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.