Since i started actively playing Oldschool and therefore joined the (felt) thousand various Facebook-groups, i got in contact with various nice and interesting people around the world. A big part of it all are also the online matches in which the precious Oldschool cards get played in front of a webcam.

As a player of the “old ages” in 1993/1994 (and the following years), there was no fancy Skype or appear.in available – as a matter of fact, internet was invented but not as functional as today. Therefore we had to wait until 1997 as the famous Sid Meier created the most hidden Gem for us players: Magic the Gathering aka Shandalar. Imagine, you can build a Deck with Oldschool only cards and fight against evil mages within their realm. The game was revolutionary and brought us so much fun in the days of the past. Therefore i would like to introduce to all players this great hidden Gem. If you played it, i am sure you want to play it right now. If it’s new for you be warned: it will suck you in and you will spend hours and hours with it. By the way: Here you find the tutorial and installation guideline.

Welcome to Shandalar

With the current installation link, you will receive automatic access to ABU, LEG, ANT, AN and The Dark. Therefore great fun awaits you in building and teching your deck. Have you ever imagined to play 4 “contract from below” main and use them accordingly? Did you ever want to cast multiple time walks and Ancestral in one Deck? Well – here u go.

The easiest way to start is to chose a familiar color for your mage and the easiest mode (Apprentice). Your starting Deck will be either one, two, three or four colored. If you start the hard mode, you will not even have more than one basic land added for some of your colors… haha.

As soon you hit the road with your Deck you should try to get rid of one or two colors and buy as many basic lands as you can within villages and cities. You can also buy other cards you like if you have the money to spare 🙂

Its a lot of fun to travel the world, meet interesting mages, and fight them to get more and better cards for your Deck. The travelling is very intuitive and one can travel from village to village…

…or just seek out for aggressive competitors (like the Mandurang…)

overall this game is still one of my favored games of all the time. Sometimes i just start the game if i have 30 minutes spare time and i try to beat some evil creatures of Shandalar. I hope i have re-enlightned the torch of any nostalgic player or even brought “younger” Oldschoolers into a really great and fantastic way of playing this tremendous format if nobody is around on Skype or appear.in 🙂

I wish you a nice Christmas time and follow my blog 🙂

Christian aka Lord M from Legion Urborg