Reborn League: Ice Age Draft Tournament Report

I don’t have a lot of time but I’m so full of joy still from playing over the weekend that I have to type out at least something. The original plan was to have an Ice Age only draft on the 25th Anniversary of Ice Age, somewhere in June 2020. You all know the story about the pandemic…. It was rescheduled a couple of times and the final date was set on the 29th of January. 57 players signed-up, how crazy! People from the Old School community, people who hadn’t played for 20+ years and people who just happened to find out about the tournament and wanted in. There’s nobody going to play something like this if you’re not nostalgic about Ice Age, that makes already a good crowd.

Unfortunately Omicron got in our way again. But I just couldn’t pull the trigger to cancel the whole thing. After so long I was eager to play, although I fully understood that not everybody was looking forward to a trip across the boarder and/or playing in 1 room with so many people. The risk of getting infected was definitely there and it’s not only about how sick you might get, it also impacts your family, social life, work etc. In the week leading up to the tournament, at least 5 people who wanted to come tested positive. I think that says enough about the current situation. 20 players risked coming to Amsterdam and what a day….

4 Boosters each. 20 Players, 80 Boosters in total. There’s 121 rares in Ice Age, so you’re not seeing the whole set even when you open 80 boosters. No Jester’s Cap or Mask were opened but we did see a Necropotence, Polar Kraken and 1 of my favorite cards: Stormbind! Icy is uncommon in the set, 240 uncommons and just 1 Icy. We had 1 Booster with 12 cards. Boosters with saturated printing, packfresh cards that should be graded as poor. I saw so many joy in people’s faces while drafting, priceless. 4 Boosters, 60 cards in total (no basic lands in Ice Age Boosters) and you had to pick roughly 23 cards to put in your deck to make a total deck of 40 cards. In my opinion that was pretty doable, I’ll show some deckpics at the end but below is my deckpic. I can tell a long story on how and why but it’s pretty simple. Red/Green is the easy choice but I didn’t want to build another Red/Green deck. Pack 1, Pick 1 was Elkin Bottle. I don’t care if it’s really good or not, I just wanted to play it. My 2nd card was a Zuran Spellcaster and my third card a Shambling Strider. No, I wasn’t playing Red but a 5/5 is always good. I was hoping for a lot of Ray of Commands and at least 1 Illusionary Forces. Result? 1 Ray of Command and no Forces 🙂

My deck wasn’t great but decent enough to have some fun. Some decks were really really good. Most people always say that these sets are bad for drafting and obviously nowadays sets are designed partly with drafts in mind. However I really disagree here that this was a bad draft. Sure, I was already liking Fallen Empires only draft so it could be just me, but Ice Age played much faster and we didn’t have a lot of draws playing 55 minute rounds. Normally the “Reborn” drafts/sealed deck tournaments are closed events with 16 people but this was an open event were everybody could join. We had sign-ups from multiple countries but only 3 foreigners made it in the end. 1 French guy wrote an e-mail if he and his 2 brothers could join. Sure, why not… They took the car, early early morning from France all the way to play with 17 unknown players a draft in a bar they never seen. The Old School community is not only known for playing MtG, it often also involves lot’s of beer and banter. Well, these guys were Old School. I saw the first beers being ordered a little after 11:00 and the French crew was drinking triple’s most of the day. I played the youngest, Guilllame, who was 29 and 6 years old when he started playing MtG. We both played Woolly Mammoth, Woolly Spider but also a Musician. Don’t say you know what it does, I’ll help you. It’s a 1/3 creature for 2U with a cumulative upkeep of 1. You can tap it to: “Put a music counter on target creature. If it doesn’t have “At the beginning of your upkeep, destroy this creature unless you pay {1} for each music counter on it,” it gains that ability. Really, will you ever see such a card being played in any other format?

I played 1 guy who quit MtG in 1995 just after Ice Age…. Sure, welcome back. Florian, who doesn’t play Old School but from whom I’ve learned MtG finish second, having a blast all day long. Rob won the whole thing, 5-0. Way to much beer, 2 hours back with the train only to wake up at 06:00 with still a smile on his face. After the tournament I played Henk, my drinking brother, in an ante match because I was 100% certain I would win it. I obviously lost 0-2. I played some more games with Rob, lost as well and had more beer, lot’s more. This was awesome at so many levels. And because so many people couldn’t join, we’ll do it again. Not sure when but keep an eye out if you want to join next time. This was epic and if you like Ice Age and drafts, this is something you shouldn’t miss!