Guestblog: Goblin Hero Charity Cup 2024 - Organizer's Report

Jonathan Lai approached me via e-mail asking if he could use my platform to publish his organizer’s report.That’s never a problem but it’s not only that, it’s a report which shows what Old School is truly about. Have a read and enjoy!

Back in ‘94, I was buying Marvel cards at my local store. One day, I witnessed a kid next to me opening a revised starter pack and immediately fell in love with Magic the Gathering. Back then, I had only collected the cards but never actually played with them.

Twenty-eight years later, I was finally playing MTG, all due to the pandemic. Playing old school online was one of the few avenues that got me through all that mess. However in 2023, right before I started to pack away my cards and my webcam, a good friend took me to my first in-person tournament at Dave’s Time Warp, a comic/card store in Cedar Grove NJ.

Since I had only started playing online, this would be my first in person tournament ever. This tournament was headed by Nick Christie. He was basically Davy Crockett pioneering an old school scene in New Jersey. The tournament was orchestrated by Reggie Veizel, a MTG genius and tournament organizer extraordinaire. When you declare an attack with a board with creatures with banding, first strike, protection from something, trample, a Maze of Ith, and a pizza in hand – you gotta just call Reggie.

The old school scene there grew into something special. We had veteran old schoolers, younger folk that were playing commander and standard, and even teenagers that found a love for old school. This was partly due to the fact that the scene allowed proxies. Even though 95% of the cards at the scene were real, it helped newer players to enter the scene without taking out a huge loan. This casual format allowed people to just enjoy a break from the real world, time to bask in the vintage art, a breather from our phones, some sort of a social life, and slinging cards – what MTG was originally intended for.

As the old school club house grew, we decided that we could do something good with a great group of people. We had all heard of charity tournaments all over the world like Lobstercon up in Boston led by the famous David Firth Bard. I reached out to Paul Dasilva and Jared Doucette for some tips and advice for running a tournament like this. Without any expectations, the group set up to host our 1st Annual Goblin Hero Charity Cup.

We ended up having 22 card slingers from all different ages help raise almost $2,500 for The Fighting Children’s Cancer Foundation in Fairfield. 100% of the proceeds went to the charity. Amazing and generous prizes and raffles were donated by Chris Skidmore, Jeremy Marcus, Jesus Mansilla, Darin Wiesner, Jordan Rosales, Jason Koresko, Chris Rhymes, and Chris Grennille. Seeing the support of the prizes, raffles, and donations made me truly honored to be surrounded by such a great community.

We also were lucky to have four legendary travelers that came from out of town, Jonathan Geras, Dom DiFibo, Jason Koresko, and Andy Blaufarb. Nick Christie and Maria painted the gorgeous alters for the prize cards and Reggie painted the beautiful custom playmat for 1st prize. Special thanks to Cedar Bean’s Coffee Joint for hooking up the group with coffee and for Time Warp hooking us up with the venue and the pizza!

Jesus, the youtube sensation, recorded the finals to be sent to the famous TimmyTalks to do his commentary. Having your finals game being on Timmy’s channel, analyzing your plays and roasting your orb flip, was enough to be one of the most coveted prizes.

RESULTS

Tournament was 5 Rounds into the Top 4 Atlantic 93/94 Rules.

Around 6 hours of battling, we ended up having our finals featuring Dom DiFibo (UR Counterburn) and Li Wang (LionDibs). With a record of 2-0, we crowned our first Goblin Hero Charity Cup winner, Li Wang. Li Wang’s son also participated by helping draw the winning tickets for the raffles.

1st – Li Wang
2nd – Dom DiFibo
3rd – Nick Santini
4th – Nick Baron

Best Unpowered – Chris Rhymes
Winner of the Dead Last Prize – Jesus Mansilla