Most old school players would call Zak Dolan's win at the 1994 World Championships a fluke. Zak was by no means a bad player, and his deck was very solid, but his opponent was one of the first "next level" Magic masters. Zak's opponent in the finals, Bertrand Lestree, was known as "the best European player" by most, and as "the best player in the world" by some. He was one of the first great deck builders, and a very strong player to that. Lestree followed up his second place at Worlds 1994 with a second place at the very first Pro Tour, but his name eventually faded into Magic obscurity.
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| This guy! |
A month back, a man named Manuel Sternis organized a highly successful old school tournament in France. After the tournament (which had an open reprint policy, and attracted no less than 20 players), Manuel and I had an interesting mail conversation about the old school format and the meta. He told me; "
By looking to your blog, we were completely astonished to see that there wasn't any "Bertrand Lestree's zoo" in your tournaments". Lestree Zoo is a very solid deck, and it showed great results in the first years in our meta. The final of n00bcon 2 was a zoo mirror, and Lestree Zoo placed second at BSK 2010. In later years though, the Electric Eel Aggro and Juzam Smash decks has taken the place as the decks-to-beat among "power zoo" decks.
Jesper "Munchhausen" Riis is one of the sweet players raised in Varberg. The Varberg meta might be the strongest in Sweden. Apart from guys like Erik "Sehl" Larsson and Daniel "Kungen" Ahlberg, Varberg players hold no less than five of the eleven Giant Sharks awarded in 93/94 tournaments for the last four and a half years (Gothenburg has three). As a player from that crew, Munchhausen might have slipped under the radar as one of the "players-to-beat". He started his year with a top4 at Kingvitational 1, and in the last weeks he placed top4 at Playoteket and 5th at Vasa Gaming. His deck of choice is a modern take on Lestree Zoo. It still works:
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| Miser's Ice Storms ftw. |
This will be a short post (more is coming this weekend), and I'll end with that sweet decklist. I've also updated the PWP standings and "decks-to-beat" with the results and decks from Playoteket and Vasa Gaming today though. Check them out if you're a net-decker ;)
Actually me, sehl, and kungen are raised in Rolfstorp outside of Vaberg togehter with Oldschool who was the one that introduced us in to magic around the year 1995 :)
SvaraRaderaReally nice post!
/Munchhausen
Ah, that makes sense, I guess that's why he's called "Kungen av Rolfstorp" ;)
RaderaThanks, and well played! Always a pleasure to face you at tournaments, the duels we've fought at Kingvitational and Vasa have been very interesting.
Hi, Mg!
SvaraRaderaI've been reading your blog for a couple of months and I've already felt in love for 93/94.
I've been collecting Magic for over 18 years and I managed to put together a Power 9 set, so I believe I am half way through being able to play Old School. Besides, I started putting together a second playset of Dual Lands, this time an UNL set, and I already have 28 of them.
The real problem is that I live in Brazil and I am having a hard time finding a partner for the format or even some format staples. Not only it is very expensive for those who didn't keep their collection over the years, it is also hard to convince people to embrace a new casual format.
Anyway, I am planning to attend the US Eternal Weekend next year and maybe I'll get a chance to finally play the format. I know it isn't exactly 93/94, but it is a beginning. I also have a visit to the Scandinavian countries in my bucket list, so maybe I'll even get to play with the ambassadors of the format.
By the way, I didn't find a tournament schedule with dates and cities nor I found a single video of your games. Do you have a schedule? Do you plan to record the games or even broadcast them via twitch or something alike?
Congratulations for your effort in keeping the format interesting and for everything else you've been doing for the game!
Regards,
Marcelo Coutinho
Brazil
Thanks Marcelo!
RaderaCongratulations on your P9, that goes a long way as the expensive cards go. I'm trying to complete a set of unl duals myself now btw (currently at 19). I hope that you get a chance to use your old school cards in a tournament soon. It can feel pretty harsh to not have the opportunity to actually play the game. It took a few years to get players interested here in Sweden, but by now I feel really spoiled with a plethora of sweet tournaments (I've had the chance to play sanctioned Vintage tournaments with double digit attendees three weeks in a row now, and there will be a large 93/94 tournament here next weekend).
We don't have that many videos, but we actually did film the finals of the BSK tournament. We haven't put it up on the web anywhere yet though, as we would like to have commentators to the match first. Hopefully we'll get some proper coverage for n00bcon the coming easter.
Putting up a schedule of coming tournaments sounds like a great idea. I'll add one to this page during the coming week with the ones I know about :)
Cheers,
Mg
Rolfstorp here also ^^ with its population of 500 people // Jhovalking
SvaraRadera