Emerald City Trolls: Seattle Old School MtG

The Satanic Panic Tournament Organizer's Report

By Shawn

May 26, 2024

On Friday and Saturday, May 17-18, 2024, the Old School tournament "The Satanic Panic" was held in Seattle, WA. As with other major events I run, this one too featured a special theme: The Satanic Panic (obviously). For our younger readers, the actual Satanic Panic was a cultural movement in the 80's and 90's in which some parents believed popular culture, especially fantasy gaming, was part of a sinister plot to corrupt children and turn them into Satanic worshippers. For those of us who grew up playing Magic, D&D, and other similar games in that era, this was a part of our childhood. I had friends whose parents would not let them play D&D, so we played in secret at my house. It was a thing.

The Satanic Panic the tournament is a bit of a memorial or even a celebration of this cultural moment in time. Except we pretended our parents' fears were justified! The event theme was appropriately diabolical, with a death and black metal soundtrack, spooky venues, and a Friday night special event build around adopting the Seven Deadly Sins in order to defeat opponents and acquire seven Satanic Relics in order to summon a demon, The Lord of the Pit. The winner took home the old Heartbreaker Lord of the Pit miniature from the 90's! Saturday's main event was normal PAC rules, with a whopping SEVEN original Magic artists in attendance (we had 9 artists confirmed, but two were sick).

Below, I'll discuss both days, share some photos, and finally share results and decklist photos. But first, I want to announce this event raised $5,229.17 for ChildHaven. Note: this amount includes a $500 donation one community member made independently, which was matched by their employer.

Friday: The Satanic Panic: The Ritual

The special, one-time-only format for Friday night was The Satanic Panic: The Ritual. Fifty-eight players registered. This format is normal PAC, except it features a special mechanic built around the Seven Deadly Sins. Each of the Sins has a special in-game power or perk players have access too. Each player has to choose at least one Sin to play with, and the can choose up to all seven if they so choose. However, for each sin beyond the first, the player's starting life total is reduced by 2. Additionally, if a player takes all seven Sins, they gain the "Evil" ability, which most importantly lets them begin the game with a Swamp in play and spend black mana as if it were mana of any color. Finally, when a player wins a match, they gain one of seven Satanic Relics. The winner of the event was the player to collect the seven components first, so there was also a bit of luck and a racing component needed to win the event rather than just being a normal tournament based solely on record. The full rules are here.

There were also two cards banned specifically for this event: Karma and Time Vault. Karma was banned because the core mechanic of punishing people for playing Swamps was not the point of the event. The point was to be evil (or even Evil), not be the lawful good white knight punishing everyone for being evil. Time Vault was banned for power-level reasons. With the way the Sins work, it would just be too good. One of the Sins lets you use flashback once per turn on any sorcery or instant in your graveyard, another Sin is a built-in Howling Mine, another Sin is a built-in Mana Flare, ... the list goes on.

The Satanic Panic: The Ritual was held at Kell's Irish Pub, a Seattle institution right near the famous Pike's Place Market. We had the entire top floor to ourselves, amazing considering we were in a busy part of town. Kell's is also rumored to be haunted, which seemed appropriate.

Here are the Seven Deadly Sins along with Evil and a Minor Demon token, all of which were printed as cards given to every player for the event as both helpful game pieces and swag:

If you look over the Sins, the level one strategy is Underworld Dreams, especially taking all seven Sins. One Sin can give players Hexproof every turn until they play a spell or activate a non-mana ability, so targeted damage, particularly at sorcery-speed, is not reliable. Underworld Dreams is not targeted, and with many players starting at a life total as low as 8 if they are playing all Sins, plus drawing two cards per turn, it's a fast clock. Further, Winds of Change and the draw 7's are not targeted, and if you play all seven Sins, having 4 mana on turn 1 is pretty common. In fact, if you do the math, you're around 46% (IIRC) to have a land, Underworld Dreams, and Winds of Change in your opener if you're willing to mull to 3 looking for it. Not to mention other powerful draws you can have, like land-Lotus-draw 7, or land-Ritual-flashback Ritual-Mind Twist, or some combination of Time Walk, Regrowth, and Demonic Tutor.

This strategy seemed powerful enough that I considered banning Underworld Dreams, except that would be a flavor fail so catastrophic that the entire event would be un-attendable. How can you ban a card called Underworld Dreams that features art depicting Dante's Inferno from the Satanic themed Magic tournament?

After chatting with a few folks, we realized it would probably be fine. The obviousness of the Underworld Dreams plan meant folks would likely see it and be prepared for it. If you are Evil, you get to start with a Swamp in play, and given the Mana Flare Sin, that meant you could play Disenchant, Counterspell, or a host of other possible answers to disrupt the all-in combo on turn 0. You could even mull strategically to shut down the Winds of Change plan if you wanted to.

It seemed like this created an interesting new decision space for players. What's the best plan for dealing with an opponent on the Underworld Dreams plan? How should you sideboard? Players came up with many interesting ideas, including the clearly useful Disenchant and Counterspell, as well as more esoteric plans like main deck Blasts, Healing Salve, Syphon Soul, and Twiddle. Some players opted for the power of Ponza in a format where turn 1 land destruction could basically always be cast, providing a different angle on how to tackle Underworld Dreams and other mana-greedy plans. In-game decisions also became interesting. Should you go for your combo as soon as you have it, or wait for some protection? Which player blinks first and makes a bad move? Many games seemed to come down to one or two decisions that were not obviously incorrect on their own, but in the larger context of the game or given how a series of events played out, those decisions were mistakes. The classic sideboard juke, changing from a combo deck to a creature deck, also proved effective, with Flint Espil using the plan of going up to 12 creatures (White Knight, Black Knight, and Erg Raiders, seen it a million times) to take down the event.

This sort of new, complex, interesting decision space is exactly what I am trying to do with these special events. Overall, the format played as hoped, and many players told me it was a very fun experience. Sure, there were turn 1 kills, but there were also tough decisions, interesting interactions, and new play experiences (you ever Healing Salve yourself in your opponents EOT and then flash it back to gain 6 life? Not bad actually). Some likened it to Nightmare '99 in terms of power level, which I think is a good thing to experience every once in a while.

Flint Espil--who at this point given his results and consistency can make a strong claim to being the best combo player and possibly even the best player full-stop in the community--ended up winning the event and the Lord of the Pit mini by being the first person to acquire all seven Satanic Relics, finishing with a 4-0 record (when you win a game, you can steal a Relic from your opponent). However, several other players ended up 4-0, including some before Flint, highlighting the luck factor in winning the event. This is Old School. There's variance. Deal with it.

All that said, were I to run it back (which I won't, but you can), there are a couple changes I'd consider. First, Time Walk might need to be banned. With all the flashback, you can cast it a lot, even from turn 1. For example, turn 1, if you're Evil, you can go land, Time Walk, Demonic Tutor for Regrowth. Turn 1.1, Regrowth for Time Walk, Time Walk, land. Turn 1.2, Flashback Regrowth for Time Walk, Time Walk, land. Turn 1.3, Flashback Tutor for Recall, Recall for Time Walk, land. Turn 1.4, flashback Recall for Time Walk, Time Walk, land. Turn 1.5, Time Walk, land. Turn 1.6, flashback Time Walk, land. On turn 1.7, you would have 8 lands in play (each making 2 mana) and have drawn 14 cards, all before your opponent has had a turn. That's pretty good considering all you needed in your opener was Time Walk, Demonic Tutor, and a land.

The second change I'd consider is errata'ing Underworld Dreams so it was targeted, like this: "When Underworld Dreams comes into play, choose target opponent. Any time that opponent draws a card, they take 1 damage." Similar to templating on Black Vise and The Rack. With the Hexproof Sin, this would make the Underworld Dreams plan far less reliable, and likely lead to a much greater diversity of strategies.

One last consideration: if Time Walk is banned and Underworld Dreams is errata'd, it's possible Candelabra of Tawnos becomes the obvious best strategy. If that's the case, I'd just go ahead an ban it. The point of banning Time Walk and errata'ing Underworld Dreams is to eliminate super-busted stuff and diversify the format. There's a pretty good chance Candelabra is very nearly as busted as those two cards, so it probably makes sense to ban it if it's too good. It's not clear it's too good with the other two changes, however, so you could try leaving it in the format and see if guaranteed Mana Flare is too powerful with Candelabra or not.

All that said, the format plays just fine as-is if you like doing powerful things. You could certainly play the format just how it is now and have fun. It also feels appropriate that the Satanic themed rules kind of end up revolving around Underworld Dreams. But if you wanted to power it down, ban Time Walk and errata Underworld Dreams, and maybe ban Candelabra of Tawnos, and then you can play your Shivan-and-Moti deck or whatever.

Saturday: The Satanic Panic Main Event

Saturday's main event was held at the The Pine Box in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighboorhood. The Pine Box was formerly a funeral home. The funeral of Bruce Lee (who was from Seattle) was in fact held there. The main event was, as always, just a normal tournament with no special rules, using the PAC rule set this time.

The venue was outstanding. We had the entire place to ourselves, with attentive bar staff and a pizza lunch included. We had 66 players at registration, with 6 rounds needed for the tournament. Extremely appropriate! (Sure, a 67th player showed up after round 1, and there was a chance we'd need 7 rounds, but 666!)

The final round came down to Aland, who flew all the way from Gothenburg to play an Atog Workshops deck, and Tristan Bates, who flew in from Toronto and was playing Atogs. In the end, Tristan took it down, winning the largest Old School event thusfar in the Pacific Northwest!

The event also featured Spice prizes, as well as a prize for my favorite deck called "Satan's Chosen." I first started doing "favorite deck" prizes at last year's Ragnarok event, and I have come to really like doing it. "My favorite deck" is simply the deck I liked best, which purely subjective and arbitrary. It's generally a combination though of a spicy but well-performing deck, with outstanding aesthetics for card choices and especially alters. It also includes taking an at least decent picture of your deck so I can see it well. I intend to continue doing this at all my events, and recommend it to other TO's as a way to reward outstanding effort that falls between Spice and Spike.

To prevent them from being buried below, here are the top 8 Spice decks:

Kent Hayes
James Onions
Jeremy Chien
Colin Crook
Adam Pazan
Ben Katz
Park Cofield
Andy Sifford

There were also a few Spice honorable mentions. In alphabetical order, they were: Jacob Brotherton, Flint Espil, Quinn Maurmann, Jomar Tadena, and Mike VanDyke. It should also be noted that Ben Katz finished in 8th place, completing in that elusive feat that is the goal of all true artists: making Top 8 in both Spice and the event itself.

Satan's Chosen was won by Sebastien Dube of Montreal, whose deck features some killer alters and alpha/beta/original printings (sorry Sebastien, this plain ol' HTML site can't do accents, but it's pronounced du-BAY with an accent aigu on the "e" in Dube, as well as the first "e" in Sebastien). Sebastien's deck is really a thing of beauty and he has clearly been having a love affair with it for a long time. It's the sort of thing Old School is made for, and really drums up the Envy.

The other big feature on Saturday was, of course, the lineup of artists we had in attendance. Because Magic originated from the Seattle area, many of the original artists were local art students or otherwise plugged into the Seattle art scene, and we are blessed with a large number of them who still live nearby. The artists who attended were:

Nicola Beeson (Leonard)
Jesper & Spoops Myrfors
Margaret Organ-Kean
Brian Snoddy
Mark Tedin
Drew Tucker (who flew out from Maine!)
Anthony S. Waters

I don't know how to say it other than it's stunning to be able to get such a group of artists together. It was almost like a GP, except with much much shorter lines. We are very lucky here.

The tournament also included a raffle for a wide variety of prizes donated from the community, as well as several pieces donated by the artists. Finally, we auctioned off an original piece by Jesper that was used for the event's official swag, a t-shirt for the 80's-style metal band, Boris Devilboon and the Minor Demons. We did this in lieu of a playmat this year, and I liked not doing Yet Another Event Playmat. All of these helped make major contributions to the charity pot for ChildHaven.

Folks went their various ways after the tournament. Personally, I dropped event stuff at home and Ubered to play Ante40K at the Beast's house (going 0-4 and losing a Badlands among other things, which is the point of the format!). But largely I just wanted to have a few drinks and relax. The post-event relief for a TO is very real. It feels great to have the event over, to finally be able to unwind a bit, and then to go to sleep. But I do love it, and am already planning for my themed event next year. I don't know the theme yet (X-Files is currently leading though), but I'll figure it out over the next few months. Stay tuned for more details late this year!

Gonsters

No discussion of The Satanic Panic would be complete without mentioning Gonsters, which became the official drink of the event. A "Gonster" is a float drink that is half Guinness and half neon-green Monster Energy Drink. Sounds gross, right? It pretty much is indeed gross. But at some point in one of the online discussion forums ahead of the event, Simon Christie posted a tweet he saw about Gonsters as a joke, and people decided they all wanted to use The Satanic Panic as the place to try them out. So, that is a thing that happened.

Unfortunately I bought normal-colored Monster instead of the neon green kind, having never had a Monster before and not knowing the can with neon green writing was not the right can. I had 5.191919 Gonsters over the course of the weekend, which is probably 3.141593 too many. But I will have them again I'm sure, next time with the properly mutagen-ooze-colored Monster.

Thanks for reading! Hope to see you in Seattle next year!

Shawn

Event Pics

I didn't take a ton of photos, but here are some from the event and peri-event hangs (some photos credit to others as indicated)

European and semi-European attendees arrived on Tuesday, so the local crew took them out for brews.

Thursday was an adventure to Bainbridge Island on the ferry for those in town, which was again just the European and semi-European cohort.

We'll stay forever this way...

...You are safe in my heart and, my heart will go on and on.

"Sure, I guess I can take a picture." And also... love is everything, indeed <3

A remarkable tee shot that left the disc under the basket from 300 feet (100 meters). To be clear, this was Jason's tee shot and Mari got himself into the photo (photo via Jason Schwartz).

There are many kinds of grass on Bainbridge Island, including some that sound like fireworks or birds (video via Jason Schwartz).

The tweet that started it all (photo via Simon Christie).

Cleaning the Safeway out of Monster.

Not the Gonster we needed, but the Gonster we deserved. Sidenote: my phone's autocorrect now includes "Gonster."

Outside of Kell's Irish Pub (photo via Nick Aiello).

Round 1 of The Satanic Panic: The Ritual is underway.

A few fine folks during The Satanic Panic: The Ritual.

The Lord of the Pit miniature from the 90's by Heartbreaker. Won by Flint Espil (photo via Flint Espil).

The official event shirt, with art by Jesper Myrfors. A few are still available; contact emeraldcitytrolls@gmail.com if you'd like one.

Outside of The Pine Box (photo via Nick Aiello)

Inside the Pine Box (photo via Nick Aiello). Wow I'm really getting bald! I'm like medieval monk or something. Could be time to Scott Bradley myself soon. Still looks OK on Zoom calls though.

Gonsters for sale! Somehow $10 despite me providing the Monster to the bar? (photo via Simon Christie)

Announcing prizes for the Main Event (photo via Nick Aiello). Boy this guy sure looks like he's got a nice full head of hair!

Me and a few of the players plus Danny the event crasher, Saturday post-tournament (photo via Will Magrann).

The 1st, 2nd, and 4th place finishers (L to R: Tristan, Aland, Eric) enjoying a victory Gonster (photo via Rob Hackney).

The prize pool (photo via Ben Katz). I stole Cam's idea and left the place on the card blank. Winners chose the card they wanted in order, making it far more likely people would get prize cards they could actually play.

Another angle on the prize pool, also showing the stamped Lord of the Pit and fixed 4th Edition Unholy strength given out as door prizes (photo via Ben Katz). There were also 47 stamped Unlimited Swamps, given out for players who got Mind Twisted, or whose opponents played Ancestral Recall or who played turn 1 Library of Alexandria.

All tatted up and part of the ante network now. Rob Hackney, fuck Land's Edge, incidentally, which is what this 1AM alter is supposed to be.

Sunday morning, ft. the breakfast of champions. Or losers? Naw. Can't be a loser with guns like that.

Yep, it really went in there. And in fact this was the best Gonster of the weekend.

I built this stamp box to help stamp cards for the event. Players could use it to accurately stamp any card they wanted too.

Any 1.5 inch square stamp (at least as manufactured by RubberStamps.net, where I get all my stamps, and no they don't pay me, but they should now) can be secured into the box with a built-in C-clamp. The hollow in the box is positioned to place the stamp perfectly onto the text box.

The box in action. Eat your heart out, Mike Frantz.

The Satanic Panic: The Ritual: Deck Pics

Stephen Hines (L) and Flint Espil (R). 74/75 cards the same. Flint beat Stephen to win the event. They each needed a card the other had, so Stephen would have won if he beat Flint.

Aland

Andy Sifford

Ben Katz

Charlie Peterson

Joel Bowers

Max Clendenning

Mox Emerald Scott

Quinn Maurmann

Rob Hackney

Ross Villager

Sebastien Dube

Tristan Bates

The Satanic Panic Main Event: Final Results

Place	Player	Points	OMW%	GW%	OGW%
1	Tristan Bates	18	61.11%	75%	57.78%
2	Aland	15	69.39%	73.33%	57.87%
3	Justin Pinette	15	61.11%	73.33%	52.22%
4	Eric Martin	15	59.44%	73.33%	51.37%
5	Nick Aiello	15	56.67%	83.33%	54.52%
6	Simon Christie	15	55.44%	68.75%	50.91%
7	Mike VanDyke	15	52.78%	66.67%	55.95%
8	Ben Katz	15	47.11%	68.75%	41.21%
9	Mari	12	66.61%	50%	63.54%
10	Aaron Rehfield	12	65%	53.33%	62.39%
11	Neil Troy	12	59.44%	61.54%	53.89%
12	Andrew Juke	12	58.33%	56.25%	56.94%
13	Jimothy Portello	12	58.28%	61.54%	53.89%
14	Joel Bowers	12	58.28%	60%	54.2%
15	Chris Tolar	12	58.28%	53.33%	54.59%
16	Brendan McBain	12	55.5%	66.67%	48.45%
17	John DeLustra	12	51.67%	53.33%	56.55%
18	Will Magrann	12	49.94%	71.43%	47.09%
19	John Stocker	12	49.94%	71.43%	45.07%
20	James Onions	12	48.83%	61.54%	45.42%
21	Geoff Willard	12	47.22%	71.43%	45.6%
22	Josh Jones	12	47.22%	56.25%	50.23%
23	Ken Fritz	9	66.67%	56.25%	60.28%
24	Andy Sifford	9	63.89%	57.14%	58.59%
25	Mox Emerald Scott	9	58.33%	43.75%	59.64%
26	Andrew Lockhart	9	56.61%	53.33%	49.07%
27	Rob Hackney	9	55.56%	50%	54.03%
28	Quinn Maurmann	9	55.44%	50%	50.08%
29	Ben DiMiero	9	52.78%	50%	52.3%
30	Jacob Brotherton	9	52.78%	46.15%	54.16%
31	Park Cofield	9	52.72%	46.15%	52.6%
32	Jeff Scofield	9	52.67%	47.06%	50.89%
33	Chao	9	51.06%	46.67%	51.31%
34	d00g	9	50%	57.14%	47.27%
35	Joe Fairbanks	9	50%	54.55%	48.17%
36	Yeti	9	49.94%	50%	48.25%
37	Shane Mccandlish	9	49.94%	46.67%	51.2%
38	Flint Espil	9	49.93%	50%	50%
39	Mark Root	9	49.89%	43.75%	49.25%
40	Eugene Sifford	9	46.06%	50%	46.11%
41	Sebastian Dube	9	44.39%	50%	44.45%
42	Zev	9	43.83%	50%	45.61%
43	Kevin Johnson	6	63.89%	50%	55.02%
44	Phil Wise	6	59.94%	38.46%	56.02%
45	Jomar	6	58.33%	50%	59.33%
46	Jason Schwartz	6	56.67%	33.33%	56.21%
47	Adam Pazan	6	49.94%	30.77%	50.42%
48	Kevin Elliott	6	49.89%	37.5%	43.73%
49	David Lee	6	47.11%	50%	40.24%
50	Nick Fox	6	47.11%	46.67%	42.96%
51	Turd Ferguson	6	46.06%	37.5%	48.79%
52	Christian Arcand	6	45.5%	40%	45.39%
53	Jermey Chien	6	42.72%	38.46%	43.2%
54	Max Clendenning	6	42.67%	40%	39.28%
55	Kent Hayes	6	41.67%	42.86%	46.6%
56	Ross Villager	6	41%	42.86%	36.94%
57	Blake Allen	6	39.93%	45.45%	38.46%
58	Dan North	3	63.33%	27.27%	56.91%
59	Matt Monroe	3	58.33%	36.36%	54.63%
60	Colin Crook	3	54.17%	20%	54.19%
61	Cam Wall	3	52.78%	26.67%	53.67%
62	Charlie Peterson	3	47.17%	28.57%	46.83%
63	Andrew Knapp	3	44.39%	35.29%	40.66%
64	Joe Lennox	3	43.33%	33.33%	46.15%
65	Sean Browning	3	43.27%	28.57%	45.8%
66	Stephen Hines	0	58.33%	20%	55.77%
67	Tanny	0	37.17%	14.29%	41.37%