Supporting Spice in Premodern
Supporting Spice in Premodern
PLUS: Lobstercon reaches capacity, decks I've been playing lately, and a new take on Aluren
Let’s talk about spice today. I would have written about this topic earlier but was hoping that the Dune: Part Two marketing team would bestow their sponsorship dollars upon this publication. That didn’t pan out so here we are.
From time to time, I feel like when people think of the New York City Premodern scene they envision us all hailing yellow taxi cabs as steam billows from a sewer nearby, heading to Times Square to play money matches with only the most tuned and optimal decks. This really isn’t the case. We love spice and unconventional decks too! First, I want to discuss the Spice Paradise webcam league I’m organizing, followed by the upcoming Endless Wurm spice tournament in Brooklyn this weekend.
Spice Paradise
Many of you know that I love to brew decks or find new ways to add spice to existing strategies. I’m firmly in the camp that Premodern, despite having a closed card pool, has bountiful opportunities for creativity and fun. For many years now I’ve wanted to create a space that highlights the unique decks in the format and Spice Paradise is the culmination of lots of thought and discussion with the community.
Put simply, Spice Paradise is a webcam league organized through the Premodern Discord that celebrates the culture of brewing and the existence of spicy and rogue decks. This proxy-friendly league will last eight weeks, followed by a cut to Top 16. There is no entry fee or prizing. Signups are now open until end of day, Thursday, May 16 with first pairings announced on Monday, May 20.
The rules of the webcam league can be found here, but the two biggest topics to address and make Spice Paradise a bit unusual are league structure and deck construction.
League Structure
You’re paired with one opponent each week instead of the typical pod structure seen in many Premodern webcam events. This is to give players flexibility in their schedule (you can skip a week, if needed) and freedom to switch decks. In a league focused on brews, spice, and underrepresented decks I didn’t want participants to be locked into a deck. Maybe your deck is too underpowered or you thought of a new interaction to include, you can make that change!
The Top 16 playoffs will consist of eight players with the best win-loss record while the remaining eight spots will be determined through community vote. The league is organized this way to try and balance two factors: A) incentivizing creative and underappreciated decks and B) rewarding match wins.
Deck Construction
There is no hard rules on what deck is allowed in the league, but my general guideline is to embody the spirit of brews, spice, rogue decks, and experimentation. You also do not need to play an original deck! You can take existing decks and make meaningful changes to it too.
Some people have suggested banning certain cards, interactions, or decks. I’m hesitant to ban Premodern-legal cards because in my mind that creates a spin-off format and potentially impacts your deckbuilding decisions. Ideally, the decks in this league could be used in more traditional Premodern scenes too.
There are concerns that a participant could opt to disregard the spirit of the league and bring a stock Stiflenought list or something similar. I have tried to build in a few controls for this, including: A) I will personally step in to talk privately with the individual, B) I trust that the way this league is being marketed will reinforce the deck selection goal, and C) there are no prizes.
I’ll wrap up here by saying… this is all an experiment! It’s possible some element of this league doesn’t work out as intended but that’s OK. We’ll hopefully see some neat decks we might not have otherwise known about and we can always try again in the second season of Spice Paradise. I hope some of you will join in on this adventure!
Endless Wurm
This Saturday, the Endless Life Brewery in Brooklyn hosts Endless Wurm, a spicy Premodern tournament! Organized by community pillar Sunny Seelamsetty, this event bans Tier 1 and Tier 2 decks to encourage unusual and lesser seen decks. The event will benefit the Food Bank for New York City and has a planned feature match stream on Twitch. Here’s the best part: the deck lists are already public and a Twitter vote is ongoing to determine the crowd favorites (with winners receiving beautiful, custom signed rk post playmats). Voting ends today so I highly encourage you to visit Sunny’s thread of deck photos to vote for your favorites by liking the corresponding tweet.
Lobstercon
The North American Premodern Championships, held at Lobstercon on September 20, 2024… is already sold out in about 24 hours. I had joked beforehand that spots will be tougher to get than a Taylor Swift concert, which ended up being more accurate than I would have liked. Currently there are over 280 registrations for the Premodern main event and while there will surely be some people who drop, it’s nearly certain that it’ll eclipse the in-person Premodern record set at last year’s event of 186 players. I hope to see some of you there!
What I’ve Been Playing Lately
Turbo Upheaval Lands
For this year’s Spring Fling webcam event, I left it up to popular vote in the Premodern Facebook group to determine what I’d play. Turbo Upheaval ended up winning! Historically that deck revolved around powering out an Upheaval followed up with a Zombie Infestation, but I wanted to try out a different spin on it. Originally I had been trying to jam Show and Tell and Dream Halls into Upheaval, but instead landed on a hybrid between Lands and UG Turbo Lands. A full set of Black Vise and Horn of Greed was very interesting since the latter is not a “may” trigger, meaning every land drop was replaced, often putting my opponent in an awkward spot with Black Vise. I liked the Oath of Druids secondary plan as well as it bought time for you to assemble the requisite lands for Upheaval. Oath also incentivizes your opponent to hold creatures in hand while Black Vise squeezed them for doing so. I ended up 2-2, facing two Madness decks, which admittedly Black Vise is not so hot against.
UG TerraOath
In the March webcam monthly I played my UG TerraOath brew. The thought was that RG TerraOath, GW TerraOath, and Mono G TerraOath had been proven strategies, what would happen if I played the good blue cards instead? Also I have an addiction to Predict and Sylvan Library. Sunder was my attempt at replicating the late-game power of Armageddon… and at instant-speed too. Overall the deck was super fun (and main deck Teferi’s Response and Misdirection are such a rush), though I ended up 2-4 in many rather close matches (except for one against Turtle Splash in which I was absolutely crushed). I think I would make some minor adjustments but it’s definitely a deck I want to explore more.
Birds Aren’t Real (Bird Trix)
I played in the BeardBrothers Premodern Tribal Wars league in February, choosing Birds as my theme and jamming in the Illusions of Grandeur plus Donate combo in too. I ended up going 4-1, defeating Barbarians, Soldiers, Elementals, and Cats while losing to Clerics. This was a super fun league and I have a new deck I’m trying out for the league that just started.
UB Psychatog
Also in February, I played my Japanese foil Psychatog deck in the Odyssey Type 2 league, netdecking Carlos Romão’s Worlds 2002 list. I went 2-1, beating Mono Black Control and Zombie Infestation Madness and losing to Opposition Madness. I definitely want to try other historical blocks too. The aesthetics and gameplay are amazing.
Content
🍙 Tom Metelsky joins Seb Celia and Anton Glans on the Monster of the Week podcast to discuss “podcasting, death, elephant funerals, and Devourer Combo”… I haven’t listened to this one yet but with a description like that I already know it’s a must-listen
🪈 fpawluszmtg is out with a new take on his pet deck, Aluren! He’s been working on this list for a while and the utilization of Survival of the Fittest provides a new angle to the deck.
🍻🪨 Andrea Mengucci is out with a new video featuring Deadguy Ale vs. The Rock
🦜 Moxforge has been brewing some neat decks lately, including this 5C Green deck with MTGO gameplay
💧🧝 The Impulse Crew is out with some Landstill vs. Elves paper gameplay
🥾🌳 The Portland community has some nice 5C Tireless Tribe vs. RG Terravore paper gamplay, definitely check out some of the earlier round footage too
🎙️ Lan D. Ho joined Lanny Huang and Mike Flores on the Spike Colony podcast to discuss his winning Oath-Replenish deck. This was a real fun one and these three just have such a great vibe together.
🧙♂️ Old Mage MTG discusses Deadguy Ale in Premodern
🤑 brightdaysmtg has a video on 4.5 Premodern decks that are cheaper than a Sheoldred, the Apocalypse