Old School Mtg

About a month ago, I visited Drammen for the first time. It's the 9th most populous city in Norway, still a fairly small place with a little over 60,000 inhabitants. For some reason, one of my favorite Swedish political skate punk bands from the 80s, Charta 77, had recently released a new album and decided that Drammen would be a good place to tour. So Øyann and I found a train, booked the most punk hotel we could find, and went for some springtime mosh pits. She's the girl with her left arm up in the center of the picture btw. I'm lost somewhere in the shuffle. Good mosh was had. Last weekend another group of ragtag sinners gathered in Drammen. Not for punk this time though, but for the first old school mtg gathering in the city. The Drammen community is spearheaded by Erland Petersen, an eternal viking and community organizer who e.g. placed second at last autumn's tournament in Moss. Erland sent over a bunch of pictures and deck lists from the tournam...

There are something like 260 posts on this blog. Most are without tags or structure. A few people have noted this, and mentioned that some sort of links could be appreciated for new visitors, or for veterans who wants to give old content a second look. So I took some time and dug up five of the, in my opinion, more interesting posts in seven different categories along with ten or so deck techs with short summaries. A random pic of Kalle doing the Lestree Pose with a makeshift pair of black sunglasses. Maybe you'll find something sweet you haven't seen before.  Check it out here.

Ah, summer! Suddenly, everything is alive again, the parks are full of beer, and the sun seems to never set. There are many things I could rant about in the world of the oldest of cards. The unrestriction of Fork has already had a pretty big impact. In the years prior, it has taken a few months before we've seen the real effect of updates to the restricted list; mostly as it takes so much time and effort to build and test new decks. But this time, Marc Lanigra took down the MKM Series 93/94 tournament in Frankfurt with his undefeated Fork deck already the day after the card was legalized. Further northwest, the UK old school players got some stream time during the MagicMadhouse ProSeries in Birmingham last weekend. Chris Cooper and the others in the UK Old School crew have also announced the first UK Old School Nationals championship in Blackpool July 3rd during the Magic Madhouse Grand Finale convention . A part of the proceeds will go to charity, and word on the street is that ...

Today we have a treat! Norwegian old school player and all round good guy Bjørn Einar Bjartnes shares his story, and his experiences battling opponents around the world using Skype and Shivan Dragons. Enjoy! /Mg out I started playing Magic back when revised was in the shops here in Oslo. It was very casual and mostly with friends from school. House rules were a necessity because no-one knew the rules that well. My little brother claims I insisted Mana Flare only counted for my lands. No wonder I appreciated that card so much. We had a few older cards, mostly we got ripped trading dual lands for common legend cards, I think. My mum actually managed to buy eight packs of The Dark for Christmas once, I think the local card store got an extra box in. I still remember not being too happy about expansions like Ice Age, I guess 93/94 was in my heart already back then. When I started high school, I put my cards away in a shoe-box. Geeky hobbies like Mtg had to let go. Since then my cards ha...

It's that time of the year again. For real this time ;) We got input from a lot -a lot- of active players this year. Some things are pretty much equal across the different groups; e.g. a great majority thinks that City in a Bottle should be unrestricted and that Strip Mine should be restricted, but there are still a handful very vocal opponents against their current status. Further away from the status quo than that, I've heard great players well invested in the format give arguments for restricting cards like Swords to Plowshares and Power Sink, and others arguing the merits for unrestricting Balance and Mana Drain. As noted by the response for the Aprils Fools post this year, it's easy to give somewhat good arguments for many, many different cards. And everyone wont always share the same experience playing with or against them. So it's important to test, talk to people, look at actual results, and understand that the changes should be made in the spirit...

In the spring of 1995, I spent a lot of time in my grandparents place out on the countryside. It was a remote scattering of houses by the woods, with only two mail boxes registered in the hamlet. My sister and I filled our days picking berries, playing with the animals and rummaging through wooden chests of old trinkets. In the picture painted by most, it was idyllic. At that point Magic was an endless sea of rare and odd cards. There was no web with easy access to spoilers and the Encyclopedia books were yet to be printed. We had played for a couple of months and it felt like any card could exist. Take an extra turn for a mana or two? That could well be a thing. A 10/10 creature? Seems like a schoolyard urban legend, but sure, it could be possible. We approached the game with odd house rules and a sense of discovery. At first, Dark Ritual was a interpreted as a permanent that tapped for three mana. No effects were "until end of turn". An 'X' in a mana cost was th...

Today we have a treat. Our friend Constantine Prishvitsin from Russia is not only a good guy and an awesome alterer of Fellwar Stones, but he was also the first player to travel multiple time zones to compete in Old School Magic. Since his showing at n00bcon 7 he has been building up, and a few weeks back he was to return to Sweden and compete again, this time with a brother in arms. This is his story. Enjoy! /Mg out I've been attracted to everything oldschool since I realised myself as a person. 80-90s action movies, games, underground and popular music. You name it. No wonder I always felt a bit uncomfortable in modern day magic, even though I am a game store owner and should support wizards' activities all the way. First, there was a video on youtube where Olle Rade defeated Sean Fleischman in the finals of Pro Tour Columbus 1996. I was mesmerized by the whole oldschool feel of the coverage. Not the oldest of kinds of magic, but it seemed like an awesome one! Next there wa...