Geysermeister 2024

Could it really be? The cold, foggy, wet and ever-lasting month is already back?! It was hard to believe some five or six weeks ago, when January started, but here we are: everyone is coughing; the sky looks like a panel of dried up grey clay; everything tastes like water porridge. In short it quacks like a January, it looks like a January and it tastes like a January. 

Chances are…

As I have mentioned several times in the past, I am no fan of the first month of the year. It is just always 87% depression, around 11% paying of bills, circa 2% insanity at work and at best 0.1% spending a good time with friends and family. It is not my kind of coffee, I can tell you!

I know it has a lot to do with the country I live in (Denmark). It is just wet and foggy. But I can’t believe that it is only in the northern part of central Europe that January is depressing! 

Anyway. What to do about it? 

The Meistering continues

Last year we instigated a tradition in team Metageyser: the Geysermeister! A tournament for our team where we celebrate ourselves and our accomplishments in the magical sphere in the past year. It was a tremendous success. Even though it was in January.

Of course, this year we had to do it again – otherwise it would not be much of a tradition. So in the first four weeks of January, at least I had quite an event to look forward to. And I was not disappointed.

On January 18. The Wednesday Wizards convened at the Tappers Lodge (Peters house) to fight it out to become the Geysermeister 2024. But also – and maybe even more importantly – to be nominated in and maybe even win some of all the other great categories.

This year, we had prizes for the best/wildest/coolest play throughout the year, we had a prize for biggest baddie (biggest creature), we had one for the most insane mat-style throughout 2024 and we certainly had the opportunity to instill prizes during the day and evening. Rules were simply: instill a prize, present a “trophy,” nominate your choice of contender for said prize. Let fate do the rest. 

Community prizes are the best.

There was, of course, also the main tournament – the quest to vanquish all foes and become the soon-to-be legendary Geysermeister 2024. 

Last year Casper won. This year, unfortunately, he was not participating in the madness. Three new friends were, though, Per and Martin who had moved to Svendborg just a couple of months ago and Mikkel who had only recently discovered the sweet, sweet longing for those old school pieces of cardboard.

All in all, we were nine!

Into the fray

Okay, so around two-o-clock we were on. Four rounds and a top8 was the plan (we were there – in some way at least – to play Magic). There were toasts, one could toast when hungry. There was community-Shandalar on the big screen, one could Shandale when done with the real-life magicking. There was amounts of beer and not least Teis’ homemade Kahlua White Russians for free use all day. 

In other words: it was on.

Peter had promised me to instill a prize for best placed player with Instill Energy in the maindeck, so of course I brewed something wanting to play Ley Druid, Birds of Paradise, Sindbad, Colossus of Sardia and other great stuff with Instill Energy. Mostly – as always – it was a Triskelion-Animate Dead deck. Never leave home without them.

I had not anticipated to win a lot with that pile, so it was much to my surprise that I won against Teis on his artifact prison deck in the first round, and in round two I bested Pers mono green ld deck. Triskelion is win. Animate Dead is just so… Animating Dead Triskelions.

And then it was time to nominate wizards for the different prizes. As per tradition, this is the part of Geysermeister that takes the longest (quite to the surprise of our new friends…), it is what we are primarily there for and it is a lot of fun.

First off was the prize for the best play of the year. We had several nominees, but Peter ended with the stylish trophy (great for presenting deep fried onion rings!) for the wild play of changing decks mid-tournament when he was 0-3, quite drunk and had had it with the deck he had been playing thus far. Well played, Peter, well played.

For the most insane mat-style of the year, Lando (who is a great altar-artist) was nominated because he always plays on a strange, not-very-usable leather playmat, Per was nominated for playing on a basic black Ultimate Guard playmat, Rasmus was nominated for his cool Juzam Djinn mat and I was nominated for my swagger playmats containing art from Lando.

After a chaotic decision making process, Lando emerged victorious and scored a new playmat for future shenanigans. The most horrible mat I have ever seen. He did, however, mention that he had actually just bought a new, cool mat. I guess he has two then…

There were several other prizes handed out, with a lot of chaotic voting and questionable voting regimes involved. I am not sure who won what, except I won a prize Lando instilled for the most annoying, heart-breaking and complicated deck to play against: my Triskelion Tribal deck. Lando had altered an Unlimited Terror into this: 

I am so happy about adding this card to my collection! Mise7altars on Facebook if you want to get your hands on some of this bomb stuff!

I never again heard of the Instill Energy prize. Soooo… I guess Peter owes something.

Anyway. After some of all of this chaos, we went back into it, to find out who was to be the Meister of the year.

My next two rounds was against Martin “EndBoss” with a blue-white flier deck that hurriedly handed me my ass folded into a Moat.

In the last round I was up against Rasmus on something Blue-Red-Maybe black. I have to admit that at this point I started having some trouble figuring out how to keep my balance while playing Magic AND remembering to breathe. 

The short story is that Rasmus annihilated me in some way. 

After this, we had planned for a Top4, but the Companion app simply deleted the tournament, and none of us was in any way capable of trying to recreate it. We did recreate standings though. And called it there. The white Russians was really beginning to kick in.

Martin was triumphant with a 4-0 record. Rasmus was not far behind being 3-1 (only losing to Martin).

What a tournament it had been. I am not sure Martin has yet lost a game against any of us, playing his own decks (he once tried one of Peter’s creations, which was not successful…). So of course he is the right and deserved winner of the GeyserMeister 2024! Congrats!

After this, normal late-night magic and greatness ensued (complete with a small bird not in its cage – a bit of a stress for some).

As per tradition we opened a couple of bottles of bubbles at midnight. Exactly what everyone needed. 

What a day and night it had been! I think we even managed to build a sick White-Green midrange deck in Shandalar. Let me just say this: Every tournament should have a community Shandalar!

This certainly helped move January along very nicely, and now we are almost able to see the end of this 87 day month!

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