Premodern: Interview with an Expert

Check out this cool format! Bringing back old school cool.

In light of the Premodern event coming up later this month (20th April, 1pm – free entry!) , I thought it would be a good idea to let people know about the format and why it's fun. Since I don't know about the format, I knew I needed to enlist the help of an expert: Reuben Austin. He is a recognisable fixture at Hobby Lords, with a beard befitting a wizard and twinkling blue eyes that light up whenever he spots a white boarder card in the bulk bin. As the leading Premodern expert in Ōtepoti Dunedin, he founded the “Premodern Aotearoa” facebook page and he's always happy to teach newbies to play. Fortunately for me, he was eagar to share his wealth of knowledge for the interview.

 

Q: What is Premodern, anyway? I mean I can guess that is is a format that is “all cards from before Modern,” but isn't that basically Vintage?

 

A: Premodern is a little more limited than that, fortunately. It contains only cards from Fourth Edition to Scourge, so we don't have to deal with trying to source cards from Alpha/Beta/Unlimited!

 

Image from: premodernmagic.com/legal-sets#legal-sets

 

Q: Oh, that's good! Those sets seem rather specific, why them? What was the rationale? 

 

A: With the card pool starting from 1995 you skip the expensive Lagacy/Vintage staples from the earliest sets, and additionally cards like Brainstorm and Force of Will are banned from the format for “identity” reasons. This means that there are real choices if your deck wants a cantrip: Impulse, Portent, Sleight of Hand, Opt, and even Peek see play.

Similarly, there are the Masques block alternate cost counterspells which can't be splashed for as easily as Force can.

 

Q: I'm pleased they've banned $60 cards from the format, but how has that affected gameplay?

 

A: Well, because of how the banned list has been curated cards which are too strong for other formats are still playable in Premodern. Gush, for example, or the Tempest Trio of Hermit Druid, Oath, and Survival. And classic cards which have long since been power crept from other formats too: a first turn Savannah Lion, Carnophage, or Jackal Pup is actually scary again!

 

“Premodern is a format whre you can run Annul or Disenchant maindeck.”

 

Q: This sounds amazing, honestly. I want to run away and order a monogreen Premodern deck right now! But what drew you to the format in the first place?

 

A: I've been playing Magic since 1999 (I got my first deck on Mercadian Masques release day: “Deepwood Menace”) and played at school right up to 8th Edition before I took a big break from the game.

 

Decklist can be found at: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/UX6KVJBzhE-ACbECFMEkBA/goldfish

I was 17 and drinking Waikato Draught, driving around in Commodores, and going out to Punk Rock shows became higher priority. So when I discovered that people were playing this format with all the decks from Extended that I used to read about in the early days of the internet... I was naturally all about it. I had since built some of the classic decks like UG Madness, Monoblack Aggro, and Counter Sliver which I'd play casual games at the kitchen table with from time to time.

 

(Reuben merely laughed when I expressed my disbelief over “causal slivers.”)

 

A big part of the attraction of the format is nostalgia for a lot of people: it's people in their late 30s or 40s who were playing when these cards were new. My “journey” is pretty representative in that sense. But the gameplay is what keeps people coming back.

 

Premodern is a format whre you can run Annul or Disenchant maindeck. If you start to think of the implications of that, it gives you an indication of the uniquness of the gameplay. The only established deck where Disenchant is a dead card is Goblins (which itself typically splashed green for Naturalise).

 

Q: That sounds fairly conclusive! What is the local meta like? Does it differ much abroad, that you know of?

 

A: Locally – currently the core of “The Hunting Moas” are me in Dunedin and another couple dudes who split their time between here and Christchurch – we are big on creature decks. And everyone wants to play black: all three of us have a “Swamp, Ritual, Negator” deck! But between us we have almost all of the decks typically considered to be Tier 1 built up: Sligh (aka Burn), Goblins, WU Landstill (classic control) and Elves. The missing ones are UW Dreadnaught and GR Terravore Oath – but we have the monocoloured varients of those which are as good or even better in many matchups. Then there's probably at least two dozen Tier 2 decks which are capable of taking down events, and space to brew: White Weenie has long been considered too slow for the format but a version splashing blue for Meddling Mage has been gaining popularity (WW is the pet deck of one of our group and so I can attest its strength!) and the red splash in the Terravore deck only emerged in the last few months. This has led to Tsabo's Web in sideboards and even main so maybe monogreen or GW ends up back on top? Premodern is definitely not “solved”  - a common concern for those new to the format – and the meta shifts. Landstill is currently on the way down because it suffers against the green land destruction decks, so there's a chance the White/Black “Playable Deadguy Ale” - itself a fairly new build - could become the best pure control deck in the format.

 

Q: And I heard that the next Premodern event (20th April at 1pm – free entry!) has a juicy prize on offer to entice Commander players?

 

 

A: Yes. I just happen to have a spare Rhystic Study – I've raided my old monoblue kitchen table deck for all the Faeire Conclaves and Dazes and Propagandas etc for premodern decks so I decided that I'd “borrowed” so many cards from it I should just break up the rest. One of the Rhystic Studys became Humility, another was traded in lieu to jump in on a singles order, one went into a prophesy precon I reassembled, leaving me with one left. And yeah: this was put up as a prize very consiously to get those Commander players suckered in.

 

For more information about Premodern, check the official website at premodernmagic.com, or ask Reuben. He can be found at Hobby Lords most days, or on the local Magic group chat (ask Liam O'Neill to join) if he isn't in the store.

 

Rachael Hudson

Store Specialist

Hobby Lords