I got contacted by David asking me whether I’d like to write a report of my tournament experience. Well, why not. If I can contribute a bit to this great community and format, I’m happy to oblige. That being said, bear in mind that I’m not an experienced writer. So, here we go.

I found this oldschool95 format a few months ago and it looked really interesting to me. So I signed up for the OS95 tournaments and really had a blast.

My cardpool is mostly concentrated around red and green cards, so, these are the colors I decided playing. I already own a red/green Erhnam Djinn 9394 deck. So I used this as a starting point for the OS95 format. This format adds a lot of interesting cards like, Tinder Wall, Orcish Lumberjack, Autumn Willow, Eron the Relentless, Orcish Librarian, etc. Anyway, David already wrote an interesting article about this, on his blog.

I like to play creatures. The bigger, the better, and out of experience from my first tournament, I knew that Tinder Wall and Orcish Lumberjack are some serious powerhouses when it comes down to ramping up your mana. Because, if you play big creatures, you need lots of mana, fast! I decided to play with 2 copies of Tinder wall, 4 copies of Llanowar Elves and 1 copy of Mana Vault for the ramp. The reason I didn’t add any more walls is, because of the synergy between Llanowar elves and Pendelhaven. But, next time, I think I will use a playset of Tinder Wall and add 1 or 2 copies of Orcish Lumberjack. (Although I don’t like sacrificing my lands) Another thing I try to do with my creature decks, is finding balance. I want to have cards in my deck that can remove serious threats or other annoying stuff like The Abyss, Moat or other big creatures. One of my favorite cards in finding this balance is Scavenger Folk. They can remove artifacts, which is a big deal in this format, and you can swing with them. I think that is just great. I also thought about adding a copy of Autumn Willow or Eron the Relentless, but in the end I decided to stick with the good old Erhnam, a Shivan or 2 and 1 copy of Orgg.

On to the tournament. In the first round, I had to play against David desjardin, Shawn Pake & Fede Garbarino. Fede played a white,red & green aggro deck. In the first game, he didn’t draw many threats. Meanwhile, I could cast several creatures and attack him. He managed to remove some of my creatures, but I was always able to cast more creatures. Finally, a Shivan Dragon took him down. The second game went on a bit like the first. I slowly took away lifepoints with my Kird Ape until it was removed. Then, I was in trouble, Fede played an Erhnam Djinn. Next, I drew an Orgg and my following turn, I drew a Desert Twister. I removed the djinn, and Orgg did the rest. I think I was a bit lucky here. The Desert Twister came just on the right time.

Shawn Pake played a mono black deck, including the infamous Necropotence. When looking back upon Shawn’s decklist, I don’t know how I won this match. After sideboard, I added 3 copies of Whirling Dervish. I always side them in against mono black decks, and they tend to rock in these matches. In our final game, I had 2 copies on the board, which was to much to cope with for Shawn.

My last match of the group was against David. He played a multicolored deck with lots of creature hate, like The Abyss, and lots of removal like counterspells and the famous plow. The first game, an early abyss really slowed me down. David took the first one home by stabilizing the game in his favor and beating me up with mishra. The second game, I boarded in 3 copies of Blood Moon. It’s another card I love to play. I was able to play an early Blood Moon, but David followed it up with another abyss. I had to recover from that mental hit. 😉 Anyway I could play around abyss with slamming down 2 elves and a copy of Orgg. The Orgg was too much for my opponent. Game 3 it is! This game took another 45 minutes! I was able to get david to 2 lives, but 2 copies of Ivory Tower and another abyss were enough for him to stabilize and take the match. That game was really close, and fun overall.

In the second round, I played against Moa Bla Bla and Olga Dushina.

Moa played black and blue and tried to kill me with Underworld dreams and Timetwister or Wheel of Fortune. He took away the first game. I decided to board in my 3 copies of Blood Moon again. I managed to cast it in the 2nd and 3rd game. Both times, they won me the game because, from that moment, Moa’s deck was completely shut down. Although I had to keep my guard up because he was preparing a huge fireball, but I finished him before he could cast a lethal one.

My final game was against Olga. Playing against Olga, was like playing poker. She played a black/red/green aggro deck with lots of giant growths and berserks. To make matters a bit more complicated, she also played Avoid Fate. The first game, I was able to remove some threats of her, to make way for my creatures to finish her off.

In the second game, she could pump one of her creatures with 1 Giant Growth and 2 berserks. I don’t know which creature it was, but it was enough to trample me. In the 3rd game, we had an epic battle going on between a Birds of Paradise and a Shivan Dragon. The bird sacrificed itself and was able to take down the Shivan with it! Important detail on this battle: The dragon was already pumped with a Giant Growth. This battle was so intense, we almost forgot I also had a Llanowar Elves attacking. Anyway after this battle, she wasn’t able to find any other threats and I won the game.

So, 4-1 in the tournament seemed enough to take away the crown. The most important though, is that I enjoyed playing against all my opponents. I had lots of fun in this tournament.

In one of my next tournaments, I’d like to brew something with Jokulhaups, Tinder Wall, Orcish Lumberjack and Lhurgoyf. I smell some great synergy here, but I’ll have to think about how to make it work. Anyway, that’s also part of the fun of any old school format: deck building. The old school formats made me appreciate the deck building again. I think it’s due to the fact that the card pool is not that overwhelming as in modern or legacy.

Well that’s it for me. Hopefully, see you soon in one of the next events or casual games.

Let’s keep up the magic!