Old School Mtg

Our three-time 93/94 Giant Shark winner and two-time Swedish Eternal King champion Elof "The mighty" Gottfridsson continously works on new sweet tech. A while back, he suggested that he could write monthly "deck techs" about some of his ideas to post on the blog, and of course he was was welcomed with open arms. This is the first of hopefully many techs from one of the premier players of old school magic in the world. Enjoy! /Mg   Welcome to a new segment! Long time reader, first time writer. I've been playing this format for a couple of years, my first tournament with my own cards was noobcon 2012 if I recall corretly. I remember playing a deck similar to UR Burn but with Serendib Djinns and finished 9th on breakers. Since then I have mostly been playing The Deck or blue control, but have tinkered around with other decks; Nether Voids, Disco-Troll and even a Living Plane - Prodigal Sorcerer deck! But for this article, which I hope will be a montly rec...

It was one of those weeks with a full plate. Evaluations, meetups, n00bcon preparations and things at work that should be done before Easter sets in. I started to write three different posts in the last two weeks, but I've realized that all of them needed a few more hours of research before they were done. That is not really time I have before the weekend though, so I'll just rant today. One of the top things currently on my mind in Old School Magic is the emerging community in Oslo, so lets talk a little about how to build a deck in the format. Usual deck list, circa 1994. Building your first 93/94 deck can seem like a daunting task. Most people don't own any cards legal in the format, and it's not like you can go to your local card store to buy a starter of Unlimited and a couple of Legends boosters and start cracking. Decks in the format can easily hold price tags well above $10,000. So, where to start? Well, my own first deck in 93/94 looked like this: C...

Last weekend Vasa Gaming celebrated new owners and a name change with a Magic convention in Gothenburg. What was formerly Vasa Gaming is now MindStage. The new owners had the great taste to hold a 93/94 tournament at their convention. The eventual champion was none other than n00bcon 3 winner and tech aficionado Viktor "Oldschool" Peterson. This is his tournament report (translated from Swedish by yours truly). Enjoy! /Mg To the Viktor belong the spoiled. The birth of a concept Void of the Underworld took shape after many years of secret teching with land destruction. What eventually made it see the light of day was the contemporary discussions on Mishra's Factory. Many players claim that the Factory is simply too good, and some even argue for a restriction. I wanted to build a deck without the Factory, to prove that they are easy to overcome if you just change the way you build your deck a little. Additionally, it had been a while since I won a tournament, and I he...

The early days of Magic goes hand in hand with the early days of the web. The web became publicly available in august 1991, two years before the release of Alpha, but it wasn't really something the general public knew about or would use at that time. I got internet access at home in 1995, as the second person in my class to get it. The other one was also a Magic player, but we still didn't use the web for looking up cards or strategy. Some advanced players knew to use Stephen D'Angleos early web page for rule references, but the easily obtainable knowledge sharing of today didn't exist. In its infancy, Magic strategy and ideas was shared to the world via printed media. The very first examples of printed Magic strategy was geared towards more novice players. If we would read e.g. the strategy article on how to use circles of protection from The Duelst #1 today, we would regard it as very basic advice which anyone would understand after playing the game a few times. The...

That's an obscure title. About 18 years ago, I remember a guy at TV-spelsbörsen pointing at a card on their "Wall of Magic". Tv-spelsbörsen was one of the local gaming stores in Gothenburg in the 90's, and one of the walls in the store was completely covered in color proxies of every magic card ever printed at that point. I remember many days staring at the wall and trying to learn all the cards. I still didn't really know which cards were good, but I do remember this guy talking to a friend of his, and pointing at Time Walk, stating that it was the best Magic card ever printed. I knew he probably had a point, but I didn't really understand why. It felt like Polar Kraken would be a superior win condition. Two years later, I remember a guy approaching me at BSK 1997. He was looking to sell 7 cards, and asked me if I would give him 2000 kr (about $300) for two Moxes, four Underground Sea and a Time Walk; it was a pretty good deal even back then. 14-year old ...

Arabian Nights had a lot of new and innovative design. It's easy to forget exactly just how many new things were introduced in this set; lands with other abilities than just tapping for coloured mana, spirit link abilitys (El-Hajjaj), cantrips (Jewled Bird), coin flipping (Bottle of Suleiman) and minus-counters (Unstable Mutation) were all introduced here, just to name a few. One thing that I found particularly sweet were the cycles of powerful creatures. Of course Alpha had introduced a cycle before this; the 'boons' that gave you three of something for one coloured mana (Ritual, Salve, Ancestral, etc). Arabian Night took it one step further with the introduction of Djinns and Efreets. Four of the colours originally had one Djinn and one Efreet each, and these creatures proved to be some of the most powerful creatures printed for years to come. Cards like Juzam Djinn, Serendib Efreet and Ehrnam Djinn are reasons why City in a Bottle is powerful card. White didn't g...

Five weeks to easter and n00bcon! I'd like to mention a few cards that haven't really seen any play at all yet, but might make a splash this year. Last n00bcon we saw Relic Barrier make a huge impact, and during BSK we saw Haunting Winds take a player to the top4. We also had Petra Sphix and Field of Dreams in the top8 :) 1. Gaea's Avenger Last year's winner played 24 artifacts maindeck, and it's not uncommon for the control decks to play 1/3 or more of the cards in their decks as artifacts. Facing a couple of Moxen and a Sol Ring, this is a 4/4 for 3, and it grows with your opponent's mishras as well. The fact that it's immune to City in a Bottle, and many times can play around lightning bolt, may make this guy fairly playable. The issue is of course that your opponent needs board presence to make him big, but as long as those artifacts are mostly mana I think this guy could make the cut. 2. Hyperion Blacksmith This dude is a reasonable cheap 2/...