Magic In Madison

Last weekend my wife and I traveled to Madison for a conference.

We stayed for a night at my good friend PenDull's house.

I had talked with him about Magic many times but we had never played a game and he didn't know how to play and neither did his wife.

On Saturday night we decided to give it a try.  I busted out my 6 basic mono-colored Old School decks and we had a go.

Everyone was allowed to pick the deck they wanted to play.

The decks I brought were:
- Mono-Red Goblins
- Mono-Brown Artifacts
- Mono-Blue Merfolk
- Mono-Green "Go Green"
- Mono-White Soldiers
- Mono-Black Thrulls

His wife had first pick and she picked the Artifact deck.

He picked the Goblin deck.

My wife picked her favorite color with the Thrull Deck.

I picked last and went with the Soldier deck.

We busted out some beer and some munchies and had a very fun couple of hours playing a 4-player free-for-all game.

Good times.

I brought the decks but I also brought play mats, and counters and tokens and plenty of spin-down dice for life counters.

The next day we had some time before the conference so we walked down State street and stopped in a game store called the Power9.

They had lots of singles and packs from way back in Magic's history.

I picked up 2 packs of Fallen Empires and one pack of Chronicles.

I didn't pull anything crazy, but I was able to add some nice cards to the collection.

There are some nice cards in there.

When we left Power9 we noticed on the street there was a Black Lotus!

I have never seen one in the wild!

We had fun in Madison and hopefully I will get to play more Magic with them in the future.

Until then.

Magic at Gen Con

So a week or so ago I went to Gen Con in search of games and of course Old School Magic cards.

I was able to get me hands on a few cards I wanted including an Unlimited Icy Manipulator and 2 Unlimited Sinkholes.

We completed my wife's Necropotence deck as well.

I had wanted to play in one of the Old School tournaments but it appeared that no one signed up for them when I checked the Gen Con event list.  On Friday and then again on Saturday we went to the main hall where Magic was played and, sure enough, there was a whole long table full of Old School players.

While I didn't introduce myself to anyone because I didn't want to interrupt anyone's game and also because I am not really sure where to begin, I just stood and watched for a few minutes.

Next year I am pretty sure I will sign up for one of the tournaments.

On Friday night we found a quiet bar under the Union Station and played some Old School magic with some of the decks I brought.  It was a 3-way game as you can see below:

My colorless artifact deck won piloted by my friend Ian.  It was really no big surprise it is a pretty good deck and is difficult to beat unless you side board-in artifact hate.

My black Thrull deck and my mono-green deck could use some work but fun was still had by all.

As you may notice in the picture above I was able to acquire a new playmat from Mark Poole!  It is an Urza's Tower mat, which he graciously signed for me.  I also got him to sign a Revised Counterspell.

Mark was a very nice guy and our Magic talk quickly morphed into a Babylon 5 discussion when my wife found some paintings he was selling were Babylon 5 themed.  He is a big B5 fan just like us and he actually made a painting for Londo's room in Babylon 5 but it was ultimately not used in the show.  He was such a nice guy that we ended up buying a Centauri painting from him for a discounted price (you can see it watching us play Magic in the photo above).

 The three card from the Con I am most excited about.

I bought the Icy and the Lord of Atlantis but I pulled the Blood Moon in a pack of Chronicles.

The Lord is going in my new Merfolk deck and the Blood Moon in my Goblin deck.

The Gen Con Magic 25th anniversary playmat and the 

new Uraz's Tower Mark Poole signed playmat.

Next I want to show my Fungal Enchantress Deck which is a concept I stole but I really like the idea.  I feel like a white / green deck using Enchantress and enchantments along with making Saprolings is just such a great idea!  It finally is a deck that can win using Thallids.  I have always tried making Thallid decks since Fallen Empires came out and I was never very successful until now.

Fungal Enchantress

The next Deck is my Apes and Elves deck.  It is a red / green burn deck that uses Llanowar Elves, Elvish Archers, Kird Apes and Barbary Apes as the main creatures.  It has a lot of burn and even the infamous Channel / Fireball / Fork combo!  It is probably my fastest deck and it has beaten pretty much every other deck I have.

Apes and Elves 

This last deck is my attempt at a Mono Black deck.  It is still a work in progress but it is getting there.  I feel like I need more The Rack and some Sinkholes.  I am not really impressed with the Disrupting Scepters because they are so slow.  Greed I am also not super impressed with but I feel like I need some card drawing power.

Mono Black

Anyways I think that is it for now.  I want to continue to share my decks that I come up with on here.  My current two decks I have been working on are Mono Green Swedish-legal and Thrulls.

I just hit on some interesting combo ideas for the Thrull deck and I will be sharing those in the future along with my Mono Green Swedish deck.

Anyways, until next time.

A journey back to the 90s.......

A few months ago a friend of mine casually mentioned that some of his Magic cards had recently gone up in value.  These were Collector's Edition cards.  He mentioned that there was a new format that people were playing called 93/94 which was the reason for the increase in prices.

I hadn't played Magic in years but something about the format intrigued me.

I started searching online and finding websites and blogs (most of them are linked here on my blog).  I also started watching YouTube videos about 93/94 (also known as Old School Magic).

Playing with a limited set of cards, especially the sets that I originally played with in the 90s was too enticing to pass up.  I looked into the rules for the format and found that there were several different varieties.

The two main rules standards are as follows:

- 93/94, which originated in Sweden and includes cards from Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends and The Dark.  No reprints from newer sets are allowed.

- Eternal Central, which is an American format that includes not only the cards from the above format but also allows cards from Fallen Empires and reprints so long as the borders and the art are the original and also no foils.  The reprint policy allows Revised, 4th, 5th and Chronicles cards to be played with.

Both of the above formats have their own Banned and Restricted lists.

There is also a 95 Old School format that I haven't yet decided to get into but I am sure at some point I will.

I have decided to use the Eternal Central rules to build decks for several reasons.  One reason is that I started playing in the Fall of 1994.  The first cards I owned were Revised cards.  I have a great nostalgia for Revised.  I also remember that The Dark had just been released and that it was difficult to get a hold of.  Fallen Empires was the first expansion I bought and I have many fond memories of playing with Necrites and Thallids.

The other reason I chose Eternal Central was the fact that it was the more accessible format.  It was cheaper to get into it.  I would also be able to buy a lot of cards and build up a large pool to build decks from because of how inexpensive it would be compared to 93/94.

Since starting down the Old School road almost 2 months ago I have acquired a number of cards.  I have been in the process of organizing them and I have built several decks and refined them as well.

In the coming posts I will share some of the cards I have acquired and also go over the decks I have assembled.

I have always played MTG on a kitchen or dining room table among friends.  I've never been much for tournaments and I like 4+ player games the best.  I will explore not only 1v1 Magic but also multiplayer Magic.

I hope that this blog will serve as both a journal of my collecting but also as an inspiration to others who choose to take the Old School path.

Until then....