Old School Mtg

Last weekend Jason Jaco and the guys at Eternal Central hosted a major Old School tournament in Philadelphia. 54 players came to battle, including a couple of guys from Norway who visted Philly to sling cards at the Vintage and Legacy championships at Eternal Weekend. The EC players have a few local rules that sets them apart from the current meta in Sweden and most of Europe. Cards like Strip Mine, Black Vise and Fork are free to run as 4-ofs, Fallen Empires is a legal set with the Hymn being unrestricted, Mana Burn is enforced, Power cards are more abundant with the CE/IE proxies legal, and Winter Orb has errata stating that it gets "shut down" when tapped. So which decks would end up on top? One could argue for monoblack. It's a tier1 deck that consistently shows up at the top tables at our larger tournaments , even though it's usually only played by a small part of the field. When adding 4 Hymns, 4 Strip Mines and additional pump knights, it could be a real j...

Those last two posts with Danish tech are hard to follow up! Very entertaining and innovative decks. It's nice to see how other local groups approach the format. I think that Hans and his playgroup are the only ones who actually puts even more constraints on legal sets and cards than us, with their ban on P9 + LoA. The Norweigian players, who are hosting the first tournament in Moss in six weeks, go for the standard Swedish approach. A few other groups in Europe, including many of the Italian, French and German players, allow Revised and in some cases Renaissance and Chronicles. The main difference between the groups outside of the US is however if the allow Revised or not. E.g. the Russians stop at Unlimited like us, while e.g. the Australians have a very open reprint policy. Russian tech, UG aggro vs. Brw Control. Watch it!  Australian tech, Eel vs. Monoblack. Yep, there's a 93/94 scene in Australia :) They hosted their first tournament at their yearly Et...

Let's continue with some more sweet tech from Hans Henrik Rasmussen. If you missed it, you'll find the first part here . Enjoy! /Mg Old School Lands We don’t have a lot of toys for a lands deck, but we have Fastbond which is a lot by itself. Also, this deck includes the coolest win combo I’ve ever discovered: Hazezon Tamar plus Karakas which works in a very odd way. Hazezon Tamar comes into play with a trigger, but a so-called “delayed trigger”, so if you play him and then bounce him with Karakas the trigger is still there and will be resolved during your next upkeep where you get a bunch of sand warriors with no danger of them being removed in one swoop by your opponent removing Hazezon (since he is already gone). When your sand warriors have dwindled in number you can then replay Hazezon and do the trick again to make a new bunch. Old School Lands Sideboard The second advantage of playing a lot of lands is that Nevinyrral’s Disk can be used quite ...

Today we have a special treat! Hans Henrik Rasmussen started playing Magic around Antiquities, and a couple of years ago he was the first Danish player to contact me about 93/94. Since then he has been brewing a lot. His playgroup has a few house rules, but all the decks are legal within "official" 93/94 rules as well. I think they look awesome, and I hope I get the chance to see them in action some day! Enjoy! /Mg So, for the last I don’t know how many months, I’ve thought about sending you some Danish tech – since I, exactly like Elof, make a constant stream of decks that I think others could get some fun out of seeing – and of course when I saw his post on your blog recently, I just had to finally get this thing done (and I’m thinking the more deck lists the merrier!). And with the Danish summer being even more disappointing than usual, I will send you a bunch here while I have the time to do it. Another reason for my wanting to send you this, is also that...

Good things come to those who act. The date and format for Pimpvitational 14/15 are finally set, and in a few weeks I'll be battling with the finest of the foulest. Characters like n00bcon 6 winner Stalin, BSK winner Hagelpump, Elof, FreeSpace and Sehl will gather in Gothenburg to drink beer and fight for the Pimpwalker Champion title.  Probably also a Time Walk playmat and a trophy up for grabs. The format of this year's tournament is 93/94 Highlander (i.e. all cards except basic lands are restricted), with a small twist. A deck cannot contain more than nine cards from the ordinary restricted list, and additionally Library of Alexandria is banned. This means that you could play all the power cards if you want, but then you can't use Demonic Tutor, Balance, Sol Ring, Braingeyser, or any of the other restricted staples. I think that Sol Ring is the clear autoinclude in pretty much all decks, and that Ancestral is an obvious inclusion in any deck playing blu...