Flying Van 2025

The flying Van cup is held in Krefeld in Germany. As a non-Facebook, non-WhatsApp user, I am only vaguely aware of any Oldschool tournaments that are held, just from what people tell me. I do love to play OS though, so when either Fulco or Johan mentioned the flying Van cup in Krefeld, I naturally wanted to go. Unfortunately, since I heard only about a month before, it was already "sold out" so the only thing I could do was contact te organizer and ask if I could join. Fortunately for me, when some people cancelled, I could join in the fun. 

Since my work has been taking up a lot of my time lately, I did not feel particularly creative enough to come up with entirely new deck. So I changed one card in the somewhat unusual homebrew goodstuf deck I had been trying out for the last couple of weeks, and took that to Germany. Having a not exactly tuned-to-the-max tier 1 deck meant I had limited expectations. I know from previous experience that it is pretty good, but it still feels like it needs more work. I also thought a bit about the sideboard, added a spirit link to try that out and just went for it. This way it took me only about 10 minutes to prepare, which was almost all the time I had available in the week up to the tournament. Not only with work though, I also celebrated my birthday spending one evening with family and one evening with my best friends. Some exercise and work filled up the rest of my time. 

Anyway, on to the day of the tournament. I spent the hour and a half trip listening to the pretty brilliant "When diplomacy fails" podcast, covering the July crisis. As a history nut, getting more information on historic events is always a good way for me to spend time while travelling. After listening to details about the politics in the Habsburg empire, the forming of the black hand and the murder of the heir to the Habsburg throne, I arrived at the beautiful location of the Waldcafe. Which is, as the name implies, a café in a small forest, which really is a great location for an event like this. I met some familiar faces, a lot of faces I had never seen before, and was already enjoying the atmosphere. When first round pairings were there, I was paired against Wouter, whom I have played before in holland quite some times, also around the kitchen table. Funny that we both drove a long while to get here, only to be playing each other :) 

My deck started out with its intended start. Land, mox, fellwar stone, giving me a good option to play a reasonably big creature on turn 2. 

However, my plans were quickly interrupted by crumples and city in a bottle, which took out my city of brass. 

Since this meant I was pretty mana screwed I decided to use my lotus for a wheel of fortune to get out of this mess. 

Only to be mind twisted right after that, before I had any chance of doing anything. 

This meant I had lost my threats, but I could return the favour a turn later. Though my feelings about mind twist are ambivalent at best, today I was just plain hating it as I have before. 

Because my land had been destroyed, I was not able to play my Serra Angel, which could have kept away a bit of the weenie swarm that was coming for me. 

I was able to get out a Su-Chi and a factory, but both were destroyed. Fortunately for me, just before dying, I was able to get Serra out to play, which was immediately paralyzed. I untapped her, after which I played control magic on an Elf. 

I was pretty low on life though, so when an Erhnam Djinn showed up, it was not looking good. 

My Su-Chi was removed, which meant I had to block the Erhnam on the Elf te prevent myself from dying and have any chance of winning. For that I would need to keep attacking with the Serra. Because I was going to die from the Djinn and Elf in a turn and I could only but my opponent on 1, I decided to go for drastic measures and played the timetwister I had in hand, figuring I would get something out of that, like maybe a swords to plowshares. 

I got my swords, I decided to not wait it out. I swords my Serra Angel, went to 5, then played psionic blast for the win. Phew. 1-0. 

The second game was a completely fucked up non game, because I was mind twisted for 5 on turn 2 after I had already taken a mulligan. I would say in general that enjoy Oldschool very much, but this was definitely not a moment of enjoyment. Being mindtwisted in both the first 2 games of the day is generally not good for my mood. 

Anyway, with no lands, no nothing, I was quickly run over and that was it. 1-1. The start of the third game looked okay, with me playing Su-Chi quickly with a workshop. The workshop had just one turn on the board though, because it was going after that. 

After which I was duly mind twisted again for 4, which really made me feeling like coming here might have been a mistake and I could have better things to do with my time. The only thing that makes up for being mind twisted 3 times in 3 games is the great people that make up the OS community. 

I had a Sylvan Library on the board when I was twisted, so I just went for drawing more cards with life. My first Su-Chi had been destroyed by then, but I had a second one and was able to take the scavenger folk with control magic, to keep attacking. Fortunately for me, I play quite a lot of mana rocks, otherwise the land destruction easily would have been to much. Now I could keep up, and win 2-1. 

The second round I was off to a reasonable start, with land mox, but no fellware stone. I did get to disenchant a mox Jet to keep my opponent from going off a bit too quickly. Also, I was being a bit afraid to mind mind twisted again, which would have really soured my mood and since I was here to have fun, I just took out the Jet. There 

After losing my first Su-Chi, I was able to use the Jalum tome to quickly plow through my cards and produce another one. That did not do much against the Argothian Pixies, but fortunately a Djinn showed up to follow up, which I was able to play even after Armageddon, and that sealed the deal. 

The second game I had LOA on turn one. My opponent started with a bird, so plenty of options there. A quick Djinn showed up due to a sol ring, which I was able to conrol magic. Then a second one turned up. 

My opponent decided to go for armageddon to get rid of the library, but that did less than he hoped. I was able to play a preacher and a Su-Chi after it, and that was a lot to handle. My opponent did play another Djinn after I had taken out his second one. They just kept coming. 

When I played my own Erhnam Djinn, it was spirit linked. 

We were tied in a deadlock for a while due to this, but eventually I was able to push through a win with more creatures. 2-0. 

On the third round, I kept this opening hand, thinking that the lack of threats would solve itself with the braingeyser and the regrowth. 

The game took a while, but I eventually managed to win, so we were on to game 2, were I thought I had a pretty good start with land, mox, sol ring. My opponent however, had a library. 

For which there is only one solution, which is just hammer at him before it gets out of hand. He did have a pretty quick energy flux though, which kept me from really going for it. I decided to play a copy artifact on my Su-Chi none the less, which would, depending on my land draw, do 4, 8 or more damage. 

I sacrificed my sol ring and mox to keep beating with the Su-Chi, and unfortunately, I did not get a land but another mox. That was not good for long term prospects, but at least it would give me another swing for 8. 

One of the Su-Chi's had to go eventually, but fortunately, enough damage had been done that I was ahead in damage enough to win. It was a shame I forgot to take more pictures of this match, it was more interesting than the pictures do justice. I had to take a mulligan in this game, which was my 4th of the day or so. 

I did have some time to take some more pictures though, which I did for atmosphere. Unfortunately, most were to dark due to the side the sun was on, so you wil have to make due with this. 

Next up was against mono blue robots, which I did not know when I kept a hand with the workshop and Su-Chi. The mono blue artifacts also came with an Icy, which took a long time keeping his Su-Chi which I had taken after mine was psionic blasted from attacking. The Jalum tome was really helping in this long game. 

It game me an Erhnam Djinn in a stalemate situation. I tossed 6 cards with the tome, which game me a quality advantage over my opponent, who had several land drops even though he did not need that any more. 

Eventually, the Su Chi was again psionic blasted and the Icy started doing work on my Erhnam. Fortunately, I managed to get a trike which appeared at least 6 turns earlier than it would have without the tome. The psionic blast I got also was not bad, because it could take out a factory so I could attack with mine. Eventually, this was enough for the win. Thank you, Jalum tome, could not have done it without you. 

The second game, my opponent got a first turn Su-Chi, which was a pretty heavy start to work with. 

Fortunately, I had a disenchant, and my mana acceleration gave me a Su-Chi of my own. 

Oh, and a copy. So that was going a lot quicker than game one, which really took a long time. These 2 games took up almost until the last minute of the round, fortunately the second game I was able to do more damage than in the first game. 

So, I was 4-0 in matches now, which meant I would be running into serious tier1 territory. I was expecting Triple S, the deck, Robots, stuff like that now, which meant my chances of winning were going down. Supercharged decks are just like that. I was happy to have a library on turn one. Hey, better lucky than good in matchups like these. As soon as you reach this level, the cards have to do at least as much work as the player. My opponent was really cool about the LOA though. 

The lighting was a bit bad with the sun though, but thanks for the sportsmanlike reaction!

I soon found out why he was not worried. He cast Ancestral recall, than regrowthed it, than played it again, and played a tome. Well, the deck was expected I suppose. 

Then he played a recall, taking both the ancestral recall and the regrowth again, for a card advantage of at least 8 over my library. 

The card advantage was really a big drag to play against, because he also had drawn 3 swords to plowshares even though he wasn't halfway through his deck. My library was strip-mined as well. 

The card advantage was just a big problem for me, because I could not keep anything on the board. One swords to plowshares less in the start of the game would have made for a big difference, but it was not meant to be. When mirror universe showed up, I lost due to life exchange and factories. I had seen that coming for 10 turns at least, but I had to wait for it to happen. 0-1. In the next game, my opponent started off by playing library of Alexandria, which I was able to strip mine, but not without him drawing a card. Already behind one card on turn 1. I was going to try and compensate for that by playing Sylvan Library. 

Even though my opponent went for his ancestral recall and started recycling that again with regrowth (again, pretty early in the game, I mean, really? Come on, gods of statistics. That deck is already better than mine, give me a break here!) I was trying to do as much damage as I could before the mess of a 10 plus cards advantage would kick in again. 

I was kept my factory with me for a couple of turns until I had a good chance of breaking through his, which I did with disenchant and divine offering, after one of these was countered. 

Eventually, I was able to just push through damage against the card advantage, and we ended up 1-1 with just 5 minutes to go. Since there was no way we would finish that, the game was a draw. Well, 1-1 against the deck with a home brew is not bad I suppose. So, 4-0-1 in games. For round 6 in the swiss I was paired against a Troll Disco, which I did not know until later on. He started off very strong with an active library. I tried to ram through that with a first turn Su-Chi. 

Unfortunately, my opponent was having a very good draw, with second turn shatter, than counterspell and power sink. 

I ran a bit out of steam after that, and the card advantage of the library was just too great. Too bad, it would have been interesting to see how I would have done against that without a library. 0-1. The second game I was thinking at least I would be able to stave off the trolls for a while.  

My mind twist for a couple cards was countered, so I was doing my best to just try to do damage while I was sort of expecting a troll any moment. 

My opponents draw was not exactly what I was hoping for, but like I said, sometimes the cards will just do the work. Later on I would have not this good a draw, but certainly not bad. 

My cop red and tome which I had boarded in did quite a lot of work to compensate in the end. It was a very long game, but I managed to win the second one, so 1-1 and on to game 3. 

The third game I was able to get out quick start in mana at least, and I played a Jalum tome on turn 2. 

I was doing some damage with the factory and was looking for something bigger when a troll arrived, which I swords to plow shared. 

I really felt like the quality advantage of the tome would help me win this one, but we ran out of time unfortunately. This meant we had to orb flip for the win since draws were not allowed in the last round. Those that know me know what I think of chaos orb, so even though I won the flipping contest, it still felt quite dumb to win. I really would have liked to see the Jalum tome shine again like against the blue artifact deck. 

It did mean that I was 5-0-1 in matches, which meant I was in top 8 with my a bit strange brew. When it was announced, I was surprised to learn that I was actually first in the swiss now. Not bad for a first time around here :)

So, I was in the top 8 with my homebrew goodstuff deck. Now it was time to see if it could pull through. The Troll disco en the deck were also in the Top 8, so I wasn't feeling that confident, but my deck had not performed badly against them, so at least there was a chance. 

The first turn of the quarterfinal was looking okay for me. I had a first turn library, against a first turn Llanowar Elf. That was not the most frightening opening I could imagine against me. 

With the Sol ring from the library I went for second turn Su-Chi, that was looking good. 

The Su-Chi was quickly eliminated though, so there was no reason for me to not play balance. I had a factory on the board, a Sylvan Library in play, I should be able to get back from this pretty quickly and my opponent had to discard his elf and some creatures. Not a bad deal. 

Well, sometimes the cards do all the work. I got a demonic tutor from the top 3 cards due to the Sylvan, which gave me ancestral recall after a shuffle to look for it. Better lucky than good, this advantage was too much for my opponent, so I was quickly 1-0. 

The second game, I kept an opening hand which was not as speedy, but certainly worthwhile. 

My opponent however, was going for the very fast approach. I was going to have to hurry and try to keep up. 

Again, cards doing the work, I got a swords to plowshares to take the heat of me, which gave me more time. 

My Su-Chi was taken out of the game quickly, but I had the trike to back it up. 

A well placed strip mine kept my opponent from casting a Serra or something else big after my Trike was swords to plowshared. I followed up with a Su-Chi. 

That was also taken off the board, so I had to use jalum tome to start digging for something bigger. My opponent had Sylvan library, so that was going to get him something sooner or later. A race between the tome and the library then. 

My opponent went for armageddon to get rid of the mishra's factory. Fortunately, I had kept some lands in hand just in case I would want to toss them away with the tome. Now I could also play them, and keep my opponent low on land with a chaos orb. He decided to destroy the tome also, but by then it had done quite some work, with again something like 5 cards exchanged. That got my to a big creature faster than him, and Erhnam Djinn finished the job. Thanks again Jalum tome!

So, on the semi-finals it was. Which was against the dreaded the deck again. The last match was grueling, so I was hoping for some luck to get through. The luck was not very present though, with me mulliganing twice and deciding to keep this, hoping that I would get to playing the wheel as quickly as possible. 

I got a mox from the top, so I was able to play it on turn 2, to make up for the mulligan. Maybe I would be in the race after all. 

I regrowthed the mind twist, just to put pressure on my opponent en force him to use a counterspell if I had one. 

That prompted my opponent to destroy my copy artifact mox, and play balance. 

In the end, that was not too bad. It left him in the lead with mana due to his moxen, but I was able to get back with some creatures, which were eventually removed, but the pressure kept coming, with my artifacts working against the Abyss. 

That was also removed and when he started attacking with his factories, I was ready to take one out. 

Eventually, I was able to get through another trike, which sealed the game. 

Since I had library, I decided to keep this hand, since there was a lot of fast mana. 

I never got to play that though, because I was mind twisted for 4 before I could reach turn 2. Which took most of my usefull cards, like mana. 

My opponent followed up with braingeyser and strip mine on my land. 

After a chaos orb, I had no lands left, so I had no permanents and 1 card in hand. 

My opponent played another braingeyser due to regrowth, and by that time I had drawn no lands twice and I was so thoroughly pissed off at how this game was going, with my no permanents and an opponent that was literally 20 cards ahead because of the 2 braingeysers and the mind twist that I just scooped because I did not want to wait for another 20 turns or so to finally be dealt damage. 

The third game my opponent again had no lack of good cards, with ancestral recall on turn one. 

I was opening playing library of Alexandria quickly, hoping to drawing into something bigger that I could cast with the workshop. 

In the meantime, my opponent was again, drawing lots of card with braingeyser, playing time walk, a repeat of previous games with lots of card advantage. He hardly needed to play a tome in these games. I was still waiting for a threat. 

I needed to get some cards out of his hand though, so started attacking with the factories to get disenchant and swords to plowshares out of his hand, for when eventually a bigger creature would show up. 

The factories were removed and destroyed as expected, which was when I could drop the workshop and play Triskelion. 

That meant I could do some damage with the trike, and follow up with Su-Chi. The drawing of destruction was paying some dividends. 

Not much though, since 2 of my Su-Chi's were also removed and destroyed, and a maze of ith showed up. Thankfully, I had a jalum tome to start ploughing through my deck again. 

That meant I got to copy artifact sooner, and to a tome sooner, which meant I could keep the pressure on while my opponent was playing Serra Angel. I would need a solution for that eventually. I thought about using psionic blast on my opponent, but that would not be enough if the serra stayed in play. 

the semi finals against the deck

So I decided to blast the Serra and then keep the maze busy by attacking each turn, and though my depleted trikes did less damage (they had 2 and 0 counters on them), eventually the could get through enough damage to win the third game. 2-1, against the deck. Wow. I was impressed by my deck, I did not expect to land into the finals with this. 

So, on to the finals. By now I was really hoping for a bit of luck to finally turn one my top 8s (or finals for that matter) into in win. My opening hand was not spectacular, but it had a factory and a fellwar stone, so I thought it was good enough to keep. 

Even though I had an Ancestral and a time walk, my opponent had a fucking lot of removal in his first couple turns. 2 of my Factories and a Su-Chi were gone. 

the final against Erhnam-geddon

After that, my deck took a while to produce another threat, while my opponent was using sylvan library to get ahead. 

After my trike was also destroyed because of more removal from my opponent, I did not draw that much useful stuff. 

He followed up my desperate balance with a braingeyser, so there was no chance of me doing anything here and I was down 0-1. The 4 removal spells in the beginning of the game gave just too much time. 

While I was okay with my hand, it was again not very spectacular. If my opponent would for the first time this match not draw a removal spell right away, I would have a good chance. 

But, this was not meant to be. My opponent did have removal with his sylvan library and his mox, and he just got ahead to quickly while my threats were just being destroyed and I was not drawing great. 2 lands draws in a row in a game like this can be killing. 

Especially if your opponent is getting some more power to quicken up his game. 

You know, like a lotus and ancestral recall. 

And regrowth on ancestral recall. All in 2 turns after each other. 

Which of course netted him more removal, so I was basically beaten by ancestral recycling very early in the game while I was just drawing less than average. Had I drawn some of the sideboard cards I had put in, like the wrath of god, the game would have been a lot different, but I had 1 removal spell, against his 6 card card advantage, which produced 2 extra creatures. Not much I could have done, even though I was just hoping to draw into something useful, I did not. So I lost a final, again. Sigh. I must admit I there was some disappointment here. The story of the homebrew deck would have been complete with a win, but it was not meant to be. A couple years back, someone suggested I play a control deck like I used to in the 1995-1997 period when I was playing a lot of Type 1 pretty successfully. But I just really want to play something less predictive, which means less chance of winning I guess. 

Looking back, I am pretty satisfied with how a deck that is not a carbon copy of one of the most successful decks can perform. This was the second time I made first in the swiss with a deck that was not what people expected (first time being in knights of thorn a couple years back, with a different deck with two-headed giant and jade statue in it) and also the second time I could not take it to the win in the end. Should I just play something tier 1 then? Neh.. If I keep up trying, it should eventually work, right? Right? We'll see when I try again. Next time, I will probably play something different again.  

As always, the atmosphere in the venue was great, I met really nice guys and looked at a lot of old cardboard. You guys make OS special every time, and I hope to see you all next time. Thanks to the organizers for doing all the hard work, and for all that showed up. You're the greatest! Till next time!.