The Castle Cup. Did we need another series of oldschool tournaments in the Netherlands? Well yes. And if there would have been just one new tournament, it should have been this one. Not in the last place because it was organized by some of the nicest people in OS magic, Fulco, Johan and Wouter. Also, this event was not one, but actually 2 tournaments on friday evening en the next day. The more OS magic, the better, right?
When Fulco told me about his idea to run an OS tournament in a castle, I was immediately enthusiastic and told him I would come. I love castles just about as much as I love OS. In the months leading up to the tournament, there was also talk of an smaller event in the evening before, and a poll under the players showed that it would be a Staple-less tournament. Going there after work, then driving back, then driving up to Helmond again felt like a bit of a stretch, but since my fellow OS player Remko who lives near me was also thinking about going, we kind of convinced each other that getting home after midnight and several hours of driving was worth playing 3 rounds of staple-less OS. As I usually do when I am busy with normal life, I had thought about what I would play very little, but I did think about it a little bit when I was going home in the car. The list of staple-less cards is a bit strange, because you can play with drain life and some other cards I would think off as staples in the normal Dutch OS scene. And ball lightning might not be a staple in a strict sense, but it is also not unheard of in a tournament setting. Also cards that are rarely played and hardly could be considered staples in my eyes are banned, like the Evil Eye of Orms by gore, which my first idea in my head was going towards up until I learned you cannot play it in this format.
But that is part of the challenge, so after thinking about playing living plane land destruction, I went for something I thought was a bit more fun and also something I like playing, in the form of Eureka. Some of my normal go-to's cannot be played in this format, but I like gold legends, and since Colossus of Sardia can be played in this format, I decided to give it a go. I figured there would be a lot of white and black weenies, so I decided to run 3 prodigal sorcerer main deck, and I was looking for some synergy with instill energy and colossus, but that would also work on a Tim, I figured. Would it be enough? Probably not, but it might get me through some games. I also added blood lust als a synergy with the trample creatures and sword of the ages, but it would also would let me ping a bigger creature with the tim. I ended up with this, with the untamed wilds to make sure I would be able to hardcast some of the gold legends if necessary. The Tims, spell blasts and boomerangs are there to keep me alive until I can cast Eureka or hardcast some of the legends or Force of nature.
When we arrived in the barkeet, a local drinking and gaming venue close to the main event, no less than 20 people had showed up for a late night staple-less game. After meeting and greeting a lot of the familiar (and some new) faces, it was time for round one, and I was not disappointed in my expectation to see white weenies.
As somewhat expected, tim was not fast enough to keep the weenies down, especially not when angelic voices shows up on turn 4 or 5 in both games. This, combined with the fact I had 2 eureka but not a lot of other stuff in my hand, meant the game was over in 10 minutes, where I lost 0-2. Well, I had seen this coming, and decided to play Eureka anyway, so, it is what it is. On with the show it was.
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| Yes! Another gold legends player! Cool! |
The second match started not much better, since I was quickly overrun by the Green/red creature and burn deck by the youngest player present. Fortunately, I had added basalt monolith in my sideboard (together with power artifact and rocket launcher) which I decided to use to speed things up sufficiently to not be overrun. The second game was therefore a bit more successful, even though that also might have happened without. I was taking some serious damage, but managed to Eureka into this situation, which basically means that if I get to untap the sword of the ages, I win by doing 20 damage before I even have to attack.
That worked, so we were 1-1 and on to game 3. There I hard casted some of my bigger creatures again, upping the tempo a little bit with untamed wilds. Bartel was blocked when he attacked, taking 2 creatures of my opponent with him, also due to Tim. Lady of the mountain was in the way of my opponent for most of his creatures, but it turned out he was also playing forestwalking cat warriors. That meant I had to do something quickly.
I managed to wait long enough to eureka into this, putting 3 colossus of Sardia on the board, creating a loud "what the fuck" cry-out from my opponent. Together with the pings the Tim had given my opponent, that would have to be enough on the next turn. Which it was, so 1-1 in matches, 2 successfully played eureka's. This was looking better.
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| The other matches in the meantime |
The third match started off with nice manascrew, with me drawing no more lands than I had in my opening hand for 4 turns.
That meant going under 0-1, but the next game was better, with Colossus and instill energy from Eureka, together with Bartel and sword of the ages. Though not perfect, it was pretty good.
In the meantime, Remko was making good use of the bottles of Suleiman I had lent him, together with the Martyrs of Korlis. He later on told me it was a bit of a suprise when one of his opponents cloned his Martyrs, making the expected wincon of copper tablet somewhat useless.
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He did make good use of holy light though!
Anyway, I was on to the third game, when my opponent had 2 walls and diamond vally in play. I also had no instill energy right away, so this might take a while. When I attacked a turn later, my Nicol Bolas ran into a disharmony. I decided to sacrifice him to the sword of the ages instead of letting my opponent gain 7 life, but that was kind of a bummer.
I was hoping to be able to wait, but then a dragon whelp showed up, which hits for 5 every turn. Fortunately, I was able to get instill energy and start beating together with some Timmy points. It was also kind of funny to see the meekstone and have one of the biggest creatures in the format just untap despite of that. I kept attacking with the Colossus and since my opponent had already taken 7 damage dure to the sword, I was just in time before the whelp would kill me. Winning with colossus is kind of a sweet revenge for one of my oldest OS decks, which was Tron with Colossus of Sardia, which kept being dust to dusted by one my friends. Winning this game felt a bit like vindication for the Colossus :)
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| Meekstone? No problem! |
In the meantime, Remko was using his bone flute to attack with.. now there is something you don't see every day :)
Before we left, I also managed to trade, which I enjoy since it is also one of those things that feels oldschool. There is something enjoyable in trading some 20 cent cards that you just cannot get from buying them.
So, after a 2-1 stapleless finish, I got back in the car, dropped off Johan at his B&B and went on back with Remko.
When I got home after midnight, I had thought about what to play, and since I could not decide really, I decided to build a deck that combined several of the decks I had played in the last couple of years, and I ended up with an Eureka-Mirrorball-Ali/cloak-Powermonolith-deck, the idea being that I would sometimes be able to eureka myself into a Ali-cloak or powermonolith, without an opponent being to able to get rid of them before I would make use of them. Probably not the best of strategies, but who cares. It was something I had not played before, and I had a feeling it would not be going 0-6 in the swiss. 3-3 should be possible, with a little luck 4-2.
The next morning it felt a bit early getting up, but I was really looking forward to the tournament. I had seen the castle before, but since it had been renovated in the last couple of years and not accessible. Now we would be able to see it from the inside and play in it.
The start of the tournament with Fulco doing the announcements, asking us the be very careful with the just reopened castle :)
And off we were for the first round. Although I got to start and play a monolith, my opponent started destroying my lands immediately on his turn 2. Not a great start.
A disk showed up just after that, which is terrible for my deck. Ali cloak does not do much and trying to get power artifact on the monolith with Disk in play is also very hard. Fortunately I was able to go for this before it went off. A bit lame, but you have to do something if you're up against a Troll Disco.
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This win however, paired me against someone else who had won their first round and it became quickly apparent how that had happened. I opened with city of brass with an average hand. My opponent opened with land/lotus into Juggernaut. Okay..
Since I had not much in my hand I tried timetwister after I was hit for 10, but nothing showed up that helped, so I was quickly down game 1.
The second game I was at least able to start, and though it took a little longer some big artifact creatures showed up. But since my opponent had not seen what my deck can do, he tapped out and that gave me the option to go for powermonolith combo, and that quickly finished the game. 1-1 in games against a very strong deck.
The next game was a rehash of the first game though, with a first turn workshop/mox/juggernaut. It got even worse after I had played my first land. I would have 2 turns and it would be over. With no moxen on hand, that would be an issue.
With a lotus, I was able to destroy one of the juggernauts and I was able to draw the game out untill turn 6, when I played one of my sideboarded Djinns, since I figured he would have boarded out his Abysses.
That was not enough though, since a trike showed up, which was also copied, and I was so low by then that that finished it. Damn, although it was to be expected I would lose against something so fast en focused like robots, I really felt like I would have had a chance to win here. Eureka into Ali/cloak would have stopped him with no option to get rid of it. Oh well, I was able to go off with power monolith, so 3 of the combo's in the deck played and 1-1 in matches.
The games were over quickly though, so I could walk around and see some of the matches that were still going, including a match with both players having 2 mazes of ith in play. Ugh. That was not going anywhere soon..
I also got to see Thomas "Timmy the sorcerer" playing an all white-boarder reprint mono green deck against a green red deck. He noted that playing red with green might have been a good idea :)
There was some time left in the round, so I decided to talk a little walk outside and take a couple of pictures outside, the little extra building outside can actually be rented as a B&B. Well, little compared to the castle of course, it is still bigger than an average house here.
Fulco had also managed to have a number of people be taken on a small tour through the castle, so we were able to see some parts of the castle you normally don't see if you go there.
The castle was mostly empty after the renovation, but it was still nice to see some of the the rooms normally unseen. When I got back down in the kitchen under the castle, I saw this sight I don't think I have every witnessed, with no fewer than 3 Petra Sphinxes in play. I don't think I have ever seen this before. I myself had only one in play ever, which is mainly because I own only one. There they were an interesting site and doing quite good from where I was standing.
I also spotted Dakkon Blackblade being played.
My 3rd match was streamed by Timmy and maybe show up in a match sooner or later, we'll have to see when he has time. I made some screenshots from the stream here. The first game I was hammered by sinkholes and bolts, which were accompanied by... zombies! Okay, I had not expected that, cool :) Since I was taking damage and I had 2 ali from cairo on hand, and one of my lands had been turned into a swamp on turn 1, I could not play Ali and cloak in one go. But since I had 2, I thought I try. And the expected bolt came immediately.
I figured that the odds now where that there would not be another bolt. But since I had some time left, I would try and see if I could manage to play eureka, since that would be safer. The Taiga I needed to do that showed up mercifully in time, which made it possible. Cool, Eureka into Ali-Cloak, check!
I was quickly down to one life, but Ali managed to keep me alive in there. Now I would have some more turns to wait if my opponent played earthquake or disk, the last one would make sense considering the regenerating Zombies with Zombie Master in play. Either a Mirror universe or Power Artifact would do the trick, and it turned out power artifact showed up first. *phew*. 1-0 against the Zombies and bolts.
That gave me the opportunity to hit for 16, but that was not enough for the win. Now we would have to see. I had only 3 lands after the disk went off, my opponent then sinkholed one of my lands. When I got another land, I thought about it, and then played recall some turns later for the Eureka. I thought that was the best play since I had some life left, and I would be drawing more lands than he would draw sinkholes statistically before I would be dead. My opponent had played a disk in the meantime, so it would be close.
One of my lands was strip mined, so it would be close. I kept my mox on hand, and just before I would take even more damage, I was able to Eureka into Nicol Bolas and 2 trikes. I was kinda hoping my opponent would let me attack with that, but he did not, so in the end I had to shoot him with the trikes.
Okay, so 2-0, 2-1 in matches, with Eureka into Ali and Eureka into big creatures played. I was seeing most of the tricks my deck could do so I was pretty happy by then.
But, winning also comes with a price, even more stiff opposition. If I remember correctly, this was opposition from Frank, who was playing a pretty tier 1 like Sage-Serra deck. That was going to be hard even if my deck behaved. I had a hand with both an Ali and a channel, so I fireball or cloak would be nice. I tried to slow him down with power sink, but that was far from enough to slow him down. let alone stop him.
To no avail, I drew lands, lands and moxen, but nothing useful. I was crushed by factories and a Serra Angel. An early fireball would have won me the game considering he had no counters on hand, but that did not show up.
The second game I had a pretty okay start with a couple of moxen, but so had my opponent.
That meant a pretty early Serra Angel.
I was able to fireball that away before it killed me. I had waited a bit to see if the monolith would show up to combine with the power artifact I had on hand, but alas, it did not, so I had to use it on the Serra. I was then hammered by factories.
A while later, I was having this on hand, which felt like total crap in this setting.
I tried the mirror universe when I finally got to 6 mana (that took longer than expected), which was quickly disenchanted. So, crushed both games with no hope whatsoever of winning. 2-2 in matches.
So, still 2 matches to go to end on the minimum expected 3-3 or hopefully 4-2 result. My next match was against a black deck using Evil Eye or Orms by gore. Even though I like that card, I must admit it is not that great, one need to build a deck around it or it will be suboptimal at best. Of course, I did not know that when I mulligand down to 6 and kept this hand. I was expecting some blue mana to show up, and when it did, this should be more than enough to fix my lost card due to the mulligan. If blue mana did not show up, than well, I would probably lose anyway.
As it happened, blue mana showed up in the form of the black lotus, which in this case was just what I needed for an insane taiga, lotus, sac for blue, ancestral recall, regrowth, and ancestral recall. I played it the second time because the first 3 cards had not given me the much needed mana I was looking for, so I was willing to discard if need be.
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| not a lot of mana, but some other useful cards. |
As it turned out, I was able to power sink something, and then was able to play channel/fireball again. This made my opponent somewhat depressed, considering the amount of power that had gone into this. I understand one might think of this as depressing and cheesy, because it kind of is. I would also think it is a lot better than losing to twiddlevault or stasis, where you just sit there for turn after turn doing nothing. At least this way, it is over quickly and you can play your next game. Or, if you are lucky, blue blast it, or play a bolt in response.
Since I had already seen a lot of black, I was not surprised to have one of my lands destroyed on turn 2 by a sinkhole. I deserved that after that previous game I guess.
I was taking quite a lot of damage from a black knight and underworld dreams, of which there were soon 2 instead of one. I used the basalt monolith to speed up playing a mirror universe and the triskelion I had boared in. At least that way, I had some control over what was killing me.
Soon, another one of my lands was destroyed, but I was fortunate enough that the mirror stayed a couple turns, so I could kind of choose when to use it.
I was able to use my Sylvan Library also to manage how my lifeloss would be in relation to the mirror, which meant I had used another combination in the deck, although not as I had planned to use Sylvan Library/mirror. But the were there together, and since I was using the synergy, I kind of think that it counts as another notch on the combo list realized. Then another one of my lands was destroyed, so my options were limited.
I did some calculating and used my city of brass to untap the monolith. Although I can't really remember how, I remember taking one damage from something my opponent did, which made it exactly possible to use the mirror, and then the fireball and trike counters to finish the game. Although my opponent seemed to think that this win was a breeze, it felt like a close game to me, that could have gone another way easily. Had he drawn an Evil Eye, it might have finished a lot differently since I would not have been able to block or kill it with the trike. I was now up to 3-2, which should have felt good, but kind of didn't. My opponent was playing with Evil Eyes, after all. I always wish players who play the stranger cards the best. But to be fair, the eyes were accompanied by sinkholes, underworld dreams, black knights and drain life as I remember correctly, so it was not as if his deck was defenseless. It is the same way with my deck, if you choose to play suboptimal cards, than you will likely score less than people utilizing the really good cards in the format.
The game ended quickly enough for me to see some other games that were still running, where I could see a Shivan Dragon attacking.
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| Remko in a really tense game |
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| the organizers working really hard behind their table |
So, on to the last match, which was againt white/red atog. Although I was later on told it was unpowered, it was still pretty strong with the usual things like ankhs. It also did not help I had to mulligan.
My deck though, did not feel like working. At one point I had fireball and 2 power artifacts in hand, but no monolith. Also, no Ali to keep me from dying.
I had to use the fireball to kill one of the attacking creatures, and as insult to injury, I drew into another power artifact.
So there I was, with 3 power artifacts, a cloak and a fireball in hand, but no Ali, nor a monolith.
So I just died with plenty of options if I had just drawn either Ali or monolith. At certain points my opponent had no cards in hand, so it would have been easy. So it was kind of frustrating but it was also just something that happens. The second game was not much better. I got 2 cities of brass, which sucks against a burndeck, and never managed to get a good eureka option.
I never felt more frustrated in drawing first timetwister and then wheel of fortune, when I just wanted something useful like either a land or a big creature for with the eureka.
But no, those never appeared, so I had to play timetwister and try to get something, anything, but all I got was more crap which did nothing, so my last match of the day was just 2 games of drawing nothing, sitting there and losing. I had hoped for a more exiting match to end the day with, but random shit just happens. In both your favor and not, and this time it was just not. After most of the people had left, I helped with cleaning out some stuff to make sure Fulco and his family did not have to do that alone. This left me with the option to walk through the empty halls of the castle one more time, which I really liked. The quiet and the history was also really enjoyable after this great day of OS playing.
After I everything I could help with was done, it was time to go. I took one last picture of the castle in the dark, and got back in the car for my drive home. It was truly an amazing place and a great event. Thanks to Johan, Wouter and Fulco, and Fulco's family who were also helping out during the day. It was great and I love you for organizing this, thanks a lot! Also thanks to the 78 people that decided to show up to play, without you, OS would not exist. I hope to see you all next time!
And if you read on to this point, I suppose you deserve a deck pic, so here it is, my Ali-mirror-cloak-fireball-power-artifact deck. Considering how convoluted this deck is, I am happy to have won half my matches with it, maybe I will try to improve on it in some way, some time. If you have any suggestions, just let me know on magicancients@gmail.com.
Also, I bought something in the castle, but that deserved a post of its own some time.
Till next time! Stay safe and healthy, and play a lot of cards with each other in the meantime ;)
