Camel Trophy I - a report by Carl

Another tournament at our northern neighbours of the Netherlands. Antoine and I
left at 8:30 for the two-hour drive to Arnhem to attend the first Camel Trophy,
organised by Bjorn. This location is a bit further for us than the one in
Eindhoven (where the Draconian Cylix events are held), more time to chat...
Twenty-five players showed up, a nice turnout. Swedish rules, but reprints
allowed. I took the same deck as two days before in Brugge: Good stuff played by
Kalle Nord at n00bcon X. With 20 restricted cards, this choice cannot be wrong.
Five Swiss rounds followed by top 8 single elimination.

Round 1: Edo Hoksbergen - R/W Atog
Edo keeps a somewhat ketchy hand, attacks turn two with a Factory that gets
Shattered, and is stuck at two lands, another Factory and a Mountain. I don't
help him with a Strip Mine on the second Factory after he has played an Atog. I
then plop an Erhnam and a Su-Chi. I counter his Balance (cast from a Lotus),
then Power Sink his Chaos Orb, and he is soon dead.
Game 2 is more interesting, as he plays turn 1 Mana Vault, turn 2 Su-Chi and
manages to hit me twice before I can Disenchant it (my only change from Kalle's
deck: replaced Tranquility from the sideboard; well, I also took out the two
Sharks for 2 extra Black Vise). Edo forces me to counter another thread, then
casts Wheel of Fortune and the dreaded Blood Moon hits. Luckily, I received a
sweet seven and cast Lotus, Erhnam Djinn, Su-Chi, Mox Sapphire, Time Walk. Hit
Edo for 8 down to 9 (he took some City of Brass damage). He plays a Juggernaut
to trade, then a second one. I have a Psionic Blast to finish him off.
2-0, 3 points.

Round 2: Peter Bondhuis - The Deck
Peter opens with Mishra's Factory, Mox Emerald, Mox Ruby, Ivory Tower. I Mana
Drain his Jayemdae Tome, use the mana to play Sylvan Library, and Regrowth on
the Mana Drain. He plows a Factory of mine, then I play Erhnam Djinn which goes
all the way.
Game 2, Peter plays a Tundra, then Ancestral in my upkeep. He Mind Twists my
hand away and plays a Tome, but I topdeck Chaos Orb to get rid of it.
Unfortunately, Peter has a Tome #2, then he plays The Hive and starts the
beating. I try to mount an offense with 2 Su-Chi and Wheel of Fortune, but it
doesn't save me. I die with Peter at 3 life.
These games have taken some time (backbiters would say I play slowly), so we
have no time to play the third game.
1-1, 4 points.

Round 3: Thomas Meddens - R/W Tron prison
I already had the occasion to play Thomas (with another Tron variation), I am
glad to play him again, he is a very friendly fellow. I open hand with Strip
Mine and Mishra's Factory (no coloured mana), but good spells (Walk, Regrowth),
so I keep it and have a slow start. Thomas cannot put pressure on either. I hit
him once with a Djinn before City in a Bottle hits. I am able to get rid of it
thanks to a timely Chaos Orb. I twister once, then a second time, taking some
extra turns in the process, then burn Thomas to death.
I am lucky to have Library of Alexandria in my opening hand of the next game,
Thomas has Howling Mine and Relic Barrier to make it even. I kill his Relic
Barrier so that Thomas would be kind enough to let me benefit from the Mine, but
he has another Barrier. I play an Erhnam, he drops a Su-Chi which soon becomes
forestwalk, so Thomas attacks with it, but I can block it since I don't have any
Forest in play. The blocking Djinn is sent farming. I play a second Djinn,
Thomas attacks, I block, the Su-Chi dies, then Thomas plays a Triskelion to kill
the Djinn, I Drain it, Thomas REBs it, but I have the BEB to make sure Erhnam
doesn't die. I hit him for 6 (Factory), then he plays a Su-Chi. I cast Hurkyl's
Recall on him, and hit him for 8 (a second Factory joined the team), then
Psionic Blast + Lightning Bolt to finish the job.
2-0, 7 points.

Round 4: Robbie Van Bakel - G/W/u
Robbie has a strong start with Lotus, land, Erhnam Dijnn. I also play a Djinn.
Robbie hits me once, then I hit back, Time Walk, Regrowth the Time Walk. I play
a Sylvan Library. Robbie has 3 Elves into play, but he can't chump block as my
Djinn has Forestwalk. Robbie Disenchants the Sylvan Library, but I had the
occasion to put Fireball on the top, so the Djinn hits once more and a 4-point
Fireball does the trick.
Robbie has another good start with Tropical Island, Mox Sapphire, Sylvan
Library. I play land, Mox, Mox, Fellwar Stone, meaning I am able to counter his
second turn Ice Storm (Robbie took 8 to get two extra cards from the Library). I
play Erhnam Djinn in my second turn, then another one turn 3. Despite a Time
Walk, Robbie can't find removal and concedes.
2-0, 10 points.

Round 5: Antoine Rottiers - U/W/b Cermak attack
Antoine is the only one with 4-0, we should both reach the top 8, so this game
is rather laid-back.
He has a great start with turn 1 Ancestral, turn 2 LoA. Fortunately, I am able
to Mind Twist him for 3 (Timetwister, Serendib Efreet and Su-Chi), so his
Library is useless. He plays Savannah Lions and Mishra's Factory. I play a Djinn
but it meets Chaos Orb. Antoine plays a Su-Chi which is kind enough to come to
play on my side thanks to Control Magic. I play a Su-Chi on my own, Strip his
Maze of Ith and both Su-Chi go to town.
There is not much action in the early second game, I Shatter a Sol Ring. When I
hit 6 mana, I Time Walk, then Tutor for Mind Twist for 5, getting 3 Su-Chi,
Disenchant and Braingeyser, Antoine keeps two cards in hand. He then Mind Twists
me back for 4, I keep two cards. I Control Magic his Serra, hit him before he
Disenchants the CM. We trade his Serra vs my Su-Chi, but my 3 Factories to his
one are enough to kill him.
2-0, 13 pointes.

I am seeded first in the Top 8, Antoine is second.

Quarter finals: Jeff Nijs - B/W
It is the first time I meet Jeff, very kind person and good sport. There is not
much action in the first turns besides two Bolts on his Mishra's Factory and
Hypnotic Specter. Two of my Erhams get plowed. I play Time Walk and Timetwister
after a Library of Alexandria. I Tutor for Mind Twist and Jeff dumps his hand in
the graveyard, somewhat frustrated since he had his own Mind Twist. He concedes
when I Control Magic his Sengir Vampire.
Game 2, I Psi blast away his Vampire, then Jeff casts Balance with two cards in
hand (I keep Control Magic and Mishra's Factory). His second Vampire comes on my
side, soon joined by a Djinn. Jeff cannot cope with that.
2-0

Semi-finals: Bjorn Stemerdink - G/W/U
When I play a second turn Fellwar Stone, Bjorn Drains it, leaving me with only a
Volcanic Island untapped. He then casts Mind Twist for 5, the number of cards I
was holding... I rip Wheel of Fortune from the top of my library to attempt a
comeback, but Bjorn plays Armageddon (getting rid of my Strip Mine), then plays
his LoA. I cannot beat the card advantage despite a triple bolt (off a Lotus) on
his Erhnam and Lions.
Game 2 sees Bjorn on the offense with an aggressive Balance with two cards in
hand (I have to discard my Balance), followed by an Erhnam Djinn (answered by my
Su-Chi) and Serendib Efreet. I am holding a Demonic Tutor that I hold rather
than going for the obvious Ancestral Recall. After a second Dib hit, Bjorn casts
Braingeyser for 4. I finally get my sixth mana. I attack with Forestwalking
Su-Chi but since Bjorn has no Forest, he blocks it happily. I am then able to
Tutor for Regrowth to get Balance back, getting rid of his two creatures and his
hand in the process (we both have 3 lands, one of mine being a Factory). Bjorn
topdecks a Serendib Efreet, followed by Plowshares for my Factory. Both of us
don't draw much in the following turns, and I die to the Efreet. I am midly
disappointed after this devastating Balance, but this is Magic.
0-2

So I finish at the third place and watch Antoine beat Bjorn to take the first
Camel Trophy.
Congrats to Antoine, thanks to Bjorn for another successful tournament, and to
my opponents for an enjoyable day.

Cheers,

--
Carl

The Camel Trophy I

After a long series of Ancient, French Oldschool and a couple of Swedish Oldschool events in Eindhoven, I really wanted to go back to our Oldschool Magic hometown, Arnhem. Our first larger Oldschool event was in may 2009 was held in Arnhem. We had some smaller events before that, but it was really just some friends who all came to the same game store. It was my first Oldschool kind tournament that was organised with a little bigger crowd in mind, as such it was announced in more places and quite a nice group of people showed up. I was still figuring out where the format was about to go. I was sure I wanted reprints to be allowed, it was all about the playing like the old days. As such, no one cared about the art, so some people used all kinds of basic lands. Even then, there were some guys who were already into the original art thing, so they played only basics with pictures from the original sets. We had great fun. There would be no repeating it there though, because the shop changed hands and the new owner wanted to focus more on events that would draw a bigger crowd or would be better for the shop's standing in Wizards eyes, so it was either larger groups or sanctioned events. Preferably both. So we moved our tournament series to Eindhoven, and we've been playing there ever since. The feeling of wanting to organize something in Arnhem never went away though, because of the good memories and because that's where it all started. 

Fast forward to 9 years later, to the Frost Giant Cup 2018 in Hilversum. This splendid event was hosted by the Vendetta game store there. It was there the Vendetta store in Arnhem was mentioned. I had heard there was another store in Arnhem, but I never really got around to going there. These days, if you want to play an Oldschool kind of game, you have a way better change of finding a player through a chat group than in a game store. But, since the idea of restarting Arnhem never went away, I decided to give it a try and contacted the owner of the store, Richard. He wasn't as much into the Oldschool scene as his colleague from Hilversum, but he was willing to give it a try. 

I wanted to draw as many people as I could for this first time, so I decided it would be a Swedish rules event because most Dutch players seem to enjoy that format the most. Because the Swedish events I've done so far had no name yet and the Draconian Cylix series was for French Oldschool, I had to come up with a new name with an old ring. Because most oldschool events are named after cards in our country, Arno came up with the brilliant name "Camel Trophy" after a couple of other names had been suggested. No new suggestions were needed, this was brilliant. I had to pick a date somewhere in between the other events and we decided on March 10th, because February 10th had already been taken by the Palladins of the North in Groningen. 

At first there weren't that many enthousiasts, so I was wondering if perhaps there were enough Oldschool Magic events in our country. But as time passed, more and more were added to the list, and in the end we had 26 players, which would pretty much take all the space in the store :) On the day of the event, one of the players had fallen ill, so we played with 25 players, some of whom had won other events. There were winners of the Knights of Thorn, Hill giant and Frost giant cups and winners of the Draconian Cylix. The competition would be fierce :)

As has become custom for these I events, I built a deck and playtested against Peter. Who crushed the deck I had built with UW Lions Agro. Not suprising, since this is probably the best possible Oldschool deck, but as people who've read some of my writings before, I don't mind losing, but I do want to feel like I'm actually participating. This was the deck I almost played, a homage to the Monkey May I deck.  

The deck I didn't play :)

So I built another deck on the evening of the event and played that. I've always been a fan of Argothian Pixies, so I started with 4 of those and kind of went from there, adding some of the usual suspects, but not in the amounts people would expect and called the deck pixie dust because of the Dust to dust. I changed it during the tournament to Pixie Tricks, because I didn't use the dust to dust one single time. 

There is something special about playing in a gamestore, isn't there?

I didn't note every round I played, as organizing an event like this keeps you running with snacks and talking to Richard, who was very helpful by doing all the input in the computer. But what I do remember from the games I've put in this post. There are also other posts from other players, I will put those up as well. 

In the first round, I played against a mono green deck. I love mono green. Do you ever have those moments when the broken stuff in your deck makes you feel kind of bad? Because I didn't know what would come, I mind twisted him early in the game with a Lotus, and that pretty much broke the game. I apologized when I played StP on his killer bees. It's also a card I love very much. I won 2-0. 

I was then paired against Joep, who's a really good player. He goes top 8 a lot and was the winner of the Frost Giant Cup. Hard match against a nice guy, but I managed to beat him none the less. 

Next up was Maarten, also winner of multiple tournaments who goes top 8 pretty much every tournament he plays. He had some surprising tricks up his sleeve. Some stuff I really did not expect. As he is testing the deck to compete in other tournaments I won't go into all the details, but I will share one awesome moment:

Well, I didn't see that one coming :) It took care of my creatures though! Note the playmat I borrowed from Richard as I had forgotten to take mine when I packed up my cards and the snacks for the tournament. I love cats. So I bought the mat from him at the end of the day. Maarten had some other nice stuff up his sleeve. Also note the two classic life counters Maarten and I use from Scrye and the Duelist :)

There was a lot of fire in Maarten's deck

I played cautiously because I was expecting other tricks, and I won the first game. The second game was much harder. We both agreed to side out Library of Alexandria and Mind Twist. I'm so much happier knowing I won't be mind twisted. I don't mind the libary as much, but I do agree it's very broken. Maarten would have won that game by all probability, but time had run out a couple of turns before he could so I won 1-0. 

Round 4 was against Antoine, a self proclaimed Spike-player, so I knew he would be playing a very good deck for all he's worth. This would be a hard match. I had pretty good opening hand where I would have dropped two creatures on turn one, had Antoine not gone into land-mox-timewalk, take second turn, timetwister. I was at two mana sources when he was already at 5, and a mind twist that followed pretty quickly sealed game one. I was not a happy bunny and sideboarded in some of my anti-creature stuff and REBs which I thought he wouldn't expect as I didn't play any red main deck. It was not enough though, he kept pushing while I just didn't draw enough to counter the onslaught of his U/W agro deck. So I was 3-1 after this match. 

Round 5 was against Robbie, the winner of the last Knights of Thorn, so I would have played tournament winners and frequent top 8 players 4 out of my 5 matches. I was confident my deck was pretty good though and I had gotten used to how it played through my games this day, so I sat down knowing it would be hard, but possible to beat his deck. Which I did :) The games weren't easy, but I won the match, so I was 4-1, enough to put me in the top 8. My second top 8 this year, I had landed a top 8 spot in the Palladins of the North last month as well, so I'm pretty satisfied with my last 2 decks performance. 

In quarterfinales I played Bastiaan. We got into a damage race which I thought I might win because although he had 1 creature more than me, I still had 3 more creatures in my hand (2 serendibs and an Erhnam) so I thought I might win that one. After his attack, he played a timetwister though, which cost me my creatures, but also gained me a time walk and a control magic. So I took one of his creatures and timewalked into victory. 

In the semi-finals I met Carl, also a fierce player who's a frequent top 8 player from Belgium. I managed to pull of an early mana drain and mind twist him, which I thought would be the winning play, but he topdecked a wheel of fortune right the next turn. An exiting match followed after that,but in the end I managed to pull of a win after I blocked his su-chi with my Erhnam because Carl hadn't noticed I had kept all of my forest dual lands in my hand ( played the djinn with a city of brass) so the su-chi forest walking did not do much. His decklist (no picture) can be found here.

The Semifinals

So, up to the finals! At one point I had Antoine down to no permanents and at one life, but I just did not follow up with any threats. My Ancestral Recall gained me three lands, and my one lion met with a maze of ith. Antoine balanced away my Serra and Serendib, braingeysered for 4, played a Ancestral recall which made his library running, quickly followed by a timewalk. I lost the finals in good Oldschool fashion to an array of broken stuff from someone who's already a good player :) All in all, the atmosphere was great, I gave away some cards for most vague deck, the guy who showed up after not having played any magic for years, and to the deck who had not one a single match. It's so much more fun to just give out some prizes to people for other things than winning if you ask me. But, in the end, Antoine won the first Camel Trophy fair and square! 

If you want to relive the finals, it was streamed and then put on youtube by Timmy:

Richard also made an impression of the tournament which ends with a picture of the winner:

I would also like to give some tips to people complaining about Library of Alexandria. I've seen more libraries destroyed this day than libraries actually breaking games:

I also had a couple of orb flips which destroyed libraries, but they were to blurry to actually put up here. My library worked in 2 games, but was quickly destroyed in both of these games and it never really got out of hand. Oldschool is broken. Library is broken. Just like a lot of other cards, and you play this format for fun. If you hate it that much, just put some form of destruction in your deck :)

Some of the other old school moments of the day and some decklists:

I would like, no you don't, yes I do, no, you don't!

Peter's deck working at top speed

Some of the decklists:

Robbie, Top 8

Carl, Top 8

Roy, Top 8

The Force

Thanks to all who attended! And thanks especially to Richard from Vendetta Arnhem! We could not have done it without you. Till next year!!

A little late: Knights of Thorn report

It's been two weeks already, and I've finally got some time to write this report after a couple of busy weeks at work and coming down with the flue. Fortunately I made some notes at the wonderful knights of thorn gathering, which made it easier for me to remember the games. Without the notes, I would have remembered mainly three things: I suck at shuffling, the atmosphere was amazing and I really suck at shuffling. 

The reason I think I must really suck at shuffling is I've had some really weird games in which I drew so badly it must be my shuffling technique. I think I hit a personal record when I drew 9 mana (8 lands and a mox) in a row. Anyway, you did't come here to get a rant about mana screws, so on with the report.  

I played a black/white deck with hippies, sengirs, juzams, underworlds dreams and disenchants and swords, with a splash of blue for ancestral and time walk. This deck hadn't done bad in some other tournaments so I figured it would do okay here as well. I mainly went for this deck because the other deck I meant to play (Land tax/Lands edge) had been so severely trashed by my fellow oldschooler Peter a couple of days before I didn't feel confident it was good enough. He beat it with three different decks about 80% of the time and while I don't mind losing in oldschool, I do like to feel that I'm actually participating in the games. This was the deck I was thinking about playing:

Looking back on my matches, I might have had a better chance with this deck :)

Because the Knights of Thorn is about mostly Swedish legal decks, I had to lend Peter some cards because he was playing one of my favorite decks, U/G agro. Because his Serendib efreets don't speak english and you can only play 10 English reprints, he had to use mine and I added some other cards to make it a bit more competitive.

 
Match 1

In the first game my opponent opened with Library of Alexandria. That's always bad, but I managed to get through an unspectacular mind twist for 3 to at least give myself some turns to get the pressure on before he would fill his hand again. I did had to draw one black mana though, but since there were plenty of those in the deck, I felt confident I would draw one within one or two turns. This turned out to be a misconception, as I proceeded to draw my plains and mox pearl within the next 3 turns, and then just didn't draw any black mana for 3 turns or so. I tried to get a hippy out, but my opponent countered it, then played braingeyser a couple of turns later, got the library running again and I just went under against overwhelming cards. 

Game 2 I faced another turn 1 library again, but I managed to get out a hippy quickly. This was fireballed after taking only one card, but hey, it was something. My opponent was stuck with only one blue mana, so I went for it, played sengir vampire with dark ritual and that managed to do him in before he drew something to get rid of it. 

Game 3, I had an opening hand with three hypnotic specters while my opponent opened with another Library of Alexandria. This is the first time this day I was seriously questioning my cutting skills :) I played the three hippies, but they were either countered or killed by fire. I stalled while the library was working it's magic, so that was that. 

I know there are a lot of people that don't like the library, some even advocating banning it. I don't think we should. It's just as much part of magic history as any other unbalanced card, so if you want to go that way, you either have to ban them all, or none of them and just take it as it comes. I've said it before and I've said it again: in this format you will lose to broken plays, so when that happens you just have to take it as it comes and smile. This game just wasn't that balanced back then :) I mean, take a look at this turn 2. How do you think this game ended? It's just part of the game.

 
Peter had beaten his opponent in round one in about 10 minutes, so that was going fine. Go U/G agro :)

Round 2: bye

In round two, I couldn't find my name in the pairings, and according to Mari I was the only one who asked, so I probably had the bye. This did gave an opportunity to take a look in the large box of unsorted cards Wijnand had brought, so I took the time looking throught that and bought a couple unlimited evil presences which I didn't have yet. I was also hoping to find a Hyperion Blacksmith in his box of low priced cards because I really want to try that card in my sideboard some time, but no such luck. Edo would have a couple of signed ones for me later on in the day though :) I also took the time to look around to see some nice decks, including a really cool eureka deck :)

I also ran into another Peter, who is also a regular in the Draconian Cylex Series:

Looking at the selfie now, the hall seems kind of deserted, but there were more than 50 players in the room.

My companion Peter had again won 2-0 with the UG deck. The deck seems to fit him :)

On round 3 my opponent was Hero, who I've played a lot against in Oldschool and Ancient tournaments. He was playing a deck similar to mine, so that promised to be an interesting match. On game one, we both opened with this:

Mine was first on my first turn, so if nothing else happened, I would win :) we traded off some creatures, then I got a second dreams before he did, and the first game was mine.The second game I was thinking I was doing okay, building up in the first turns to use both my tutor and my balance, but Hero got to me first, by balancing both of them out of my hand with the use of moxen. I never recovered from that, so that game was his. It would be up to the third game. I had sided in 2 COP black and a paralize. If I would get a COP out, I should be able to win this one. I was pretty pleased with my opening hand which had both a scrublands and a COP black next to some swamps and creatures, so was pretty confident I had a good chance when Hero opened with underground sea, dark ritual, sol ring, Juzam Djinn. I played a swamp, thinking he might sinkhole my first land and I would need the scrublands later. He then hit me with the Juzam Djinn, played time walk, than hit me again and played chaos orb. Nice :) I played my scrublands and tapped out for the COP black, as I did not have anything better to do. Hero hit me with the djinn again, so all I could hope for was that he would miss the orb flip on my COP, which he didn't. I played a blocker, which the Juzam Djinn ate, and one turn later that was it. 

When I asked Peter, he was smiling because the U/G deck was still performing just fine. Berserk for the win, he was 3-0 by now. 

On round 4, I played against a mono black deck with Jade statues and mishra's factories, combined with pestilence. He would activate the factories after using the pestilence, keeping it in play. Certainly an interesting deck and pestilence is quite bad against my smaller critters. He wiped two off them of the board because I didn't see the pestilence coming in game one. I did manage to get to my white mana and disenchants and swords to plowshares though, so I could get rid of the pestilence and statues that way. When we both were stalling, I drew my braingeyser. This was a last minute addition which was kind of a gamble with only six permanent blue mana sources in the deck next to the lotus, but I wanted to try it anyway, thinking late game I should have the mana available. In this case, this turned out to be true, I drew 6 cards and the advantage it gave me won me the game. The second game I sided in dust to dust, my 4th disenchant, divine offering and COP black, all of which was enought to win me the game. 

Peters luck had run out in round 4, he had gone for a quick double giant growth-berserk doing 16 damage with a pixie while his opponent was tapped out, but never got past his opponents swords to plowshares and counters after that.

On round 5, I played someone I had also played against in Hilversum in the Frost Giant Cup and we both played pretty much the same deck as then. I beat him then, so I was feeling good about my chances. I then proceeded to get two pretty bad mana screws in a row, the second of which was the most interesting. I drew the two cities of brass in my deck, and he played a city in a bottle. I then drew no lands at all for 5 turns, and I never got to my second land in play because I was already beaten. This was also one of those moments I really started questioning what's wrong with my shuffling :) I mean really, in 4 matches I had 3 mana screws and 2 mana flows, so I must be doing something wrong. I got some advice from Marten how he shuffled his deck, and decided to use his way of shuffling next time. 

I played some nice games while the top 8 was playing out and bought some more cards while Peter was making smug comments about me being a card addict :) I suppose I am, but I try to keep it in check. Some pictures of the top 8:

There were some really cool decks in the top 8, so we decided to stay until the final match to see it all happen. We went home after the last match, enjoying the decks and the plays greatly. I must say I was kind of disappointed with my deck's performance. I even briefly considered selling off my deck, because a black deck just did not seem to favor me this day. 

Fortunately I didn't, because I wouldn't want to miss the magic of these gatherings. There is something really cool about oldschool/ancient gatherings because it's all about the atmosphere, the old cards and the good natured players. After this glorious day, I decided to go ahead with an idea we've had for some time to add a Swedish style event to our tournament agenda, so we now support French oldschool, Ancient and Swedish oldschool. You can find it in the events section if you're interested.

Draconian Cylix IV with pictures by Bjorn

On november 4th we held the 4th edition of the Draconian Cylix Series, Oldschool magic using the French set of rules. It's always a bit of a surprise how many people show up, but we had a nice group of players, enough for four rounds of swiss, followed by a top 4.

In the last tournament I was in (Frost Giant Cup) several people were playing a Land's edge deck inspired by Randy's deck, and since this deck is different from previous Lands Edge decks I've played (mainly because there is only one kill, a single Land's edge, something I've never tried, minimum I always stuck to so far was two) I decided to give it a try because I wanted to know how it plays. I was also looking forward to using the rainbow vale gimmick and see if that would work (spoiler alert: it didn't, because I either ended up getting them back or them not having a positive impact at all). I tried the deck a couple of times against Peter and it seemed consistent enough even without any counters of it's own. Because it was late and I couldn't decided which cards to cut for power sink, I played the deck without. In retrospect, I think the deck would have performed better with power sinks, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

On the day of the tournament, Arno ran into the fact that the trains weren't going as normal due to maintenance and he had to travel longer. Fortunately, he did get there just in time though. While we were entering player names in our pairing system, one of the players sent us an e-mail telling us he was coming, but would be a little late. Since this is a format that is only about the atmosphere and the cards, we waited and were happy to see he came with a friend, which meant we would be playing an even number of players.

I was first paired against Carl from Belgium. He was playing Cermak-like deck with Serendib Efreets, savannah lions, orders, bolts, counters and power. This is the deck I sometimes think is the most powerful deck in the format, and I know Carl is a good player since I've played him before and know he's very precise and thinks his moves through very well. This would be a tough match, and it was. He opened the first two games with a Library of Alexandria. During the game I noticed several times that rainbow vale would not really do much and chose to play other lands. This was somewhat of a theme during the day, later on I would also regret having them instead of city of brass. The first game was mine after a ivory tower stuck and I ended up drawing extra cards from a Sylvan Library. The second game was Carls after I messed up with my sideboard, I should have added an extra moat in retrospect, because the one abyss and one moat weren't enough, even backed up with the wrath of god from my sideboard. It would be up to the third game, but we ended up 1-1 when time was up and neither of us could finish it within the 5 remaining turns.

Second round I was paired against Hero. He's a long time player of both Oldschool and the Ancient format and according to me, has the right way of looking at this format. He plays it only for fun, and pretty much a different deck every time. That doesn't mean this is going to be easy though, he's a good player. The first game started off with some creatures, some burn and then channel/fireball pretty quickly. I don't known on which turn, but it was somewhere around turn 5 or 6 I think. So the first game was over in less than 5 minutes and had me remembering I had no power sinks. The second game took a while longer. I got my deck running with land tax and ivory towers and ended up with a life total over 50, even after a shatterstorm and a tranquility. We would have to see who would win this round by playing the third game. In the third game, Hero's deck produced both black lotus and channel, combined with one of his fireballs and that was that. Just before that, he pulled off a really neat trick to both do more damage and and keep me from taxing:

Bang! you're dead. Or in this case, I was dead.

Channel fireball twice over in one match, both with black lotus. Wow. It's been quite a while since that happened to me. 1-2 result. At least it was over quite quickly, which gave me time to take some pictures:

This is really awful. But also kind of cool :)

Winter orb with guardian beast. That's just unfair. Later on someone would pull a stunt on Marco that would even it out for this tournament, but that's a later match. Anyway, on to the third round.

In the third round, I was playing another land tax/edge deck, but without a lot of power so it was quite an uneven match. He was very careful to make sure I didn't tax that often and he had burn cards, so in theory he would be able to get me with bolts and a feldon's cane, but that would take a very long time. He had to play a land sooner or later while I was getting life from an ivory tower. When he started to throw some fire at me, I played armageddon and after a while we ended up with this boardstate:

Nice set of artifacts and enchantments :)

In the end he had to play a land to try something, but that gave me plenty of opportunity to land tax and finish the game with lots of lands. It was quite a drawn out game which made sure we would not get to finish another game. If I play this deck again, I'm going to try some more finishers, it takes quite a long time this way. 1-0

On to the fourth round, I was paired against a zoo deck, which I should be able to win with moats, abyss and ivory towers. It was not easy though, and my opponent just kept playing creatures. One of the key moments of the match was when I played a chaos orb, and he played his while I had no mana to activate mine, and he just barely hit mine on the sleeve.

Juuuuust made it :)

Had he missed, it would have been much more probable I would have won that game in stead of going to 1-1. Although one of the other key moments was quite nice:

I wanted to make sure I would not get beaten too much and wanted to speed up the process already started with the abyss with a swords, but that wasn't meant to be. I when he tapped one green mana, I already knew what was going to happen and it always makes me smile when someone avoid fates :) We were in the third game when I had to call time (as the organizer you don't get to bend the rules, at least I think so) so we ended up in a draw. We played out the game and it turns out I would have won 5 turns later, but when time's up, time is up. So this one ended in 1-1 as well, which meant I would not be in the final 4. It might have happend had I won this one, but now I was definitely out.

In the meantime, someone made sure Marco was not destroying their land with a demonic hordes. A strip mine made the difference between this:

and this one turn later, which finished the game pretty quickly:

Although I like the land tax deck and the fairly obscene things it can do, I think it may need some more finishers to make sure you don't draw this often. Either that or I just did not draw the cards that well. I'll work on that and try this deck another time and see what happens.

It did give me plenty of time to watch the final 4, which had one totally unpowered deck! Always nice to see that it's possible to do well without power. In this case it was a variant on a stasis deck which also contained winter orbs.

Top 4 with an unpowered deck! Awesome!

Unfortunately he didn't make it to the finals, it would have been awesome if a unpowered deck would have won one of these tournaments. I remember it happening once (a Erhnamgeddon deck without power once won an Ancient tournament) but I would like to see it done more often. The finals were down to Carl and Marten, playing a speed deck vs Erhnamgeddon without armageddon. The match was very cool to watch, with balance swings from one to the other.

Quite a turn one in the finals..

At one point, I thought Marten was going to win, but then Carl drew not one but two control magics in short order:

Just after this, Marten drew his diamond valley. What a difference that would have made. it was on the third game, which was off to this start:

So it was close from the start, but in the end, Carl's deck was just too fast and and he won the cup, ehh, cylix, fair and square:

The winnner!

Congrats to the winner! As shown in his report, this is obviously a very strong deck and with a strong player like Carl behind it, it proved unstoppable this day. Well played!

As for the rest, some of the other oldschool moments of the day:

How do you make 3 juggernauts in one turn? Well, like this..

Twiddle to prevent damage :)

Yeah! Gaea's liege cast with gaea's touch! Cool!

When you think you're off to a quick start..

Big green vs green

So far, I've never seen anyone use a reset to untap his maze to prevent damage :)