Hi al! Today we have a guest post from Slotherine on our Discord server. So I’m just gonna just going to leave the word to him, here you go! /Gordon
2020 - what a year huh, oh it's 2021 already and this is a continuum. Negativity, financial turbulence and social distancing, we have faced hardship and are still struggling through some hard times. So with that in mind I thought the good people playing this game could use some positive vibes out there. Here are some nostalgic remarks and random musings from an all new player to the 93/94 Old School Mtg and a sort of an public greeting to all of its local communities.
A full circle or spiral or something
Magic: The Gathering - what a peculiar thing it is. This collectible card game has been a huge part of my life since the summer of 1995. I can vividly recall when I and a very good old friend of mine bought our very first cards in starter decks of the 4th edition after another classmate with his big brothers introduced the game to us and some peers. Kalle got a copy of White Knight and I opened a copy of Black Knight, but more on that later.
What a wonderful game we found, it really hit home with us, as we were already involved in everything nerdy from pen & paper roleplaying to playing with Commodore 64 and Nintendo. Jumping back to present day and the global Mad Max scenario that we are currently LARPing, January 22th 2021 was the date I got the deal made and became an owner of Unlimited Edition Black Lotus. It took me 26 years to get my hands on the card of all cards, what an amazing feeling. All this got me feeling rather nostalgic, warm and fuzzy (truth be told, this gin and tonic that I’m sipping while writing this might enhance these sensations). So, how did I get here.
Early Dark Ages: It's all black
Oh sweet summer child, didn't win many games.
Black has always been my color, ever since I got that Black Knight and thought it's way cooler than my friends White Knight. I loved the black cards aesthetically, with their gruesome pictures of power, pain and sacrifice and livid depictions of nightmares. It all felt a little forbidden, bad and extremely metal. However, I really didn't see how anything could beat a Craw Wurm or even better a Scaled Wurm! So I played a lot of subpar green aggro decks. We really didn't know how to play, house ruled interactions and rulings on cards when we weren't sure how to progress and couldn't consult the older players. In the beginning there was just kitchen table games and real scarcity of cards, I remember trading for basic lands and with no understanding of the value or rarity, so I think we got pretty hosed by the older players. I remember Kalle trading a Tropical Island from Revised for some cards he needed for a deck (can't remember what they were, but it's safe to assume it was a steaming pile of bulk).
Revised was still on shelves when we started but of course we didn't want to buy too much of the old shit, so we cracked open loads of 4th edition, Fallen Empires, Homelands, Chronicles and Ice Age. So, we spend our first years losing to the likes of Erhnam Djinn and Armageddon or Llanowar Elves and Force of Nature and after the release of Ice Age to that big bad Necropotence or just getting drilled by a Juggernaut of a Sol Ring.
Eventually we found some other players and playgroups in our region, learned the game more and finally evolved into Type 2 players that did some occasional drafting too. Our old playgroup was going through a lull when Urza block arrived and I remember a shift in our local player base. All the powerful combo decks and cards of that era pretty much drove us out of competitive play, but the appeal to compete was growing and I remember at least attending the Nationals last chance qualifier in around the year 2000, playing a last minute trade binder brew rogue black that didn't have all the cards I wanted. I think it was sporting like 3 Rishadan Port, some number of Trashing Wumpus and a playset of beats by Phyrexian Scuta and yeah, stuff. I made it to 4-0 and table #1 and all the way back to 4-4 and one of the first cuts. What a blast.
But eventually people move on in life and the playgroups in little towns or more remote municipalities are easily dissolved. People had new interests, girls, pc-gaming and eventually mandatory military service here in Finland and then of course studying in the bigger cities. Somewhere around 2003 I thought Magic: The Gathering is something adults don't do, sold pretty much anything of value and left the game for 13 years. By that time I was a passionate Extended player that occasionally dabbled with some casual Type 1.5 , but what I was really playing was Extended with some sort of Oath of Druids builds and a Counter slivers deck if I recall correctly, that's XXU right? I remember having well over 20 copies of Revised Dual Lands, Italian Legends Moat and The Abyss with some other stuff. What an uninformed douche I was.
Getting back and discovering Legacy
The amount of snow is too damn high! This goes for both my backyard and Legacy
When I got back to the game in 2016 I quickly connected and integrated with this fantastic local Legacy based community here in Tampere, amazing people. I think I made my first good decision involving this lifestyle and bought into the format in one big swoop. Now with everything good comes the bad and in this case both the bad & ugly are the Wizards of the Coast with their FIRE-desing philosophy and mismanagement of the Legacy format. The good here is, that even though most of the format staples are not Old School cards they are mostly reserved list cardboard and appreciated extremely well in few years sort of keeping the gap or leap manageable to Old School. So, while I have not really enjoyed what has happened in Legacy lately, I have had some good trading pieces and stuff to sell and therefore decreasing the amount of new cash I needed to raise. Even after trading and selling a bunch of stuff, I still have too many Legacy decks to actively play them all.
Could have, would have, should have. I am not going to get too deep into finance here as it is quite boring and somewhat beside the point of this article, but as there are some serious concerns regarding the price of these old cards and I feel this needs to be acknowledged here. I for one am not going to defend the price increases or even spikes of sorts we are seeing with the original first editions and printings of these Mtg cards, but there are myriads of different factors affecting the collectibles market inflation that we are witnessing and can be at least reasoned with. I believe the most important thing here is to take perspective on value of things and not be too much hung up on price memory.
Upfront Ville (left) Erkka (right), im looming in the far-right corner behind couple of half-naked dudes.
Peksi demostrating that there is always room for players at Mätkymökki
The wild price spikes and following increases can be really worrying for communities, because I'm pretty sure many of the players enjoying the format and playing it are worried of the increasing price tag for new players or even old players wishing to build a new deck to try something different and cool. I have firsthand experience in this as the price action has been pretty devastating for many Legacy communities, or at least very worrisome, some new players are always interested but just opt not to get involved as it might be too pricey for them or all together unachievable. On the other side, we really don't know where we are with our reserved list formats until live tournaments and travelling are an option again.
Life is good, let's keep slamming cardboard!
We all have our subjective resources, budget and a way we value things, so the way I'm looking at all this is simply from my perspective. For me personally the current prices mean that I will never be able to reasonably build something like an Old School Reanimator which I'm a bit salty about of course, because its build around some of the coolest cards I have ever laid eyes upon like Bazaar of Baghdad and All Hallow's Eve, but we can't have everything can we? Perhaps I can borrow the deck live someday to get to tap that bazaar and mill nothing but lands.
Financially I think I've made all the big mistakes in this hobby, missing the great entry points for rare and valuable cardboard and of course quitting the game and selling off at one point. However, I am extremely lucky to be in this position right now, I have a steady job with decent income, pretty successful career and I have accumulated my stock portfolios for years now. Just to be clear, I'm also married with two kids and we have a house with mortage, so by no means am I rich, there are some real expenses.
Getting in to Old School in 2021
But after buying into legacy, how can I justify allocating thousands and thousands in something like Old School Magic. Simply put, these cards as rare collectors’ items and nostalgic game pieces that have real value for me. But even more than the game or the cards, I value the gathering - that is the communities that make up for what this whole collectible card game is. If there is something good that came with this pandemic, it's that it became apparent how much I miss and enjoy getting together with people to play this game. After Premodern and Old School gripped my attention few years ago, I have been keeping myself in the loop enjoying all the great streaming, blogs and other content.
We have played Swedish b&r Old School with open reprint, so I guess that's basically Ravenna Rules policy, on two of the last few summer cottages located Mätkymökki tournaments and are pretty constantly playing a monthly Premodern in our weekly tournament schedule in Tampere. There is some added appeal to true eternal formats for a player with work and family stuff to manage. The sheer amount of new sets, ludicrous card designs and metagame shifts have slowly turned even formats like Legacy into quite quickly rotating and quite exhausting, something hard to keep up with. There are some clear cut reasons I felt like I can, would very much like to and did actually decide to collect my first Swedish legal 75 that's all ABU & The Four Horsemen original printings. First off, I started adding up all the expenses that I usually have consuming services, culture, travelling or even just going to the movies or restaurants and to experience live music. With the pandemic all these actives just stopped and I noticed that there was abundance of cash on my account every month and nothing much besides the stock market to allocate it to. Now if you are lucky enough to keep your job status secure in these times, accumulating wealth is great, but I personally think it's pretty pointless if you can't spend it in something that you enjoy.
Recliner of rage, steady supply of books to read and new drinks, also insert your local sports teams’ woolen socks here
So, I put things in perspective, ensured myself yet again that I had all the essentials in my life, felt safe and free to again spend a portion of my cashflow and even some savings in this hobby, or perhaps we ought to call it a lifestyle, and started accumulating a card base. Now I have to admit that at first, I was sure I'm just going to construct some sort of powerless pile or two for tournaments allowing open reprints, but I was quickly tempted with some more iconic and exclusive parts of this games history that I had long-coveted.
When we were planning to make some tournament trips in 2020 sometime before the pandemic hit us, I actually went through my old bulk and binders. I was happy to realize that I actually have a playable 75 for Troll Disco for the updated Ravenna rules. But what I really wanted to go back to was black. What I really wanted to do for the first time in my life, was to swing in with a Juzam Djinn. Oh god, I can still remember us dreaming about owning these cards back in the day. 5/5 for just 4 mana, that’s just not fair (looking at you Uro). Those iconic cards were pretty much unobtainable for little kids that could only buy a single booster pack a week or something like that.
So I got my first all new Old School cards in 2019, my first Juzam Djinn in early 2020 in a deal from Netherlands and my first piece of power in Unlimited Mox Jet in the summer of 2020 as we made a local deal in person. The price spikes got me really worried and at times I was feeling a bit overwhelmed in all of this, contemplating in between should I really go for as much pimp that I can or should I settle for something less. Eventually the fomo got me and as I had the means, I helped 3 more Juzam Djinns to escape the Boris Johnson regime and the looming Brexit from England late 2020. You bet I'm going to play them way too much! After I got a deal on a playset of Beta Hypnotic Specters, just waiting to eat a bolt, I was sure that I want as much black bordered cards for my deck as I could muster.
By the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021 I decided to move fast so I didn't have to worry about the crazy price action anymore. With the last spike in the old school cardboard in the beginning of 2021, the price was right for couple of sellers in Finland and we did an in-person cards + cash deal for the Black Lotus. Some decisions were made, some high flying stocks positions were decreased, legacy staples were offloaded and a goal was achieved. Still waiting for few post packages to arrive, but when they do I will have an all Swedish legal 75 mono black. It's going to be far from perfect but I will be playing with what I got and with some cards that I think are cool.
Foil Eldrazi, Goblins for just about every format, Elves for PM and Legacy and a bunch of other decks/staples for variety of formats
Work in progress.
You choose how much you want so spend
Financially I have pretty much accepted that talking strictly ABU & The Four Horsemen original printings lists, mono back will be my brew space and there appears to be some ideas that I am looking to test out at some point. Some lists people have tested seem involve more control elements with disks, more manipulators, royal assassins and meekstone or something. I could try to convince myself that I don't need any expensive cards, but we all know how this is going to end up and I'll be hunting down those Guardian Beast's soon enough, if the price doesn't go completely bonkers that is. We'll see if have to the appetite to get some Unlimited duals at some point and yeah, just forget about that silly monocolored limitation.
Background in Legacy unlocks some Ravenna legal mana
I'm so glad that reprint wise the Ravenna Rules variants appears to be pretty popular in Europe, that will allow for more brewing today without committing ridiculous amounts of money. I would also encourage other Legacy players to look into the format as most of the active players have loads of Revised or Foreign Black Bordered Dual Lands so they already have the manabase covered for multicolored brews in more open reprint policies. With open reprints (usually old frame and original art) I'm looking to tinker around with my Toll Disco. I also think Atog is one of the most flavorful creatures out there with Juzam and could fill my need to get some aggressive red beats in at some point.
I don't mean to dismiss the purists wishing to keep their tournaments all pimped out, but new players are like a breath of fresh air for communities, even formats and the Swedish b&r still ensures the same appealing dynamics that were originally indented. Atlantic rules also look interesting and something I would like to try at some point. Only variation that I hold some prejudice against are the ones allowing 4 Strip Mine. About the open reprint policy, I really feel like I'm not missing anything if my opponent is slamming Revised Swords to Plowshares and Fbb Savannah Lions with 4th Armageddon, the gameplay is still there and I am free to drop and enjoy my Lotus. And we know how Mtg players are, when we get the taste for something, we buy in and start to pimp our decks. Variety of local and even tournament specific b&r modifications, gentlemen’s rules, mad brews and unofficial expansion sets like scryings are a great way to keep the 93/94 scene from getting stale.
Unfortunately it's mostly Revised or 4th, but it's something
Timetable is uncertain, but we will make it
We like many others had grand plans for 2020, many of us planned to attend yet another Magicfest in Europe with a Legacy main event, the Finnish Nationals for Premodern and Legacy, Alphacastle for some Old School Magic and the German Nationals for Premodern on that same trip, yet another rush with haste and trample to the Swedish Nationals for Premodern. Perhaps some bigger Old School tournament somewhere. Now all these events have been postponed and the outlook for 2021 is uncertain at best, but I’m sure we will get to play live at some point. I'm looking forward to getting that beer or two with Jens and Philip. And unfortunately, I didn't make the great Finnish raid to the Swedish Premodern Champs in 2019, but I've heard all good things about the local community and the mainstay figures that have roots in Old School. From what I have learned, they are my kind of people.
Oh, and there is murmuring that Gordon and perhaps some other jolly vikings could make it to the Mätkymökki tournament when we are safe to travel again. That would be grand. And by the way, I'm not the only local player interested in 93/94 Mtg. From the local Tampere Kettu Crew, I happen to know that Erkka is also looking to finish up a cool Ravenna legal BRU-control and he just agreed to buy an Unlimited Ancestral Recall. Also, Janne has almost completed a Ravenna legal White Weenie. Great things are afoot. Looking forward to meeting you all. But until then, I should really get a webcam to jam some games with yall!
I swear I was not drunk, even though academic celebrations can be a bit wild :)
P.S You can find me on Discord with the nickname Slotherine and on Facebook with my name Antti Turtiainen. Feel free to message me if you have anything to ask or just want to get in touch.