"Coming Back Home" Part 1, by Brother Robert

The first chapter in an occasional series where members of the London community reflect on their experiences coming out of Magic retirement to play Old School.

I hadn’t picked up a Magic deck for 18 years. I’d glanced through my folders a few times while having a sort-out, but hadn’t slung spells in anger or even mild disapproval since the last century. And then I found Old School...

But rewinding to before that, I can remember vividly when I fell out of love with Magic. It happened in a pub in Liverpool where I went an event that had been billed as friendly meet-up. I’d just moved to the city and was looking forward to meeting some new people.  I took along my mad multicolour deck, packing all 9 dual-lands, dragon legends, and dragon arches. 

I went in, I sat down, said “Hello” to several people who barely acknowledged my existence ( I wasn’t a clique member) and finally managed to coax someone into giving me a "friendly" game. He was probably 17, not friendly, and beat me in three turns… and smirked. He didn’t laugh at me, or say “Unlucky, do you want to try again?”, he just smirked at me. I decided to move on. I left the pub, left the game, and didn’t look back.

The model for a welcoming Old School community

It wasn’t just that experience. I’m a big boy and not a particularly bad loser - it just added to a growing recognition that I couldn’t afford to keep up with the release schedule, a new set every three months or so, and anyway I had the Star Wars CCG to play (of which more later).

Rewinding again to the very beginning, I’d been introduced to Magic in 1994, through friends, one of who had been given a black lotus for winning one of the first UK championships (in a deck without one… imagine that!).  I enjoyed introducing others to the game, but I had put my cards away and found other things to do with my time (again, imagine that!!).

Magic had always been a social activity for me, playing ten-player games in the pub, making new friends and using all the cool cards, not just the ones that could kill your opponent as fast as possible. I missed that side of magic in the late 90s. I also loved SW:CCG, getting a card fix with all the characters from my youth. I played that a lot and met many people who I still consider friends. Then that game died, and my life changed. I grew up, got married, and had a family.

Then one day I saw a Facebook friend, Brother Scott, whom I’d met playing SW:CCG, (I told you that would reappear later), was going to an “Old School” Magic event - COPCON III. I liked the sound of that, but didn’t know what it was. So I looked it up (what did people do before the internet?) and when I found out there was a place I could use all my old Magic cards again, I thought it worth a go. I’d know at least one person there.

I went to COPCON IV, and had a blast. My deck wasn’t that competitive, a Red and Green aggro build with no power and three Taiga probably isn’t going to be, but I did win one match, and I had fun. Remember that? That’s why we all started playing Magic in the first place, right? 

I met new players, who welcomed me with metaphorical open arms, and who loved the “flavour” of the cards in my decks, (anyone for Cat Warriors?). I won the Brothers Of Fire for most original deck in the competition, and I rediscovered why I loved the game in the first place. And that’s what Old School is about for me.

I’ve never felt an emotional connection to the new card design.  I don’t want to start buying new packs (although I miss the thrill of opening them), but I am happy to pick up a few of the cards I wanted but never got when I was a student. I’m going back to COPCON V on Saturday, this time with four Taigas and two (Chronicles - let’s not get too carried away!) Cities of Brass, as well as a few other reasonably-priced improvements to the deck.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Editor's note: Thanks to Robert for his article - we're looking forward to seeing some new faces at this weekend's COPcon V. 

“In Praise Of” Part 4: Underworld Dreams, by Brother Scott

Long before Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker duelled their lightsabers atop a rock floating on a river of lava, a similar location played host to the curious sight of a blond medieval merchant trying desperately to convince an official with a red iPad to not issue them with a parking ticket.

“Honestly officer, that sign is so confusing about where I can park my caravan for the day”

But even if you don’t want to play Underworld Dreams for the art, there are a lot of good reasons to play it in Old School, as I explain below.


The first time I saw the card Underworld Dreams was in 2003, when Mark Rosewater published on Wizards’ website an article about which cards he had selected for the 8th Edition core set to celebrate Magic’s 10th anniversary:

“While I was looking through Legends, I stumbled upon Underworld Dreams. I was around when the card was first restricted, so I remember the terror it used to be. But times have changed and cards like Timetwister and Wheel of Fortune were no longer staples in every deck. Maybe, I thought, Underworld Dreams could come back. No one would expect it. It would be quite cool.”

I was immediately inspired to go out and source myself a playset of four 8th Edition Underworld Dreams (later upgraded to Legends once I got into Old School) and put together a casual Vintage-legal Underworld Dreams combo deck. This deck marked a personal Magic milestone for me as in 2004 it inspired me to purchase my first ever piece of Power to go in the deck: a Mint condition Unlimited Timetwister for £125 (sadly sold again in 2006, for £124.90 of all prices).

Fast forward a decade, and imagine my excitement when it transpired that in Old School my Underworld Dreams deck was essentially not just casual-worthy but a potential Tier 2 deck, every bit “the terror it used to be.” But why exactly is Underworld Dreams such a great card in Old School? Well…

1. It gives you inevitability

Once a new Magic player I’m teaching has mastered the basic rules and is moving on to tactics, one of the first things I advise is to look at the board state and ask yourself “if no-one plays any more cards, who will win?” The answer to that question is the first step in working out whether you need to deal with the opponent’s threats ASAP, or whether you should be pressing for the win.


An Underworld Dreams played onto an otherwise stalemated board it puts the opponent on a clock. All of a sudden their priority becomes removing Underworld Dreams, or creating a faster clock. The pressure is on! Underworld Dreams might be a slower clock than Serra Angel or Serendib Efreet, but as we’ll see below it’s a more reliable one, and it’s a clock that you can speed up.


In addition, a cheeky side-effect of Underworld Dreams is that your opponent is now virtually checkmated on 1 life rather than 0, as once they get to 1 life only an Instant in their upkeep or draw step can stave off their doom – they won’t survive to their Main phase for a lethal Fireball, let alone their combat phase for an alpha strike.

2. It’s hard to remove

The only frequently-played card in 93/94 that removes Underworld Dreams efficiently is Disenchant. Nevinyrral’s Disk takes out all your opponent’s stuff at the same time (and isn’t that widely played) and if they use their one Chaos Orb on one of your four Underworld Dreams, not only is something of a temporary fix but it means your other cards are safe from the Orb.

3. It’s still hard to remove in Games 2 and 3

Chances are, your opponent doesn’t have many good sideboard options for Underworld Dreams. Most of the common sideboard options (Red/Blue Elemental Blasts, Gloom, Energy Flux etc) don’t pose any threat to Underworld Dreams. As long as your deck is built correctly with plenty of swamps (and maybe a little help from Dark Ritual) even things like Blood Moon shouldn’t spoil your party.

Your opponent’s sideboard is probably packed with answers…but not to Underworld Dreams!

Occasionally you may be lucky enough to have an opening hand with Dark Ritual, Underworld Dreams and Hypnotic Specter in hand. Although an un-answered Hyppie can be back-breaking, just remember how many answers there are to Hyppie compared to Underworld Dreams. A first turn Underworld Dreams can deliver a lot of damage in a slowish format like Old School and it can’t be bolted, plowed or bogged down by Maze of Ith.

4. It doesn’t use resources after you’ve played it

Lots of other “inevitability” cards in Old School put your opponent on a clock, or give you an ever-increasing advantage, but also tie up your gameplay in the meantime. For example, Jayemdae Tome uses 4 mana per turn, Millstone 2 mana, Library of Alexandria forces you to keep hold of cards, etc. However, after the initial investment of BBB, Underworld Dreams lets you play whatever you like. Play your Juzams, Su Chi’s, The Abyss, Fireballs, etc. In the meantime Underworld Dreams grinds relentlessly on.

More than one mage was driven insane by losing to Underworld Dreams before they could mill you out.

5. Timetwister and Wheel of Fortune ARE still staples in every deck

Playing Timetwister or Wheel of Fortune with Underworld Dreams on the table is the icing on the cake. Not only do you get 7 new cards but you also deal 7 damage at the same time. Suddenly Braingeyser becomes not just “Draw X cards” but “Choose one – Draw X cards or Deal X damage”.


Finishing your opponent off with Braingeyser, Timetwister or even Ancestral Recall is not only amusingly satisfying, but it happens more often than you’d imagine. Just don’t forget that they draw ALL the cards first, then all the Underworld Dreams triggers go on the stack, then they have a chance to play any Instants they just drew before they die – be wary of a cheeky Lightning Bolt to kill you or Swords to Plowshares that gains them a bit of life and makes your Timetwister non-lethal.


Another bonus is that Underworld Dreams acts like a “rattlesnake” deterrent to the opponent playing all of those great cards themselves. With Underworld Dreams out, if they play Ancestral Recall they have to suffer 3 damage too. With two copies of Underworld Dreams out, Ancestral Recall does 6 damage: perhaps enough to (probably foolishly) put them off playing it at all, leaving their critical cards forever un-drawn.


In conclusion

Underworld Dreams is one of my favourite cards, and I hope you are inspired to crack out some swamps and give it a try. A nice part is that there is also no single “Underworld Dreams deck” - my current deck (photo below) is a midrange build splashing red and blue for Timetwister and Wheel of Fortune, but also full of chunky creatures like Juzam Djinn and Sengir Vampire.


You can go more aggro with Mono-Black (Black Knights, Drain Life), control with Deadguy Ale (StP, Icy Manipulator), or full combo as a Trick deck. My next project might be to try pairing it with The Abyss and artifact creatures. Keep us all posted with your own ideas and successes!

In your end step, Ancestral you for 3.  My turn?  Untap, draw, Timetwister you for 7.

“In Praise Of” Part 3: Land Tax, by Brother Ben (plus December roundup)

This has been a great month for Old School in London. 

Chris Cooper attracted some criticism in advance of his Team Cup event for charging a hefty entry fee and involving a judge. I confess to have had my reservations, but I was wrong - it transpired the 'judge' was more of a jovial compere, ably keeping the pace up and tracking scores so Chris could participate with his innovative mono brown deck. The entry fee included a three-course meal which was a highlight; eating together was a bonding experience enabling us to get to know the other players from around the world. The traders at Magic Madhouse had a great selection of old cardboard goodies ready for us, and kindly converted my unused legacy staples and junk rares into a beta pearl. A first class event, well done Chris.

Markus hosted the London Christmas gathering and sourced old product for us to draft. A great crowd of relaxed players any of whom I'd be glad to play cards with all day long - not something that can be said of some of the attendees at standard GPs. Indeed, escaping obnoxious punks is a big draw for Old School. Which is why I am troubled by the recent chatter from spikes who are vocal on social media about banning cards that aggrieve them and trying to rewrite the format before they have played it for long enough to appreciate the subtleties. There is a joy to getting a basic deck and gradually improving or pimping it over time, inching towards a Swedish legal version. 

Optimised decks aren't necessarily the most fun to play. At the Brothers Of Fire COPcon events our most coveted prize is awarded for the most interesting deck. I fell in love with N00bcon piloting a deck including Dakkon Blackblade, Lady Evangelina, Knights Of Thorn, and Angry Mob. 

It also included Land Tax, which, like Blood Moon, is a great card for anyone who doesn't have playsets of dual lands. So in keeping with the series of articles at Brothers of Fire, I will blast the trumpet for Land Tax!

I love drawing three cards from Ancestral Recall, and Land Tax can give that happy feeling every turn. It means those have to be basic lands, but this enables easy splashing for non-white cards - including one of my all-time favourites: Braingeyser.  

The card also enables hand and library manipulation.  Your spare basics can be converted to business cards with Jalum Tome.  And searching your deck with land tax is one of the few ways to shuffle away the unwanted top two cards after using Sylvan Library.

Of course, Land Tax is also your best friend against evil decks - I'm thinking here of two in particular.  Firstly, those that try to destroy your mana base, largely negating classics such as Ice Storm, Stone Rain, and Sink Hole.  Secondly, a fistful of basics weakens the power of Hypnotic Specters and nullifies Disrupting Sceptre.

On top of these generic benefits, Land Tax interacts beautifully with a load of my favourite cards in the format. A glut of land can be used to good effect with Land's Edge, Dakkon Blackblade, Ivory Tower, Library of Alexandria, and Armageddon.

Land tax thins your deck so you are more likely to draw non-land cards in the late game, and even allows you to play Blood Moon without drawback.

Truly a card to love!

Happy Christmas one and all.

Event Report: London Old School 2017 Christmas Draft, by Brother Jonas

It's been a fantastic year for Old School in London.  Only a couple of years ago there was just a handful of players.  This year we've seen our biggest events, and COPcon has almost quadrupled in size.

As Brits, we don't need much excuse for a party, but clearly something was needed to mark such a great year.  But what format should it take?  After some discussion in the community we decided that nothing could be better than cracking some product together.

Then came the question of practicalities.  As much as we all admire the purism of the Swedish card set (and have a good number of players who only stick to 93/94 cardboard), we couldn't really stretch to a box of Antiquities.  At least, not until one of us has a big lottery win.

But here in the UK we also allow old-frame original-art re-prints.  This meant we could feasibly chip in for some sealed Fourth Edition starters and a box of Chronicles - helpfully sourced by Jason.  The plan was agreed to open a starter each, and then draft three boosters.

As the day drew nearer, Markus charitably offered up his sumptuous North London pad as a venue.  We were all set for a classic...

Before the event I had been quite blasé about opening new product (particularly given that none of it would be black-bordered), but when I actually held it in my hands there was an unmistakable moment of Proustian reverie.  Fourth Edition and Chronicles (along with Fallen Empires) were the current sets when I got into the game and for a moment I was back in the halcyon days of 1995.

For one of us, however, the moment was slightly lost - this was their first ever opening of any Magic product!  Now that is real Ivory Tower purism!

We had twelve attendees: your gentle author, Markus, Ben, Stebbo, Jason, Oli, Scott, Bev, Graeme, Karl, Bryan, and newcomer Patrick.

Your author experiences the head-distorting curse of being the guy with the long arm

We opened our starters individually.  Talk immediately turned to who was going to open the junkiest rares and Scott quickly stepped up to take first prize:

Two laces and an Island Sanctuary!

I, meanwhile, was pretty chuffed with my own selection, with two highly-playable artifacts leaving me some nice flexibility in the draft:

We took a break to fortify ourselves with Markus's special brew of Glőgg.  This appeared to be a heavily-mulled wine supplemented with vodka, but I am pretty sure there was some supplemental Scandi magic in the concoction.  Washed down with a few fine ales, it nevertheless left us all feeling thoroughly refreshed.

Now it was time for the booster draft: opening Chronicles in two circles of six players.  I remembered from my youth that Chronicles was a set to get excited about - a chance to get my hands on all the Arabians that had passed me by (although of course back then they were super-affordable by today's standards).  It was therefore something of a shock to realise quite how many terrible cards were in the set.  By the time a booster had passed through two or three players it was frequently denuded of anything attractive:

Weirdly though, this actually felt like it made the draft more fun.  Particularly as we had agreed that there was no upper limit on the instances of any one card.  Also I was able to absolutely cash in on Bog Rats!

We then moved into deck-building.

With two white superstar cards in my starter (Serra Angel, Divine Transformation), I was pretty sure I would pick this colour as my base.  As a result I picked up a lot of Repentant Blacksmiths (with their sumptuous Drew Tucker art) and four War Elephants.

I was tracking green and black in the draft but ended up tacking to black to support my Howl From Beyond, Terror, and Drudge Skeletons.  X-damage, regeneration, and removal are just too good to ignore.  Nevertheless it was noticeable that my final 40 was hugely weighted towards 4th Ed cards.  It's understandable, though evident, that Chronicles just wasn't built for drafting!

Yours truly, Angry Mob

What followed was some of the most enjoyable Magic I have played this year as we all grappled with unfamiliar cards - many of them ostensibly terrible but coming into their own in strange ways - and many of us relearned the (surprisingly powerful) mechanic of banding.  At various points of the evening someone would declare the tabling of some unlikely card or other... Perhaps you had to be there, but it felt very much in the spirit of the format despite (or perhaps because of) the lack of the usual cards.  

Here were a few of the most notable board states that I was able to capture:

Brother Ben tables a fourth-turn Shotgun (aka Aladdin's Ring)

Oli holding the fort against Graeme's Time Elemental with.... Sivitri Scarzam!

D'oh'venant! An rather unusual hand and mana screw for Graeme...

Flavour-breaking Power play proves controversial: Scott sacs his Digging Team to undermine the foundations of Markus's... Wall of Vapor.  He was not amused.

Blackplayed: Oli successfully tables Dakkon, to much acclaim 👏 

Markus deploys the lesser-spotted Steal Artifact - but can it hold off one of Graeme's three (count 'em!) Elder Dragons?

Brother Ben went full Urzatron with a serious helping of obscure artifacts (Barl's Cage, anyone?)

With most people playing unsleeved, between rounds there was also the joy of placing your deck back into a proper fourth-edition box - for that authentic 'back to the 90s' feeling.  All it would have needed was for Markus to cue up Three Lions on his soundsystem and I may have regressed totally!

In amongst the hi-jinks there was actually some gaming to be done.  I had enjoyable victories against Scott (despite a pesky Sentinel) and newcomer Patrick, and my deck was performing well.  I had even managed to evade Patrick's unlikely combo of Channel and Disintegrate, although he had come a cropper earlier in the evening to his own strategy when deploying Channel and Earthquake, forgetting the double damage he would receive...

In particular, the combination of Serra Angel and Divine Transformation got me out of trouble on more than one occasion.  For flavour purposes, I'm assuming she had an additional set of wings.

Given time considerations, I was then pitched into a final (of sorts) against Brother Ben (my real life brother) for a shot at a unique prize... the first ever white-bordered Brothers Of Fire trophy card (pulled pack-fresh from my own starter box).

As is his habit, my older brother proved too strong for me.  In particular, Pestilence's board wipe proved brutal against my army of weenies.  As a result I had to console myself with second place.  Ben duly took home the trophy card (an edition we do not intend to repeat, barring another opening of fresh product) and the opened display box.  

The winning pile

With that, there was time for some constructed play.  After saving up my mana for War Elephants and Banshee, rolling out my Lightning Bolts and power felt like switching from a pedal-bike to a Ferrari!

All in all, it was a brilliant evening and a reminder of the great community that's here in London.  We're hoping it will continue to grow in 2018. 

Happy Christmas Everyone!