Sacred Torch Showdown Organizer's Report
PLUS: T16 deck photos, meta breakdown, and a look behind the scenes
The Sacred Torch Showdown, a $1.5K cash Premodern tournament held in New York City, just took place on September 16. We had 37 wonderful players attend, ranging from local meetup regulars to those traveling into the city for the first time. We also had first-time Premodern players as well as Magic legends in attendance too!
Huge thank you to Jeff, Jordan, and Lanny for their hard work getting this event off the ground. It’s hard to express how much behind the scenes work they put into this! Also thank you to Bifrost Games for hosting us, Elijah for judging, and everyone who played or supported the New York City Premodern community.
The Set-Up
Premodern meetups in New York City have been ongoing since June 2021, originally hosted in Queens at a café (which burnt down), before moving over to Manhattan, drifting from a beer hall to a K-Town food court (which we were kicked out of) to a different beer hall to office spaces.
The week after Lobstercon in June 2023, we decided to hold a last minute meetup given a few friends were still on the East Coast. Our usual office space fell through last minute and we scrambled for a place to host over 20 players… space in New York City is not easy to come by and suggestions abounded in our Discord, including mall food courts, personal apartments, the public library, and more. Jordan suggested we check out the new store, Bifrost Games, located in the middle of Manhattan. Jeff coordinated with the store owners and the space ended up working out perfectly. We’ve continued to use it ever since as our monthly Manhattan meetup spot (and have also since expanded to a Brooklyn meetup spot at The Brooklyn Strategist too).
Later that month, following the success of the new meetup venue, I posed a question in our Discord about the interest in organizing a larger event. I had previously organized a six-round event in August 2022 at Gamestoria with 18 players called the New York Sleight of Mind, but I wanted this one to be bigger and better… so I knew I needed help and quickly setup a chat with Jordan, Jeff, and Lanny.
The Prizes
Early on we decided to make this a cash prize event. There are a few reasons for this, but ultimately it came down to: 1) we wanted to attract out of town visitors and cash prizes help defray costs, especially in an expensive city, 2) we wanted to add some level of cachet to the event, there’s already a North American Premodern Championship… what could we do to set the event apart?
The large cash prize did stir up a tiny bit of controversy, with some telling me that our “shi**y event” would be “how the essence of the format died”, but I want to be very clear: I firmly believe that we should be organizing Premodern events for all parts of the community and that a large cash prize shouldn’t preclude great vibes, engaging gameplay, community gathering, and unique prizing. And ultimately, this was an experiment. If the event ended up being a bunch of unsavory cutthroats all playing Stiflenought mirrors then we’d reevaluate our thinking.
With the cash prizing settled, we set our sights on supporting prizes. We had two goals here: 1) incentivize Top 8 to play it out and 2) make sure every participant left feeling like they had a great, rewarding experience.
For the first point, I took inspiration from one of my earlier deck list photos, which mimicked the deck list cards included in the World Championship deck products. Those gold-bordered decks are generally highly endeared in the Premodern community for increasing accessibility and we thought making the winner of our event their own deck list card would be a nice nod.
Next, we worked on the participation prizes. I’m a huge fan of unique tokens and it always bothered me that there are no Premodern era tokens of an Angel and a Soldier (used for Decree of Justice) with the same layout. I commissioned Dan Cody, one of the original Queens meetup attendees and a professional graphic illustrator, to illustrate tokens for us. He really knocked it out of the park and was even able to stop by the event to say hello. We also wanted a commemorative stamped card for the event as well, and while we had tossed around Kaervek’s Torch originally we decided to settle on the pricier Red Elemental Blast since using a commonly played card can be nice and I wanted to go all-out on our first big event. The stamp itself kind of came together haphazardly at the end (there was supposed to be a second stamp on the card but it shipped too late), but I still think it’s a nice memento.
I also wanted to throw in a little something fun, so I reached out to Martina Montrasi, an Italian artist, who I had worked with in the past to see if I can turn some of my commissions into stickers. She’s wonderful and I highly recommend working with her if you get the chance.
Finally, the random giveaway prizes! Jordan had a great idea to order two copies of a bunch of bulk cards to use as giveaway tickets. He also provided much of the prizing, including a rather neat art book by Donato Giancola. I contacted Dave Lee, an alterist I’ve worked with in the past, to create something for this event. I suggested taking Birds of Paradise and replacing the birds with pigeons and changing the island to be Manhattan… I think he really did a stunning job.
The Results
The meta was fairly diverse among the 37 players participating in the event, with only three decks having three copies (Burn, RG Goblins, and The Rock). About half of participants were the only ones piloting their deck at the event.
The “Other” bucket included: 4C TerraClysm, Frantic Storm, GW Astral Slide, GW OathClysm, GWu Enchantress, Hermit FEB, Mono Black Midrange, Mono G TerraPonza, RebelStill, Replenish, RG TerraPonza, Stasis, UG Cunning Oath, UG Survival Madness, UGW Thresh-Gro, UW Cloud Control, UW Stiflenought and UW Tron.
Mike Harris, of Premodcast fame, ended up taking down the event with his Hermit Full English Breakfast deck. Here’s his deck photo, along with a mockup of the deck list card he’ll be receiving:
As for the rest of the Top 8/16, we ended up with eight unique decks in the Top 8 and fifteen unique decks in the Top 16. Overall a very diverse finish, a far cry from fears expressed early on that the tournament would lead towards nothing but the most top tier of decks. Premodern and the community continue to surprise and delight! One callout: no basic Swamps were found in the Top 16 decks, with the only black spells being cast by Hermit Full English Breakfast and 4C TerraClysm…
The remaining deck photos we received will be shared later this week on the NYC Premodern’s blog. Text deck lists for the Top 16 will also be shared on tcdecks.net this week too.
The Next Step
The footage from the feature matches of the event will be streamed on Lanny’s Twitch, featuring commentary by him and Mike Flores. Stay tuned for the broadcast date. In the meantime, have a listen to their podcast Spike Colony, which also featured Cam and Lan discussing their decks, Enchantress and Mulch Oath. Mike Harris of the Premodcast will also be going through his winning day too.
As for future events… we shall see! We need time to regroup and discuss our thoughts on the event, as well as poll the community on their interest. Feel free to reply, comment, message, contact me (or Jeff, Jordan, and Lanny) with what you would like to see at a New York City event. In the meantime, keep an eye on our website or join the NYC Premodern Discord for future meetups.
PS: Don’t forget to attend or tune into the Premodern Fall Cup in Madison, WI this weekend and the Premodern European Championships on September 30!