"Wanderlust" Part 1: inc. King of the North 2 Event Report - by Brother Stebbo

Editor’s preamble – this summer our roving envoy Brother Stebbo left London to discover Old School communities to the north and (very far) west.

This is part one of his journey…

Community /kəˈmjuːnɪti/

• Noun
• ~ A group of people living in the same place and/or having a particular characteristic in common ~
• For example: (i) a group of people could be "Insane Magicians" (ii) the same place could be "planet Earth" and (iii) the particular characteristic could be "Old School Mtg".

Refreshed after our successful raid in Stockholm, it was now in the spirit of the UK Old School community that Brothers Stebbo and Karl made the trip North to Edinburgh, to the far-flung icy wastes of UK Old School. Where an Island might just still tap for Blue mana, as long as it hasn't frozen solid.

Edinburgh has always been good to me. I earned a place at Noobcon last year by winning the inaugural King of the North and had some great games along the way. It would only be right and proper to return as reigning King and attempt to defend my crown.

~~ the Horn of Deafening sounded!! ~~ Time for the Brothers to depart to the North. 

Brother Stebbo: So you're on the 7.30 from Euston right?

Brother Karl: Yeah.

It's profound chat, but it's also 6:38am. But this is what you do in the spirit of community. Nevermind the fact that you had a work party the night before and barely got 5 hours' sleep. But my Old School and Brothers' Highlander decks were packed long before. We are prepared.

~~ We're now aboard the train ~~

Brother Karl has enterprisingly reserved the seat next to mine. Lucky he like aisle seats!

 

Brother Stebbo’s URb aggro-control

My usual train diet of a Pret sandwich and a nap takes us through the Midlands. Just enough time for a quick chat about sideboard strategy. I'm set on running URb, but through my Celestial Prism I've been seeing concerning images of decks focused on creating towers made of ivory, meanwhile creating the unwelcome bureaucratic levy, or 'tax’ if you will, for making your land drops. These monstrous decks appear to win through excessive lifegain and cruel inevitability in a manner that makes the Deck look like a zaney combo deck!

My biggest concern heading into King of the North II

I muse adding a further Shatter to the maindeck and/or a Shatterstorm to the sideboard to combat this menace. But then what to take out? The choices before this humble mage are never simple.

We also consider who we might see in Scotland. One name crops up who Karl remembers from his past as a PTQ grinder. A former Scottish Nationals Champion no less. It's almost like one of the ancient Scottish kings has returned to attempt to seize the crown from this upstart Southern baron and reigning king (me). Well, they never said this was going to be easy…

~~ Arrival ~~

We arrive in Edinburgh and are greeted by the fringe festival. Brother Karl leads the way as we fight through the revellers. We resolve to take in some of the entertainment later, but first more pressing matters are at hand.

Brother Karl, rocking the denim as we make our way through the crowds that had seemingly gathered to greet our arrival…

Upon making it to the games store – shoutout to Mox in the Hole and Gabor – we are greeted by none other than Brother Scott and Sister Bev! They too have ventured north in search of fame, glory (or seeing their pal in a fringe festival show)…



~~ The tournament ~~

Swiss

Round 1 - one of the joys of travelling to play in an event is not being drawn against your buddy who you play every week. So imagine my satisfaction when I got to play Rod Smith first up, organiser and Global Old School phenom.

Rod has always had an eye for creative and punishing brews, and since our last encounter clearly the icecaps of the north have thawed, as he has added some blue to his deck, which we'll call "Good Stuff Control".

Alas even his Ivory Towers are not enough, and he is dispatched 2-0.

Credit to Rod for this action shot.

Round 2 is against another seasoned Scottish Old School player, Seb, who is running UB midrange.

We play some tight games, with the most memorable play being Seb casting a Timetwister with Underworld Dreams down. Game over? Not so fast! I am able to Boomerang the Underworld Dreams and avoid taking 7. I squeak over the line 2-1.

Round 3 is against Ed Ross – a relatively new player on the Old School scene. But you remember that ancient Scottish king I was talking about? Well…

Ed is playing The Deck and we shared two warped games and one fantastic one. Game 1 sees me lead off with Land, Mox, Lotus, Mind Twist. Some introduction. Ed is almost able to claw his way back, but I'm able to take the win. Game 2 sees Ed lead with a LoA. He wins that one.

Game 3 saw some brilliant back and forth. He has the Abyss and COP Red. I have Energy Flux and Blood Moon. We go to time, but I'm able to find a way through to take the match 2-1.

Round 4 sees me playing Brother Karl on his traditional UR. He had been considering playing a more unconventional brew on the train, before being talked out of it by me.

These games are played in good spirits, but we know each other's games very well, so control battles ensue. I take game 1 and Karl takes game 2, before we go to time in game 3. 1-1-1

Round 5 sees me face off against Brother Scott. He's playing a BR Artifact control/midrange deck.

Despite an encouraging start, Scott is able to take down game 1, with his volume of Trikes and Su-Chis proving too strong for my defences. However games 2 and 3 go my way. 2-1.

Top 4

Semi Final.

I'm drawn against Brother Karl in the top 4. Game 1 goes to me as I'm able to exert 'Efreet Dominance' on the board. Game 2 is a real squeaker and comes down to me having to Timetwister whilst on 3 life, with Karl on a similarly low score. Both of us need one bit of direct damage to connect… I draw Mana Drain and a Bolt. Karl has drawn two Psionic Blasts. Unfortunately he blinks first and loses with his lethal Psi Blast on the stack. 2-0.

Final.

Predictably I have a rematch with Ed on the Deck for the marbles.

Unfortunately for Ed, I used to play the Deck extensively so know the match-up well.

Unfortunately for me, only one of us is a former PT player/champion (him) and he's visibly becoming a more powerful Old School mage with every draw step.

I take game 1, with my arsenal of direct damage proving too much for the Deck pre-board. 1-0.

Game 2 sees me board in 14 cards. A grindfest is forecast. Rod managed to snap this shot of my opening hand. I've drawn my LoA…

We have an interactive game, with a highlight being a battle for control of Ed's Serra Angel by way of a Control Magic/Disenchant etc. However the card draw of Library is too great and Ed is gamely defeated. 2-0.

And stilllllll, King of the North!







~~ Epilogue ~~

After a year of peace over the plane, the Brothers noticed a disturbance in the northern lands. So they dispatched a regal, powerful mage to restore order.

A great tournament, where I was able to meet new players and re-connect with old. Scotland has a fantastic Old School community.

Brother Karl and I went on to enjoy a curry with Rod and Sam (our gracious host), before enjoying some of the sights of the fringe.

In hindsight it was a journey which inspired me to go even further in search of Old School goodness.

As some of you have read, Rod recently injured himself practicing some of this new-fangled 'blue magic'. So we awarded him this community prize to wish him a speedy recovery. 

Stay tuned for Wanderlust, part 2, coming soon…where Brother Stebbo packs his Strip Mines in search of Old School adventure!

Tournament Organiser's Report - COPcon VII, 15th September 2018 - by Brother Jonas

Having unfortunately missed COPcon VI during my stay in the USA (long story short: moved there, bought three Strip Mines, job didn't work out, came home), it was good to be back in North East London with my fellow Brothers Of Fire for the seventh iteration of our tournament and meetup.

At twenty players, today's attendance was the healthiest it has been for a free-standing event in our spiritual home of Mirth Marvel and Maud in Walthamstow - although lacking stalwart attendees Markus (stag do) and Ben (injury).  To compensate, we were welcoming back Brother Stebbo from his recent trip as Brothers of Fire's emissary to the Old School communities in the New World.  (See a future piece on this blog for a round-up which will hopefully rival Alexis de Tocqueville in both scope and importance).

The importance of the day obviously wasn't lost on our hosts.  Among the fine ales on offer was what could only be described as a coded warning against overly-casual Chaos Orb flippers:

In fairness I've probably been guilty of a few of these, after a few of these...

With initial niceties out of the way, we set down to tackle five rounds of Swiss, all watched over by Brother Oli in his now traditional role as stats guru.  Having been running WG Enchantress in the run-up to the tournament, I fancied something a bit spikier on the day so I rebuilt a variant of my Atog deck:

The original form of this deck took its inspiration from David Chambers's original Trinket Repair Shop.  However I have cut Orcish Mechanics (fun but, in my opinion, overrated) and Ankh of Mishra (powerful but not much interaction).  Instead, I've gone for a blend of Parfait elements.  This, and the use of Blood Moon and City In A Bottle, brings it closer to what some might term hatog than lovatog.  I have yet to see this exact approach elsewhere, but I won't claim it is original because it strikes me as pretty obvious.  This said, the task of calibrating the exact weighting of Copper Tablets, Black Vises, Howling Mines, Winter Orbs, Mana Vaults, and Relic Barriers is what makes this deck interesting to me.

In its own way, this deck often played out quite controlly - frustrating the opponent's early-game strategy, disrupting the tempo of the game with a Copper Tablet and Winter Orb (or Howling Mine and Vice), and then creating inevitability by Bolting and Chaining my opponent into oblivion in the late game.  (The latter experience feeling not dissimilar from playing The Deck and getting to its equivalent: the three-Counterspell-in-hand tipping point).

As a result, my MVP on the day was Winter Orb, which was absolutely brutal against opponents running lean mana bases.  I only landed a handful of monster Atog hits all day, but the threat value, particularly with two on the table, is enough to bully opponents even when you don't really want to feed your artifacts to him.  More commonly, the Atogs sucked up the hate and cleared the path for Factories, which made them feel like something of a 'control' card in many situations.  If you believe the mark of an interesting deck is that it has several paths to victory, then I would say that this cuts the mustard.

On to the tournament.  It began with setting up a Skype console for Brother Ben to remotely play whoever got a bye.  Unfortunately for him, we had an even number of players, but it was good to know that we can host a virtual player in future - something I'd love to make happen for anyone who can commit to playing the full 5-6 rounds of Swiss as a full participant.

COPcon embraces Skype

My first pairing against Chris Cooper (of extensive Skype fame) was a re-run of our earlier preparatory match in the week.  Thankfully he was not packing his semi-infamous 'Cooper-school extreme recursion' deck from UK nationals!  His mono blue was tight and featured a number of Mahamotis - so unlike his prior deck, it had plenty to love.  Fortunately for me, I was on a strong start.  In game 1 I sneaked through an 11-point Atog hit, and a Su-Chi did most of the work in game 2 after he knocked out my Library with a Chaos Orb.

Not pictured: our first use of the venue's overflow area!

Round 2 against scene veteran Graeme was highly entertaining.  His first turn in game one consisted of laying two Howling Mines on the table.  When I then played my Library of Alexandria, I had the rather surreal task of having to work hard to get my hand size down far enough to make it usable!  He took game one with a Stasis lock.

After sideboarding I was able to wield the all-important Red Elemental Blast, and a Ruby, Sol Ring, Winter Orb, and Factory came together to provide the beatdown.

In game three I made an early Vice stick and although he took me to 12, I finished with a large Fireball.  All three games were by turns aggressive and defensive, with the lead changing hands a lot.

At 2-0 I was feeling pretty good but Stuart, playing his first COPcon in Walthamstow, overcame me 2-1 in another enjoyable match.  Even with the white splash in the sideboard, my deck was vulnerable to both Moat (which was in his 60) and Serra Angel, which is a real pain for RW to get off the table (for obvious reasons, I'm not playing Swords).

My spotless win record was further sullied by an additional 2-1 loss to Jordan.  The contents of his deck have been lost to this ale-tinged mists of time in my brain, but the good vibes of our match and his gentlemanly enquiries as to whether I wished to use my Relic Barrier in his upkeeps remain strong in my recollection.

Like many players with an appreciation for spicy decks, just because I am a member of the Enchantress Fan Club doesn't mean I don't still like to win more than I lose, so at 2-2 I faced George with this objective at stake.

Befitting his professional role at the UK's leading trading house, his deck was a pimped-up beast which always seemed to find an answer for my threats.  In game one, the top four cards at one stage consisted of his full complement of three Swords to Plowshares!  However my early Blood Moon was too hard to overturn.  George had revenge in game two which levelled the scores with brutality: a turn one Juzam, a turn 2 Time Walk and Spirit Link, and a turn three Strip Mine.

As with every match since round one, it came down to a deciding game.  This time I squeaked through with the assistance of City In A Bottle.  Leaving aside my gratitude towards it for this particular game, I'm still firmly opposed to the renewed calls online from people saying it should be restricted.  As my brother has said, if you don't like CiaB, play Artifact Blast.

I finished fourth, and having played different and unpredictable decks in every round, and every match having been close, this felt like the most high-quality day of "competitive" Magic I've played in a long time.

Note to self: taking losing games to 2-1 is ideal for coming in at the top of a points bracket!
Note to readers: Your humble writer appears at number 4 under one his aliases

After five rounds of Swiss we had a clear winner and a play-off would have been gilding the lotus.  It was time to award the prizes.  Bryan Connolly, running URB, stormed through to be unbeaten in the Swiss and take the COP:Artifacts, which will now adorn his seventy-five at all future COPcons.  (Watch out, you Armageddon Clockers!).

The main prize of the day, the Brothers Of Fire for Spirit of COPcon, went to newcomer Chris S who was visiting with a delegation from the recently-formed South of England group.  It's great to hear of new groups emerging in Old School and I'm hoping Brothers Of Fire can make the return trip to an event of theirs soon.  Chris's several off-kilter selections in his WB deck, combined with peerless sportsmanship, clinched the prize on a day that was strong with flavourful decks and good spirit.

Stories circulated of some memorable plays, of which the following three struck me as winners of Play of the Day under many circumstances:

• One counter war after boarding saw 2 Counterspells, a Flash Counter and FIVE Elemental Blasts on the stack
• Ehrnam Djinn triple Giant Growthed in the face of a single untapped Island seemingly for lethal damage... only to be Unsummoned 
• A mulligan to five on the play was offset by dropping a land, Mox, Sol Ring, Lotus, Timewister

Not bad!

For those who could remain, we then proceeded to power through the Five Inch Drops and onto the fun games.  My Verduran Enchantress got an airing against Graeme's incredible five-colour Elder Dragon deck.  I was able to "enjoy" a Magic career-first of losing my whole hand to a successful Nicol Bolas attack.  Only two cards, but it counts.  Well - it was certainly more fun than being Mind Twisted.

Next up I was eager to play BoF-winner Chris, who had brought a 100-card singleton deck in to our house format: Brothers' Highlander (rules here).  I'm hoping to persuade him to write an article about it, so I won't share the full details.  But suffice to say it was as close as Magic will ever get to a Tolkein set, realised in the rich palette of Old School.  A thing of beauty.

Finally I had a chance to play UK N00bcon 2019 entrant Patrick using his tournament deck from earlier.  At this stage we were running on fumes but I had the chance to witness his lovely new alters up close (see deck pic below).  I was also able to exact partial revenge for the 5-0 drubbing meted out to me by his wife on our last meeting!  In Old School, family pride counts.

With that done, it was all over.  Thank you to everyone who came and made it a really great day.  I hope to see as many as possible at the next COPcon which is going to have a couple of surprises planned.

Group photo, minus two

Deck pics:

Chris Cooper - Mono Blue

 George - BUW

Patrick - RB (see Maze, bottom right!)

Brother Stebbo - WR "Jetlag control"

Brother Scott - Deadguy Ale

Stuart S - UWb Skies (extra card is a Moat)

Brother Jonas - Atog Parfait

Event Report - UK Old School Nationals, 18 August 2018 – by Brother Ben

Brother Ben meets up with some friendly faces in competition at this evergreen UK gathering...

18th August saw Old School being recognised as a headline event at the UK magic nationals at Watford. (about an hour from central London). Event organisers Elizabeth Kolb-Barnetson and Francois Huchard kindly arranged for us to have a secure area close to the bar. An undisclosed prize was at stake, and everyone brought their A-game.

The event attracted a selection of Old School regulars as well as some old faces from back in the day, including legendary Chad Valentine. In particular it was great to see amiable magic veteran Graham Baker, famous for his love of white cards.

I anticipated a field of counter-burn decks, which are currently popular in the UK. I aimed to play around this, loading my sideboard with blue blasts, COP: Blue, COP: Red, Sleight of Mind, Ivory Tower, etc.

Special mention goes out to Jason Savage who had brewed a sweet powerhouse of a deck, leaning heavily on Mana Vaults, Juggernauts, Su-Chis, and Copy Artifact to power out big fatties early, backed up with an array of restricted cards. He went 5-0 in the Swiss.

Chris Cooper needs no introduction and brought a fresh brew too. While Jason’s creation generated exciting games loaded with power plays and great escapes, Chris took the opposite approach and made a version of Randy’s tax code deck, cutting the Land’s Edge. As far as I could see, this made his wincon getting to 100 life and boring all opponents into submission by looping Timetwisters and Tawnos’ Crypt. Somehow only one of his matches went to time!

So my UW deck squeaked into the top 4 after going 3-1-1 in the swiss. I wasn’t departing much from Alban’s decklist from N00bcon 10. I met Jason in the semis and I was thankful for the advice of Josh Knight from Barcelona to play main-deck Divine Offering. It was intended to help me against Atog decks, of which I saw none, but it came in handy against Jason’s turn 1, 2, and 3 fatties. We even had time for a game of Brothers' Highlander while waiting for the other semi-final to finish. All hope was lost in game 3 of the final, but I managed a great escape. My opponent was a great competitor and I hope we can play again one day.

The mystery prize was a Thunder Spirit. Thanks go to Elizabeth and Francois for a great day.

With the UK Nationals complete, I'm now looking forward to COPcon VII - the next Brothers Of Fire event - on 15th September in London. And after that, I'll be at Fishliver Oil in October.

Thanks everyone, Ben.

A blurry shot of Chris's deck

Using Disenchant to force my opponent to copy a Sol Ring

Brothers' Highlander in progress

Anachronisms in Old School Part II - Alpha Templating, by Brother Stebbo

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety

William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

A lot of what I do for a living involves using written English consistently, and picking holes in others' use of written English. [Any typos in my articles are just down to Brother Jonas' shoddy editing!]

This has perhaps given me a sensitive eye for the templating on Magic cards and Old School cards in particular.

One of the highlights of the Wizards' Tournament, at Noobcon X earlier this year, was getting to see some rarely played Alpha cardboard in all its glory. One of the things I found amazing was how many of the cards didn't make sense under the contemporary rules of the game, and how the templating between cards which are functionally identical is not similarly consistent.

There are all kinds of anachronisms in the templating of Alpha. Some hark back to a simpler time, where the expectation was that players would only ever play a few games with their decks, before moving onto the next fad. Some reflect how the game was perceived as confusing to new players, in some cases necessitating the intricacies of the game being partly broken down by the cards themselves offering subtle hints on how to play the game.

Anachronism 1 – Weakness

"IT IS DEAD"

Three simple words – and we all know what it means. This creature has popped its clogs, shuffled off this mortal coil.

This is incredibly intuitive.

However it is meaningless under the current Magic rules.

Now I expect many of you haven't read the 2018 version of the Magic: The Gathering Comprehensive Rules (and at 227 pages of A4, who would blame you?…) but if you had you'd know that rule 704.5 states that "If a creature has toughness 0 or less, it's put into its owner's graveyard". This is one of the "state-based actions" and nowhere is there any mention of the creature being expressly "dead"!

Now we all know why Weakness has this line of text – the game was new and maybe you'd never seen a Savannah Lions before. This was Richard Garfield's way of whispering in your ear and suggesting "Kid, enchant those opposing Savannah Lions, and them Lions will be dead".

It's a powerful, yet subtle suggestion, which is shared with…

Anachronism 2 – Animate Artifact

Animate Artifact is like the 'meal-deal' of anachronisms in Alpha – let's review:

1) There is the hilariously clunky "Enchant Non-Creature Artifact". Such specificity. And all for nothing – the current Oracle text enables an artifact creature to be enchanted(!), but that the card only has any effect if the enchanted artifact isn't a creature. I guess you could say the card is now better than it was twenty-five years ago!

2) I just love the conversational style of the card – "retains all its original abilities as well" – nowadays the card would be strictly to the point – that the only change is that it's now also a creature – no need for this bonus information.

3) Another suggestion! The hint-hint, nudge-nudge that an artifact with a converted mana cost (or "casting cost" to use the lingo of the day) of 0 will be destroyed (note, not, "the artifact will be DEAD").

One has to say it's hard to envisage a situation where a player needed to use their Animate Artifact as removal against an enemy Mox or Black Lotus. But clearly this nuanced, yet vital, line of play came up enough in playtesting that the game designers saw fit to include this bonus bit of high-level strategy on the card itself.

Blue players get the most broken cards, AND artifact removal with free strategy advice.  Talk about there being a best colour in Magic...

Anachronism 3 - Psionic Blast

One of my all-time favourite cards!

I love the flavour of the abstract art, and have always interpreted this as the two damage ‘suffered’ by you as the spellcaster being depicted as a lingering headache for this tank-top wearing wizard. The art is almost like it's from the advertising campaign for Dominarian Nurofen.

Of course the meta-busting anachronism of this card is that it's a blue direct damage spell. At instant speed, no less! Literally what were the designers thinking!? To be fair, I guess to be the best colour, blue needs something to deal with a Serra Angel or Sengir Vampire, should one of these threats be fortunate enough to slip through your defences of counter-magic….

There is also a subtle anachronism. After the card emphatically declares that it does 4 damage to any target, it reminds you in a rather conciliatory tone that it does 2 damage to you "as well". The templating equivalent of some elder wizard putting an arm around your shoulder to break some bad news, namely that your blue direct damage isn't as good as that red mage's from across the street... Never mind lad, at least you've got your tank-top…

Anachronism 4 – Demonic Attorney

On the face of it, some fourth-wall breaking card design encapsulating greedy lawyers requiring another card offered up in 'legal fees' by each player. Remember; in litigation, and seemingly in ante, the convention is that the loser pays the winner’s costs! Bloody genius! Deepest flavour.

Although it makes slightly more sense in the context of a game where an additional card would otherwise be henceforth on the line for keeps, even in the event of a future concession, look closely and you'll see arguably the most unnecessary line of text ever printed on a Magic card: "if opponent doesn't concede the game immediately"!!

Yes, a useful prompt for players who may want to cut their losses and not risk losing a second card to ante. But remind me to offer this to my opponent whenever I cast a spell in the future!

Brother Stebbo: 'Bolt you? Unless you concede the game immediately?'

Opponent: '…..'

Anachronism 5 – Disintegrate

One of the best things about Alpha is the innocence of the designers. They assumed that players would buy a few starters each and then play a handful of games with their mates. Indeed, this was seen as an obvious way to mitigate the busted cards. Sure Granite Gargoyle is better than Grey Ogre, but as the 'better' card is a rare it hardly matters, as quite literally, you’ll rarely have to face down a Gargoyle. No-one is going to collect a whole set of Alpha, let alone be playing the game twenty-five years later…

On the face of it, Disintegrate is a harmless bit of card design. But there is a real drafting error in the card that reflects this initial innocence. As we all know, Disintegrate is perfect for dealing with enemy creatures, which face being removed from the game entirely. Not partially or more-removed-from-the-game-than-not, but entirely. Completely unnecessary language! But it does make sense in the context of educating players of the differences between the graveyard and what we now know as the exile zone.

However I have always enjoyed the contradiction (which is shared with, amongst others, Swords to Plowshares) that whilst the card emphatically declares that a target is entirely removed from the game, this doesn't literally mean 'removed from your game set of Magic: The Gathering'. Instead "entirely" is qualified as only being until this 'game' of the 'Game' is complete and one is invited to return the card to its "owner's deck only when game is over", the inference being it would otherwise sit forever in the eternal exile zone of a shelf in your study.

There is something very charming about these fourth-wall busting prompts, reminding players to return cards to their decks, or return to their opponents cards which have been stolen during the game.


--------

I hope you have enjoyed this satirical trip down memory lane. With any luck, I’ve left enough Alpha templating material for a sequel someday. But please do tell me what your favourite templating anachronisms are!

Stay tuned for my next piece where I’ll be reminiscing on the superb Wizards’ Tournament and Noobcon X from the spring. Any excuse for Alpha pics…

Until next time.

- Brother Stebbo