Draconian Cylix III Oldschool report with pictures

On August 5th, we had another round of the draconian cylix cup. In total, 15 guys showed up and 13 actually played (the other two had personal obligations that day so they couldn't be there for the entire event). There were 2 former Knights of Thorn finalists there and several finalists of earlier oldschool events in Eindhoven, so although the group wasn't very big, there was a lot of potential for interesting matches.

In the weekend before the tournament, I did some playtesting with Peter. He really wanted to play with dance of many and the last build of that deck (with ball lightning in a counter/burn deck) did not really work that well, so we wanted to make a new build for that one. I wanted to try some of my decks to see which one I would play. I had mono green, a troll disco with rukh eggs (I recently bought a couple to make a playset), a stasis deck (after my recent purchase of some resets I wanted to try these out and there's not much else to do with it) and a new build of my BWU deck which can be described as some variant on a partycrasher deck. I thought I would play the deck with the rukh eggs, but it just wasn't doing that much. Although it's fun to blow everything up and end up with a 4/4 flyer or two, a lot of the time the eggs don't do much. It was fun when they did, but most of the time the eggs just sat there waiting to do something. And then didn't, making me wish they were Rocs of Kher ridges. As a variant of Troll Disco with some pretty awful singing (hymn to tourachs) I named the deck Karaoke Bar, but in the end it just wasn't that great, doing nothing most of the time.

The stasis deck was ok in playtesting (turbo stasis variant with resets) but was very weak against a deck with both enchantment destruction and counterspells. And fast creature decks. And though I did not try it against agressive discard, I had a feeling it would not be stellar against that as well. So in the end it would be a variant of my partycrasher deck, but I took the armageddons, as they hadn't done much while playtesting, and even though I won one of the earlier tournaments with a deck like this, the armageddons hadn't done much then either. Looking back I'm not sure it was a wise decision. Anyway, I wanted more pressure, so I added the UL nightmare I had won as a prize a while back.

Peters deck ended up being something of a speed/heavy hitter deck. Have you ever helped someone building a deck, and then looking at it and telling them to get out some of the cards? In this case I asked Peter: "you know what would make this deck a lot better?" He said no. "If we would take out the dance of many.." But since that was the whole point of the deck, we didn't do that. I did add a couple of triskelions and suggested taking out the serendib efreets and replace them with more ghost ships (I had already put in two) but Peter wanted to keep them in. So I added an extra counterspell (so he would have 4) and we left it at that.

On the day of the tournament, there seemed to be a lot more people than had pre-registered. Though most of the people standing around would play, some of them were also there for the legacy tournament. Arno and I registered the players. We would be playing 4 rounds and then we would have a winner. We thought of doing a top 4, but the heat (it was over 30 degrees because we were in the middle a heatwave) and the fact that some games to quite a long time to finish made us decide we would simply keep it at the swiss part.

In Round 1, I was paired against Marten. He was a Knights of Thorn finalist at that last gathering, and apart from being a good player he also a really nice guy. I would have loved to play him in a later round, but chance made us meet right away. He was playing a deck with savannah lions, efreets and angels, so though I'm not totally sure, it was some variant on the  Cermak deck. He started of with a turn one lions, but I terrored that, followed by hymn to tourach, hypnotic specter, Juzam Djinn. Although he took out some of the creatures that just kept coming, there was just too much pressure with hymns and consistant creature follow-up. In a nice exchange between my 4/4 Nightmare and his serra angel, he stripped away one of my swamps and made it 3/3 again. I had more lands, but considering they were a city of brass and mishra's factory, this was the first game I was thinking the nightmare wasn't that great. Fortunately, the vampires and djinns were big enough to take care of the angel, and that was it. Marten told me this was the first time he played this deck and he still had to get used to it. He also did not draw that good, so he did not have much to do about my pretty aggressive creature horde and discard. So we ended up 2-0

In round 2, I was paired against Arno, so again I would be playing against someone I knew well. At least this meant he had won the first match with his GW aisling leprechaun deck. Turns out he had beaten Peter's speedy djinns. Even though Peter had opened pretty strong, he wasn't able to get enough damage through. And when he did, it wasn't much fun either..

No damage, please!

Damage? No, thank you..

Ok, I'll take damage then.

Arno likes really wacky decks like this one, and manages to surprise some people at least. He made me not block his leprechaun to make sure it did not turn my nightmare green for a couple turns, since he had COP green in play. At least nog untill I drew another creature, so in the end I blocked it, my nightmare became green and I played a sengir vampire after that to make sure I could keep hitting, without the chance of being caught off guard by some giant, berserked leprechaun. Since my creatures were bigger and I managed to take some cards from Arno in the meantime (so he could not turn all my threats green) I won this match also, even though he managed to surprise me with righteousness and an eye for an eye.

 
In the third game I faced Carl with a Land tax/tower powermonolith deck. The first game was ok with a strong opening (hymn with land/mox jet) against his strong opening (turn 1 sol ring and ivory tower). Unfortunately, the deck stalled after that because no lands showed up, even though the deck had pretty solid manabase. After this game I found a pile of 7 lands in a row when I took out cards to sideboard. Apparently, shuffling and then rifling 5 times is not good for land distribution. After a couple of turns, the deck kicked into gear and I could put down some threats which won me the game. In the second game I had a pretty strong hand against him with a disenchant and a dust to dust with the mana to cast them, but he dropped a land tax and then timetwistered with a lotus, leaving me with a pretty lousy hand, while Carl had a library of Alexandria. In this game I managed to deal some damage, but he drew way too much cards with the library, even though I did keep the land tax out of order. The game took quite some time. I slowed him down with my energy flux, but that didn't do much because of the modern rules. When I used to play vintage you couldn't use an artifact unless you first paid the upkeep. In this day and age, that doesn't matter anymore, fortunately for Carl :) That way, it was easier for him to keep a mox and a tower in play. In the end, he killed me after getting a power monolith fireball, without me doing anything about it because I hadn't drawn any of the disenchants. I figured beating combo decks would be easier with both hymns and disenchants, but apparently combo decks are better than I thought :) So on to the third game. Again, not a strong opening from my side. I managed to put a COP red into play which he tried to destroy with a chaos orb but missed, but the time this gave me did not do anything because I drew to little threats to finish it off. And his deck takes some time to set up, so we end up in a draw because we don't decide games by orb flipping in Eindhoven. Oh well, on to the next game. In the meantime, Peter had brutally beaten Marten by drawing very good.

Second turn: say hello to my little friend

And even more djinns

I'll play ancestral, then braingeyser for 6 and then, while you try to do something, I'll just say no, no and no..

The fourth round was against Simon with the deck, who was 3-0 at this time. I think I Played him once before with a deck like this but I'm not sure. Matches like this draw out a long time because the deck just keeps coming back after you give it a beating. He had an early Library of Alexandria, which needed to be shut down quickly. I shut down his library by drawing a counter for a hypnotic specter and then cast balance with only two cards. I figured I would beat him quickly with my mishra's factory and made the wrong choice of not keeping my second swamp. I then drew 2 Juzam Djinns and a specter, but no lands. In the meantime he came back with ancestral recall, regrowth, ancestral recall and then braingeyser 2 of 3 turns after that. Plenty of counterspells and creature destruction after that, so I had no chance of coming back. Second game I had him down to one and we were both without cards. We exchanged creatures for counterspells for a couple of turns, but I then proceeded to draw 5 lands and 2 dark rituals in a row. By that time he had gotten out a tome, had drawn disenchant for my factory and 2 factories himself. Shortly after that a working library showed up, but he did not need that to win anymore. Last time I played against deck like this was in the finals a while back and I beat it that time. This time it solidly beat me and left me thinking how much I would have liked an armageddon in this game :) He would have probably countered it, but it would have given me a better win chance than the nightmare I had in my deck now.

So, what do I take from this? Well first, all of my opponents were really  nice people to play against. Second, nightmare pretty much sucks in a deck that also contains non-swamp land, even when there are only 4. Third, my shuffling skills are bad. I manage to riffle, shuffle, rifle several times before starting my games, but somehow I manage to end up drawing piles of land or almost no land at all for quite a lot of turns. I wonder what the ideal shuffling method would be for good randomizing, without piles of land getting stuck to each other :) Fourth, the deck is really good. It won 4-0 and it seemed not to have a hard time at all. 

The champion!

Thanks to all players for showing up and being really nice!

Other notable oldschool moments of the day:

So, with the first turn lotus I'll play... wait! You're not playing a lotus..

 

Draconian Cylix III: a tournament report by Carl

I've been to Draconian Cylix III in Eindhoven (NL) last Sunday with Pascal
Delfosse. The ruleset was peculiar: based on the French 2017 Bazaar of Moxen
tournament, Fallen Empires was allowed, only 1 Black Vise, 1 Recall and 1 Maze
of Ith, otherwise it is the Swedish B & R list. Cards with the same art and old
frame were allowed for a greater accessibility.

I chose to play Power Artifact without having playtested it (some goldfishing
though), but it looked good. I chose a Land Tax/Ivory Tower shell since I was
expecting a lot of Hymns.

Thirteen players show up, we played straight swiss for 4 rounds.

Round 1: Robert Vlackeners - B/R discard
I met Robert previously, he was playing Goblins and I a Living Plane land
destruction deck. Robert chose to play heavy discard (Hymn, Specter, Mindstab Thrull and The
Rack).
Game 1 was uneventful: I fireballed Robert three times to win without combo (the
first time I split it on a Mindstab Thrull, the other two times at him directly).
Game 2 I mulligan into a slow hand with 2 Fireball, Robert is light on mana and
my Strip Mine on his Badlands didn't help. I can't finish it though, Robert
recovers, strips my hand away and beats me with Factories.
I don't get lands in my initial hand in the third game, but I have a Sapphire
and Ancestral, so it's OK. I also get an Ivory Tower out. My first Basalt
Monolith is shattered, a Power Artifact REBed. I get a Land Tax out to keep The
Rack from doing its job. Robert plays Underworld Dreams. Nevertheless, I play
Timetwister and it's a hit: I manage to combo him out with a lethal Fireball
2-1, 3 points.

Round 2: Frenk van der Mey - G/W/R aggro-control
Frenk has come from Leiden with Marten who I played several times recently. They
both play a good stuff G/W/R deck with Serendib Efreet, Savannah Lions, Bolts
and a lot of restricted cards. Frenk also plays Power Sink.
We both get a turn one Ancestral, but I also get an Ivory Tower. Henk
disenchants it, so I play City in a Bottle to kill his City of Brass. It turns
out that he also drew Dibs and a library later on. I combo him.
Game 2 goes back and forth until Henk plays an unmatch Serra Angel that goes all
the way.
I get a great hand game 3: I get a turn 1 blood Moon out (Henk has very few
basic lands if any), but Henk plays his Sapphire, enabling him to play Time Walk
followed by Timetwister next turn. I gain a lot of life thanks to Ivory Tower.
After playing a second Blood Moon, I get out a Serra Angel that I can protect to
take the match.
2-1, 6 points.

Round 3: Bjorn Stemerdink - B/u/w Deadguy Ale style
Bjorn is one of the organisers, it is nice to meet him :)
I win the toss and open with Land, Sol Ring and Ivory Tower. Bjorn answer with
Swamp, Mox Jet and Hymn to Tourach, getting my second land and the Timetwister I
planned to play next turn. I am holding a Monolith and a Power Sink. Bjorn
misses his next land drop, so I play the Monolith. Next turn Bjorn gets a land
and plays a Hypnotic Specter, eating my hand away. Soon an Order and a Vampire
join the battlefield and I am dead.
I have to mulligan in the second game, getting a hand with Library as my lone
land and a Land Tax. Things could have been good, but Bjorn gets a second turn
Mind Twist for 3. Fortunately, he cannot put pressure on, and I am able to
recover, gaining life thanks to Ivory Tower powered by Land Tax. It is a hard
slope to go up though, as Bjorn played an Energy Flux, so I am hampered by the
upkeep cost of the tower (and 2 Moxen went in the bin). I manage to assemble the
combo later on and Bjorn gets toasted.
Game 3, Bjorn opens with a City of Brass, I play a land, Lotus, Land Tax and
Timetwister. Bjorn plays a CoP: Red, but I am not too worried. I get a Powered
Monolith and am holding Fireball, time for Chaos Orb to get rid of the CoP. But
I miss the flip, with Recall and Timetwister already in the bin, no way to
recover it. My hope is to get Braingeyser to deck him. Time is called, Bjorn
doesn't manage to kill me in the 5 extra turns, so it is a draw...
1-1-1, 7 points.

Round 4: Pascal Delfosse - The deck
We have driven 1.5 hour to play each other... Pascal is playing a version of The
Deck with 2 Lightning Bolt main deck and Moat.
I have to mulligan, but get a Library (on the draw) that stays, Pascal has kept
a hand with 3 Mishra's Factories and is hitting me hard. Fortunately, I have
been able to play an Ivory Tower to keep me alive. He disenchants it, but I get
another one. I cast Timetwister, Time Walk, Wheel of Fortune: this is enough to
pull the combo and fry Pascal.
Game 2 is long, Pascal casts Dust to Dust on a Basalt Monolith and Sol Ring. I
play two Ivory Tower and a second Monolith later on, Pascal is able to regrowth
his Dust to Dust and chooses to remove the two Towers (I am already at 40+
life). Next turn I pull the combo (he counters my Power Artifact, but I have a
second one) and send a huge Fireball at his face :)
2-0, 10 points.

This is already the end of the tourney, too bad we were not a bit more numerous,
I would have enjoyed an extra round.
I finish 2nd and get a Fellwar Stone for my trouble: it is now in my deck!

Props to Bjorn and Arno for a smooth and enjoyable tournament, I hope to be able
to come to the next one in November.

Draconian Cylix II: Oldschool at Eindhoven

Oldschool in Eindhoven, may 6th, 2018

A while back we decided to switch between Oldschool and Ancient formats so both formats could be played regularly in our group. We then also decided to start the Draconian Cylix Series, where the winner of the tournament would win a cup from Fallen Empires, to signify the inclusion of FE in our playing of the format (we play with the french rules). Only problem was, the first time we played for the series, we there was no Draconian Cylix to be found. None of the players had one, none of the organisers, even the shop we play at mostly, which has plenty of singles in dozens of binders, did not have a single one. So this would be the first tournament where we would actually be handing out one :)

About a year ago, I decided I wanted to play all the decks I admired when I just started. I started at the end 1994, when there were not a lot of places where you could see what other players would play. There were some newsgroups and after a while, the magic dojo site. I acquired my first piece of power somewhere in the late spring of 1995 (a mox sapphire) but I was nowhere near a  "real" Type 1 deck. There was some coverage of Type 1 events, but not many. I looked at the decklists (of course, no pictures then, just plain lists) and tried to figure out what I liked about the decks, what made them good and what I would change about them. 

In 1996 I still did not have the cards I needed to build or play them. Somewhere in 1998 I made my power cards complete, but by then the decks I had admired were nowhere near as effective as they used to be. The Ancient and Oldschool series give me a chance to play them in a format where they still have a chance. I also play with my own creations (and they usually also perform quite nicely) but there is something about these decks that makes me want to play them and see how they match up with all the new insights people now apply in the oldschool format.

So far I've played the original "the deck" by Weissman, The Prison by Chris Cade, the Type 1 version of the "House of pain" by George Baxter, Stormbind/living plane as played by my first MTG Tutor Marc Stevens, Concede or Bleed by Adam Maysonet and Monkey May I? by Mario Robaina In the last Ancient tournament. I don't change anything about the main deck lists, even when I think improvements could be made, and most of the decks perform good. I won first places with The Deck, The Prison, Concede or Bleed and Monkey, may I? so the decks really live up to the admiration I had for them way back when. I'm sorry to say that the deck by my first magic tutor Marc did not do that well, even though he won plenty with it. I've seen him play for ante with it on an early gaming convention and going home with a pile of duallands and nice rares, so that deck can't be that bad.. I think I'll play it again sometime and see if it does any better. 

Anyway, for this Oldschool, I picked the deck that should have been the first world championship deck, Bertrand Lestree's zoo. Lestree explained it way back when to play to get some early damage, and then go for channel fireball. I did manage to pull that off once, but not in the way intended as by Lestree.. 

First Round, the pairing matched me against my playtesting buddy, Peter. He was playing a U/W deck with serendibs, serra's, su-chi's, juggernauts and copy artifacts. And armageddons. The first game I drew so much fire I simply decided to not kill his serendib efreet, but let it attack me for 2 turns, wait for his third upkeep with the serendib doing him one damage and then finish off Peter with a psionic blast. My graveyard was filled with chain lightnings, bolts, psionic blasts and a single argothian pixies. The second game I drew a much more even mix of creatures and burn. The 2 argothian pixies where vital against the su-chi's and juggernauts and I won by blocking those repeatedly and then finishing off with a large fireball after we both control magic'd his Serendib Efreet.

The second round I was paired against Marco, who had very nice U/W/B creation with Moats, Serra's and Thunder spirits. All of those cards are not very nice against my deck.. I managed to pull off a win even after Marco destroyed my only two lands (both city of brass) with a city in a bottle. And he kept bringing back his Serra Angel two times. First with a recall, then with a resurrection. Fortunately, I have lots of psionic blasts and fireballs, and the were really necessary for this win. I boarded in tranquilities against his moats (and, as it turns out, greater realm of preservation). This was also a close game, with me thinking I had him multiple times. First time I thought I had him, he divine offerted his Jayemdae Tome. Second time I thought I had him, he animated his mishra's factory (which was behind the moat anyway), it made itself 3/3 and then he swords to plowshared it. A timely second tranquility took away the Moat and Greater Realm, so I could come through with a lot of damage and win. 

In the third round, I was paired against Marten, who, spoiler alert, would win the tournament with his very cool combination of heavy hitters and utility cards. We both like the oldschool theme a lot, and I couldn't resist taking a picture of his Scrye lifecounter next to my Duelist Lifecounter :)

The first game I had an opening hand of volcanic island, mox ruby, 2 kird apes, an argothian pixies and channel and fireball. I kept the hand, thinking there are plenty of opportunities for drawing land that gives green mana or a mox emerald. Turns out, this was one of those moments when that just does not happen. I was trashed and eventually had to block with my 1/1 kird apes, without my pixie getting in to play. O well. Up to game two. This gave a good opening with an ape, a whirling dervish and a pixie, which started the beatings quickly, followed by lightnings and a psi-blast, which made it 1-1. The third game gave me a channel and fireball in my opening hand again, with some creatures but only two lands. Which were the only two I was going to draw, while Marten had cast a Juzam Djinn in the meantime. I thought this would not be a problem, because I could bring out my dervish. And then it turned out there was also fireball in his deck :) He followed this up by an Erhnam Djinn. At this time, I was still ahead in life, so I figured I could just block his big creatures that would kill my apes and pixies and then hope for my third land and channel fireball him. That did not come, and then he played.... Diamond valley. Turns out the next card I drew was a Taiga, but by that time it was too late. He could simply sacrifice one of the djinns and stay alive, so I lost that one. 1-2. 

The fourth round I played former Knights of Thorn Champion Roy. He was playing a White Weenie deck with really A LOT of one-drops. I did not draw that well, so he ran over me while I was drawing mostly land. In 10 turns, I drew 8 lands and 2 chain lightnings. That was not enough against this horde. 

Second game, Roy was not drawing that well, staying at one land for a couple turns, which I then destroyed with Chaos Orb and ran over him quickly.

Third game, my apes kept the lions and knights at bay while I was waiting for the fireball to come with the channel I had drawn on my third turn, but then he played an order of Leitbur and.... his signed Knights of Thorn. Which has banding and protection from red... this was going really bad all of a sudden. Fortunately, I had sided in control magic. We exchanged blows for a while, with him playing ever more creatures, exchanging some of them in combat while I was trying to keep ahead in life. Somewhere around turn 20 he disenchanted the control magic and after that played city in a bottle. I had drawn some fire and killed of his thunder spirit and an order, but after the city in a bottle I could not keep up because I had drawn quite a lot of land. I first had to block some of the orders, which of course gained first strike and killed off my blockers. Then he started eating at my life. Somewhere around turn 28 I was at 9 life, Roy at 14. Then I finally drew my fireball and played channel, tapped out my lands and fireballed him for 18. This was a close match, but I won. Not in the way Lestree envisioned it, channel managed to win the game for me. 

I ended up second, after Marten. Congrats Marten, for winning the first Draconian Cylix in the series!!

The Champion:

The winning deck:

Some of the other Oldschool moments of the day:

Thanks to all who were there! We had a great time with our old cardboard. Till next time!

Ancient April 21st

After our Oldschool event in februari, it was time for some Ancient action again. Some of the people from the Oldschool group Knights of Thorn showed up to see how Ancient compares to Oldschool and from what I heard to also liked this format. It always nice to have some crossover between the groups :)

Some of the action during the day:

First turn Serra with a lotus. Nice!

Oh yes, this format has THAT card..  Moxen are just a little les awesome in Ancient.

Sometimes, life just isn't fair.. al that against just one lonely plateauu..

Well, that's an unusual use of a control magic :)

Monkey, May I? deck (which eventually won the day) against black pox

Some of the other plays of the day:

In the end, the winning deck was the classic monkey, may I deck which was somewhat succesful in the 1996 era for a short time. Usually we don't publish full decklists here to keep some of the mystery, but since this deck can be found on the net with a little effort, here's the decklist:

Mario Robaina's Monkey May I deck, version as played by Bjorn in this Ancient

There is something to be said for this deck in Oldschool too, but then it would miss what I experienced are pretty key cards: the merchant scrolls. I've used them for the Ancestral Recall mostly, of course, but also to get the mana drain or a psionic blast at some moments where I really needed them. I really think this deck would me much less effective without them.