Videos and pics from n00bcon 8

n00bcon 8 and the World Championships of Old School Magic is in the books! It was a great gathering with some awesome people and sweet Magic. People from all over came to battle. It was a pleasure to hang out with aficionados like American old school pioneer Danny Friedman, former Vintage World Champion Marc Lanigra of Germany, and the super friendly David Chambers of San Francisco; people I've had interactions with online but never got the chance to meet in person before.

We had people with resumes ranging from decades of nothing but kitchen table play to Pro Tour winners. Even though we don't really care about the number of participants, I must say that it's pretty cool that we filled up the pub to maximum capacity already in December. This is a casual format with a big barrier of entry, and we are fighting for a damn Giant Shark. The 76 players competing this year actually made it necessary to get a lot of extra tables and chairs to the pub to give everyone a place to sit. A few people have asked me how to qualify for the championships this year, now that there were a few people that didn't make it due to lack of space. Well, everyone who had a deck and found out about it were qualified, and after that it was just a matter of first-in-last-out. We expected it to fill up this year, so a part of joining was simply to find out about it or ask; people deep in the old school mire or long time players maybe had a better idea of were to look. Maybe you found out about it  at the end of a guest post at the mtgunderground. Maybe you found the info on on a private forum. Or maybe you simply found this hidden page at the blog. I had twenty spots ear-marked for players outside the different Swedish groups until the last couple of weeks before the tournament to give a slight advantage to players from communities outside the country.

As for next year, I don't know. We could most certainly have been over a hundred already this time if we would have had the room, and I don't really see that we'll be less players interested next year. So we'll just see how we'll solve that. Ideas are welcome ;) (We don't want to move to some more sterile location just to fit a bunch of people in a room. Ambiance is very important.)

Our local heroes Yespair and Jokemon streamed the seven rounds of swiss and the top8, and we already have a few sweet match videos and decktechs up. Check them out!

Round 1: JummJumm (Vault Burn) vs. Sveby (Eureka)

Round 2: David Chambers (Coffin) vs. Jhovalking (CandleFlare)

Round 3: Gajol (Distress) vs. Berntsson (ErhnamGeddon)

Round 4: Nikita Shelest (MonoGreen) vs. Felipe Garcia (Blue Artifacts)

Round 5: Freespace (Atog Smash) vs. Axelsson (BGW Skies)

Round 6: Logai (Enchantress) vs. Paddan (BWR)

Round 7: Loff (TaxEdge) vs. Thomas Nilsen (Power Monolith)

Quarterfinals: Olle Råde (UR Burn) vs. Patrick Hiness (Artifact Aggro)

Semifinals: Martin Berlin (The Deck) vs. Farsan (Lestree Zoo)

Finals (and interviews): Martin Berlin (The Deck) vs. Martin Lindström (The Deck)

 ...and some random highlights from the stream for you guys:

Decktech and Easter Egg with David Chambers (Easter Egg after pause at 12:37)

Decktech with JhovalKing

Decktech with Felipe Garcia

Rookie of the Year with Thomas Nilsen

There are a few other notable moments in the stream. Around 11:02 Mällroth and myself plays some flute, rants about old cards and cracks a sweet The Dark booster pack. Especially after the first seven rounds, there are a lot of ranting and random tech between the games. You can check out the entire 12.5 hours long stream at https://www.twitch.tv/yespair/v/56533281.

Thursday preparations at Kalle's place. Building decks and Easter Eggs.

We met up with a few of the long way players at the Rotary Pub the day before the tournament to get a head start on the competition. 2012 Vintage World Champion Marc Lanigra has found a German-sized glass of helles.

Jokemon and Jespair are ready to stream like it's 1994.

Russian and German trading. Binders full of lands, but kinda good ones.

Elof Gottfridsson, Danny Friedman, David Chambers and Marc Lanigra. Hardcore old school profiles.

Round one is about to start!

Hypnotics versus all the permanents.

First turn LoA. First turn Strip Mine. Second turn Strip Mine. Second turn LoA. Ok, now let's start the real game.

David found an easter egg with a playset of Stone Rains, one from each legal set in 93/94 (Alpha, Beta, Unlimited and Summer).

Arvika Festival winner Mällroth wants Rookie of the Year Thomas Nilsen's altered BoP for his collection.

A few of the Swedish Magic elite of the mid 90s.

Constantine Prishvitsin and Nikita Shelest from Russia shows up to battle. Wicked nice Team T-Shirts for the Time Boaks, though it takes both some knowledge of old Magic cards and skills in the Russian language to get the pun ;)

Lennart Guldbrandsson with Markus "KungMarkus" Guldbrandsson from Arvika. Some father & son Magic.

Simon Gauti of Denmark's Sengir Vampire can only watch in horror as the Doppelganger gets joined by Mahamothi.

Former Rookie of the Year Jenny versus JhovalKing. Note that they are playing on a Khalsa Brain playmat from Worlds Toronto :) The guy in the cap, Sveby, is btw the only player apart from myself who has been to every annual 93/94 Easter tournament (and n00bcon) since 2008.

Facing off against last year's National Vintage champion Landgraf who just got into old school Magic. He beat me in the finals of the Vintage Nationals, and now he beats me in the swiss of n00bcon. He's on a good roll to become my new Magic nemesis ;)

Andreas Lorenz, Simon, Freespace and Loff.

Socializing in the pub area between rounds.

Facing of against Kalle and his beautiful Copy Deck in Round 7.

Thomas Nilsen of Norway won Rookie of the Year and celebrates with some Titan IPA in his new chalice.

Sideevent The Main Tournament (Hövveturneringen).

Eneas casually wins Høvveturneringen and picks up a Rukh Egg.

Gordon Andersson is yet again dreamcrushed by Berlin in the elimination rounds. Flying Men are somewhat smaller than Serra Angel.

The Old School Magic World Champion of 2016: Martin Berlin!

The champion's deck. The maindeck Stone Rain looks like really solid tech.

We scribble a new year on the Shark that has been nailed behind the bar in the pub for over half a decade, and say goodnight to n00bcon for this year. A big thanks to everyone who came, played, hung out and shared this with us!