There are tournaments you want to win, and there are tournaments you simply want to enjoy for the pure pleasure of playing cards. Then there are tournaments your body just wants to survive, because some events are basically drinking festivals with a Magic problem, and by the end of them, making Top 8 feels less important than making it to breakfast.

And then there is the Dwarven Warriors Cup.

For me, DWC is still the most charming tournament in Old School. Not because it is the biggest. Not because it is the most prestigious. And definitely not because it encourages sensible financial behavior. No, Dwarven Warriors Cup is my favorite because it feels like the kind of Magic gathering that should no longer exist, but somehow still does. It is gloriously old-fashioned in all the right ways: friends, ridiculous decks, too much laughter, too much beer, and the kind of warm, homegrown atmosphere you only get when a tournament is held at Demmer’s house, where his family is part of the whole thing and the day feels less like a tournament and more like one big extended family gathering with Old School cards, dice, and slightly questionable decision-making.

It has that rare quality all the best Old School events share, but dialed up to eleven. At DWC, the atmosphere matters. The stories matter. The people matter. The decks matter. Even the bad plays matter, especially after the third beer. Part of the magic is that the prize does not necessarily go to the player with the best record, but to the player Demmer feels deserves it most. Maybe that is because of what someone meant to the group that day. Maybe it is because of the spirit of their deck. Maybe it is because they brought the right energy, the right story, or just the right kind of chaos. Or maybe Demmer simply decided so, for reasons known only to Demmer. Somehow, that makes the whole thing even better. It is one of the few tournaments where losing can still make you feel like you won something.

It is, in other words, exactly the sort of event that can trick a grown man into making increasingly irresponsible trades while telling himself it is all “for the good of the format.”

So yes, before we go any further, let me be clear: I blame DEMMER!

He organized the thing. He created the conditions. He built the exact kind of environment in which this sort of behavior starts to feel not only acceptable, but inevitable. And now I’m out here turning perfectly respectable Swedish-legal binders into AB4K-legal mono black nonsense. That cannot be a coincidence.

Card by Card, Mistake by Mistake

Maybe that is why, slowly but surely, I’ve been building toward what feels like my dream deck for this event — one card at a time.

Since 2024, I’ve been inching closer and closer to my favorite AB4K build. Not in one glorious shopping spree. No, this was the proper Old School way: one swap at a time, one trade at a time, one “I probably shouldn’t, but I will” decision at a time.

It started, as these things often do, with a completely different deck. For my first Dwarven Warriors Cup, I played an A40 League Deadguy Ale deck. A beautiful deck, really. It was strong, stylish, and very much the sort of deck you can justify to yourself as both competitive and cool. I ended up in the Top 4.

At my second DWC, played under regular AB4K rules, I went full nostalgia and brought a classic Black-Red build. The deck was not exactly a masterpiece, but it produced more than a few memorable games. One of my favorite Old School memories still comes from that event: beating Jeff with a decisive Raging River after he had spent the entire match mocking the card. Good times 😉

It was at that event that I saw what may still be the coolest deck I’ve ever seen in the AB4K format: mono black Zombies, played by my friend Martin from Germany. His deck was not “good” cool. Not “correct metagame choice” cool. I mean real cool. The kind of cool that bypasses your brain and goes straight to the part of your soul that still remembers being a kid and thinking Zombie Master was the most metal thing ever printed. Exactly how Old School black decks are supposed to feel.

That deck stayed with me. Over the past year, I started collecting the core pieces. Slowly. Patiently, at least by my standards. A card here, a trade there. The usual story we all tell ourselves when we are definitely not building another deck.

And then, last January, it finally happened: My version of that deck was done. Instead of Meekstone I went for three copies of Bad Moon because they are awesome! I added my favorite artwork with a couple of Bog Wraiths and I added a Nightmare. My deck was completed. Finished. Assembled. Which of course means it was not done at all. Because as Richard once wisely said: “It is never finished”. Honestly, that sentence should be printed on the back of every Old School player’s binder.

DWC 2026 and the Wizards Problem

This year’s edition of DWC follows the Wizards rules version of the format, which makes things even more delightfully unhinged: no banned list, no restricted list, and no limits on how many copies of a card you want to run. If your dark little heart wants to play a deeply irresponsible amount of the same card, this is the place to do it.

Which, again, brings me back to Demmer… Because somewhere between “this sounds like a fun twist” and “maybe I need a beta Chaos Orb now,” there is a direct line. A straight line. A criminally traceable line. And if the authorities ever investigate how this happened, I expect his name to come up early.

Anyway, like every responsible adult preparing for a tournament, I did what had to be done: I started scrolling through decklists on the internet and talking myself into more cardboard.

The first conclusion came quickly: I needed Will-o’-the-Wisps. Not one, but two!

And that got the gears turning…

Wisps regenerate. Zombies with a Zombie Master in play regenerate. Suddenly I found myself looking at all these grim little creatures crawling back from the grave, and I thought: “You know what would be really good here? Nevinyrral’s Disk!

Enter the Disk!

A reset button in a deck full of things that don’t entirely mind dying, or at least pretend not to.

This was still a normal trade at that point. A focused trade. A disciplined trade. I was there for the Disk. I had a plan.

Then I started browsing through Wijnand’s online inventory….and this this is always how it begins.

Losing the Plot

While scrolling through Wijnand’s online inventor, I saw a beta Royal Assassin. Now there’s a card! A proper dream card. The kind of card you don’t even need to justify. You just look at it and think: yes, one day, this belongs in my collection.

I was clearly just wandering through the dark forest of black-bordered temptation. Somewhere, in the distance, I swear I could hear Demmer laughing.

The Budget Option That Wasn’t

While looking for decklists that could actually make use of this growing pile of beautiful nonsense, I came across a mono black article with several deck ideas. One line in particular lodged itself in my brain: a beta Nevinyrral’s Disk as the “budget” option for a beta Chaos Orb.

Now that is one of those wonderfully Old School sentences where the word budget has clearly suffered a complete psychological collapse. A beta Disk may be cheaper than a beta Chaos Orb, sure, but let’s not pretend we’re suddenly shopping in the sensible aisle.

Still, the point landed. Disk could fill that role. But it also raised a dangerous question: What if I just got the real thing instead?

Tumbling down the rabbit hole

I asked another vendor if he happened to have one. He did. We traded. And just like that, I am now the proud owner of a beta Chaos Orb.

YAY! This means that, somewhere along the way, while supposedly preparing a mono black Zombies deck for Dwarven Warriors Cup, I accidentally arrived at something much more dangerous: the ability to build just about any mono beta black deck variant I want.

That is both a wonderful feeling and a terrible development.

And while I am fully aware that I made these trades with my own hands, under no physical duress, I still maintain that the broader moral responsibility lies with Demmer, for creating a tournament environment in which this kind of escalation feels not only acceptable, but almost inevitable.

Huston, We Have a Problem!

I began this process with the innocent goal of building an A40 Wizards Tournament Rules Zombie deck for Dwarven Warriors Cup. That was the plan. A humble plan. A noble plan. A plan any reasonable Old School player could respect. Unfortunately, I appear to have drifted slightly off course.

Because while looking for the right Zombie build, I somehow ended up acquiring a beta Nevinyrral’s Disk, a Royal Assassin, a third Icy Manipulator, and finally a beta Chaos Orb — which is not the sort of sentence you write when things are going according to plan.

The worst part is that, despite now owning significantly more ridiculous cards, I am still no closer to answering the original question:

What am I actually going to play?

I was supposed to be solving Zombies. I can build almost anything but instead, I am now entertaining thoughts like six Sengir Vampires and five Dark Rituals, which feels less like deck tuning and more like the early warning signs of a financial collapse 🙂

So yes, I have a problem.

A delightful problem. A very expensive problem. But a problem nonetheless.

And I maintain that the ultimate responsibility for all of this lies with Demmer, for creating the exact sort of tournament environment in which this kind of behavior starts to feel not only acceptable, but almost mandatory. Thanks Demmer! I now own a beta Chaos Orb. Time to celebrate and start brewing! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀