Arvika Festival

The preparations for the trip wasn't really stellar. When KungMarkus announced that they would host a tournament in Arvika a few months back, of course I signed up without much hesitation. Didn't really know what to expect from the weekend, how I would travel, or how far it was between Arvika and Oslo. I did however know that the Arvika players are great people to hang around, and that they approach the format with sweet decks and a few beers.

My roommate, Hardy, used to play Magic a few years back. I think that his last tournament was the Odyssey prerelease back in 2001. We'd been talking a little about 93/94, and generally about doing more things together during the weekends, now that I don't commute to Sweden every week. Representing the Norwegian capital in Arvika seemed like a fun idea. We decided to go together, and the weeks started to fly by.

Suddenly, the tournament was two days away. We still hadn't looked at tickets, accommodations or playtesting. I have a pretty good grasp of my Project M deck (as I've been building and playing it for two and a half years), but we did need to see how the new build of the monogreen worked. So, last Thursday, after we had attended three after-work lectures on architecture CPR, business culture and COBOL (not a joke), we decided to bring out the cards and the Jack.

Hardy testing MonoGreen vs TaxEdge. Highly intricate.

As first rounds of playtesting goes, it went really well. We got a decent grasp of the deck, and could discuss some sideboarding strategies. Some sleep and work later, we were happily surprised to see that the train trip between Arvika and Oslo only took a little over two hours. We got our tickets, but didn't really feel it necessary to start looking up accommodations. We figured that there had to be some kind of hostel or hotel in the city, or worst case, we could buy a tent and sleep outside. We do need a new tent anyway, and we considered ourselves outdoorsy types.

Saturday then. Beautiful weather, and even a hint of spring in the air. The week before we had temperatures at -15C (5F). After burgers and beer in Oslo and a train trip to Arvika, some local player met us at the station to give us a ride to the site. Rather than trying to write a proper tournament report here, I'll make it easy for me and share some pictures from the event.

KungMarkus welcomes us to his turf. When he heard that Hardy and I hadn't sorted out sleeping arrangements, he offered to host us in his home :) Very nice guy.

Trophies and prices. In Sweden, the city of Arvika is probably most famous for the Arvika festival. The obvious first price of the tournament was hence a Festival. Also a Tedin signed beta Tome, but all eyes were on the Festival ;)

The glorious Festival after signatures from the participants.

Cheers! Beer at the site were 10 SEK apiece. To put that in perspective for any non-Norwegians, that's somewhere between a third and a fourth of the price of a beer in a convenience store in Oslo.

The tournament has started.

Steal Artifact on the Icy was good, but the Doppelganger really worked overtime this duel. It started out as a Guardian Beast, then became a Sol'Kanar to gain some life and beat down, then turned into a Gwendlyn Di Corci to strip Markus of his Counterspells, then back to a Sol'Kanar for the win. Markus did have a Nicol Bolas in hand, but it's pretty bad against Icy+Doppelganger.

Monogreen vs Leprechaun. Awesome matchup.

Tripple Gloom vs WW. Looks like a win for the Serendib.

Hypnotic Specters vs Killer Bees.

RG Berserk punching trough the Relic Barrier.

Former DCI manager of Sweden, Mikael Mällroth, helped out with organizing the rounds and making the tournament run smoothly. After the swiss, he contributed to the ambience with some sweet flute music. Surprising, but appreciated :)

Mällroth also brought an impressive selection of whiskey samplers to the tournament. Very next level.

RW vs Monoblack. A couple of new faces.

Sol'Kanar and Triskelion are stopped cold by Spirit Link and Moss Monster.

Monogreen vs Atog Burn. The Atog Burn deck was really solid, and I think I got lucky to beat it in the swiss.

Yeah, so this happened. Second game in the semi-finals against KungMarkus, and I had boarded in Riven for value. With a little help from Urborg, Riven blocked the way for Sol'Kanar and Juzam, and eventually won me the match. I even got to use him to generate mana to activate my disk when my lands were all tapped. Believe the hype!

Some good cards a player wanted help with evaluating.

Mällroth went 3-1, but missed top4 on tiebreakers. He got a Quagmire as a consolation price.

Kungmarkus and Svetzarn placed 3rd and 4th.

The happy owner of a new Festival; yours truly.

A beautiful morning in Arvika.

Thanks a lot for a great tournament! I'll be posting the top4 decklists in the coming days. Hope to see a lot of you at n00bcon in six weeks!