2023 Old School Magic Summer Derby Results and Deck Photos

REPORT of RESULTS

The 7th annual Old School Magic Summer Derby is in the books! This year’s event featured 147 participants. Over the span of six weeks, we played roughly 570 matches of Old School Magic via webcam.

Pez resolves this Fireball to force a game 3 in this Top 16 match vs Chris Karakasis

While entry fees were not collected and the Derby series will always remain free to play, we once again encouraged charity donations at registration, this year for emergency medical support for one of our own:

In early June, the Old School community had received the terrible news that longtime Belgian OS player Jorgo Vanhees was involved in a car accident in Indonesia on May 26th, resulting in severe head trauma and leaving him a coma. A group of organizers from the Dutch Old School community, led by Ron Dijkstra, Louis de Nijs, Thomas Meddens, and Richard Veenman, immediately began getting the word out and collecting money to help Jorgo and his family make it through this very difficult time. Thanks to contributions from many of the Summer Derby players, I am humbled to report that we raised a total of €1,433, which we contributed toward Jorgo’s medical and repatriation expenses. As of August 5th, Jorgo had been successfully repatriated to Belgium, where he remained in a coma in hospital. The global Old School community continues to send thoughts, prayers, and best wishes to Jorgo’s mother Petra and to their family and friends during this terrible ordeal.

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 Summer 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 June and early July, 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 Summer Derby Finals were played on Tuesday, August 8th, and featured asterisk-gobbling grinder Will Magrann (USA) against Mike Kravitz of the SoCal Deep Spawners (USA).

Will Magrann pushes the Finals against Mike Kravitz to game 5 with this game-sealing Recall. Click through for VOD of the match!

After all was said and done, Will Magrann took the match 3-2, and was named the Summer Derby Champion for 2023. Congratulations to Will 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 — Andy Baquero, Rich Bourque, Dan Serwan / Supraliminal Films, Simon Rokkjær, Åland Johansson, and Kenan Lars Salvarli! And special thanks must also go out once again to the inimitable Antonio Rodríguez for designing the Derby series logo and Summer Derby banner, and Mattias “Slanfan” Berggren for developing the Tolaria platform, which we used to host this event. 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).