Sharp dressed man, part 2

Johan "FreeSpace" Andersson is back with the second part of his pimpvitational story. It is awesome. Enjoy! /Mg out 

Thanks for all the nice comments for part one, I hope I can live up to the same standards with part two. If for nothing else, then for the mtg underground! 

Pick-draft? Oh wait…

The rest of the ruffians arrived one by one. A couple of casual beers, a photo shoot and some discussions about deck construction for the format later we were close to the start of the tournament. First however, we had to take a look at the restricted cards of all the decks and compare the choices but more about that in a coming deck analysis. Let's get to the interesting part!

What time is it? It's time for the fucking Pimpvitational!

Strengthened by the smorgasbord of different breakfasts I had and the fact that my deck was so awesome I expected swingy and chaotic games. Deck building for the format is different, at least for me who never played any of the other highlander-formats before. Early on my plan was to play with as many of my favorite cards as possible but the limitation for the restricted cards made me skip the moxes among other fantastic cards. I ended up playing a five-colored good stuff deck with all my favorite creatures and broken spells. Kind of like a highlander version of my old pet deck Juzam Smash.

First round I get paired against Jenny, the matchup that I've been practicing for weeks before. The bad news is that she also has the same advantage. In the first game Cyclopean Tombs lands on both sides early, fucking up mana production big time. How can you play magic without green mana? Can't cast Beards of Paradise, that's for sure! Luckily I draw a Fellwar Stone while Jenny has several duals in play giving me an edge and together with a land-drop the ability to summon Sol'Kanar, the Swamp King who swamp-walked my way to victory. In the next game I keep a shaky hand comparable to entering a revolver duel with only one bullet in the chamber. When that bullet is first turn Land + Lotus + Juzam you kinda have to keep anyway. Jenny struggled to keep the Juzam threat at bay only delaying his merciless beating a couple of turns. Hard removal is scarce in the format and I finished it up when my Demonic Tutor gave Juzam the ability to go Berserk on Hell's Caretaker.

Stalin and the Moxen, but why the blue ones? That, we may never know! –David Attenborough

At the table next to our there was a battle between two former world champions commencing. One of them was the legendary 2014 winner of noobcon and world champion Stalin! Known as Christoffer "cjva" Andersson to the regular crowd you'd still expect him to pick up the red Mox instead of the blue ones but that's one of the things I love about him, he never ceases to surprise! Stalin also has an amazing collection of tattoos where you probably will be offended by at least one!

He's been playing magic for ages and I remember playing with him as far back as the early 2000's when Vintage was on the uprising. His decks are always interesting and while he plays lots of combo and prison in Vintage, the old school decks are of a broader variety. Anything from annoying his opponents with Stasis and going to time every match to the blitzkrieg that was the Electric Eel Aggro. The famous Electric Eel Aggro. Stalin actually held the ninth place in the standings when the dust settled after the swiss in the world championship 2014. By luck beyond this world he managed to sneak his way into the top 8 since the now reigning champion Kalle Nord had to step down due to other obligations that evening. Given this amazing opportunity Stalin stopped at nothing and pulverized the opposition while making at least one player cry.

Sharknado!

In the first battle of the Pimpvitational Stalin dropped his treasured world champion trophy Giant Shark on the second turn with the help of Black Lotus and a Mox. While that seems like a strong play against a former world champion playing blue the tide can quickly turn. Especially if said opponent accelerates out his own trophy Giant Shark! I cannot recall who won this amazing duel but you can be damned sure that stuff like this only happens at the Pimpvitational.

Respect! Time Walk! Are you talking to me?

Another rad dude is Erik "sehl" Larsson. You can pretty much see that in the picture. Erik is no stranger to the game, he's been involved since the 90's but since last year Erik has continuously been putting up impressive results in tournaments and you can no longer mock him for playing like crap. Which bothers me because Erik is one of the funniest guys in the scene when it comes to friendly mocking and bashing.

"Hi, nice to meet you. Shall we wait for your personal assistant before we roll the die?"

He played lots of mono black before acquiring more pieces of power but when he switched to White Weenie and splashed blue for power he started to put up impressive finishes, the top 8 at last years BSK among others. He also played WW with a blue and red splash for burn spells to several playoffs during last season. Among the more impressive victories for Erik is Mysturneringen at Mindstage where he stopped the runaway train Atog Smash in the finals played by none other than the anti-hero and narrator of this story. Well played.

Johan's Juzam Horror Smash

In the start of the new season Erik finally caved and started playing The Deck. Being Erik he naturally added more burn spells. A strategy brought to light recently by Kalle Nord at Frippan Open where Kalle reached the semi finals. Kalle used the same strategy to take down the world championships this spring and Erik also showing an impressive result reaching the semifinals. The Pimpvitational game between us was loads of fun! Not so much for Erik though. I had ridiculous draws with lots of restricted cards and some of the best beats available in Juzam Djinn and Sol'Kanar. Game two became a slaughter when I accelerated out several big threats like Juzam and Johan(!). The monumental defeat was immortalized when I played my easter egg-card from noobcon, Cosmic Horror, and attacked for lethal damage. Probably the card I saw the most the whole day finally did something except discarding to Jaluum Tome. Maybe time to build Lovecraft.dec.

Mg, 93/94 and Europes own Stephen Menendian.

The number of persons who could be next up is starting to get quite low and since I refuse to let you bask in the glory of me writing about me and I'll save the arguably best for last. Next person up is of course Magnus. Magnus "mg" de Laval is, as you all probably know the author of this blog and one of the creators of the format that we all have come to love. We all have Magnus to thank for all the time and effort he put into producing high quality content spreading the word of true Swedish old school magic. Now it's a worldwide phenomena and the interest for the games roots have never been higher. Please draw a ball sack on a Fellwar Stone and send to Magnus as a thank you. There is no point in writing about Magnus decks and finishes because you already know it from his excellent reports. If this sounds unknown to you then it's not my story you should begin by reading, I'm a mere layman. Go back and read an old Magnus post. They're still good!

I've known Magnus for over ten years now and he's a great guy outside the magic world too. Few guys match his knowledge about and ability to drink beer, working as a bartender at the bar where the annual world championships of old school magic are held during his studies. He's one of the funniest friends to take a road trip with, especially if you're going to a magic convention and just play the fringe formats like old school and vintage. And he's a secret ninja.

Classic Loffe, sporting the old Team 0-2 Drop shirt and his regular hands.

So I promised the best for last. How else can you describe him? Until the Pimpvitational he has won every worthwhile title you can win in Swedish old school magic except the Pimpvitational. Olof Gottfridsson. Elof the Mighty. The Shark. The Best. Stalin's opponent in earlier mentioned world champion duel. His names are many. To me, he will always be Loffe. I've known him for some thirteen years or something now. In the early 2000's when we were playing Vintage, you could afford power cards as a student and drinking booze out of yogurt bottles at tournaments was standard for us rascals below the legal drinking age. At that time we made appearances in the playoffs every now and then. I pretty much took a long break in 2005 but Loffe continued to play eventually rising to becoming arguably the best Legacy-player in Sweden for many years. Really fun fact about Loffe, he bought a Black Lotus to his son when he was born. That's awesome.

I played Loffe last of all the competitors at the Pimpvitational. Quickly recognized a classic Loffe-deck, blue and white control elements backed up with solid card drawing. He utilized the small creatures with limited card drawing abilities to sift through his deck to find the best threats and answers. Loffe defeated me in two straight duels. Loffe was the only one at 6-1 for the day. Me among others at 4-3 and best game win ratio for me. We still played a final and it was pretty much a repetition of our earlier match. I have to bow down to Loffes magic superiority and give him a huge congratulation to finally earning the last of his well-deserved titles, Pimpvitational 2015 Champion! And a fucking awesome playmat with a reimagined Time Walk from Amy Weber!

Only the Pimpvitational 2015 champion gets to be in focus!

Long hours of intoxicated magic warranted food for everyone and we went to Stalins vegan-serving pizza place having a nice ending to a really nice event. Loffe and Eriks last train were closing in and we decided to call it a night. We went home and Felipe joined up for some Mortal Kombat and of course Sleep on the turntable. A relaxing end of the day.

Frippans Magic Music Tips:
Easy Listening: 13^th Floor Elevators - Earthquake
Evening enjoyment: Shrinebuilder – Solar Benediction
Doom-induced trance: Bongripper – Reefer Sutherland

If you made it this far, thanks. I hope I can provide you with an analysis of the decks further down the path. I hope you all enjoyed it; I had a really good time both living it and writing about it. Until we meet again.

//Frippan, Shaman of the mtg underground