Raging Bull Series: 2025 Coverage & Results

I know that if I don’t start writing this now, I probably never will. It’s Tuesday—not that I expect to finish this today—but it feels like the right moment to begin. The last couple of months have been intense. “Busy” doesn’t quite cut it, though it’s the word that comes to mind. With a new ad interim role at work, I’ve been clocking more hours than usual. It’s not inherently good or bad—just life unfolding.That extra workload did add some pressure to organizing this year’s edition of Raging Bull. But now that it’s behind me, I can say one thing for sure: it felt damn good.

I could say I did it alone, but that wouldn’t be true. When it comes to projects like this, I tend to take full control—it’s just how I operate. Still, from the moment the 2024 edition wrapped up, Evert and I have been in constant contact. Sparring over little things, tossing ideas back and forth. It’s hard to bounce ideas off yourself so I’m very happy he’s always there. Every year, I go through the same cycle: first, the doubt. Should I even do this again? I don’t want to organize another edition just because it’s what I’ve always done. I want to feel inspired. And strangely, the things that inspire me are often the small, seemingly insignificant details. Sure, they’re noticeable to participants, but not the centerpiece of the event. For me, though, those details are what keep it fresh. This year, very early in the planning cycle, Anne suggested using Golden Legends for the Angry Mob event. What an awesome idea. On the day itself, I forgot to run it right after the raffle, so only about 14 people ended up participating. Did that matter? Not at all. I had a blast, and I’m pretty sure the participants did too. Trying to guess cards like Barktooth Warbeard, Ayesha Tanaka, Jedit Ojanen, and Hunding Gjornersen isn’t easy under pressure—unless, of course, you’re Edo and I mention the artist. Then he’s just knows. A well-deserved winner.

Another idea for this year came a bit later. I played around with the idea of adding a charity to the event for years. It’s common, I know, but I never pulled the trigger. The “speelgoedvijver” in Zandvoort is a charity close to home. They support kids with giving them presents during their birthday or in December for those families who can’t afford buying any. I was still hesitant till the end on how to approach it. Part of the Entry Fee, some Darkpact Predictor Entrees, personal donations and a huge raffle brought in €1250,- in total. I didn’t contact the charity in advance, donated the money to their bank account on Sunday and left them a small note that we raised it with a group of 70 people during a card tournament in Amsterdam. An hour later I received a phone call from an acquaintance who runs the charity. I hadn’t mentioned the amount and she was flabbergasted. She told me how they had the idea this year to buy a family board game for the 50 families they support during Christmas. They normally don’t buy these expensive presents, but because they support a lot of families with multiple kids, they had hoped to do this one time as a special. Since the charity is relatively small it’s not easy to raise such amount. Sometimes it’s meant to be. This definitely inspired me to do it again next year, thanks everybody again for being so generous!

But what about the Magic? Well, that’s the thing. Raging Bull is a 6 Round, 100% Swedish Legal tournament with a T8. It starts at 11:00 on a Saturday during spring, with roughly 70 players. 55 minute rounds, no breaks, pure Magic. There’s nothing to think about. This is Raging Bull and will always be Raging Bull. If I ever want to do something different, it won’t be called the Raging Bull Series. I would also say that the location is forever fixed. 2 klaveren just hits home every year. But the location is also every year my biggest doubt. It’s the 1 thing I don’t fully control. I don’t have a contract. I visit them somewhere in the winter and they literally put a small note in a paper agenda, that’s it. I then hope they don’t forget to carry it over to next year’s paper agenda in January. This year I was so busy that I didn’t even call a week prior to check everything was okay. Sure, I send 5.000 what’s app messages in the week prior to the tournament, but a call to the venue was to much. I walk in on Friday, Loes and Dano say hi, and all the anxiety and uncertainty is gone again.

The warm-up on Friday was this year a pretty late call. 16 player Ice Age Sealed and a 16 player AB4K + Unl tournament at the same moment. Something to like for everybody. Opening packs is fantastic and while I was sort of happy I couldn’t join since I had to run 2 tournaments, I had a bit of FOMO during deckbuilding. AB4K was a great call, maybe not the +Unl part although some might have liked that as well. It was a very relaxed start of the weekend and that is what it’s supposed to be. Ivo took down the Ice Age sealed beating Thomas (Timmy) in the finals. And Thomas Nilsen beat the godfather of AB4K, Erwin, in the finals of the AB4K tournament.

I skipped most of the alcohol on Friday to start fresh on Saturday for a change. Wouter drives me to the tournament and at 10:50 we gather for announcements. It’s Leo’s birthday, so we start with a song, small cake and a present from Reindeer. Leo, a guy I didn’t know at all the first edition of Raging Bull. He came in, ordered beer at 10:30, left after winning the semi-finals to catch his plane home. He won the tournament 2 years ago and this year he planned it much better…. After the tournament he left for the airport to catch a flight at 06:00 I believe. Happy birthday! Another surprise from Reindeer, a N00bcon invite. Not for the winner, that would have been to easy. Something for the raffle! It definitely helped raising additional money for charity, so thanks again Reindeer! Kalle Purrio won the ticket in the lottery, while his brother did all the work 😉 Martin, what a friend. Supplier of the Golden Bull and the Spice price this year, a beautiful 3d printed Guardian Beast. By now all players have received this years Merchandise, another part I always like to think about. This year Raging Bull Wooden Dices, which I ordered months in advance and a slick Raging Bull key ring supplied by Purple, thanks again buddy!

11:00, time to… Shit, forgot to put down 5 table numbers. 11:05 and we are ready to go! All players are sitting at their table, it’s pretty silent. If you win the 1st round, everything is possible. If you lose, the basement is maybe your spot for the day. The stream is running and this year I checked out the deckpics in advance so we could appoint some spice decks to the featured table. R1 Audun. 1 of the famous Daltons from Norway. Not a year goes by without these guys joining. It’s such a pleasure to see them each time. This year the even brought Rantanplan with them! Oh Steinar, what a guy! He enjoyed himself so much on Friday already in which we even got to play a game of Ante! And Saturday was no different. Back to Audun, who brought a CandleFlare deck, sharing the same 75 with Thomas Nilsen for the Main Event. My poor buddy Wouter gets hammered by restricted cards. R2, Aitor from the Basque crew. 1 of 7 new joiners at Raging Bull this year. 4 Greed, 4 Sacrifice, 4 Drain Life, what’s not to like. Not only his deckpic was full of passion, his playing style as well. Without going through all the spice decks, this was for Timmy and me the easy choice for the Spice prize this year.

Timmy and I basically sit in the basement all day. Upstairs are the higher seed players and we start noticing a trend downstairs. Gwen, Gideon and also Evert? With Leo playing spice and Svante losing his first round, this might be a different T8 then most people expected. About that, I had introduced a new feature this year called the Darkpact Predictor. Upfront everybody had to predict the T8 for this year. 85% of the people picked Leo and Svante. Fun to see what people expected of others. With 42 Dutch and 28 Foreign participants a lot of Dutch names obviously.

I love statistics and had hope to add some “railfun” during the tournament. The statistic part worked out, but during the tournament there was little time to track the standings for the Predictor. Magic also proofed to be an unpredictable game with the best person scoring only 3 correct guesses. Ron being that person who had picked Henk, Olle and who else then himself 😉 Congrats with the store credit from Wijnand aka Powernegen! Svante and Joep became the runners up, but I doubt Svante is switching careers to start doing sports betting now.

After a Tolaria malfunction in R6, which I luckily fixed mid-round, it was time for T8. Henk winning his win-and-in from Robbie. Jaap just losing out on T8 with a singleton deck. Actually the same one as I piloted to 5-2 at UTC, if you ever want to try out a deck it should be this one! Anne missing the T8 with… TheDeck. Congrats on Revised The Grizzly Bear! And Olle Rade again flawless in the swiss like last year, incredible. All the 5-1 players made it in and there were 3 spots for the 4-1-1’s, meaning 1 would miss out on T8. After announcing that former winner of the Raging Bull Series, Malte, made it as #8, some people pointed out that a mistake must have been made. Michel should be in T8, with 5-1 as well. Unfortunately the mailfunction in R6 had bugged me and indeed Michel’s result wasn’t in. Meaning that Malte didn’t make it into T8 this year. I still feel sorry for your brother. Luckily you already have 2 invites for life for the Raging Bull Series <3

Olle vs Ron on stream. Michel vs Wilfred, Lluis vs Henk and Purple vs David. David made it all the way with a Black/Red Juzam/Hippie/Troll deck. The only player without blue in T8. Now this deck is not just a deck, it’s something David crafted piece by piece to the fully black bordered beauty it is today. Check out the deckpic below! Unfortunately he lost to Purple who made back 2 back T8 at Raging Bull! Henk had to play Lluis, again…. End of R4 Henk runs down the stairs happy and smiling noting that he’s on 12 points and 8-0 in games. Arabian Aggro is on rampage. Guys guys, I go a bit easy on the beer now, just 1 win and I’m there. R5 he’s seeded at table #1 against Lluis. So Henk got a Blond Beer from somebody and I brought him another half a liter to help him through the round, as friends do. Yes, he lost that match. Lluis’s RukhValley deck is not his best match-up so playing Lluis again in T8 was probably one of his worst, if not the worst match-up. In a very long match Lluis takes it away. Sorry buddy, as you know I’ll always be supportive and keep you lubricated throughout the day. Michel against Wilfred in a Robot mirror. Different variations I must say, but Robots still seem to dominate the meta, at least in numbers. Slightly different decks, Wilfred slightly more intoxicated. In that same R5 that Henk played at table #1, I saw Wilfred down 3 beers in 1 round playing Jeff. The problem with playing upstairs all day is that upstairs the bar is close. Still Wilfred manages to take it down, that’s likely because he’s a trained professional.

Meanwhile Olle had already won against Ron. Olle not on the usual Counterburn but on Dibatog against Ron on Bruderbots. He couldn’t pull the trigger to play Diamond Valley main but still put 2 of them in the sideboard. Unfortunately when boarding them in, in the finals, he didn’t see them. Would that have won him the match? We never know 😉 While the match is on stream, it’s the only 1 I missed because I was playing Angry Mob. I’m definitely going to watch it back. Olle had to play Purple next. While it’s easy when commentating, the match felt as if Purple did himself short. I’m not sure if he could have won, but Olle was just a lot cleaner in his play. That’s obviously part of being the player Olle is, being on a role back 2 back at the Raging Bull but also putting in results in other tournaments. He didn’t earn those 2 sharks for nothing. We were lucky with how the schedule played out, because right after Olle was finished we could stream the other semi-finals. Lluis against Wilfred. Since RukhValley decks are not the fastest and Wilfred wasn’t so fast anymore, I was a bit anxious that we would run out of time. Unfortunately for Wilfred, Lluis had others plans and bested him in a reasonable pace. Now that I think of it, maybe RukhValley is a nice deck for you Ron?

Lluis against Olle. 1 out of 8 Spanish players at Raging Bull against a Swedish champion. Olle did what Olle did all day. He played clean and literally cleaned down the house. 8-0 beating both Purple and Lluis twice in 1 day. A great effort by Lluis of course and very well done. However Olle took it down and took the Raging Bull ring, back to Sweden! What a blast it was again. Pretty unbelievable. The vibe in the basement was great all day. Lot’s of people watching T8, some just drinking, others still playing. It really was a great day. And while normally I doubt if I want to do it again, this year I’m pretty sure. The inspiration I need sits in little things, but this weekend it was all around. The people, the vibe, the camaraderie and the game. If there’s one thing I’ve learned is that I should eat throughout the day, because this was a day to never forget and since I actually had some food during the day, I’ll even remember it! (including the car ride back home, thanks again Benjamin and Gwen!)

Livestream

Timmy will cut the livestream into single episodes again. This will take some time. Untill then you can watch the full reply of the livestream here (timestamps are in the comments): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plQLxfr9GTs

To watch the stream from the Ice Age Sealed you can click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eszNkE45YI

Photo’s

Dyan haven’t uploaded his photo’s yet, check out later to find the link to his gallery.

Tournament Reports

Maybe in the future

Pairings & Results

Round 1:

Round 2:

Round 3:

Round 4:

Round 5:

Round 6:

Top 8:

Final Standings (After Swiss):

Participants & Archetypes

Decklists