So, it looks like I missed the memo where “Grand Prix” was phased out of the MTG lexicon. Those officially sponsored events are now a “Magical Festival”, or some sorta something? I don’t know. And, I don’t really care. But those MF events, held about once a year here in LA, are a good excuse for fellow Old Farts Schoolers to get together and break balls, laugh, drink, and compete against each other in EC 93/94. Which is just what we Deep Spawners did on 3/2/19, even though our beloved Chris (@Elusiv) was AWOL. 40 of us had a great time, at a warehouse district venue in the back of a health food/vegan café.
40 registered for the 2019 MFLA SoCal Deep Spawner event
So, along with the typical donated and signed pool of cards, we decided to stick to the healthy, “Gaea’s” theme of the venue with the prize pool – as a door prize, everyone received a revised Regrowth, stamped for the event. 3rd Place received an UNL Regrowth, 2nd a Beta, and 1st and Alpha Regrowth. (Since Brian has no hair on his behind, he was too afraid to stamp those cards with the event stamp, but I would have…just saying). The rest of the top 8 also received various green cards. AND……… everyone received a surprise gift — a kick ass play mat!!
Good Times
Prize Pool!
Really Good Times
Beasts and Spawners playing together
The competition was turned up a couple of notches. There were some rogue and casual decks present, but a grip of folks came looking for a fight, with decks that ranged from Shops, MB Discard, Various Prison builds, Atogs, RU Control, and more than one The Deck:
1st
Nick Aiello
“Machine Gun” Shops Aggro
2nd
Justin Franks
The Deck
3rd
Pete Dentith
Power Monolith
4th
Mike Kravitz
Atog
5th
John Sexton
Naya Bazaar Aggro
6th
Brian Urbano
Shops Aggro
7th
Gerald Rhoads
The Deck
8th
Charlie Hahn
Gauntlet of Shops
Top 8 after 6 rounds
With a slim margin, Nick (@Studio_Headz) squeaked out the top spot with his “Machine Gun” UWb Shops deck. In one game, Copy Artifact Trikes and Disenchants were too much with Nick calling “Machine Gun” and activating a Trike killing a Lion, Order, and Javalineer, then copying the Trike to cruise to the win. In other games Icy-tapped Cities of Brass were a surprise momentum shifter, swinging games in his favor. Its worth noting too, that Nick was able to pick up 2/3 Workshops he at the MF vendor tables about an hour before the event – and he immediately cobbled together the deck, finishing it just before 1st pairings were up. Nick feels 3 Shops was a good number for this event as he doesn’t recall waiting/wishing he would draw one (but in the few days since the event he has already picked up the 4th).
Nick Aiello 1st Place and Justin Franks 2nd Place
Nick’s prizes and goodies
Top 8 Deck Pictures
1st Place – “Machine Gun” Shops – Nick Aiello.
2nd Place — Justin Franks – The Deck
3rd Place – Pete Dentith – 5c Power Monolith
4th – Mike Kravitz – URB Dibtog
5th Place – John Sexton – Naya Bazaar Aggro (sorry for the proxy bazaars they were returned before the deck pic was taken)
6th Place – Brian Urbano – UW Shops Aggro
7th Place — Gerald Rhodes – The Deck
8th Place – Charlie Hahn – 5c Charlie’s Toychest
Prize cards were also handed out for the Most Creative decks (which were really difficult to choose in such a competitive field) with Matt (@alphamatt) snagging a CE Regrowth for his A40 deck that he converted to EC for this event. Furthest travelled went to Paul (@Paul XVX (Paul Messplay)) who walked all the way across the US from Virginia, just to be a part of it all. We have been told he left back in December to make it here to LA in time, and we wish him well on his quest to get back home.. The “Last But Not Dead” award went to Steve (@Temm) in the form of an un-sleeved Mono G deck in a revised starter box. Even had neat stuff in it like Wyluli Wolves, Pendalhavens, Killer Bees, FBB cards….. Coincidentally we wish Steve the best of luck in his journey up to Oregon where he is moving to. All in all, it was a very fun event, not because of prizes, beer, the unlimited pizza, the salad and baked potato bar, the “Gaeas Girls”, the intermission dance contest, or even the lazer tag round… No, it was very fun because it was a cool group of 40 people who were open-minded and had a good sense of humor. Everyone brought positive expectations and a friendly attitude along with their stack of 75 — and as event hosts, we can tell you that you can’t buy that.
Magic The Gathering all started for me in 1995. I was thirteen years old. At this point in my life, my spare time outside of school was filled with basketball and roller hockey. But even then, I would convince my mom to drive me to the local comic book shop. I dreamt of comics and collecting the books.
When my parents divorced, money was tight. But my best friend Justin’s parents would often take us to the same comic shop, Collectors Assylum in Agoura Hills.
In 1995, Justin and I were at the shop. We noticed Magic card singles behind the glass display. There were people sitting across from each other playing a card game. In that split second, I had no idea that I would be hooked on Magic.
We convinced Justin’s mom to buy us each a Revised Starter pack.
We opened the decks and pretended like we knew how to play. The decks were built around both a craw wurm and Mahamotti Djinn always winning. I got my first DCI card in the summer of 1996. Then.. finally, I had an understanding of the magic mechanics. That summer, I got an Icy Manipulator and a Forcefield.
I was the happiest kid.
Then Magic The Gathering went to hibernation for me during college. I stored all my cards and painted Warhammer figures at mu moms during college years. I took a 10 year break from the game. I would always daydream about playing
again.
In 2006, I started making good money and began buying singles off of Ebay. I would buy 5-10 cards a month, mainly Beta staples and cards I always wanted when I was younger.
Through Facebook I joined a Los Angeles magic group and began playing at UCLA on the weekends. I would rarely win… Mainly because I would create my own decks. I didn’t download them. I was never interested in the new prints or new formats.
I always wanted to play the at the time vintage, now known as old school.
In 2017, I sent a private message to alpha_lotus (clenet). Clenet and I decided to meet up and play. Ironically we both liked to play with old school magic. After only a couple of meet ups, we both headed up to Magic Grand Prix Santa Clara.
At GP Magic 2017, I first caught wind of a format called old school. And I met Jason Murray.
Old school Magic in my life
Having personally collecting older cards for many years and then finding out there is a format where these cards can actually be played was life changing.
And just recently, Clenet took me to the 2018 Deep Spawners Memorial Day Event. I met a group of friends and good players and I did really well at the gathering.
But most importantly I had a great time. I looked up to the people I met at the event and knew I was hooked on Old School MTG.
As of today, I plan on playing forever, and enjoy every match and every game I get to play.
Nostalgia. One of the things I experienced during the last old school magic event I’ve been to, hosted and made possible by Deep Spawners’ Chris, Brian and Damyan and well.. The rest of the SoCal Spawners.
I guess for you to understand why, I’d have to tell you a “brief” background of myself and my history with Magic The Gathering.
I emphasize the word brief as I don’t want to turn this into a 100+ page thesis.
Ready? Here we go. I started playing Magic I believe around when Revised was released, although at the time I didn’t really play “seriously”. Well, I couldn’t. I was 5.
Fast forward to Tempest.
I paid a little bit more attention to what each card really does. And with the help of my older brother who explained most of them, I let my imagination do the rest.
I fell in love with Magic The Gathering.
The art, the colors, how simple yet sophisticated they are, the way you play them, heck even the way they smelled. But it wasn’t the case all the time. Like most things when you’re too young, you tend to lose interest at one thing as you discover new things to do and new things to play with. Magic stayed with me all the time, but it wasn’t consistent. There were times I’d play every day, and then there were times I’d run out of friends to play with and just keep it locked in my drawer.
In 2007:
I found new friends to play with during my college years.
I competed at every tournament and GP events I could go to.
I was so proud of my Boros Aggro main deck.
I was so thrilled at how badass my deck was, beating even the famous, at the time, Dragonstorm deck.
As we approached the last year of college, 2009… Well, we got busier. All my decks were back in the drawer yet again, regardless of how “badass” I thought they were. Old School Magic was well below my list of priorities at the time.
This hiatus went on until 2012 when I got the “itch” again. I didn’t even have anyone to play with but I just really missed it. I guess you can say MTG always ran through my veins. Eventually, I gained new friends to play with.
This time, in Modern format.
I tried to revive my Red/White aggro — which turned out to be a fail. I experimented on other color combos until I landed with a Red/Black aggro. Yes, I love aggro decks in case you haven’t noticed yet by now.
After about a year and a half of playing most days of the week, especially on the weekends, yep you guessed it right. It finally died down once again as work and other “adulting” priorities got in the way. Or should I say, I felt that MTG was getting in the way of said priorities.
This year is a different story though
I can tell. With my older brother being back in the game, I watched him play the Magic cards I adored when I was 5. Playing with my brother is awesome and I’ve met some very chill people through this format.
I felt a sense of nostalgia. Nostalgia in the form of strong feelings I felt back then.
All the memories.
A reminder of what, how, and why I loved playing Magic in the first place.
Card art, the colors, how simple yet sophisticated they are.
The way you play, heck even the way they smelled.
Eventually, I met more people in this format. Way, way different than Standard and Modern. It’s so casual and such a fun environment, with everyone sharing the same passion for the game, how it started and what started it. I didn’t have to worry about being competitive or having to deal with exceptional douchebags. This past event at Barcito was proof of that.
I’m glad I went back not just into playing, but playing the old school magic cards I adored and loved 20+ years ago. I’m glad I went back because I finally found genuine, passionate, and cool people who play not because of the money or the prizes or the recognition, but because they just love to.
From Middle School to Old School Magic The Gathering
Where did it all start with Old School Magic? It was the start of a new middle school year in 1994, I was 13 years old and in 8th grade. Prior to finding Magic I had been collecting baseball cards for years and was also into comics and other random collector cards (I still have a full set of X-Men cards from the time), so I was familiar with visiting the local comic/card shop. The summer of 1994 I had dabbled in D&D with a group of friends and one of them had an older brother who introduced us to magic.
So by the time the school year started we were all starting our collections and playing magic everyday at lunch time and after school, just sitting in a shady area playing magic in the grass. Our backpacks always had our school books and our magic cards so we can play and trade everyday. At one point the school ended up even banning the cards as there were complaints of theft.
For me the game was awesome!
I not only got to play this game everyday after school but I got to search and collect cards I needed for the awful decks (still suck at making decks) I would come up with. I remember riding my bike around to all the local card shops, bookstores, and comic book stores looking for the revised edition cards which were already scarce to find at MSRP prices (Fallen Empires were always super easy to find).
Finding “The Dark” for like $5 a pack back then was super exciting because I finally got to buy a pack of the older sets.
At this time the old school magic power cards and older sets were already getting very expensive, especially for a kid with just a allowance. I do remember NM Unlimited Black Lotus being sold for like $150 at the card shop back then and thinking who could ever afford that.
By the end of that 94/95 school year Magic was already banned from the middle school and the group seemed to have moved on to other things.
I tried a few years later getting back into magic around the time Mirage came out but it wasn’t the same for me.
So my MTG Old School cards got packed into boxes and stored in closets and garages for the next 20+ years.
Roughly six or so years ago:
I would pull out the cards every so often, look at my old deck and trade binder and reminiscence about playing magic again. I had heard about magic online and thought it would be fun to buy some pauper style decks and play online with people. After the excitement of buying/collecting new cards and making new decks wore off and I played a few games online, I quickly got bored and gave up on magic online.
Fast Forward to around May this year:
I pulled out the cards again and knew the 8 or 9 dual lands were probably still worth something so I decided to start doing some research on the value of old cards.
I couldn’t believe what Old School Magic cards were selling for now…
At this point my interest was peaked, my nostalgia was coming back to me, and I had to learn more. That led me to YouTube channels like Alpha Investments, Vintage Magic, and Edwin the Magic Engineer. Upon seeing some of the budget deck content that was coming out from Edwin’s channel and later the Alltingsconsidered podcast, I was inspired to build some budget mono colored decks.
I thought at the time I would be able to build the majority of those decks with the cards I already had…
Well I was wrong and many TCG orders later covering most of the month of June and July I was able to build several budget mono color decks and even a black/white deck with the scrublands I already had. At this point I was already hooked. I went looking for as much old school magic content as I could find. One thing lead to another where I found Old School Reddit, then Old School Facebook groups, then Old School Magic Discord.
And finally, after nearly 23 years, I started playing magic again. This time online using Skype with other random and equally excited people on the internet.
A couple weeks ago I made it to the GP LA and Deep Spawners LA event were I finally experienced my first real magic tournaments.
I had a blast that entire day
Even though I went 0-3 with a budget Merfolk deck at GP LA, I was super happy to be given my 2nd beta card.
(Studio_Headz traded me a beta island for a revised island after I expressed how much I liked my only beta card a ‘Merfolk of the Pearl Trident’).
Then later that night I played at the Deep Spawner event with a black and white deck which reminded me of the deck I used to primarily play back in middle school. I ended up winning 1 series of the 5 total.
It was a great night of meeting new people and playing magic and moving forward I am now super excited for the next event!
In the Sopranos pilot episode, Tony explained to Dr Melfi that he missed getting in on something (the mob) at the ground floor, that he “came in too late for that”, and that he realizes now he came in at the “end”
Remember that for a moment – we’ll come back to it.
Without getting all philosophilosicalacious on you, here in Southern California, our contemporary western culture seems, too many, as if it is being yanked in different directions. Pulled apart at times, what-have-you. Societal friction, economic pressures, political disagreements. All that rancid mess.
But for those of us in the Deep Spawners, we get a break from all that…”stuff”. For a while, every so often, we get to ”pause” all the sharp shrapnel swirling around us and step aside. Like a Jet Li fight scene, we get to stop action, and move around all the flying bullets and broken glass frozen in air, and go have a seat. Relax a bit. Let our mind wander to different things. Rest our muscles a minute and catch our breath. We get a mental break, before having to dive back into the fight.
Aug 18th, we had one of our “pauses” at our own GPLA event we hosted at Barcito. Approximately 30 Duelists (along with other guests in the wings) went head-to-head, drank, ate from the buffet, all in a terrific atmosphere in the heart of downtown.
I ran an odd Erhamgeddon-ish (GWub) pile because I was jones-ing for a fix of Spirit Link — Force of Nature action:
Magic The Gathering
Old School Player
Grand Prix
Los Angeles 2018
1993 / 1995
Card Formats
GWub pile for Deep Spawners GPLA. SB is bottom row.
I ended the night in 4th place
but, what may be more entertaining or interesting
is where I started…
I first tapped mana sometime back in 1994.
I was a newlywed idiot, and we were living in married housing attending a Louisiana university. I was studying secondary education, thinking I would teach high school Art and English for a living (Ha!). One day in Baton Rouge, I took my (now) ex-wife to a book store my friends and I used to frequent when I played DnD and painted miniatures back when I was a kid – Elliot’s Book Store — now known as Little Wars. While browsing around, there were a group of teens frantically opening packs and “jazzed” about some card game. They even played, standing up, on a little 18” round table, designed for book displays. It was the only space around to play.
I asked the cashier what “Magic the Gathering “ was and he described it as “some silly card game these guys are addicted to”. Then he showed me the packs he had next to the register and explained he had to limit them to buying 2 packs a day. We then giggled about “limiting teens to 2 packs a day” and I ended up buying a Vampire the Masquerade RPG rulebook. Wrong choice, huh?
A few months later, a classmate insisted I try playing this “magic” card game,
Which I did…My grades that fall semester sucked. Bad. Thanks, Richard.
Between then and Aug 18th, 2018 a whole bunch of malarkey happened. Mainly, we moved to Los Angeles and I sold all my collection in 1996 to a little comic book store in Whittier named “I’m Comics” (pssssst – anyone with any information regarding the owner of I’m Comics, please let me know – I am trying in vain to hunt down my original Lotus, which was pretty distinctive, and the trail ends with him). We moved back to Louisiana. Hurricane Katrina. Relocated back to Los Angeles. Divorced. Raised 3 kids.
But over the last 10 years I have slowly rebuilt my MTG collection
Probably a few times over. With only one or two people remotely interested in playing those old decks I used to love playing. So, I was forced to play standard and modern crap, just to get games in. The formats were, well….at times “OK”. But the crowd of punks you always ended up playing against, man those little dudes suck.
And WoTC….I’ll save those thoughts for later.
But now, my oldest son and I enjoy MTG 93/94 Old School. By odd circumstances, we ended up connecting with the Deep Spawners, who I had only heard about, but could never connect with. Chris’s handle “Elusiv” is pretty spot on – trying to track these dudes down was like trying to catch Bruce napping in his Batcave.
As a father, getting to enjoy this hobby with your son is amazing.
My greatest wish for all of you Old Schoolers is that one day you get to do the same, if not already. Its one of those rare things in life where there just aren’t enough words to describe it.
Fast-forward to our event, my lazy red-neck recollection of my matches went as follows:
Round 1 – I faced a Living Plane/ Tim deck piloted by a hilarious fellow Deep Spawner. Won 2-1 in some fun “swingy” games where we exchanged control and momentum back and forth a few times. Ernie finally brought the meat across for the win.
Round 2 – Paired up against another Deep Spawner running R/U “arti-tog” (I don’t know what he calls it). Lost 2-1 in some honestly fun games, keeping a poor hand and ultimately getting hosed never drawing G in one game and getting crushed by a perfectly timed City in a Bottle in another.
Round 3 – I won the Father-Son match, getting revenge on my kid for destroying me all week at home in play testing. He was on Mono Black Discard Dreams (finished 3-2 I think), but Whirling Dervish can punish that deck like a Skynet T1000
Round 4 – My first match ever against a Beast of the Bay. The couple of them who came down for our event were terrific and meshed right in as if we had been playing together for a while. Unfortunately for him, he was on a RB Shops deck, which this deck has done well against. I was fortunate enough to get a Serra and spirit linked Force out, then ‘Gheddon away all lands game one. After Boarding in 4x Energy Flux, my turn one was Land, Lotus, Flux, Go – which was enough for me take the match 2-0.
Round 5 – I was paired with one of the greatest The Deck pilots, and I believe one of it’s developers from “back in the day” – Jason Murray (who won the GPLV OS event). I had been getting my behind handed to me for the past two days at the GP OS side events by Jason, but had a blast trash talking, getting to know him, and laughing it up with him. I hadn’t won a single game against him all weekend – his deck and his skills are simply that good. And, game 1 was no different. He quickly gained control and “managed” my lands to where he could then outdraw me and counter key spells I cast. I boarded in 4x Flux since The Deck has so many key artifacts, but I also shifted gears and brought in 4x Dervishes to attempt to up the aggro. This strategy worked, as I eeked out a win of game 2, on the back of Flux and multiple creatures.
Game 3 was rough.
We went far into both decks, before I was able to get 2x Flux on the board and gain momentum. We finally went to time in the round and at the end of turn 5, I wasn’t able to hit him for the last few points of life he had.
So, we go to Orb flips for the tie-breaker, and after about 9 flips, he finally missed on a corner/edge bounce, giving me the match, and ending the night 4-1.
Looking around, talking to everyone, watching other matches, I was extremely fortunate. Many of the decks that showed up, being run by some of the smartest, most experienced players around would have smoked me if we matched up against each other. I could have very easily had a 2-3 night instead.
But driving home, my son chatting up a storm about all the fun he had, and cards he wants to collect, and decks he would like to try…that was probably the best part of the night. I am very, very fortunate.
I may have missed fully getting in the game at the ground floor, and the game itself, with all the junk surrounding newer formats, maybe its nearing the “end” as Tony puts it…But not for me. Not now. Not at my house. Sometimes, every so often….the timing’s right, and life’s good.
Eventually, I met more people in this format. Way, way different than Standard and Modern. It’s so casual and such a fun environment, with everyone sharing the same passion for the game, how it started and what started it. I didn’t have to worry about being competitive or having to deal with exceptional douchebags. This past event at 
I tried a few years later getting back into magic around the time