Boreal Community Cup 2 Event Report

In the last two weeks of Feburary 2022, 56 players gathered to play 5 webcam matches of Magic. These players represented 6 Old School communities across Canada, and a group of Outsiders looking to defeat the Canadians for their Cup.

Congratulations to the winning community, Quebec City Brew Crew, who selected Le Pignon Bleu (The Blue Gable) to receive the $1,234 raised. Le Pignon Bleu helps less fortunate families in the Quebec region.

Like the previous Boreal Community Cup, an entire community, not a person, wins the Cup. Communities get points for their performance if they registered as Spike or their deck’s spiciness, if they registered as Spice.

See the original event page for more information.

Final standings

Community	Players	Points	Points per player
Toronto Geocities of Brass [TOR]	15	30	2.00
Montreal Tundra Wolves [MTL]	10	20	2.00
Other (Outsiders) [OUT]	10	31	3.10
Oshawa Scavenger Folk [OSH]	6	10	1.67
Ottawa Capital Chaos [OTT]	6	20	3.33
Quebec City Brew Crew [QUE]	6	20	3.33
Vancouver Grizzly Bears [VAN]	3	9	3.00

Outsiders were off to a good start in the Spike bracket with numerous 4-1 finishes putting them ahead in points.

After Spice judges submitted their votes, Ottawa and Quebec City pulled ahead and tied for the most points per player. Because there are no ties in Old School, it went to Chaos Orb flips. After about 10 Orb flips by representatives from Ottawa and Quebec City, Quebec City was crowned the winner.

Spice bracket

32 players put their brews to the test in the Spice bracket. The competition was fierce as 5 judges deliberated on which decks were spiciest. In the end, Derrick Boyce won the judges’ hearts as Alchor’s Tome deck, a metaphorical recreation of the miscommunication leading to a card’s final name, Alchor’s Tomb, takes the crown for spiciest.

Honorable mentions go to Kevin Vanier for his synergistic color-changing deck, and Laurence Boulanger, whose opponents got a choose-your-own-adventure story based on the happenings in the match.

Top spice record

Nobody managed to go undefeated in the Spice bracket and there were 6 players with 4-1 records. Breaking the tie on Game Win Percentage left two players: Brent Pollard and Matthew Braun. To break the tie, in line with the bracket’s intentions, it went to the spiciest of the two decks: Matthew Braun on his Mana Surge and Psychic Venom deck.

Matthew Braun [OUT] – Spikiest spice
Alexandre Blanchette [MTL]
Brent Pollard [OTT]
Jason Keays [OTT]
Joshua Jones [TOR]
Pav Zharnitsky [TOR]

Spike bracket

Despite allowing proxies, none of the 24 players registered to Spike brought The Deck. Black-based decks and Trolls decks were the prominent archetypes in the bracket. After 5 matches, Patrick Burt on a 4-color Troll deck is the sole player to go undefeated, so he takes the title for Spikiest.

Top spikes (4-1 record or better)

Patrick Burt [OTT] – 5-0
Andrew Ruschpler [TOR] – 4-1
Chris Sternad [OSH] – 4-1
Dave Firth Bard [OUT] – 4-1
Owen Fletcher [TOR] – 4-1
Simon Christie [OUT] – 4-1
Ty Thomason [OUT] – 4-1
William Larson [OUT] – 4-1

Best play

A prize card was given to the player who shared the best play during the tournament. The prize went to Shaun Augeri for locking himself out with his own Arboria, only to destroy it with his own Land’s Edge (both World Enchantments) to punch through with his creature, and throw a few lands at his opponent for the win.

Final thoughts

A special thank you to all those that participated, donated items to the silent auction, and donated their time. The Old School community members continues to be a leader and role model for other Magic: the Gathering players.