Dear Oldschoolers

The new year started and with it also the ambitions for us players. Last year we got the achievment unlocked to found one part of a growing Swiss community – the Legion Urborg. We decided also to onboard foreigners as proud members of our Legion but form the core with regular “training days” in Switzerland. Of course everybody is invited, but a travel from Hamburg to Zurich “just” for 4 hours of Oldschool seems a little bit over the top (right Alex Pick? ;-).

So far the success of the Legion as a team is overseeable (we went to the team worlds, drank a lot of Moretti-beer and achieved the 14th rank out of 15 players – haha). Leo Bruder on the other hand managed to play the final at Fishliveroil Cup in Genova – and came out of it as second best player of the tournament. Nice. Personally, i achieved to collect all 40 oldschool-Duals unlimited (plus 4 AN City of Brass) in 2018. The next step already started as i have exactly one Alpha Plateau – another 37 Years to go and maybe then i will have all black bordered 🙂

But enough of the past – lets deep dive into 2019 and our ambitions. As a cool and nice Legion we want to achieve as much fun out of the tournaments as possible. Yes we would like to go to Top 8 but foremost we want to enjoy the game and ensure our opponents, that against a member of the Legion it is always a pleasure to play. Therefore we also brew decent decks with cards we like the most. Those decks will not always be Tier 1 – but should offer nice games to both players. Good thing that everybody has his/her own preferences so brewing will never end 🙂

At 10. January we assembled the first time with our brand new Jackets:

We decided to do a small tournament to test our brews and have some fun. There was a fourth player in the room but one has to take the photo 🙂 (thank you Raphi “Phy” Ehrensperger). Next time we arrange that a fifth person is available.

I tested my brewing project “Black/Green Aggro” as i want to go to top 8 in 2019 at a decent tournament with 16+ players:

The other players brought Troll Disco (Leo), UW Sky-Control (Dani) and WW (Phy, Atlantic Rules) to the table. First game i faced Dani and his UW Sky-Control. First game he started with Lotus, Library, Serendib. I started with Lotus, Bayou, Erhnam. He sworded the Erhnam away… i stabilized and managed to win first game because a well timed (and unforeseen) Trike. After sideboarding, we started the second game which was horrible to play against… 4 Counterspells in 5 turns – what a mess 😉 i did not manage to bring something relevant to the table and got beaten by a Sword wielding beauty 🙂

Third game was a shock – i misinterpreted a Tropical for a Bayou and kept my hand. I did not manage to draw any black source, also with Silvan Library AND Library of Alexandria on the table… With Counter-Backup and Serra + Serendib, Dani closed the third game quickly. Stupid me… Tropical for Bayou… Time to buy new glasses 😉

Me after the 4th counter 😉

I lost 2-1 and was unhappy about my eyes and brain, but was positive to fight Leo and his Troll Disco. Again first game i had a decent start with a Bird into Hippie and Silvan Library (which got countered) but next turn i Regrowth’ed Library and brought it on the table. I also survived a Disk and closed the deal (just to mention: look at the 6th picture, you see a Chaos Orb in the Grave of Leo but no permanent in mine… hmmm…). Second game i also had a decent start with some mana issues on the opposite side of the table. I was quite sure to win that thing with a second turn Erhnam and Terror to bring the evil Troll to his end. He stabilized with an unresponded Disk and cleaned the table. I was not able to recover because i played a greedy Hypnotic Specter with no creature left in my hand. Third Game was also intense – a lot of grinding and looking for answers. I managed to bring a Sengir Vampire on the battlefield just to hear “Black Vampire down” as it got hit by a giant ball of fire. Finally the card advantage out of a Braingeyser brought Leo to pole position and he defeated me 2-1. Still no bad statistics as the games have been incredibly close. Fun to play and interesting.

Third match was against Phy and his White Weenie build. He is playing a lot of Atlantic and we agreed that it is fine to leave the deck as it is. As it gets even stronger with Fallen Empires, it is a well welcomed challenge for our Swedish-Decks. First game started and Phy did put Javeliners on the battlefield. Bad news for my Birds of Paradise… Second to fourth turn he putted one White Knight and two Orders. All i did was taking damage and building up mana and playing a Hypnotic. Until turn five as i did put down a Triskelion. With no Disenchant at hand this was very bad news for Phy and we moved on to game 2.

Game two was really quick sealed as i managed to put down a very early Gloom – not beatable for Phy as he was mana screwed and he could not even cast a Swords to Plowshares as he did sit on 3 Mana for quite a while… Nothing else to see here as he did not draw the saving Chaos Orb.

at the end of the Training Day, we also played some really casual rounds of Oldschool – you find some impressions below. (Have you ever been beaten by a 20/5 trampling Juzam?)

Overall it gave me more insights in my deck and i decided, to change something. Early heavy creature pressure is nice, but with the cost of a Dark Ritual, Lotus etc. its very expensive if the hitter get’s traded 2:1 against a Sword to Plowshares. It seems i need to add more control/removal elements. I will try to add red for bolts/wheel and Underworld Dreams. The mana base will be very fragile and i have to see if it is still manageable to bring BBB early on the battlefield. As i have only single mana cost (despite of black), i have to risk it. Keep you posted 🙂

As always, i wish you decent Oldschool games and a lot of first turn Libraries

Regards

Christian aka Lord M of Legion Urborg