French OldSchool MTG Community

CDF 2023 : all decks – result no comments

Fishliver Oil Cup 2018 : Mathieu Report no comments

Mathieu kindly sent me his report from the last Fishliver Oil cup (more detailed than mine), I had the chance to translate it…..

Friday 6 am, what a rough awakening but it has to be done, moving towards “Gare du Nord” to join the french parisian crew before going to “Charles de Gaulle” Airport to fly to Genoa.

No way to playtest while flying, plane is too tight to take out the Decks.

Arrived in Italy, we go directly to the hotel where the Saturday tournament will take place.

Continues..

French OldSchool Nationals 2018 no comments

Good news everyone ! Guillaume recently announced on Facebook the dates for the next French National OldSchool Championship ! And it will be followed by a PreModern Championship !

Save the date : it will be the first weekend of december : Friday  November 30th (TBA)/  Saturday December 1st (OldSchool) and Sunday  December  2nd (Premodern) in Paris

Link to Facebook Events 

OldSchool

PreModern

If you don’t have access to the FB events, have any questions, you can ask Guillaume Denoix on Facebook.

Don’t worry, all the informations on FB events could be found below :

Continues..

Fishliver Oil Cup 2018 : Fred Report 1 comment

One week after the hUUUge Italian weekend (3 days !), time for some report ! Mathieu’s report will be coming in the next few days and will be filled with more photos 🙂

Fishliver oil cup is a 3 days tournament : Friday was Eternal Central rules (70 players), Saturday using Ravenna Rules (~130 players), and Sunday playing Premodern

The Parisian group arrived early Friday around noon and was composed of Guillaume, Arnaud, Mathieu and myself (Rodolphe dropped us at the last minute).

After leaving our luggage at the hotel, going for some pizza (well, pasta because no pizza for lunch, only dinner because of the preheating of the oven), then doing some last minute changes in our deck, we went to the lighthouse meeting the rest of the -almost french- team : Sébastien, Aveline, Laylaouhamesh and François.

My deck was, without shame, taken from Mg’s Party crasher / DeadGuy Ale with few adaptation made for Eternal Central Rules :

 

Side looks vaguely like  2 warp artifact, 4 ivory tower, 2 StP, 1 spirit link, 2 greater realm, 1 cop:red and few beers….

I’m having a hard time remembering my score, but probably like 3-1-2.

2 remarkable matches :

  • the first round vs François : he timewalked on first turn, then put 2 sedge troll on second turn…. then organizers told us there was a misdeal in the pairing and that this round was canceled, first relief of this weekend \o/ and a bad sign for François 🙁
  • Last round…. around 1 am : against a mono white prison (nice time for this kind of matchup ) this was truly epic, for 2 reasons : how it ended and how I met a wonderful person : Danny friedman
    • we were on the 4th extra-turn and Danny decked himself (thanks Howling Mine) while I would have died on my turn (5th and last of extras) for 2 reasons : no more cards in library and damage from his Black Vise 🙂

My feedback on this deck’s version and the EC format :

Serra Angel :
Win con, works perfectly with spirit link but takes all the hate
Definitely needs more creatures in deck so that opponent has less removal left for her (since hypno dies way to often to bolt, see below)

Hymn to Tourach :
Works well with an aggro deck but in this deck, doesn’t help that much, except if I can chain them like turn 1 hymn, turn 2 hymn (which I did)

Hypnotic Specter :
Isn’t strong enough in this format without the help from other creatures, if he’s alone on your board without another threat…

Moat :
Really helpful but with Serendibs all over the place, less effective than I expected

Side :
Too much protection, and less threats, CoP and Ivory Tower are just too much, I will probably drop the CoP

Armaggedon :
The format is too aggro and I’ve never had the upper hand… so it was useless

Land Tax:
Very powerful with Ivory Tower (first time I played these 2 together and I was really surprised), problem is that your opponent have to have more lands but again, with so many aggro decks in the format with such a small mana curve it was difficult to trigger it ; and since Armaggeddon was useless, it lost its interest

To sum up : Nice to play a white control-oriented deck, first time for me. Interesting to see synergy between Ivory Tower & Land Tax
I will probably  add more flyers like Sengir, and need to find a solution to calm down the heat from the firsts turns.
But I think classical DeadGuy Ale would be better for EC, except its win con relies on the luck you have (juzam/tourach on first turn)

 


After the 6th round we didn’t go overtime and went quickly to bed (except for someone) so saturday morning wasn’t so bad 🙂

For the Ravenna Rules OS, I decided to go with some dreams control I saw on wak-wak blog – link

 

 

There were many misplays and some tuning to do :

The problem with this kind of deck, there is too many “base cards” you can’t remove, Howling Mine + Relic Barrier works together, Dreams + Drawing cards also, you need white for control…. so you’re left with no dead-cards unfortunately.

Adding to that, BBB is very difficult to have for casting dreams

I had the idea to put in side every things to make it a 4C dreams combo and really more aggressive deck (with 4 dark ritual, 4 lightning bolt, 4 black vise), but I was too reasonable and decided to drop that strategy 🙁

Flash counter was MVP, when going back to classic dreams combo, won’t forget it 🙂

As for the result, I went 3-3

I won against UWB skies, a missing opponent and another deck I can’t remember, lost against Atog, ErhnamGeddon and MonoBlue

On a more general critic for both Friday/Saturday, I think that when working on sideboard cards and tuning decks, I’m too scared about City in a bottle, Blood moon and energy flux. Will try to ignore these threats/answers for future decks, because I cripple myself in 100% of my games with my Land/Artifact choices, while losing to CiaB, Blood Moon or Energy Flux would occur less.


For the last day, it was time to move ahead in time and play 95-2003 cards : Premodern !

I decided to go for some junk deck, taken from the premodern blog : link and decided to add some flavor to it, because after some training, it felt like it needed some more aggro, so after few research (link), decided to go with this version (missing 2 lands) :

Some feedback :

Wasteland : caused some mana issues for me and 50% useless since there are not so many non-basic land in this meta

Spiritmonger : hard to cast because need to keep mana to regenate Lynx, but when my opponents played it, definitely a win con for them… so I think having 2 is a good choice

Phyrexian negator : won me almost every match, this will be my deck signature 🙂 Even if the meta isn’t completely in his favor, really brings lots of memory to me and seeing the face of my opponent while casting it, priceless 😀

Cabal therapy/Duress : MVP, will need to work on my knowledge of the meta, I did some terrible mistake while being cast on wak-wak’s twitch… My first Duress, then never being used to watch my graveyard… Old-School habits

Treetop village : was very usefull, maybe will play more than 2

Definitely needs more Enlightened Tutor for this deck, because i really need it post-side games, even when I brought in 6 to 8 enchantments I never drew them….

Will probably test more “three deuce” approach, adding river boa, rancor, more treetop village, cursed scroll while keeping StP and vindicate
but need to remove bird and find a way to mix duress / cabal therapy. But removing birds will add some mana consistency issue, probably will remove gemstone mine because it has a really short lifespan, and it’s not vintage 😀
Second option : keep the same, add more tutor, spectral lynx was good, but maybe river boa will be better considering the meta

Went 2-1-3

On Sunday evening, we decided we needed more than a simple pizza, because after all, as French, it’s our duty to find the perfect meal ! We went on mission finding the restaurant called “Le Scuderie dell’Astronauta”

And we did have a delightful time  over there for 2-3 hours, here’s some pics :

 

Well, obviously, when the chief told us “crab”, Arnaud didn’t expect to find this beast on his plate. Hopefully for us, we were able to make some protection…

 

It was a great weekend, this time I spent more time chatting with people and really enjoyed it, looking forward meeting again Danny, Alexander, the almost french community and of course the organizing italian dream-team  🙂 Next time will try to make more photos, write report while playing (help remembering) so that I can report every matchup.

MKM Series Paris 2018 no comments

It’s been a while since we share some news on this blog, don’t worry we’re still alive, more than ever ! In fact, we gather every weeks on thursday night to play some Old-School & pre-modern (yes, we’re working on a new section of this blog for post about this rising format). Adding to that : holidays, no tournament in France… So it was pretty dead around here.

Time for some actions now ! French community will be present at 3 tournaments until end of year :

MKM Series Paris : Saturday 08 September – Location : Paris FR

Fishliver Oil Cup : 26/27/28 October (EC rules / Ravenna Rules / Pre-modern) – Location : Genoa IT

France Championship : 30 november / 01 / 02 December (probably EC rules / Ravenna Rules / Pre-modern) – Location : Paris FR

 

We also added a new static page for uploading pictures of Decks during tournament (WIP) : Deck Uploader

And a surprise for people attending MKM series (hopefully Guillaume will give us some preview on FB for those who will not be there)

EFREI : quick report no comments

Last sunday 9 peoples gathered for an OldSchool tournament as a side event during France’s Legacy Championship Cup, here is the quick review, mostly photos, some Decks & the video of the final 🙂

After 4 rounds & top 4, here the final top 4 :

  • Frederique Lafoux (1st) – Disco Troll
  • Arnaud Avenel (2nd) – Dreams combo
  • Guillaume Denoix (3rd-4th) – BRW midrange
  • Sébastien Kennel (3rd -4th) – BRW midrange

 

  • Philippe Royer – The Deck
  • Mathias Canu – BGW
  • Vincent Ruaut – Reanimator
  • Alexis – The Deck
  • Maxime – Mono black

Continues..

Sorrow's path banner

Brewing for the German International tournament 1 comment

If you like Old School you probably have heard about the German International tournament

Sadly I won’t be able to make it even though I worked on a brew to get the max points I could think of while still having a nice deck to play. I even ordered jank from MKM for it and playtested it a whole session.

Since I’m such a nice guy I’ll share that work and fun with you guys, hoping you’ll enjoy it!

The Perks (Bold = targeted perk) :

  • *Fun player* – not playing The Deck or UR Counterburn: +2 points
  • *Half Breed* – playing one to three P9 only: +3 points
  • *Budget Master* – playing completely unpowered: +5 points
  • *Fresh Meat* – first time playing 93/94 in Germany: +1 points
  • *Grand Arbiter* – for multicolored decks, each color in the maindeck is represented with the exact same amount of cards : +3 points
  • *Summoner* – combined power of creatures in the maindeck exceeds 50: +3 points
  • *Child of Darkness* – playing at least 15 cards from The Dark in the maindeck: +4 points
  • *Wordsmith* – for each letter in the alphabet, play a card in the maindeck starting with that letter: +5 points

Sorry The Dark and I like playing with Power  🙂

The process :

  • Set up an Excel with a line for each letter (and calculating total ATK/colour split) and get scryfall.com running to get all cards sorted alphabetically.
  • Notice that there are only 2 cards in Q which aren’t playable (Quagmire in Black and Quarum Trench Gnomes in Red)
  • Notice that Will-O, Xenic, Yawgmoth and Zephyr finish the alphabet nicely and we’re set for a UB deck.
  • Add the usual suspects and Underground Sea.
  • Add some Erg Raiders, Guardian Beast, Hurkyl’s Recall, Juzam Djinn, Khabal Ghoul, Nevinnyral’s Disk, Oubliette, Phantasmal Image, Royal Assassin and Volcanic Island (as an island starting with V)
  • Adjust quantities and notice that you aren’t that far from *Summoner* perk so adding a Leviathan is a nobrainer.
  • Notice that you’re like a Project M / Disco Troll deck and that you already have Volcanic Island and several deck cards Main Deck to work on a red transformational sideboard

The final decklist (2 slots left in the sideboard) :

Deck Picture DeckList

Playtesting results (vs “real decks”) :

  • 1st  game you better dodge your unplayable (Leviathan, Quagmire, …) 🙂
  • The Disk’s / Hurkyl’s synergy is very fun
  • Xenic Poltergeist is a good card (gunnarsonbag.blogspot)
  • Turn 1 Nebuchadnezzar (mox + land + lotus) doesn’t win games 😀
  • vs The Deck: you’ve got game and the Guardian Beast+Chaos Orb lock is so great
  • vs Monoblack : Hyppy turn 1 is a problem (Might wanna get Bolts in the sideboard)
  • vs Prison : Erg Raiders and Phantasmal Images are good beaters / Disks and trolls are nice

Final words :

So sad I don’t get to win the upcoming tournament because starting with 14 points and such a fun and powerful deck it would have been a blast!

I don’t have time to go get my cards right now so a http://manastack.com picture will do the trick!

~

Extending the Unlimits (Alters pt.1) 2 comments

When I started playing MTG back in ’95 there was a rule that said that your deck was to be Full Alpha or No Alpha, it quickly translates into Alpha is banned from tournament play which is the mood I had when I started buying in Oldschool 93/94 in 2014! That means I had tons of Beta staples and once (2017) I wanted to pimp my deck / complete my sets I had to face a hard choice :

  • Rob a bank to upgrade to Alpha
  • Keep buying Betas that won’t feel like the final upgrade
  • Buy Unlimited and play budget

I chose a mix : I sold my Beta cards, “upgraded” into Heavy Played  Alpha when it was cheaper than my EX/NM Beta or buy HP Unlimited to have them extended and look “finally upgraded” / “mine”.

I’ve got lucky I found Stef Margouya to do my extensions and here I’ll show you the results…

Continues..