News of the week

Next weekend we'll have the BSK tournament in Sweden, but there are also a lot of interesting things happening across the ocean.

A group of Magic '95 players in Florida have created an amazing old school Magic page. It hits all the right buttons for me, both as design and old school spirit goes. Words wont do it justice, just check out this match video:

This is a very amusing video even if you are not that familiar with mid-90s tournament Magic, but if you are, there are many details that puts it straight into master work territory. The clothing (Zak Dolan style denim jacket and bandana), the lingo ("trick deck", "summons", etc), and the narration of the sneak preview (including the pronunciation of Ulgrotha) are some hilarious details. Check out the LandLotusJuzam homepage for more videos and inspiration.

Kicking it since '93

In Philadelphia the large Eternal weekend convention is currently in progress. Apart from the Legacy and Vintage championships, Jason Jaco has organized the inaugural Eternal central old school tournament. From what I heard, a dozen players came to battle, drink beer and hang out by the hotel pool. I'm hoping to see a report of the tournament up at Eternal Central soon!

As I'm sure most of you have seen, two weeks ago the guy at Openboosters filmed an opening of an Alpha starter deck. The video went viral, and has well over 3 million views by now. I've had a lot of friends and colleagues mention the video, even friends who don't play magic or know that much about the game. It is pretty nice when the hobby gets a little attention in the mainstream, and the guy really did open some sweet cards. On the other side of the coin, the video have made a lot of people on the web who don't really have any good insight in Magic feel entitled to give criticism or misguided information about the game or the community. YouTube and social media can be strange beasts.

There are only a few days left until BSK, and I'm very much looking forward to next weekend. At this point, the field looks pretty open, but we have quite a few really strong players competing for the Shark, including seven of the eight previous Shark-winners and the 1996 player of the year. I playtested with Kalle, Freespace, Jenny and Felipe Garcia yesterday, and my deck feels pretty decent. I did cut some of my good cards for some more flavorful ones (like cutting Icy Manipulator for The Wretched), but it doesn't seem to hurt the overall game plan and I guess it adds some elements of surprise.

Did not add the Wood Elementals though. Trying to stay reasonable, and I'm still aiming to actually win ;)

We'll end with some more pictures from the last weeks. I'm getting a new camera before BSK btw, so hopefully the pictures from next weekend will be less blurry.

Felipe's sweet Monkey Blasts

Kalle explodes with turn one Eel and Lion.

Doppelganger copying Triskelion, Copy Artifact copying Doppelganger.

Crazy beats!

You can spot the Alpha by the rounder shapes. This was after an accidental bend test of the card in my deck box (yes, I managed bend it back without damaging it).

Magic!

Kalle playing against monoblack. I don't think he beat this start.