Fellow Oldschoolers

I was really excited to join the current Winter Derby. Thanks to Dave Firth Bard, this marvelous event takes place every year. With more than 140 participants, this one was the second biggest old school tournament in the history of Old School – nice achievment. With a lot of playtesting and discussing, i had to decide between my lovely Troll Disco and the GUW aggro-midrange pile. I took advise from my wife (she takes the decicions upon card art and nice colors 😉 ). She was keen, that a pile with “those nice pixies” and “this beautiful landscape (savannah)” will be it. So this pile of cards went into the battle:

With the current build, the strategy is obviously to bring a hitter on the battlefield and distract the opponent with Icy and/or Armageddon. Most of the time, this is sufficient to win 🙂 For now i would definitively change the Pixies with Prodigal Sorcerers (spicy!) and would include 4 Birds of Paradise instead of the Split with Llanowar. Also i would cut the Pendelhaven and include one Basic Forest to stabilize the Mana base.

The first match i had to play was against Paul Fiero. Paul did play an absolute stunning but nightmarish deck for my pile – Living Plane. The first game was a gunner-feast for his Tim’s and even a Pirate Ship made an appearance 🙂 I even managed to Disenchant a Living Plane just to see another one coming. I sideboarded my Psi Blasts and Tranquility. My starting hand contained one of the Blast and i managed to draw antother one. Those two i needed to shoot at two Tim’s. Ice Storms have been thrown and a Wheel of Fortune did not gave Paul any new Land… One of my Serra Angels got Control Magic’ed but a well timed Disenchant closed the Deal. The Ehrnam Dijnn was tapped down due to a meekstone and so the Angel was needed. The third game started very fast on my side – Land, Mox, Birds, Llanowar, Serendib. Paul’s Chaos Orb did hit my Serendib. I managed to bring my own Chaos orb on the table and keep this open for backup. Later in the game a Serra Angel was on my side. Paul resolved a Pyrotechnics onto Elf/Elf/Bird/me instead of killing the Angel. I sat down on two lands but with an Angel and a Chaos Orb in play which closed the game 2-1 for me. Fun fact was that i did not see one single Armageddon in 3 games 🙂

The second match was against mono red Goblins. An early army of Goblins was attacking and a Serendib Efreet on my side gave me additional pain. Fortunately, i did disenchant the evil Gauntlet of Might and blocked an attacking Ball Lightning with my Serendib to prevent even more damage. I could stabilize and brought more blockers including a Serra Angel on the table which gave me the win. I sideboarded two Circle of Protection: Red and two Psi Blast plus 3 blue blast. As i dropped the Circle of Protection very early and the opponent did not play Chaos Orb or other Disenchant-effects, the game was over as soon it hitted the table. Unfortunate for Phil Shary and his Goblin-Horde.

In the third match i faced Norton Fantenberg and his black/red Underworld Dreams combo. My starting hand allowed me to bring a first turn Serendib on the table. Unfortunately, Norton had only Strip Mine in play and did not manage to draw other lands than a Mishra’s Factory which i responded with Argothian Pixies. This game was over very fast. The second game was driven by Mishra-on-Mishra action on both sides. Also Norton resolved a City in a bottle and Mind Twisted my Hand. With 2 Disenchants already in my Graveyard (which targeted Underworld Dreams) it was really hard to find a Serra Angel as i did draw my Djinns and Efreets but was unable to play them. Finally i got lucky as a resolved Serra closed the deal. Fun fact was that until the last turn, Norton could win with a Fireball-draw, which not happened…

The final game within Batch one was against Matthew Simon and his Deck. In the first game i did not see much of his Deck despite a Kismet and a howling mine, i assumed it will be kind of a Stasis-List. An active Icy Manipulator did bring me in pole position with my flying army and we started the second game. Fortunately i was able to tap down each upkeep a plains, otherwise there would be 4 Serra Angels battling on his side which sandbagged in his hand… Second game was really fun and enjoying – we casted 3 Timetwister in a row, filled our hands, played our spells, destroyed the threads of each other and filled our hands 🙂 a well timed Armageddon paired with an active Serendib Efreet and Chaos Orb gave me the win as Matthew could not stabilize out of this. Also a Disenchant on his Orb saved my Efreet from the Graveyard. With this match i started with 4-0 into the second Batch.

The first game of batch II was against Ben Twitchen from the “brothers of fire”. We meet before in London and Genova and it was nice to face him for this game. Ben also went 7-1 and his Parfait Deck brought him this record. The first game started and i kept a not very strong hand but with possibility to bring down an Ehrnam on turn 3. Ben managed to Sword the Djinn away and to bring down an early Relic Barrier/Howling Mine which gave him a lot of card advantage. Without drawing a single Disenchant, Ben closed the deal with a resolved Titania’s song and i got killed by a walking 6/6 Mirror 🙂 I added 3 Energy Flux, 2 Divine Offerings for 2 Swords, 1 Leydruid 1 Serendib Efreet and one Silvan Library. Second game i mulliganed to 6 cards and kept a cool but risky hand: Strip Mine, Sol Ring, Ehrnam, Birds, Energy Flux, Serendib. No colored Mana source but incredible solutions and i was on the draw. Fortuna was not with me and i did draw no source until turn 4. As i managed to bring down the Energy Flux without responding from Ben, the game turned out very interesting and it was a long run. Ben’s Cyclopean Tombs turned my lands step-by-step into swamps and he did not find a solution for the Flux. I disenchanted Titania’s Song and the only win con on his side was Karma. I could not handle it and finally after 35 Minutes he won also the second game 🙂 well played my friend 🙂

Next one was interesting – i literally played against “my own Deck”. Aaron Palaian and myself are playing a lot online and also discuss about Deck Tech and other more or less interesting facts. Aaron built a Troll Disco and together we teched the deck to his current version. Therefore i knew exactly what i was playing against (to be fair: he also knew my deck). First game i attacked very fast with second and third turn Pixies and Llanowar. Aaron resolved a maindeck Earthquake (this was not one of my proposals haha) and caught me by surprise. With an empty board i had to face a resolved Shivan Dragon which burned me at the stake. Second game was close – an early Serendib Efreet hitted the table. Aaron was not able to find appropriate colored mana sources to respond and he sat down with swamps and a strip mine. Still the game did go on as there was also a Maze of Ith on his side and we fought us down to 3 (him) resp. 4 (me) lives. My second Serendib and no Bolt response brought me the victory. The third game was also very close as we played our spells, the Disk destroyed the board, played new threads, sworded/bolted/fireballed it away and went to Topdeck-Mode. Finally i could tap Down 7 Mana (with Moxen and Sol Ring) and did resolve a Balance with 3 Lands into play. After the table was cleaned with no creatures left, my last card in hand was Serra Angel. His last card was Shivan Dragon… With an active Sol Ring in Play, he needed one Land draw to resolve the Shivan and open up the game again. He did not draw the land but i did draw my Chaos Orb which targeted the Sol Ring. My Serra then attacked for the win as Aaron could not get the Shivan on the table or draw an appropriate answer. Phew… Nice one…

Elias Gröndahl from Siab was my next opponent. We from Legion Urborg and Stockholm in a bottle try to find the “stronger tribe” and we take every battle as friendly contest. Elias and myself are organizing the Urborg Feast at N00bcon and therefore it was also a nice chat round within the match. In the first game i could manage to put the famous first turn library on the battlefield. This card advantage of 7 cards broght me the victory as my threads (Serendibs, Serra’s, Ehrnams) kept entering the battlefield every time Elias got rid of them. One can truly say that this Library gave me the win. But revenge came immediately in second game. I had an incredible starting hand with Birds, Serendib, Mox Sapphire, Ancestral, Sol Ring, Ehrnam, Tropical. Elias had to go down to 6 Cards but managed to play down his hand (Land, Lotus, Mox, Fellwar and Wheel of Fortune)… Which buried my dreams of a quick creature beatdown. I drew four Lands in the new hand and i could not stabilize and the game did go to Elias. It was nice to get beaten by two Shvan Dragons 🙂 The third game was also tight. I boarded in Energy Flux as i saw a lot of artifacts in game 1 and 2. Actually, it was a good choice as Elias drew (unfortunately) more artifacts than lands. Therefore his mana base was not as stable as expected. Paired with my Armageddons, he was not fast enough to bring business to the table. The game was still interesting and lasted for 45 minutes and Elias resolved two Chaos Orb’s (Regrowth) but targetted my lands (tropical and Tundra). Retrospectively the Energy Flux should have been the target as he drew as written to much artifact mana instead of lands. Finally two Serra Angels faced one Shivan Dragon, which was Orbed away and i did attack for the win.

Now i was 6-1 and played Rajah James with his “Chains of Mephistopheles/Library of Leng/Lock you out”-deck 😉 The first game was all about mana – i started with zero Lands but two moxen, Birds, Serendib Efreet, Erhnam, Sol Ring and Silvan Library. Luckily for me, he played Land Tax in turn one buth without any additional Land Drop but one, he never got to use the Tax. I was sitting on 5 Mana which was all i needed to play all my spells successfully. The Ehrnam and Serendib did fight their way through his defense and we moved on to game 2. I sideboarded the Tranquilities, 1 Energy Flux and 2 Divine Offerings and boarded out the Silvan Libraries, 2 Swords and one Ehrnam because i was afraid of City in a Bottle. The game started and i got locked out completely very fast – i could not handle “the Abyss” and had no further creature on the table. My Factories have been gunned down and Rajah managed to have 2 Ivory Tower, 1 Silvan Library and 2 Library of Leng in play 🙂 He drew always 3 cards, paid 8 live, got 8-12 live back and filled his hand. After some time i decided that it’s better to move into game 3, as there was literally no real possibility for me to win. Another sideboard change (add of 2 Psi Blast for 1 Sword and 1 Serendib) and we started game 3. I did land a turn 2 Library of Alexandria and brought some threads on the table. Rajah managed to bring a lot of mana artifact resources on the table and Armageddon’ed away the lands including the Library. Interestingly, i wanted to do the same move to cut him off one color – my Armageddon was ready to be played but then he did it for me 🙂 with birds and artifact mana sitting in my hand, i brought down 4 mana which is enough for most of my Deck to run smoothly. Rajah did some greedy Silvan Library Draws and went down to 8 Life. I Psi Blasted him to 4 and casted Ehrnam. He brought down an Ali from Cairo which i managed to blast away to open the floor for the final 4 damage with my Ehrnam Djinn. Wonderful games and cool interactions 🙂

It was a great experience to play online against those wonderful decks and now i am looking forward into the Top 16 to play even more nice games. The first Deck i have to beat is a Troll Disco – i did it once, i can do it again 🙂

Have fun, enjoy Oldschool and good luck for 2019 🙂

Regards

Christian aka Lord M of Legion Urborg