{"id":1518,"date":"2019-11-03T22:56:39","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T20:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/premodernmagic.com\/blog\/?p=1518"},"modified":"2019-11-03T23:38:01","modified_gmt":"2019-11-03T21:38:01","slug":"euro-champs-2019-organizers-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/premodernmagic.com\/blog\/euro-champs-2019-organizers-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Euro Champs 2019: Organizer’s Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

19 October, Madrid, Spain, was the time and place for the second edition of the European Championships in Premodern. The first edition took place in Genoa, Italy (see my report here<\/a>), as part of the Fishliver Oil Cup. This time around, however, was the first time ever for an international event where Premodern was the main tournament. To make a weekend out of it, we offered throwback drafts on Friday followed by a social dinner, and on Sunday there was a casual Premodern tournament as well as some 93\/94 dueling.<\/p>\n

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But let me start off by by thanking \u00a0co-arrangers Francisco Jos\u00e9 Complidu Rica, founder of Madrid Premodern, and Fernando CL, co-owner of\u00a0Tempest Store<\/a>, which hosted the event. The monthly Madrid Premodern League run by Francisco typically gathers 20-something players, and Francisco’s enthusiasm and the awesome local community were of course important factors for choosing Madrid as the location for the tournament. On top of that there was the great venue Tempest Store,\u00a0which is not just any local game store, but one dedicated entirely to Magic. Besides a nice brick-and-mortar store (complete with banners of Premodern sets), Tempest Store is a major vendor on Magic Card Market, which I can really recommend for Premodern singles, since they have a huge stock (I’ve ordered from them many times).<\/p>\n

Pre-tournament nonsense<\/h2>\n

Eight Premodern enthusiasts showed up for Odyssey-Torment-Judgment draft on Friday afternoon. I quit Magic (or took a really long break, rather) somewhere in the midst of this block, so it’s definitely not a limited format that I know or knew. It was quite interesting to experience, from a limited perspective, how Magic design has changed since then. We all know about “power creep”, but a lot of the cards back then were outright unplayable even in draft. At some point we were all kind of laughing at boosters mostly filled with stuff like Enslaved Dwarf<\/a>. It was challenging in an interesting way, though, as you really struggled to get enough playables, making it even more important to commit to a certain strategy and colour combination early on in the draft. Here are some pics:<\/p>\n

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I first-picked Beast Attack<\/a> and ended up with a pretty decent green-black aggro deck (pic 3 above), trying to ride heavy hitters such as Filthy Cur<\/a>\u00a0all the way, on the back of removal and pump spells, topping off the curve with some reach in the form of Laquatus’s Champion<\/a> and Morbid Hunger<\/a>. I won the Putrid Imp<\/a> mirror vs Joakim Almelund (pic 4 above), whereafter I was stopped by the Swedish Premodern champion Mikael Linden and his green-white deck.<\/p>\n

After the draft, we gathered some more people and went for dinner at Mad Brewing<\/a>, a micro-brewery and restaurant in central Madrid. I’m still not trying to turn this into a food-blog<\/a>, but I must say that they had not only good beer, but also probably the best barbeque food I’ve ever had, so give it a try when in Madrid.<\/p>\n

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I also got in some games versus the Germans, Jens Jaeger (pic 2 above) and Stefan Guttenberger (pic 3 above).<\/p>\n

The field<\/h2>\n

28 players of seven nationalities showed up to battle in the main tournament on Saturday. The field of decks was as follows:<\/p>\n