Oktoberfestcon 2022 - Guest report by Charles Klein

For the first time I'm letting in a guest post for my blog. Now it's time for Charles Klein to tell his story about the "first inaugural" Oktoberfestcon 2022. I hope you enjoy!

I love traveling to Old School tournaments to hang and meet new friends. But there are only so many trips we can travel to play live events each year. I thought it would be nice if there was a one-day online Swedish B&R with Swedish reprint policy event that is held annually. I decided to take the initiative and host this tournament myself.

I always thought having good beer, hanging with friends, and playing Old School was the perfect combination. Oktoberfest is typically in October, which was the month I wanted to host my event, and I thought we should bring that spirit of enjoying some of the best brews in the world while playing Old School with friends in an event described above. Ergo, Oktoberfestcon was born.

The cover photo for Oktoberfestcon 2022 are The Beatles enjoying beer with Paul showing off his Unlimited Power 9. Maybe next year in the spirit of the Swedish format we may see that Paul upgraded one or more of his Power to Alpha or Beta.

Any Swedish B&R event I would host would always use the Swedish reprint policy, which I always thought of like dressing up in a tuxedo for a Black Tie event. It just makes the event feel more special. I decided on 6 rounds of Swiss and then a top 4. I later learned that unless you have 32 players, 5 rounds of Swiss and then a top 8 is preferred. I will know this for next year.

I wanted the entry fees to go 100% to my favorite charity, Make a Wish (wish.org), whose raison d'etre is to grant a wish of every child diagnosed with a critical illness. I am happy that we raised $671, which has already been donated to Make a Wish. I also want to thank Christian Reinhard, Daniel Yann Franzen, and Tony Anderson who did not play but donated as well.

I wanted the event to be streamed so those who could not play would be able to enjoy the event as spectators. I was very happy that Odd Anders Kjøstvedt of the Farmstead MTG YouTube channel agreed to stream the event. Odd did a super job for his first stream, and I enjoyed doing commentary with him for the top 4 match and the finals.

In total we had 23 players in the event from 13 countries (Åland Islands, Canada, Chili, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States of America). In the end, Martin Lindström won the event, beating a very strong opponent in Rich Shay in the finals. But what is really special about his victory is that Martin was playing Power Monolith and beat Rich’s Keeper. This is likely the first time this combo deck has won a Swedish event. Here are the results from the top 4:

And the final standings for the event:

I finished the event 4-2 for 7th place with Seek and Destroy, a “16 bolt” deck I really enjoy playing. All the decks I faced were all interesting and fun to play against. I choose these beers for the event, and I am happy they all were solid choices:

Before the event started, in between rounds and during the top 4/finals we used a whereby room as a “pub” to hang out and socialize. Many seemed to be having more fun drinking and hanging in the pub then playing Swedish haha. Åland had the quote of the day just before the top 4 was set while he was on the borderline of making it: Wanting to keep hanging with the guys in the pub Åland said “I hope I don’t get into top 4, that would suck!”

But there were other funny moments too. Antti Turtiainen might be the first to have played a Swedish event naked and in a sauna haha.

Antti Turtiainen waiting for his opponent Anders Schmidt in Round 6. Do Old School cards like spending time in the sauna too?

When the event was over around 9 hours after we started, I was really happy to hear that everyone had the best time at Oktoberfestcon. When the players are unsure if they want to keep hanging out in the pub or play another round of Swedish you know everything is going great.

Finally, I have a few prizes to mail out this week. I said before the event that the best prize would not be for first place since I did not want to encourage players to try to win too hard. Instead, I thought the best prize should be for 5th place, the player who was first to just miss the top 4, and that was Åland. Congrats Åland I have a sealed MTG Poker deck I will be mailing to you. Hope these poker cards are Swedish legal

First place prize I have an Unlimited Island altered by Anders Schmidt of AS Alters (and our 9th place finisher) showing a large cold beer on the island. Congrats again, Martin!

For runner up we have an Atog dressed ready for Oktoberfest, again altered by Anders, and it will be mailed to the Atog Lord himself Rich Shay. Congrats Rich on another super finish in a tournament this year!

The final prize is for last place, which goes to Robert Meijboom. This alter by Anders is a revised Coutnerspell with the guy complaining that the card is not Swedish legal, and his drink is a non-alcoholic beer haha. Thank you in advance for being a good sport, Robert.

Finally, I will be mailing a gift to Slanfan for all his help teaching me Tolaria and will be mailing a gift to Odd for all the work he did to stream the event. Thank you both so much!

All deck photos from the event can be found below.

Thank you once again to all the players for making Oktoberfestcon the best event I could have hoped for, and I am so happy everyone had fun. Looking forward to hosting Oktobertestcon 2023 next October! Bye for now. Cheers!

All Deck Photos

(alphabetical by first name)