim to be). The only real way we'll be able to advance is through comments and suggestions. Do you happen to love a certain article we printed? Go on and tell us that, including some reasons why. Do you absolutely hate something you read here? Tell us about that too, so we can get better! I believe I'm speaking for everyone who contributes to the magazine when I say that this is the best type of letter we can receive.   2) Do you have any stories about what happened when you used something from Beyond Dominia? Did you find that when you played with a deck outlined here, you won repeatedly, or improved your preformance greatly by using one of the contributer's strategies? Feel free to send any success (or failure) stories over this way, and I might print it!   3) Let this be the announcement for a special contest this month: As many people are aware, April is Poetry Month (at least in the United States). I'm challenging you to do the following in honor of literature and Magic, with the best entries I receive printed in a special section next month. Please note that since there is unfortunately no prize, there is no need for anyone but me to judge. Don't worry though, I consider myself fair… a) Pick a card, any card… Your favorite Magic card (or just any that you feel is appropriate) will be the basis of this entry. b) Write a short poem about the card, using anything about it that you wish. For example, you could write about the picture, the flavor text, a verse about what you'd imagine the card would look like in real life, or just about the joys of playing it! c) Send your poem to the normal Letters address, printed at the end of this article. Any form of poetry will be accepted, be it a Haiku, rhyming, or any of the others. Try to keep it relatively short (around ten lines maximum, but I'm not all that picky). Basically, I don't want to have to read through a mailbox full of ten-page epics, no matter how good it is. Also, please remember to name the card that you are writing about, and if you are being inspired by the picture, what edition you are using. Well, that's all for this month, but after that long column I'm expecting some good letters coming in throughout the month! April only comes once a year, so please don't waste this contest and send me some good poetry! I'll be waiting… If you'd like to read some letters we received this month, go to Letters, Part II. Urza Official Letter-person of Beyond Dominia r***e@m***i.com   Send all letters to the Beyond Dominia Mailroom address, r***e@m***i.com If you are sending a letter about the contest, or any of the ideas I suggested here, try to use a good subject that I can identify quickly. Finally, remember that anything sent to Beyond Dominia becomes the property of this e-zine, unless prior arrangements have been made. [Note: It is not suggested that you use anything presented in the Letter's column as fact, as I am slightly delusional and prone to spout out pages of information from my imagination as the truth. In fact, I can't even guarantee that this disclaimer has any importance at all…] [ Back to April 1998 Table of Contents ] [ Back to Beyond Dominia ] Magic: the Gathering is a Registered Trademark of Wizards of the Coast