2022 Old School Magic Winter Derby Results and Deck Photos

REPORT of RESULTS

The 6th annual Old School Magic Winter Derby is in the books! This year’s event featured 286 participants, representing 22 countries (Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, The Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States) and at least 50 regional Old School clubs spread across 13 different time zones around the world. Over the span of six weeks, we played roughly 1,090 matches of Old School Magic via webcam.

Game 5 of the semifinals between Will Magrann and Rich Shay, many Icy Manipulators tapped

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 $1,827 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, Atlantic, and 4-Strip B&R lists (including Eternal Central, Pacific, and Boreal). This instance of the Winter Derby was played using the Atlantic 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 16 players advanced to a single-elimination bracket. The Winter Derby Finals were played on Sunday, February 6th, and featured a The Deck mirror between Koos Cramer of the Dutch Old School Guild (Netherlands) and Rich Shay of NEOS (USA).

A counter war from Game 3 of the semifinals between Koos Cramer and Mats Furby. Not pictured: any visuals whatsoever from the finals between Koos and Rich.

After all was said and done, Koos Cramer took the match 3-0, and was named the Winter Derby Champion for 2022. Congratulations to Koos and to all of the Top 16 finalists, and thank you, again, to all of the players who participated. Thanks very much to our “official” streaming partners for the Top 16 — Timmy Talks, Simon Rokkjær, David Third, and Mikael Johansson! 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 more than a thousand 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(s).