Happy Birthday!

Dec 14

9th of December 11.45am - and I realize I am in a bit of hurry. I had to excuse myself from watching Gabby's Dollhouse with my daughter and rush to the shower. Great things were afoot! After getting some clothes on and calling up a cab at the very last moment I did arrive at the venue 2 minutes late (in style). I was a bit thrown off as there appeared to be peer support meeting for autistic people at very same spot, but after the initial chaos and disarray it was agreed upon that these people with all the gaming addicts loitering around actually intented to attend my birthday tournament.

It was time for……RANDOM FUN

I decided I should hold a birthday tournament to celebrate this great game with some of the cool people that I have met along the way. Choosing the format was tricky, as the potential players would all prefer different formats. So, I delved into some old The Duelist -magazines for inspiration and found it in the extra issue for Pro Tour New York 1996. I thought it might be fun to play something like that, but with contemporary (improved rules) and with no weird restrictions like forcing players to add cards from each legal set in their 75. I did some Scryfall searches and decided which sets should be played. These were heavily influenced by what we opened and played with when we first started playing MtG, back in the day. This would be a celebration for things long lost and gone. You know, the golden days slamming Scaled Wurms at the kitchen tables and spending our allowance on Ice Age boosters. And also a nostalgic nod to the original idea of the Pro Tour and that so naive, even innocent feel of the original "competetive" scene of magic. Looking at the cardpool, it looked like a sort of sweet spot in between my two favorite formats, Old School and Premodern. In this format, you would get to play decks and strategies that are not really viable in the two forementioned formats. And even when the archtype was something played in Old School or Premodern, you had to include bunch of different cards in the deck.

Name of the game was this: It is June 1997 and Wizards of the Coast have introduced a new eternal format for Magic the Gathering. Welcome to the very first Random Fun Pro Tour. You have to build a constructed legal deck from these sets: Fallen Empires - 4th - Ice Age - Chonicles - Homelands - Alliances - Mirage - Visions - 5th - Weatherlight. We are using contemporary 2022 rules. Banned cards: All ante cards, Channel, Mind Twist and Phyrexian Dreadnought. Restricted cards: Balance, Island Sanctuary, Ivory Tower, Strip Mine, Vampiric Tutor and Zuran Orb.

So we played, and after 5 rounds of Swiss these were the results:

We were now ready to begin top4 where Erkka with UW Equipoise defeated Janne on ErnieGeddon 2-0. Matti on Mono Black (without Pox, Necropotence, The Rack or Bad Moon) defeated Ville on RG Ponza 2-0. And for everyones surprise in finals, Erkka and UW Equipoise defeated Matti on the Black deck 2-0 to take whole thing down, well played!

For the winner, some legendary (infamous) green balls and the trophy card. Congratulations Erkka!

For the coolest deck, some not so legendary (but infamous) green balls chocolate and the trophy card. Congratulations Pasi!

Overall thoughts on the format. It was even more fun and resulted in better games and play than expected. I was afraid people might figure out the most broken cards and things to do and the metagame would be a shitshow, but the playing field was surprisingly even with lots of different decks around. Pox strategies seemed really strong and Burn was not as efficient as I feared. Erkkas result showcased how strong the classic blue and white control shell is, what ever you put in it as a win condition. The bans and restrictions seemed to work out fine, other than Balance that resulted in one sided blow outs. The next time we play this format it will be banned. Decisions on Enlightened Tutor and Mystical Tutor are still pending.

What should this format be called? I jokingly named it "retarted and inappropriate birthday format", but a more appropriate name could be something that describes post-OS or pre-Extended in a nifty way. Postschool or Prextended? I don't know. I will take in suggestions.

To conclude. The games were great, people were amazing, gifts were cool and thoughtful and the following pub crawl resulted in even more good drinks and birthday format/Old School games. Thanks all. Love you guys!

Here are some random game action photos from the tournament.

The decklists

5-0 Mono Black by Matti Hämäläinen

4-1 ErnieGeddon by Janne Laurila

4-1 UW Equipoise by Erkka Jouste [Winner]

3-2 RG Ponza by Ville Saar(l)i

3-2 Sligh by Jere Hallikainen

3-2 MonoB Pox by Martti Nurmikari

3-2 BW Pox by Ville Kaukoranta

2-2-1 Jokulhaups by Jaakko Husso

2-1-2 Erniegeddon by Antti Turtiainen

2-3 MonoG Stompy by Joonas Kylä-Harakka

2-3 Sligh by Kalle Lunkka

2-3 Necro by Jaakko Salo

2-3 RG Ponza by Auvo Salmenharju

2-3 Sligh by Samuel Mättö (I think he was a bit tired, drunk and salty for some games, I mean the picture does include all the different cards in this main, just not the numbers of anything, I think also 20 mountains and the 1 Strip Mine was there..)