A return to single-elim, but this was my last best-of-three tournament. Winner: 2011 Shrine MonoRed
Runner-Up: 2011 CawBlade
2016 Gauntlet of Greatness 5
This time Randy Buehler ran another Standard tournament but without Academy, Memory Jar, OR Bargain. This was the first time a non-combo deck won a standard Gauntlet of Greatness. It was Atarka Red.
2015 Gauntlet of Greatness 3
Randy Buehler ran another Standard Gauntlet in 2015, this time excluding Memory Jar and Academy. ANOTHER Urza’s block combo deck won the whole thing.
2015 Eternal Weekend
This time, a normal double elimination tournament.
Winner: 2015 Red Aggro (Monastery Swiftspear, Abbot, etc.)
2nd place: 2004 Cranial Affinity (no skullclamp)
2015 Jambarama Tournament
A guy on reddit named Jambarama told me about this single elimination tournament they did, only using the old gold bordered World Championship collectible decks. Here are the results!
Winner: 2002 Psychatog
2nd place: 2008 Faeries
2014-2015 Gauntlet of Greatness Season 1
This was Randy Buehler’s first season of the Gauntlet of Greatness. He used a World Cup soccer style tournament, with a group stage and a knockout stage, and he didn’t bother playing out meaningless group stage matches.
He included Academy and Memory Jar (one last time), two decks I had already basically banned. You can watch the matches on youtube.
Winner: 1999 Memory Jar
2nd place: 1996 Necro
2014 Eternal Weekend
Academy and Memory Jar both retired / not invited.
Double elimination except for the final: this time we did a loser’s bracket, but the winner of the loser’s bracket took 2nd place without challenging the undefeated winner of the winner’s bracket. So Swans had a good run but lost to Delver and Shrine Red.
Winner: 2012 UW Delver
2nd place: 2011 Shrine Red
2013 Eternal Weekend
Double Elimination. Academy retired.
Since the Tolarian Academy deck had won Chingsung’s tournament and the Pax Prime tournament, I decided to retire it “to the hall of fame” and see if Memory Jar could win a 2nd time without Academy in the way. I put up a sign that read “What’s the 2nd best standard deck of all time?!!!” and players who bombed out of the main event would come over and play a match or two.
Winner: 1999 Memory Jar
Runner-Up: 2010 CawBlade
2013 Pax Prime
Played this tournament at PAX Prime with the help of Randy Buehler, after connecting with him thanks to BDM, and even got some other famous names to contribute. I recall Sam Pardee played a match or two. Aaron Forsythe battled his very own Angry Hermit deck against Mike Turian who crushed him with Faeries. In the semis, Memory Jar whiffed and helped Mythic put an Obstinate Baloth into play to seal its own doom, which was quite unexpected. Buehler went on to create the Gauntlet of Greatness.
2012: “World Cup 3”
Winner: 1999 Memory Jar
2ndpl: 2010 UW Superfriends
3rdpl: 2011 Shrine Red
4thpl: 2008 Kithkin
This tournament didn’t include Academy or Necro. I was still less knowledgeable about all the great decks of old, and was just playing with decks I happened to know about and wanted to try playing. I had just made my own Memory Jar deck and was eager to pilot it. It won the whole thing. Easily.