REPORT of RESULTS
The 5th annual Old School Magic Winter Derby is in the books! This year’s event saw a record-shattering 375 participants, representing 27 countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam) and at least 74 regional Old School clubs spread across 13 different time zones around the world. Over the span of six weeks, we played roughly 1,500 matches of Old School Magic via webcam.
While entry fees were not collected and the Derby series will always remain free to play, we once again encouraged donations at registration to support Partners in Health, a global nonprofit dedicated to providing a preferential option to the poor in health care. Thanks to contributions from many of the players, I am humbled to report that we raised a total of $2,769 in support of Partners in Health’s COVID-19 response efforts around the world.
The Derby series rotates between different 93/94 format variants every six months. Past Derby events have used the Swedish, Eternal Central, Atlantic, and Pacific B&R lists. This instance of the Winter Derby was played using the Swedish 93/94 B&R list, allowing the full range of original art/old card frame re-prints (Revised, 4th/Chronicles, CE/IE, FBB/FWB, etc.).
Pairings were released in two batches in late December and early January, with all participants asked to schedule and play eight individual matches in about four weeks. After the batches were completed, a winnowed field of 28 players at X-1 or better advanced to a single-elimination bracket. The Winter Derby Finals were played on Wednesday, February 17th, and featured previous Derby finalist Michael Scheffenacker (USA) on 5C Lion/Dib Burn versus Danny Friedman of the Lords of the Pit (USA) on a zero-Factory build of The Deck.
After all was said and done, Michael Scheffenacker took the match 3-1, and was named the Winter Derby Champion for 2021. Congratulations to Scheff and to all of the Top 28 finalists, and thank you, again, to all of the players who participated. Thanks very much to our “official” streaming partners for the Top 28 — Rich Bourque, Andy Baquero, Simon Rokkjær, David Third, and Wak-Wak / Gordon Andersson! My deep appreciation also goes out to the following Derby volunteers, who made it possible to run a multi-week event of this magnitude: Mikael “Åland” Johansson, Levi Baumgardner, and Tapan Lockwood for their assistance with match result processing, Jeff Liu and Florian von Bredow for serving as official spotters / referees in the playoff rounds, and to Adam Merkado, our Secretary of Spice. And special thanks must also go out once again to the inimitable Antonio Rodríguez for designing the Derby series logo and Winter Derby banner, and Mattias “Slanfan” Berggren for developing a bespoke “batch pairings” tool for use in tournaments of this format, making it much, much easier to process the results of literally fifteen hundred matches behind the curtain. The Derby series has become a fun semi-annual celebration for the international Old School Magic scene, and these contributions and the cooperation of all of the players goes a long way toward making it possible.
For anyone interested in future events, or just trying out webcam Old School Magic for the first time, please consider joining our online community of players! People are always looking for pick-up games in our Facebook group and in the #down-to-play channel on the Old School Discord.
PLAYER REPORTS and COVERAGE
The Spice Files: 2021 Winter Derby — Beasts of the Bay
Some Notes on the Winter Derby — Svante Landgraf, End of turn, draw a card
Winter Derby — Jeff White, Quest for the Shark
All Tings Considered Episode 149: Danny Freidman
STANDINGS AFTER BATCH PAIRINGS
TOP 28 DECK PHOTOS
17th-28th Place: Tom Swindell (28)
17th-28th Place: Richard Stebbing (27)
17th-28th Place: Paul Fiero (26)
17th-28th Place: Ryan O’Burke (25)
17th-28th Place: Svante Landgraf (19)
17th-28th Place: Robert Wyatt (17)
17th-28th Place: Benjamin Weisel Jensen (15)
17th-28th Place: Jeff Liu (13)
17th-28th Place: Rajah James (12)
17th-28th Place: Martin Skovgaard Jensen (11)
17th-28th Place: Henrik Storm (10)
17th-28th Place: Alessandro Ferraris (9)
9th-16th Place: Will Larson (24)
9th-16th Place: Jesse Compton (23)
9th-16th Place: Marc Flore (22)
9th-16th Place: Kevin Illig (21)
9th-16th Place: Guillaume Denoix (20)
9th-16th Place: Seth Roncoroni (16)
9th-16th Place: Bryan Manolakos (14)
9th-16th Place: Jeff Anand (2)
5th-8th Place: Don Perrien (7)
5th-8th Place: Jason Savage (4)
5th-8th Place: Nicholas Imwinkelried (3)
5th-8th Place: Will Magrann (1)
3rd-4th Place: Evan Jerkunica (18)
3rd-4th Place: Jacob Dahlerup (5)
2nd Place: Danny Friedman (8)
1st Place: Michael Scheffenacker (6)
SPICE ACCOLADES
Jason Schwartz – “Bloody Byss-Ball Bots”
Brian Limbacher – “Jux and Wish for Luck”
Jeff Dehnhardt – Leprechaun Ward
Thomas Ashby – “Rasputin’s Bizarre Odyssey”
Owen Fletcher – “Snakes on a Plane Called Dominia”
Ben Blackbordered – Mono-Green Cyclone
Jaime Cano – “Vercursion”
Kristian Ringkjaer Andresen “Voyage of Sindbad”
Daniel Anschutz – “Allah’s Only True Army”
Henning Ostergaard – “Angelic TetraVoices”
Ivan Bari – “Astigmatog”
Mathew Mercuri – “Land Hack”
Joseph Freshwater – “Paladin Elder Dragon Time”
Martin Lindstrom – “The Deck of Christmas Past”
Shaun Augeri – “DUNE”
ALL DECK PHOTOS
(gallery view, alphabetical order by first name)
mde 
mde 
mde 
flashmul 
dav 
mde 
The Sentinel 
Hi Dave, Thanks for the cool report and the photos. I love to see decks and results to get inspiration for my own.
To promote old school in Germany I started a website and posted a short referral to your post in my blog. I hope it’s fine for you (if not I’ll remove it, just drop me a mail) and don’t hesitate to check it out: https://germanoldschool.org/2021/04/04/2021-winter-derby-report/
Erik
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