The Skype Old School Challenge

Those extra hours away from the keyboard each week add up. Since last, the wedding planning is in full form, I found myself in the Arab Emirates, and I've kicked up my mentor work a gear or two. And I've had the time to read a book for just the joy of it, without the hidden agenda of trying to learn something.

Activating Jalum Tome with an empty hand if you will.

I wouldn't call this one a proper post either by the way. I do have a couple in the pipeline, but this is more of a status update. Some things are exciting enough to just shout along as a messenger, and what's going on in the Skype community right now is one of those things.

Last weekend, the Skype community held the elimination rounds in their n00bcon 9 qualification tournament. The guy joining us in Gothenburg this Easter is renowned Skype player (and, from what I've heard, all-round good guy) Gregory from Switzerland. That also gets us up to 13 or 14 nationalities at the Championship, which is braggable.

Getting closer...

But the reason that I'm updating today is more due to how they've set it up. The matches last Sunday ended up in the top5 Magic streams on Twitch. And there has never been a better online coverage for 93/94 Magic than what Markus and the gang are doing right now.

www.twitch.tv/OldSchoolMTG

Markus and a few more of the first adopters of OldSchool Skype have started an invitational league called Old School Challenge. It's a weekly Twitch broadcast, playing one game a week in a round robin style tournament. For their first weekly show, they brought in two international tournament organizers in Gordon Anderson and Chis Cooper to do the commentary while the players on camera battled from different corners of the world. They raffled out cards, collected donations for good causes, and over all had a production value we've rarely seen for MtG streaming. Animated Lightning Bolts and Land Taxes and whatnot. And this is still "baby days" according to Markus. I must say again that I think these kind of community efforts and sharing is what makes the format awesome.

That, and Juzam Djinn.

From what I've heard, this Old School Challenge will be a recurring event during Sundays from 2pm EST / 7pm GMT / 8pm CET at twitch.tv/OldSchoolMTG. I highly recommend checking it out if you're into odd decks and commented live matches. You can replay the games from last weekend at Twitch, though note that the sound is kinda bad in the first few minutes before they got it set up properly. If you're a netdecking kinda person, most of the list played can be found at imgur. Check it out!