Event Announcement: The Ryder Cup of Old School

In 1927 Samuel Ryder, a British seed merchant, emerged as the key donor behind the establishment of a bi-annual contest between two teams of golfers, one from the USA, the other from Great Britain and Ireland.  Going on to donate a gold cup for the competition, Ryder lends his name to one of the greatest events in global sport.

The Ryder Cup is a contest famous for its contested rivalry as well as for the class of its competitors.  Most notably of all, at the 1969 cup the USA's Jack Nicklaus conceded the final putt of the competition to Tony Jacklin, tying the contest - one of the greatest acts of sportsmanship of all time.

Following a period of American domination, the Ryder Cup is now contested between teams representing the USA and Europe. 

On Friday 30th 2018 two Old School communities, representing the USA and Great Britain and Ireland, will hark back to the founding of the Ryder, coming together to compete for The Ryder Cup of Old School.

The contest will be short but deadly, with the international teams duelling in Magic's oldest format: sudden-death Chaos Orb flips.  The winning team will carry the engraved trophy back to their homeland:

The Great Britain and Ireland team will feature a selection of founding members of London's Brothers Of Fire, while the US team will be centred on Chicago's Lords Of The Pit, with additional members drawn from across the fifty states.

The tournament will take place during down-time at N00bcon in Gothenburg and will be presided over by an impartial international judge (yet to be found).

Anachronisms in Old School, by Brother Jonas

What does a time-travelling hipster, legislation protecting workers, and the US Navy have to do with Old School?  Read on to find out....

anachronism

/əˈnakrəˌnɪz(ə)m/

• A thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned.
• ‘The town is a throwback to medieval times, an anachronism that has survived the passing years’

(Oxford English Dictionary)

Spotting anachronisms is fun.  I know that others also enjoy it.  For example, yesterday I watched The Road To Perdition, a 2002 crime film starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman, set in 1931.

Whenever I finish a film I've liked, I head straight to IMDB to read the associated Trivia and Goofs.  Am I the only one that does this?  To me, this is the perfect way to end the experience.

Sure enough, the Goofs section (where eagle-eyed viewers log mistakes such as continuity errors or film equipment being visible in-shot) contained numerous observations of anachronisms that only the most pedantic nit-picker could possibly see.  These included a sighting of a tobacco brand in a shop set in 1931 that wasn't released until 1932.

This much tells me I am not the only one who loves to observe something out of place.

But it isn't just about picking up on mistakes.  Sometimes something can feel anachronistic, and this sensation - sometimes subtle, sometimes jarring - provokes a response in us.  This can be akin to the 'breaking of the fourth wall'.  A Shakespeare play performed in contemporary dress combines outmoded speech and a modern setting in order to create a certain frisson.

And the spirit of the anachronism also exists in other areas.  Note the collar-and-blazer throwback styling of Roger Federer - a man who seems to evoke something of the Golden Age of tennis.  Or the British politician Jacob Rees-Mogg, a man who plays up to the image of an Edwardian dandy, thereby creating a sense of distinction from the focus-grouped normality of his colleagues.

Or we can consider fiction. Will Ferrell's character Buddy in the classic Christmas caper Elf, or Fry in Futurama, or Sylvester Stallone's John Spartan in Demolition Man.  In different ways, these men evoke the values of the past and use their embodiment of something out of place creates intrigue.

l-r: blazered Federer, tea-sipping Mogg, idiot savant Buddy, unreconstructed man Spartan

Federer, Rees-Mogg, Buddy, and Spartan all evoke the spirit of the man appearing anachronistically from the past.  But this can happen the other way too.  Note the case of the "time-travelling hipster" below.  If you're not familiar, take a good look at the photograph:

Although the idea of the bare-headed man with modern dress, modern sunglasses, and a compact camera appearing in 1941 has been debunked (full story here), pictures such as this carry a mystique because they are about a thing appearing where it shouldn't.  

The human brain is trained to isolate differences because they present threats.  But anachronisms are a very special type of difference.

Okay Brother Jonas, so what does this have to do with Old School?

Well, I'm not about to argue that we who play this format - particularly those of us who, like me, play only this format - are somehow special because we are anachronisms.  Although I will say that the correct term for Savannahs and Tropical Islands is, and always will be, "multi-lands".  And secondly, language such as Bant and Grixis has no place in Old School.  If you must use a shortcut word to relate three colours, then there is no need to say 'Esper' when one can say 'Chromium'.

Leaving this personal hobby-horse aside, I'm interested in the world of Old School, and where anachronisms appear.  We are all used to Magic exhibiting many of the characteristics of a fairly standard fantasy time-period, with some augmentation by way of the Brothers' War.  But I've spotted three serious anachronisms in Old School and I'm on the hunt for more.  Because if Old School is a format could be argued to be an anachronism, then how cool is an anachronism within an anachronism?

Exhibit One: The Dominaria Health And Safety Code

If there are three things I love in Magic, it's colours doing stuff they aren't supposed to do (Psionic Blast, Fork, etc.), Goblins, and coin-flipping (I've even got my own coin-flipping deck with one of every flipping coin-flip card all the way up to Fallen Empires).  So unsurprisingly Goblin Artisans is one of my favourite cards of all time:

If this card was illustrated by Drew Tucker then we wouldn't need other cards

But - what about the headwear?  

Extensive research (er, a quick read of Wikipedia) informs me that yellow hard hats of this fibreglass construction are intended for "general labourers and earth-moving operators" and were popularised in the 1950s.  Not only do these Goblins display headwear from the future, but they've also somehow imported a rather un-Goblin-like attachment to health and safety culture.  Now call me a pedant, but I don't recall the Goblin Digging Team having anything approaching a policy designed to anticipate "injury due to falling objects, impact with other objects, debris, rain, and electric shock".

I call anachronism. 

Exhibit Two - Hipster Student

I can't take the credit for this one because it was brought to my attention by David Chambers who visited us in London to display a rather fun artifact-recursion-o-geddon deck (like any truly original deck it defies categorisation - needless to say it was a thing of beauty).

While playing him, he put a few of these guys down and caused me to look at them as I had never done before:

Okay, the glasses are fine - Urza has both glasses and rose-tinted sunglasses in Alpha.  But David's pet name for the fellow - "man in a t-shirt" - was the real Murder She Wrote moment.  A MAN IN A T-SHIRT.  This is the Antiquities equivalent of the time-travelling hipster.  Only without the debunking.

Verdict: First-class honours in Anachronism.  

Exhibit Three - Interdimensional War Dead

Okay, okay, you may not be sold on these two.  But what if I told you that a card had a definitive sighting of an unmistakably twentieth-century person?  Well, hold onto your anachro-pants.

The US navy of the 1940s and 50s - home to Frank Sinatra with one night on shore leave, old-style tattoos, and the bravest freedom-fighting seamen since the age of Nelson.  A historical entity rich in both flavour and valour.

BUT ALSO the spiritual home of blue zombies with a penchant for black mana.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Drowned.

Need a closer look?

And there we have it - a 1940s US sailor unmistakably appearing in the world of Old School.  How he got there?  I'm betting some kind of misconfiguration of the Obelisk of Undoing.  It's just as well he left his ship behind or else the poor old Pirate Ship would be at risk of being seriously outgunned.  By my calculations it would take at least 3 Aladdin's Rings to put a hole in the side of the USS Nimitz.

Verdict: Court Martial judges GUILTY.

----------------

So, thanks for reading this cantering through Old School lore.  And please let me know below if you find any anachronisms I missed.  We might have enough for a theme deck.

Notes From A Small Convention, by Brother Stebbo

Some diary entries from one London-based Old School obsessive...

Early January 2018, some weekday evening…

GP London is fast approaching, barely three weeks away. Excitingly this means that the thrill of the GP fair (i.e. vendors and artists) will be hitting up London town! 

GP London has been pretty good to me over the years. In fact, if I remember back hard enough……..

GP London, August 2015

Back in 2015 I was lucky enough to win some 1996 product (I had to endure many rounds of Modern, if it’s any consolation). I was 10 prize tix short of a third pack…

Long Suffering Friend, Samy (LSF): “What are you gonna spend your tix on?"

Brother Stebbo: “I think I’ll go for some Alliances”

LSF: “What’s in Alliances, just that rare card, Force of Will?”

Brother Stebbo: “Exactly. But it’s an UNCOMMON. There are about 2.6 per box of Alliances!

I know - I’ll get three packs - I’m bound to get one.

But i’m ten tix short... so gimme ten of your tix!”

*LSF rolls eyes*

Never tell me the odds!

GP London, October 2016

GP London came back a year later, which saw me snag several collectors' items: some swag from Old School artist Pete Venters (pictured below, kindly altering my playmat) and perhaps the rarest of all - a win over Brother Ben in a competitive Old School event! 

 Here’s Pete, and some pics from the side event...

  

Back to some weekday evening…

Disaster! My hopes of a clean sweep of GP London fun this year have been dashed!!

Brother Stebbo, reading the GP side event schedule…

A quick check of the GP website tells me that there are no Old School artists in attendance, and there is no Old School side event! Sadly the days of winning Alliances boosters are long gone, but I won’t even get the chance to compete for some Ixalan this time round…

Luckily we have COPcon V that weekend, which offers plenty of Old School. And, whatever the shortcomings of the event schedule, at least there will be vendors to trade with.

I then turn my attention to my phone. Brother Jonas is messaging me from the desolate surroundings of the GP venue. He is busy giving up this weekday evening to scout a venue for COPcon V, which is being hosted near to the big event to help those wanting to attend both.

Jonas has met with some early failures, with one of the pubs 'in contention’ resembling something from the set of Neighbours, c.1991. But persistence prevails and a suitable venue is eventually found!

 The COPcon back-up venue

Saturday 20 January 2018 (1 week before the GP)

Our Facebook group receives an unexpected surprise - legendary collector, personality, and vintage Magic expert Daniel Chang is going to be attending the GP and might even drop by COPcon!

I’ve done some business with Daniel over the years, but we’ve never actually spoken. Luckily for me this is all about to change. We are able to fit in a Skype conversation and make plans to meet up in London!

Thursday 25 January 2018 (1 day till the GP starts!)

Work commitments have kept me busy all week. This means I’ve not been able to prepare my loot of foil legacy and modern staples for the vendors at the GP.

The responsible thing to do would be to dedicate my final waking hours that evening to sorting my cards and constructing a price list, outlining what I’d like to get for certain cards, etc. Naturally what I actually do is waste several hours reading about Old School on the internet, before going to bed far too late!

Friday 26 January 2018, GP day 1!

I wake up late, and hastily scramble through my collection to assemble a veritable horde of shiny wares. My plan is to dazzle the vendors with my shiny cards, and in this moment of blindness and confusion, convince them to trade them for some Old School cards at good prices!

I get to the GP site just after lunch. The commute down highlights the quirks of the London Docklands location: I share my train with a mixture of City workers, fellow GP-goers, and the middle-aged attendees of a mechanical engineering exhibition...

The GP hall itself is enormous, but on day 1 and with the main event not kicking off until tomorrow, it’s only half-full and is easy enough to get around.

An artist’s impression of the GP London venue

I take a moment to stroll around the vendors. There are some real gems for sale, including a Richard Garfield-altered Balance! I also find probably the only bit of Alpha power available for less than £1,000.

 I then settle in for a mammoth three-hour trading session with my friend Benedict who works for one of the vendors. But it’s all worth it - as I come away with some '93-era multilands! 

 Many Foils died to bring us this information

That would probably be enough excitement for one day, but as they say: you sleep when you’re dead. Thus, I'm off to my next engagement: meeting up with Daniel.

Even having come all the way from the US, Daniel is kind enough to give up his evening to hang out and play some games of Magic. It’s a real blast to exchange stories about Old School collecting, community and strategy, amongst many other subjects of conversation. It's also really great to hear a little about some of the icons of Old School and Vintage Magic to whom I've always looked up, such as Steve Menendian and Brian Weissman. 

 Somehow I get the feeling my next spell isn’t resolving…

Saturday 27 January 2018. GP day 2 and COPcon!

Despite only having about six hours' sleep, I'm buzzing with excitement. Firstly I have some trading to finish with Benedict (which will be the subject of a future article…) before rolling over to the COPcon venue.

It's so great to see how far the London Old School scene has come. Two years ago, I organised the first meet, to dovetail with a Legacy/Vintage event at a local games store.  Back then, we were a bunch of fanatics meeting up in a South London pub. Now we're a much bigger bunch of fanatics meeting up in an East London pub!

It's the biggest event yet in the UK.  We have players from across Europe and even Daniel representing the US.  As well as those coming from abroad, we are joined by a host of UK players from outside London.  Some of them claim to be here for the GP, but we secretly know the main draw is COPcon…

At the end of the day I wind down by playing a relaxed Parfait mirror match against Brother Ben, which leads to this lairy boardstate…

Don’t mine if I do! [sorry…]

Credit has to go to Jonas and the Brothers Of Fire for organising a sick brand of Old School, played with relaxed vibes and great beers.

Sunday 28 January 2018

I wake up with a Juzam-sized hangover!...

“In Praise Of” Part 5: Clone, by Mg

An ongoing series where Old School players reflect on their favourite cards. For this iteration we have a very special guest post by Magnus, the Father of Old School and convener of n00bcon. 

In early 1995, around the time Revised was phased out in favor of 4th Edition, Magic in Kikås, Mölndal, was an endless sea of discovery. The handful of us versed in Magic played with whatever cards we managed to scrape together. The meta was as small and local as it got. There was no local game store to speak of, and for sure we didn't have access to any comprehensive card lists. For the majority of the world, this was the pre-internet days.

The first true chase-card I ever encountered was Clone. I don't know why we hadn't opened any of them at our local scene; most of us owned at least a couple of Sol Rings and other uncommons from Revised. Juggernauts or the odd Demonic Tutor wasn't that unusual to run across. An outsider would surely even find the occasional dual among our chaff, but none of us had ever seen a Vesuvan Doppelganger.

I believe that I first came across Clone when I ventured out of the comfort of my local scene and visited Björn Albihn. Björn was an old friend, as old as they get. His parents are my godparents and my parents are his, so our families have been close since way before Magic - or the two of us - entered the equation. Björn doesn't play these days, but he is still an important part of my life. And my ventures in Magic for that matter. He is the sculptor responsible for the champion trophies at both The Wizards' Tournament and n00bcon X this coming Easter. But back in 1995 he was living in his parental home the next town over. Our families would often celebrate the holidays together - Easter, New Years, Walpurgis and others - and I believe this was such an occasion. Maybe the Easter of 1995.

I heard that he played Magic, so I brought my cards. And I got my first taste of the power of Clone. When he was behind, Clone would even out the battlefield. When I got a Sengir Vampire, he would easily match it with his Clone. When the board was at a stall, Clone would turn it into his favor. And when he was ahead, Clone would make his Mahamothi Djinn into two and my chances to recover would be null.

These days the matches aren't focused on creature combat in the same way, but whenever we start swinging this is still true. Clone will always be the best creature on the battlefield. For only four mana (a price we didn't really consider back then), the greatest foe or the strongest champion in sight will join your ranks. Clone could also be used as mana acceleration in a more controlling deck, casually copying an activated Mishra's Factory. Or go nuts in decks like The Machine, playing the part of either an extra Hell's Caretaker or the second Triskelion needed to go off. Always doubling its duty by matching an opposing Juzam Djinn or Serra Angel whenever defense is needed.

I might never have wanted a card like a wanted that Clone. But it was not for trade, and as such I would have to search elsewhere for it. When I got back, I knew I needed to step out of my comfort zone and see what the deeper parts of Möldal could offer. One of my closest friends, Oscar, told me that a certain Viktor had a collection far beyond ours. Viktor had been our old scout master and was older than us by five or six years. When you are 11 years old, that is a lot. Viktor smoked and had relationships we were yet to comprehend. But he knew me from the scouts, and I knew where his family lived.

I think I just went to his house and knocked on the door. They were a fairly large family of seven, living in the Lackarebäck part of Mölndal. We got to talking and playing, and Viktor's collection truly was at another level than the ones I've seen before. Not that he had Power or stuff like that, of course, but amazing creatures and effective spells were abundant. I don't think I ever had seen a Serra Angel in play before; our small playgroup had decided to ban white from our games as the protective nature of the color was deemed "chicken". Viktor had a Clone that I managed to trade for, probably getting seriously ripped off value-wise in the process (as was the custom of the time). I don't remember that much of our trades other than that I traded a Birds of Paradise for a pair of basic lands. But those cards never really mattered to me, and now I had a Clone. As a small sidenote, I also had a better relationship with Viktor, which would prove fruitful a few years down the line when I needed help to buy spirits from Sweden's heavily ID-enforced liquor stores. Clone surely helped lay the groundwork for my youth. Come to think of it, my improved relationship with Björn via Magic got me invited to a middle school dance where I got something most people would describe as my first kiss. But that story is neither here nor there.

My Clone was soon a card to fear in our local meta. Even David, the local mister suitcase with the best collection of all of us, couldn't hide his envy. David had all the big cards; Lord of the Pit, Force of Nature, Island Fish and Colossus of Sardia. But with my Clone I also had them. I could just wait for him to cast one of his monsters and immediately match it. He offered me piles of cards for it, multiple beasts, strong spells and two or three duals just for that single Clone. He really wanted to be the guy with all the best cards. But I wouldn't budge.

Soon thereafter I got the chance to take a trip to Gothenburg city where I found a game store selling Magic in both packs and singles. I was astonished at the prices of some of the cards; both high and low. A dual land was almost a shocking €9. But on the flip side, they had two Clones in store for only €2.50 apiece. On of them was horribly off-center, but I could hardly care. It was time for my first ever singles purchase.

So now, thanks to my travels, I had three Clones. David still offered me piles of cards for just one of them. Well, any one of them except the "misprinted monstrosity" ("det feltryckta fanskapet"), which he didn't care for. Even though I had seen the prices of dual lands in that store in Gotheburg, the personal value of my Clones and the joy they gave to my games was more than any cards he could offer. I still have those three clones today.

What happened next are many stories of life, friendship, and kitchen table Magic. Ice Age was released and we found out about Polar Kraken and Leviathan; a 4th edition card we somehow had missed earlier. We learned of Vesuvan Doppelganger, to this day my favorite creature in Magic next to Juzam Djinn. The mysteries of Magic grew a little smaller as our community grew a little bigger and we ventured more and more into the city of Gothenburg to play. I eventually got my hands on two Vesuvan Doppelgangers, a Deflection and a Mana Drain to make my blue deck a glory to behold.

I traded away the Mana Drain for an Underworld Dreams, but the day after that my deck got stolen. It was not the first nor the last time I had cards stolen back in the 90s, but it was one of the more heartfelt ones. It would take me almost 15 years before I got another Doppelganger, this time for my ventures in Old School Magic. I upgraded it to black borders five years ago, and to this day it has a place whenever I play a blue deck in 93/94.

Glory be to the Doppelganger, but in the end it was Clone who showcased the ability to most players. Clone is truly one of the most iconic cards from the early days of Magic. It is one of very few cards I can think of that got proper homage to the original iconic art when it was reprinted many years later. You can't say that about Sol Ring, Hypnotic Specter or Juggernaut from that same era.

Clone has given me a lot of great victories, but a few shame-inducing mishaps as well. One evening in 2014 I got unusually drunk. I woke up the morning after with a heavy hangover, but as I puzzled together the pieces of the evening before I couldn't recall doing anything stupid at the party I attended. I wandered around in my apartment in haze for an hour before I realized that I had gone online to drunk-shop Magic cards. I checked my emails and saw a list of the cards I had bought; mostly harmless (though kinda odd) things like eight Uncle Istvan. 

But then I found what had triggered my shopping; I had found a Summer Magic Clone which I had to get my hands on. It was the most money I had payed for a single purchase thus far (I guess that I mostly had been prone to buy small and trade up before) and my account balance showed that I had made a costly blunder. I presume that it might be slightly cheaper these days, as Summer cards have become much more abundant in the last couple of years, but I guess that it is fun to have one of the Edgar cards that most certaily came from a pack.

I felt shameful over buying it for the next week or so. It was money I couldn't afford to spend at the time. But when the card eventually arrived I could only smile. I have vehemently promised myself not to buy cards while drunk anymore, but thanks to my bad judgement I have another Clone with a story, just like the ones I've kept from Revised. It has seen a lot of play since I got it, both during 93/94 Highlander tournaments and in my crappy Biovisionary deck. That Clone is the only Summer Magic card I own, and if I'm only going to have one, I couldn't ask for a better. All these years later, it feels cool to have completed the journey and have a "linear playset" of Clone, with one from each Swedish-legal expansion in 93/94.

Apart from tearing up kitchen tables, Clone was played in the first deck that won the Magic World Championship in 1994. I can't say if that was the best card for that particular deck, but it is never the less something to consider.


These days a Clone on the battlefield is a rare sight to behold. I've seen it played in the odd Merfolk list and sometimes to top the curve in Suicide Blue, but that's about it. I believe there are more stories to be told from the two pondering soldiers. It might not be as raw in its power as Serendib Efreet, or as swift as Mahamothi Djinn, but it will always stand its ground as the best creature on the battlefield. In an era where people keep exploring the fringes of the 93/94 card pool, I look forward to see more people experience the subtle power of Clone.