This is my recap of the tournament weekend in Darmstadt 27–29 June. Featured artwork: Summer Bloom by Nicola Leonard.
It was a weekend packed with old school Magic, both Premodern and 93/94. The main tournaments on Saturday were the Hessian Premodern Championship and the European 93/94 Oldschool Championship (Swedish rule set). The main tournaments on Sunday were the (tongue-in-cheek named) Premodern Universal Championship and the 93/94 Team Trios World Championship. There were also some smaller side-events like a Premodern team tournament on Friday.
As a background, Darmstadt, which is a mid-sized city not far from Frankfurt, Germany, has become somewhat of a Premodern hub. In 2022 and 2023, the European Championship was held there, and after that tournament moved on to other countries as intended, Mitja Held and the local organizing crew decided to keep doing a similar event each year. The local Premodern scene is also strong with regular tournaments and meetups, organized by Phillip “Flippi” Boehm among others.
Two classics by Jeff Laubenstein and Brian Snoddy
Like previous years, the event was not merely a bunch of tournaments but focus on the gathering and with a couple of iconic Premodern artists in attendance the whole weekend: Jeff Laubenstein, who is somewhat of a regular at this point, and Brian Snoddy (who was interviewed by the Monster of the Week podcast earlier this year).
Friday
I traveled from Stockholm together with Gordon Andersson, a.k.a. mr Wak-Wak, who was streaming the Premodern tournament on Saturday. The trip was smooth and we got to Darmstadt in time for a late lunch at Braustüb’l. After a while, Valerio “Lotus Vale” Maggio joined for beers, and we also bumped in to a bunch of jovial Danish 93/94-players.
Gordon also gave me a couple of sweet tokens he painted with water colours.
During the evening, I went to the venue, a sleepy hotel on the outskirts town. There, I met up with the EPIC guys Chris Budesheim, Danny de Rooij and Valerio Maggio, to hang out and play Chris’s Premodern cube. I drafted a pretty solid red-green semi-aggressive deck featuring cards like Blastoderm, Survival of the Fittest and Shard Phoenix. Plus lots of burn spells. In the pic below, you can see it in action versus Danny who had a solid black build packed with removal and graveyard shenanigans. at 2-0 I eventually lost a good match versus Chris, who was on some good-stuff blue-black deck. Chris thus defended his Premodern Cube title from last time around in 2022 when he beat me with my Premodern cube.
Another EPIC dude, Jesper Juhl Nielsen, who drove all the way from Denmark with his local buddies, joined us later in the evening. He gave me a wonderful custom bear token that he made as a prize for winning the EPIC tournament earlier this year.
Saturday
On Saturday I chose to play some pre-Premodern cards for a change, in the 93/94 European Championship. I played The Deck. Despite it being a favourite deck of mine, I hadn’t touched it for nine years actually (with the exception of a recent local tournament).
Sorry about the lazy deck pic, it was taken in a haste just before the top 8…
I literally sweated out this tournament, as it was a blazing hot day in a venue mostly without air conditioning. I didn’t take notes to write a proper tournament report, but I started off with an awesomely intense game versus a black deck with a splash of blue, where we resolved a total of five Time Twisters between the two of us. The rest of the tournament continued in similar fashion with lots of intense and very tight games, several times turning things around at one life.
When the dust from the Swiss settled I was 7–0, having played back to back without breaks (no ID’s allowed). My luck continued in the top 8, where I also had some really great games. The highlight was a game in the semi-finals vs Ville Kaukoranta on RUG Aggro, where I raced his Copper Tablet with a pair of Fountain of Youth, his tablet eventually killing him in his upkeep with me down to one life (and dead on board to his creatures). Especially memorable since the first prize was a Copper Tablet signed by all players, and a Copper Tablet trophy crafted by Jonas Hornung (out of clay, not copper, strangely). In the finals, I beat Erhnam-Geddon, and snatched the tablet. 🙂
Organizer Mitja hands over the Copper Tablet to yours truly
Meanwhile, on the Premodern side of things, 72 players battled for the title of Hessian Premodern Champion. There was no proper coverage of this tournament, but the top 8 decks were quite interesting. In the end, Henry Heydthausen on BG Madness with Zombie Infestation and Survival of the Fittest beat Andrew Klein playing Gro-A-Tog.
The Hessian Premodern Champs top 8
What do we call Henry’s winning (and awesome) deck? Zombie Survival?
Runner-up Andrew cheering with the champ Henry
It was quite late in the evening when my tournament finished, but at least I had time to go into town and drink shots that old school legend Mikael “Åland” Johansson served out of a Sombrero. Good times.
Sunday
This was the day for the main Premodern event, the Universal Championship with 60 players (actually fewer than the Saturday Premodern tournament). I played my Zombie Contamination deck, which I wrote about in this previous blog post. Again, I didn’t take detailed notes, but I had quite a few fun and interesting games. E.g. in round one versus Matthew Harper from the UK, playing Elves, we had a very grindy and close game that I ended up winning on the back of my singleton Engineered Plague. In the end I went 3-2-1, winning against Elves, Sligh and Frantic Storm, losing versus Devourer Combo and Opposition/FEB hybrid, and drawing versus Terra-Geddon. The match versus Sligh was featured on stream, which now appears lost in the Wak-Wak archives.
On tables above me, Danny de Rooij was “in the zone” all day, playing mono blue Stifle-Nought with Accumulated Knowledge. In the top 8, he beat Deadguy Ale in the quarters, Goblins in the semis, and then mono blue Tide Control in the finals, piloted by Mirtosch Musevi. Congrats and well played Danny!
Danny’s winning Brain Freeze play in the finals, through the Wak-Wak live stream view
Danny de Rooij, proud universal champ
Those of us who were still around after the tournament wrapped up the day with a dinner together in the city centre.
Monday
As my flight was in the afternoon, I had time for a jog in the nice weather to sight-see some nice Jugendstil buildings.
After that, it was time to pack up the loot and head for the airport. Until next time, Darmstadt!
Memories of Jens
On Friday on the week following the event, we were hit with the devastating news that Jens “Slayjay” Jaeger had passed away on that very Sunday night after the event. Jens was a community pillar and many of you probably knew him from tournaments around the globe or online, and he was also a Darmstadt local and part of the organizing crew of this event, and previous ones. I wrote the following note in memory of him the Premodern Facebook group, which I repeat here:
We first got in touch February 2019, when Jens reached out to write a tournament report for the blog, from the first German Premodern Championship.
Later that year, I met him in person at the Euro Champs in Madrid, where we shared games, drinks and laughs over a couple of days, together with Stefan Guttenberger, Gordon Andersson, Giamma FriFlai. Jens immediately made the impression of a warm, kind and generous person, and it’s clear that all of us who had the privilege to hang out with him felt the same.
Jens was an early adopter and quickly became a pillar of the Premodern community. He enjoyed traveling, and being a solid player he put up great results wherever he went across the world and in online tournaments.
Later, we worked together arranging Euro Champs in Jens’s hometown Darmstadt, 2022 and 2023, together with Mitja Held, Anton Glans and Gordon Andersson. In 2022 Jens invited me to his home, where we hung out playing cube, learning about his passion for platypuses and Australia and more. This is also where I got to know Jens’s friend Chris Budesheim.
They continued to make Darmstadt the Premodern capital of Germany, by arranging the Premodern Universal Championship, which is where I met him last weekend. I wish I had talked to him more on that occasion.
I will remember Jens as a very kind person who enjoyed Magic through the gathering, making friends everywhere, often with a drink in hand and always with a smile on his face. I also remember him as a person who went his own way, whether it concerned choice of deck or going to a concert instead of playing the finals. He enjoyed many things in life and his passion was contagious.
You went to soon Jens, and you will be missed dearly by the whole Premodern community.
My condolences go out to his family and friends.
Here are Jens’s tournament reports that are still available on the blog:
The picture is from a side event at the Euro Champs 2023, where we played with special Premodern boosters. Jens is happy, as he is about to beat me up with Crosis, the Purger.
Chris and Jens
Jens, Brian Snoddy and TeppischWrap-up
I wrote about this event with mixed feelings, but in the end I wanted to remember this amazing gathering in a positive light. I believe Jens would have liked that too. If you want to join the gathering in Darmstadt next year, save the date 19–21 June 2026, and see additional info here. Oh, and from next year on the name of the Premodern main event is Jens Jaeger Universal Championship.
Take care!
– Martin