See? I told you the post yesterday was not the traditional end-of-the-year greeting. Nope. But this certainly is.
Yet another circumvention of the Sun. Quite a feat. 2023 has not been bad around these parts – at least not Magic-wise. It has also been a year that I have actually noticed! Both 2021 and 2022 fared by with such speed, that I had real trouble remembering which month or even year I was in. And then I was on to the next. 2023 has felt a lot longer. I am not sure whether it is due to less obligations and events or more that the year seems longer. I would guess it is less. But it hasn’t really felt like I have had an empty calendar. Maybe the post-Corona FOMO has just withered off.
I don’t know. Point is that I think January is very far back. I looked through the posts I have written throughout the year, and I must admit I almost don’t believe that I wrote my post on the Magic Status Game back in March. I would have guessed it was around June 2022.
Okay, we will get back to what I have written on these parts in a minute. But let me just start this post by saying I have enjoyed the pace of 2023, and as always I have been thrilled by the feedback and constructive comments I have had on my work here on the blog.
Thanks a lot!
Additions and nerderies
As every year, 2023 saw a decent amount of additions to the piles of nerderies littered around my house.
We have had four maildays. Red Spice through Just Sweet cards. It has been another year of a shopping list – a plan for acquisitions and I have been great in following said plan.
I sailed out into 2023 with the hopes of getting to add a single Unlimited Badlands, four ATQ Tetravus, two Diamond Valley and a Mirror Universe – alongside some smaller additions.
I got there:
But I also strayed a bit and found some extra funding to buy even more sweet, sweet stuff. It has helped somewhat that the prices seems to have seen a hit several places. That is really nice for a guy like me, who is not able to cash out big every month.
It was also a year of getting a lot of newer stuff. Both a Premodern Cube…
And some staples for the Canadian Highlander shenanigans I am always tinkering with.
Finally, there was this:
I know it is not exactly Magic cards, but it still really was a great experience to build such an epic LEGO set. Please, please do so if you have the opportunity. An insane build it was!
All in all the haul of 2023 is very much approved.
For 2024 the plan is as follows:
Three Unlimited Mana Vault
Four Beta Ankh of Mishra
Four Beta Animate Dead
And then let’s see what else there is money for. If anything at all. High on the list are Beta Llanowar Elves, Land Tax and Unlimited Savannahs. Oh, right, also the remaining cards for the Premodern cube and then maybe something to start off a Vintage draft cube. But that will take a huge toll. So it seems that 2024 will be another year where there are enough to spend the income on. Luckily.
Fighting for glory
2023 has been my most active year on the tournament scene. I know it may not be a lot for some of you, but I have managed to attend four larger tournaments – the DOS8 in March, At the Mountains of Madness IV in June, Tron Wars 2.0 in September and finally LIC5.0 in November.
I managed to play some really fun and enjoyable decks. Mostly designed by myself, but with a lot of inspiration from you guys. It has revolved a lot around robots and red creatures, but that is nothing to be ashamed of. But I may try to shake things a bit more up next year. We will see.
My combined record for the four tournaments is 13-15. It would have been great, had it been 14-14, ha’? Okay, the real record is this:
I have had such a blast at all four tournaments. I am still madly in awe of all the insanely talented tournament organizers we are lucky enough to harbor here in small Denmark. And the community? THE COMMUNITY!
You guys are still all the best. If kudos is there, it is most certainly yours to own. Thank you for some really, really great days out there. Thank you for being great opponents; thank you for being over-the-top company.
I am looking forward to 2024, where I hope to attend around 3-5 major tournaments again.
Besides these major tournaments, I was also lucky enough to encounter the Ballrubbers crew not once, not twice, but thrice throughout the year. We had a winter showdown, and then met again gloves off in October. And then, finally we faced each other in a friendly Christmas Truce cube draft a couple of days ago. More great times.
And then of course, last but not least. The Wednesday Wizards! My great, insane team members in Team Metageyser. We may not have met as often as I could have used or dreamt of, but we managed to get together quite some school nights. I promise that I will try to finally get my basement ready for top-nerderies at some point in 2024…
Blogging for fame
And then to the activities on these parts.
As always I have been around some different issues. Apart from the tournament reports, the greater posts has been about the Magic Status Game as linked above; about playing entirely without restricted cards, as written here and here.
I have designed a couple of (very) spicy Lich lists – one with Kobolds, one trying to be a legendary Ice Age card.
And then I have written about a lot of other things on and about the format, and the success of the format – about Invite-only tournaments. And some smaller articles on specific cards.
I started the year out writing on what I hoped would be a small book at this point. I didn’t get much further than the introduction, but it is still a project I want to do at some point. I will get into writing more on that.
But here, I think at least the spring will be mostly about collecting – I also wanted to write something about that aspect of the format – and the game – this year, but simply never got around to finishing any of the articles starts I have lying around on the subject. Other than that, I don’t have many specific plans, but I guess something will show up.
That was it from my part for today and for 2023. Thank you once again, dear reader, for following and reading my blog. It truly makes me very happy whenever I meet any of you out there, and you mention something you have read here, whether you agree or not, I am honored that you spend your time here. So again: Thank you very much for an eventful, but long 2023!
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