According to blogger, I wrote 100 articles on this blog. 100 articles on Oldschool magic and well over a 100 tournaments played. Does that call for a retrospective? Well, maybe, so why not. I spend a lot of time playing, so why not a recap of my Oldschool experience. But from what angle?
When I look back on why started playing Oldschool, it makes me think about the difference between a goal and a purpose. Obviously, the goal while playing magic is to win. But, is it also its purpose? Right now, they are not the same for me. The goal might be to win, but the purpose is something different. This is something worth exploring, and how that has changed for me over time.
My Oldschool journey started over 20 years ago. I've played OS in its different formats more and longer than I have played any other format of magic, except the not so finely defined "multiplayer magic" which is a format that started off in my local gamestore and had the unwritten rule that your deck should contain lots of cards (between a 100 and 200 was the norm, 300 was really impressive) and also contain a lot of cards that you just loved to play with or were funny in some way, but were not considered to be very good. One of my first multiplayer decks contained Tetravus, Sages of Lat-Nam and also Lich. None of those were considered any good at the time but I loved all of them. I still play multiplayer in this way with some of my friends every now and then. My latest creation for this "format" is a deck containing large dragons, craw giants, frost giants, and lure. A bit more focused version of this might be worth an OS deck to try out.
Anyway, I have played some kind of Oldschool magic for more than 20 years now. That's not something I thought would happen when I quit playing standard and vintage in 2000. I had played standard since it was called Type2, Vintage since before it had been called Type1, and played both extended and Type 1.5 (the weird format where you were not allowed to play moxen, but could play 4 mana crypts. That was weird. But also fun.).
By 2000, most of my magic companions I had played with since I started in 1994 had quit, standard was not looking that interesting (and the atmosphere was way to competitive and frankly unfriendly to be enjoyable) and vintage was already on it's way to becoming really insane. Enough reasons for me to quit just like my friends. I might have continued if there had been a lot of kitchen table games available in our region, but there just weren't that much. Even at our local gamestore, magic seemed to be waning.
It had been quite a nice ride for the years I had played since 1994. I won a bunch of tournaments, tried lots of weird decks that did not win that much but were funny, including a vintage Amrou kithkin deck that actually had a use for her ability every now and then. Competition wise, I had been highest ranked standard player in our country for a while and just missed being top ranked vintage player in the Netherlands at the same time. Looking back, the goal and the purpose at the time were mostly the same for me. I liked winning. I liked weird decks also, but I definitely liked winning more.
Looking back though, those things were nice, but the best part of playing magic was not the winning. I had met some people through playing Magic that are, up until this day, some of my best friends. We played countless games of Magic in the game store and in our student apartments. We went hiking and on vacations together. Later on I had these guys on my wedding as my witnesses and one of them as best man. I went to their weddings as a witness as well. I have trained Jiu-Jitsu for more than 25 years with another guy I met through playing Magic. I would never have known that I liked doing that if I had not met him through playing Magic. If I hadn't, I would never have started doing Aikido and eventually getting an instructor's degree in both Jiu-Jitsu and Aikido.
To top all of these magic effects off, I later on met my wife because she was in the crowd of gamers hanging around the game store and thus in my extended group of gaming friends and acquaintances. None of this would have happened if not for Magic. So, the Magic butterfly effect had done a lot for me apart from the fun I had playing. But after reaching the year 2000 it seemed like playing Magic was over. Going to a tournament without your friends just is not as much fun. At the time I noticed that playing magic was much about the game as it was about the people I played with for me.
We went on playing other card games like Vampire and some of the other card games that had come out in those years, like Dark Age and Cthulhu card games like Mythos. I even played Guardians and Wyvern and the Highlander card games. Even though most of them were not very good, Magic just moved to the background. So I started selling off my cards since I had nothing to do with them anymore. I had made a collection in a binder that I wanted to keep for memories and then started selling off the rest. Out went quite a lot of cards, and eventually I came to a point where I just wanted to sell off all the rest, all at once. I tried selling off the power 10 with the rest, but fortunately for me now, the guys that showed up at my house were all talk and no money. After 2 of those time-wasting experiences, I bought a fire-resistant safe from my local hardware store, put the cards I had left that were worth anything inside, and went on with my life. I did not play a game of magic for 4 years. Honestly, when someone had come by and had taken the rest of my cards off my hands right then (except the binder I would keep forever, with the golden legends I had collected and some other cards I loved, like the enchantresses) I probably would have never played another game of Magic again, perhaps ever.
But, as it turned out, I would. I was still doing RPG's like AD&D and Vampire the Masquerade, so I went to my local game store every now and then to either play or to get some book I needed. One time when I was over there, I was shown some 8th edition magic cards when they came out and was asked what I thought of them. Ugly, was my reaction. They reminded me of Blood Wars cards. Also, I never needed a "clearer card makeup" to enjoy the game, and I was convinced no one else needed this change to enjoy the game. So I was happy to not play magic, so I would not have to look at these cards that I still don't find very appealing.
It took some weeks, but I thought it would be cool to play with my old cardboard again, with the proper look. The idea was born to run a tournament in the local game store where you could only play cards that were in the original set (beta, since alpha was missing some cards that were logical to have around). You could play reprints, as long as they had the right art and the right frame. I hadn't thought about foils at the time.
It did not even take that much convincing to get a group of about 15-20 players together to join and the game store was fine with me organizing such an event. And when we played, it was great. There were giant spiders with aspect of wolf on them, and bog wraiths with evil presence, alongside the expected hypnotic specters and Serra angels. Mono black was already showing a lot of promise back in that first tournament. I am not sure how the entire tournament went, and I have no pictures. Phones with camera's in them were not a thing back then, so there are no pictures of that first one. The fun we had was worth the afternoon though, and I told the guys I would make it a yearly recurring thing. That also sparked some ideas in my head. Would a winter orb deck work without Titania's song? Would one be able to play something like The Deck without moat or the abyss? I was enjoying the idea of building decks with limitations that would prevent one from running insane combo decks that, with the right hand, could kill you on turn one or two. And since you could play reprinted cards, trying stuff out would not be that expensive.
I won't go into all tournaments and games that followed, but it did turn out that a deck with 4 winter orbs and 4 icy manipulators could work fine without Titania's song. I built it with my old magic buddy Frank and we both played it and came first and second in that tournament. As you can tell, the format was not very evolved back then. I would not expect to get into an Oldschool final with such a deck in 2026.
But the point was, even though you could win nothing except the honors, we had a lot of fun together. It was a reason to meet up with people I had not seen for some years.
When our local game store was taken over by a guy with no sense of humor or interest in hosting a bunch of weirdos who would not buy lots of boosters for an event, we needed another place to play. Since some people that liked the format knew of a game store in Eindhoven where we probably could play for a small fee, we landed in the Gameforce there. Since our events would show up on their event calendar, we needed to have this format have a name and some more sort of official rules. So a bit more structured than making the rules up for every tournament we played.
I sat down with 2 other guys who had been in the other tournaments, and we decided we wanted the matches to feel "old". So, the first thing we needed to do, is decide what feels like old. We decided on everything up until the Ice Age block. Then we needed rules, and we went for one of the older versions of the restricted list as a starting point. We also decided that mana burn needed to come back. We called the format Ancient Magic, and we sort of went from there.
We would charge a fee, which would be turned into store credit, which people who attended would use to buy old cards from the stock of the owner. At the time, it was a great arrangement, since no one needed stuff like Argothian Pixies or Ironclaw orcs and the like, so it was a good way for the owner to get some guys to buy them. None of the tournaments were very big, I think the largest one was just over 20 guys, and the smallest was like 8 or 10. But we played several times a year, and some guys would always show up. Since Eindhoven is not that far from Belgium, even some Belgian guys showed up after they heard about these tournaments. After some of the tournaments, we went out for dinner together with some of the guys. We were having fun, just playing old cards and talking together.
The modern players that would be in the same (quite large)) hall would look at us with bemusement in their eyes. Why would anyone want to play that format? There was nothing to win, and it wasn't taken very seriously. The answer to why was of course: because we enjoyed it. There was always a lot of laughter when we were playing because none of us were taking this seriously. Well, most of us, at least.
After a while, some people that turned up at a tournament told us about other tournaments with old cardboard that had popped up around the country. I was curious and happy that other people had had the same idea, although I had no idea who they were. Since I don't use Facebook (or any social media since I do not like the companies behind them) I had no idea. When I found out more, I heard about something called Swedish Legal, which meant I would need a lot of old cardboard that I did not have at the time. But it sounded interesting. More options to play old cardboard and meet new people sounded great.
And no worries, I had cards left that were legal in this format, and with some trading, selling and buying, I turned 2 of my revised tropical islands into unlimited ones, and got some more unlimited basic lands. Fortunately, I had 4 AN Serendib efreets (no one wanted to buy them when I was selling off my cards, they were considered pretty bad at the time in the formats they would be legal in) and 4 unstable mutations and 4 flying men. I also had 2 berserks, and I could borrow the other 2. So, I had to get some Scryb sprites and giant growths in UL, which I got from the store credit in the Ancient tournaments I had won. I already had some Argothian Pixies so getting to a playset was easy.
So I went to Knights of Thorn III in Deventer, which had the benefit of allowing each player 10 cards in their deck that were reprints instead of Swedish legal versions. That made it possible for me to play the tournament even though my deck was not completely Swedish legal. I don't recall how many guys were there, but I do remember it was bigger than any of the Ancient tournaments had ever been. The atmosphere was great, just I was used to from the Ancient tournaments. No one was being a dick; everyone was enjoying themselves and lots of old cardboard was played. Great people playing beautiful cards meant I loved it and was hooked, so I decided that I would need more cards that were legal in this format. Prices for those cards had already gone up a bit, although not as much as they cost now, so I suppose I was lucky to be able to buy and trade for them. I never got around to getting 40 UL duals, but I have enough of them to be able to play some different Swedish decks. More cards to make different decks with were always a priority over more duals. A typical mail day would look like more like this than finding more duals.
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| Playing these cards would feel great, I thought. And it did :) |
I loved playing Hell's caretaker with Tetravus and Lord of the Pit and Yawgmoth demon, combined with some Sages for card draw. It was not a good deck, but I loved it when it worked, and so would most of my opponents at the kitchen table or in the tournaments I played with it. Most Oldschool players don't mind losing to a Lord of the Pit. They just think it is cool when it happens, which is not very often. I wanted to try out more, so I needed more of cards like this in the Swedish legal versions.
After getting rid of cards that were not in the Swedish or Ancient cardpool that were worth anything while trading (like some of the extra force of wills and breaking up my playset of Gaea's cradles and the like, in retrospect that might not have been the wisest of decisions, financially :P) I only had the option of buying more old cardboard if I wanted to play every possible kind of deck in Oldschool. So, buying more cards I did. Like many of us, I spent way too much money on old cardboard. I still do, since I keep thinking of new decks and cards I have not played yet. Fortunately for me, there are also tournaments that use reprints from revised and the like. It gives me more options to try things out.
I did manage to make my first fully Swedish deck soon after Knights of Thorn III, a Land Tax/Lands Edge deck. This was mainly for the practical reason I had almost no dual UL duals at the time, but I did have 4 AN Cities of Brass. This was perfect for this deck. The deck was doing okay from a competitive view, but not great. But, I must admit, if did feel kind of special playing an all "old cardboard" deck. The most memorable moment with this deck was when I could do this.
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| Kill you with my library of Alexandria through Lands Edge? |
This was one of those moments where I felt like a bit weird or unexpected plays where much more enjoyable to me than just winning with a really great deck. I have won quite some matches with The Deck (or the Keeper, as it was called back then) in Vintage in the 1995-1996 era, but it never felt as special as killing someone with a Library of Alexandria or something like a Yawgmoth demon. That makes it sound like I never play spikey decks, but that would be an untrue statement. I just like the variety and I like to also play cards that are seen less often.
Anyway, getting back to the point of the community, I never imagined that so many people would enjoy this kind of weird format with only the old cards. And so many nice people at that. I've met lots of cool and nice people, very little people who behaved like dicks, and I have greatly enjoyed the sense of trust in the community. I have carried cards worth hundreds of euros for people that honestly did not know me that well. I have had other people do the same for me. I was fortunate enough that this trust has never been violated, and I think this is because everyone in the community knows what it would feel like if your precious cardboard would be lost. You're in it together for the love of your cardboard.
Speaking of communities, I also found that other guys liked to play in game stores, and like me, weren't that squeamish about letting people playing reprints. I was very happy to find out that the great Joep Meddens organized the Hill Giant Cup inside of a local gamestore in Hilversum. I played several of his tournaments over there, and the atmosphere was great. It felt like more and more opportunities would arise to play Oldschool which also meant more opportunities to try things out. Especially since not all of the cards needed to be Swedish Legal in these tournaments. I actually managed to get to the finals of one of Joep's' tournaments with a Legends/armageddon deck which I built to celebrate completing my playset of UL birds of paradise. Also, not something I would expect to happen in 2026. Much has changed.
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| Joep in the middle of the Hill Giant Cup in the Vendetta Gamestore in Hilversum |
Live play has since increased more and more, and I went to as much tournaments as possible. When we had a pause in the Corona lockdown where you were allowed to organize events , I took the opportunity to organize an OS tournament right away. I really wanted to because we had not been able to see each other live in over a year or so. There were great online initiatives like the Corona Cup tournaments and the Online Dutch Oldschool League (please, do not look up ODOL, which is the abbreviation for this. It also means something else in Dutch, which is NSFW. I am pretty sure this was intentional). Anyway, the tournament was a bit weird, since we would be required to have tables where everyone would sit apart from other tables. Even though this was a bit weird and we could not play in the game store (we needed a lot more floorspace to keep the mandatory distance between people), quite a lot of people showed up, and we had a great time together. If felt great to play OS with real people in a room instead of pixels.
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| a pause in a lockdown, first thing you do: organize an OS event :) |
Again, I was reminded of how much I had grown to love this community. The combination of the atmosphere, the people and the old cardboard was just great and continues to be so to this day.
Even though some people consider this format "fixed" or "done" or whatever you want to call it when a format has no surprises left and the best deck has been known for ages, I do not agree. Although the all-spike events that also exist almost always end up with the same kinds of decks in the top 8, the winner is never clear from the start. Although someone with The Deck might win, I have seen plenty of times when that did not happen. Same goes for counter/burn, Triple S and Robots. I have seen someone win with a large tournament with a mono green deck without any power, beating both control and robots decks along the way. It just shows that any deck with some focus can win on a given day. Which is also something that I love about the OS format. Although I never expected to win with Fallen Angels or Lord of the pit, it was a great feeling to manage a top 8 with such a deck and coming close on another (9th) like I did in the flying van cup (which also has a great atmosphere. My many thanks to the organizers, I loved it both times I came).
Speaking of Robots, that one is not even considered a tier 1 deck any more by some people, even though it can work very well. As much as I like wacky cardboard (more about that later) I love the way an agro version of robots can just go off and do ridiculous things. Perhaps that is why I like it more than the other top contenders. So, when I want to go into spike mode, I love playing this deck. It feels more like an unstable rocket and crazy things happen when you play it. This is what happened during the online corona online version of a tournament.
Because I like the weird feeling of this deck and like to gamble every now and then, I kept a hand with one land (a factory) and a mox ruby and a fellwar stone. And 3 copy artifacts and a time walk. I gambled, knowing that lots of people play blue anyway. First turn land, mox, fellwar stone. Second turn copy fellwar stone, play time walk thanks to an opponent playing a blue dual. Third turn play Su-Chi. Fourth turn, attack for 4, play 2 copies. Fifth turn, attack for 12, play another copy, then red blast opponents' ancestral recall. Turn 6, win. It was over in 5 minutes. It is just complete madness when it works like this. Which is why everyone with spike intentions now seems to play divine offering main deck, I suppose. Which means it is much less good now in the current Dutch meta, but cool none the less. I am happy we never experienced this deck in Ancient though, since copy artifact was on the old restricted list. With good reason, this deck shows.
As interesting as it can be to play really powerful decks, I like the moments where I can play something less expected to some agree of success better. And they don't have to be all bad. I love to play Eureka, for instance.
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| one of my early versions of eureka. This one is not Swedish legal yet. |
One of my matches with one of my eureka decks is on
Timmy Talks YouTube channel where I play it with lots of golden legends. If you enjoy watching a not so tier 1 deck giving a serious deck a hard time, look it up. While you are there, try looking up my match from the Castle Cup in which I played a deck which also contained Eureka, but stuffed together with other combo's. The deck is a bit weird, but it can work in a really nice way which made me happy. If you have the cards, try it out. If you are not a total spike, I know you will love it.
The Castle Cup, by the way, is organized by Fulco and Johan, 2 guys I also met through playing magic and whom I now also meet outside of Magic tournaments. Fulco is already married, but I could definitely see myself going to his wedding if he weren't yet :) Speaking of which, the first wedding I visited from someone whom I met through Oldschool is already behind me. I met Chris, who's from Germany, playing Oldschool online. We went to some tournaments together and played online in between. My wife and I visited Chris and his girlfriend a couple of times in Germany and had a great time talking over dinner and walking in the forest, and we were invited to their wedding. It felt like the magic of meeting people over cardboard and then growing to something more was not over yet. I still feel that way, every time I meet people while playing Oldschool, I meet at least one person I would like have dinner with and talk with some more. What I find really wonderful is that this has not changed even though the community has grown over the years. I was just over to the Flying van cup and Weinfest and the atmosphere was just great.
What has changed a bit maybe is the competitive edge that some people always want to have. There is a group that always plays super optimized decks that are just plain good, and they do show up in top8's a lot. Please note I am not judging here, it is fine to always play the deck or Counter burn if that is your thing. It just would be nice to see something else going into the finals. You rarely see a surprising deck there (although there are players that play unexpected decks to top8's). I would love to see more tournaments where people try out other stuff, because I certainly have a love for cardboard that you don't see every day and I know there are plenty of others in the community that feel the same way. I find it more enjoyable than hardcore, super optimized decks and it does not matter to me if I am playing the interesting deck or my opponent does so. I always like it when someone plays a card I haven't seen for a long time.
To get back to where I started, the goal might be to win, but for me, the purpose is definitely to have fun. And you can have a lot of fun even though you don't win. I had a great time playing some of the weird decks that I have built over the years, even though some of them almost never win. My Eureka/Colossus/Leviathan/clone/sword of the ages deck almost never wins, but it is very funny when it does.
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| I mean, this makes almost any OS player happy, doesn't it? |
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| or this? doesn't this make you want to play Lord of the pit? |
I guess I will end this ramble with a thanks to the ever growing Oldschool community. I am grateful to be able to be part it. Let's keep it the great thing that it is, no matter how big it gets. And let's never, ever, let Hasbro hijack it like they did with EDH/Commander.
While you're at it, do try out some of the cardboard that won't get you into the finals, but will put a smile on your face. I will try to inspire you with some pictures of decks I saw, or my very enjoyable moments with old cardboard.
I don't have all the makers of these decks available, but please let me know if one of them is yours, I will credit you if you want. I could make this a very long list, but I will limit myself to just some of the decks that made me smile over the last years.
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| RGB goodstuff, by Anne Joldersma |
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| Discard my lord of the pit, please - by Arno van Meurs |
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| gravity troll giant - by Anne Joldersma |
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| Forced enchantress - by Marten Buhler |
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| Dance of Giants - by PC van Steenoven |
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| Undead colossus - by Kobus |
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Angelic Ornithopter Voices - by Rob van Dijck
Ping, by Remko:
Fallen Ghouls, by Wilco:
Dark heart, by Juriaan:
Regenerating elephants, by Arno
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And to keep the ideas coming, some of my own playing situations:
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| One of the very few times I won a game with this animate drain deck.. |
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| Enchantress working hard to not die |
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| that time I thought I would win with a berserked Shivan but didn't :) |
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| Remko showing me who's boss |
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| Peter taking my undead leviathan :) |
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| basalt monolith, not only for combo decks |
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| Sindbad/Sylvan Library. And, what to do with all these lands :) |
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| With some proxies, but what an effect if you get it - Nether Void/Land Equilibrium |
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| An all out Sage game against Peter |
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| Tron, working hard to find that fireball |
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| When your opponent thinks he will win in a beta draft, and you cast Guardian Angel |
And last but not least, Oldschool has spawned a lot of really, really talented artists. One of whom is Buddy Jonkers. I did not have to think twice to buy this really heavy steel Triskelion, it is a true work of OS art. I turned it into a small christmas tree last season to wish the Signal OS community happy holidays. I think it is amazing, just as his other handyworks, like alters and handmade dice he's making.
I could go on and on about all the things I enjoy about Oldschool. Perhaps the last thing I want to mention, is that thanks to OS, I got to meet some of the original magic artists in person. That was also great.
Thanks for staying with me for this walk down memory lane. Do try out your Ali's from Cairo, Floral Spuzzems, Psionic entities and other lovely spice cards. It will make you and your opponent feel good!
Thanks for reading, I hope to see you all soon!
