LOBSTERCON Old School Champs 2025: Organizer’s Report

LOBSTERCON, 2025. There were two LOBSTERCON events in 2025, as a matter of fact: the Premodern edition in early May, and the original recipe Old School edition in mid-September. This (extremely belated) report mostly covers the latter.

The year 2025 brought a special twist: for the first (and perhaps only) time in its history, LOBSTERCON proudly carried the designation of “World Championship” of Old School Magic, and with it the opportunity to award a Giant Shark to the winner of the tournament. More than 300 players traveled from all over the United States and Canada, plus Chile, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom in order to participate. A record-breaking 296 players took part in the main event, which followed the Swedish B&R list in keeping with the ongoing tradition of 93/94 “World Championship” events.

The 2025 Old School World Championship Top 16

When the dust settled, an American Shark was crowned for the first time, and a grand total of $35,088 raised for Room to Grow, LOBSTERCON’s charity partner in Boston since 2018. This staggering figure included $8,131 worth of goods donated in-kind through our annual baby/toddler supply drive: clothes, books, supplies, car seats, strollers. And, when combined with the $14,730 raised earlier in the year by the Duress Crew and friends through the Premodern LOBSTERCON tournament, we clocked in at a somewhat ridiculous $49,818 raised for Room to Grow through LOBSTERCON events in the year 2025. Not bad for a couple weekends of drinking and playing cards!

PHOTO REPORT

Click through for a crowdsourced album of 300+ photos from the event on Google Photos:

REFLECTIONS and GRATITUDE

LOBSTERCON is the product of countless hours and passion invested by so many members of the Old School and Premodern communities: lead volunteers/organizers Tim Atwood, Brooks Firth Bard, and Jared Doucette; Judges Josh and Deen; venue set-up all-stars Pez, Eric Martin, Stephen Hartford, Slanfan, Bryce Menard, Jay McCowan, DxC Shane, and Billy Mills-Curran; volunteers Nicky Scars, Tim Moran, Mase, Paul Kovalov, Kyle Sunter, Brian Selden, Mike Belfanti, Noah Shanning, Xanadude, James Lebak, 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. Our deep gratitude goes out to Jay and Amanda Palmer, James Lebak, Greg Titcomb, Shawn Sullivan, Fredric Düring, Matt Cutbirth, and everyone else who bought baby and toddler supplies; Brian Bogdon for donating a veritable brick of Divine Offerings, Paul DeSilva for running the fantasy draft, and all of our raffle and auction prize donors: Susan Van Camp, Jeff Menges, Bryon Wackwitz, Shawn Sullivan, Simon Christie, Adam Merkado, Darin Wiesner, Geoff Walker, Nils Erikson, Mike Packer, Benoit Seveno, Sustainers of the Realm, TOAMagic, Slanfan, MG Alters, Tim Moran, Jay Palmer, Brannon Ozark, Grant Casleton, Micah McRiver, Jared Doucette, Will Hanna, Mark Lepine, Jonas Twitchen, Colby Jack, Jason Koresko, Xanadude, and anyone else I might have accidentally omitted here — you made this event a success by giving so freely of your time, energy, money, sweat, and everything else. From the bottom of my heart — thank you.

BLOGS / PODCASTS / COVERAGE

YouTube playlist of streamed matches produced by the Duress Crew

Lobstercon 2025 – Pez – All Tings Considered

Lobstercon 2025 – Old School Report – Ty Thomason, Ty’s MTG Blog

dɪsɛnˈtʃɑːntɪd fɛliŋ – Fredric Düring, luring’s totally awesome os mtg page

Demonic Tutor – Will Magrann, Wheel’s Blog

Lobstercon X-Pts Report – Justin D.

TEAM TRIOS SIDE EVENT

We held a Team Trios event this year! It was delightful. The formats were Atlantic 93/94, 7pt Singleton, and Alpha to Alliances (Nashville version). 31 teams (93 players) participated: