Decktalk „LockAtog“

Lately Atog Decks have become en vogue, so I’d like to grant the Old School community an Atog architecture that has some special twist: the LockAtog.

Personally I think it is the Italians who made Atog decks great again, and while we continue to see lots of Atog brews where the strategy built around our lil‘ red brownie muncher focuses on the so called „smash“ theme with Juggernauts, Su-Chi, Triskelion and a decent burn suite, we witnessed a slightly different approach from Valerio at Noobcon X where he landed Top 8 with his SerendibAtog build, tuning a traditionally mono red artifact architecture with Psi Blast, Effreets and blue power spells.

When I started thinking about an Atog theme a couple of weeks ago I was especially inspired by a good friends prison deck and his mighty and notoriously hated Winter Orb / Relic Barrier combo – a combo that could easily be played in the low mana curve Atog deck I was about to design.

The good thing about Atog decks are the diversified damage sources: artifacts, creatures and burn spells. An opponent will have difficulties handling all of them, so you attack from different angles in early game and install a late game lock to stop your opponent and buy enough time to draw the finisher, i.e. Atog or cheap burn.

Artifacts first: with the help of Moxes, Lotus and 2 Mana Vault one or two early round Black Vise can be quite common here; together with an early Ankh of Mishra those cards alone will easily eat half of your opponents life. Then it’s time for a Su-Chi before getting your Winter Orb / Relic Barrier lock in place.

Meanwhile an Atog might show up and say a frightening „hulloh!“ – of course your opponent will send him to exile or burn him, but in late game we might have one of his siblings, and when he comes… he comes big thanks to the 4 or 5 Artifacts on your side

LockAtog proved to be quite versatile against control as well as aggro decks. A decent sideboard might include REBs, Shatters, Blood Moons, Earthquakes, a Fireball and – depending on your adversary – even Howling Mines that work well with Relic Barrier too.

Invitation to the 1st Miracle Worker Cup

Hey old school folks,

we’re happy to invite everybody to the 1st Miracle Worker Cup, a premier MTG Old School tournament hosted by oldschoolarena.com 

Format: Swedish Old School Sets, Rules and Ban/Restriction list apply.

Special: Proxies allowed without limits, regardless whether Revised, Italian Legends, 4th Edition, IE/CE or DIY Print-outs (mtgpress.net), original artwork recommended though.

Style: Swiss-system tournament

Fee: 2€ or one old school card from your private card pool as donation for the Top 4 price pool.

Trophy: one original The Dark Miracle Worker signed by all tournament players.

Venue: The Blue Saloon („Blauer Raum“) at Frankfurter Berg Collaborative Living Project ProWoKulta 

Adress: Am Ulmenrück 7, 60433 Frankfurt 

Timing: June 16, 2018 tournament starts at 4pm sharp.

Registration: from now until June 15, 2018 via email to jerome[at]oldschoolarena.com

About: the 1st Miracle Worker Cup is hosted by the Frankfurt Germany MTG Old School Community Blog oldschoolarena.com and is a non-sanctioned private event for friends and fans of the 9394 MTG format. 

To ensure highest quality deck builds and relieve all players from desperate urge to sneak counterfeits into their Decks we decided after thorough reflection to go with the adage of Liga Catalunya de Old School and allow „Proxies sin Limite“. 

For those who’ve got the Power: Be humble, welcome the new players, fathom the chance to play in a competitive environment and train for n00bcon.

For those without significant 9394 card pool: be bold, get inspiration on Wak-Wak, let creativity free flow and build your favourite deck. 

We’re happy to have you taking part in the 1st Miracle Worker Cup on June 16, 2018 

(Budget-)Decktalk „DragonFlare“

This is DragonFlare –  straightforward no excuses #monoredburn at its best.

Featuring 1 Detonate, three Shatter main and 3 Shatterstorm in Sideboard because red traditionally hates #mtgartifacts and everybody seems to be flooding the board with Su-Chi, Juggernaut and Fellwar Stones these days besides the notorious Power Artifacts.

Else this #mtgoldschool deck features the iconic #manaflare for abundant mana and mighty #bloodmoon   to transform all those duals into beautiful Mountains. The win condition is a fierce mix of a hell lot of #burnspells and #mtgdeck name giving #shivandragon and her lil #dragonwhelp – all of which will strive with the Mana Flare.

Three #mtgfork for responsiveness, three #balllightning for surprise and that’s about it.

DragonFlare starts with building a mana base while keeping small enemy creatures in check with Bolts and Chain Lightning, shattering Mishra’s Factory, forking Hymns and/or Ancestrals; and dropping the casual Ball Lightning to inflict damage.

Second phase of DragonFlare is playing Mana Flare with another Fork in hand to avoid being burned first when handing over the turn. With abundance in red Mana we play Dragon Whelps and Shivan Dragon and pump up the Volume; or we just finish with a decent Fireball for 10+

Sideboarding Shatterstorm against Artifact heavy decks, or Black Vise against  Control decks, Earthquake against Weenies, and Red Elemental Blast against anything Blue.

Playing DragonFlare is easy to learn, can be assembled as a budget deck (without the Mox Ruby) for under 100€ and is a hell lotta fun.

Decktalk „The Rodeo Deck“

How can you balance aggressiveness and responsiveness, vehemence in killing and creativity in staying alive? How is a deck possible that is non-linear enough to be full of forward options and defensive answers?

Finding answers to these questions led to building the „Rodeo“ deck: a White & Green body that is strengthened with artifacts and a basic red burn suite – and optionally refined with black and blue power splashes.

At its very core „Rodeo“ works as White Green red mid-range deck, where you hold fast with cheap removal and build ground with a broad Mana base to bring out your midrange beaters and your opponent to his knees in the late game.

Starting with the body or core of the deck: 3 Erhnam Djinns and 3 Serra Angels form an army with a play set of mighty Su-Chi to steadily make your opponent fall. But you will have to stay alive until that army builds.

We have Sylvan Library and the tome for tuning your draw step and indispensable white removal to keep early threats at bay.

A broad mix from Duals, Fellwar Stones, Moxen and Lotus helps to develop your mana base while red burn spells harmonize the balance between defense and offense.

In recent play testing this deck earned its name „Rodeo“ for holding fast while White Weenies and Black threats flooded the early board. Red burn, white power suit and Su-Chi made those aggro horses lame and tired, and even  a ratio of 5 to 28 life points had been reversed to a late game win after Rodeo took its Angels out for a fast ride home.

Variations: For those who are not (fully) powered: You can always replace Moxen with lands, and Lotus with Mana Vault. This deck also perfectly works as a 4 color variant without the blue splash by replacing Ancestral Recall and Time Walk with another Lightning Bolt and another Swords to Plowshares. Also: for the Mana Curve it could make sense to replace 2 Fellwar Stones with Birds of Paradise.

 

 

 

 

Decktalk „Green Machine Head“

Attempting a green Deck in Old School will often yield a smile from more seasoned players. In the Top Tiered league of UWR Skies, Juzam Dreams, The Deck and the like Green is rarely featured. Actually a pity because Green can do a lot for you. It has this perfect mix of mana ramp, big beaters and spells to protect or tune your weapons.  Nevertheless you will learn that splashing red for Burn and Sideboard Options as well as the 2 black power spells is indispensable to make Green fit for tournament.

The Deck we present today has been named „Green Machine Head“ in reference to the classy Old School Machine Head combo Juzam Djinn + Berserk. Other names this deck attracted was „Green Party Crasher“ or simply „The Green Machine“.

The core are 8 mighty fast beaters, i.e. Doc Erhnam Djinn and his artifact cousin Juggernaut, two 4 mana creatures you will most likely drop in turn 2 or 3 at latest thanks to the power of ramp: 4 Llanowar Elves, 2 Birds of Paradise, 1 Elves of Deep Shadow as well as Moxes, Lotus and/or Mana Vault.

With the help of 4 Giant Growth and 2-3 Berserk your Green Machine gets awfully big and will destroy everything that comes in the way, or just reduce your opponents life total to 0 in minutes. 1-2 Avoid Fate might prove useful to defend your Juggernaut who notoriously attracts Disenchant and Lightning Bolt.

The 2 Spitting Slugs proved to be essential: as 3 drops they perfectly fit the mana curve, they are Lightning Bolt prove and they will easily block Mishra’s Factory, White/Black Knights and Kird Apes.

Finally a small collection of basic red burn spells as well as Demonic Tutor and Mind Twist are included to harmonize the Deck.

At the latest tournament the „Green Machine Head“ landed Top 4.

Posh vs. Budget: Old School is playable without the Power9

Old School Magic is for everybody, but many people shy away from the format thinking they must invest some 7 to 10.000 bucks to build a decent deck. Let’s be frank: while playing the Power9, LoA and the like may give you a natural edge (and a lot of fun), it is by no means the conditio sine qua non for an initiation into the world of Old School Magic.

So before swapping your retirement plan from stocks to Black Lotus (and feeling reluctant to play it for fear of card loss/damage), the authors of this blog encourage budget deck building to attract more MTG players to this charming format. As a matter of fact – if technically possible – we will always try to show a budget alternative when we discuss a deck in our Decktalk blog posts. And for a start we will show how you can quite easily replace (or handle) most of the power cards and still build a competitive deck:

Budget Replacements

Black Lotus / Mana Vault

Black Lotus, the most expensive and iconic of all Magic cards… okay let’s try to put the fascination and buzz aside, we know it’s hard to do, but let’s have a rational thought here: yes, a first round Lotus plus land drop can basically be enough to win a game, but at its base a Lotus is a bigger Dark Ritual with open colour choice, so it’s a huge ramp into something big or a play to diversify your spells.

On the other side if a Lotus is drawn at a later stage sometimes the same play might eventually be replaced by a Mana Vault that had been played one round earlier. So basically it’s round two ramp into Juggernaut instead of first round Juzam Djinn, and it’s the same when it comes to boost your Fireball or Mind Twist.

Yeah, most of the times it is far from equivalent but we recommend players to replace Lotus with Mana Vault in a budget deck.

Mox / Land

Again, let’s put the fascination aside: after all a Mox is a land that doesn’t count as a land. Thus it will always be a great first turn to play land and Mox to go into White Knight, Sinkhole, Hymn… Fellwar Stone is just no alternative here and just loses when compared.

But when we assume your Mox shows up in turn 5 it’s a different story and a land will do the same job. Fellwar stone might or might not work here, depending if you share the colour with your opponent, so in the end our budget players don’t really replace a Mox with Fellwar Stone, and we recommend players to replace Mox with Land, especially when building an aggro deck

Juzam Djinn / Juggernaut

A lightly played Juzam Djinn cost under 300€ a couple of years ago. In 2018 you must pay over 700€ for the same condition. Something is very broken in the market, and there are even rumors that a bunch of people are cornering the market by buying all available Juzams outright to increase the value. So most of the Old School Players who want to build a Mono Black or Machine Head Deck, will never be able to afford a Juzam.

Here comes his little nephew Juggernaut, and he has some good aspects indeed: Juggernaut is The Abyss, King Suleiman, Protection from Black and CoP: Black prove while Juzam is not, Terror won’t remove him (same as Juzam), as an artifact he is totally mana flexible – and he costs a fraction from what you pay for his big Black Uncle.

Of course Lightning Bolt and Disenchant will kill him, and a White Knight in Crusade will stop him, while he must attack, but overall we think he is a good replacement for the Djinn.

Other Posh versus Budget replacements

Timewalk / Mana Short

Timetwister / Wheel of Fortune

Handling broken cards

Ancestral Recall / Fork

Playing Ancestral Recall gives a huge advantage or brings you back in the game after a Hymn or Mind Twist. It is one of the greatest top decks and maybe the most iconic one drop. It is the perfect reason to play or at least splash blue in every deck, so you can be pretty sure to meet Ancestral Recall more than once in tournament. Thus for a budget player, we recommend to main deck Fork and/or Red Elemental Blast in order to participate in the card spree –  or just counter it.

LoA / Stone Rain, Blood Moon, Sinkhole

„The Library wins games“, is the laconic answer you always hear after being beaten by an early LoA play. It is next to impossible to catch up with a talented player who knows how to use it. That is exactly the reason we recommend budget players to build some LoA insurance in their decks, i.e. a couple of Stone Rain, Blood Moon, Sinkhole, Ice Storm, especially in the European Old School formats where Strip Mine is restricted.

Conclusion

It is not a prerequisite to own the Power9 in order to succeed at Old School Magic. Although it is much more fun and you feel so mighty potent with a Mox and an Ancestral Recall in your deck, we have seen budget Goblin decks smash the choreography of The Deck with as much fun and potency. Budget players might always feel a bit handicapped, but the satisfaction resulting from a won match against some power player is a far bigger reward.

Rules: describing a format, defining a standard

Old School Magic is a non licensed and mostly casual format that was born in 2007 in Sweden, and slowly but steady took to other countries. In the last two years the interest in this charming format rocketed (with prices for the old cards doubling and tripling in value) and today we have established Old School communities in Scandinavia, the USA, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Belgium, and a nascent community in Germany.

While other MTG formats like Modern or Legacy have official rules from Wizards of the Coast / DCI, the Old School universe remains quite autonomous, so basically every community has variations and their own sub-standard. While the more orthodox communities would only allow Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends and the Dark, the most liberal end of the spectrum additionally allows not only Fallen Empires, but all kinds of later reprints (same artwork though). With the prices of ABU cards skyrocketing and touching ridiculous levels, there is increasing pressure from newcomers to allow even IE/CE or DIY proxies in order to participate in this great game.

Nevertheless as the formats cradle is Sweden, the Old School Mtg blog acts as an orthodox reference for most of the European communities. Although being very strict in defining the format, they have done a great deal in nurturing not only their own format with a constantly evolving ban/restriction list that serves as blueprint for most of us, but also in describing the variations of the format, i.e. Ravenna Rules, EC Rules etc.

As the authors of this blog are part of a local German Old School community with their own liberal variation of the format, you will find pictures of decks with cards from 93/94 (sometimes including Fallen Empires) with reprints from Revised/FWB/FBB, 4th edition, Chronicles and Renaissance.

For tournament purposes we created the mighty Miracle Worker Cup – a non-sanctioned private tournament format in Frankfurt that is based on the Atlantic Rules set, but would allow proxies without limits in order to not discriminate players who don’t have access to significant 9394 card pools,  to encourage highest quality deck engineering and to build a solid and diversified meta game.