Arvika 2024

First, some general thoughts about the blog. I have considered stopping writing for a while, at least tournament reports. I’m going to the same old events, playing the same old decks, so brewing, tuning and traveling all feel a bit stale to write about now. In the beginning of the blog, just writing a tournament report was a fresh experience, while building upon the nostalgia for the tournament reports of old. Not so anymore.

Still, I like being able to provide some enjoyment for the community. And when traveling to events, I sometimes hear people actually enjoying the blog which warms my heart; most recently, that was Mario from the Maremma crew telling me I have a lot of fans in Italy. And I can’t let them down, can I? So, I’m continuing with the blog, even the travel writing. However, for the time being, this will consist mostly of shorter posts with deck photos and brief commentary. At least until I play something interesting or make an interesting finish. I know I also have that Rereading Centurion series to continue, some day.

So. This past weekend I went to Arvika for the Festival. First day was Scryings. As I get to play the format so rarely, I currently aim to play something new every time. I also wanted something quite different from what I was going to run in the main event, so I picked Mono Green. I didn’t dig up any lists, but based on memory of what Olle played last year before N00bcon I brewed up a list, which after some input from DFB and Olle and Fluffy (all largely ignored) looked like this:

Results were as follows:
RUG: W
Gb with Nature’s Lore and Natural Order: L
G: W
Power Monolith: W
Reanimator: Draw (would likely have lost)
Gb: W

So 4-1-1 in total (we played 6 rounds of straight swiss without top 8). Primal Order was great. I should have had another Serrated Arrows in the board, and probably not the full four Crumbles main, and probably the last Scryb Sprites since it’s so good in the mirror, but that’s just marginal adjustments. I think the green deck should be mono green and the shell basically look like this.

For the main event, I chose to run back the list I played to a win at the small Marzipan meetup in December. I like the list a lot and wanted to give it a chance at the big stage. It is the first time I’ve ever played the same 75 twice in this format, but I really didn’t find anything I wanted to change. It’s this:

We played 8 rounds and then cut to the top 8. These were my results:

UWb Azure Drake midrange: W
RWx Dragon Whelp midrange: L
G budget: W
UWb Serra/Copy midrange: W
The Deck: L
Bw budget: W
RUG midrange aggro: W
Grixis Robots: W

Most matches weren’t terribly exciting. I made a bad judgment call (not a strict misplay but not great) against Audun in round 2 and lost, then got destroyed by Elof on The Deck despite his 12-card sideboard in round 5, knocking me out of top 8 contention. I drew a reasonable amount of power, sometimes unreasonable. In a very satisfying ending to the tournament, in the very final game I got to utilize my entire anti-Robot sideboard plan for the first time, first Copying Trike once, then casting Su-Chi, ignoring his Abyss, and finally finishing him with Fireball when he cast Blood Moon. It does seem to work which I had been somewhat sceptical of before, the matchup still being quite bad (I had lost a painful game 1 where a Bottle killed my Serendib, then turning off my Tutor when I drew City as my only black mana, meaning I couldn’t tutor for a draw-7 with 6 mana drain mana floating, then drawing another Dib).

In the end, I still like the deck a lot, and 6-2 is a reasonable result and a good winrate, even sneaking into 16th place if anyone’s counting. And more importantly, the company was absolutely fantastic, especially considering the World Cup going on simultaneously in Groningen taking away some other potential guests. Arvika was great and I can’t recommend it enough. I’ll be back!

And finally, some random highlights. Not that I can mention everyone and everything, but I especially enjoyed the chats over breakfast, the Americans coming over (Will, Shane, Danny), the great runs by Danny + Leo + Reindeer (as usual!), traveling and brewing and testing with Bonnie on the train back home (if it works, something really spicy and sweet for N00bCon to look forward to), and this fantastic alter I commissioned from Drew Tucker:

And check out Bonnie’s new Chains jacket. Yes, those are real chains. Bonus: MG’s beautiful face.

Also, Andrea Bianconi having his Giant Shark in play:

Yes, this format has its moments. See you in about a month!