10 random thoughts

Anyone who have traveled to Oslo with a car should be familiar with the mule paths they use as roads. For a city that is one of the wealthiest in the world, Oslo really don't spend any of their money on traffic planning. Being stuck in a bus during rush hour for over an hour, a lot of things comes to mind. A few of them are 93/94 related. Here are 10 of them.

1. When will someone manage to build the Mana Vortex deck? It must be possible somehow.

This is not Smokestack.

2. Many people say they wish they had played when you could trade 3 duals for a Shivan Dragon, so they would have a bigger collection today. I have my stories of trading away a pair of 4th Mishras to get a Bazaar of Baghdad, but for each one of those I have a story of refusing to trade a revised Clone for a pile a cards containing multiple duals, or trading away said Bazaar for a Deflection or two. You couldn't possible know where the game would go. Wizard could have decided to never print a decent creature after Arabian Nights, but instead print something like triple lands. In hindsight, trading a Savannah for a Savannah Lions is a bad idea, but you couldn't really know that in 1995. Better to start saving up now to eventually get the cards you want, than to be upset about the missed opportunities.

In early 1995, you could get $25 for any mox. Even the green one ;)

3. On that note, I just realized that Urza's Saga boosters today cost 3 times as much as Italian Legends did in 1996. I got a Rapid Fire in my first Legends pack btw; now THAT is a bad rare :)

Stock image here; my old Attacco Rapido found a new home in a reject rare cube.

4. I really enjoy getting to post occasional guest posts here. I'm still hoping for a Kingvitational 1 report with the Kobold deck though (hint, hint).

5. I have a long thread on a team forum about how (and from whom) I acquired each card in my Project M deck. For soon to be two years, I've been trading in hotel rooms, sending late night e-mails, haggling at movie theatres and buying cards at pubs in different countries. It would be awesome to get one of the last cards for my deck via this blog. So, if you have a bb Timetwister, I'd like to buy it. Otherwise, if you have an Alpha basic Island and want to sign it or alter it yourself and send it to me, I'd love to play with it (in particular if you're non-Scandinavian) :).

One of the last six cards. Finalized the deal to get it from Elof about six weeks ago, he gave it to Freespace when they met at the Linköping Gaming convention two weeks ago, and I picked it up at Freespace's apartment last weekend. No unnecessary stamps here ;)

6. There are a few different opinions about what the B/R list should look like, or even if modern rules should be used. I guess that the goal of the list should be to make many different archetypes viable, and that as many players as possible should be able to play with their favorite cards and interactions. The reaction to last month's unrestriction of Mana Vault have been generally positive though. It will be interesting to see what happens.

An information graphic on how to cast a spell (before 6th ed. rules)

7. Cyclopean Tomb in Alpha is sweet. I'm very close to playing it in my deck just because of the casting cost misprint. I guess it is a decent answer to Mishras and the Library as well.

The art alone makes it playable.

8. The funniest cards in 93/94 if you ignore oracle errata are probably Floral Spuzzem and Island Fish Jasconius. Floral Spuzzem causes a draw if it attacks and is not blocked (as the triggered ability most certainly wont resolve), and Island Fish is an actual Island, and will be destroyed by Tsunami and landwalked over by Segovian Leviathan.

603.3. Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object that’s not a card the next time a player would receive priority. [...] It remains on the stack until it’s countered, it resolves, a rule causes it to be removed from the stack, or an effect moves it elsewhere. Let's see what Floral Spuzzem chooses.

9. If I would chose one card in each color and one artifact from sets released up to 1996 that could be legal in 93/94; it would probably be Order of the White Shield, Deep Spawn, Stupor, Pillage, Primal Order and Jester's Cap.

10. Växjö's Gaming Convention (WSK) during the 4-6 of July will host both a 93/94 tournament and a non-proxy Vintage tournament. It's the first 93/94 tournament in Småland, and the roadtrip is on!

That's it. This was a pretty fun post to write. The bus eventually arrived in Gothenburg :)