Pimpvitational 14/15

Elitist? Yeah, I guess. You're not entitled to play with any card you want. Some people will have more expensive cards than you. Though it's like saying that the roads are exclusive and only for the rich just because some people drive a Tesla while others have a Ford. It's not the roads' fault. You are not entitled to a Tesla just because someone else saved up for one. 93/94 were never meant to be something like the next EDH, or to be mainstream. If you feel that you must get first to the destination and drive the best car, this is not the road for you. It was never meant for you. If you're driving for the leisure, enjoy the view and like the company of the other drivers, come join! Some players may have spent years and thousands of dollars on their equipment. If you want to, you can do that to. If you don't want to, accept that some cars will probably run faster than yours. If you're a skillful driver, you might get ahead anyway.

Exclusive? Hm. Anyone who wants gets to play. We don't event promote winning with valuable prices for the higher finishers. The tournament fee is never more than to cover the expenses for the organizer. The cards you have in your deck will never rotate nor become obsolete here. You can build a deck for peanuts and come to play and have a beer in our tournaments. If you want to build the first deck I played in the format, and use Unlimited cards, you can buy the whole 60-card pile from CardKingdom right now for $48.68. People who rather spend $80 on a set of Deathmist Raptors for Standard and still feel they should get to play an optimized deck with Power and duals without commitment and time, this is simply not their format. People who enjoy the game for the game and the beauty of old cards are always welcome.

That is mostly the truth. But among all the public roads, there is a private one. The tournament where only a handful people are invited, where the top old school players battle for glory and bragging rights. Eight players, all of whom with the skills to spike a tournament. Eight decks, each with a simply ridiculous price tag. This is the tournament for haters to hate, where elitism meets exclusivity, and where all the complaints are justifed. This is Pimpvitational.

Got nine problems but Power ain't one.

Following the tradition of the old DCI Invitational tournaments, the Pimpvitational uses slightly different formats than usual. Last time, we played with Fallen Empires. This year, the format was 93/94 Highlander, with Library of Alexandria banned and no more than nine cards from the restricted list allowed in each deck. 60-card decks, no sideboard. When I arrived at the site, I compared my restricted cards with those of last year's BSK winner and nn00bcon finalist Robin "Hagelpump" Lundberg.

No surprise that Robin would go for Shivan rather than Serra.

Very similar cards. We only changed color of one mox, and Robin opted for Braingeyser over Black Lotus. The reason might be that Robin's Beta Lotus is incased in a plastic prison, and he hasn't opted to free it yet. Though I must say, the Lotus was by no means an autoinclude for me. It is obviously great, yes, but it's uncertain if it's better than the Geyser in the format. At least for me, four out of five times I drew my Lotus in the tournament I'd rather have had the Braingeyser. The nine cards chosen by the field looked pretty similar, though with a few surprises:

Just add three Mahamothi Djinn and you can build a rad 75-card casual deck. Unless you'd rather build a house.

The only card used by all eight players was Ancestral Recall, which was the MVP of the tournament. Seven players opted for Sol Ring and Mox Sapphire. Six each went for Black Lotus and Time Walk. Five players took the Braingeyser, and four each went for Demonic Tutor and Mind Twist. Then there was a handful of non-blue Moxen, Chaos Orbs, Mana Drains and Balances. Among the more unconventional choices we have cards like Regrowth, Mishra's Workshop, Recall, Wheel of Fortune and Black Vise. The only P9 card not represented in any list was Mox Emerald. Ain't easy being green.

This was my list:

Turn 3 Phantom Monster of a mox is crazy sweet. Also, Moat!

The Prodigal Sorcerer might not be the best creature in the format, but it kills Preachers and Archaeologists while providing a solid intimidation factor showing that I won the WSK tournament. Not as imtimidating as the Sharks played by Elof, Stalin and Robin though.

Stalin vs Elof. Stalin managed to kill Elof's Shark and then attack him for 16 with his own :)

As for deck design, I figured that the format would be kind of random with all the one-ofs, and that players would generally have to win with creatures. So I simply took all the solid flyers in the format alongside Clone and the Doppelganger, added a bunch of creature removal (Terror, Swords, Paralyze, Preacher, King Suleiman, Control Magic, Moat, etc), and 29 mana sources. UWB Skies. If I would get to drop a four-power flier on turn 3, 4 and 5, it would be hard to have an answer to all of them. Hence my focus on the restricted cards were fast mana; five Solomoxen, two blue Power cards, Mind Twist and Demonic Tutor (awesome in highlander). It worked pretty well. In retrospect, I should probably have cut either Lotus or Mind Twist for Braingeyser though. Card draw was even better than usual in this format, and the card I lost to the most was by far Ancestral Recall.

Pimpvitional players. Standing: Hagelpum, Mg, Felipe, Elof, Freespace and Sehl. Sitting: Stalin and Jenny.

In the end I went 4-3 for a quadruple tie on second most match wins, had a few double IPAs and a couple of Imperial Porters, and eventually bowed down to Elof Gottfridson who only lost a single match during the day. Elof has now won pretty much everything there is to win in the format; n00bcon, BSK, Pimpvitational and Huvudturneringen (alongside a bunch of other smaller tournaments). Looking forward to a tournament report. He's clearly a very lucky guy.

Our local Mark Justice.

Freespace took pictures of all the decks and will hopefully provide player profiles and deck techs in the near future. Until then, here's a video of a Norwegian doing good deeds (or blasphemous, depending on who you ask):