Popping my cherry at N00bcon

2 Years ago I was able to play my first N00bcon. After losing the semi’s against Joel, I walked around the Rotary pub and saw some wizards playing a tournament for Ante. A real tournament, with Swedish legal Old School cards, for Ante. I had seen some Ante40k games a couple of years before at the Team Unified tournament in London. However this time it felt different, I was intrigued and that feeling never disappeared after. Back in 1996-1999 I played a lot of games for Ante. We had 2 different ways to play for Ante. Fixed Ante with regular decks, which was often played for $5-15 cards a match. Or a format we called “Proto”. In Proto you would buy a Starter and 2 Boosters. Shuffle all the cards you get, with any amount of lands you wanted to add, and from there on you would play regular Ante games. Sometimes you would Ante 1 card, sometimes 2, but if you would get low on cards often your whole deck. In fixed ante we would just exchange cards, in Proto we would sign the cards as is done in Ante40k. Proto used to be 1 of my favorite ways of playing magic.

The idea to build my own Ante40k deck was born. Due to many other priorities I knew it was going to be a slow process, but I got started anyway. Playing black is obvious in Ante40k, so I bought a Tutor, Twist, Contract and a Sol Ring. During summer of 2023 I unfortunately had to sell a large chunk of my collection, which till that moment I shared with one of my best friends. This was a little setback which was quickly overcome when I knew I might be able to go to N00bcon 15. I was sure about 1 thing, if I could play another N00bcon, it would include Ante40k. And so the buying began.

DFB Green or Mono Black were the 2 decks I had in my mind. With little knowledge of the meta, I had no clue what would be better. Mono Black has been a deck I’ve played a lot before. I just love the esthetics, staples and it fits my playstyle. I was able to confiscate a lot of cards and at the end of last year, and I only needed a couple more. After telling Jason in Groningen that I was close to finishing my Ante deck and would participate during N00bcon, he told me he had a spare Chaos Orb which he was willing to sell me. That was the last heavy hitter I had to buy, so I was 100% sure I was going to play my first Ante games at N00bcon.

Thursday

Typically the Ante40k tournament is played in the evening of the main event. My schedule for the weekend was simple. Have a lot of beers on Thursday during the warm-up. Wake up, try to pace myself on Friday so I get to play the Ante tournament. Of course MG screwed up my plans, by moving the Ante tournaments to Thursday. Booking the Rotary however was a pleasant surprise. After the warm-up I dropped all my cards at the hotel. Took my Ante40k deck and grabbed an uber to the Rotary. The place was already filled with people (I expected only Ante players) and I was looking for my first opponent.

Who better then Jason to pop my cherry? I wasn’t able to test my deck. I never goldfish, so I didn’t really have a clue about how often you would save your ante with a Bird. From the previous posts on this blog my expectation was pretty often, but often doesn’t mean always. My deck isn’t really up for the job against Jason, running only 1 artifact/enchantment removal doesn’t do well against Icy Manipulators & The Abyss. The funny part however was that after a decent amount of turns, we both still hadn’t played a bird. I lose my first ever game of Ante and it’s not a bird.

The goal of the tournament was to win as many “value” in Ante as possible. The value would be taken from Scrye Magazine #3. My personal goal was to try and play as many different players as possible and DFB is my next opponent. I was behind all game but at a certain moment it becomes a race. I have flyers who deal damaged while DFB has 2 Whirling Dervish in play. Su-Chi, Mishra’s, Maze of Ith and Disks are the cards I’m looking for, but I draw a Tutor. That’s never bad, but at that moment I need Maze of Ith to survive another turn. Being new to the game of Ante, I ponder what to do. While a Maze is good, a Contract could get me a Maze and some more. Since the Maze is a necessity and a Contract is a gamble, I take the Maze. Unfortunately DFB holds the Ice Storm and seals the deal. First Bird lost, first Bird I can name. I had pondered a lot about my first Bird. Somehow I had the idea of naming my first lost Birds after the Daltons. So Joe it is and Black/Yellow stripes for his prison suit.

Game #3 I’m playing Levi. We haven’t met before, meeting new people through ante games is a pretty proper way to get to meet each other. He borrowed some cards to play Ante40k, because the worst that can happen is that you lose someone else’s cards. He tries to help by playing Howling Mine’s and I get to see my Juzam in action for the first time. I’m able to win my first game of Ante and I’m super happy. The first thing I mention is that I don’t hope he’s drawing a dick on my Bird, since I really hate seeing dicks on cards. Obviously he’s the guy running around with a dick stamp, so my first Bird won (Kenneth), has a huge cock on it.

I’m ready for some more games and have the honor to face Slanfan. A mighty Ante40k foe and an overall nice guy. I’m not really looking forward to play Robots and The Abyss but somehow I’m able to take down the game. He explains me that it’s common courtesy in Ante40k to allow your opponent to ask for a re-match and so we do. That resulted in another bird won, so all of a sudden my bird cage gets filled quite fast. Look at how pretty Coco is!

So, on to the next one and I get to meet another new face. Mike Frantz, a familiar name from tournament results and trip reports but we only shortly interacted with each other during the warm-up event, which by now started 12 hours ago. The games fly by and my memory starts fading from here on. Luckily I remembered to make photo’s of anything won or lost. I win 2 special birds, since Mike sometimes askes MG Alters to alter his birds for him. I win two altered birds in “moxen style”, Pearl and Emerald. Besides that, I’m able to save my first big card with a bird. Not just a big card, the biggest, my Juzam. Mike is able to tutor for a bird in his last turn, since he had no outs against my board, saving his Taiga. These saves make you remember you can actually lose some of these beauties.

After 20 hours of being awake and drinking most of the time, I’m about to walk home with Koos. However, Megu is suddenly playing for Ante. I wasn’t aware Megu was playing Ante40k and I was actually right, because it’s his first time as well. We agreed to play a game and Megu is extremely unlucky. Megu plays Blue with a splash of Black and that splash is supported by 5 Swamps. He gets to draw 4 of them and can’t cast a single spell besides a Bird which saves his Island (obviously). Lucky enough he draws a contract, so he can draw a fresh hand but has to ante again. He was already so behind, that the contract came to late, but since he didn’t draw another bird, I was finally able to win a non-Bird. My own bird saved a Su-Chi, so that was another decent ante to be saved.

Only days later we found out that Megu had already named another Bird Maya. Most likely alcohol played a tiny role in this, but we already settled for a proper solution. Since Maya was lost together with Clone, and my Maya is the second Maya, Maya will be renamed during Raging Bull to Maya-Clone.

Next to me a Badlands is won in Ante by Bonnie and another Badlands is lost at the same time. What are the odds? For me it’s enough for the day, I head home and feel pretty happy after my first night of Ante40k.

Friday

After playing 7 rounds of N00bcon, I was ready for some Ante games. I wanted to play opponents I hadn’t played the night before and so my first match is against will. While brewing for Ante I actually never considered Red. Now that I’ve played Ante, Tempest Efreet really seems like a fun card. I don’t remember much of the match but I believe I was able to stabilize and hold of some of Will’s explosiveness. Another Bird in the pocket, Hunnturr is now mine!

Bonnie was definitely on my “to-do” list. 2 years prior he was my first opponent at N00bcon and I was really looking forward to playing some Magic with him again. He was building his deck in the Rotary the night before and to be honest, I was pretty scared to play him. I tried my best, but lost the first game (Bird Tihania), only to try again right after. I got really really close. While he was on 3, I had 2 Drain Life and some flyers as out. I kept on drawing land unfortunately and I wasn’t able to seal the deal. A Bronze Tablet hit the board and I could only applaud. Somehow I never really read the card properly but immediately fell in love. This was amplified by the beautiful alter Slanfan had drawn on it. Bonnie was able to swap a Hypnotic Specter for it and after the game he flipped open his own Ante which was a Chaos Orb. So close! Luckily I was able to ditch Kenneth, so I’m playing without any dicks for now.

Henk told me Svante wanted to play some Ante40k and it’s obviously always good to play Svante at the end of N00bcon. Playing such a mighty foe in Ante was something I was really looking forward to but I’m pretty sure this was one of the worst moments of the weekend I could have chosen. As Evert covered it nicely in our What’s App group. Richard is ahead 11-1 (beers), but I’m not sure if he’s still there.

I had added the tablet into my deck, for 6 mana it’s not a great card, but it’s definitely in the spirit of Ante. I’m not sure anymore how I won the first game. Bird Bert made its way to my deck. Besides dicks, I don’t think tits on my cards are very appealing either. We agree to play another game and after some early pressure of Svante I’m able to Disk. 1 (or 2?) Sinkhole had removed some lands in play, so Svante was low on mana with an empty board. After attacking with a Juzam and a Mishra, I play a Dark Ritual into Bronze Tablet! I don’t have the mana to use it yet, but I’m about to with a Taiga and Forest in play. I’m on 8, which isn’t great but hopefully good enough. After reading the tablet Svante picks up his graveyard ready to scoop, reconsiders, draws and scoops anyway. For a moment I thought a Taiga would come my way, but obviously paying the 10 life to counter the tablet would have always been the better play, which is essentially the same as scooping. Still I would have loved to pass on the tablet, a Taiga would have been a nice addition to the art.

What’s in a name?

Last night Nick Scarchilli popped his ante cherry in a most ridiculous fashion.  We played 2 games.  He beat me the first with some Sedge Trolls I couldn’t get out from under from (my good birdie saved a Chaos Orb), and got his first named bird – Allie – after the stalwart NEOS meet up location Granfanally’s.  We ran it back, and all of his good birdies had flown the coop (mine saved a Scrubland and another card post-Contract).  I was eventually able to Disintegrate him for 12 to seal the game, and he reveals his face down ante card…

Badlands!

Welcome to the jungle, baby!  To add insult to injury, I had sold him this exact Badlands about a month and a half ago to kickstart his deckbuilding for the format.  He was super graceful (I probably felt worse than he did, honestly) but didn’t want to besmirch my prize with the usual graffiti.  We ultimately decided he should put a fake Rob Alexander signature on it instead.  He took a practice run with a Posca pen, and then go to work.

The interesting part is..it’s actually pretty good!  There was some debate among the night’s attendees if this would actually pass for an authentic signature, and there was only one way to find out.  I posted this last night and the responses immediately started pouring in.  Funny and scary at the same time.  

2021 Year in Review

Flashback to DISTANCECON 2020 – DFB’s back yard and my first taste of Ante40k. I was hooked instantly, but did not expect it to become far and away my favorite Old School format. In 18 games, played at various events and meetups, and under the influence of various substances (adrenaline being the most potent of the group), I can safely say I am all in on MTWGI.

This is a detailed summary of all my ante games played in 2021:

The cells highlighted in green are the birds I am currently taking care of. The last one is blank as it has not yet flown Mr. Bradley’s coop. Still needs an outfit.

At one point, I had the most well-traveled bird (Incognito), and set the record for the shortest ownership (Over Easy). I won her from DFB before Lobstercon 3, and promptly lost it to Tim Moran about 5 minutes later in what was by far the fastest ante game I’ve played.

Huge thanks to this group of maniacs for making this niche-within-a-niche space one of the very best in Old School. Here’s hoping I can add a bunch more names – opponents and birdies – to this list in 2022!

Hope you all have a safe, happy, and healthy new year!

Mase

Bonus swag pic:

It oiseaunly the beginning

As dusk enveloped another muggy New England Saturday, five fully vaccinated wizards converged for cards, drinks, and – most importantly – for the first time in 15 months, a proper, capital-G Gathering.   I was mostly there for the latter, but knowing that two ornithological enthusiasts were among the attendees, this seemed like a prime opportunity to pop my Ante 40k cherry. 

I had planned to do this three weeks from now at The Burrowing, where even more Ante enthusiasts would be in attendance. However, with a graded Beta Contract from Below sitting on my desk for 6 months in anticipation of my first Ante match, freedom couldn’t come soon enough for the best card ever printed.

 

And so, after tools were procured and plastic destroyed, Scott Bradley and I sat down to play Magic As Garfield Intended.  

Scott won the roll and kept 7, where I mulled to a hand of 6 that included a Library, Jeweled Bird, Sol Ring.  After our good birds saved protected his Ernham Djinn and my Scrubland, Scott cast Armageddon to rid me of my active Library.  

Sol Ring allowed me to cast a Su-Chi a few turns later, and we spent the better part of the mid game trading creatures and removal 1-for-1.  Scott Armageddoned again, but I had another quick Su-Chi that got a few hits in before he was able to deal with it. My Jalum Tome allowed me to find an Animate Dead to grab Scott’s Serra Angel with him at 9. 

A few attack steps later and I had my first Bird, a sweet little chickadee named Helga. And not only that, but Scott also had a single Ante 40k pin left from the shipment Reindeer sent a while back, and I was elated to add that to my Magic bag. 

I’m 100% hooked.  I’ve been of the mindset that when events are feasible again, my excitement for the Gathering will outpace my excitement for the Magic by a factor of 100.  After last night, that gap has narrowed significantly. 

Looking forward to sitting across from all of you sooner rather than later. 

Mase 

n00bcoM after party

Nothing beats a game of real magic, right.

As me and Jonnie had planned to play n00bcoM at the same site event though the prevailing circumstances regarding COVID-19 we also talked about jamming som real magic after the dust had settled.

Unfortunately he was stressed out leaving home and had no chance of bringing his collection and therefor no ante deck. I was left in the dark and my hopes for the real deal was somewhat crushed by this.

But then I stumbled into Ye Old School Pub and met my fellow Brother Ben who offered me a game of real magic.

I quickly assembled my mono red Diamond Valley deck with birds, rukhs, walls and boosted it all with some expensive cards to reach the limitation for legal card slinging.

We sat down, shuffled up, cut our decks and anted the official blind ante before we started our battle. His black/white aggro against my red slowness.

The battle went back and forth and I was slowly drained by some real nightmares from the underworld if I recall it correctly.

I was struggling for my life and neither my bling bling birdies or valleys of treasure where to be seen. When I finally got to dig up some treasure in the valley and stabilized my life I was also able to sign the contract and thus also the firepower needed to bring my opponent down.

An epic battle with an epic wizard was resolved and the traditional late night real magic after the Good Friday happening was saved.

In my prized collection of birdies I now also possess the Lost Soul! Equipped with some extra battle gear and armour to fight battles for me as he have been fighting for others before me.

Over and out, yours truly

— Slanfan

Vienna Geddonless Ante-geddon

As the only two contract-carrying madmen attending the Viennageddon tournament last weekend, The Reindeer and I crossed birds in a duel for ANTE superiority. We had a great series of 7 Ante40k games over the course of two days. Good birds saved great cards, named birds changed hands (and then returned home as well). We had some games where we chickened out early and saved our antes quickly. We also had some long games where no one seemed to be able to draw a bird and the game ended with dramatic revelations that the ante was… a bird the whole time.

I played a Black/Blue robots brew that suffered from a chronic lack of black mana in the opening hands. I lost one game with Dark Ritual, The Abyss, Contract from Below, and Demonic tutor all sitting useless in my hand while getting beat down (there might have even been a mind twist too). I think that was the game that I lost where my ante turned out to be a swamp (just the one I needed, see it in the above picture on the other side of the table the next day). Christian played another beautiful Black/Blue deck full of Sengirs, Hypnotics, Serendib Efreets and a lovely beta Royal Assassin which I drooled over. One day… one day… I dream it might be mine.

Of particular note was a bird which Reindeer won on Saturday, a bird going by the name Opotamus Rex. Before this bird had a name, I had won it from Christian in London at the World Cup mini-ante tournament. When he won the bird back from me in Vienna, I added a nice middle finger to its feathers and added an alter to the casting cost. Opotamus Rex now costs only 0 mana to play when cast ‘gainst Jason (and this will be in effect no matter who owns the bird in the future). Luckily I won this bird back before the weekend ended, so someone else will have to win it off me if they ever want to benefit from the alternative casting cost.

Another one of my named birds, Incognito, also changed hands, but again. I managed to bring the flighty little thing home and apologized for dubbing it a “witch”. I also added a new unnamed bird to my collection and a glorious Mishra’s Monster Factory. Overall, I won the series of 7 games barely by a margin of 4 to 3. It was a small victory after being DECIMATED 3 different times by Christian and his 93/94 decks in the regular tournaments.

As always, it was a pleasure playing ANTE40k with a good friend. These games add an extra rush of adrenaline for me that I assume only usually happens in other high pressure games, like a finals (not that I’d know). It fulfills that tendency I have to want to gamble while still feeling like I can lose and have a good time. In that way, it’s just like 93/94, but just a little hotter, a little more spicy! Having an enthusiastic audience for our games also added to the fun and I’m fairly sure we might just have a new contender entering our ranks sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Stay safe out there, madmen. Love you all. Flying Bear and Prancing Reindeer, out.

Worlds farthest up Ante Gathering

Welcome, Madmen around the Globe. We proudly present the worlds farthes up Ante Gathering! On top of Mount Rigi, great men of honor meet up to battle for Beer, Rum and AnteAnte!

It was a cloudy day – no just kidding, sun was shining and the temperatures were really nice for January. The biggest, most numerous and gigantic Ante Tournament took place! Two players – i repeat – TWO PLAYERS (world record on this height!) shuffled their Decks, they cutted and (you know what there is to come) they Ante’d! Yes, they Ante’d and battled for victory.

Jason “the legend” VS Christian “the Reindeer”. Two foes with individual strenghts and weaknesses. Two players of the first minute of this glorious format. And two Friends. The first big surprise was the bird which hitted the table from Reindeer. A really good bird saved the mighty Chaos Orb from changing sides to Jason. Reindeer followed up with a City in a Bottle and ruined all dreams for a victory for Jason. With 5 Arabian Nights cards in his hand (two Cities) he never regained the strength and got beaten down by a very angry Electric Eel to zero live. Urrrg. First Match goes to Reindeer.

But it is not a proper tournament without a proper revenge. So both players shuffled, cutted aaaaaaaand Ante’d again of course. This time the match went back and forth. Jason with his Robots tried to gain advantage, but Reindeer had Shatters and a Disk ready to parry. No Birds saw the daylight of the battlefield and the Ante stayed hidden for the whole game. in Turn 10ish, Reindeer slammed the most feared foe for Jason on the table. Jason gave a whining moan, never heard before in the whole carreer of both players. It seemed that a Leviathan hitted the table – but NO, it was an electric Eel haha. Unresponded and fuelled with 4 Red the Eel managed to attack twice and deal lethal to poor Jason. Game Over. Two Games – Tournament done.

The Spoils of War – the winner takes it all. Even a lonely Kraken – hand painted from mighty Mari Stenhage, was waiting to change sides. But it did not happen.

Thank you Jason for this great opportunity and see you next time in Vienna.

Shuffle

Cut

Ante

yours
Reindeer

Tales of the Ante40K community

Since N00bcon 2019, playing for Ante is kind a thing – during various Tournaments we tried to organize a “REAL Tournament after the Tournament” and play for real Ante (including all the nice Ante Cards of course 🙂 )

Maybe you asked yourself nowadays “why do they do that? Are they crazy?” Short answer would be: Yes, they are. They are completely insane – but this would be a way to easy shortcut. Truth is, that the Oldschool Community is an incredible fair, nice, lovely, caring, sharing, drinking pulk of various people around the world. We (obviously and of course!) do not care about race, gender, sexual orientation or other exclusionary things (despite the fact that anbody in the community should love the game, should be friendly, polite and fair and wants to have a great time). This is what we discover in various places and locations around the world.

I for myself found within this amazing Community a lot of new Friends around the world. Some friendships around them are outstanding and we try to meet at as much Oldschool-happenings as possible to have a great time and play our game we love so much. I am in this Community since mid 2018 and had a very warm welcome, especially by the members of this small Ante40K-Club. I met Jason in Genova at the Breakfast table. We talked about Magic and have become close Tournament buddies since then 🙂 Also in Genova, same year, Bonnie played against me in round 5. He told me if he is playing to slow due to his intoxination, i should tell. As my Level was also quite high, i did not even understand his sentence haha. Ben and the Brothers of Fire have been opponents in our first Team Worlds in 2018 – we had very nice talks. Markus is the bringer of the Format and we played at N00bcon 2018 (respectively, grandmaster Paul da Silva had to sling the spells as Markus was, hm let’s say “currently unavailable”…) Allan hostet DOS 2.0 in which i was guest and he cared very nicely for this foreign guest of Switzerland 🙂 Svante was a known Name for me due to various Tournament reports i read through this time. We also met in Genova and had some talks about “restrict to two” that time. I think we actually never played against each other at a OS Tournament – is this true? Bryan was also playing N00bcon 2019 and he missed Ante40 action due to his Top8-matches – but we had a very nice talk and All Tings Considered Episode together. Magnus is also part of this group – we met in real life at N00bcon 2019 and instantly knew, that we connect very well 🙂 And finally Slanfan – i could write books about this wonderful Person but i Keep it short: Great human being and great OS friend 🙂 We expanded just today in the USA with 3 nice Oldschool-Gentlemen (DFB, Eliot Davidoff and Scott Bradley) – a warm welcome to you guys.  So a big hug and thank you Ante-Friends to be part of this amazing Ante-Community and for your Oldschool Friendship! Rock on!

So after N00bcon 2018, where Markus and Mighty Magnus played an Ante Match with their real Decks (yes!) a Llanowar Elf changed side to Markus and the Idea of Ante was born in his head. He needed one whole year to plan, organize and handle everything for the great Ante40K N00bcon Aftermath Tournament (just joking, i assume he did that in a couple of Hours haha). There was a quite decent announcement and 6 fellow Madmen gathered together to play for – hm, i can’t really remember? a Contract from Below? a Darkpact? i really don’t know anymore… We agreed that a Card which switches Sides of course has to be signed and properly altered (if you are an Artist like i am, you will receive veeeery Beautiful altered Cards haha).

We discovered that the Ante40K format opens up for quite some interesting Deck Archetypes – mostly because the lack of Power9 and fully teched out decks. Also, normally you include 4 Jeweled Birds so you Need some space for them.  So far, everybody was more or less happy or at least not devastated as one lost Dual Lands, Ehrnam Djinns or even a Chaos Orb – we all know that this Card will be taken over by a friend – not some random foe. Also, the Cards will be included in OS-Decks for actual Tournament play 🙂 Everybody wins 😉

So if you ever again ask yourself, why there are reasons for Ante:
– being insane could be a good one
– Altering cards and hand them over to friends
– love all facettes of the game and playing Magic overall

So may the Moxen be with you and don’t forget:

Shuffle

Cut

ANTE!

See you around
Reindeer