The Scroll Rack

It is no secret that forests worldwide have always been a place for urban legends, folklore, and mystery. There’s the Crooked Forest in Poland, where nearly 400 pine trees grow flat Northward and bend 90 degrees straight up to the sky. The Aokigahara “Suicide Forest” in Japan is said to have more suicides than any one place on the planet. In 2003, 105 bodies were recovered that year alone, most by hanging. Hoia Baciu Forest in Romania is known to be the most haunted forest in the world, with a near-perfect circle in the 729-acre forest where nothing grows. The forest is also associated with places like Bohemian Grove that draw in Good Ole Boy clubs to network and misbehave with the highest level of secrecy. So why wouldn’t one of the most cryptic Magic: the Gathering events in North America be tucked away deep in the Redwood Forest in Northern California?

MagicCon Las Vegas had just wrapped up two weeks prior, and a week before that, I was at the Desert Twisters 93/94 Showdown in Arizona. But life is excellent due to a spouse who supports my hobby, and I find myself boarding a flight out of Las Vegas to Oakland, California, to meet up with two British chaps and my buddy Jeremy. Okay, not just two British chaps (chaps, that’s what we call you guys, right?) but none other than Jonas and Stebbo from the “Brothers of Fire Old School club” in London. I met Jonas and Stebbo last year at Chalice. We hit it off, and I quickly befriended them both. So, when Jeremy invited me to come out a day early and go to Napa Valley with the guys, I couldn’t pass it up. Jeremy and the Brothers picked me up from the airport, and we headed into Napa as we had a reservation at Cakebread Vineyard that morning for a wine tasting. Once at Cakebread, the Sommelier poured us a buttery zinfandel to start the day before being escorted to our reserved seating outside by the garden. About halfway through our wine tasting, we decided to check out the garden, and as you might have guessed, alcohol, man-children, and phallic-shaped vegetables make for plenty of jokes. This moment would be the most civilized and well-mannered we would be all weekend.

Our day at the world-famous Napa Valley was a good one, and soon after, we drove into the city to pick up Jerm’s G-Wagon and fried chicken to treat Stebbo and Jonas to some high-quality USA artery-clogging dining. We ate dinner with Jeremy’s family, who made us feel more than welcome, and decided to call it a night and head out to the house Jeremy put us all up in for the night. Stebbo, Jonas, and I agreed we should get a good night’s sleep before we began the chalice weekend, as we knew this would be our last chance for a few days. The following morning, Jonas and I both needed coffee, so I ordered a Lyft and headed out to what we thought was a strip mall Starbucks. We ended up at California State University. Walking through the mezzanine like college kids, we eventually found the Starbucks that eluded us. Stebbo and I decided to stay on campus and enjoy our coffee and talk about our love for cats before returning to the house to be picked up by Mike Vandyke.

To get to Chalice, you must drive 45 minutes through some of the tightest winding roads you will drive. The road is famous for this feature, as I saw a Maclaren and multiple street bikes rocketing through the street as I ate my breakfast at Alice’s just off the shoulder. If you can survive the ride without becoming sick by the roads and disorientated by the massive trees, you find yourself at Chalice.

Being my second Chalice, I had an idea of what to expect, and with that, I was prepared for the weekend. I was going to get reasonable sleep (which didn’t happen), and I wasn’t going to mix alcohol (I wasn’t going to mix too much alcohol), which I didn’t, and I mainly stuck with Bourbon Old Fashioned for the weekend. Ken Meyer Jr was the artist for Chalice 5, and while I do prefer original art to most, I find his version of Dark Ritual from Tempest to be my favorite. So, Ken and I talked about him painting a portrait of my wife as a repaint of his Dark Ritual art on my playmat I’ve been working on. I checked in with Stephen Hines, collected the pink fanny pack I knew my wife would love (bonus swag), and checked into my room. Good old room 209, just like last year. I took my roommates down to what I thought would be the booze room to find it had been relocated to the main basement area. Thinking back on the prior year, this was an intelligent move as Monday morning; the booze room smelled of mildew after all the beer I witnessed spilled on that carpet in that room alone. There were tarps down on the floor this year, and whose brilliant decision was to have a whiteboard and dry-erase markers in the booze room. I hope it was left up for the staff because that was a masterpiece of penises.

What separates Chalice from other Old School events is the self-contained ecosystem you are immersed in for the three days. Your experience of the weekend depends on how close to the Chalice schedule you want to follow or if you’re going to break away from the Campaign and delve deep into the unofficial Side Quest. Chalice’s playable event schedule went “hard in da mother fucking paint this year! Urza’s Ante, Two-Headed 2PAC, Mono Green In The Woods, The Dark Ritual, 93/94 PAC, Premodern, and Ante 40K Rodeo.

Night one Started with the 100% proxied event Urza’s Ante (Jerm, please give me an invite next year. I didn’t intend to battle you out for Lord of Atlantis all weekend, but I’ll do it again next year, too, if you give me a chance!) Like I said, “URZAS ANTE!” My favorite part of Chalice! Urza’s Ante is a 100% proxied sealed deck you open. You initially play the first three rounds as is. Once you complete your match, you get a booster pack, and you and your opponent Rochester draft it, the winner getting the first pick and adding all cards to your main deck. After the third round, trading is open, and you can barter to improve your deck. However, there is a twist. Instead of the cards having backs, they printed various lands on the back. So, your card was either a land or spell, depending on what you needed. These cards created some exciting and complex plays, as spells you wanted to cast sometimes had the land you needed for another spell later down the line, and you had to weigh the risk versus reward of both.

Each spell was printed 18 times to have one of every Dual land, Basic land, and City of Brass. Foil cards had Mari’s Chaos Orb art on the back from Chalice 4, and the weekend unique land, Urza’s Refuge, allowed you to tap Urza’s Refuge and bounce target land you control back to your hand, making one mana of any color. After each meal, everyone got an additional booster pack to open, and that’s when the actual trading started. I traded away a foil Fellwar Stone and Braingeyser to Rich Bourque for Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, a handful of Merfolk, and random cards to use for trade fodder later. Foils fetched a high premium at Chalice for Urza’s Ante as there was a competition for most owned at the award ceremony. I quickly lost the Ancestral Recall to Jeff Liu in one of my most epic Magic games to date. Jeff was at four life, and I was at one post-combat phase, and if I passed the turn, Jeff would be able to kill me during his combat. I cast Psionic Blast because killing us both results in a draw, allowing me to keep my Ancestral Recall. Jeff cast Reverse Damage, causing him to gain four and me to lose 8. Jeff won and, with that, won my Ancestral Recall as well. The more valuable the card, the more I drew on it before losing it, and I was about to draw some fine art on this one. If I am correct, I discovered someone traded their entire proxy deck away for a real Transmute Artifact to Mano.

I decided to skip out on Mono Green In The Woods this year and grind my Side Quest of collecting Lord of Atlantis for the inevitable battle between Jeremy and me in Urza’s Ante before the main 93/94 Two-Headed 2PAC event. 2PAC allows only two of any card in your deck, except for basic lands. A special erratum of the restricted list allowed a second Black Lotus and Chaos Orbs in your deck. Your second copy of Lotus and Orb was allowed to be Proxied; this was nice because I no longer own multiple copies of either card. For my second Lotus, I used my Chalice 4 Urza’s ante Lotus from the year prior, and for the Orb, I was fortunate to get one of the four serialized Choose Your Own Adventure Chaos Orbs from the Desert Twisters Showdown. Each round, you were paired up with a new teammate with a similar record. For this event, I wanted to play a variation of Power Monolith (unsolicited deck picture below). This event was enjoyable. In some games, you and your teammate’s deck paired very well together, and at other times, your teammate is holding up multiple copies of Haunting Winds that kill you before you can resolve a spell with the Power Monolith combo. My favorite game was against Danny Freeman and Jared Miller. Danny contemplated casting Chaos Orb to remove my Monolith but was hesitant. I might have Disenchant or Shatter in hand. Jared Miller, my Teammate from the game earlier, insisted I didn’t have the removal in my deck and that his teammate was in the clear. Danny cast his Chaos Orb right into my Disenchant. Watching the look Danny gave Jared was priceless. I ended the day with a 3-2 record and was mildly inebriated. Ken Fritz walked away with the Chalice trophy this year, and it couldn’t have gone to a better person as he drank copious amounts of alcohol from it the rest of the weekend. (THAT’S HOW YOU USE THE TROPHY PERIOD)!

The Dark Ritual was the Magic the Gathering that Kenny Powers, looking preacher from the 90s, warned us about. Mono black, played at night near an open flame. If Lord of the Pit himself showed up, I wouldn’t have been surprised; hell, Jacob Statnekov from the Desert Twisters wore a black cloak and handed out ale horns if you played him. The rules were simple: 60-card mono-black deck, unsleeved, no more than four artifacts, no sideboard, best of one game. Just like Two-Headed 2PAC, there were some exceptions. Demonic Tutor was unrestricted, and Swamps had an errata of “Sacrifice, throw into the fire, and add three black mana to your mana pool.” If this triggered ability was activated, you were given an Ebon Stronghold to replace the Swamp for the remainder of the event. Joseph Horen played an unsleeved Unlimited Black Lotus in the dirt! Joseph embodies the 90s era Magic player perfectly, and for that, sir, you have my highest nerd respect. My deck: well, my deck sucked so bad I figured I’d save room in my carry-on and honor the event, so I threw the entire deck into the fire. My favorite interaction of the evening was Jacob Statnekov casting Takklemaggot on my Nettling Imp and then me just eventually dying from the 1 point of upkeep damage.

If you know Jeremy and the Beasts of the Bay crew well enough, you know they are diehard foodies (as documented in my Ragnarök article where we went to Pikes Market). So, you know Jerm and the boyz will throw down on the flat top and fryers. Night one was Ulamog, the Infinite Gyro, fried Dino Nuggs, and Whiskey tasting hosted by Flint Espil (Flint, I was drunk, and I’m sorry about the Facetime call to your girl where we were in the background). Some of the Whiskey included Elijah Craig Small Batch, Blanton Single Barrel, Eagle Rare Kentucky Straight, and my new favorite, Pinhook Bourbon Reserve for Old Fashioned (That Mari and I cracked the code on making and dubbed the Demonic Boozer!) Night two had Lumpia and Wine Tasting, which, to my surprise, was wilder than the whiskey tasting the night before. Charley Tetsuo walked us through each wine expertly, explaining everything down to the chemistry of how and why each wine was made. (Charley works for E. & J. Gallo Winery as the Winemaking Manager and has been a winemaker for the last 15 years.) your expertise is greatly appreciated. And on the third night, we finished with Midnight Meats and the 1988 classic Bloodsport. It is very appropriate as Chalice is the Kumite of the Magic world.

Mari From the Knights of Thorn and I had our main event we talked about for weeks on Discord leading up to Chalice, “THE DUAL OF CHAOS!” The “DUAL OF CHAOS!” as we dubbed it last year, Chalice is when two Chicago Orb Patch holders go head-to-head in an Orb flipping contest. Each Contestant lines up three shots of their choosing, and if you miss a flip (you guessed it), you take a shot! Whoever loses must take their opponent’s remaining shots as well. After countless Orb flips, Mari reigned Victorious, and as the rules state, I must finish whatever remaining shots Mari had left. What happened next, I chalked up to the vibe of Chalice, Mari, and I signed each other’s Chaos Orbs in the spirit of friendship. I’ve made many friends in Old School, and Mari would make the Myspace top 8.

The final day of Chalice began with the Ken Meyer Jr painting class. Over the weekend, there was much speculation on what we thought the card art would be as Ken attended Chalice 1, and Guardian Beast was already the subject matter. I was extremely pleased when I learned that the planning committee for Chalice agreed to run back Guardian Beast for a second time at Chalice 5, as only a few people from the first class would be at this event. I wanted to take my time this year and take as much out of Ken’s instruction as possible, as Guardian Beast is my favorite Magic The Gathering art. I pulled out my phone and turned on my ’90s Alternative playlist at the table, and once it was apparent that it was well received, I turned the music up, and we began painting to all our favorite jams from back in the day. You can never tell people’s artistic ability, but I will say that my table was even in skill. Our styles showed through in our work, pushing everyone to give their best effort and help each other. Steven Hines and I were some of the last people in the room painting and only left to grab a plate of food and come back to paint and eat with Ken. It was a delightful and therapeutic day. Ken, thank you for the fantastic class if you are reading this. You are a master of your craft, and we appreciate everything you did for us over the weekend.

The Unofficial Side Quest over the weekend is the only thing more elusive than Chalice. These are events not thrown by the Chalice planning committee, but by the attendees themselves in one of the many locations throughout the lodging we stayed at. This year, I participated in two. Thanks to Claudia, I hosted my cube draft from a sealed brick of Spectral Chaos that I decided to break. Weeks leading up to Chalice, I posted the potential of this event if it gained the proper interest, and the first eight people that hit that heart emoji in the Discord server became the pod to play in the cube. During the Sunday Premodern and 93/94 Old School events, we met on the patio, formed our own Old School sub-club, and dubbed ourselves the Spectral 8. We might be the only people in the world to have cube-drafted this set due to the rarity of the Spectral Chaos set, and it did feel like we were doing something special. The afternoon was perfect; we had a slight breeze on the patio, drinks all around, and a group not ready for the reading we were about to do on these cards. It took roughly an hour to draft the three packs and another 30 minutes of deck construction. We played a handful of pickup games with each other and, when we finished, took deck photos (I have no idea where mine went) and a group photo, all holding our favorite card we drafted to mark our place in history at the Spectral 8.

The weekend was everything to be desired, and I left feeling rejuvenated despite my lack of sleep. There is something special about Chalice that resonates with those who seek it, and when I think about what Chalice is to me, it is not a physical trophy but the moments I shared with my friends over the weekend. I want to thank the Beasts of the Bay Planning Committee for the exceptional work they put into this event, as no one person can put together an event of this magnitude alone. Your dedication made for an unforgettable weekend.

The forest is a place of mystery; you can get lost just a very short distance and wander into the depths of its enchantment without knowing it until it is too late, and Chalice is no different. I think that is why I am so drawn to this event. Time doesn’t exist for three days if you don’t acknowledge it, and only when I did did I see that the sun was about to rise.

Roll photos!

Coming soon: Delve into Shawn Sullivan’s pet project, “TAKKLEMAG-AZINE.” as we take a look at issue #1 and explore the articles and ads that bring back that nostalgic feeling of SCRYE, The Duelist, and inquest!

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