LOBSTERCON 2023: Organizer’s Report

LOBSTERCON 2023, a two-day Old School and Premodern Magic: The Gathering event in Greater Boston, was held on June 2-3, 2023.

Let’s start with the numbers: more than 260 attendees, including Magic enthusiasts from all over the U.S. and Canada, plus Austria, Chile, Germany, Guatemala, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. 186 players for the North American Premodern Championships. 196 players in the Old School 93/94 main event. 148 lobster rolls. 94 large pizzas. A record-annihilating 61 cases of beer consumed in one day (and an estimated 111 cases of beer total, per the venue). More than $25,000 raised for charity. And more Chaos Orb flips than we could count:

As the community and traditions around this event continue to grow, I confess that even as one of its organizers, LOBSTERCON is becoming harder to describe, harder to get one’s arms around, but I’ll try: What we have here is player-driven community Magic reaching something of a fever pitch, driven by the perennial effervescence of the global Old School Magic scene, and lately by the explosive popularity and energy of Premodern Magic and its rapidly growing community as well. Trying to come up with more words probably won’t do it any justice, so instead, here is a collection of pictures contributed by many of the players in attendance:

CHARITABLE ACTIVITY and GRATITUDE

Giving back to our community remains a focus for New England Old School, and charitable contribution is part-and-parcel of the Old School Magic experience. Our designated non-profit beneficiary for the LOBSTERCON series is Room to Grow, an organization to which NEOS has donated annually for the last several years.

Our club conducted a baby/toddler supply drive using a curated wish list put together by Room to Grow staff, representing current and urgent needs for clothing, feeding supplies, books, toys, and other items at their Boston program location. We also held two raffles to benefit the charity, and auctioned off a piece of original artwork created by Jeff Menges to commemorate the event. The Old School and Premodern communities came up clutch, donating a wide range of alters, memorabilia, and curiosities for raffle entrants to chase.

The players and volunteers of LOBSTERCON 2023 raised an absolutely staggering, record-obliterating $24,193 for Room to Grow, plus an additional $1,241 through the Saturday bake sale for Cake4Kids. That’s more than $25,000 total for charity, including $4,440 worth of donated baby and toddler supplies: 178 clothing items, 119 toys, 76 books, and 17 pieces of expensive equipment like cribs, strollers, car seats. The relentless generosity of the Old School Magic community never ceases to amaze, and I can’t thank everyone enough.

LOBSTERCON is the product of countless hours and passion invested by so many members of the Old School and Premodern communities: NEOS’ veteran TO Jared Doucette, our dedicated “staff” and volunteers led by Brooks Firth Bard (literally the most patient woman in the entire world), Judge Sean, and Judge Deen, our 2023 Homarid Warriors including the venue set-up all-stars Pez, Stephen Hartford, Mike Heup, Patrick Howse, and Nicky Scars, the welcome committee James Lebak, Mike Belfanti, and Ryan Lauria, Tim Atwood who stepped up to help with the X Point side event, and everyone else, far too numerous to keep track of, who spontaneously dove in to pick up the slack on some task or another throughout the weekend. Enormous thanks also to Jay and Amanda Palmer, Charles Klein, Stephen Hines, Matt Mucci, everyone who bought baby and toddler supplies, and all of our raffle and auction prize donors: Jeff Menges, Drew Tucker, Mitch (MG Alters), Akos Czibere, Derek Stafford, Dan Yarrington, Jason Williams, Micah McOwen, Louis De Nijs, Adam Merkado, Matt Asente, AS Alters and John Waclawski, Nick Mitchell, Rich Bourque, and anyone else I might have accidentally omitted here — you made this fundraiser a success, and it would have been literally impossible for us to make this amount of impact in the lives of economically disadvantaged families in Greater Boston without you giving so freely of your time and energy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

BLOGS / PODCASTS / COVERAGE

All Tings Considered, Episode 225 – Lobstercon – Premodern – Lanny – *T4*

All Tings Considered, Episode 226 – Falling Shops – Rich Bourque

Brian Selden wins Lobstercon 2023! – Premodcast, June 8th 2023

The Gathering – Michael Flores, CoolStuffInc

Second Place at Lobstercon – Rich Bourque, Video Games, Magic Cards, and Random Ramblings

Yeticon ’23 Deck Testing – Lobstercon – Mike Simpson, Rocky Mountain Yetis

I’m shipping up to Lobstercon – Åland, A bitter perspective on Old School Mtg

Lobstercon 2023 Report – Andrés Hojman, Earthquake League

Lobstercon 2023 – Svante Landgraf, End of turn, draw a card

LobsterCon’23 — Stories from X-Point – Eric Pallone, Sisters of the Flame

Lobstercon 2023 – Ty Thomason, Ty’s MtG blog!

LOBSTERCON 2023 – Player Report – Patrick Burt, Capital Chaos

Mono Red Goblins – Lobstercon 2023 – Colin Smith

Spike Colony Premodern Podcast Episodes: Etai Kurtzman, Fran Pawluszek, Flint Espil

I’ve Got ?????’s Premodern Podcast Interviews: David Daniel, Peter Smits, Spencer Gordon-Sand, Dmitri Novikov

PREMODERN TOP DECKS and ANALYSIS

Premodern Main Event Top 21 Decklists on TC Decks

Premodern Side Event Top 8 Decklists on TC Decks

Lobstercon Premodern Metagame Analysis

Lobstercon 2023 Premodern Statistical Analysis from Shawn Sullivan

X POINT SIDE EVENT

X Point Side Event Final Standings (searchable PDF)

John Cocco — “Seeing the Forest From the Trees” 🌶️ SPICE AWARD

Andy Baquero 🌶️ SPICE AWARD

8th Place: Noah Shanning

7th Place: Brett Attmore

6th Place: Tim Atwood

5th Place: Mike Frantz

4th Place: Chris Mason

3rd Place: Lucas Glavin

2nd Place: Matt Marmorato

1st Place: Eric Pallone

OLD SCHOOL FINAL STANDINGS and TOP 16

Old School Main Event Final Standings (searchable PDF)

16th Place: Sébastien Dubé

15th Place: Rich Shay 🌶️✳️

14th Place: Dominic Beaudry

13th Place: Svante Landgraf

12th Place: Jordan Goodwin

11th Place: Christian Reinhard

10th Place: Pez Unholy

9th Place: Duncan Purves 🏆 BEST UNPOWERED

8th Place: Ryan Grodzinski

7th Place: Andrés Hojman

6th Place: Jens Jaeger

5th Place: Cameron Heise

4th Place: Jon Tschida

3rd Place: Michael Simpson 🥉

2nd Place: Rich Bourque 🥈

1st Place: Lucas Glavin 🥇

OLD SCHOOL SPICE AWARDS

Mike Frantz 🌶️ STYLE AWARD

John Waclawski — “Dead Guy Pumpkin Ale” 🌶️ STYLE HONORABLE MENTION

Scott Bradley — “Deep Blue Sea” 🌶️ SPICE AWARD

Doug Greer — “Get Lich or Die Trying” 🌶️ SPICE AWARD

John Bocon — “Mentos: The Friendmaker” 🌶️ SPICE AWARD

Steven Pankratz — “Send in your WRG riders!” 🌶️ SPICE AWARD

Tim Atwood — “Sengir’s Siren Song” 🌶️ SPICE AWARD

Gregg Graham — “Eureka’s Spirit” 🌶️ SPICE AWARD

OLD SCHOOL MAIN EVENT DECKS

(Gallery alphabetical by first name, click into gallery to see pilot names)