MFLA 2019 OLD SCHOOL 93/94 GATHERING

by deepspawners_3j44sm | Mar 9, 2019 | Events

Write up by OSD, photos by Nick and Sexy John

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.

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.  3^rd Place received an UNL Regrowth, 2^nd a Beta, and 1^st 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!!

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:

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 1^st 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).

Top 8 Deck Pictures

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.

FINAL STANDINGS

ALL DECK PHOTOS (NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

GPLA Tale of the Deep Spawner

by deepspawners_3j44sm | Aug 25, 2018 | Events

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 18^th, 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 18^th, 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.

Grand Prix LA Private Old School Tournament

by deepspawners_3j44sm | Aug 23, 2018 | Events

Magic the Gathering
Old School Southern California Event

Anyone that’s played Magic during the Golden Age (1993-1994) knows how nostalgic it feels to play this format. As a player myself since 1994, I stopped during Tempest which was around 1998 – 99. I played every here and there, but not like I did in the old days.

The new magic sets just didn’t interest me as much.

Then about a year ago, I found out that there is an Old School group of players that only use 93/94 cards. I was thrilled when I discovered them, and I was lucky enough to have kept a few of my cards from back in the day.

So I immediately tried to construct a deck and with a few cards missing, I found out the prices today were crazy! I remember thinking, “does anyone really play this format still?” “Can anyone even afford it?”

Fast forward a few months…

I met a few guys who played the Old School format

Instantly I was hooked. Playing Old School again gave me the ultimate nostalgia and playing it with like minded people made it even more fun!

One of the guys I met introduced me to another group of Old School players called the “SoCal Deep Spawners,” an awesome group of individuals who loved the game as much as I did. They were the kind of people that you can be proud to be friends with.

I got to know them better and was able to attend my first SoCal Deep Spawner event called “The Risk.” The event is held once a year and you get to play magic all day, drink beer, eat good food and have fun with friends. It was a great experience, and that’s pretty much what started it all. Shortly after that, I became an official member of SoCal Deep Spawners!

(Sorry had to tell a little back story — I just wanted to express how awesome this group is!)

With Grand Prix (GP) Los Angeles approaching, our group wanted to host an Old School Tournament for other \ players interested in playing the format we all love. The event was spearheaded by Elusiv (Chris), one of the original Deep Spawners,  OldSchoolDrew, and Brian.

The venue was a challenge because we had to find a place close to the LA Convention Center where the GP was happening. And since Los Angeles is not a cheap city, our options were very limited. Up until the last minute, we thought wouldn’t have a venue. But we managed to put it together just 2 weeks before GP Los Angeles.

The place we picked was a cool restaurant and bar just walking distance from the convention center. We had to charge $50 entrance, which included dinner and prices. At first, we were worried that people wouldn’t register with an entrance fee of $50. ,But low and behold we were already at full capacity one week before the event…

With more people wanting to register!

Our private tournament went viral at GP Los Angeles, and people were approaching us, asking if they could score an invite to the event. At this point we already had about 10 – 15 people on the waitlist, so as much as we wanted to accommodate everyone, the space we rented was limited.

SoCal Deep Spawners’ Old School Los Angeles Event was the talk of the town

For us Old School players, we didn’t expect to garner that much interest but we’re happy the old school MTG format is growing!

There were a total of 32 players at the event. We did 5 rounds of Swiss and enjoyed good food, drinks and conversation. There were a few AWESOME prizes, including a complete, un-sleeved old school deck rubber band — which Elusiv himself actually rocked during the event!

Another good thing

At this event, a few of the participants got back into old school or just got into the format and this was their first Old School Tournament / event in a long while! It was great to see all the “new” old school players at our event having a blast.

It was an awesome night of Magic!

The event started at 6pm and ended almost at midnight. All in all it was a massively successful effort. Hopefully next time we can accommodate more people.

It was a pleasure playing with old friends and making new ones trough Magic. That’s the true essence of old school.

• It’s not about winning
• It’s about having fun.
• It’s about spending time with friends and making a ton of new ones!

We are very thankful for everyone that attended and excited to see everyone again for our next event!

Discover SoCal Deep Spawner events are on the scheduled here.