At the bottom of the glass – 4 lessons from a loser

Today we have a blog post from Flippin' Orbs host Seb Celia where he tells us about 4 very special cards that he has had the "honor" of winning during the last couple of years. Each card comes with its own stories and lessons that have made Seb a wiser man, and a better player, or at least we hope so.  /Gordon

Lesson I

Lesson II

Lesson III

Lesson IV

Lesson I – The Rag Man

The dark side of the moon

It’s a card right? I mean, you win when you play it … sometimes. Blood Moon is a deceptive card though, it gives you that warm fuzzy feeling but you are a blind fool. And a deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths. Let’s lay down some of those truths.

I sometimes use Fog as an example of a deceptive card that lets you really remember winning. You won that one time when all the stars aligned and, clearly, should’ve died that very turn if it were not for this and that. It does not, however, remind you of all the times you sat with the card in your hand, doing nothing. Cards need to do things for you to win, we could probably agree on that right? I think in many ways Blood Moon qualifies here. Sometimes it just flat out kills all opponents’ upcoming plays. Other times they have a Fellwar Stone when you decided to play with plains in your Blood Moon deck. Other times you slam it when you have an opening around counterspells and whatnots but strand a bunch of your own cards in hand due to playing three colors in your Blood Moon deck.

So for the tournament where I won the Rag Man (A price given out to last place in all our tournaments, Ed.) I played a Blood Moon deck with Savannah Lions, splashing for blue power (because I am not a peasant by position, nor by nature). To make a long story short, it did not go well. I even met a Merfolk deck where my Blood Moons just did everything that is close to nothing.

 

Lesson II – Sorrows Path

(Put the lime in the) coconut

I did not plan claiming all these trophies, to aquire them you have to be ready to be beaten a lot, like a lot a lot. But it’s also a bit like in that Fight Club scene where they are told by Tyler Durden to go out and get beaten up by complete strangers. It’s not as easy as it seems. I claimed this little gem by coming 5th place just out of range for the top4. I actually won the Sorrows Path in the raffle just before the top4 and it seemed fitting to say the least. Råberg signed it when he beat me in the win and in. Anyway, I played this:

Arabian Aggro is a great deck. Recently we have seen a lot of creature based decks popping up and in that meta, you probably win playing Swords over Lightning bolts but hey, I feel that if you put a lion and a gorilla in a cage fight… the monkey will beat the shit out of the cat. I did try playing three sylvan in the sideboard in this event because I had seen “Farsan” go unbeaten in the swiss at n00bcon, and he won against like, at least two-three The Decks (including mine) with them, as a sort of Ancestrals. But they did not serve me that well, and I don’t like that card as much as other people do. I think I had control a bit too much in mind building my deck and let that be a lesson to you all, you probably will never meet the decks you plan to meet anyhow.

Seb's Arabian Aggro

Lesson III – The Fallen

What a wonderful world

So, if you play Eureka, you lose. At least that’s what LSV says, but let’s not delve too much into what’s good or bad with the deck in general. I did some very sweet plays and that’s what you want, slinging the most badass creatures in the game, like playing a turn one Lord of the Pit. There got to be some kind of achievement unlock just doing that, right? I had a real blast the whole tournament … but I lost. I like the possibility to ramp out big dudes and to be able to live the magical christmas land from time to time playing eureka. Unload your hand, slam Concordant Crossroad and hitting for a ton. Moat is a problem though… and a bunch of other crap are problematic too, but who the fuck cares when all you want is to win more, rather than win?

(The Fallen was also the price for a last place finish, Ed. )

"So you say my Library might be too slow?"

"So you say my Library might be too slow?"

 

Lesson IV – Blaze of Glory

Where is my mind

Seb's n00bcon deck - The Machinegun

I can’t really complain that much about coming 9th place in this year’s n00bcon. The deck felt solid, I got mind twisted three times in the games that I lost that eventually put me outside of competition and that is a crappy feeling. I remember when I played against Olle Råde for the win and in and had a Library in my starting seven. “This is the first time I get to play library turn one!” I declared. Olle mind twisted me the following turn for a bunch. The bigger picture of the whole tournament for me was a bunch of really fun games and I try to keep that in mind going forward.

I love playing Atog decks. The main problem with Atog is that you really only need one, that’s true for a bunch of cards, like the ones I’ve mentioned earlier (Blood moon and Sylvan Library). But you need to make it stick which means you have to bait out a counter or two and/or keep it around. The reason why I think small creatures are, and have been good lately is that all the control decks skimp with their removal. Right now, in the age of lions, I’m playing at least 2 bolts with my 4 swords in my The Deck because those small lifepoints add up. U/R has like 8 creatures, and 4 of them are Flying Men. They are really, really good. Especially if they bait out swords so you can slam your Serendibs. And even though you might feel that the Lions get smashed by Mishras, white has both Disenchant and Swords so those factories have to dodge a lot to stay alive

Ivory Cup 2

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Game on!

So, this is a report that I should have written many many moons ago but as we say here in Sweden, “den som väntar på något gott väntar aldrig för länge”. And for you international readers the literal translation reads “one who waits for something good never waits to long”. Therefore, I now give you a short report on organising and playing the Ivory Cup 2017 in Stockholm earlier this summer.

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Let’s start with a short throwback and backstory. 93/94 may have originated in Sweden, but that was on the west coast, while Stockholm is on the east coast of the country. Historically Stockholm haven’t had as big of an old school community as the west of the country so last year’s Ivory Cup was actually the first dedicated 93/94 tournament being held in the capital. Then we had 29 players and considered it a big success, so of course we organised another Cup this year.

This year the tournament was held in the suburbs of Gubbängen in Stockholm as I was able to get an empty venue for free there. The “for free” part gave us an opportunity to give away some more expensive prices than we otherwise could have which was really nice. Other than that, we did as we usually do, buy a lot of nice beer and set up our own bar where they players could get anything from a simple lager to oak aged sour beer. One new thing was that we also invited the store Mindstage to come and set up a popup store with only old school cards.

The tournament got 35 players from all around the country and some special guests from Norway. That meant that we played six rounds of magic and then cut to top 8. As we are not much for giving out expensive prices to the winners we had a special price structure set up for giving away all the cool stuff we had. First of all, every player that had pre-paid the tournament got to pick a random card from a Legends lottery with only playable cards. The big prices where a Mirror Universe, Land’s Edge and a Sol’kanar the Swamp King. The fixed prices were an altered Alpha Ivory Cup for the winner and a green Duelist Abacus Life Counter still in the blister for second place. We also awarded 9th place with a signed Abomination on which Mark Tedin has written “9th place isn’t that bad”.

Then we did two different lotteries, one for all the players who didn’t top 8 and one for the ones who did. Kalle Nord donated the price for those who didn’t top 8 and that was a one of a kind test print of this year’s n00bcon playmat. The price in the top 8 lottery was a rare Black Lotus playmat with the original Black Lotus art.

And now to the top 8!

First of all, here are the decks and players who made it through the swiss:

 

When the dust settled after the though quarterfinals Jonas Lefvert, Paddan, Micke Thai and Kalle Nord where the ones left standing. I’m sorry that I didn’t have the time to keep track of the matches very well so I can’t give you any details of how they played out. But I can at least tell you the ones who made it to the finals which was Kalle Nord on “restricted cards+four drops” against Paddan with his 4c Deadguy Ale, two strange, but amazing brews. It really was the battle of the four drops but after quite a quick final Kalle Nord stood as this year’s champion. He was actually so happy that he took a bite of his own Black Lotus(!). Ok, maybe not a bite, but almost! He is one crazy dude.

This isn’t the most comprehensive of tournament reports but it was mostly written to have a reason to show you guys the nice decks people brought to this tournament. So, I hope you can forgive me for that.

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But at least I have one more thing to say about the tournament and that is the amazing match for last place! We always give out a price (a Rag Man) to the player who comes in last but as we had two people with the same points we let them battle it out. In the pot was the Rag Man for the looser and an invite to next year’s World Championship of 93/94, n00bcon. Now that is a match with high stakes! The match was between the Norton Fantenberg and Joakim Askenbäck and we are happy to say that Norton now is one of the amazing Stockholm Rag Men and Joakim Askenbäck will be able to compete with players from all around the world next year.

Here the plan was to have a small report on how I did and some words about my deck but I'll leave that deck tech for later.

Here are some more pictures from the event:

/Gordon

Decklists from Alphaspelen 3

This will be the shortest post yet and mainly consist of images as I thought people would like to see what decks were played yesterday at the tournament Alphaspelen 3. So here they are in order of placement in the tournament.

I'm also working on a tournament report that will come up later this week and also an in-depth article about my deck with a couple of different variations built on the same theme. But you will probably need to wait a week or two for that one.

/Gordon

Ps. Thanks to Magnus Engdal who made it possible to photograph every participants deck.

A Report from the Scandinavian Championship

And also, We have a blog now!

Yes, you read that correctly. From now one we will try to give you guys even more old school content. How often will we update the blog? Who knows, but we promise to do our best to at least update once a month. Most of all, we just wanted a place where we could share our thoughts that don’t end up in the podcast or other places. That means you will mostly find short posts here, but we'll start it of with two longer posts and here is the first one.

In our first blog post ever, we’re going to have a look at a couple of decks. More specifically we’re going to take a look at all the decks which the Stockholm crew played last weekend at the Scandinavian Championship of 93/94 in Arvika with over 40 players. Some of decks also come with a short story from the player who played it. But without further ado, here are the decks!

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Max Weltz – White Zoo

Earlier tournaments Max have played either Troll Disco or PowerMonolith but this time he went for an aggro deck, and as you can read in his story, he didn’t get much practice in before the tournament.

“I played the deck for the first time on the train there but got some help from Andreas Cermak, who usually plays this style of deck, to tune it a bit before the tournament started. I ended up going 3-3 after losing 2 matches against early Blood Moon and then against fellow Stockholm crew member Andreas Rosén who just was to aggro for me to handle.”

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Andreas Cermak – White Zoo

Andreas hasn't played old school for long but has put up amazing results during that short time. As usual he played his signature White Zoo deck and his only comment from this tournament was “Died to Mono Black”, which is a shame because I would have loved to see his two Karma in the Sideboard to do their thing.

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Jonas Rebenius – White Weenie

When Jonas started playing this format White Weenie was his go to deck and now he’s back! Here is his short story from the day.

“Right before the tournament started Kung Markus (the organizer) announced that there would be a price for best placed unpowered deck and as WW doesn’t play much power I decided to remove the Lotus and the Pearl from the deck. I just got a couple of minutes to do the change and without two plains to put in the mana base got a little bit unstable but who cares, right?

Instead Björn Myrbacka lent me two Tividar’s Crusade and maybe that wasn’t bad because the deck who took home the price for best unpowered deck was a Goblins deck.

I started out 3-0 and was feeling good! The wins where against White Zoo, a mono black Pestilence deck (which should just not happen) and then Troll Disco. But then my luck ran out, turn one Gloom into Black Knight spelled a quick death when I realised I didn’t have a Chaos Orb in the Deck. And in the last round I lost against Gordon Andersson which is almost a tradition now.”

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Peter Engström – UWR Control

Peter is one of the Stockholm crew’s newest players but he has been able to get quite the 93/94 collection in a short time as he had a lot of Modern staples. The deck he’s been working on is a blue, white and red control deck with a lot of basics so he can play two Blood Moon main deck. Just before the tournament he was able to get hold of a couple of Underground Sea so this time he also splashed for Mind Twist and Demonic Tutor. A cool deck that will probably end up as The Deck as Peter get more cards.

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Johan Råberg – Machine Head

Johan has sold almost every non-old school card he had to instead invest in old school cards. And what a collection it has become as he is trying to get everything black bordered. Here is his story.

“The idea behind my deck was that I wanted to play all the cards I love. That meant every color, at least one of each dual, Birds of Paradise, restricted cards and a nice selection of big monsters. I ended up going 3-3 after losing to fellow Stockholmers Björn Myrbacka and Yann Franzén. The worst moment of the day was probably when I saw a lotus hit the board on the first turn, being sacrificed for red and then all lands where mountains for the rest of the game. No, I did not win that one.”

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Björn Myrbacka – Dreams Control

Björn first played 1,5 years ago after trying to sell some old cards and met an old school player who told him about the format. He’s been hooked ever since and is now buying black bordered cards like there is no tomorrow. And it is the black border that decided his deck for this tournament.

“The reason why I played the deck and build I did was because I really wanted to use my newly acquired black bordered Howling Mines. That made me build a more controlling and slower version of the classic Trick Deck. The plan was to control the game and keep my Howling Mines tapped with Icy and Relic Barrier until I could win the game with a draw 7 or when I had more than one Underworld Dreams in play.

I ended up going 3-2-1 after I lost to Andreas Cermak and the winner Jimmie and got a draw against Kalle Nord. Other than that, I would say Balance was a MVP as always.

And as a fun fact, I won ALL of my pre-boarded games the whole weekend, from when we got on the train until we arrived in Stockholm the day after (we played a lot on the train). That must mean that I can’t sideboard for s**t so at least I know what to practice now and why it went so well later in the night in the Hövveturnering (a single elimination tournament for those who didn’t top 8 where you only play one duel).”

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Andreas Rosén – Arabian Aggro (Lestree Zoo)

Andreas has been playing for quite some time now and he usually does fairly well. This tournament was no exception.

“I didn’t want to drive to Arvika all by myself so I asked a friend if he wanted to play and luckily he said yes. That meant I needed to put together two functioning decks with my cards and that decided the deck I played. I built one White and Blue Parfait deck for my friend and copied Martin Berlin’s Arabian Aggro list from a couple of tournaments ago for myself. I went 4-2 in the swiss losing against The Deck and a Red, Black and White deck that was too aggressive for me. Then I sadly lost in the quarterfinal against Jimmie who later won the tournament.”

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Yann Franzén – Eureka!

Yann is probably Stockholm’s craziest and most fun brewer and you never know what he will show up with. Last time it was Lich Mirror but for Arvika he came with a more classic (but just as fun) deck, Eureka! The picture is a little bit wrong though, he took out one Colossus of Sardia and one Fellwar Stone to ad his two newly bought Concordant Crossroads, a card I think is essential for the deck. Sorry to say I only think Yann got two wins in the time but for a first time with the deck that isn’t so bad. He probably should had have at least one more win because he played me (Gordon Andersson) and it is a horrible matchup for me, but more on that soon.

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Gordon Andersson – Fork Recursion Combo

And then we had me, going there to at last play the deck I’ve been brewing on for many months. Some of you may have seen the development on Instagram or read about it when it got its place in the Deck Archetype section of the site a couple of weeks ago. The deck for the day was Fork Recursion Combo and it actually went much better than expected. I actually think this is a “real” deck even if we’ve never seen it at a tournament since Mark Chalice played it in 1994.

Step one for the deck is to play Howling Mine, Sylvan Library so you can draw your restricted cards, then play Fastbond to be able to utilize all the extra cards better than the opponent. After that you start to Fork restricted cards and try to loop Time Walk over and over again until you either switch life with a Mirror Universe or get to 13 mana for a Fireball+Fork win.

First, I got to win against Stasis, then just barley lose to Kalle Nord after I scooped so we could get a third game in. He won the fifth turn in time with my worst matchup Parfait. After that I won against my second worst matchup, a Trick Deck, because I had playtested A LOT against that. My forth match was against Andreas Rosén which is supposed to be a great matchup but I didn’t draw anything and he steam rolled me. My last two wins was the most interesting ones. First against Yann Franzén on Eureka which is a faster combo deck so I was in a world of trouble. Luckily for me I was able to find Mana Drain in all of our games and even recur it to stop all of his Eurekas. Sorry Yann!

The last match was against Jonas Rebenius on White Weenie, a matchup I think I have a slight edge in as their clock isn’t that fast. But the Disenchants could be a problem. When Jonas had two Circle of Protection: Red on the board and my only wincon is two Fireballs it looked grim, but forking his Disenchant on my Mirror Universe and then Chaos Orbing the last one got me through it.

/Gordon