LobstercoM got a visit from The X-Files

I have never visited the United States and I had plans to do it this year, LobstercoM probably was my top choice to visit as it is on the East Coast. But as you all know the global pestilence stopped that from happening. At least we could get a sweet online tournament weekend instead. 

The tournament

This has to be the best tournament poster ever.

And no, there is no human teeth in this picture.

LobstercoM is a tournament founded by the New England Old School MTG and mainly organized by Dave Firth Bard. The schedule was four exhibition matches on Friday, the swiss rounds on Saturday and the top 8 and raffle drawings on Sunday. Everything is streamed with commentators, wow! this is a full weekend of entertainment for free.

Friday night was streamed by Rich Bourque with Dave Firth Bard and Mike VanDyke as commentators. It featured two matches of Atlantic between a couple of heavyweights in the format (and even some duels in best hair on stream) and apart from that a feature of the format 7/11 and the finals of the Type1.5 tournament. That is a fight card to remember.

The raffle and the charity

As usual in Old School Tournaments there is entry fee, raffles or voluntary donations where the money will go to a charity. This time people donated some sweet stuff for a raffle where you could participate for as little as $5 to get the chance to win some really cool prizes. Featured below are some prizes that are made with the lobster theme in mind.

As of Saturday morning with the raffle, donated toddler supplies, other donations and participation fees the charity donation to room to grow exceeded $8,000.

The deck

This time I wanted to go for something a bit spicy and had been looking at Diamond Valley decks for a long time (trading and buying them this summer). When you want spicy Diamond Valley decks you contact friend and fellow team member Slanfan "The Chupacabra". We settled for a deck list that we both would play in the tournament (the only difference being him not having a Giant Shark in the sideboard).

It's a variant of his old deck adding Underworld Dreams and a one-off Winds of Change to have another wincon than Rukh Egg and just having another angle of attack against control and slower decks that gets rid of the Rukhs with Swords to Plowshares. You can also just eat walls with Diamond Valley and draw 4 cards a turn with Greed. The deck is simply called "The Underworld Valley of Greedy Dreams".

The crew and the secret facility

Four other guys from the crew had made plans to hide in a secret facility far away from the eye of the government and me providing support from my battle station at home (mostly due to the paranoia of facing government agents while travelling).

This time Assistant Director Säb and Special Agent Janitor weirdly 

enough brought two monsters of the week to the secret facility. 

The Mexican Goat Sucker and Tooms.

The Lone Gunman approves the setup in the secret facility.

In the cave of Lone Gunman Åland the battle station was 

ready and set to go.

The food

I know this is blasphemy but the lobster season in Sweden starts on Monday the 21th September so no fresh lobster was available so I settled for making a big pot of North Texas Red, my favorite American food (the recipe in Swedish can be found here). It's basically a Texas Chili made by the rules of Francis X Tolbert; no tomatoes, no beans, no onions and no mince.

Some homegrown Carolina Reapers I got from a friend.

All the ingredients needed for a tasty dish.

The "chili soup" cooking.

As I was up to 6 AM watching the fight night there is no chance of it getting ready before the tournament starts so I skipped breakfast and lunch just waiting for the glorious dinner.

The main event

With the chili cooking it was time to join in for the initial stream announcement from Dave Firth Bard over at Simon Rokkjær's Twitch channel. 118 participants from 9 different countries and about 40 team affiliations make this the biggest one-day Old School webcam event. The commentators today is going to be Svante Landgraf and Bryan Manolakos.

The matches

Round 1 vs Paul DeSilva (Paul DeSilva.dec)

Game 1 on the play I took a mulligan and got a Ancestral Recall and Ancestraled into a Black Lotus and a Underworld Dreams + a land which seemed good against his turn 1 Library of Alexandria but he got a Disenchant fairly quick. He played two Savannah Lions and I played two Rukh Eggs; I drew my third Rukh Egg but no Diamond Valley. He got to play a Serendib Efreet followed by a Demonic Tutor for a Serra Angel which killed me.

Game 2 I kept a one-lander with Ancestral Recall and Ancestraled in his upkeep, he just played a Mox Emerald and I made a horrible misplay here (he obviously had Balance).I played Strip Mine, Time Walk and on the extra turn I played City of Brass and a Wall of Earth keeping my Diamond Valley in hand.

He played Black Lotus, Balance (killing my three lands and a Wall of Earth), Savannah Lions and a Plains.

I didn't draw mana, so he just killed me with 3 Swords to Plowshares in my hand.

Record: 0-1 (0-2)

After the first round the chili was done, but no time eat yet.

Round 2 vs Park Cofield (RWu Midrange)

This match was very drawn out and he played some sweet stuff like Beasts of Bogardan and Circle of Protection: Red main deck. He made a mistake game 1 not continuing attacking with Beasts of Bogardan into my Wall of Heat (all my creatures are red). I got a tight win with Underworld Dreams grinding him down and he got rid of it at 9 life. I got to Timetwister into 3(!!!) Underworld Dreams, Chaos Orb and Disenchant getting rid of his Sleight of Minded Circle of Protection: Red. He did a last-ditch effort with Balance but I had two Rukh Eggs in play and ended up with two tokens.

Game 2 he played an early Shivan Dragon and I gained 6 life a turn sacrificing walls to Diamond Valley and drawing extra with Library of Alexandria but then I ran out of walls to sacrifice. I got an end-scenario with 2 Underworld Dreams, him at 10 life and I play a Timetwister but he had the Red Elemental Blast for it.

These two games took 50 minutes and we had to do a Chaos Orb flip-off (my first ever) and he missed the 12th flip.

Record: 1-1 (2-3)

Got in a quick chili tortilla with, cheese, sour cream and cilantro.

Round 3 vs Daniele Brunazzo (MirrorBall)

Game 1 I mulligan to Library of Alexandria and played it on turn 1 and passed the turn two time, he played a Sylvan Library and drew 4 extra cards. He had 16 mana in play by turn 5 and I just played land, a do-nothing card go drawing two a turn with Library of Alexandria. He countered my only spells that did anything against him (Underworld Dreams and Rukh Egg) so I never managed to kill him, with Dark Heart of the Wood he could draw extra cards. I managed to Resolve a Greed with Walls and Diamond Valley in play, but he managed to Fireball me for 23.

Game 2 I mulligan to five keeping Land, Mox, Mox, Disenchant and Divine Offering. I got rid of his Mana Vault and a Sylvan Library but from there he just resolved 2 x Braingeyser, Sylvan Library and Fireballed me for 29 with Channel.

Need to get better at resolving those Underworld Dreams.

Record: 1-2 (2-5)

Round 4 vs Ryan Keach (GU Enchantress)

This was a match to see if he could draw more Killer Bees than I had removal. he did that in two out of three games. I do not want to downplay this match but the round before he lost to Slanfan on the same 74-card deck. Ryan is an awesome guy and really fun to play against (he destroyed me in Type 1.5 when I played a RukhValley deck as well).

Underworld Dreams is yet again the best card in the deck.

Record: 1-3 (3-7)

Round 5 vs Geoffrey C Walker (BW Deadguy Ale)

Game 1 I started with a Land and he started with City of Brass, Dark Ritual and Hypnotic Specter which I had my one-off Swords to Plowshares against. Then he just stalls on land and I can kill him with three Rukh tokens (Chaos Orbing his Royal Assassin).

Game 2 he started with Land, Mox, Hymn and I got him back with Land, Mox, Sol Ring and Mind Twist for 2 (which got his last land). He just mana stalled again, and I got to Disenchant his Mox. I played up to 6 Lands and then Timetwister. I got to keep the Timetwister lucky as I am when he Hymned me. From there I just played two Underworld Dreams, a Timetwister and Demonic Tutor for a Wheel of Fortune.

Record: 2-3 (5-7)

Updates from the secret facility

The Mexican Goat Sucker and Tooms.

Assistant Director Säb explaining things.

"Svenskbiten" (the Swede piece) is something you often see with pies, 

candy, cakes, or other various edibles. In Sweden you just do not take 

the last little piece. I often get to claim it with my Finnish citizenship.

Round 6 vs Xanadude Boston (BWU Deadguy Ale)

This was one of the most enjoyable matches I had all day and not because I won 2-0. We had a lot of fun banter about the "dirty hippies" and he even asked me if I ran any Hymn to Tourach and then boarded out one since I did not play any. I just ran both games with Walls, Rukh Eggs and Underworld Dreams. Also drew a lot of power cards which helps.

Record: 3-3 (7-7)

Round 7 vs Zevon Odelberg (Arabian Aggro)

Game 1 he started with Mishra's Factory, Mox, Argothian Pixies and I had a Library of Alexandria. Started to draw cards, deploy some Walls, and then just add Rukh Eggs and a Diamond Valley. Arabian Aggro cannot come back from that.

Game 2 he started with Strip Mine and Mox Emerald. I started with Ancestral and just played Lands and Rukh Eggs transforming them to 4/4 fliers and then he died.

Seems like a horrible matchup for his deck.

Record: 4-3 (9-7)

X-Files results

Special Agent Janitor and Tooms finished 4-3 with Will Magranns Shops list featuring Armageddon.

Lone Gunman Åland and The Mexican Goat Sucker finished 4-3 with The Underworld Valley of Greedy Dreams.

Assistant Director Säb finished 6-1 with Pink Orgg inspired by Bryan Manolakos Orgg deck.

Sadly, Säb couldn't play the top 8 due to real life, but this is his deck list:

Meanwhile at the secret facility the monsters of the week are doing some shady business.

Final conclusions

I really enjoy these one-day tournaments and I'm now just sitting waiting for the top 8 stream to begin. I really try to focus on the positive stuff in the times where we can't play big tournaments at pubs. So, a big thank you to everyone that helps keep this community the best. But for this tournament there are some special people to thank.

• Dave Firth Bard for hosting, in my opinion, the best online tournaments
• Simon Rokkjær for hosting the main stream and creating great content overall
• Bryan Manolakos and Svante Landgraf for doing the main commentary
• LobsterJudge Josh for handling pairings, standings and keeping the tournament running smoothly
• Rich Bourque for the Friday stream
• Mike VanDyke for Friday night commentary
• Everyone I played against, you all were great and fun to hang out with

/Over and out from Lone Gunman Åland