Old School Mtg

Hectic week so far, and I'll update with the last three Shark-winners during the weekend. I got a quick post however, as I recently found an Easter egg from alpha previously unknown to me. I just got a new Forcefield, and lo and behold: Tap my mox to activate forcefield and... Mind. Blown. Turns out Forcefield dude is blocking Mox Jet. I may be the last person ever to notice this, but I really love how I can still find Easter eggs in the early expansions so many years later. Nevinyrral is Larry Niven and all that, but this one was pretty sneaky :)

During the summer of 2010, 93/94 expanded outside the original playgroups from Team 0-2 Drop and the Gothenburg casual scene. Players from Lindköping, Varberg and Stockholm started playing, and you got to see actual new faces at the tournaments. The first tournament where this was evident was GP Rotary 2010, hosted at Rotary Pub during the weekend of a Wizards held Grand Prix in Gothenburg. This was the first time I met people like Robert Schram and Dan Holm, and the first time I played against Viktor "Oldschool" Peterson in a tournament. Viktor had fixed a lot of things in preparation for the tournament (not including slimming his deck below 70 cards). In particular he had made a glorious trophy that hosted a cut-out of a Giant Shark. During the upcoming tournaments at BSK and n00bcon, this tradition carried over, and we found it very sweet to give the winners something more for their decks if they won a larger tournament. The trophy is obviously nice, but playing with a s...

During the last year I've been travelling a lot. Constantly going between the city I work in and the city where I have my family and most of my friends can be very taxing. It's in situations like these I appreciate 93/94 Magic the most. Meeting up with the guys in Regensburg gave Munich another dimension; hanging out with people apart from the ones you know from work makes a city feel more like a home. Last week I had my first chance to battle Juzams on Norwegian ground. It's a good excuse to meet good people. Yep, Juzams. Michael have been playing 93/94 for a few years, and we've met each other at n00bcons and BSKs before. He moved up to Oslo to work two years ago, and he is well versed in the city by now. We met up at bar in Østbanehallen, a part of the Oslo central station, just across the ail from Outland. Outland is the local FNM place in central Oslo, and is from what I've heard a very nice place. However the tables are kind of badly placed, and you can...

Last weekend me and a few friends celebrated Oktoberfest in Gothenburg. Not October (or even September), and no Bavarian Helles, but we somehow managed to drink a truly heroic number of maß anyway. The hosen were on, and the Sunday hangover were far from slight. It gave me some fond memories of Starkbierfest in Munich, and the day after when I first went to Regensburg to play oldschool magic with Martin and Alex. I guess it's high time to return to the sweet books I got from them, and delve into the Ali from Cairo deck. Here's the list in larger print:  BLAU (20) 1 Ancestral Recall 2 Clone 1 Copy Artifact 2 Counterspell 4 Mana Drain 1 Recall 4 Serendib Efreet 4 Spectral Cloak 1 Time Walk ROT (12) 4 Ali from Cairo 4 Lightning Bolt 3 Fireball 1 Wheel of Fortune ARTEFAKTE (11) 1Black Lotus 4 Copper Tablet 2 Jade Monolith 1 Jester's Cap 1 Mirror Universe 1 Mox Ruby 1 Mox Sapphire LÄNDER (17) 7 Island 6 Mountain 4 Volcanic Island SIDEB...

I first though about writing something about The Book Deck; maybe muse a little about card advantage and quote something fundamental from Robert Hanh's "Schools of Magic" (section Weissman). It is a very sweet deck, and a good evolution of control, but I think that Viktor "Oldschool" Peterson's new deck is even more interesting. Viktor constantly manages to surprise at tournaments with sweet new tech; his previously abused cards include All Hallow's Eve, Lich, Field of Dreams and Living Plane. This time he turned to the Smoke and Ivory Tower. Kingen told a story about facing the deck. Viktor had played an Ivory Tower on turn one, which Kingen neglected to destroy with Disenchant, instead opting to cast an Ice Storm (or similar) on Viktors lone land. The next turn, Viktor dropped a land and proceeded to cast Lotus and two Copy Artifact. The beatdown plan got even harder for Kingen as the game progressed. Five Ivory Towers beats one Black Vise. In...

The decks to beat section have finally been (slightly) updated. I've added the top8 decks from n00bcon 5, as well as the top4 from Kingvitational 0.5 (with pictures of the decks from both tournaments). Worth noting is that it does not contain any decks from BSK 2012 or Warcon 2012; hence decks like Distress, Tax Edge 2, and Field of the Sphinx Command are missing. To view these decks (and additional sweet tech), check the blogposts containing the tag <decklists>. The decks shown also don't include an updated version of what could very well be the "actual" deck to beat. The best deck may be The Book Deck, a version of The Deck that contains multiple Jayemdae Tome and multiple Copy Artifact. Only one copy of this deck was seen at Kingvitational, and it ended up at 6th place after facing some rough turn one Library draws. Both the first and the second place deck at n00bcon were Book Decks; but as those versions play 4 Mana Drains these decks are not legal in upco...