When I first heard words on the street about the Scryings expansion hatching from the old world, I immediately knew I had to brood over an event adopting the newer cards to our older spells family. As so, I pitched a team trio formula over our Facebook group and finally settled on a mid-january weekend for a single 1 vs 1 player tournament without having secured any venue yet. This was when Christian from Au Coin Royal stepped in and generously offered to host the event in his store which is an actual antique shop. The theme just jumped out at my face, as it was obvious as sideboarding one Circle of Protection: Red against the aforementioned color¹, which couldn’t be better for an artifact flavored tournament.

Better keep this pesky Tog away from the shop Trike!

As in the Antiques Roadshow², every participant had to bring an artifact from their personal collection for appraisal. Although, all cards were to be drafted after the event according to the final standings, from second to last. Also borrowing ideas from several Old School celebrations around the world, I added special prizes for achievements related to the Artifact-Gentlemen-Old-School-93-94-Scryings Frankenstein format.

The spoils

I wished for a larger attendance, but we still managed to gather 9 players for the first iteration of the Antiquities Roadshow. Unfortunately, we had to cancel the event originally scheduled two weeks prior, January 26. Meteorological circumstances over our control kept a lot of attendees away from traveling on the planned day. As so, it was a wiser decision to postpone the show two weeks later even if I knew some people couldn’t make it then either.

Au Coin Royal

Nevertheless, it was a memorable event with a lot of deck archetypes represented. I debated upon releasing deck pictures or not. As many might remember, finding decklists was challenging back in the days. As so, I decided to deliberately withhold some of the data to pay homage to the bygone era, forgotten in the age of information. We definitely don’t need that new format to be solved as quickly as possible, and I encourage every content creator around the web to do the same. But still, I can reveal that we had two Stompy³, Stasis, Red Rukhs and a Reanimator among the competitors. The Goblin deck was crowned for using the most Scryings cards while the Merfolk deck claimed the trophy for playing the least artifact deck. Stasis was voted most original deck­⁴ and the Enduring Renewal build took the “Specialest Deck” reward for the last place. If interested in further details, be sure to look for winning decklists in the next month’s issues of Scrye, The Duelist or The Prodigal Sorcerer magazines!

Back in the days, we used the epithet “Rakalite” to name a week and useless deck

My preparation for the event revolved around 3 different builds tweaked in a couple of play sessions. I had great expectations for my Jokulhaups brew, but it didn’t perform as I hoped for. As so, I decided to put it on ice for this time as I didn’t have time to invest in tuning it. Will definitely give it another shot, maybe squeezing in Land Equilibrium for the next version. I also toyed with Enduring Renewal combo since the nostalgia level is quite high to me for that particular card⁵. It was putting good results in the first games but quickly lost velocity. Might it be that my opponents progressively adapted to the strategy combined with the obvious drawing inconsistencies, but the more I played the less I won. I reluctantly decided to put it on the bench too. However, I am eager to revisit it soon thanks to the Facebook pick showing the white enchantment alongside Living Plane. Throw in Zuran Orb and Fastbond and you got yourself a makeshift Crucible of Worlds. Such a shame I didn’t come up with the idea myself!

Got to be honest

I finally settled on my third deck choice and had a great run piloting 3 Deuces crossing the finish line first. I earned the card I crafted for the winner alongside the prize for the best non-blue deck performance. During the course, I had the pleasure to rediscover banding ability running both Timber Wolves and Benalish Hero which proved way better than I expected. Can’t recommend these critters enough, and if this footage don’t convince you, nothing will :

Defensive Berserk on my attacking boa and wolf team

On top of it, the relief Christian⁶ expressed at the sight of a freshly drawn monkey to get rid of my problematic Helm of Chatzuk was totally worth playing the underrated artifact. Glad that I finally found a home for the horrific headgear. As I expected a heavy creature meta for our initial Scryings event, I figured out that small banding creatures would be kind of an answer to larger ones. I roasted some Merfolks on round three and cooked some goblins on the last game in which I generated quite an impressive amount of card advantage. It’s not that remarkable, but it was very satisfying nevertheless resolving Tithe for two plains⁷, refreshing two dead cards on Sylvan Library in the process and finally fueled the extra lands to Stormbind.

Our host, Sage of Lat-Nam in the becoming?

I must admit that Scyings is a very well designed and balanced set as it shakes up traditional Old School and brings some new archetypes without overwhelming it with powerful spells as broken cards were wisely left aside. This is definitely a home run as most fan favorites were included. I’m still longing for Sengir Autocrat and Hecatomb though. Even so, I’m grateful for and I appreciate the time and efforts MG and friends invested into this project. This sandbox is an incredible opportunity for designing original decks without sacrificing raw power since everything has mostly been done in traditional Old School unless someone finally breaks the newly released Legends card, Infinite Authority.

Hold my be…. Nah this is just terribad…

I hope that Antiquities Roadshow was the inaugural event of a long tradition in the years to come, might it be using Scryings or not.

♦ ♦ ♦

¹ Could have said two, but I’m not entertaining cadaverous equine abuse here.

² Was going to describe it as an old TV show, but apparently still aired as of today!

³ One player diluted green’s raw power with a white splash for boring Swords to Plowshares and Disenchants spells.

⁴ Seems a poor choice at first glance but the deck displayed Yotian Soldiers and Zephir Falcons among the strike force lineup.

⁵ It holds a special spot in my top favorite decks of all time since I piloted a similar build using the 3 card combo, Enduring Renewal/Goblin Bombardment/Ornithopter, to the victory of a small team event back in the 90’s. My teammate played a permission deck to protect and give me time to execute the dance, which was a perfect match. We even elaborated a secret spoken code to ask each other questions without letting our opponents know. Like “Est-ce que tu peux chanter?” meaning “Can you Disenchant that thing?” which in retrospect wasn’t very clever code and easy to break.

⁶ My round one opponent, aka “Juzam’s Grin”.

⁷ Not actual Plains as the deck contained none, but a Plateau and a Savannah.