Party Crashing the Ivory Cup VI

Far up, in the northern hemisphere lives a rugged man with great whiskers and a long beard whose colour has started to fade. His intense blue eyes wander between the tomes in his never ending scholarly pursuit for all that men of today might fail to recall. As a great sorcerer he has left it for others to pursue the customary and recognized spells. He lingers between the unknown and the hidden. I once saw, with my very own eyes, how he summoned a great red dragon at the Bazaar on the Al-​Muʿaẓẓam square. His foe sent a beast with a great evil eye upon him, but he deafened it with a blast from a horn and let the skies burn red before the great dragon delivered its final blow.

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Looking straight into his small black pupils, that gaze that insisted on my demise. A grin appeared and his eyes turned friendly again. We shook hands and it was all over.

This was the first time I met the sorcerer. I fail to derive any lessons from when we have met then, and the following times, for the beer was flowing. Maybe this is how he keeps his knowledge to himself. As you all know, the studies of the occult and the wizardry have evolved a great deal the last decade.

By happenstance I came upon one of the pages in one of the sorcerers’ notebooks. It intrigued me since I had studied the same spells as of lately. Darkness and light combined in a witches brew named “The Party Crasher” really caught my eye. Today, a few years ago might be something not worth while lingering upon but I was in a real rush. It had the Dark Rituals, Hypnotic Spectres and the Underworld Dreams combined with Swords and Angels. I was transfixed, my mind was set.

(Anyhow, here are the different versions of MGs deck and mine that I won Ivory Cup with (and some minor thoughts on card choices)

//I am Seb.

MG  - Undead Party Crasher, Gothenburg Invitational 2015

MG - Undead Party Crasher, Gothenburg Invitational 2015

This is the first version of MGs Party Crasher deck. I stumbled upon it by accident and it caught my eye since it did not play Mishras and I haven’t played with my Hypnotics and Underworld Dreams in a while. I needed a deck for the Ivory Cup and I was already late with submitting because I was at first suppose to commentate the whole shindig. Basically, the funniest thing happened the day prior to the tournament. I had just bought a bunch of #långburk (50cl beers) when I got a phonecall from the preschool. Apparently my youngest kid had thrown up on one of the teachers. When I came home the other one also threw up. So, there I was with a bunch of fun in my bags and no where to (be able) go.

So let us get into the decks and stuff, but before we continue, I should prob point ya’ll to the episode of “Monster of the Week” where I have a chat about the deck and how it evolved. I wrote a summary of the last years Ivory Cup where I finished last and earned me my fourth Rag Man and where I tunred into a Cosmic Horror (jay me!). So I feel it start to be customary for me to write a few words as a report of sorts. Maybe next year I will end up in the middle somewhere but as we are keen on traditions here in the old school community, I will probably write something then also. So here are the links and let us get into other stuff:

EPISODE 20 - MG, THE JANITOR IVORY CUP VI

GOING TO RAG TOWN AT THE IVORY CUP

ALL THE DECKS FROM THE TOURNAMENT

So, with all that said, this version above is rocking a lot of artifact hate. Also more creatures than the later versions. MG will add another Serra going forward and have a completely different sideboard plan. Circle of protections can be nice and all but there are better ways to go about as we soon will see.

MG - Party Crasher, Wexio 2016 (2nd place)

MG - Party Crasher, Wexio 2016 (2nd place)

When I found this version more things fell in place for me. Åland berated me for not keeping the Warp Artifacts in the SB. They are a sweet add and give your control opponents even less time to do stuff. Underworld Dreams never really let you draw out of your problems and with the slow drain from the Warps they need even more answers. Notice how the deck is resilient to artifact removal and playing no Juzams or other Arabian Nights cards also (besides some of the usual lands). This makes it tick I think. You can have the answer yourself in City in a Bottle and Moat is such a good card. The Wrath of Gods probably seals the deal in many of the aggressive creature matchups such as ZOO or Mono G. The engine of Ivory Towers, Land Tax and Greed also hits the spot just right where you want it. This is control with the possibility to get your legs swept from underneath by Geddon. An unanswered Hypnotic is also a way to go about of course.

MG - Party Crasher, From Russia With Love (1st place)

MG - Party Crasher, From Russia With Love (1st place)

This is basically the same deal. MG came and visited us in Stockholm and took down the whole tourney with it. I came 3-4th in it with an UW skies deck and Chambers lost to MG in the finals.

MG - Party Crasher, Fishliver Oil (5-8th place)

MG - Party Crasher, Fishliver Oil (5-8th place)

MG made top8 at Fishliver Oil with this build. So some nice finishes in just one-ish year with the deck I’d say. It’s sure nice to play some Juzams once in a while. Kind of a non-bo with Moat though but the Spirit Links are winning the race for you in a big way. In the last version that MG built he tried playing 4 Sengirs and 4 Serras but he concluded it was way too clunky. I don’t have a deckpic of it but you have to take my word for the only other cool thing in that version to be a miser Pestilence in the SB. Before we go I will give you my deck that I won Ivory Cup VI with. I went for power and had a very controlly setup in the SB with Tomes and stuff. Going forward I would prob try to fit in some Warp Artifacts in the SB. Maybe consider Greed alongside some Spirit Links but without Land Tax in my version (hard to pull off splashing blue also) the Ivory Towers won’t do their job. It was sure nice to get a win this time around since I came in at the very last place the year before. The whole tournament can probably be found on Wak-Waks Youtube channel in the near future. Otherwise the VOD might still be up on the Twitch channel.

Seb Celia - Party Crasher, Ivory Cup VI (1st place)

Seb Celia - Party Crasher, Ivory Cup VI (1st place)

Beer – an integral part of the Ivory Cup

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Next month it is time for the Ivory Cup VI (more info here), our yearly big tournament here in Stockholm. Usually it is a pretty back to basics tournament except for one thing, the beer. We are very fond of our beer and usually have a bar setup with a lot of nice carefully selected beverages. This will however be hard now when we are doing it all online on Tolaria.app. That’s why we have put together this beer list for all the players.

The idea is that you can go and buy/order these beers and drink one of them ever round for the complete Ivory Cup experience! Also, it gives you something to talk about with your opponent who hopefully is drinking the same beer as you. Do it as a small online beer tasting or something.

It is of course hard to choose beers that we know everyone can get a hold of but we’ve tried to find that middle ground between a good beer you may not have tried and beer that should be available in most countries. They are however all readily available here in Sweden. If one specific beer isn’t available for you, go for another one of the same type is our suggestion.

Any questions? Hit up Gordon on our Discord. And also if you want to play, it is open for anyone! More info here.

Without further ado, here they are:


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Round 1 - Dale's Pale Ale

Brewery: Oskar Blues

Style: American Pale Ale

ABV: 6.5%

Let us start simple with one of the most classic American pale ales. Not too bitter and not too sweet. Not too strong?! If it's not available where you live, well that's simply wrong!


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Round 2 - XX Bitter

Brewery: Brouwerij De Ranke

Style: Belgian Pale/Single

ABV: 6%

We continue the pale ale saga but travel to Belgium. Belgian beer is in general more sweet than bitter, but this one has a serious bitter note and will segue nicely into round 3. XX also reminds us of Recall. If you have too many of these you might not Recall it!


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Round 3 - Sculpin IPA

Brewery: Ballast Point

Style: West Coast IPA

ABV: 7%

Time to take it up a notch, 1% to be exact. This is one of the most classic West Coast IPA:s with a 100/100 score on RateBeer. Unfortunately often lacking some freshness if you get it in Europe, but hopefully you will be able to find a decent batch. And yes, this one brings an even more bitter perspective on Old School Mtg. Also the perfect beer if you play Fish so sleeve up those Pearl Tridents!


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Round 4 - Oude Geuze Mariage Parfait

Brewery: Boon

Style: Gueuze

ABV: 8%

This is the perfect round for something different. Something to reset your taste buds while still bringing you that cozy feeling, it is 8% after all. Geuze is the champagne of Belgium and yes, this beer is sour. And amazing. Try it! Or any other geuze if you can't find this one. Unless you play Parfait, then you should probably get two of the above.

 


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Round 5 - Kentucky Breakfast Stout

Brewery: Founders

Style: Imperial Stout

ABV: 12.3%

Having cleansed our palate, we begin anew and what is a better way to start than with breakfast? This one packs a punch so be ready! Kentucky Breakfast Stout might be slightly challenging to find, but after four beers you can probably go for any imperial stout. This one is nevertheless rated 100/100 on RateBeer so should be worth the extra mile.

 


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Round 6 or top 8 or whatever - Březňák Světlý Ležák 12°

Brewery: Pivovar Velké Březno - Březňák

Style: Czech Pilsener

ABV: 5.1%

Chances are that you are feeling a bit tipsy now, and will enjoy most beer that comes your way. Time to take it easy. Why Březňák? First of all, the brewery is owned by Heineken so it should be readily available in most places. Second, a friend of ours tried every dirt cheap lager in Sweden and this one was crowned the winner! By now it is a staple at his annual Magic Pool Party and it's actually quite good if we Recall things correctly.

 


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HOWEVER… If you are still sober enough for something peculiar:

Quadruple Lingonberry Maple Pancake Lassi Gose

Brewery: Omnipollo

Style: Style? Yeah sure, it is a gose but with a big BUT

ABV: 6%

Omnipollo is a really good brewery. But they also brew some crazy S#€T sometimes, and this is one of those. Try it out, or any of the other Omnipollo experimental brews. Lingonberries do nevertheless match Swedish Old School the best. You can probably order it here if your local dealer fails you: https://omnipollo.com/

 

Going to Rag Town at the Ivory Cup

A note from the editor: As might be familiar to some of you, it is custom to bestow the title of Rag Man on the person who finishes last in our tournaments. One person has skirted the abyss more times than any of us. To celebrate Seb's third Rag Man, it was decided to transform him into Cosmic Horror. Eureka, he screamed! This is his story.

A not from the second editor: After Seb’s amazing story there is also a short bit about the Ivory Cup as a whole.


Rag Town

”Oh my! Oh lord.” The woman jumped back as she saw his apparition in the alley. There, hunched over the waste of man.

”Eh, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure!” He said. Like a sick bird he strutted around his treasured pile of garbage.

”Er, stupendous and unheard-of splendours await me below!” The hooded figure yelped as he pulled out something from the pile and put it in the sack. There was a slight dribble from the sack; drip, drip and his tattered clothing was greased, probably with the fat from the discarded bones he gathered.

"Aw, he's just a silly, dirty little man. What's to be afraid of?" said the gentleman that accompanied the woman as he hurried them along.

”Eh, the Rag man, he hunts what might have been!” The Rag Man said and a sad smile appeared under his pulled up cloak.

”Er, and now my sack is full. Ah, a sack lasts long, but a ten pound filled sack is longed for.” He said as he slung it over his shoulder and started to walk.

Editor’s note: That Fallen is actually a Rag Man but was given out at a time we didn’t have one.

The room had all he needed. There was a pot, two small bowls and something that resembled a bed in the corner. And there it was, the door. Bolted and shut. He cracked the bones and threw them in the small pot. And as he poured the stew into the bowls the light turned on in the other room. There was a keyhole and it invited him to look but the dared not, no. As a matter of fact, when he slid the bowl under the door he made a conscious choice not to look.

”Er, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.” he said as he averted his gaze. But still, he stayed there, hunched over by the door.

And then the music started. Hideous sounds, yes, to some. Vibrating and assuming a symphonic quality for him now, yes. And as time past, the playing grew wilder.

”Ah, fait accompli!” The Rag man cried out. And then he looked.

Screams of horror rended th' affrighted skies.

/Seb

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The Ivory Cup VI… or was it the Pesticup V?

So then it was time for Gordon to write a bit. This was the fifth (I did however write VI in invitation hehe) Ivory Cup and was supposed to be a bit of a celebration. As you all may have guessed that did not happen because of that plague thing going around. So instead of our usual 30 people gathering of amazing people from all around we decided to have an even smaller event with maximum 16 people playing outdoors in a field to avoid the Pestilence. The Ivory Cup became the Pesticup and we also continued with our american theme as the tournament was held July 4th.

But then it all fell apart once more. Yes, after a week of 30 degrees Celsius that one day we where supposed to play, the rain came. Of course, it is Swedish summer after all. We then diecided to do the lazy thing expecting some drops in attendance and moved it to the pub (yes, we can actually go to the pub here). We ended up being 9 players playing 4 rounds of swiss and a top 4. Also the bottom 4 played for the elusive Rag Man as told above.

Yours truly never did have time to build a deck and took an old list and just exchanged white for red as white is the most boring color of all. But as usual when building your deck (deckpic below) half an hour before the event you are bound to do some mistakes, like not adding any artifact removal haha. I however managed to end up in the finals even after losing against Jonas Stattin’s mono green with Titania’s Song (yeah, i probably should have played white as it destroys my deck completely in) and a cool singleton deck piloted by Micke Magnusson, both unpowered. And then I lost in the finals (as usual I can’t ever win a tournament) to Knaz how took home the Pesticup with the deck below. Btw we did play with gentleman’s rules.

Ivory Cup IV Retrospective

The fourth Ivory Cup is over and left are just the memories, and the videos! Yes, two weeks ago we organized the playset edition of Ivory Cup, Stockholms first annual tournament following the likes like n00bcon, BSK and Arvikafestivalen. This year 29 brave souls showed up to play, which I believe is the same amount as last year and also a number we are very happy with as we don’t really promote it.

Old School has grown so large since the first cup and there are tournaments all over the world all the time. When we started the cup this wasn’t the case and we saw a part of the year where there were no tournaments, especially not in Sweden. Today you could play an old school tournament at least every month if you travel a bit (just as Jason Schwartz!) and it also seems every tournament try to make it cooler than the next in some way. The Ivory Cup however, will stay the same with non of that extra spice, except for our beer list.

We play at a community hall in the outskirts of Stockholm (a whoopin’ 15 min by metro from the central station) where we sell beers and have a couple of moderate prices. That’s it. Still, for some reason people from outside of Sweden travel here and we are deeply honored by that. So a big thanks to Åland, Brother Karl, Brother Stebbo, Constantine, Anya, Timo, Jason and Mitja who made it so that we had more guests from outside of Sweden than swedes outside of Stockholm (Arvika, Gbg and more, what’s up?). With that said, a special thanks to Kalle who both travelled from the other side of the country to play and painted an amazing price for us!

For the international guests and the ones who found a link on the tournaments webpage and asked me about it we also held a special invitational tournament the day before. A singleton tournament without all the bannings most people do. A fun format to play every now and again, but not really a format. If you want to read more about that, check out Svantes report from the event.

But now let’s talk about what you probably here for, the decks and the videos!

I’m actually not going to say much more than here are the top 8 decklists and under them you will find video coverage. We didn’t stream the cup this year, but we did however record a feature match every round. And as it is not much fun to watch a match with no sound Gordon, Seb and Paddan sat down to drink a lot of beer and do commentary (that’s why it has taken some time to get it up).

Without further ado, here it is!

Decks:


Videos:

The above is a playlist with all 5 rounds+top8.

Ivory Cup 2

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Game on!

So, this is a report that I should have written many many moons ago but as we say here in Sweden, “den som väntar på något gott väntar aldrig för länge”. And for you international readers the literal translation reads “one who waits for something good never waits to long”. Therefore, I now give you a short report on organising and playing the Ivory Cup 2017 in Stockholm earlier this summer.

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Let’s start with a short throwback and backstory. 93/94 may have originated in Sweden, but that was on the west coast, while Stockholm is on the east coast of the country. Historically Stockholm haven’t had as big of an old school community as the west of the country so last year’s Ivory Cup was actually the first dedicated 93/94 tournament being held in the capital. Then we had 29 players and considered it a big success, so of course we organised another Cup this year.

This year the tournament was held in the suburbs of Gubbängen in Stockholm as I was able to get an empty venue for free there. The “for free” part gave us an opportunity to give away some more expensive prices than we otherwise could have which was really nice. Other than that, we did as we usually do, buy a lot of nice beer and set up our own bar where they players could get anything from a simple lager to oak aged sour beer. One new thing was that we also invited the store Mindstage to come and set up a popup store with only old school cards.

The tournament got 35 players from all around the country and some special guests from Norway. That meant that we played six rounds of magic and then cut to top 8. As we are not much for giving out expensive prices to the winners we had a special price structure set up for giving away all the cool stuff we had. First of all, every player that had pre-paid the tournament got to pick a random card from a Legends lottery with only playable cards. The big prices where a Mirror Universe, Land’s Edge and a Sol’kanar the Swamp King. The fixed prices were an altered Alpha Ivory Cup for the winner and a green Duelist Abacus Life Counter still in the blister for second place. We also awarded 9th place with a signed Abomination on which Mark Tedin has written “9th place isn’t that bad”.

Then we did two different lotteries, one for all the players who didn’t top 8 and one for the ones who did. Kalle Nord donated the price for those who didn’t top 8 and that was a one of a kind test print of this year’s n00bcon playmat. The price in the top 8 lottery was a rare Black Lotus playmat with the original Black Lotus art.

And now to the top 8!

First of all, here are the decks and players who made it through the swiss:

 

When the dust settled after the though quarterfinals Jonas Lefvert, Paddan, Micke Thai and Kalle Nord where the ones left standing. I’m sorry that I didn’t have the time to keep track of the matches very well so I can’t give you any details of how they played out. But I can at least tell you the ones who made it to the finals which was Kalle Nord on “restricted cards+four drops” against Paddan with his 4c Deadguy Ale, two strange, but amazing brews. It really was the battle of the four drops but after quite a quick final Kalle Nord stood as this year’s champion. He was actually so happy that he took a bite of his own Black Lotus(!). Ok, maybe not a bite, but almost! He is one crazy dude.

This isn’t the most comprehensive of tournament reports but it was mostly written to have a reason to show you guys the nice decks people brought to this tournament. So, I hope you can forgive me for that.

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But at least I have one more thing to say about the tournament and that is the amazing match for last place! We always give out a price (a Rag Man) to the player who comes in last but as we had two people with the same points we let them battle it out. In the pot was the Rag Man for the looser and an invite to next year’s World Championship of 93/94, n00bcon. Now that is a match with high stakes! The match was between the Norton Fantenberg and Joakim Askenbäck and we are happy to say that Norton now is one of the amazing Stockholm Rag Men and Joakim Askenbäck will be able to compete with players from all around the world next year.

Here the plan was to have a small report on how I did and some words about my deck but I'll leave that deck tech for later.

Here are some more pictures from the event:

/Gordon