Addicted to Old School – Charitable Intentions

Old School Magic, or 93/94, is a format that has seen a lot of growth and support throughout the Magic community over the last couple of years. I love this format, and the way it makes me feel like a kid again everytime I shuffle up my deck. Some of this may be due to my nostalgia from childhood — casting [mtg_card]Chaos Orb[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Serra Angel[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Shivan Dragon[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Stasis[/mtg_card], or [mtg_card]Underworld Dreams[/mtg_card] — but I do think that it appeals to a broader sense of getting back to the roots of the game we all love. A time before planeswalkers, legacy, vintage, and modern. This is the original format.

Charitable Dreams

About 6 months ago my buddy and I got the idea that we should host an Old School event locally and use the proceeds to donate to charity (like what Jason Jaco and Eternal Central do in Chicago). We talked to some people and one of our local players decided to make up a gauntlet of playtest decks to let people try out the format. At our first event in August we ended up having 14 players from around the region to battle it out for an Ali From Cairo and a few other prizes.

We also held an orb flipping contest for a CE [mtg_card]Chaos Orb[/mtg_card], and a riffle shuffling challenge side event. In the end, we raised about $350 for a local charity, which we considered a huge success. We were even able to get some old school cards into the hands of players in the community through our donated prize support. I couldn’t believe how excited the local players were — excited that we fired with 14 people, and that they got to leave with cards they could play in the format.

Our second charity tournament was held in December (Toys for Tots this time), and ended up with 22 players duking it out for an [mtg_card]Old Man of the Sea[/mtg_card]. We again decided to have fun side events: a [mtg_card]Wheel of Fortune[/mtg_card] event for a Revised Wheel of Fortune and a Nerf gun shooting event in homage to Tim’s ([mtg_card]Prodigal Sorcerer[/mtg_card]’s) activated ability. We were floored at the anticipation, excitement, and level of acceptance from the local and regional community. Players rented playtest decks from the gauntlet for an additional entrance fee, and in the end, we raised over $800 dollars in toys and cash donations.

I know that some may frown upon the practice of using decks containing playtest cards even in gauntlet/playtest decks, and I have a few questions I would like to pose to the Old School community:

What is the point of owning a bunch of expensive cards if you can’t play with them? Would you rather be exclusive about a niche format or inclusive and build a community of players excited to play with you? Does using an Unlimited dual land, Revised dual land, or a playtest card really make a difference? Don’t they all just tap for mana? Wouldn’t you rather sit down across in front of a real opponent rather than play over Skype? Isn’t the point of a game to have fun?

These are questions that I often contemplate when I think about Old School and eternal Magic communities in general. We all clearly love playing so why not try to build a community of people you want to play with? Now I’m not bringing this up to be controversial about different rules on playtest cards, but I am saying I’d rather play more Magic than be exclusive about who I’ll play with.

One of the biggest issues I see from players outside of Old School community is that many think fully powered decks are the best in the format. This simply isn’t true. Yes, this format includes many of the most iconic cards in the game’s history; [mtg_card]Ancestral Recall[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Time Walk[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Black Lotus[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Chaos Orb[/mtg_card], etc, but they aren’t necessary to build a deck that is both competitive and fun to play. White Weenie, Mono-Blue Control, Mono-Black Aggro, Mono-Green Aggro, and Mono-Red Aggro are all decks that don’t need power, dual lands, or expensive creatures to be competitive.

“The Deck”

Next, some players who are aware of Old School, but don’t play it seem to ask me “Do you play The Deck?” Now, while I can play the Weissman version of “The Deck”, using [mtg_card]Moat[/mtg_card] rather than [mtg_card]The Abyss[/mtg_card], I choose not to play it very often and I’ve never played it in a tournament. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s ok — here’s some history behind “The Deck”:

“The Deck” was invented by Brian Weissman in the early years of the game as a control deck that wins through card advantage using cards like [mtg_card]Library of Alexandria[/mtg_card] (and more recently [mtg_card]Jayemdae Tome[/mtg_card]).

It functions very similarly to how the Miracles deck won in Legacy; counter your opponents spells, destroy their threats, deploy your own threats, and eventually grind out a win slowly by drawing more cards than your opponent to protect your own threats.

For more information about “The Deck”, the history, and evolution behind it you can see Steve Menendian’s article at the following link. (http://www.vintagemagic.com/blog/old-school-magic-chapter-2-the-history-of-the-deck/)

Now that we’re all on the same page, I think what these players are really thinking is, “if I don’t play “The Deck” I will never win a game because everyone else plays “The Deck” right?” This couldn’t be further from the truth.

While I do think that “The Deck” is an amazing deck, and I do love to occasionally sleeve it up for some casual games, it is not unbeatable like many players believe. Just look at the last two big Eternal Central Old School event at Eternal Weekend and the winning decklists. White Weenie and UWR Weenie have won the tournament in a large field the last two years putting to rest the thought that “The Deck” is the only competitive deck in the format.

If you haven’t played this format yet, I highly recommend that you try it out. If you want to play a fully powered deck with a ton of dual lands and all alpha cards, your deck will likely be the cost of a down payment on a house, but you can get into this format for less than the cost of a competitive modern or standard deck.

Now I will openly admit that seeing a bunch of dual lands and alpha cards is a huge draw for me to the format, but you can get into this format on a budget. My first Old School deck cost me less than $50 to build, buying all revised cards (often the cheapest option), opting to play no dual lands, and running no “Power 9”. I still play this deck and it is competitive against a lot of the field.

Let’s play Old School!

A huge benefit is that unlike your standard or modern decks your cards won’t get banned, reprinted, or rotate out of the format. I highly recommend buying cheaper white bordered versions of cards and playing a non-powered deck to get back to the roots of Magic — the way Richard Garfield envisioned it. It really is the most fun you can have playing Magic. You will not earn planeswalker points, you will not qualify for the pro tour, and you will not pay your rent playing Old School, but you will meet some great people and enjoy playing Magic the way it was played almost 25 years ago.

Now, a great deal of this is because of the Swedish play group who created the format (and Jason Jaco for promoting it in the United States), but the truth of the matter for me is this un-sanctionable, made-up format is growing and shows no signs of slowing down. The community that has been growing in Columbia, SC and the communities across the US are examples of this, and it is incredible to see.

I have been playing this game for a very long time and I’ve never been as excited about a format as I am about Old School. As you can guess from the title of this article, my favorite format is Old School Magic. I’m a “dirty” casual player at heart because I like playing Magic while drinking a beer and BS’ing with my opponent about Magic, our favorite beers, cars, or anything that goes. I got into Magic as a kid playing on lunchroom tables, the school bus, and kitchen tables brewing decks with friends and my playtest partner/younger brother whenever possible.

More recently about 18 months ago a good friend of mine and I decided we would give the format a whirl as we had lots of the cards, a set of rules, and a banned and restricted list available from the Swedish community. My buddy actually didn’t enjoy playing constructed Magic but thought it could be fun to hang out, have a beer, play Magic, and talk about the woes of graduate school.

After a few months, we both got deeper into the format and decided to make the switch from the Swedish B&R list to Eternal Central rules. We made this decision due in part to my desire to attend some of the Eternal Central events and that one of my all-time favorite cards, [mtg_card]Strip Mine[/mtg_card], was unrestricted.

It warms this salty old man’s heart to be playing Magic for fun again, seeing people who weren’t even born when Magic was invented excited about this format, and building decks to play in tournaments. I’d like to thank Matt, Lon, Teddy, Andrew, and Brian for everything they have done. They’re helping keep the Old School community thriving in Columbia, and they’re some of the best folks around.

Swedish Rules: http://oldschool-mtg.blogspot.com/p/banrestriction.html

Eternal Central Rules: http://www.eternalcentral.com/9394rules/

My Top 8 Decklist from the December Tournament and sideboard (5 color Machine Pile) and other photos from the event:

https://www.topdecked.me/decks/311fbb33-b7ec-4910-a0ea-43c0e6924fc1