Although I play a lot of oldschool in some different formats, I play mostly Swedish since I have not managed to play all the different kinds of decks one could play in that format, so branching out is mostly unnecessary for me, I can play lots of different decks in that format and since I have only limited time, I tend to not play a lot of other formats. Brawl is something I played once before I think, some years back. Someone suggested playing it with a small group, after which we decided we should ban Rubinia and Tetsuo as commanders in this format if we were to ever play it again. Fortunately, that has been the standard for a while now, so we would see a lot of other different commanders. When I asked Wouter, I initially was told it would be without Fallen Empires. I had 2 weeks or so to build a deck, and ended up with Gwendlyn di Corci as commander, adding mostly the stuff you would expect to find in this deck, with Guardian Beast combined with Chaos orb as the most dangerous together.
On the Thursday before the tournament, I got 2 new pieces of information. One: FE would be legal in the format. Two: not making the most hardcore decks would be appreciated. Okay then. Out the window my Gwendlyn idea went. I then went through the binder of golden legends, and unsurprisingly ended up with Angus McAnzie, since I love GWU decks. I thought about what I wanted to do and decided I wanted to do something with some FE cards and chose the "saving up" lands from FE to make a deck with. The idea would be to stall until I could play a large hurricane, which i would be able to survive due to the fact I would take some of my opponents' creatures with old man of the sea, preacher, Rubinia, Willow Satyr and, due to FE being legal, Seasinger and sacrifice them to diamond valley. Even though the seasinger is by far the worst, I thought it would be worth a shot.
I added Rasputin Dreamweaver, stream of life and rocket launcher to fit with the theme. To make sure I would not be burned to a crisp or drain lifed I added greater realm of preservation just in case. The picture above was actually changed last minute while I was already on the tournament when I took out the recall and disrupting scepter and added archivian archeologist and chaos orb to the deck, just in case I would need to get rid of some permanents or get back the rocket launcher in case one shot was not enough.
It was also the first time I would be playing with the beautiful handmade dice crafted by Buddy Jonkers, which Fulco kindly had taken with him after I ordered them.
The first match I was up against Kobus, who was playing red/black with Boris Devilboon as commander. I drew an early seasinger, but that was not going to be doing much. I played an early divine offering on a Su-Chi, and was able to play out a tome while Kobus was playing Boris Devilboon.
Later on he played breeding pit, which meant my preacher would not be doing much. He also had city of shadows in play, which meant gaining life later on from Rubinia would not be doing much. Fortunately, I did have greater realm and was able to get Angus in play, which meant it would not be easy for Kobus to kill me. I did some blocking with Thrull tokens and was able to sacrifice those to diamond valley, but at 1 life at a time that was not doing that much.
Even with Time Elemental in play, it was still hard to stay on top of things, since a large batch of minor demons would still be able to kill me if Kobus were to, oh, i don't know, bolt or terror my Angus. It was going to be a really long and grindy game.
I was able to save up some counters on my sand silos though, and played a stream of life that got me back up to 20, which was one of the goals of the day. That kept me pretty safely out of range of dying quickly, but I still needed a way to win. This would have to be either rocket launcher or regrowth for my hurricane, which I had played earlier on. Or, in this case, Serra Angel. Which almost did not work since Kobus was also playing the hive.. it was a lot of hard work for my Rubinia, Preacher and time elemental to make sure she was able to get through but in the end, she did manage to win the game. Just barely. But hey, I was not complaining. I had used Sand Silos for a large stream of life which made me able to safely go on with my game plan, so I was already happy with that.
The second round was against Angelique, where I opened with an early Sand Silos. I made good use of that, since she was playing Xira as commander, there would be a lot of options for bolts, chain lightnings and terrors, so I wanted to keep 2 blue mana open when I played Rubinia. And I was able to do so a little later on.
After I got diamond valley, I thought this would be quite an easy game, especially since Angelique was not getting a great draw, and I had preacher as well. And sea singer in my hand, but that was not going to be doing much.
It took a lot longer though, including me using my mirror universe for a minor difference in life (I had to, since there was a scavenger folk on the board, played after all my creatures had been wiped away with earthquake. Johan joked that that was a very expensive lightning bolt. Effectively, it was). I kept using maze of ith and greater realm to not die and was able to take a hypnotic specter away with control magic. All the while, my sand silos were amassing counters.
I was able to play a huge hurricane for the finish, keeping open some mana for the greater realm just in case there was a lightning bolt in my opponent's hand. Again, a win with the help of the FE land. My day was already good at this point from my deck its purpose point of view.
It gave me some time to look at this impressive board state in the game of Rob against Koen.
For round 3 I was paired against Koen, who I had seen playing Adun Oakenshield to great effect against Rob. I was a bit worried against that deck since it looked pretty fast and the reusing of creatures would also make my creature stealing with the diamond valley less useful. I was lucky enough to get out an early old man of the sea after I had been hit for a couple times. This, paired with the greater realm again, slowed Koen down a lot.
Eventually I got Rubinia as well. No diamond valley yet, and Koen was throwing smaller creatures in front of the vampire I took with it. Which lead to a rare sight, a vampire with +1/+1 counters on it.
Eventually the vampire had grown to an impressive 8/8 when I got... Willow Satyr. No diamond valley yet, but this would have to do the trick, right?
The vampire had grown to an impressive 9/9 when I took Adun from Koen in a complete unfair boardstate. I had started attacking with the cockatrice I had taken from him as well, and the 9/9 vampire eventually broke through for a massive amount of damage. This must have been the largest vampire I have had in play for as long as I play OS. I can't even remember when I had a vampire in play with more than 1 +1/+1 counter on it. That must have been somewhere in the 90's.
The enormous vampire and the stealing of all of the relevant creatures Koen had was enough for the win, after which we played a game with Gwendolyn, since I had taken that brawl deck with me as well.
I was able to get out an early royal assassin and Gwendolyn, which made for a pretty unfair game as well after I drew into Icy Manipulator.
When I got a copy artifact also, it felt like it was completely unfair to Koen his deck which did not contain a lot of removal spells since he wanted to go all in on the removal with the creatures that he would recycle.
After going 3-0 and apologizing to Koen for my very unfriendly Gwendolyn deck I was paired against Johan, who was playing mono blue with lots of creatures. I had seen his deck and he had seen mine. Fortunately, if I would draw sea singer this time, it would do something. If Johan did not draw his old man earlier than I would. I had an interesting opening hand, which was not an obvious keep, but also not that bad. I thought about it, and kept it, thinking Johan had only one steal artifact and one copy. Statistics should work in my favor.
Johan played an early phantasmal forces. I was hit and played mirror universe. Gambling a bit I let him hit me again, knowing that switching life totals too early would not do that much and rocket launcher would take a really long time, since I had not drawn a mana saving FE land yet. I got one a little later and started saving counters and traded life totals with Johan, who was now on 8 while I was holding off with Angus and preacher.
Saving up counters with the hollow trees, I was in the meantime playing Rasputin Dreamweaver. Together with the counters on the trees, that would do the trick next turn, and it did! Another achievement unlocked. I used Rasputin counters for the win, and rocket launcher in combination with a FE land. Would this have worked without the counters? Yes, probably eventually, but I was still happy my deck did what it had to do in the first 3 games.
Round 5 however, was to be the demise of my deck against David. This game was over so quickly that I did not even take pictures, since I was out of the game in 5 minutes against his mono black deck, which was very aggressive while I was mana screwed. I had hoped for a 3rd land in the 3 turns I would have (I was on the draw) to play basalt monolith, which would have allowed me to play Serra Angel and mirror universe. I never got the third land, also not in 6 turns, so I was run over in less than 10 minutes.
Round 6 i was paired against Rob with as he called it "his big dick midget" which someone apparently had sent him when he ordered some cards. It was a Sir Shandlar of Eberyn which was altered with a dwarf in the background with it's dick out. As Rob said: I did not ask for this, I just got it so I decided to play with it to use it at least once. He was also the first one playing against me using FE mana saving lands. Being a very good player, Rob gave me a hard time while I was looking for a win condition. Although it was not technically a win, I was able to get out the infinite power-monolith combo, I just needed something to do with it. Which I got in time when I got to play stream of life for 1000. That seemed enough to win eventually, especially with sylvan library out. I ended the game with a life total in upper 900. Another achievement unlocked!
It had been a great day with great people with great weather again. It turned out that David had lost one game also, so the top 4 looked like this.
Since I had lost to David though, he was declared the winner. An understandable decision by the tournament organization. It did mean I still haven't broken my streak of coming close to winning tournaments but never actually making it. It did not matter however, since I had a great time playing cool cards against even cooler people in great weather outside. What more could one want? Well, maybe some cardboard crack to take home. Which I also did, I got my playset of evil eyes complete, which means I am going to build a deck with that, and also could not resist these clockwork avians, which I am also going to build a deck with, memorating a deck my Friend Rene and I once played on a Type 1 tournament somewhere in the 90's. Maybe I will take that to a tournament one day and also write something about that. Or I will just play it in kitchen table events. Who knows? I will be playing them against great people though and enjoying it greatly as I always do with oldschool.
Thanks to all who came to the black lotus cup, thanks to Wouter for inviting me, and thanks to the entire oldschool community. As always, hope to see you soon and looking forward to it!
