In March, I traveled to Hirtshals, Denmark to attend Tron Wars 6.0. I had been meaning to make it out to this event for years. Simon is a great guy and I’d heard nothing but good things about the venue and way the event was run. I also had been told by several people that it was a tournament full of “spiky decks” and “serious players” which is right up my alley. Unfortunately for me, the larger fall edition of the Tron Wars always seems to fall within a week of Lobstercon which made it unfeasible for me. I’d tried to do back to back weekends of Magic travel a few times, but by the middle of the second weekend my mind is mashed potatoes and I start to care less and less about playing because I am over saturated on Magic.
While hanging out at UTC with David from Australia he mentioned that he and his wife Michelle were planning to get over for the Tron Wars event in March and Åland would be attending as well. The timing was kind of perfect for me insofar as the March Tron Wars was 3 weeks after Arvika Festival and 3 weeks before n00bcon. Three trips to Scandinavia in a span of 6 weeks is crazy even by my standards, but I was up for the adventure.
Within two weeks of talking to David at UTC about the possibility of the trip I had bought my plane ticket and locked it in.
My thought for the event was that it would serve as a boot camp of sorts for n00bcon because the Saturday and Sunday events at Tron Wars are both Swedish rules with a cut to Top8 and the last two n00bcons have been won by Danes.
After Arvika I tweaked my list slightly, reworked my Sideboard guide, and tried my best to not spend too much time focusing on Magic to avoid burnout. In retrospect I am proud of how well I did in these aspects.
My path to Tron Wars started by taking a half day on Thursday and meeting longtime Vintage friend Michael at Harold’s Deli in Edison to catch up, eat lunch, and hand deliver an altered Beta Underground Sea I’d sold him. The corned beef was excellent as was the conversation and before I knew it I was running a few minutes later than I’d hoped getting to EWR.
I made a foolish mistake checking into my flight and after waiting an hour in the security line I found out I had put my birthdate on my boarding pass as April 1st rather than April 2nd. The TSA agent gave me a note to jump me to the front of the security line after I got a new boarding pass. When I got back to the TSA line 10 minutes later the security line was nonexistent which made me laugh.
My flight to Copenhagen was relatively inconsequential. I fell asleep as soon as we took off and then was jolted awake after 45 minutes or so and wide awake the rest of the flight. I used the time to meditate, relax, and finish my sideboard plan for the weekend. I had a short layover in CPH and passed out as soon as I boarded my short flight to Aalborg, waking up confused as to where exactly I was, but I got my bearings soon enough. From there I met up with David and Michelle in a coffee shop for a pastry before we caught the train up to Hirtshals.
The hour train to Hirtshals flew by as we chatted about life, David’s build of DFB G, their travel itinerary for the trip and much more. We dropped off our bags at their hotel and then set off to wander around the town and get some lunch. A spot shower made a local pizza place much more appealing for lunch; they each got pizza while I had a kebab and fries, all of which was as good or better than expected. We walked back to their hotel and passed by a restaurant we were glad we didn’t eat at. The “r” in the sign for the Peking Grill had burnt out which combined with their bad reviews online made us fairly certain that we would’ve gotten food poisoning.
At the hotel we promptly ran into Åland who had just arrived via the ferry from Gothenburg. We hung out on the patio at the hotel and caught up before taking the 30 minute walk to the B75 table tennis center where the Tron Wars event is hosted. Of the four of us only Åland was playing in the Friday night singleton event. Michelle and I played some table tennis, we caught up with Mitja and others and I went out to the nearby lighthouse to check it out and comb the beach for treasures of various types. I had heard that amber can be found on the coast of the North Sea but found it elusive. I did manage to find some cool stones to add to my rock collection as well as a piece of sea glass in addition to enjoying getting the chance to explore the North Sea coast.
At the venue, I booked a bed in a mixed room with 8 beds and lucked out by having the whole room to myself. I showered and crashed pretty hard, getting 9 hours of sleep which refilled the fuel tank after getting pretty close to empty due to only having 2ish hours of sleep the night before. I woke up, ate breakfast with Rob Alexander whom I have become friendly with having seen him four times in the last 6 months including at Arvika 3 weeks ago. During breakfast while talking about kids he told me a funny line that Quinton Hoover had once said about his own kids, “I have three children and one spawn of satan”.
After breakfast on Saturday morning, I checked into the event and ran into Jens-Ole who had received a very special Serra Angel that I had won in an auction on Facebook after being tipped off to it by my friend Andy. The Serra took a circuitous journey to get to me, arriving at Tommi’s house in Finland the day after he left for Arvika. Tommi shipped it to Jens-Ole and it luckily arrived just in time for the event, making it to his house on Friday. The French seller got the Serra signed and doodled on by Richard Garfield and Douglas Shuler at Pro Tour Paris in 1997. I was thrilled to add it to the sideboard of my deck for the weekend.
Before the event started I went out for another walk and this time I explored the German World War 2 bunkers along the coast before again heading to the beach to search for amber and other treasure. The bunkers were a time capsule to a much darker time and made me ponder what it must have been like to storm the beaches of Normandy as well as how Hirtshals could have been Normandy had it made sense strategically.
I arrived back at the venue with just enough time to change into my “uniform” and get ready to do battle. The event on Saturday started off as well as it could for me. I won my first six matches and was the only 6-0 going into the last round before the cut to Top8. I had some really excellent games which were spectacularly close and fun as well as quite a few one-sided matches. Some of my favorite games from the Swiss were in Round 2 against Kare where I found a spicy line to dump my hand by Draining my Recall for 0 so I could Balance us both to 0 cards, leaving me with 2 Factories and a Chaos Orb in play while Kare had no Factories or Strips. Another doozy was against Paw where I stabilized at 2 life by drawing a Recall which got back DO, Strip, and Ancestral. I went up to 4 by DOing one of his Ankhs, dropped down to 2 again to Strip his Factory and then found a Mind Twist off of the Ancestral which took his hand of 6 cards just before he got his Library active. Later in that game I decided to Tutor for a Counter to keep shields up as I was still at 2 but had a Factory in play and 2 more in my hand while he was at 16 but had no Factories, creatures, or Ankhs. I swung for 3, he blanked, swung for 5, countered the Bolt he drew and hit him for 6 down to 2 and he ripped a Psionic Blast to draw the game. He won the rematch of game 1, but I was able to get even the score and then win the rubber match after starting with only six minutes left in the round.
In round seven, cracks started to emerge in my foundation. I was paired up with Nicolai who had beaten me at n00bcon last year. Game 1 was a weird one where after a Balance I mistakenly thought my two Fellwars didn’t tap for any mana when in reality they could tap for only white mana. Instead of tapping my Fellwars to play a Book, I kept them untapped and instead tapped my two blue sources, nullifying the Counterspell in my hand. Nicolai was able to punish me by resolving a Su-Chi which put me in the danger zone despite not killing me. That mistake changed the trajectory of the match and led to my untimely demise. With my head spinning for game 2, I wouldn’t be surprised if I made a minor mistake or two if I rewatch the stream which contributed to me losing the match.
With that, the Swiss was done and the Top8 was set to begin after the dinner break. I asked Simon if it would be possible for me to eat quickly and then go out for an hour walk to digest before playing my Top8 match; a practice that I do as often as I can to avoid indigestion and flare ups of my IBS. Simon agreed to let me start my match in an hour and a half, giving me time to eat the highly touted burger with brown sauce which was quite tasty.
With my belly full of dinner, I set out for the beach on my walk and gave my wife Lucy a call. She was excited to hear about how the tournament and trip at large had gone for me. While I was on the beach combing the sand for amber I was feeling the time crunch. I knew I had a very limited amount of time to scour the beach before I needed to turn around and head back for my Top8 match. I told her that I wanted to stay on the beach instead of going back to play more Magic which is never a good thing when you’re trying to win a tournament. On my way back I took this photo of the lighthouse in the fog.
Physically I was back in the event hall for my Top8 match, but my head and heart stayed on the beach looking for treasure. I had a rematch with Paw on LionTog and this time it did not go my way. The culminating sequence in our rematch was him casting Hurkyl’s Recall on me and then Balance to kill my Serra Angel and constrain my mana which was followed up a few turns later with an Armageddon and then a Strip Mine. 7 turns later I still hadn’t drawn another land after being 1 mana short of casting the Serra Angel I’d drawn post balance and Pow’s previously innocuous Black Vise killed me.
Shortly after my Top8 match I showed Simon my finds from the beach and he pointed me in the direction of Jens-Ole who collects amber and fossils. I immediately went over to him and asked him to take a look. He told me that I hadn’t found any amber, but that I had found a bone from a now extinct prehistoric ancestor of the octopus which helped me rebound quite nicely from the disappointment of losing a close Top8 match.
Even more interestingly, Jens-Ole told me that he would take me amber hunting right then and there at 9pm if I was interested. He even had extra UV lights and an extra pair of waiters and boots for me to wear. I snapped it off and asked for 15 minutes to prepare.
Like that, we were off on the hunt. It was an hour drive from Hirtshals back toward Aalborg to one of his favorite spots. The conversation flowed smoothly from one interesting topic to another. I learned about his backstory in Magic, the other hobbies he has (of which there are many), I got to tell a few of my favorite stories, and before I knew it we were putting on our waiters and heading out to the beach.
I enjoy long walks, the thrill of the hunt, spending time with friends, and combing the beach for treasure. Basically, every part of amber hunting is up my alley. Unsurprisingly, I loved it.
We didn’t find any incredible pieces of amber, but I got to get my feet wet by spotting and collecting 30 or so small-ish pieces with Jens-Ole’s help. The fire was lit. On the drive back to Hirtshals we made tentative plans to go out hunting again on Sunday night after I finished playing in the Sunday tournament. I got in at 1:30am, showered, and went to sleep at 2:30, waking up at 8 still full of joy from the night before.
The Sunday event got off to an inauspicious start for me. I woke up sweaty and decided to take a quick shower before the event but while changing in the men’s room I forgot to lock the door of the bathroom I was in and got smacked in the elbow by a door when someone thought the bathroom was unoccupied.
With a sore elbow and not a lot of time to spare I made the two minute walk from my room to the event hall after stripping my bed and packing my bag.
The rough start to my Sunday continued in Round 1 when I played against Patrick who dealt me 26 damage with Underworld Dreams. I couldn’t find a Disenchant, Chaos Orb, or Demonic Tutor to save my life and succumbed despite digging through more than half of my deck for an answer. I won game 2 and would’ve probably won the third game had there been more time, but instead we went to Orb flips. I am a well-practiced Orb flipper, but my nerves got the best of me before I could successfully calm myself down so I could really focus and do my best.
With my back against the wall, I faced off in a rematch against Nicolai who was fresh off a win in the Saturday event after beating me in the last round of the Swiss. In game 1 his first draw step yielded Library and I got crushed. In game 2 I turned the tables and crushed him with Library. In game 3 he again had Library in his opener, but luckily he missed on mana sources for 8 or so draw steps which gave me enough time of a tempo advantage and steal a win.
After my rematch with Nicolai I needed to collect myself, feeling like I was inches from the abyss. David and I took a short walk outside to swap tales of our first two rounds and get some fresh air. When we got back inside everyone was seated and getting ready to play, but in the end we both finished our third round matches with plenty of time to spare.
My third round matchup was with Andy and it did not start out very well. He Mind Twisted away my Mind Twist and Tundra, stripped a City of Brass, later played a City in a Bottle to take out my other City and like that I was sitting with no lands in play. I did have a Mox Pearl, Emerald, and Jet in play, but I was falling behind quickly to Factory beats until I drew Balance. Andy went from 5 lands to 0 and all of a sudden I was miles ahead.
Game two was even more of a reversal of Fortune. I found myself at 4 life with an Ancestral Recall stranded in my hand by Chains of Mephistopheles while my Book did its best Jalum Tome impression. while I faced off against a Su-Chi, 2 Factories. For my turn I drew Disenchant and like that I had a chance. I Disenchanted the Chains, Ancestraled into Divine Offering on Su-Chi to put me at 8, and a Lotus and Chaos Orb to take out one of the Factories. From there, my Book gave me enough answers and before too long I was comfortably ahead having narrowly staved off death once again.
From there, my deck decided I was going to win my next four games, serving me up premium hand after premium hand which I easily converted into two match wins. I shared some laughs with my opponents who were gracious in defeat knowing that there was little they could’ve done to change the outcome.
The Top8 announcement was one of my favorite moments of the trip. David had started out 3-0 but hit some bumpy roads in the last two rounds, ending the Swiss at 3-2; sneaking into Top8 as the 8th seed. This was an especially powerful moment because it was his first ever Top8 and made all the more special by his wife Michelle being there to celebrate it. It was heartwarming to see Michelle give him a big hug and tell him how proud of him she was. Congratulations again, David!
David was unfortunately eliminated in the Top8, running into The Deck for I think the third round in a row; a tough matchup for his DFB Gb deck. My run thankfully did not end there; I lost the first game against Arabian Aggro due to an awkwardly timed Timetwister from my opponent which left me suddenly dead to his Mishra’s Factory where previously I had a Disenchant and Swords to stop it. I rallied from there and won the match, followed it up by winning a The Deck mirror which hinged around me having just enough countermagic to stop my opponent and give me a window to resolve Mind Twist.
In the final I faced Morten in a match which was close-ish, but his deck’s manabase did him no favors; giving me windows to take control and eventually win the tournament. Throughout the Top8 it felt really nice to have Aland, David, Michelle beside me cheering me on as I marched towards victory. This picture of the finals says a lot about that; our squad looks tough.
With that, I received a hand painted Underground Sea playmat as well as a Clay Statue to commemorate my victory. A huge thanks to Simon and Martin for organizing the weekend. The events were well-run, my opponents were all competitive but friendly, staying on-site was extremely convenient, and having everything streamed so you can rewatch it later is always a treat.
From there we walked back towards the hotel that David, Michelle, and Aland were staying at and got dinner nearby with Patrick and Mitja joining us. The meal was tasty and my plans for after dinner were to meet up with Jens-Ole to go amber hunting again. Patrick and Mitja asked to join and I graciously accepted their company; the more the merrier. We hung out in the hotel lobby playing ping pong, sharing some laughs, and soon enough Jens-Ole had arrived and we were en route to Aalborg to try our luck.
I volunteered to stay in my sneakers as Jens-Ole didn’t have enough pairs of boots for everyone and Patrick, Mitja, and I each found decent sized pieces of amber. Mitja even found a second piece which he was hoping for so that he could gift them to his wife and young daughter to make up for being away for the weekend. As we were getting ready to leave, Mitja spotted something in the surf and the three of them ran out. When they came in Mitja was holding a monster piece of amber which Jens-Ole described as “the find of a lifetime”.
Filled with joy that our treasure hunt was wildly successful, Jens-Ole dropped me off at my Airbnb in Aalborg and took Mitja and Patrick back to Hirtshals. I chatted some with my host, gave Lucy a rundown on the events of the weekend, got some sleep, and next thing I knew I was home.
My trip to Denmark was a huge success, and I say that not just because I made Top8 on Saturday and won on Sunday. I had a blast amber hunting with Jens-Ole, great hangs with David, Michelle, and Aland, and generally loved the venue and tournament setup. I highly recommend a trip to Tron Wars if you haven’t yet been, it was a wonderful event.
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