Preparing for Wizards' Tournament II - by Brother Stebbo

Peace, doting wizard, peace! I am not mad.

William Shakespeare. Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene IV.

Alpha has been a hot topic in Old School for some time - indeed, I’d urge you to revisit this very blog's article on the templating anachronisms in Alpha. But if there's one thing better than talking about Alpha, it's playing it. Which is what makes it particularly exciting that this week all six Brothers of Fire founder members are taking part in the Wizards' Tournament II in Gothenburg. We live in a golden age.

What with building my own deck, lending one to Brother Oli, and seeing that Brother Jonas receives a deck from his mysterious benefactor®, it’s been a busy time at my kitchen table. And nothing could be more appropriate on a kitchen table than laying out piles of core set janky cards...

Wizards Tournament prep – aka: the Joy of Sleeving

One of our number is attending his first n00bcon and it is perhaps the worst-kept secret in the UK Old School scene that he’ll be rocking some white round-cornered cards come Thursday evening.  But what form exactly? There were two initial ideas (pictured below) in the primordial soup – one with a G splash for ramp, and one solid W with a touch of 5/3 beats.

One thing was certain though – this fella had to break out of his cage…

Readers will have to wait until after n00bcon to see the final deck!

Mono Red is another sweet strategy. This brew-in-progress is a favourite as it eschews all of the rules of contemporary Magic by showcasing all of the charming absurdities found only in Alpha: (i) incorrectly-costed cards; (ii) the busted “colour-gain” artifacts; (iii) the nonsense that is Goblin Balloon Brigade and (iv) 5(+) card playsets of format staples doing good things.

Sweet dreams are made of these…

Note the “baker’s playset” of Bolts and the 7 Balloon Brigades taking flight (each activating all their buddies for just one red mana).

My build this year is a “closely-guarded” secret. However I can share my deck from last year:

 

It missed top 8 after losing a close set of games to a deck full of Benalish Heroes! Which is about as good a way to lose as you can get.  Here are some of the other sweet games it was involved with!

A devastating Chaos Orb, flipped 93-style

A ridiculous number of Sol Rings

Myself and D from the Netherlands only had time for one game in the UW mirror – which ended in a close win for me: facing lethal damage next turn, I resolve a lethal Braingeyser through D’s Power Sink for the marbles!

  

Fittingly after such an epic game, D and I resolved to use the remaining time in the round to get a beer and get to know each other. And that’s what WT is all about.

Peace. Brother Stebbo.