Knights of Thorn 2024

The knights of Thorn need no introduction for the OS scene of the Netherlands. Mari has organized this tournament for a good ten years now. Time flies indeed. To go to the Knights of Thorn, I unfortunately had to forgo the also great tournament by Peter Monten in Belgium, the Gaea's Avengers, since due to some coincidence, they seem to fall on the same day the last times. I chose to go to KOT due to many of people I regularly play OS with, also the chance to see Bryon Wackwitz in real life was appealing. 

As always, I needed a deck to play and I was in doubt what to play. The last couple weeks had been very busy with mostly work but also some other stuff, so did not have a lot of time to play. While I was in de car driving home from work, I was thinking about what decks I would like to play in Oldschool which I had not played yet, but were at least attainable. There are a few decks that are possible in OS that I have never played, some because I don't want to, some because I can't because I don't own the right cards, like a chains deck. Or an Ali from Cairo deck, and though I don't care much for Chains (and I also think they're way to expensive for the fun I would get out of playing them) I do wanted to play with Ali from Cairo. It is just that I had only one. And then, on a whim, I bought a second and told Johan I was going to build a deck at some time. I thought that would take quite some time before I would get the other 2, as Ali's are not cheap. But then, some days later, Johan alerted me to a black friday sale where OS cards were 5% discount and fedex shipping for free. And they had 3 Ali's on sale. I fiddled a bit with the thought, but since I only have a few great Fedex experiences (contrary to DHL or our national post office which both seem to find pleasure in either butchering magic card or losing them) I went for it. I was already in talks with someone to sell some other stuff, so I would have the funds for these and I bought them. Now I had 4 Ali's. My first deck design was rather convoluted with both Ali and some other wincons including guardian beast and chaos orb. After some thought I tuned it down a little bit, so I would have a pretty interesting Ali/cloak/auro/mirror/ball/monolith deck. What I thought would be interesting is that not everyone sees this coming. It also had a millstone in it in case I would need to deck my opponent. Not exactly a top tier deck, but I also thought there would be a decent chance of winning as much as losing. So, when knights of thorn was on the horizon, I had to make the choice of playing a barely tested Ali deck, or something more decent. I went with the first. I had 4 Ali's now, so I wanted the chance to play them. 

My goals for KOT were pretty simple: get at least 3-3 record, have someone scoop after I had Ali/cloak on the table, and win with every wincon possible in the deck, so mirrorball, powermonolith and decking someone. And have Ali in play as many times as possible of course. 

Having to choose between going to Knights or to Gaea's avengers was heartwrenching, but in the end there was just to much lure of finding all the dutch guys I like to see on tournaments in Deventer, so KOT it was. 

When we got there, most of the familiar faces were there and it was a great pleasure to see them. Mari, the great Knight opened the tournament and we were on our way. Turns out, I was playing him for the first round. He was playing a quick and very agressive small creatures with burn deck. Or as he called it, just all good cards. The first game was very quick, with me getting all kinds of blasts on my head while being beaten by pixies and factories. I did not even get a chance to get something in play. What also did not help is that I drew mostly mana sources and not much else, so the suffering was over pretty quickly for game one. 

The second game Mari was off to a pretty fast start again, with both sol ring and timewalk. I was also going pretty quick with mox jet and mana vault. 

After a couple of hits and burn from Mari, I used the mana vault to draw some extra cards, and that gave me Ali from Cairo, but no protection from a cloak or aura. I was able to counter some burn on him though, which gave me enough time to get into power monolith combo mode and it was 1-1. 

My third game I kept a opening hand with 2 land, a Lotus and Ali and cloak, combined with a power sink and braingeyser. I figured I would draw a land or a mox in the first two turns, so I would be able to powersink something, then drop Ali and the cloak with the lotus all in one go, since it was hard for Mari to get rid off. It was not meant to be, the land did not show up in turn one, two or three. So in desperation, I went for the braingeyser with the lotus, but that only gave me one land. I stalled while Mari was beating me with a really quick serendib due to a mox and sol ring and that meant I had to play Ali to just stay alive. That failed of course, Ali was bolted and I was soundly trashed by a new dib after I had destroyed the first with chaos orb. It was just to quick. 

My second opponent told me this was his first OS tournament. So nice to see new people giving this great format a try! He had taken a serious deck though, mono black with a Mox Jet, so he had started out in OS with a very decent deck to play and played first turn black knight. I had first turn library of Alexandria. That did not stay very long due to a sinkhole, so only one extra card for me. But I did have a Sol ring to keep up the pace.  

When I first played Ali from Cairo, he had to read the card to see what it did. I then played spectral cloak on it, which also was something he had not seen before, so had to read. 

That meant I had a few seconds to take a picture of Bryon Wackwitz, who had started on my request for a drawing on my oldschoolmtg.nl playmat with original drawings. This would be the fourth sketch by an original mtg artist, after Douglas Schuler, Jesper Myrfors and Jeff Menges. The mat is getting more filled and I love it. 

I just kept annoying my opponent with cards he had not seen before. I was on one life, still protected by Ali and played mirror universe. Which also meant some more reading. 

Meanwhile, on the right of me, Joep was giving Koos a hard time, crumbling his lotus while Koos only had cities of Brass in play. That did not end well. 

My opponent was beating me with a hypnotic specter in the meantime, which is really annoying as damage does still occur in this scenario. There was a time the damage was simply prevented, but under the current rules, you still lose a card from the attack of the hypnotic specter, which is reall annoying if you really need a counterspell to keep your opponent from playing his Nevinnyral's disk. He asked me before if that would work, and and I told him that yes, that would get rid of all permanents, including the Ali with the cloak. In the end, I finally got the fireball to get rid of my opponent, but it was a long wait. Phew! If that disk had shown up with me holding no cards, that would have been really bad.  

The second game, I was able to land a COP black, but my opponent also had a Su-Chi, so I had to work fast to not be beating here. Fortunately, I was able to assemble the third combo piece of power monolith ( I had kept a hand with 2 parts), so that worked. 

After the match, Bryon handed me my playmat. Wow. The pendelhaven he added was really, really stunning. Awesome. This is the most detailed one of the sketches, so I was really, really happy with it. To keep this safe, I might have a new one printed with the sketches printed on them, like I did with the first two, just to keep the mat safe. Or maybe I will do that as soon as the void in the middle is filled in. 

My third game I was on stream on Timmy Talks so I think you will be able to find that there. The first game I was drawing a lot of mana, but not a lot of other stuff, but managed to draw a lot of card with the basalt monoliths and braingeyser. 

That drawing of cards was kind of necessary due to my opponent also drawing a lot of cards with the Sylvan Library/Sindbad combo, and with his lands he could quickly play stuff like Erhnam Djinn. Once there was a spectral cloak on my Ali though, that was hard for him because I saw only blue and green cards, so probably the only thing he could do is flip an orb on the cloak to get rid of Ali. Meanwhile, I was using the millstone to get him through his deck more quickly. This was a bit bad because of the Sylvan Library, but hey, I would have to win one way or the other.. 

Ik kept milling my opponent for a while, but in the end I just drew into a mirror, switched lives and then fireballed him. So the plan for winning with all the wincons was not working out here. No complains here though, the deck was working so I was happy. The second game my opponent got off to a quick start with a birds, then sol ring and sylvan library and sindbad. All there in 2 turns. And there I was thinking I was doing well with my first turn sol ring. Apparently, some decks are even quicker than that. 

In the end though, it did not matter because I was able to get Ali out again, and protect him with counterspell while I was playing the cloack on him, and then the game was basically mine. When I played another Ali though, there was something interesting happening, because my opponent tried to control magic him, and that would have been quite a problem. Fortunately, I still had counterspell ready, so I would not have to deck my opponent to win this one. Winning that match, I was on to the next round, playing Kadoendra with a robots deck. I thought I would have like a 20% chance of winning that one. And after a spectacular opening from Kadoendra on his first turn, those chances were even less. 

wow, this is spectacular even bij OS standards.. 

The followup was a complete disaster for me. I was trying to do something, but even though I had opened with Library of Alexandria, there was no way I could keep up with this. 3 Trikes on turn 3 was just impossible to get back from. Even if I had played Ali, he would have died instantly before I could do something. 

The second game was a bit more normal. Even though my opponent had a mox and I took some beating from a factory, there was enough time to do something before being completely crushed. 

I eventually got to the point where I could have power artifact on my monolith and then play mirror universe en remove the remaining cards in my opponents hand. That meant I had a chance now, if I would topdeck something to use the power monolith with. 

The factories were beating me though, so I needed to swap lives to stay alive until finally Ali showed up. 

That got a good wtf look from my opponent who was contemplating how to get rid of this thing, but he was not sure how. 

Eventually, there were 5 trikes and a Su-Chi in play, but none of them could touch Ali so I was able to deck him by casting braingeyser for 80. Wow, I was 1-1 against a robots deck. I honestly had not thought that would happen against robots, but it worked out. 

After some ferocious sideboarding in which my opponent was asking some advice where someone said: "yes, that would work", i decided to sideboard out most of the Ali's and go for the mirrorball game. 

I was able to get the mirror out after countering some stuff, and managed to pull off a win of that. 2-1 against robots. Wow. 3-1 with an Ali deck. This meant that even if I lost the next matches, I managed the goal of not losing more than winning, I had won with decking my opponent, with mirrorball and with power monolith. All I needed was someone scooping in the face of Ali, and then all the goals were met. 

Looking back, the "yes, that would work" was an Abyss, which, for the record, does not work against the spectral cloak, because you have to target the creature, which is impossible with the cloak on it. Just in case someone wants to try that against another person playing a spectral cloak. It gave me some time to take a picture of someone close to us playing a regeneration deck with clay statues. As a fan of clay statue (there was one in a version the "stuff" deck I did okay with on some tournaments alongside a two-headed giant) I applauded this guy on playing the statue. It does not see enough play if you ask me. 

I was then paired against Evert, and that was not promising. He is just such a good player and the decks he plays are often both original and strong. His opening on turn one was also not promising. 

I was taking some pretty heavy hits and also bolts in the face, so I went for a desperate try with a lotus and a counter on hand to play Ali and hope I could counter whatever fireworks Evert still had on hand. 

I had anti-magic aura on hand, which I was now not a fan off, since it meant I would have to wait a turn. 

But amazingly, I got to that next turn and was able to play the aura. Evert looked at it, thought about it, and then scooped. Yes! The final goal of the day was reached. 

The next opening was also not promising, with another first turn Su-Chi. 

That was just too much. So before long, we were on to game 3. And again, a pretty quick start for Evert. 

I was able to squeeze in Ali with the cloak and managed to stay alive for a while. 

Actually, quite a long time. I was hoping very much to just draw into a mirrorball or powermonolith win, but that did not happen. 

Eventually, a chaos orb showed up, and I was not able to counter that with artifact blast or counterspell, and since I had not drawn a win, that was it. Ali was shot off the board by a trike, and I lost. Damn, it really felt like I could have won that one. 

The last match of the day I was playing black with a lot of sinkholes and spectres, which is probably my worst matchup. Random discard really sucks for this deck. I was able to get out power monolith eventually though. 

And I fireball, so wow. I was able to win game 1. 

The rest of the games were a bit of a haze, since sitting in the noise all day was getting to my concentration a bit, I guess that will never go away after the head injury I suffered some years back. What I do remember is that in the last game, I let my opponent destroy the blood moon I had boarded in, thinking it would not be a big deal, and I would use my counterspell for countering when I would get power monolith or the mirror. That was a bad call though and looking back I really don't understand why I did that. I think my chances of winning the last game would have been a lot better if I had not. 

Anyway, I was 3-3, had decked, mirrorballed and powermonolith-ed my opponents and I got at least one scoop from playing Ali, so all the boxes were checked, and I was pretty happy with the results of the day. I think a 4-2 would have been in the cards with a little more luck, so I will keep trying to improve this deck a bit. It is kind of funny. 

I took some photos of the top 8 playing, and of the playmats that were on display. 

Also this one of a kind playmat which was drawn by Bryon which was acquired by Wijnand from Power 9. He also has some of those beautiful playmats available since he bought the remaining stock so if you want one of those (I could hardly resist the winter pendelhaven, but I already have so many playmats...) you can get them at Wijnands. 

Then, with the usual headache kicking in, I took a picture of the finalists and decided to go home. 

Arabian Agro on the left, a control deck on the right. A classic matchup! I hope the final was a exiting match. 

It was, like always, a great experience to meet all the players and see all the old cardboard again. You guys are the best. Thanks to you all, and especially to Mari for creating this great tournament. I hope you all have a great change of the year and hope to meet you all again in the next!