Swedish Nationals 2001: Martin Berlin\r\n\r\n4 Underground River\r\n4 Salt Marsh\r\n12 Islands\r\n5 Swamps\r\n3 Nether Spirit\r\n4 Counterspell\r\n4 Undermine\r\n3 Vendetta\r\n4 Accumulated Knowledge\r\n4 Fact or Fiction\r\n3 Force Spike\r\n2 Tsabo's Decree\r\n2 Duress\r\n2 Opt\r\n1 Foil\r\n1 Spite\/Malice\r\n2 Recoil\r\n\r\nSideboard\r\n1 Vendetta\r\n2 Tsabo's Web\r\n2 Cremate\r\n2 Misdirection\r\n3 Ascendant Evincar\r\n3 Gainsay\r\n1 Tsabo's Decree\r\n1 Duress<\/pre>\nThis qualified me for the Euro Champs in Milan<\/a>, Italy, held the same year.\u00a0I don’t remember too much of that event, actually, but somehow the idea of a Euro Champs in Italy must have stuck with me…<\/p>\n
\nSwedish Nationals top 8, 2011. Yours truly to the right in the grey sweater<\/i><\/small><\/p>\nThe year after (around Odyssey block) I qualified for the Euro Champs in Amsterdam<\/a>, Netherlands, on DCI ranking. I was 18 and at that point I had no motivation for Magic anymore (I started in ’94, so I had played for over seven years at this point). The only “preparation” I did for that tournament was drinking coffee and playing some Backgammon with Thomas Rosholm (one of the best Swedish Magic players back in the days, featured on the very left of the picture above). I don’t think I brought a sideboard even and the tournament went really bad. After that I took a long break from the game, starting playing again in 2009, around the time when Zendikar was released.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to 2018. When I started to introduce Premodern outside of the Swedish community, I got the idea of bringing back the championships tournaments, in a more casual form. The end-game would not be the Pro Tour, but mostly the glory of being a national champion this time. So far, the\u00a0Swedish Nationals<\/a> and the Italian Nationals<\/a>\u00a0have taken place, and the French Nationals are scheduled for the 2nd December. Now, I’m a firm believer in building the community bottom-up, starting locally. But to take Premodern to the next level and achieve something of a global metagame, it would also be necessary for the local and national communities to mix at some point, thus begging the question of an international tournament.<\/p>\n
\nFrench Nationals coming up!<\/i><\/small><\/p>\nPerhaps it was because of my own experience from 2001, or because the Italians seemed particularly enthusiastic about Premodern from the start. Or perhaps just because I like Italian food. But I knew from the start that the first European Championships should be held in Italy. And shortly after I got the idea, Domenico “Meg\u00f9” Chionetti, one of the organizers of the Fishliver Oil Cup, messaged me and told me that they wanted to dedicate one day to a Premodern tournament. Perfect! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
For those of you not familiar with it,\u00a0the Fishliver Oil Cup<\/a> is a 93\/94 tournament that, in only a couple of years, has grown to be one of the largest ones internationally, thanks to the industrious and big-hearted organizers. The tournament was going to be held in Genova, Liguria, which also happens to have a thriving Premodern community, among the first ones to pick it up in Italy.<\/p>\n
So far so good, but would people actually travel to Genova just to play this obscure little format of ours, on a Sunday in the end of October? Although I never doubted it, it was far from obvious at this point…<\/p>\n
The starting field<\/h2>\n
But turned up they did, 43 players in total, making it the largest Premodern tournament so far! And this was despite terrible weather conditions during the whole weekend, as a large part of Italy, including Genova, was hit by a storm, causing floods due to the heavy rain. This probably kept some Italians from travelling to the event by car from other regions. Judging from the names, 28 were Italian and the others were from France, Germany, Poland, Sweden and the UK. Plus a random guy from New Zealand. We’ll get back to him. The archetypes played were as follows (I’m missing two decklists):<\/p>\n
9 UW Standstill
\n5 Sligh
\n4 The Rock (1 Natural Order, 1 \u201djunk\u201d)
\n3 Full English Breakfast
\n3 Stifle-Nought (2 UR, 1 UB)
\n2 UG Madness
\n2 Stasis
\n1 Turboland
\n1 Counter-Rebels
\n1 Enchantress
\n1 Trix
\n1 Goblins
\n1 Four-Colour-Control
\n1 RW Astral Slide
\n1 Elves
\n1 Rec-Sur
\n1 UW Squee-Compulsion Control
\n1 Squirrel Prison
\n1 Pink Prison
\n1 Zombie Spark<\/p>\nThat’s 20 distinct archetypes! UW Standstill, which has been established as the mainstream control deck in the format, stands out as the most represented deck. Several Italians went with this deck, including Stefano Mannella who took down the Italian Nationals<\/a> with it some time ago. The second most represented deck is the red aggro deck Sligh, which has also put up good results lately, winning the tournament at GP Stockholm<\/a> and more recently the\u00a0Premodern Online Open<\/a>\u00a0(there should be a report from this tournament too). The third most played deck is the midrange deck The Rock, in different flavours. This deck hasn’t really been “figured out”, the way UW Standstill and Sligh have. I hope to return to that, and my take on the deck, in a future blog post. From there on there is just a lot of variety in the decks, with different takes on control, aggro, midrange, combo and prison making up the majority of the field.<\/p>\n
\nFirst prize: a hand engraved vintage cup and a playset of altered Vindicate.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\nWhat was\u00a0not<\/em> played, then? First, I’m a bit surprised to see only one Goblins deck. Getting ahead of the results a bit, this deck was played to a solid 4\u20132 record by my friend Per R\u00f6nnkvist, who also had good results with it previously. The deck is seriously strong, but perhaps people expected a lot of Sligh, which seems to have the upper hand in the red aggro mirror. I suspect it mostly comes down to chance rather than meta-gaming, though. The second thing that stands out to me is the complete lack of Yawgmoth’s Bargain<\/a> decks. C’mon, it’s a card on the watch list! \ud83d\ude09 I know from having played it quite a bit myself that the Bargain-Rector version is no joke, but I guess that the deck is not for everyone. It’s one the more expensive in the format and it takes a certain mindset to play. Samuel Korsell was not there to represent his creation, but he did a video deck-tech<\/a> for those of you who are interested in the deck.<\/p>\n
The Swiss<\/h2>\n
Six rounds of swiss were played, followed by a top 8. I took the tough decision not to play myself, so that I could do a stream commentary of the whole tournament for you guys! \ud83d\ude42 Oh, almost the whole tournament, that is, as the internet of the hotel where the event was held went down completely after the quarterfinals. Oh well. But here goes:<\/p>\n
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