Showdown in Scania

Sweden is a pretty big country. E.g. the distance between Berlin (the German capital) and Paris is quite a bit shorter than the distance between Berlin (the current 93/94 World Champion, who lives in Stockholm) and the Northernmost parts of Sweden. As such, the Swedish 93/94 players are not exactly sitting at the same kitchen tables, and different cities have somewhat different metas and communities. What happens in Scania isn't necessarily what happens in Arvika or Växjö.

The Scania 93/94 players are some sweet guys. Last weekend they had their third "official" tournament at Playoteket in Malmö. The tournament organizer Arkanon sent over a short report and some nice deck lists. Enjoy! /Mg out

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Scania is situated in the southernmost part in Sweden. By convenience we have chosen Contract from below as the card all contestants sign as a price. We have approximately 12 active players and another 3-4 players who occasionally borrow decks and participate. Of the core players, four of us have power and four play casual/ budget decks/ decks-in-progress. Among them a Fungusaur deck which I will return to :) We've had five tournaments so far, of which three were official ones. Ill start with our latest tournament, here is our Top 4:

MrSinclair's The Deck. 1st place.

Danhor's ErhnamGeddon. 2nd place.

Olle's UR Burn. 3-4th place.

Arkanon's 5C Ydwen. 3-4th place.

Of course, I have to post Axelsson's deck as well, you probably wont see this deck again from him. He has pretty much all the cards (except any power), so he can build almost anything and is known for having a new tech at each tournament. So don't expect to meet this deck at the next big tournament :)

Axelsson's MonoBlack Abyss. (6th place)

And to the big question: Is Ydwen Efreet really that a bad card? Now that Fork is unrestricted, monored might have a bit of an edge, in particular if we can splash blue for power and Serendib Efreets. I was surprised by the effectiveness of Ydwen against many decks. Although The Deck could outmanouver me, every single deck I've playtested against had a hard match. The YdwenDeck I played at the tournament is just a prototype, and I lack certain cards (2 Forks and 2 Volcanics). I had great fun playtesting with a proxied Ydwen/Fork deck, maybe you will meet me soon running that deck when it's complete!

Is it that bad? Perhaps. Is it fun? Definitely!

On another note, I just have to post one of the coolest deck Ive seen among the Scania players, a total casual/budgetdeck. Ive proposed to borrow him two Sylvan libraries but he refused :)

Rednekk's Fungusaurdeck

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/Mg in

I just want to state for the record that the Fungusaur deck looks amazing :)

If you want some more Old School fix, Jacopo Borrelli of Ravenna have written a great primer on Lestree Zoo at Magictime.it. It's filled with both deck techs and interesting trivia. Jacopo even managed to get an interview with Zak Dolan, the original 1994 Magic World Champion, who defeated Bertrand Lestree carrying his Zoo in the finals of the first World Championships. That is awesome. Go give it a read!

Also, I've managed to update the Decks to Beat page with 28 decklists from the last couple of months. Check them out if you're a net-decker ;)

Playoteket 3 93/94 Top4
12 participants. Photos of 4/4 decks.
The third official tournament at Playoteket in Scania showed some solid mages and decks. Mr Sinclair's awe-inspiring The Deck managed to get the best of Erhnamgeddon, UR Burn and 5-color Ydwen Efreet (!) in the top4. Again we see multiple Forks in the top4; clearly a card not to be underestimated.

Drammen 93/94 Top8
17 participants. Photos of 8/8 decks. The first tournament in Drammen gathered mages from across Norway (and a couple from Arvika and Karlstad) to fight for an Adventurers' Guildhouse. The top8 was almost completely dominated by old school beatdown, apart from one Fork deck and one Nether Void Ponza. Su-Chis, Juzams and Erhnams beat hard, and the WW decks beats a lot.

n00bcon 8, World Championships Top8
76 participants, photos of 8/8 decks. Players from Russia, the US, Denmark, Germany and many other places across the lands descended upon the Rotary Pub in Gothenburg to lay claim to the old school World Championship title and the coveted Giant Shark. More players than ever wanted to get in the ring this year, and than he tournament was filled to capacity three months before the showdown. The top8 hosted some familiar names in the format - battling with 3 copies of UR Burn, 3 The Deck, a Lestree Zoo and an Artifact Aggro - before Martin Berlin got to hoist the trophy.

Arvika Festival 2016 Top8
34 participants, photos of 8/8 decks. The third largest, and possibly the sweetest, of the yearly Northern Europe gatherings was once again held in Viksgården in Arvika. The top8 hosted 8 distinct archetypes; from Distress to Toolbox Murderers and Time Elemental Control to Dead Guy Ale. In the end, Lestree Zoo took down Power Monolith in the finals to claim this year's Festival.