Old School Mtg

We'll step right in. If the 93/94 format would have a hall of fame, Pefken would be an auto-include. Apart from winning n00bcon twice, he also looks one step beyond the meta, and finds non-traditional powerful decks that can beat the field. At n00bcon 2 he won with a zoo deck, and at n00bcon 4 he reinvented Parfait to take him to the top. Last n00bcon he lost in the top4 against Elof (the Varberg Juggernaut) with a creature heavy deck I henceforth will refer to as Moon Midrange. Moon Midrange relies on under-costed and powerful creatures combined with unfair spells. It has some relation to the Ehrnam Deck, but supports cards like Blood Moon and Detonate, as well as playing a double digit amount of creatures. Note the sideboard shark :) Next up is the Power Monolith combo deck, courtesy of Kingen (the guy who took time to take pictures of all the decks shown here). Power Artifact combined with Basalt Monolith will generate an arbitrary large amount of mana, and Transmute Arti...

It's been a hectic week and a half. I just started a new assignment in Oslo, and the weekend included both a birthday for a two-year old and a bachelor party in Gothenburg. It's quite a bit easier to travel to Gothenburg from Oslo than from Munich btw. Speaking of Munich; Alex, one of the Bavarian heroes that I played 93/94 with in Regensburg, asked me about additional lists from n00bcon. On that same note, a Philadelphia (Philadelphian?) old school player named Brian had that same request today, so I figure that it's high time for some more lists. I'll post four sweet decks today, and try to update with four more before the end of the week. I apologize that some of the pictures may look a little blurry, it is possible that the photographer had a beer or two during the event. We'll start out with Glenn's RG burn list. This deck had the distinction of being the highest placed non-blue deck in the tournament (yeah, restricting Mana Drain was probably a good idea...

I'm continuing with posts of n00bcon decklist for now, still lot of sweet tech to be shown. The Distress archetype was (as far as I know, and at the very least in our community) invented by Daniel "GaJol" Nilsson; the highest ranking non-shark in the last year's pwp standings. I've previously written about Nilsson and his great contributions to both the meta and the spirit of the format, so for now we'll just dive in to the tech. Distress was originally based on the assumption that no player can destroy more than 4 enchantments (as they only play at most 4 Disenchant). Hence, if a player can maintain control enough to not lose the game himself, it will be very hard for the opponent to handle multiple clocks in the likes of Underworld Dreams and Warp Artifact. The name is based on the "bleeding" feeling of the opponent, and primarily as an opposite of the word tranquillity (as the card Tranquillity destroys all enchantments). Distress has a fair...

I don't really remember when or how, but many years ago I read about a deck that was noted to have "playsets of both Juzam and Birds" ("birds" not "bop", as in the mid 90's people hadn't invented abbreviations yet; wog was still referred to as wrath and no one called wheel of fortune "wof" or something like that). As I recall, the deck was called Machine Head, a name that now implies a red-black deck, but back then created images of Terminator Juzam in my head. This n00bcon, a real old school hero showed me how it's done with his interpretation of old school land destruction. Roland Johansson have played this game since Legends, and he's been a mainstay in the Gothenburg eternal community. Roland defeated yours truly in the finals of the Gothcon Vintage tournament in 2007 (that game was decided by a coinflip btw, as both of us wanted to sleep), and also put me out of contetion for top8 at n00bcon 2012 when I missed a Chaos O...

Frequent readers of this blog may be familiar with the antics of Viktor "Oldschool" Peterson. He won n00bcon 2010 with a deck that used Millstone and All Hallow's Eve to reanimate Colossus of Sardia, went on to build the Land of the Lich deck, and most recently top8'd BSK with a deck that abused Field of Dreams. This n00bcon he was one duel from getting to the top8, again with some impreesive secret tech. The only thing he had said about the deck before going in to the tournament was that it could create a lock harder than Stasis, and that it used multiple copies of Fastbond. What is this? The deck uses Living Plane and Drop of Honey to kill all the opponents lands, and also make him unable to play any new lands (as they have summoning sickness, and will be destroyed before they can be tapped for mana). In addition, the deck supports Energy Flux to destroy all potential artifact mana. After it has achieved control, the deck can win using it's own lands to...

Two weeks since n00bcon, and since then we've gotten at least two shout-outs from impressive international sources. The official Magic web page talked about the format, showed a picture of n00bcon 2012 top4 competitor Mikael “nesid” Magnusson deck, and mentioned the bragging rights of winning our World Champioship ( http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpstr13/day1#2 ). Also, Vintage superhero Stephen Menedian gave my n00bcon top8 deck thumbs up, and he both knows about the format and seems to enjoy the concept :) Juzam AND Doppelganger. Clearly unbeatable. On that note, it's high time to post the final standings from n00bcon: 1 Olof "Elof" Gottfridsson 2 Joakim Almelund 3 Rickard "Pefken" Samuelsson 4 Robin "Hagelpump" Lundberg 5 Magnus "Mg" de Laval 6 Andreas "Fork" Andersson 7 Erling "Icelander" Hansson 8 Mikael "Åland" Johansson 9...

Daniel "Kungen" Ahlberg managed to take photos of at least 22 of the decks played at n00bcon, so rather than posting decklists, I have the opportunity to post photos for many of the lists played. We'll start with Robin "Hagelpump's" red/blue creation. Robin has been a mainstay at n00bcon since the start. This tournament he allied himself with Jocke Almelund to form Team PropellerCap; with Jocke finishing at a second place after beating Robin in the semifinals (I also remember a third man with a cap that said "The boss" or something similar, I guess that could have been the team captain). Before that, Robin defeated yours truly in the final game of our top8 match by playing an alpha Shivan Dragon, which is a fairly satisfying way to lose a match. Robin has recently upgraded his sleeves to the kind that won't destroy the cards while shuffling. Good times.

Rumor says that when someone asked what it was like to play Legacy in Sweden, the answer was "Legacy is a format where you play for 50 minutes, then Elof the Mighty wins". Elof's run in 93/94 magic looks like an equally overwhelming dominance right now. During both n00bcon and Warcon, he didn't lose a single match. To top of his last years achievements he also won BSK, making him the single player to win all the Sharks last year. Considering the fact that no one else has more than a single Shark (though in all fairness; Pefken has won n00bcon twice), this is highly unprecedented. Winning is usually not the top focus for many players in these tournaments, but when someone runs this good, it's hard to not be impressed. Elof and old school and beer go way back. I first met him at a bar close to a convention called StabCon, the summer of 2004. He moderated a forum table at Svenskamagic.com that focused on the combination of magic and beer which he invited me to, and...

An great weekend with good friends has passed. We saw lots of new tech, a stacked top8, and sweet magic. Thanks to everyone involved in making the tournament, and thanks to everyone who came to play! There are lots of anecdotes to tell and tech to discuss, but for now, I'll let some of my pics say more than my words: Elof, our own Mark Justice, shows off his Sharks. Elof has won the last two Shark tournaments (!), and come looking to do a hat trick. Arvid Grahn, one of the pioneers in the format from back in 2007, returns to the stage. Arvid won the first ever 93/94 tournament, held at Gothcon in 2008. Sveby, another of the formats first players from 2007 comes to show off his awesome creations. Stalin, aka Cjva, aka this blog's founder, was our reliable judge and competent tournament organizer. Merfolk faces a menagerie of red/green beats Sveby writes trash talk on his Mana Drains :) This may be one of the sweetest boardstate I've ever ha...

This is my mecca: It's been so many years since I first layed my eyes on Juzam. I've attempted to get one at least five times; the first time I really tried to trade for one was almost 15 years ago. In some way, I understand that the monetary value of my foiled Mind Sculptors are about the same as this dude, in all other ways they are miles apart. I feel kind of an awe towards Juzam, and that is nothing I can say about most of my cards. I bought my first yesterday. This is a hard format to get into, and an emotional way to play magic. As we grow, more ideas of what old school magic should be are voiced. How do we maintain rules while still maintain feeling? When can we break the 7-set rule, the ban/restricted list, or the idea of competition without eventually breaking the spirit of some of the players with different ideas of nostalgia, or with different goals of why they play? These are very hard questions, and after additional feedback from players it's something t...

The first 93/94 invitational will be held during Easter sunday. The invited are the top8 in the pimpwalker standings, currently these guys: 1. Kalle "egget" Nord  2. Rickard "Pefken" Samuelson  3. Elof Gottfridson 4. Robert Schram  5. Daniel "GaJol" Nilson 6. Magnus "Mg" de Laval 7. Hjalmar "Honka" Backlund 8. Jocke "Troligt att jag är top8" Almelund The invitation list is then in falling order, so if anyone can't join, #9 in the standings will be able to take his spot, and so on. As is customary with invitational tournaments, we will shake up the odds a little by playing the format in an unusal way. After long considerations about how to play the invitational, we ended up with classic 93/94; but with Fallen Empires as a legal 8th set. Will Hymn to Tourach give the black decks the final push, will Goblin Grenade make sligh viable, and would River Merfolk put monoblue at top as a new tempodeck? So, wha...

Easter is coming up, and with that the world championship in Old School mtg! It's a gathering of beer, good friends and awesome magic, and it's the most prestigious tournament in the format. Last year 34 players gathered to cast turn 1 Juzams and tap Howling Mines with Relic Barriers, and anyone who's got a deck should appreciate this competition! What : n00bcon, aka the World Championships in 93/94 magic. This is the fifth n00bcon, and it's traditionally held during Gothcon (Sweden's best gaming convention), adjacent to the main convention site. The first ever tournament in 93/94 was held at the Gothcon site in 2008, since 2009 we've used an adjacent pub as tournament location. Where : Rotary Pub, about 8 minutes walking distance from the Gothcon site (in Gothenburg). We've rented the pub for the duration of the tournament, so only players will be allowed at the site. The pub hosts a very impressive selection of beers from around the world, if that...