Decks from Nordic Warrior Cup and BSK

I think it's time to show off some "Decks-to-beat" here again. So here goes:

BSK 2021 Top8
19 participants, photos of 8/8 decks. After a year in pandemic limbo, the Swedish Nationals (and second oldest recurring Oldschool Magic tournament) is back to show how we tech in the Nordic meta. Svante's RUG Aggro/Burn took it down after a perfect run in the swiss, besting decks like Troll Disco, Disaster, TwiddleVault, ErhnamGeddon and Project M in the top8.

Nordic Warriror Cup 2 Top8
29 participants, photos of 7/8 decks. The wizards' school returns to Drammen to summon Trolls and invoke the dark arts. It was long overdue to finally meet up in person again, and this gathering turned out to be largest in Norway yet. The Top8 was heavily populated by the traditional Norwegian monsters, but in the end Sui-Chis showed that 4/4 is greater than 3/3.

...

The BSK Top8 was already spoiled over at Åland's blog, but we'll save 'em here as well for future reference. Quite a few rad piles from that tournament. Like Beyonce's Disaster:

Beyonce's Disaster. 3-4th place.

Beyonce won the previous BSK with this same strategy (in 2019; the tournament was cancelled in 2020). And as you may recall Disaster also won n00bcon 9, so the strategy certainly has some merits from the last years. What I find particularly cool here though is the playset of Su-Chi alongside City in a Bottle in the sideboard. If Bottles or Circles of Protection are expected post board - or if you just want to board in some Bottles of your own - the maindeck Juzams can be switched for Su-Chis in a pinch. Next level meta gaming.

Another rad pile was Åland's own TwiddleVault:

Åland's TwiddleVault. 5-8th place.

First, and primarily, let's address the elephant in the room. What kind of madman would group a random number of their playsets, while splitting up others in two piles, and then have the rest of the deck spread out? Like, try to tell me at a glance how many Mana Vaults, Sylvan Libraries, or Transmute Artifacts this deck has. But then again, I guess it shouldn't be too easy to read an oldschool decklist. And maybe the immaculate ordering of the Mines was just a coincidence.

Anyway, this is a really cool pile. Sideboard Mind Twist and maindeck Mana Short tend to do that to a deck. And it's good to see that this combo can be successful outside the hands of Danny Friedman. I tip my hat to Åland daring to test this strategy out in a timed and competitive setting, and even more so for his top8 finish.

While I have the floor on BSK Top8 decks, I feel like giving an extra shout out to my latest updates to Project M:

Mg's Project M. 5-8th place.

Some glare on the bottom row, even though Oldschool and I did our best to protect from it. 

Taking pictures is hard.

During 2021 I've pivoted a bit more towards red; including stuff like Granite Gargoyle and (sh)Ivan Drago(n) maindeck. Shatter and Stone Rain are also both very nice additions once we go deeper into the mountains. And occasionally Fireball just wins the game. Clone is a really sweet spell as well, many times it just feels like a Doppelganger for one less mana. Wild.

The Nordic Warrior Cup also came with some really rad tech. Let's take a glance at three different lists that sleeved up a set of Sedge Trolls for the Top8.

Håvard's BR Disco Dreams. 5-8th place.

I believe Håvard is a fairly new player to the format, and that he's a local from Drammen. Regardless, this is some sweet Black/Red tech. In many ways, the list looks like a midrange Ponza (mana denial deck with burn spells) that utilizes Underworld Dreams to punish opponents that stumble on tempo after losing a few key lands. The Trolls can be really solid in decks like this, as they are resilient clocks while the opponent struggles to catch up. And when you have a playset trolls, maindecking three Nevinyrral's Disks can be a sweet sucker punch. It looks like the deck can operate on two very different axes, either as a Distress style deck or as a Troll Disco. And hats off to a great finish with zero Power cards!

Daniel Ewald's BR Troll Disco. 5-8th place.

Daniel Ewald probably takes the best deck pictures in Norway. While not as fancy as his deck pic from n00bcoM 2, it's still some next level elegance. And some great card choices. Obviously the four Juzams makes this one of the top 0.1% best decks ever sleeved up for a game of Magic, but I'm also a big fan of things like the one-off Guardian Beast and the pair of sideboard Mazes. You can see Daniel's list live in some Top8 action over at the Farmstead channel.

Ole's Sinister Solution. 2nd place.

Heh. Now this is subjectivity talking, but Ole's pile mise well be my favorite list of the year. Playset of Juzam? Multiple Granite Gargoyles? Fancy Power? A pile of Black Vises combined with oft-neglected bounce spells? Check, check, check, and check. I implore any nerd to study this list to ponder all the subtleties and strategic choices among these 75.

If you want to a proper report from Nordic Warrior cup, I recommend checking out Erik's report from running the gauntlet with his Trollmageddon deck over at his blag Elf Valley Mtg. Next time I hope to have some Brawl Tech for ya.