Date: Sun, 18 May 2025 14:47:16 +0200
From: Neil <neil@oldschoolsorcery.com>
To: Old School Sorcery <admin@oldschoolsorcery.com>
Drop of Titania at Viennageddon
By: Neil Troy (@bnrrx7 or neil@oldschoolsorcery.com)
This past weekend I was lucky enough to travel abroad and play some OS in Vienna, Austria at
Viennageddon (https://viennageddon.wordpress.com). I knew I had to travel for work to Germany
around the time of the event and signed up in early January when I saw the event posted on
Discord. The event uses a ruleset completely foreign to me, pun intended, called Ravenna
(https://ligaoldschoolmadrid.wordpress.com/uk-ravenna-rules/). It is effectively Swedish but with
a more favorable reprint policy. Coming from a 4-strip PAC world, the 1-strip and likely a lack
of mono-black was refreshing to me. As always, I refused to play a known meta-deck and instead
started brewing something I would enjoy.
I had originally been trying to get a Karma Tomb deck working but found it lack luster. It was a
mostly white shell with typical 4x Swords & 4x Disenchant effects, Wrath, and a mid-package of
the prison artifacts. I was able to play a few games at meet-ups and at Chalice VI with the deck
and it didn't feel great. It felt very reactive and always behind unless you landed Relic Barrier
and Howling Mine. I drew some inspiration of where to take the deck from one of my first Beast
meet-ups where Stephen Hines (@srhines) was playing Drop of Honey + Living Plane. I also chatted
some with Joe Fairbanks (@joefairbanks) about his Titania's Song list and wanted to make sure I
found my voice in the deck.
The deck I settled on was this amalgamation of Titania's Prison w/ Living Drop. I took this to a
couple Beast meet-ups and had some decent success with it and I'm sure the Beasts are moaning by
now at all the prison decks I like to play. I really wanted to lean into Drop of Honey in this
build as I think it is an amazing card when built around. I had previously been thinking about
Drop of Honey as a green worse version of Swords and that is clearly wrong. Drop of Honey is a
card that pauses games for several turns. In a meta with what I assumed would be Suchis
everywhere (no mana burn) I felt like putting the onus on the opponent of how did they want to
get out from under the Drop. The Drop plan works in this deck because typically an opponent will
have to commit to the board with multiple creatures to actually deal damage. The package of Relic
Barriers, Icy's, Factories, and Maze of Ith all neutralize various threats from connecting. This
over committing to the board then pays off as Drop will hang around for 3-5 turns just slowing
eating their creatures. The opponent is still drawing resources but most of the time isn't
willing to commit them to the board. This effectively buys 3-5 turns of drawing resources,
ideally with a Howling Mine and maybe an Ivory Tower. That's why I think of this more as a
Titania's Drop deck versus a Living Drop deck.
Another key consideration for the deck is that there are 3 non-mana producing lands in the deck
w/ 2x Mazes and 1x Tabernacle. I bumped up to all 5x Moxen to help strengthen the mana since
dropping a turn 2-4 answer land was expected. With Mazes, Factories, and LOA a single Candelabra
can do lots of fun tricks while also being an artifact. I mostly took that from a Power Surge +
Candleflare deck I played at War of the Roses two weeks prior since I liked the interaction so
much. The single Time Vault is a nod to Jeff Liu again and will find a home in almost every deck
I play now. Exchanging a turn when nothing happens for a future turn when I might have Howling
Mine out or need to eat through some counter magic is worth it.
Notable omissions are black cards. I'm not a fan of seeing everyone play Mind Twist and DT in
everything. The deck wouldn't really work right with The Abyss over Drop. Drop hits artifacts and
the whole Living Plane thing works well with Drop because it becomes a one-sided affair. Swords
to Plowshares…I made the conscious decision not to play Swords in the main. I think it's the
right call too. A one mana answer for creatures is good, but its 1 for 1 trading and the deck
already has many ways to stall out singular creatures. The life gain to me feels more of a
hindrance. The Titania's Song plan is fragile. I mostly want one big attack for the win when I
see the coast being clear. So why the Crumble? I felt my heavier green reliance pushed me to a
Crumble. It feels more of a surprise card, it's probably not right, but sometimes two mana is a
big deal.
The sideboard is transformational as I like to do. I do feel a requirement when playing prison
decks and other slow things to respect the game clock and finish matches in the time allotted.
The transformational sideboard helps to accomplish that as a heavier creature package lets me
keep the opponent guessing on what is actually worth doing in the match-up. I personally find the
sideboard not to be optimal. Serra is too slow, Sushi isn't what I want, but the rest are fine. I
love me a Spirit Link for Juzam and Dibs and with that life gain in mind I think I'd rather have
a couple Fountain of Youths in the board to stay out of reach of burn. I sleeved up the list
shown and took it with me on a long work trip.
Viennageddon
The event is a great affair. With Viennageddon's connections to Three For One Trading they are
able to offer more than a single day of activities. Friday night at 341 they had some long out of
print Limited formats available for drafting. There were two fulls pods drafting 6x Fallen
Empires and an Apocalypse draft. Compared to normal events where the TO would need to have
pre-register people and acquire product, 341 was able to offer the drafts with product on hand
and at a nice discount compared to the store prices. I talked to Oliver Polak-Rottmann, the CEO
and co-organizer of Viennageddon, and he was very mindful of trying to hit an attractive price
point for the drafts. I think it was very successful even though I did not partake in them as I
was on my 20th hour of traveling from California by the time I arrived. I had a chat with Patrick
Tomelitsch (another founder of 341) hearing how the business started and what their vision was. I
retired somewhat early to try and line-up my sleep schedule for the rest of the week.
The Saturday event took place at a restaurant one of the co-organizer's wife works at. The venue
was able to accommodate the ~50 OS players on a roof level indoor structure comfortably and
~30ish Premodern + artist + vendor at ground level. They were also able to arrange for 4E bottled
beers available on the top floor via a giant refrigerator and had dining options at the ground
level as well as down the street. The tournament started promptly late to no one's surprise.
My first round I was paired against Matthias Knelangen, we had some small talk while shuffling
and got to dueling. Matthias starts with a Plains and passes and I start developing my board. His
turn two lands a White Knight and then some subsequent follow-ups of more Knights, Lions and 3x
Crusades as he is on a White Weenie strategy. Luckily my deck is able to stall him from landing
too much damage and I get an Ivory Tower online. A Drop of Honey starts eating his creatures
slowly but he keeps playing into it with Mesa Pegasus and Benalish Hero. It's at this point I
mentally acknowledge he is only playing Alpha cards. Not wanting to be fooled I land a Mirror
Universe and swap life totals from a 10-20 state (Ivory Tower had gained me 13 life). He lands an
Armageddon which sets back my plan but I have a bunch of Moxen to work with. Eventually I recover
enough of a board to land a Titania's Song and attack once for the win. We casually talk and
indeed Matthias is playing an Alpha60 deck with no board. I do not play gentlemanly and board in
a few Swords to keep me afloat. Game 2 is mostly similar to game 1 but an early Tabernacle slows
him down and I start getting card advantage and the writing is on the wall. Afterwards we chat
and it turns out he is one of the owners of Cardmarket! We chat about a shared background of
science (we both of Ph.D.s in similar fields) and a little nonsense topics pop-up. It was a
pleasure to have my first match with such a gracious and interesting opponent. 1-0
Adam Gregor is my second round opponent playing a zoo build with Erhnams and such. He relied on
City of Brass and Serendib but the Dibs rarely connected since I had Maze and Icy until I could
put a Drop into play. The result was him whittling his life total down from 20 to 3 with a sole
Factory hit on my side. He was forced to Swords his own creature to get enough life but had me in
a tight spot as a Fireball he DT'd for would have done me in if not for my stalling tactics and
eventually inching just out of range with an Ivory Tower. The 2nd game he is less aggressive as
his mana base is reliant on 3x Llanowar Elves. A Drop of Honey starts eating them and he isn't
able to establish much of a board state before I take the game. 2-0
Round 3 starts and I am up against “Timmy” of Timmy Talks. I watch a couple of his videos
occasionally to educate myself on some brews when I'm thinking of something to play, so I know
who he is. We exchange our sticker swag and he sees I'm a Beast of the Bay member and exchanges
enjoying our group's older videos (maybe this will spur those individuals to making some new
ones!). Timmy is playing a mono blue deck and as the game progresses he is able to identify I
might be playing Living Plane + Drop. I think this matchup is unwinnable. Mono blue with a
knowledgable pilot like Timmy is just bad. He knows what I'm trying to do and can be selective
with his answers. He's able to Copy Artifact my Icy and like an idiot I play my Titania's Song,
which I regretted instantly. I swing with my animated Icy and he doesn't block with his…because
he'd rather Control Magic mine on the follow-up. Game 1 is easily his. Game 2 my draw is an
aggressive Factory draw where I get him down to 8 but then he stabilizes and with a Diamond
Valley (great tech.) he is out of range an Air Elementals easily take it down. We casually chat
after the match and I share what I'm trying to do. He and I agree its a horrible match-up for me,
but hey 2-1 isn't a bad start!
My round 4 opponent is Oliver Draxler also a member of the Lions of Vienna. At first I'm thinking
he is on the deck but it turns out to be a blue heavy disco troll. The Counterspells are the big
issue at first as he denies me my pieces and with Psionic Blasts and Lightning Bolts it's an easy
game for him. Game 2 isn't much different but I think he gets a disk off and it was another
non-game from my side. He compliments my deck and my clean Unlimited cards and is overall very
nice but this felt like a very hard match-up. 2-2
Round 5 I play against Fabrizio Ridi from Venice making his first trip to Vienna with his family.
He is on a blue white black robots list. Game 1 is a long game. He is able to Copy Artifact my
Ivory Tower and we both start racing up in life total. The Drop of Honeys do well in stopping
Suchis and Triskelions and of course Relic Barrier is an all-star in the match-up. He scoops deep
into the game as I am able to out draw him with the Howling Mine and he thinks it is best to go
to the next game. Game 2 he has a better draw and boarded in Dust to Dust and was smart enough to
keep Swords in for my transformational sideboard plan which he sussed out. Pixies gum up things a
little bit but he wins well within time for the round. We have 10 minutes for Game 3 and we do
early trading but go to time and take the draws. 2-2-1
Alexander Klockler is my round 6 opponent on Atog. I am able to dump my hand to get around an
early Black Vise and his City of Brass starts whittling him down. Eventually I have enough of a
lock in place that the game is over. Game 2 is roughly similar but Drop eats his threats and it's
over. 3-2-1
I end up in 14th out of 47 and the deck performed well. I never ended up getting Living Plane to
do its thing and instead won mostly off of Titania's Song and the opponent's City of Brass and
Dibs. I'm obviously a big fan of these kind of prison decks and play them a lot. I think they
have a good place in the meta and offer a fun and different experience than the more traditional
meta choices. I see why Joe plays Recall and this deck really feels at home in a 1-strip format
since it's trying to do Lands shenanigans. Overall, I had a great time at the event and the side
quest on this business trip was well worth it. I would not hesitate to recommend the tournament
to a traveler as I think they did a great job as well as being in a city with a lot to see and do.
Props:
-All my opponents for being gracious and letting me do my thing.
-Oliver, Philippe, and the Viennageddon team for putting on a great weekend.
-Jeff Laubenstein for coming out to the event (you too can invite US based artists to your
events!)
-341 and Cardmarket for helping support the event but still letting it feel like an OS event.
Slops:
-None
Swag pile
On to Seattle in a few week for X-Files, I'm thinking of playing Merfolk just to see if I can go
50/50 with it.
