Northern Paladin Tuesday Night Gauntlet and a Troll Disco Deck

The Northern Paladins group based in Minneapolis has started a weekly online tournament called the Tuesday Night Gauntlet.

This past Tuesday was the second week.  I wasn't able to play the first week this week but I busted out an old deck and did some mods and was able to get in on the three round action.

I played my current version of Troll Disco.  It doesn't actually have that many trolls in it but initially it was all Uthdens and Sedges.

I have other creatures that play around with the idea of surviving or not surviving a Disk or an Earthquake.  Walking Dead, Drudge Skeletons, Sedge Trolls and Rukh Eggs all like to die or not.  If they don't die then the Disks and Earthquakes work for me, if they do die then I get Rukhs and big Khabal Ghouls!

The eight Lightnings are just brutal and can win games on their own.

The first round I played against a Red and White deck and I had the perfect sideboard card: Mountain Yeti!  Protection from White and Mountain walk gives it more survivability and makes it unblockable against red and white decks.  Unfortunately I never drew one and also it would have still been susceptible to Lightning Bolts.

I lost the first match 0-2.

The second match was against a Tron build, piloted by Angelo and I lost the first game but came back in the second to win.  We went to game three and I didn't quite have enough burn to win.  I lost the match 1-2.

The third match was against a Blue and Red deck, the writer of Gunnarson's Bag blog which is linked to the right.  It was a really fun match, he played some cards I'd never seen played like Serendib Djinn!  We had great time talking about Dwarves and I am going to have to post up my Red/White Soldier deck soon since we talked about that too.

The first game I won through lots of burn.  The second game he came back to get the win.  I then overwhelmed him in game three to finish the match.  I won the match 2-1.

All three matches were great!  It was a lot of fun meeting Nicholas in the first game, he had a great Magic story.  It was great playing Angelo again, it had been a long time since we had played last.  And it was fun talking to Roger also.

I really like that before the evening gets started the Northern Paladins meet on their Discord and just talk about Magic.  Its the next best thing to hanging out with them in person.

I would highly recommend playing in a Northern Paladins Tuesday Night Gauntlet and I'll be there next week.

OS 95 Cube

While playing constructed decks is a lot of fun and allows all sorts of goofy combos and interactions, and the decks that are assembled and tested over and over is a great part of the hobby, there is another part known as drafting.

I am not nearly as seasoned a drafter as many in the old school community but I find the format to be a lot of fun.  Every time you assemble a deck from drafted cards its a new and exciting experience.  You can try to make decks that fit your "play style" but a lot of the time that is just not a luxury you have.  You have to build a deck with skill but also with luck.

Drafting from a booster box is what most players do.  You can easily head down to your local FLGS and buy a box or go online and buy one but for use Old School players buying a box of Revised is out of the question.

Luckily Cubes were invented.  I don't know the origin of the idea but I think it is a great option for Magic players who want to play with cards that aren't in standard.  Its great for the players because they get to play with cards they don't normally play with (or with cards that they want to play with).  Its also great for the person who put the Cube together to see their creation in action and be able to adjust the cube to make it more balanced or to allow it to support certain archetypes.

I have assembled my first Cube (Old School or otherwise) just earlier this year.  A friend of mine donated a great Old School card box to put the Cube in and I also bought Cubeamajigs to hold the cards to simulate booster packs.

Here is my first version of the OS95 Cube:

CubeTutor OS95 Cube Version 1

We did an eight person draft a few weeks ago and it was quite fun.  We played 3 rounds of swiss.

Since it is a singleton draft without a lot of color hate and also no power or dual lands people could build some archetypes pretty well.

The winner overall  had a blue and black control deck with Counterspell, discard spells, Control Magic and Binding Grasp along with Terror and Drain Life.

Another person was able to build a Green / Red aggro deck that fared quite well.  It had Lightning Bolt and Erhnam Djinn and Llanowar Elves and even Channel and Fireball which he was able to pull off at one point to win a game!

One other notable deck was mono-Red.  It was very strong with Shivan Dragon and Dragon Whelp and Disintegrate.

I built a Blue / White controlly deck that wasn't great but I still had fun and interesting matches.



After this event I decided I wanted to up the power level of the Cube as well as add in some multiples of certain cards.

I don't think I want to have 4 of any cards but I may do 3 of some and 2 of other cards.

Cards I want to add to up the power level and to introduce Tribal Decks:
- Balance
- Mind Twist
- Sol Ring
- Regrowth
- Titania's Song
- Demonic Tutor
- Berserk
- Sink Hole
- Ice Storm
- Serendib Efreet
- Stone Rain
- Wrath of God
- Armageddon
- Strip Mine
- Maze of Ith
- Storm Seeker
- The Rack
- Black Vise
- Braingeyser
- Goblin King
- Lord of Atlantis
- Vodalian Knights
- Sylvan Library
- Land Tax

Card I want to have multiples of:
- Swords to Plowshares
- Lightning Bolt
- Disenchant
- Nevinryrral's Disk
- Goblin Balloon Brigade
- Mons's Goblin Raiders
- Icatian Javelineers
- Tundra Wolves
- Merfolk of the Pearl Trident
- Phantasmal Terrain
- Spell Blast
- Hypnotic Specter
- Sengir Vampire
- Terror
- Animate Dead
- Bad Moon
- Llanowar Elves
- Scryb Sprites
- Giant Growth
- Giant Spider
- Fog
- Fellwar Stone
- Aeolipile
- Howling Mine
- Icy Manipulater


I also intend to remove most of the walls and only include one iconic Wall per color.

I am also open to feedback as to how to improve the Cube.

What is Kitchen Table Old School?

I have been thinking a lot recently about what I want this blog to be about.

I think it will not only be about my journey through Old School Magic but also have a main focus on non-tournament events.  What I mean by that is I want this blog to be for those who aren't necessarily interested in Deck Tech or tournament reports. 

I really enjoy the game but I am not a "Spike" and I am more interested in the gameplay and in alternate forms of game play besides one-on-one competitive tournament play.

I remember fondly of when I was in junior high and high school and I played Magic with my friends around a kitchen table or dining room table or even on the floor.  Most of the games I played were multiplayer.  I remember one game at a friend's house where the game had 8 people and it was just total chaos, anyone could target anyone and the game lasted the whole afternoon.  I also distinctly remember my friend's mom bringing out a plate of homemade cookies for us at one point.

These memories are why I am interested in Old School.  Playing with the cards that got me into the game in the first place is really why I am into this format. 

I want this blog to be about multiplayer and alternate ways of playing magic, from Two-Headed Giant to Emperor to custom Battle Boxes and custom Cubes even to a Solitaire variant I remember reading about in an old Duelist (or maybe it was Inquest) magazine.

With the above being said I have three projects I am working on.

I will make a post for each of these in the future but here are the basics:

- Old School 95 Cube: I have assembled a cube which I will post the list of in a future blog post.  I will also be evolving the cube as it gets played.  This weekend may be the first time I get to try it out!

- The Brothers War Vanguard Battle Box: I am in the process of assembling 5 mono-colored decks with an emphasis on Artifacts and the Antiquities Expansion.  This will include a specific Vanguard card for each deck.

- Scryings Expansion Cube: I will assemble the Scryings Expansion that Magnus has put together and create a custom Cube with the contents of the Scryings expansion. 


I will probably have a blog post about the OS 95 Cube after I test it out this weekend, supposing all goes according to plan.

Magic at Gen Con 2019

This year's Gen Con came and went way too fast!  I played in two Old School tournaments, bought a bunch of singles and a bunch of Old School sealed packs and even got two new playmats and Signatures from Mark Poole!

There's a lot to talk about so let's get going.

My Gen Con started off on Wednesday evening where I played in the 3rd Annual Gen Con Old School tournament at the JW Marriott's Velocity Bar and Grill.

I believe there were 40 people in attendance and it was 5 rounds with a cut to the top 4 after that.

I only played in the first 4 rounds because there was a bye for me in the 5th.  That was fine because I was not doing very well in the tournament and by that time I was four 22oz Bell's Two Hearted Ale's in.

Here is the deck I took.  It is an experimental deck I am trying to make Mill work in Old School.  The only real win con is Milling my opponent.  The four Factorys are there as blockers.

UW Mill

I had 4 Winter Orbs to hopefully slow down my opponents and I opted for 4 Boomerangs over Counterspells to hopefully be able to deal with more threats and threats that I could have potentially missed by using a Counterspell.  The idea was that I would have a Winter Orb in play, they would play something tapping most of their mana and then I could Boomerang the permanent back and it would be awhile before they could cast it again.

Well none of my games went very well.  Everyone was faster than I was.  I wasn't able to get a lock on anyone with the Winter Orb and Icy Manipulator and I lost every match.

Even though I didn't do well I was able to meet a bunch of new people and I had a great time.  I am excited to go to the Old School Players Ball in a few weeks and see some of the guys I met at this tournament.


I made some purchases at Gen Con that I think may help my UW Mill deck.

One thing to note about Gen Con is that there are more booths buying and selling Magic Cards than there are at any Magic Fest you will ever attend.

If you plan to go to Gen Con you should be wary of the different prices and also be on the look out for dealers selling rebacked cards and fakes by accident.  I heard some stories about this from someone else who also attended Gen Con.

Here are my two favorite Magic booths to buy from; Graded Power and Mr. Nice Guy Games.

Graded Power only deals in sealed product and Old School singles, both Graded and not.  They have the best prices of anyone at the con and truly do base their prices on condition.  I spent a lot of money at their booth both this year and last.  They also have booster packs from almost every set.

The other booth is Mr Nice Guy Games.  If there is a card you need they will have it at a decent price.  They bring more cards than anyone else to Gen Con.  You simply tell them what card you want, what edition and what language and they will most likely have several to a dozen of them for you to pick from in various conditions as well.

I bought a bunch of singles and a bunch of sealed packs from Graded Power this year.

For sealed packs I bought 4 Fallen Empires, 2 Ice Age and 2 Chronicles and I also bought one sealed 4th edition Starter Deck.

I should have taken a picture of what all of the cards from these but I forgot too.

I didn't get anything good except one Adarkar Wastes.

The Old School cards I did acquire will help out with a number of decks including Monoblack, MonoGreen, Blue/WhiteMill, UrzaTron or BlackTron, and Apes and Elves.  I also bought a few Legends because I want to build some OS EDH / Brawl decks.

I am very excited about Boris!

I also bought a couple of playmats, one from Wednesday's Tournament and one from Mark Poole:

Mark Poole was at the convention again and I bought a bunch of Saproling and Goblin tokens from him and I also had him sign a couple of cards.

On Saturday I played in my second Old School Tournament in 3 days!  It is the most in person Old School I have ever played.

This tournament was put on by Pastimes Games which organizes all of the Magic events at Gen Con.  This was a fairly typical affair, I had to have a DCI number, which I didn't have so they gave me a new one, the winnings of the tournament would be in prize tickets which could be redeemed at a prize booth.  There would also be official Judges but I do believe that they abided by Eternal Central rules.  No one who played had any reprints that wouldn't be Eternal Central legal.

I played the following deck:

The first match was against a mostly Black and White deck.  He played a lot of Black Knights and Hypnotic Specters.

The first game he got off to a very good start and my back was up against the wall.  I was losing life quickly but eventually got out a Land Tax and nearly got back into the game.  He eventually won the game but it was close.
Game two I started really fast and got out an early Land Tax and was able to Tax almost every turn after that until most of my land was out of my deck.  It was very important because he had cast a Gloom and I needed to pay 4 mana to cast a Savannah Lions!  I eventually won because I had more creatures and could get damage in in most turns.
Game three I simply outraced him and had a quick start and never let up winning pretty handily.

I was now 1-0 and pretty excited especially since I had lost every match on Wednesday.

Match two was against a White weenie deck supplemented by Blue Power.
Game one he was able to play 3 Thunder Spirits and a Order of Leitbur but began stalling with creatures.  I played a White Knight, an Order, two Timber Wolves, a Mesa Pegasus and a Serra Angel.  I was then able to cast Armageddon and he couldn't recover fast enough.  I won because I had more creatures.
Game two I sideboarded in 3 Repentant Blacksmiths and sideboarded out 3 Disenchants.  I wanted even more creatures and he really didn't have any artifacts or enchantments I needed to kill.  This game I got even more creatures into play and we even each had a Crusade in play at one point.  I eventually won with the help of a Serra Angel banded to a Mesa Pegasus on the attack.

I was now 2-0 and headed into the final match.  The winner of this match would win the tournament.

I was playing against what I believe was a 5 color Shaharazad deck.
The first game was a fairly typical game for my deck, I had to mulligan but I had a lot of small creatures which I played out as fast as possible.  I won in less than ten turns.  He just didn't have the ability to kill or stop all of my creatures quick enough.
Game two is where things got interesting.  I sideboarded out all of my disenchants and added in my Repentant Blacksmiths and a COP:Red because he had a few red creatures.  I was doing fairly well and I had him down to 1 life when he cast Shaharazad.  We started the sub game and almost immediately he cast a second one.  The third subgame started and I started doing significant damage, I got him down to maybe 10 life but then time was called.
I had won the first game and we drew the second because of time.  I ended up winning the match.

I finished 3-0 and won the whole thing!

I have never won a tournament before and it was pretty awesome!  I was pretty surprised because I knew this deck was good but I didn't think it was this good.  I may try it again at the Old School Players Ball.

I won 30 prize tickets which I traded in for 7 Modern Horizons and 1 Dominaria pack.  I ended up getting nothing special in those packs but oh well.

It was a pretty great GenCon overall and it went by way too fast.

Next year I believe a decent contingent of the Northern Paladins will be coming so that should be pretty great!

I am not sure what my next post will be about but stay tuned.....

Summer Derby results

I have now played in the last Winter Derby and this past Summer Derby.

My record in both is quite bad but I always enjoy playing the games and meeting new people.  In my previous post I had talked about the evolution of my Erhnamageddon deck.  I took the newest incarnation of it to the Summer Derby.

My Summer Derby 2019 deck

I called this version Boreal'Geddon. I added in Jasmine Boreal a legend from Legends as an additional Erhnam Djinn.  She is a 4/5 for 3GW with no drawbacks, which for Old School is a pretty decent creature.

Another thing I did was build a sideboard that I thought would be useful against certain decks.  

Against Mono Black my sideboard included 2 Derelors so their Terrors and Protection from White creatures would be less useful.  I also had 3 Whirling Dervishes as anti-Black creatures.

The Clockwork Avians did double duty as they are also immune to Terror and The Abyss and are a few extra flyers if necessary.

Against Artifacts I had 2 Dust to Dust.

I had 4 Spirit Links to deal with lots of Creatures or to gain life if I needed to.

If my opponenet had City in a Bottle I could remove the Erhnams for the Derelors and Clockwork Avians.  

If he has Moats and was playing some sort of control build then the Clockwork Avians could help along with the Avoid Fates.

I had some decent ideas and reasons for why I played the above Deck and why my sideboard was constructed the way it was.  I had just missed one key fact.

The format was Atlantic.  

Atlantic's restricted list favors a certain type of build which I hadn't realized until I started playing opponents and talking to them about the format and their decks after our matches were over.

What Atlantic does is restrict Strip Mine but not Mishra's Workshop.  This favors heavy Artifact builds and almost pushes out many budget builds unless they are built with this format in mind.  

I hadn't adjusted my deck accordingly and without the extra 3 Strip Mines I would have liked to have played in this deck I had some serious issues.  I also should have added in more Dust to Dust and maybe even considered a 3rd color to add in Energy Flux.

As you can see after some inspiration from Edwin The Magic Engineer (which if you haven't already subscribed to his channel on YouTube you probably should at least watch his Old School content, it's very well done and well thought-out.) I modified my Erhnamageddon Deck again.

Here is the newest build:

I didn't win a single match but that doesn't mean I didn't have fun.

I really do appreciate the work that DFB does to put on these online Derby tournaments and I will continue to participate in the future.  Hopefully I will do better next time.

Next article will be on my Gen Con 2019 Experience.  I had a great time playing in 2 Old School tournaments.

Until Then...

The Evolution of a Deck: Erhnamageddon

So when I first started assembling decks for Old School I had several decks in mind.  I wanted to create 6 mono-colored decks (one of them being artifacts) and then a couple other decks that are pretty popular.  The other popular decks I wanted to assemble were Troll Disco, MonoBlack, and Erhnamageddon.  I feel like the three decks I just listed are very doable without Power or even Dual Lands.  As a side-note, unless otherwise stated, I always build Eternal Central-legal decks. 

Another goal of mine when getting into Old School was to create Power-less decks.  I wanted to prove that it was possible to win against Power without having to have Power yourself.  I made this decision for a variety of reasons.

One reason was that I didn't own any Power and figured it probably wouldn't be very feasible for me to acquire it.  I don't have tens of thousands or even thousands of dollars to spend on Magic cards.  I also haven't been playing Magic consistently since 94, even though that is when I started, so I don't have a big backlog of valuable cards to trade in for Power.

Another reason I wanted to build without Power is to prove to myself that I can win games based on my deck building and skill, not based on owning the most powerful cards in the format.

The third reason is that I never owned Power back in the 90s, nor did I ever play against it.  It isn't part of my Magic-playing history.  None of my friends had it and it was always seemed like an unobtainable goal.  They were mythical cards and I almost want to keep them that way.

The final reason I wanted to build without Power is to prove to others that Power is not necessary to play Old School.  In fact, its not even necessary to own dual lands.


So I want to dive into my Erhnamageddon deck. It has been evolving now for about a year.  I have a number of photos of it's evolution and I will talk about each of them.

This is the initial deck I built about a year ago.  I filled out the Cities of Brass and the Birds of Paradise with Championship Deck gold-bordered version.  I also had White Knights, Whirling Dervishes, Jayemdae Tomes, Llanowar Elves and Spore Clouds from Fallen Empires.

 This deck has a proper sideboard.  I tried to get a bit spicy and added a mainboard Blood Moon and Demonic Tutor.  I took out the White Knights and added Tundra Wolves and Juggernauts.  I was able to upgrade the Cities of Brass to Chronicles.  I swapped the Jayemdae Tomes to Jalum Tomes.

This is the deck I used in the Winter Derby.  I didn't do very well and I got some good suggestions from my opponents.  Some of the suggestions I took to heart and some I am still thinking about implementing.

This version of my Erhnamageddon deck I used in the April Northern Paladin Skype league.  I went 0-4.  I had thought that I had upgraded the deck but it seems that I was wrong.  I pulled out the Juggernauts, Llanowar Elves, and Tundra Wolves.  I added in a Mind Twist and three Lightning Bolts.  I also added an additional Jalum Tome.  After doing some playtesting I was able to get off to incredible starts with this deck.  I blew two opponents away in a three-player game within the first 5 turns.  I thought I had a great deck but the Skype league proved me otherwise.

Luckily I got some more great suggestions on how to improve it and I just recently acquired 3 Land Tax which will help out the deck tremendously.

Here is the newest version of the deck:

In the May Northern Paladin Skype League I played the above deck and I went 2-1, a much better result than before.

Some of the things I did were to add Rainbow Vales which play nicely with Land Tax, Fellwar Stone and Balance.  By limiting the number of cards that are not Green or White, having only 4 Birds and 4 Rainbow Vales is just enough mana producers to make the deck work.

Another big change was just how many 4-ofs I have.  4 Disenchant, 4 Swords to Plowshares, 4 Armageddon, 4 Birds, 4 Llanowar, 4 Serras, 4 Erhnams.  Most Erhnamageddon Decks I have seen have only 3 Armageddons.  I have 4 and play them very aggressively.  There were several games I won where I Armageddoned multiple times.  Combine 4 Strip Mines with 4 Armageddons and the Land Taxs  with Birds and Elves and I generally have the mana I need and my opponent generally doesn't.

I had concerns with City in a Bottle which seemed to pop up in almost every match I played in the April league.  The Rainbow Vales also addressed the City in a Bottle issue.  The only Arabian Night card in the deck is the Erhnams (and I am still searching for alternatives).

The Derelors and Clockwork Avians I can sideboard in when facing City in a Bottle in place of the Erhnams or if I need more flyers or if I am facing Black since terrors won't work against them.  The Clockwork Avians also help against Moat or The Abyss.

I still have some consistancy issues with this deck.  I am not always drawing what I need and I think the solution is probably Sylvan Library but I just don't have the budget right now to purchase several of those.  A cheaper solution could be Jalum Tome but I am not sure.

This deck is still a work in progress and I will come back to it and continue to work on it in the future.


In the meantime I have a new deck I am brewing up that I haven't seen anyone else play in Old School.

I will debut it in the June Northern Paladin Skype League which just started.

I will post here how it does.

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.