War. Climate breakdown. Looming recession. Crazy inflation. And a general insane work calender.
These months, I find it very hard to find the inspiration, time and excess energy to write anything worth just a little on these pages. It has even come to a point, where I have worked and lived through several days and even an entire week, without so much as thinking on Magic. That is a very rare thing for me, and it worries me a bit, because as I have previously told you guys, Magic is one of my biggest stress reliefs.
So what to do. Well, the cure seems easy enough, but it had to be prioritized. So the night before a Danish National Holiday, it had the good fortune to spend some hours playing some old cards with the Wednesday Wizards of Southern Funen. Yes! That kind of evening. Kids to bed, off biking through the spring night. Play some cards. Drink some alcohol-infused beverages of differing quality. Talk. Yell. Discuss card interactions.
A cure for all illness.
But how did it go down?…
… You may ask. Or probably not, but you should know me well enough by now (or take this as a warning), that I will of course tell you all about it.
A couple of days prior to this glorious gathering, I was lucky enough to secure a seat at the upcoming tournament “At the Mountains of Madness IV”. I think there is about 30 seats, and they were all bought out in about 2 hours I believe. But it is also a legendary tournament series. A series I have, unfortunately only participated in once before, but what a day that was!
As the cut-through pro I am, of course I need to start getting my act together and fine-tune some crazy-good, uber-powered piece of meta-killing machine. So naturally, I put together an Enchantress deck. Featuring both Blue and Green cards. And a host of Artifacts. I will not give you the entire list here – it is up for revision the coming month anyway, but behold a board-state against Peter, on the night in question:

But I am getting ahead of myself.
From the beginning – a new master!
I met Thomas at his workshop where we often meet. I was the first one there (literally, I was there before Thomas arrived – on an intense drive to play some Magic again, and a bit of back wind I basically flew through the city on my bike).
After a bit of talk about who should tell whom what about the “true nature of Old School” and some discussion about the ever-going insanity of prices, we looked at Thomas’ ErhnamGeddon Deck, and tried to improve it a bit. I am not sure I was to much help.
After that, I opened a beer. Not any beer. A Rammstein Stout. This was a very large, 10.0% stout that had been on the Rammstein Rum barrels. Even for a stout, I thought it was very bitter. And it had a bit of a smoky after-taste. Not smoky like whiskey, rather like licking an ashtray. I wouldn’t recommend the beverage per se. But it certainly got the job done…
Anyway, I am trying to postpone the inevitable. I played some good games against Thomas’ Mono Blue Merfolk deck (you know the great kind with lots of Lords of Atlantis and lots of Clones and lots of counters – very good stuff!). I played my aforementioned enchantress build.
After three games Thomas stood as the champion. He had bested me. Now, this may not seem as much to talk about, and I didn’t think much about until Thomas mentions “I have never beat you before…” It is not because we have played hundreds of games – I have only had the pleasure of knowing Thomas for a year and a half or something, but it was a big deal for him. And he even made the final blow to me, by playing a Control Magic on my signature card, to remove my blocker! What a game. What a guy – I see absolutely no shame in losing to him. Well played.
More games, and some discussion

Well, after that beating, Peter and Teis arrived – Peter just in time to witness the historic events.
I played against Peter. It was – as always – a treat. He had constructed an Enchantress deck (it is spreading – coming to a kitchen table near you soon!). Always fun to see how people construct decks around the beautiful lady.
Anyway I can’t really remember how the games went. In the first picture you get a notion of at least one of the games. I think it was in another game this happened:

The important thing, of course, was I had a lot of fun.
In the very last play of the evening I had tabled an Icy Manipulator which was copied, a Candelabra, also copied and two Psychic Venoms on his land. As you may imagine, I had A LOT of available mana. Peter had 8 life going into his upkeep. I try to kill him with Icy on his poisonous land, untap it, do it again. Peter tries to Disenchant my untapped Icy when I try to untap his land with my first Candelabra, I then respond to his Disenchant with my second Candelabra on his land, and then respond to his Disenchant again with the Icy he was trying to kill.
I realize it is not a very easy situation to write just somewhat short, but it also led to a larger discussion about the stack and what to do when and how. An interesting discussion, and an important one in this particular playgroup because several of the guys has very limited tournament experience, and especially a card like Icy can really wreck you, if you are unsure as to when to interact with it.

And that was that. There were no more Rammstein Stout left (luckily both Teis and Peter had helped me empty it). I was both tired, drunk and very happy about having played some actual real life Magic again. It may not have been actual testing of a tournament deck, but who am I kidding, I never do that in the right way…
Peter was sad the evening had ended almost before it started, so he didn’t want us to go…
