I feel like I start all my (rare) articles with some iteration of “has it really already been x months” or something along those lines. And thus also today. It has been some months, but I have simply not felt like writing anything. I think I have two or three half-written posts lying around somewhere, but it has just not become more than that, unfortunately.

But today I want to rectify this, and even with a tournament report from yet another insanely well-organized and really, really great tournament. And even a completely new one: The Gathering. 

Yep, maybe not the most original name for a tournament of this game, but who in the world cares? The original name was æ’ træf’! Basically “The Gathering” but in the local south Jutland dialect. I was lured at once, by what seemed, from the very first glance, as a tournament with the perfect mix of great people, the right amount of encouragement to not take it too seriously, but still a competitive vibe. 

The perfect blend in my book.

Even more perfect was the fact that two of my team members, Rasmus and Teis, were also going to The Gathering, and then – of course – a roadtrip was soon underway. Teis took coffee orders, I delivered the cake and the Espresso Underberg – Rasmus brought his car!

So at 8-o-clock in the morning on said Saturday the 26th of October, I was already acutely aware that this was going to be one banger of a day.

What to play?

Before this point in time, I had to find out what to play. I haven’t played a lot of Old School Magic in the last months – actually not that much the whole year now, so I did not exactly know what to assemble. I was trying a Blue Black White control deck with a Copy Artifact / Animate Dead package. It was a cool deck, but very controllish and maybe not exactly my style. And it is one of those decks that make me think way too much during an entire day of fighting. I found it was not the optimal choice for my first tournament since June.

Instead I ended up playing something I have had decent success with several times in the past. My Howling RUG Burn deck:

This deck is so much balls-to-the-walls that it feels like it is Christmas already!

You have almost no means of coming back, if something goes wrong. Either your burn and lightning onslaught is enough to catch the opponent off guard, or you succumb miserably to something strange like a turn two Onulet. True story. Read on!

But to be very clear; It is really not a complicated deck. You want to burn your opponent down to 0 as quickly as possible. With all means possible. And you even play Howling Mines and Storm Seekers. What a treat!

The deck is basically almost all the cards in the format that are able to burn your opponent directly for more damage than the mana they cost. Add some restricted cards and sprinkle a very small dose of lands.

I tried my hand at the deck at an earlier tournament to some success, and I like the reckless in-your-face playstyle.

Goals

As always, I formulated some goals for the day. I never want to join an Old School tournament with an ambition or goal to win as many matches as possible or going specifically for top8 or whatever. That puts way too much strain on my deck choice and my nerves. It never does anything good for my mood when I then go and lose matches. I am really not very competitive in this aspect – or maybe I am too competitive but lack the skill? Yeah that is probably more it…

But I do like to try and achieve something. So besides the evergreen goal of having as much fun as possible, for this specific tournament, my goals where as follows:

• Win at least three matches
• Play at least 25 lightnings (Bolt and Chain) throughout the day
• Draw at least 25 cards with my own Howling Mines
• Play Black Vise + Ankh of Mishra on my turn one, preferably in a game where I play first
• Play Storm Seeker in turn one, preferably in a game where I play first
• Play a Storm Seeker for seven or more damage
• Fork something cool of the opponent’s
• Win in turn four

Ambitious, yet somewhat achievable goals for a tournament and a deck of these calibers.

The setting

As mentioned, this was the very first iteration of “The Gathering”, and let me already shout into the online wilderness that I hope it will only be the first of many to come. I will surely do my best to attend any of these to come in the future.

It was just a very well organized event. With the novelty of even being an all-inclusive event, it was simply an enormous pleasure to be part of.

Besides the all-inclusive element (I wanted to mention it again, to let it sink in: There were fridges filled with beer and soda to use freely once the entrance fee was paid!), I just want to mention one thing to underline the professionalism of this specific gathering:

The day before the tournament, the organizers posted some logistics and good-to-remember things about how the day would progress. They even posted a timeline for when the six rounds would be run, when the lunch and dinner would be served etc. 

That in and of itself is always great for a tournament-attendee to know. But even more surprisingly – and to really underline how greatly this Gathering had been arranged, the timetable ended up being insanely precise. Round six was planned to end at five-o-clock. It ended 16.58. Really well-run, I have to say.

So once again: Thank you so much to the great organizers of the Gathering, it was a true blast to participate in the festivities!

Round 1: Thomas

Okay, just a quick note before we get into it. It was really great to be among the Danish Old Schoolers again. I don’t know why, but I have been somewhat low on Old School for most of 2024 it seems. But the tournaments, the high-fives, the stupid stories about misplays and shenanigans, but maybe mostly the real talks about how life is for these guys, that I may not quite consider close friends, but certainly consider great company – people I care about: This is what these tournaments and Gatherings are all about for me. So thank you for the great talks to my opponents and everyone else!

Okay, we have to get into it. In the first round I was up against Thomas who was one of the organizers.

I open the tournament like in a dream: Win the die roll, get right to playing land, Lotus, Sapphire, Twister. Thomas was not impressed, but neither did he entirely scoop off of it. 

In my turn two I play a Psionic blast. Turn three sees a Seeker for seven! (GOAL!) Then I play my Lotus again to Regrowth the Seeker and shoot him for five more – quite the vicious Seeker that was. I can then kill him with a couple of bolts. Quite the opening. 

Thomas was also on an aggressive deck, but I did not get to see much of it in game one. In game two, on the other hand…

Thomas leads with Mox, Lotus, Atog, Ankh! (My Signature card! But one that was played a lot in this tournament. I think there were three or four decks playing it in top8!).

I have LoA, Vise and try my luck with an Ancestral a turn or two later, but now he has his Mana Drain ready and I lose to the Atog. We found out that we were more or less playing the mirror, only he had Atogs and Serendibs main board and of course did not play neither Howling Mines nor Storm Seekers… Hard to grasp, I know…

Game three was a strange one. I lead with a Black Vise. So does Thomas. In turn two he lands a Serendib. Neither of us draws any lands in almost the entire game, and I end up racing the Efreet basically with the Vise. 

Very strange, indeed, but I got there in the end. 

1-0 

Played a total of six bolts

Drew a total of one card

Round 2: Frederik

I am up against Frederik, whom I don’t think I have played against before. Exactly as you would think, he was great company.

Unfortunately he had brought some very angry critters with him, and in two very short games his Apes and Sprites demolished me relentlessly. 

Before I knew what I was up against, I played a Mana Vault and an Ankh. That is always a bold move, but against a fast aggro deck, that is basically suicide. His turn one double Kird Ape underlined very harshly how bad a move I had made.

Anyway, it is always cool to meet one of the “original” Old School decks, even though it actually is one of the worse matchups for my pile of insanity. Ankh is often dead against them. So is Vise and Howling mine is often as good for them, as it is for me. And they have a fast clock, that I have trouble doing anything against.

1-1

Played a total of four bolts (10)

Drew a total of seven cards (eight)

Took a total of 0 pictures apparantly…

Round 3: Simon “I sleep to dubstep” Rokkjær

Yes! I am up against Simon.

Oh No! I am up against Simon.

So difficult to be in this world, but the thing about Simon is, that he is one of the greatest guys to spend time with in the Old School community. 

He is just also a great player who has mastered his deck, so it is very difficult to ever get a win against him. 

Thankfully, the latter doesn’t mean too much. And we had a blast of three games.

In game one I keep an insane(ly expensive) hand filled with power, but not that much gas.

I try it in the hopes that I will get some gas out of the Mine at some point. I don’t. Simon draws from the mine. Plays Time Walk. Draws again. Plays Disenchant… And then he proceeds to kill me rather uneventfully with his Su-Chi and his host of great, restricted cards.

Game two on the other hand was such an epic game, and both of us had a lot of fun doing strange things that you don’t often see. I mulligan, but keep an aggressive banger of a hand. I go turn one Vise and Chain Lightning. Turn two double Chain Lightning.

Simon misses some land drops and gets pressured by the Vise. So much so that he, at one point, plays a Braingeyser x=0 just to get rid of a card. But he really struggles to get out of the Vise, and at one point I decide to play my Ancestral Recall targeting Simon to kill him. In my end step he activates his City of Brass being on one life. Activates his Factory and Plows it. He survives his upkeep, but he ends up succumbing to the Black Vise from turn one.

In game three I keep a one-lander with a Black Vise, in the hopes that it will be able to pull as much weight as in game two. Unfortunately I don’t draw my second land until turn five – I do, however, draw all four Storm Seeker… And Simon draws lands and resources in this game. I end up almost getting back into it, but his Su-Chi is able to race my burn, and Simon wins the game with two remaining life points.

Such a great match!

1-2

Played a total of seven bolts (17)

Drew a total of zero cards (eight)

Round 4: Lise Glob

I think I have played against Lise once or twice before. But playing against her or not, she is always a pleasure to be around. 

Today Lise was playing a mono red midrange deck with main deck Blood Moon, Gauntlet of Might and a lot of other cool stuff.

She wins the die roll, but unfortunately has to mulligan twice. Luckily for her, she draws a Sol Ring and plays it in turn one. Turn two she plays Blood Moon. At this point I have played a Black Vise and I play a Howling Mine after the Moon. Blood Moon shouldn’t be the best card against me, as I have a lot of colorless cards and a lot of lightning. And with a Howling Mine in play it should be possible to maybe even draw some of it, but I don’t manage. I even miss a flip with my Chaos Orb on the Moon, which was game-deciding. Lise kills me with an enormous ball of Fire after having beaten me some with a couple of Onulet.

In game two my deck works a bit better. Turn one Vise into turn two Ankh makes it hard for Lise to get out of the gates. At one point I Fork my own Ancestral Recall in Lises end step. I draw absolutely nothing of relevance! In my draw step I find Timetwister, play it and draw two Bolts, Lotus, Seeker and Vise to end the game. But that do-nothing double Ancestral was quite the mental beating!

Game three is incredibly uneventful. Lise goes turn one Sol Ring. I play a Strip Mine and a Vise. In her turn two and three Lises slams Onulets. To tell you how this game ended, without telling you, let me just say this: At one point I have to Bolt an Onulet…

My deck really didn’t want to play Magic in this round. Maybe it was all the excitement from the games against Simon that had worn my deck out.

1-3

Played a total of seven bolts (24)

Drew a total of four cards (12)

Round 5: Jeppe

I have played against Jeppe at least once before. Even though I am afraid I had forgotten it. I am not very good at remembering names. I think (hope) Jeppe forgives me. Though I have to say he did not look to be in a forgiving mode in game one.

Jeppe played a cool blue black white deck with Hypnotic Specters, Sinkholes, Underworld Dreams and a host of other nice cards. In game one he plays three Sinkhole on me. And finishes me with a Serra Angel. I don’t really do anything in this game.

Game two I go turn one land, Chain Lightning, Lotus, Timetwister. I think that got Jeppe quite some. In turn two I play Ankh and Black Vise and then follow it up with a Howling Mine in turn three to lock the game up. 

In game three Jeppe plays an Ivory Tower in turn one – quite a potential problem for me. I kept a no-lander and then played two Black Vises in my turn one… In my turn two I play an Ancestral Recall into a lot of bolts. YAY!

2-3

Played a total of six bolts (30!)

Drew a total of two cards (14)

Round 6: Jimmi

This was a fast one.

In game one I play Ankh, Vise turn one, but Jimmi had already played a Mox and a Birds of Paradise, which meant his turn two and three consisted of summoning an Erhnam Djinn… That was over quickly.

Game two looked something like game one. I didn’t do much, but Jimmi was enough of a gentleman to let me see a bit more of his deck. He ended up playing Erhnams, and then, after I had landed a Howling Mine, he plays Walk, Regrowth and an Armageddon to finish it all off.

I don’t think I have ever played against Jimmi before, and even though he killed me very thoroughly and quickly (and apologized for doing so) it was a pleasure. After our quick match we had a really good talk about life in general, kids, moving from a big(er) city to a small one and all of that jazz. This is really a part of the Old School tournaments I enjoy more and more as I get more and more acquainted with a lot of the regulars in the Danish community.

2-4

Played a total of one bolt (31!)

Drew a total of two cards (16)

Rounding it up

Lots of fun was had! My deck did not perform, as well as it usually does, and I made some mistakes – as I usually do. But the deck is also very high variance and a hit-or-miss-pile if I ever saw one. Sometimes you just hit the wrong end of the pile and keep drawing cards that do no damage to your opponent. And sometimes you are just up against a string of opponents that does not care too much about Ankh of Mishra. 

But I managed to achieve several of my goals:

• I played more than 25 lightnings (Bolt and Chain) throughout the day
• I played Black Vise + Ankh of Mishra on my turn one (and lost horribly afterwards)
• I played a Storm Seeker for seven damage (and then Regrowthed it for five more!)

And most of all I had an insane blast of a Saturday in the Dano-German borderlands, even though unspeakable things were done to my balls, after I had put them up against the wall. Unspeakable. To draw you a quick picture: they were crushed.

Even so, I still want to thank both the great organizers of The Gathering, my teammates (who were polite enough to take the two spots just below me in the final standings) and not least my opponents. As always I am amazed that It is possible to gather such a great crew of awesome people. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

See, Rasmus even won the prize he was hoping for: A couple of boxes of fireworks – the price for being the worst placed player with 12 or more lightnings in the deck…

Now I am looking forward to what is usually the most insane (ly drunken) Danish Old School tournament each year; LIC 6.0 is going down come Saturday November 9th. That will be a blast. I think I may have the upper hand, as I will be the designated driver for myself, Peter and The Other Thomas, so I have to stay very sober the entire day. 

The LIC crowd is usually a tougher than tough crowd, but how lucky I am to be able to attend both tournaments in such a short time.

So until next time (which will probably be rather soon) stay safe and avoid the thunderstorms.