Showdown in Oslo

During the last year I've been travelling a lot. Constantly going between the city I work in and the city where I have my family and most of my friends can be very taxing. It's in situations like these I appreciate 93/94 Magic the most. Meeting up with the guys in Regensburg gave Munich another dimension; hanging out with people apart from the ones you know from work makes a city feel more like a home. Last week I had my first chance to battle Juzams on Norwegian ground. It's a good excuse to meet good people.

Yep, Juzams.

Michael have been playing 93/94 for a few years, and we've met each other at n00bcons and BSKs before. He moved up to Oslo to work two years ago, and he is well versed in the city by now. We met up at bar in Østbanehallen, a part of the Oslo central station, just across the ail from Outland. Outland is the local FNM place in central Oslo, and is from what I've heard a very nice place. However the tables are kind of badly placed, and you can't drink beer there, so we stayed in the bar instead.

Playing Magic in a bar is something of an unusual experience, in particular if you haven't been in that bar before. It's not uncommon that random people get very interested, or that someone familiar with the game walks by and start talking. This evening there were three slightly intoxicated ladies in their late 40s that stumbled by. All very polite though.

Michael had also brought a friend of his, Andreas, who just built his deck the day before. There were Sinkholes and Serendibs, combined with lots of random sweet cards.

That's a Juggernaut with Unholy Strength, and Andreas do have the Boomerang for the Serendib.

Andreas did actually pack two Ali from Cairo and multiple Spectral Cloaks in his deck. He managed to get the combo together against me, but as I play a deck with no less than 3 maindeck Nevinyrral's Disk I managed to beat it. Before I cleared the board with the Disk, my Sol'Kanar had swampwalked Andreas down to his stable 1 life, and I could finish him of with a Su-Chi later on.

Michael himself played an aggresive pile with sets of Berserks and Giant Growths, combined with lots of fliers and Juzam. He had a full set of birds and and a few Old Men of the Sea as well, with at least two of the birds from Alpha (with the awesome '//' in the text box). My favorite play against him was probably when we both were at fairly low life total, and Michael dropped a Serendib and Juzam. I could transmute in Forcefield during my turn, and his djinn and efreet killed him just before he could win.

I'm actually not very sure which of our three decks that preformed best during the evening, all three of them felt very stable, and the games were generally tight and interesting.

That's a very nice binder btw.

So, first time playing in Oslo, and hopefully there will be many more. Good games led us to talking about having some sort of small tournament up here before the end of the year. I'll keep you posted if when we get the ball rolling.