Belated might be a little harsh… the Fall Ball only took place about two weeks ago on November 16th. However, tournament organizer and Sister of the Flame, Andy Baquero put up a wonderful tournament report about 3 days later so mine feels slow. I would heartily recommend that you check that out for some more background, including the fun deckbuilding twist that Andy designed, and the very deserving charity that Andy selected. At the end of the day, much fun was had, many arcane spells were cast, many beers had been drunk, and 22 players had managed to raise $300 for the Long Island Crisis Center.
Pre-Tournament Brewing
Andy is pretty well known in the community as a brewmaster who values “spice” way over “spike”, so it comes as no surprise that he came up with an interesting twist for the tournament. We were going to be playing with the EC 93/94 ruleset, but with the addition of Homelands (min 5 cards in the 75, 3 in the maindeck).
When I learned about the Homelands twist, I was really torn. On the one hand, I really wanted to support a local friend putting together his first tournament and I really couldn’t say no to a tournament that was taking place only a couple miles from my house. But on the other hand, I was not happy about trying to find a way to shoehorn a bunch of Homelands cards into a 93/94 deck.
Unlike a lot of old school junkies, I don’t get to play that often. I work long days, I have a shit commute, I have 3 little kids at home, and although I have a webcam to play via skype, I often have weird anxiety about doing that and it doesn’t give me the same nostalgia hit that a face to face match does. So, when I DO get an opportunity to play, I want to play a good deck! And I remember Homelands… it sucks! Also, I am a filthy netdecker! I suck at brewing in a profound way, so brewing in a space where I have to intentionally include awful cards is very far out of my comfort zone.
That being said, I bucked up and took a look at the Homelands spoiler for some inspiration. And as bad as I remember Homelands being, its actually even worse than I thought. There are many, many awful cards in the 115 card set, and one of the only clearly good ones, Merchant Scroll, was restricted for the event.
One of the first things that popped out to me is that Ihsan’s Shade. With a big butt (5/5), pro white, and built-in pro-Terror, it seemed like a nightmare to deal with, especially in the context of a powered-down format. Powering that guy out early sounded like a good way to go AND it also sounded like a way for me to justify my favorite terrible archetype in 93/94… Reanimator!
The “beauty” of Reanimator is that it almost doesn’t matter what kind of fatties you jam in the deck to bring back to life. So long as you can survive long enough to resolve an All Hallow’s Eve and you can sneak in a Concordant Crossroads to launch a surprise alpha strike, the mix of 5/5 or bigger dudes that you pick is mostly inconsequential (outside of Deep Spawn… that is a must-include no matter what). Digging around the Homelands spoiler a little more, Baron Sengir, Veldrane of Sengir, and even Black Carriage looked like viable candidates for putting together a ridiculous, on-theme deck that could steal more than a couple games. I even started to get excited about slipping in some Dry Spells, Dark Mazes, and a case Marjhan in the sideboard. Ebony Rhino also seemed viable, having trample.
But then I ran into a problem…
Part of what makes Reanimator “go” (if it goes at all) is Dark Ritual, whether that’s to power out an early All Hallow’s Eve, cast a black fatty, or to try and make up from the card disadvantage of Bazaar of Baghdad, Ritual is essential. Reanimator seemed fine until I thought about the prospect of having ritualed out an AHE only to have to put it back on the top of my deck. I wasn’t sure how many Memory Lapses I was actually going to run into, but the thought of that level of blowout was too much to bear. Add on to that the fact that I forgot we were playing EC rules for a second and I realized that depending on Bazaar to fill the yard in a 4-Strip meta was tenuous at best. So, scrap this junk… we’re back to the drawing board.
In my limited opportunities to play recently, I’ve mostly been playing Atlantic rules with only the single Strip Mine. So I had forgotten what decks could best leverage the opportunity to play 4 Strips. This led me to remember my first experience playing 93/94… white weenie. I figured that 4 strips, 4 swords, and 4 disenchants would be a good place to start in a format where you have a lot of 4 mana 2/2s.
So, how do we add in some Homelands spice into the tried and true EC White Weenie archetype? Enter… Aysen Crusader! A 2/2 that gets +1/+1 for each “Hero” you control. At the time it was printed, the only Heroes in the game were Benalish Hero and fellow Homelands all-star, Beast Walkers. Eventually Ice Age would bring a functional reprint of the OG Benalish Hero in Kjeldoran Warrior, but that was it until the Great Creature Type Update dropped “Hero” as a supported creature type and errata’d the Crusaders to gain +1/+1 from Soldiers and Warriors.
In order to maximize the “synergy” (being generous) of the Crusaders, we need to make some substitutions to the traditional EC White Weenie lists, which unfortunately means we’re dropping Lions and Thunder Spirits for the Crusaders, Icatian Infantry and Icatian Lieutenant. Fortunately, Icatian Javilineers is a solider, so we’re good to go there. We’re keeping White Knights and Orders of Leitbur too, despite unfortunately not pumping the Crusaders.
If I had just stuck with the script and jammed 24 white creatures into a deck with 4 strips, 4 swords, 4 disenchants, 4 crusades, and a bunch of plains, I probably would have had a decent deck. INSTEAD, I decided to play a blue splash for the power cards and Merchant Scroll. Astute readers will immediately recognize that Merchant Scroll has exactly 1 target in game 1 (game 2 and 3 are another story, but we’ll get to that). At the end of the day, I’m not sure if it made my deck better or worse, but I know that I was able to cast Ancestral at least once in all matches but one and in the games where it resolved, it felt like it accelerated me directly to a win. I don’t think I ever attempted to cast Time Walk or Timetwister, but that’s the way it goes.
For a non-existent format like this, it’s pretty much impossible to test. So my “testing” was a series of goldfish games. I started out with 22 lands, but ended up flooding out a lot with 9 1-drops and 10 2-drops, so I shaved it down to 20 (effectively 16 with the strips and almost no colorless pips). Also decided that I wanted a Balance (based on nothing by my whim) and so I ended up with this 61 card monstrosity:
If you’re going into blue for the power in the maindeck, then you have to go with Sleight of Mind in the sideboard. Being able to change your pro-black White Knights and Orders into the protection of your choice OR changing a Gloom into a one-sided Nether Void for your opponent (which I actually got to do) just seemed like too much to pass up. They also become Merchant Scroll targets in sideboarded games and they present the opportunity to cast Sxroll, hold priority, change “blue” to “white” and go grab a swords or disenchant. We are really in magical Christina’s land now!
So, 4 Sleights, and extra Island to help cast them, the 4th disenchant and then 9 slots to go… I ended up adding in a few more Homelands cards to boost my count all the way up to 6, and some Red Wards for more potential Sleight of Mind shenanigans. Those ended up being way too cute, however.
On to the games!
Round 1 – Michael Harris on Mono-Green Midrange
Game 1 starts out a little slow on my side as I get down a Javilineer, a White Knight and Crusade while Mike starts out with a Scryb Sprites, a Hungry Mist (hello Homelands) and a Pendelhaven. We kind of stare at each other for a little bit while I draw some timely Disenchants for his Juggernauts, Swords for his weenie flyers, and Strips for his factories. Eventually, a single Javilineer swings in for lethal damage after having heaved his one-time shot at a Sprite the turn before, and we take the win.
I decide to roll with the same 61 in game 2 and have to mull to 6. BUT, I went turn 1: Lotus>> Merchant Scroll>> Ancestral into plains, swords, white knight and I was off to the races. Mike hadn’t even seen the blue splash in game 1, so this was a particularly rude open. Eventually, I had cast all 4 White Knights along with 2 Benalish Heroes and a Crusade. For the first time in my life, I successfully attacked in a band! My Heroes allowed the Knights to clear out his blockers and then dealt 16 points of unimpeded damage in 3 turns for the win, while I never took a single point myself. My open was insane, and I think Mike’s draw was pretty poor here, but I was feeling good about my deck choice.
Funny enough, I saw his off-color Moxen in both games and played around cards that weren’t even in his deck. I had actually written RG Midrange in my notes, but saw that he didn’t have any red or white cards in his deck when the pics were uploaded. I got got.
1-0 (2-0)
Round 2 – Philip Dituri on U/R Tempo
I sit down at Table 1 to wait for my Round 2 opponent and find Sister Phil (aloofphil on Discord). We chat for a few minutes and realize we’re both still playing Pokemon Go so we make friends in game, then shuffle up and draw. Phil plays a turn 1 Black Vise, followed by turn 2 Black Vise, Black Vise! Fortunately, I have a fast hand with a Mox, Plains, Benalish Hero and a never take a single point of damage from the 3 Vises as I curve out into a relatively easy win.
For game 2, once again I decide not to sideboard anything except the 4th disenchant, taking out an Icatian Infantry and I draw a 7 of Strip Mine, Strip Mine, Disenchant, Swords, Hero, Javilineer, White Knight. This keep is risky af in a deck with only 19 white mana sources, but I don’t see how I can mulligan this. Sure enough, first card off the top is a Plains and I was pretty much good to go. This game was a little bit tighter than any of my previous 3 as Phil slows me down by Memory Lapsing a Crusade and Boomeranging a Plains, but after I swords his only creature, a Serendib Efreet, during my main phase with him tapped out, I redraw the Crusade, deploy it successfully, and take the win.
It’s at this point that I am super glad I didn’t play that Reanimator deck since I probably would have been approx. 0.5% to win against Phil’s deck.
2-0 (4-0)
Round 3 – Andrew Blaufarb on Mono-Black
Here’s where things start to get hairy. Game 1, I chip away at Andy with my weenie dudes and get him down to 1 life. He drops an Ihsan’s Shade and I temporarily think I’m sunk when I realize that my trusty Javilineer is still locked and loaded, so he shoots his shot for the win before the legendary Shade can turn the game back around.
For game 2, I’m all excited to bring in the Sleights of Mind to really blow Andy out. Alas, I get some early pressure out, but Andy stabilizes and starts to take over the board as he Paralyzes my guys and strips me out from an already land-light position. He gets me down to 4 when I draw a Lotus to play some blockers only to realize that I just put myself dead on board his next attack and to The Rack that he played on turn 2 or 3 when it didn’t matter. If I can get through a whole Magic tournament where I don’t at one point say “Oh fuck, I just killed myself”, it will be the first.
Game 3 was extremely grindy. I attack in bands to clear out his board at the expense of my Heroes while Sleighting his Orders of the Ebon Hand to get rid of pro white to put him at a disadvantage. Eventually I get him down to 3 life. He has a Mishra’s Factory in play that he hasn’t activated a single time the whole game and casually says something about how he’s dead. I’m hoping this means that he won’t see the Factory because between Mind Twist, Hymns, Strips, and a few blank draws, I haven’t been able to resolve a meaningful spell in 3 or 4 turns and I’m running out of gas. I swing in with a White Knight, boosted by Crusade and he activates the Factory. He ALSO activates his Urborg targeting my Knight. Initially I’m confused and say “it doesn’t have swampwalk???” to which Andy replies with the wording that’s right on the fucking card… “loses first strike or swampwalk”, and what I thought was just a temporary road block in my route to victory ends up being the turning point in the game. My Knight trades with his pumped up factory and I’m left with an empty board. On his turn, Andy builds his board back up with a couple of creatures and another Factory. I draw blanks and quickly fall from 16 to 0 in a game that I thought I had won. Oh well, lesson learned.
2-1 (5-2)
Round 4 – Dominic Dotterer on UG Aggro
I’m happy to see Dom again after having played him in a team unified match at Mobstercon over the summer and also quite surprised that he seemed to remember me as well. Dom is well traveled in the 93/94 community, where I am a hermit lurker so I was not expecting to be recognized by anyone but the couple of locals that I had played with occasionally at the Brookdale Tavern in the past.
Anyway, this match was over pretty quickly. In game 1, I got out to an early advantage and the drawback on Dom’s Spectral Bears really bit him in the butt. Playing an aggro creature with an advantage over black decks was a good meta call, but pretty miserable against my Heroes.
Game 2 was even more lopsided. He played turn 1 land pass and on my turn I went Plains>> Lotus>> White Knight>> Crusade. My next two turns were another White Knight and then another Crusade and the game was pretty much over before it started.
I looked at Dom’s list after the match and was surprised to find that he had no less than 17 Homelands cards in his maindeck and 8 additional cards in his sideboard. I would have to think that almost any other 93/94 legal blue and green creatures would have put him in a better position to win. Alas, Dom’s commitment to the spirit of the Ball was stronger than his commitment to winning, so kudos to him for that
3-1 (7-2)
Round 5 – Matthew Gazda on Mono-Black
I had played at another table with Matt (gazdamIt from Discord) earlier in the day, so my heart sort of sank when I saw that I was paired against him for the final round. This matchup feels like it should be dead-on 50/50 with my pro-black guys against his pro-white guys, but Matt’s deck had some trump cards with in Vampire Bats, Ghost Hounds, Feast of the Unicorn, and a gentleman’s Ihsan’s Shade. The way his deck was configured, I basically needed the perfect balance of lands and creatures, some timely removal, and I had to dodge his discard.
So, game 1 I get off to a good start by flooding the board with dudes. Matt plays a Vampire Bats, which I must admit, I have never seen in play in a game of Magic. I have seen the card a million times, having opened up hundreds of packs of 4th Edition back in the day, but this is not a card that I ever expected to see in a constructed match. That being said, it was killer. I found myself in a position where I had to race them since I couldn’t block them and at the end of the game, I got lucky to deal the last point of damage a turn before Matt’s Feasted Bats were going to swing in for lethal.
I sideboarded in the “secret weapon” Sleight of Mind, the 4th Disenchant for his factories, Paralyze, and The Rack (and maybe Gloom if I’m lucky) and Spirit Links. I struggle with what to take out. I probably should have taken out the blue cards, insane as it may seem to take out Blue Power in any sideboarded game, but instead I leaned too heavily on taking out the most garbage creatures (the Aysen Crusaders, Icatian Infantry, and Icatian Lieuteant).
So, sure enough, Matt gets off to a good start in game 2 and either turn 2 or 3 rituals into a Gloom. I smugly play a basic island>> Sleight of Mind and change White to Black. I’ve lived the dream! Unfortunately, I drew all 3 of the other Sleights and very few creatures and Matt was able to get out his Maze of Ith to slow me down. Eventually, I get Matt down to 2, but I can’t close the door and his Bats and Hypnotic Specters take the game since i can’t block flyers.
For game 3, I roll with the same plan as game 2 and this time it felt like even more of a mistake. I got out a Javilineer and a Hero on the early side and we proceeded to trade Strip Mines. Matt got out another Gloom, but he was focused on stripping my Tundras early and I couldn’t find both a blue source and a Sleight to bail me out. He gets more lands down, keeps playing threats, and walks away with a pretty easy victory. I never resolved another spell after that Gloom came down. It’s really unfair that his hoser is 3 cmc while mine is 4 (7 if he’s already got a Gloom down), and kind of sucks.
3-2 (8-4)
Conclusion and Denouement
I thought 3-2 might place me decently high, but then when the standings came out I saw that I actually was paired down against Matt, so the loss punted me all the way to 9th. Matt came in 5th, so if I had won then I would have been Top 4… but I didn’t. Shit happens.
Despite being a worthless grifter and forgetting to bring a prize card, I was allowed to draft from the table full of scribbled-on treasures (fortunately, Andy brought extras). There were some sweet cards in there and one of my top choices was still there when the draft came around to me, a Merchant Scroll that’s either Italian or Portuguese (I still need to look it up). If we ever get to play this bizarre EC+Homelands format again, I will have a sick Scroll ready to rock. If I ever get to play paper Vintage, then I will have to be sure to dig this one up as well.
At the end of the day, I was a little bit disappointed in how I played. The Sleights of Mind were extremely cute and fancy and really all they ended up doing was forcing me to dilute the creature density from my deck when I sideboarded them in. Coming into the tournament, I had thought that the “Sleight package” was really underplayed. I still might be right, but it sure as hell doesn’t belong in a deck that is this tight on flex spots and dependent on threat density.
I was also disappointed that I never got to cast my Aysen Crusaders in a single game. In R1 G1, I finally got up to 4 mana and had one in my hand on the turn I swung in for lethal, so I ran out of time to cast it in that one. Then I sided the 2 MD copies out in every sideboard game. It was a cute idea to build the deck around, but sadly all it did in the end was force me to play a dramatically worse creature package than I would have if I weren’t trying to cram as many soldiers in the deck as I could. I should have just played 4 Death Speakers in lieu of the top-end creatures you find in traditional EC Mono-White lists (Preacher, Thunder Spirit, Serra Angel, etc), and kept in the Savannah Lions. I’m honestly not sure if I would have dropped a game if I had done that instead.
At the end of the day, none of that matters. This was a fun exercise in deckbuilding that forced me out of my comfort zone. Hopefully it leads to me being a little bit more creative in the future, but I have a bad feeling that I’m just going to be sleeving up some sort of Atog list the next time I get a chance to play some Old School.
Wrapping up…
Props:
-to my delightful opponents who never gave me the slightest bit of salt despite some lopsided situations
-to the staff at the Brookdale Tavern for taking great care of us during the event
-to Bolero Snort Brewery for making a nice NEIPA to sip on all day
-and MOST IMPORTANTLY, to Andy Baquero for coming up with a fun idea for a tournament AND for running it extremely well. You would never know it was his first rodeo
Slops:
-to me for somehow remembering the half of Urborg’s ability that everyone else forgets, and forgetting the half that everyone remembers
-to the Brookdale Tavern for booking the tournament room for another party IMMEDIATELY after ours and bluntly telling us to essentially GTFO at the stroke of 5pm
-and finally, to whoever approved the design file for Homelands… I know this was a story driven set, but come on bro…