Old School MTG: 2019 Wrap Up and Lessons Learned

Robots 2019!

The goal for this year was to build and play a new Old School deck every month. Let's see how I did.

January - UW Prison
February - Red Atog Robot Tron
March - BG Nether Shadow
April - White Prison
May - UB Time Bots
June - Blue Tron
July - Red Atog Robots
August - Colorless Robot Tron
September - Blue Copy Robot Aggro
October - Black Yawgmoth Reanimator
November - Maui Green Untamed Colossus
December - Colorless Robot Tron

Over the course of the year, I used most of the cards in my collection. I put together a few other decks along the way, mostly to have a deck to test against: Reanimator, Troll Disco, the Deck. A theme emerged: I like playing robots. There are a lot of different ways to play a robots-themed deck. It's cool to see what each color brings to the table and how the stance of the deck changes with those other cards included.

Lessons Learned

What lessons did I learn this year?

The primary lesson I learned is that I like robots. Beyond that, I learned that no one I know likes to play against prison, land destruction, discard, or hard control strategies in casual games. There isn't anything wrong with those strategies, but if I'm just playing for fun around the kitchen table it's important to consider that if my opponent isn't having fun, I might get to play less Magic overall.

I thought I would have more opportunities to play Old School, but outside of casual games at home with my family I only went to meet ups twice. I was looking for an experience like I had back when Commander was taking off. I went every weekend to the local gaming store and found a dozen players ready to rumble. Old School, at least in my area, isn't like that. Maybe webcam games are the answer, but I haven't gone down that road yet.

The format is fragmented. Between SWE, ATL, EC, and now PAC, there are subtly different ways to build, test, and collect. Unless you show up to events hellbent on winning, this isn't a huge deal. Where it becomes a problem is trying to sort out who has what deck if you do end up somewhere for casual games (in person or online). Plus, there is an element of argument and superiority about which format is better when the reality is that I believe these different groups of players are looking for different things.

I light up when I see colorless decks in any format, including Old School. Yes, there are iconic cards in all colors and I appreciate seeing how these decks come together. Stasis is cool. Mono-Black control is cool. Beating down with Orggs is cool. But just because I appreciate that those decks exist doesn't mean that I want to play all of those decks. I'm happy to play against those decks. Essentially, the age old advice to simply play what you like applies here. I like colorless decks.

I'm not competitive, but I am looking for a 3-2 deck. There are people at the table who are there to win. I'm not one of those people. But at the same time, I'm not there to lose. I'm there to have a fun and interactive game of Magic. I want to create situations where I am one draw away from winning. I want to wade into complicated board states and work out a solution. And I want that same experience for my opponent. In five rounds, I want the chance to break even in close games. If you look at some of the decks on TCDecks.com, you'll see that the community has honed in on optimal piles of cards. The same few decks show up in the top 8 of most tournaments with small variations. In a limited card pool, this is bound to happen. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not what I'm looking for in my Old School experience.

This year, I played quite a few games of Magic with my family. They play super-casual decks built out of cards from recent sets. It blows me away how "fair" even the broken Old School cards are against modern decks. Between the more efficient modern creatures and stronger synergies, I lose more often than I win despite having power cards. Ramping with moxes into a turn 2 Triskelion is fun, but not game-ending. There were so many times this year I was completely shut down by a creature with deathtouch, for example. With that said, Swords is still Swords and Lightning Bolt is still Lightning Bolt. It makes for some good and surprisingly balanced games.

Deckbuilding for 2020

Based on my experiences this year, I decided to make some massive trades. This resulted in getting several copies of Mishra's Workshop. In my mind, this is the defining card of casting robots and pushes that strategy up to a 3-2 deck. My goal this year is to build a total of 6 different decks, all of which are based on getting robots onto the battlefield. I want to get maximum value out of those Workshops!

Why 6 decks? It will be one deck of each color and a colorless deck. I want to explore what each color brings to the Shops deck. The key is to figure out how to use each color to support the Shops strategy without taking over with superior cards. Each color has to fit into a deck that cares about artifacts. Each deck needs an identity, a different approach based on the color that is splashed in.

White - Argivian Archaeologist, Removal
Blue - Sage of Lat-Nam, Twiddle, Copy Artifact
Red - Atog, Orcish Mechanics, Burn
Black - Priest of Yawgmoth, Animate Dead
Green - Titania's Song, Sylvan Library
Colorless - Tron, Sword of the Ages, Tawnos' Coffin

Magical Christmas Presents

For Christmas this year, I made custom theme boosters for three of my friends. They play Commander decks with clear themes focused on different creature types, so I selected cards that would fit those themes.

The fun part of the process (for me), was going through all of the cards to find the right 15 to put in the booster. I made a spreadsheet and winnowed each theme down to a list with a good mix of card types.

The boosters are wrapped in normal printer paper, carefully glued along the edges and along the fold in the back (like a genuine booster). The ends are "crimped" using a couple of forks. The cards inside were in clear sleeves to make sure the glue wouldn't get on them, but I used a glue-stick so it really wasn't a problem. I used a pen to freehand the labels on the front.

Here is the YouTube video tutorial I watched:

https://youtu.be/mr_lLeQDxIs

Have fun making your own booster packs!

MagicFest Portland 2019: Trading for Mishra's Workshop

Karyn and Ben with the bounty collected - Liliana looks on in interest.

I didn't get a chance to play in any events at MagicFest Portland 2019, but I did get a chance to make a whole bunch of trades for some Old School goodness.

Trading cards is emotionally demanding for me. I've had a lot of these cards for 20+ years, so it's difficult to be objective to make a trade happen. My wife generously stepped in to broker deals for me. My friend Ben joined in on the fun. I lurked nervously in the distance taking selfies with planeswalkers.

I spent the last year building a bunch of different Old School decks, but a pattern clearly emerged. I'll have more about this in my year-end wrap up, but suffice to say that artifacts (Robots!) are my jam. So, I decided to trade my dual lands for Mishra's Workshops. I ended up with 3x 'Shops and a Beta Sol Ring for my pile of dual lands.

Trading with dealers in person was way quicker than selling online (or trading online). There were about 8 dealers at the festival. Karyn and Ben visited each one and had to go between 3 or 4 of them to make the deal work out. Thank you!

Old School MTG: Colorless Robots - Big Boys (Sometimes Cry)

It's December! That makes it 12 months of Old School MTG decks on this blog. My deck for this month includes robots, of course. It's based on a deck by Anne J called "Big Boys (Don't Cry)."

Here's a few links to the deck:
Tappedout (Decklist) - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/old-school-9394-big-boys-dont-cry/
Timmy Gameplay 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4lWcYvWPSw
Timmy Gameplay 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0txHoBsK-FE

My version is missing a few cards that Anne J has, but the swaps don't hurt me too bad. I'd argue that Anne J should find a way to include Fellwar Stone in the deck.

This deck does all the things that I want to do. It's colorless. It ramps. It tops out with a 9/9 trampler. There's shooty robots and flyie robots. It draws hella cards. It does tricks with the Coffin. It has a sweet Sword. And is looks cool!

In the few games I've played with it this month so far, I've won with the Sword once, untapped a Colossus after damage with a Maze, killed small creatures with my Deserts, and had multiple Howling Mines on the field. Good times.

Against certain decks, feeding your opponent cards is not a great plan. The deck lacks a "come from behind" option. A theoretical sideboard would have Black Vise, Disk, and Relic Barrier.

Anne J's version of the deck uses Candelabra. It's a sweet card. I would certainly run at least one copy if I had it. There's all kinds of tricks, including double-Maze activations, double-pumping your Factories, ramping like crazy with Tron out, and more!

Almost 20 years ago, I used to play a 75-card singleton 5-color deck. We would get these crazy 10+ person group games going at my college. My goal was to be as defensive as possible. My deck didn't really do anything, but it played all the cards I liked including a signed Candelabra. I later traded this card away, but one memory I have of playing with it was in a group game where the opponent to the left of me cast a spell that allowed him to look at my top card and put it back. He looked at the card and said, "Oh, I know what you're up to." I had to wait for it to come around to my turn to find out which card was on top. It was the Candelabra. To the day, I don't know what he thought I was up to. I just used it to fix my janky 5c mana base. As with many cards I've traded away over the years, I wish I still had it.

Old School MTG: Maui Green Untamed Colossus

Maui Green Untamed Colossus

For November, I decided to go green.

I wanted to explore the interaction of Sylvan Library and Untamed Wilds while ramping into big robots. I tried a couple of different configurations, ultimately ending on the one pictured above. Nothing worked the way that I wanted. These decks are for casual games, so I'm not looking for anything spectacular. But I am looking for something interesting. This isn't it.

And yes, I did use four dual lands in place of four basic forests. I didn't have legal basic forests for those slots, so I used G/x duals instead. First world problems.

I considered using Titania's Song to turn my other artifacts into robots. That could be a fun way to use a lot of different artifact cards and still have a way to win in the end. But I think a deck like that wants to be a prison deck and that's something I am trying to avoid for casual games.

For the record, I did use Reinarnation on a Llanowar Elves to bring out a Colossus of Sardia. I also had a game where I landed Instill Energy on a Colossus. I had a game or two where I had Sylvan+Millstone working. It didn't feel as powerful as I imagined it would, but I think it's because the rest of the deck isn't that powerful. What I'm saying is that the deck worked. It did what it was supposed to do. I just wasn't feeling it.

A deck that aggressively tries to pitch big robots and use Reincarnation to get them back might be fun, but then again it may only seem like fun because I like reanimator. Black and even white are probably both better color options for this strategy anyway. A deck that splashes white for COP:Green to go with Force of Nature might be fun, but I'm also trying to avoid splashing a color this year. And, if I was going to do that, I'd use COP: Black and Lord of the Pit because it's a demon!

Old School MTG: Mono-Black Yawgmoth Reanimator

It's Rocktober! Let's reanimate some robot corpses.

I'm playing this deck all month, just for casual games. It's quite fun!

It's heavy on mana sources, probably too heavy. Basalt Monolith is good with Priest of Yawgmoth for ramping to 6 mana to cast the robots. It even gets to 9 mana with relative ease for Colossus of Sardia, although untapping it is a challenge. Still, getting in there with one big attack isn't bad and then saccing the Colossus to the Priest to cast a huge Drain Life is a neat trick.

Going up to 4x Animate Dead is probably right, more right than running Skull of Orm in that slot. But the skull is so cool! Another little book is probably also right, shaving a monolith. Otherwise, the play pattern seems fine. Drawing cards is an issue, but that's true of most non-blue decks. The pair of Howling Mines is symmetrical, but this deck wants to tap out with threats every turn so they work better than big books. Against a competitive deck, they would be a liability.

I tried running Su-Chi in an earlier build of this deck thinking that saccing it to the Priest would be neat. It would produce 4 black mana from the Priest's ability plus another 4 colorless mana from the Su-Chi's ability. But more often than not, the Su-Chi would die at an inopportune time and I would take mana burn. There's probably an even more over-the-top version of this deck that maxes out Priests and Colossus. Colossusi? Colossuses? Colossuses. We'll go with that.

Running Yawgmoth Demon is a powerful one-of in this deck. There are usually plenty of artifacts on the board to sac. If the skies are clear, a 6/6 flying first-striker can make quick work of the opponent. If the skies are not clear, the demon can make quick work of almost anything in the way up there and blocks angels and djinn like a champ.

As you might expect, sticking an Abyss and playing a critical mass of artifact creatures will eventually grind out any opponent that doesn't have a way to stop it. That's not exactly what I was going for here, but it's won me a couple of games I had no business winning otherwise.

Old School MTG: Pen Altering Force of Nature (Maui)

I just got back from a trip to Maui. Everything looked just like the pictures! Of course while I was there I had to look for some old school Magic cards.

I searched Google for local MTG stores. Pickings were surprisingly slim. Maybe all that beach and sea air means that less people are interested in playing games like MTG. But I found a store that said it sold Comics and Cards (Maui Comics), plugged it into Google maps and headed that way.

Ben was driving. Since neither of us were familiar with the area, we followed the directions exactly and ended up in what looked like an industrial/parking area. Ben parked and we walked in a wide, unlabeled entry hallway. Concrete floors, no signs, propped open doors.

I've seen some strange places for a MTG store before, so I would not have been surprised if someone converted warehouse space to have a large enough play area at a small enough price per sq ft to make a profit running a gaming store. As we walked down the hallway, it was marked with signs like, "Emergency Exit Only," and, "Employees Only." That didn't seem right. But hey, we were tourists in Maui. It was turning into an adventure!

Eventually, we emerged into an open-air shopping mall. We had apparently parked in the back, where the employees park. Thanks Google.

I will say that I've never been to a shopping mall with multiple fruit vendor stalls, but I guess fruit is a big thing in Maui. We found a map posted by the "rules of the mall." The rules were surprisingly comprehensive. It's like the warning on your hair dryer about not using it in the bathtub. You know someone tried and found out the hard way that electricity and water do not mix. The rules were like that in the mall: Wear a shirt. Wear shoes.

On and on.

We walk into Maui Comics where a couple of guys are sitting behind a counter. One guy has earbuds in and is watching something on his phone. No other customers are in the store. And I only see rack after rack of comics. No MTG cards. No display cases with singles.

The guy without the earbuds makes himself busy, so I walk up to the guy with the earbuds and ask him about MTG. He points at an open box of Throne of Eldraine boosters on the counter in front of him. Thanks, but do you have singles? He pulls out a (I kid you not) Ultrapro trade binder and sets it in front of me. So, these are the singles? Yes. Hmm. The other guy grabs a 10,000ct box and brings it over. The box is labeled "bulk."

I flip through the trade binder. It's mostly modern stuff, mostly from ELD. Huh. I ask him if people play Magic in Maui and he looks up from whatever he is watching and says yeah, probably.

There were a total of two old school cards in that entire binder. A Revised Force of Nature, which I gladly bought for double the going price, and a Revised Disrupting Scepter.

Once I saw the Force of Nature, I knew I needed to alter it to commemorate my trip. Magic cards are some of the few possessions I have running back 20+ years. It's fantastic to be able to pull up a card I've been using for years and years with all the memories that go along with it. A commemorative card like this is perfect.

I did the card alter with a normal, black ink pen. It takes forever to dry, but it will dry. Just leave it out and put a hairdryer on it for a while. The ink smudges a bit, but you can blot it once it's no longer shiny anywhere. After blotting and double-sleeving, it's good to go. If you have access to an "ultra fine" tip Sharpie, that's even better. It dries faster and doesn't smudge as easily.

It looks like a green deck is in my future. Let's stomp, Maui-style.

For comparison, here are the before and after images.

Old School MTG: Mono Blue Artifact Aggro

It's September! There aren't any local old school meet ups going on in the area this month, but I did put this together for a few casual games around the house. At the last tournament, I was gifted some store credit after my dismal performance that resulted in me getting a few more copies of Copy Artifact. So, I thought I'd throw them into a deck with the Sage.

The deck worked fine. The easiest comparison is to the all-colorless version of this deck. It's not a big surprise, but the blue version feels way more powerful. There's something about ripping an Ancestral Recall off the top when you are staring at the edge of darkness that you just don't get with the colorless version.

All of my casual games were against my daughter who has good, but modern decks. Nothing too crazy. It's eye-opening to play against modern cards and synergies to see just how powerful the new cards are compared to the old cards. It's not that Ancestral Recall isn't still broken - it is. It's that there are a lot more cards that work well together and produce interesting board states. It also doesn't hurt that modern creatures are more efficient and more powerful than old school counterparts. When I think about artifact creatures I can cast for 6 mana now compared to back then, it's no contest.

Even though we were playing without mana burn, I kept track of times the Su-Chi would have burned me. It was a lot. There's probably a lesson here. Maybe in formats with mana burn, that slot should be Black Vise or the number of Su-Chi should be trimmed. I also tried a couple of Fellwar Stone in place of the full set of Mana Vaults. This is probably another good call. I wasn't sitting behind a wall of Mana Vaults pinging me every single turn. The Fellwar Stones are slower of course, but do provide an additional mana every turn instead of all at once like the Mana Vaults. I'm guessing that slotting in Fellwar Stones, Black Vises, and Howling Mines by taking out some of the Mana Vaults, Su-Chi, and Tawnos' Coffins would make the all-colorless deck perform better.

In one of the games, I played a Chaos Orb and then copied it. I was able to make three more copies of it that game thanks to multiple Copy Artifact and Recall. I never missed a flip. I'm pretty sure I used up all my Orb flipping mojo.

In this game, I came back from her at 20 life and me at 1 life to win this one thanks to the Icy Manipulator, a string of copied Chaos Orb flips, and timely Triskelions off the top to remove pesky blockers and to stop of the River Boa from killing me!

In this game, we switched decks as is our custom. Not a bad turn one for the Mono Blue Artifact Aggro deck. I might have copied the Mana Vault, but she wanted two Sapphires. Can't blame her for that.

I held out for a while, but was eventually overwhelmed by robots. So close!

Old School MTG: Colorless Tournament Report

It's August. It's taken all year for the stars to align for me to play an Old School tournament. Thanks to The Horde for organizing the event!

When it works, it's a thing of beauty.

I've built and played a bunch of different Old School decks this year, but that was for casual games at home. For the tournament, I really wanted to give the colorless Tron deck another try. Last time I played it, at the Border Brawl, I had the great fortune of borrowing 4x Mishra's Workshop. This time, I played with Mana Vaults in those slots. It's possible that those slots should have been Fellwar Stones.

It went about as poorly as you'd expect.




Round 1 - Daniel on Ponza w/ Orgg!
In games 1 and 2, Daniel had land destruction turn after turn. I will say that having 29ish mana sources in the deck gave me a glimmer of hope here, but it wasn't much more than a glimmer. He beat me two games in a row. Orgg was the finisher both times. I don't enjoy losing, but if I'm going to lose, Orgg is a new way to do it.

0-1



Round 2 - Tanny on GWR w/ Birds, Apes, Elves, and Mana Flare
We played two games. I was able to find a way to win both times, but I was down to 9 in the first game and 4 in the second game. He had burn, so it felt like I was a topdeck away from losing. Tanny said that he was trying out the Mana Flare(s). In game 2, his Mana Flare is what put me over the top. Since I am essentially a big mana deck, giving me access to that much more mana meant that I was able to drop a couple of big threats followed by a Winter Orb and then ride it out.

1-1



Round 3 - Carson on UBR w/ Birds, Chains, Bolts, Serendibs, and Power
In game 1, I mulled to 5 and didn't do much much after that. Carson was able to beat me down with him ending at 17 life. In game 2, I decided to enable the "full sideboard." This time he was the one to mulligan to 5 and beat me anyway, ending at 7 life. There was some back and forth in the second game, but I wasn't able to stick a threat long enough to overpower him. He did let an Energy Flux slip out of his hand at one point - which would have totally wrecked me of course - but I was able to keep him off the three mana he needed to cast it. A combination of Strip Mine, Winter Orb, and pressuring him with creatures was enough to stop Energy Flux from coming down, but not enough to stop him from winning.

1-2



Round 4 - Jeremy on Pink Weenie w/ Land Tax and Armageddon
Jeremy smashed me for two games in a row with small creatures, bolts, disenchants, and 'geddon. I was able to stabilize in game 1 with me a 8 life and him at 4. He Wheeled into 3x Bolt and closed it out. In game 2, I had some threats out and was pulling ahead when he cast 'geddon and proceeded to beat me down from 26 to 0.

1-3

The tournament was 16 players total. I ended the day at 15th place.

In this configuration, the deck simply does not work without 'Shops. Too many times, my turn one was spent playing a Mana Vault and then cutting turns off the end as the damage built up from not being able to untap it. It gets progressively worse when you compare subsequent turns where a 'Shop would have simply untapped and allowed me to produce another threat. In one game against Tanny, I took 9 damage from my own Mana Vaults. Su-Chi is also a problem. Without enough places to sink the mana from it, the mana burn really adds up. In several games this tournament, I took 4 mana burn from Su-Chi and it cut off precocious turns at the end.

The Sideboard Plan

Swapping all of the top cards with all of the cards on the bottom changes the deck from aggro-focused to control-focused. Fun!

I'm enamored with the idea of a transformational sideboard. It's cool to switch modes entirely. The real reason is probably because I am terrible at sideboarding, so being able to swap out the entire thing saves me from having to think too hard about it. While I do think an artifact prison deck could work (especially if it ran White), I'm barely competent to play one version of my deck let alone two. Pulling this off would take a lot more practice.

Prizes and Swag

The organizer ended up winning the tournament and gave his prize to the guy that came in dead last (16th place). As I mentioned, I came in at 15th place. The store owner came in 3rd place and decided to give his prize to the next guy at the bottom. Me! I was able to pick up 2x Copy Artifact with my "winnings." Maybe my next tournament will have some color in my deck.

We also had a player join us who was on vacation from New York Sisters of the Flame and brought some swag with him from that group. Thank you! And thank you to the Horde for bringing sweet swag. Check out that mox slap bracelet. We signed cards per the usual. I ended up with a Channel and a Horde Swamp. I have it on good authority that the Horde Swamp is a limited edition 1/100. ;)

Pictures from the Event

Ben and Me

Ben in the Clubhouse. The store was clean and nice, with plenty of room at the tables.

Me with Paul (DeSilva)

Ben. Intense.

Reading out the results!

Ben w/ a cool planeswalker mural

Oathbreaker: Colorless Ugin, the Ineffable / All Is Dust

A couple of years ago, I went all in on Colorless cards. Robots! There's something about artifacts that always lit me up. I still scroll to the bottom when spoilers come out for a new set just so I can see the sweet new colorless cards first.

Thanks to MTG Arena, I've had the opportunity to play with the new sets as they come out. It's easy to jump into a game online and playing down in the silver bracket means that I can jam janky decks without ruining someone else's day. I've even been able to play a full colorless deck in Standard!



The metal army can grow quickly and is backed up by a couple of different versions of Karn, Ugin, and Mystic Forge. That's quite a Magic card!



One thing that I don't like about Old School is that I don't get to play with the new cards. It's a double-edged sword. Not having new cards enter the card pool means that there are boundaries. Good cards continue to be good. The metagame can develop in different directions, but not so wildly that I can't adapt a few sideboard cards and still have a chance. Those are all good things for someone that doesn't have the time to play often. The downside is that I can't play with the new cards!

My weekly gaming group doesn't play competitive Magic. They don't play Old School. They play a lot of different games, including Magic. But it's casual. Commander was always too time-consuming for this group. Magic is something we play while we are setting up another game. Or waiting for a game to finish. It's a quick game we play between other things. So, we decided to give the Oathbreaker format a try.

Since I am into colorless cards, this felt like the perfect opportunity to put together a budget Ugin, the Ineffable / All Is Dust deck. Nothing in the deck is more than a dollar or two except Ugin and Dust. Most cards are well under a dollar. The format bans a lot of the fast mana. But you get access to a planeswalker as your Oathbreaker and a signature spell that you can cast only if you have your Oathbreaker in play.



The one-two punch of Ugin and All is Dust works well. The games play out quickly, which meets the criteria for my gaming group. And, the focus on the planeswaker makes for interesting play patterns. The smaller decks at 60 cards compared to 100 cards for Commander also makes the deckbuilding more accessible. If you haven't given Oathbreaker a try, War of the Spark gave us a lot of new planeswalkers at reasonable prices. Give it a try!

Old School MTG: Breaking the Icy out of Prison

It's liberated!

I've never had the singular pleasure of breaking a card out of a tombstone. That is, not until today.

My wife gifted me with some eBay credit, which I immediately turned into a sweet Beta Icy Manipulator. She knows me so well! It was slabbed and graded as a 6. I figured I was doing the world a favor by breaking it out to play with. I mean, it's a 6.

Since I've never done this before, I fired up youtube for a tutorial. I watched quite a few of tutorials until I ran across this one. This guy seems uber-confident.

I didn't have exactly the same tool(s) he used, but I found something similar.

Dirty screwdriver? Check. Dirty pruning shears? Double-check.

The process was relatively easy. At no point did I feel like the card was at risk for damage. Just keep the first cut up in the corner, away from the card itself.

Take that "6."

It made a satisfying crunching sound, like breaking an old piece of hard plastic. I suppose that's not surprising. Debris did shoot off a bit, so plan for that. Make sure someone isn't standing at eye level watching you. Use a piece of paper or point it against something and keep it close to the surface. It's also probably a good idea to put on eye protection.

Next, wedge the screwdriver in along the top edge and start to slowly pry it up. The case will begin to separate along the edges where it is welded. It makes a crazy cracking sound.

The card itself was sealed on all four sides in a plastic sleeve. I used scissors to cut the top edge carefully. I had to cut fairly close to the card to actually break the seal. Just pay attention to not cut the card. Hold it against a dark or light background (depending on the color of the card border) to create contrast.

There it is, in all its double-sleeved glory. Ready to play.

I always avoided buying slabbed cards because I didn't want to risk damaging them to get them out. After this experience, I would 100% buy another slabbed card and feel comfortable going through this process to break it free.

If you are buying these cards to actually play with them, breaking them out of a slab is an option. Watch the guy in the video for a tutorial, gather your tools, and then take your time and free the cards!

Old School MTG: Revisiting Mono-Red Atog

I'm going to make this simple for you: I want you to hit me as hard as you can.

It's July. That means it's time for something hot. How about Fireballs and Lightning Bolts?

Earlier this year, I played a red Atog deck with Urza lands but I didn't like how it all worked out. So, I decided to try a version with no Urza lands to more reliably cast the red spells off Mountains. There's still an unfair amount of ramp in this build, so the artifact beatdown squad still shows up to the party early. Which is nice.

I'm not getting many games in, but I did have the chance to play a few casual games with Ben at a LGS in the next town over. We invited the local Old School group from Portland and someone even showed up!

Nick (Left), Ben (Right)

Ben, super-pumped about his hand as he faces down the alien.

I did not dish out any Shivan beats (boo), but I did get to drop some Atog bombs. There's nothing quite like swinging with two aliens and watching the other guy try to figure out how to block to not die to a big board sacrifice.

What I keep coming back to is just how much better Workshops would make these decks. I'm just a simple guy, I guess. With the dual lands put up on the shelf, I'm jamming mono-colored decks that lean heavily on artifacts. A land that taps for three artifact-only many every turn would be fantastic. Who knew!?

The Horde is putting on another tournament within driving distance. It's scheduled for late in August. I'm not sure what deck I'm going to bring, but it's almost certainly going to be jam-packed with artifacts. I'm considering something with a transformational sideboard. Stay spicy.

Old School MTG: Wu Winter Prison

***Update: 6/22/2019 - It's fitting that I'm just noticing now (in Summer) that I didn't actually push the "publish" button on this back in Winter. Doh! As I recall, this deck made for some very long games. In several games, I held on turn after turn by bouncing the threat with the Time Elemental until I topdecked enough answers to turn the tide.

As we kick off another year, I plan to explore the old school format by building a new deck each month. I expect some cards will show up in a lot of decks, but the goal is to build a deck with a different theme or a different method of executing a theme every month. I'll play the same deck through the entire month and then switch it up to something new when the month ends. Twelve months, twelve decks.

For January, it seems appropriate to build a deck that features Winter Orb. White with a splash of Blue makes for a great prison deck that pushes the theme of a soul-crushing winter, covered in ice and snow. The main win condition is the icy hand of the old winter gods closing around you as the last remaining embers of the fire die out. And robots. Because, if there's anything I love to jam in Old School, it's robots.