Found an old report.

These are magical days. We celebrate life and toast in unbreakable glasses. Though in dancing there is barely time for writing, and I must to fall back to old stories this time.

There are lots of tales we never wrote and lots of stones we never turned. Team Kaffebryggers's latest summer tournaments in Växjö, Team KanelFireball's post-Christmas tournaments in Varberg, or perhaps the journey of Team Lisch in Lidköping? I recently unearthed some pictures from their Drowned gathering in March 2017.

Communities are growing and stories are lurking. Luckily for me, I found one that was already written.

Before there was a Flippin' Orbs podcast, before the online deck archetype library, and before the page wak-wak.se was up and running, a jovial Stockholmer in a colorful suit named Gordon Anderson still roamed the corners of the format. The man was named Gordon that is, not the suit.

 Flippin' the Orb, preschool style.

This was in fact not that long ago, we're talking 2017. Trump was the US president and Thor: Ragnarok was a movie. But in some ways it feels like a lot of water has passed under the bridges since then. In early 2017, we for example had no YouTube channels nor podcasts discussing the format. I guess we quickly get used to having lots of information, and it is hard to think back on what it was like just two years ago, when content was far more scarce. But go back two more years to early 2015, and the concept of larger gatherings in the US is a somewhat fresh idea, EC rules are starting to properly find their footing after the first Eternal Weekend, and the Italian scene is growing with up to 30 players at their largest gatherings. Two years before that, in 2013, the first few players at the US West Coast just started reaching out about the format, the scene in Canada was still new, and I first played the game outside Sweden (in Norway and Germany). Two years before that Oldschool was mostly unknown outside the borders of Sweden, and this blog was started. Two years before that we started hosting n00bcon at the Rotary Pub in Gothenburg. And yet two years before that, Kalle and I played our first duel with "oldschool decks".

So 2017 is not that long ago in the grand scheme of this format. That is meant as an excuse of sorts. I'm trying to convey that this short tournament report I found is not outdated, per say, just a little late to the presses. Before Wak-Wak was a thing, Gordon sent over this report for me to publish. And I somehow lost it. I am uncertain if he remembers writing it himself anymore. But I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and as family takes a good chunk of my potential writing time right now, this seems like the perfect opportunity to bring closure to the n00bcon Training Day. Enjoy :)

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n00bcon Training Day, by Gordon Anderson

I don’t think anybody has missed that n00bcon 9 this year will have as many as a hundred players(!). It will be THE 93/94 event of the year and it will be more important than ever to show up with a fun deck that you are comfortable with. Otherwise seven 60 minute rounds of swiss will be more than grueling, as Mg calls it on the n00bcon site. Therefore, we decided to arrange one last tournament two weeks before the big shindig, so people could try out their decks one more time. We called it n00bcon Training Day.

Me and my co-conspirator Paddan first decided to play the tournament at the usual pub where we arrange our monthly game nights. But when last month's game night ended up attracting 14 players we decided we needed to rent a place. Said and done, and a few hundred Swedish kronor poorer we had a place where we could fit at least 20 players.

Two weeks later and it was time for the tournament. Me and Paddan met up in the morning to get the key, set up all the tables and then going for a beer run to the nearest Systembolag (the only place that is allowed to sell alcohol in Sweden). We came back with 80+ beers, wrote a beer menu and got everything else ready for an amazing tournament was starting at 2pm and could go on for the whole day and night. We also planned for some nice side events to play after the main tournament was finished. The first two players showed up around 1pm and the first beers left the fridge. Two more players came shortly thereafter but they were both driving so they didn’t want any beer. Soon, three more players joined us. Three players who also didn’t drink that day. And lastly 35 minutes late (a tournament needs to be late doesn’t it) the last brave contestant showed up to make us an even ten combatants. He lives almost 200 km away so yes; he was driving as well. This is where we realized we may have bought a little too much beer. But hey, you can’t have too much beer at home!

My two starting hands against Yann; it didn't end well for him.

We decided to play four rounds of swiss and a top4. The meta for the day was quite unusual with two Power Monolith decks, two UG Berserk Aggro decks, Ponza, WUG Aggro, Arabian Aggro, Mono Blue Artifact Control, Machine Head and a BR Midrange deck with a splash for blue power and a couple of Serendibs.

Kird Ape in play and 3 bolts was a little too much for me to handle.

Because of the small size of the tournament we decided that draws, intentional or not, wouldn’t give any points at all, not even in the first rounds. After four rounds we had our top4 with Andreas Cermak on almost the same deck he took down Arvikafestivalen with, Andreas Rosén on Power Monolith, Max Weltz also on Power Monolith, and lastly the Ponza deck piloted by Johan Råberg managed to go 3-1 and get a spot in the top.

Ponza doing Ponza stuff and then slamming down a Nether Void. Paddan doesn’t seem that happy about it.

Johan was paired against Cermak which was his only loss in the swiss, and he was not happy about it. That may have been because their last match lasted about 10-15 minutes. Sadly for Johan, this time was no different and 15 minutes later he was out and Cermak advanced to the finals. The second semi-final was a little more interesting with a mirror match between the two very similar Power Monolith decks. But after some advanced spell slinging and a lot of mana being generated Andreas Rosén was able to knock out Max from contention.

At last it was time for the final round of magic, one slow and controlling combo deck versus a blistering fast aggro deck with disenchants to make life a little harder for the combo player.

Is that a Basalt Monolith on the table?

In the first game Rosén - or as we call him in Swedish: The Rose - made Cermak draw 80 cards with a Braingeyser and no, he didn’t have that many in his library so it was on to game two. In game two the small aggressive creatures won before The Rose could combo of and it was time for the final game of the evening. In this game it looked quite ok for The Rose but then his Wheel of Fortune gave all its fortunes to Cermak who got a completely bonkers hand that easily gave him his second tournament win in a row.

Arabian Aggro.

Hope you enjoyed the read and now you have some info on what decks a big part of the Stockholm crew have been testing for n00bcon. Because of the ten players that played this tournament, a whooping eight will be in Gothenburg to defend the World Champion title currently held by fellow Stockholmer Martin Berlin.

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Hehe, defend it they didn't ;)

If you need some more Oldschool fix, go check out the Bootlegger's Christmas OS95 report at Music City Oldschool, or perhaps read some old MtG magazines with Svante Landgraf. And head over to Urborg Buffet to check out their new Swiss 93/94 blog!