n00bcon Warm Up! the conclusion!

n00bcon warmup was held yesterday so at least the people from Gothenburg (and loff ofc) could get some training in before our world champion ship tournament on n00bcon this easter.

12 people showed up, so we played 4 rounds swiss with a cut off to top 4 battling for a Chaos Orb as our first price, and 200 SEK store credit as second price.

In the first round, everybody was eager. The shoot on the Chaos Orb and eternal glory and honor where still in everybody's grasp. Her you can see Loff r/g beats battle against Onefunsite's version of the deck.

And some more pictures of onefunsite's hand.  Cop: Red after sideboard, ouch.

here you can see our winner slowly grinding out his wins against the field. Think I heard some mumblings about 6th edition being the worst rule change ever, cant even turn of your artifacts anymore... Why didn't they give an errata to Winter Orb, like they did to Howling Mine.

In the current field of 12, we had 4 who opted to play Mono black of some sort. Most of them with Greed as a 93/94 version of Necro. Pay some life, pay some mana, draw some cards. PROFIT! Here vs one of Oldschools many combo builds.

And yet another mono black aggro match up. Mirror this time around, except that Ingmar splash some red for Lightning Bolts, Chain Lightnings Pyrokenesis and other sweet cards.

Onefunsite still battling vs Loff. The deck tends to win, but its not fast. =D

 Round two did see more mono black vs mono black. And here we see one of the real deals with the format. If Juzzam Djinn are not the best creature on the format, the format are not for us.

 Jayemday tome grinding out the card advantage.

 Mind Twist your hand, keep it on the battle field to mock you. haha! You got no cards! This tournament made me realize how good Mind Twist rely was, and why it was banned once upon a time. Insanely fun to play with.

 Yet another game decided by the insane power level of Mind Twist.

 Oldschool contemplating his options. 3 Mana drains, 1 regrowth, 1 Sylvan Library, 1 Tropical Island and 1 Main deck Gloom "Cause I HATE WHITE'S!"

 During round two I took loff aside for a small decktech after he had showed me who was the boss (yea, I lost to him. r/g beats where far to aggro for my MUC Stasis)

 Some of the choises in the deck are there cause he couldn't find the cards he was looking for in time. Shatter should be Argothian Pixies. When he finds two more Berserk he will probably cut two Blood Lusts for them. He have also thought about including blue for blue power, Unstable Mutation, Flying Men and Serendibs. But the overall prize for this deck as it is right now are around a Legacy deck. (around 6-8k Sek, or about $1k). One of the charms with this format is that you can put down pretty much any amount of money on it, but you can also build a budget deck thats fairly competitive.

Over at the counter we have one of our old school guys building his deck. He has not rely started to play the format with us, but his style suit the format. Anders have always been an old school guy and tend to introduce people with decks that he have built out of his stock of revised cards.  But his 93/94 deck looks sweet right?

 OldSchool vs Loff, grinding it out with an Ivory Tower in play.

 And people eager to look trough their opponents decks after a game. =)

 Onefunsite contemplating if he should keep it. I guess he will. a couple of StP's for the early control, and a Jayemday Tome to seal the deal.

 Oldschool wondering if he should play anything, or just keep on gaining with his Ivory Tower. But look at his deck. Wall of Earth, Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore.

 Seeing all the strange choices in Oldschool's deck I just had to bring him aside and take a closer look at it.

 And looking in his deck, one soon realize that its a lich combo deck. When Lich hits the table Ivory Tower, Dark hearth of the Woods or Diamond Valley draws him more or less his entire deck. With his entire deck in hand he drop Lands Edge on the table and starts to throw his lands on his opponents. He opted to play more Green producing lands instead of his spare moxes, since that would give him more lands to sacrifice and more lands to win with.

With Lich in play he can also just drop Mirror Universe and win the game in his next upkeep. Trade life, ooh, noos your now on Zero Life, bye! bye!

The walls are there to give him large amounts of life with Diamond Valley (since that will draw him large amounts of cards with Lich) and they block Juzam Djinn up until the point where he can combo.

Main deck gloom as a way to handle Disenchants, and cause he hate white.

And here you see his sideboard. Psionic Blast to tackle Serra Angel. And vs blue ALLWAYS SIDE IN YOUR GIANT SHARK! (that he won on our World Championship 2011)

Here you have a picture of our second finalist grinding his way through the sea of black decks. White Knight are rather good vs lack, but Ingemar understood what was the flaw of his mono black aggro strategy and splash red for Bolts, so he can handle them pesky knights. This math was won by MG after Ingmar dropped a swamp, turning on MG's Land Tax, 2 seconds after his landdrop Ingmar realize his mistake and ask for a tack back. MG earned a new nickname that day. "Powergamer MG!"

  Egget vs onefunsite. Playing "for fun" since they are both looked into the top 4. of course their match almost goes to time, and they decide to draw with 8 minutes left on the clock (no chance in hell this will be enough).

And a game between the Frisk brothers. Mono black vs Mono blue. Ingemar with his black/red deck and Thomas on mono blue aggro.

 And a picture when Loff are fighting Myfz. r/g beats vs mono black aggro.

And yet another picture of the epic match between Powergame MG and Ingemar. =) Both Ending up in the top 4 together with onefunsite and Egget.

 Egget with a couple of Disenchants and a Copy Artifact in hand, looks like a Mana drain as well vs Onefunsite.

 And yet another match between Powergame MG and Ingemar. Me taking this picture made MG forget about his active Land Tax. Your Welcome Ingemar. =)

 MG plays a main deck Blood Moon, and he keep it in vs Ingemar for some strange reason. Ingemar are on black/red and got only one non-basic land. Normally I guess you can keep it in to nullify their Mishras. But Ingemar didnt play any Mishras. =)

 A stacked board ofr Oldschool. Not lacking many cards to combo off. To b ad his opponent have the disk and the Underworld Dreams in play to throw stones in the machinery.

 Seeing that MG's deck are a rather good one, and also pretty much on budget we decided that it deserved a decktech as well.

 He have been testing this deck for quite some time (3 years) and the most recent incarnation of it are version 6.8. Now days he only play 3 Disenchant, since Chaos Orb fills the last slot, and he might want to add one more mountain to the Sideboard. When he face the deck he sideboards out his Lands Edges (the Tax never sideboards out, its pretty much like an Ancestral every single turn).

Earlier incarnations of the deck played Jalum Tome, but he opted out of that, since the tome had very bad tempo and Winds of Change are a good, but not obvious, addition to the deck. Since having a couple of excess lands in hand turns the lands into real cards, all while the Tax can be active a couple of more turns. The main deck blood moon are there to handle Mishras and the Deck.

 And here you see his sideboard. City in a Bottle. A rely good card for the format, since a large part of it consist of Arabian Nights.

And here you can see some of onefunsite's sweet booster rippings.

 With some more sweet old school bosters on the table. =)

 Semi finals. Ingemar who gets in on tiebreakers vs Egget. Contemplating his keep.

 And MG vs Onefunsite. Onefunsite opting to drop only his artifact mana sources, afraid to activate MG's first turn Land Tax.

 And Ingemar with a board that rely can't handle the raw power of Eggets deck.

 One of the many Chaos Orb flips today. Onefunsite removing the card from its sleeve to give it better aerodynamic characteristics. Thats what I call dedication.

 MG having a hard time handling the power of Disrupting Scepter.

 Egget keeping Ingemar down on mana, tapping the land in upkeep that Ingemar untaps.

 MG going on the aggro plan. Black Vise and a couple of flying 2/2's.

 Egget just before the kill with Titanias Song.

 Game three between Onefunsite and MG starts of harsh. MG mulls to six and onefunsite throws a first turn Mind Twist for 5 on mg. leaving him with only one card in hand.

 But of the top MG succeed to find a Plains to drop a first turn Land Tax, trying to regain some of what he lost in that first turn Mind Twist. A Turn or so later, he top decks a Balance. Leaving it on even grounds, and onefunsite on a ticking Mana Vault. A vault that takes a good chunk of 12 life points of him. MG later seal the deal with a couple of Armageddons and a Black Vise. After his insane luck MG throws this comment at his opponent "Its always the best player who wins".

 So, in the Finals Egget face MG, and with a couple of Land Tax in game Egget rely needs to think on every single land drop. He sat with a Library of Alexandria in his hand for several turns, not dropping it since trading 1 card for 6 a turn seemed like a bad deal.

 Egget succeded to grind out a 2-0 win vs MG with some Mirror Universe shenanigans and Mishras Factory aggro.

 For the winners picture he showed us his two main wincons this day. Mirror Universe or Titanias Song.

 His sideboard. Another abyss to handle all these pesky black creatures. Another Tome, and a Disrupting Scepter for the control Match up.

 and a picture of his deck. It started of as a version of The Deck, that he  wanted to move to Chip Hogans Prison deck, but WotC didn't give Winter Orb the same errata that they gave to Howling Mine. He knew that it would be lots of black decks in the tournament and opted for Abyss as one of his main removals. The reason that he doesn't play Chaos Orb are the fact that he haven't had the time to practice enough with it yet. Just about 100 flips.

It was a sweet day, with lots of sweet magic. Giving many lots of valuable testing (and making me realize that Mono Blue Stasis probably ain't as good as UW or UBW stasis, putting me back on the drawing table with 2 more weeks to n00bcon).

Thanks for the day guys, and thanks to Vasa Gaming who let us play the sweetest format ever in their store.