Up and running! Toronto, Regensburg, and BSK finals.

I've moved four times in the last four months, in three different countries. Not long before that I'd been living in the same spot for over 6 years. Life and living situations changes as I get older, and it gets harder to keep in touch with my friends and many parts of my nerdy side. I like me some nostalgia every now and then, and I really feel that this format is a good excuse for me to meet both old and new friends.

As I stated previously, I'm sorry that there has been no movement here since BSK. I've changed country and moved twice since then, and sometimes it feels like a solid internet connection in Bavaria is more of luxury than a necessity. By now I'm settled however, and access shouldn't be a problem anymore.

These are exciting times! The last 6 weeks has been great for our community. We've had BSK 2012, which was the largest BSK to date (second largest tournament overall), and at this point our hotel suites has become almost a convention in it's own. There were two 93/94 cubes, two constructed tournaments in the format, and lots of sweet casual playing in other formats in the suites as well. The days before BSK I was contacted by our first non-Scandinavian player, Fabien Sanglard, and he is starting up 93/94 magic in Canada. Tomorrow (15/12) he will have the first ever non-Scandinavian 93/94 tournament in Toronto. I'm really looking forward to hear about how it went, and hopefully we can get some sweet pictures and stories to post here. Fabian has btw started up a local 93/94 Toronto website, with a design that really stands out. It's a great page with great decks, and you should really check out his analysis of the 94 World Championship final. You can find it at http://fabiensanglard.net/mtg_93-94_Toronto/index.php. As a final and very sweet point in the exciting times agenda, I've recently been contacted by a Martin from Regensburg, Germany. Martin and a friend of his had been playing something similar to 93/94 for some time, and he had questions about possibilities to start something up in Germany. Since I work in Munich until the end of March, I'm currently only about 120 km away from Regensburg, and I'll be sure to bring my cards down from Sweden after the holidays. The community is truly getting international, and hopefully the next World Championship will have players that actually comes from different parts of the world, rather just Scandinavians.

Tomorrow does not only mark the first 93/94 tournament in another continent, it's also the date when the finals of BSK 2012 will be held! The finals was never played in Borås five weeks ago due to various reasons, and tomorrow the two finalists from different parts of Sweden will join together in Gothenburg to play it off. The finalist are both real giants in the format; Kalle Nord and Elof Gottfridson. This is one of the 2 shark tournaments each year, and the stakes in honour are as high as they get. (Trivia: There has actually been sharks at other "special occasion" tournaments. We've had a giant shark as price twice outside n00bcon and BSK before; once 2009 at a tournament adjacent to a GP, and once 2012 at the first Warcon tournament.)

Kalle's resume in 93/94 is unparalleled. He is a founder of the format, he won the first ever shark tournament, and he is in the lead of the Pimpwalker Points race with an assumed 57 points. He also started the first dedicated 93/94 forum in Sweden, and is a good guy in general. Kalle simply does not ever miss a t8, and he might be the player that has played the most tournament games of 93/94 in the world. There is a picture of his decklist in the BSK blog post below.

Elof has been a supporting spectator of the format since the very beginning. Even thought that, he is fairly new as an actual player of 93/94, with a year of experience. He is a master at eternal formats, and is considered among the very best of Swedish legacy players. He has been the best Swedish player in multiple European legacy GPs, he has won the Scandinavian Masters, and he is in my personal top4 of technical players that plays this format (the others would probably be Pefken, Nesid, and Ferm btw). He won the Warcon tournament last summer without losing a game (with a The Deck without Lotus), he is a shark-winner, he does not make mistakes, and he is a great player under pressure. This is his list for tomorrow:

4 Tundra
4 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
3 City of Brass
1 Maze of Ith

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Disenchant
1 Divine Offering

4 Mana Drain
4 Counterspell
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Braingeyser

1 Mind Twist
1 Demonic Tutor

1 Lightning Bolt
2 Fireball

1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
4 Fellwar Stone
2 Disruptive Scepter
3 Jaymaede Tome

SB:
1 Disenchant
1 Divine Offering
2 Greater Realm of Preservation
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Control Magic
1 Balance
1 Giant Shark

Note that if you win a Shark, you play that Shark :)

I'll keep you posted about how the final goes, how the Toronto tournament goes, what happends in Germany, and what the other lists from the BSK t8 looked like. It's a great time to be a part of the community!

/mg