They say good things come in 3’s. I guess they have never heard of Mobstercons. This year I went full Sophia Coppola on the way to bringing you Mobstercon 3: The Worst One. How was this the worst one you may ask? Let’s count the ways!

1. No Full Send Collectibles (Jeff White’s Sports Card business.)
2. No Shaman Ben alters (read last year’s report to learn about these)
3. No team featuring Jon Finkel (last minute family bail-out, it happens)
4. Because of the late Finkel drop, we had an odd number of teams, so there was a bye every round.
5. Only 13 teams!
6. No raffle.
7. No patches.

I think that’s it? If you can think of any other ways in which this was the worst one, DM me and I will add them to the list. I didn’t even have a stamped handout card, so I just went through my collection and found random cards to hand out to people (I did actually buy a stamp.) Congrats to Ty Thomason and Mike Harris for mising the Wheel of Fortune and Mirror Universe respectively! And I am sorry to the poor soul who won the revised El-Hajjaj, I cannot remember who it was. The event was so mid I didn’t even take any pictures!

As usual, this was all for charity. In total we raised ~$2000 for Homefront. Homefront is a middleman between homelessness/poverty and a better life.  They provide (mostly short term) housing, food, clothing, education, job placement, etc., in an effort help struggling/unlucky families get back on their feet.  Hyperlocal (Trenton, NJ), super efficient, almost zero waste.  Their admins don’t make shit.  It is basically the perfect charity.

For those who don’t know this already: Mobstercon is an Old School Magic: The Gathering Tournament that takes place about every 5 years in New Jersey. This year the format was 3-person Scryings Team Unified. Scryings is an Old School “expansion” designed by the godfather himself, Magnus de Laval, featuring cards from Fallen Empires through Mirage (in addition to the traditional Swedish card pool of Alpha through the Dark.) Scryings came out about 5 years ago. Despite how awesome it is, there have been surprisingly few tournaments played with it. I ran this exact format last year, and decided to run it back again this year. It was partially due to laziness, but I also think you learn a LOT the first time you play a new format, and wanted to give teams a chance to show off their newfound knowledge (they failed.)

For the second year in a row, the event was held at Village Brewery in Somerville. I basically found the perfect venue last year and wasn’t about to switch that up. Food, drink, service, vibes were great all day.

Thankfully the Sophia effect was kept under wraps so 13 teams actually registered:

Here were the standings after Round 6:

Some notes:

(1) Both The Scry-Kings (Ty Thomason, Will Parshall, and Dan Miller) and Scrybabies 2: The Terrible 2s (Jeremy Marcus, Nick Christie, and Jordan Rosales) made their 2nd top 4 in as many years.

(2) I had no set top X. Could be a top 2, 3, or 4 depending on how things shook out. Ron Paul’s Drag Race (Will Larson, Dom Dotterer, and Mark LePine) went 6-0. The Scry-Kings beat Route 23 and Me (Eric Pallone, Mike Harris, Jacob Van Lunen) in the last round to go 5-1. Had they lost, there would have been one 6-0 and a bunch of 4-2’s and I would have just crowned Ron Paul’s drag race champion with no elimination rounds. Since there were clean(ish) cuts at top 2 and top 4, I decided to run a top4 and all the 4-2′ made it (all the aforementioned teams plus Hot Kid Ball Milk (Joel Demir, Flint Espil, Nick Santini.)

In the semifinals, Ron Paul’s Drag Race finally took a loss to Hot Kid Ball Milk. And in a matchup of 2 of last years Top 4, the Scry-Kings fell to Scrybabies 2: The Terrible 2s.

Then in the finals, Hot Kid Ball Milk beat Scrybabies 2: The Terrible 2s to claim the Mobstercon 3 title and win something for their efforts (Relic Barriers maybe?)

I think in the end we all learned a valuable lesson. Mobstercons are kinda like sex and pizza. Even when bad, they are still pretty good.

Oh right, team names! Despite only 13 teams playing this year, they fucking brought it. Here are the winners in the best team name competition:

1st: The Ashen Gabbaghouls (Jared Susney, Chris Grennille, and Vincent J Devito Esq.)
2nd: Ron Paul’s Drag Race (Will Larson, Dom Dotterer, and Mark LePine)
3rd: Don’s Gobblin Deez Nuts (Andy Callaghan, Mike McLaughlin, Levi Baumgardner)
4th: NJ Turnpikemen (Christopher Nemeth, Josh Auriemma, Alex Whiteman)

Honorable Mention: Route 23 and Me (Eric Pallone, Mike Harris, Jacob Van Lunen)

The decklists are listed below (not in A,B,C order) with garbage formatting because WordPress was giving me a ton of shit so had to screenshot a bunch of them. In addition I tried to download a plug-in that allows you to click a pic to zoom in, but ofc that did not work either. Sometimes it is tough being a boomer.

Hot Kid Ball Milk (Winners)

The Scrybabies 2: The Terrible 2s (T2)

Ron Paul’s Drag Race (T3)

The Scry-Kings (T4)

Peacemakers. New Season Starting Soon (T5)

The Flowercity Chapter of the Church of Latter Day Spuzzemology (T6)

Don’s Goblin Deez Nuts (T7)

Route 23 and Me (T8)

Bangers and Shitters (T9)

Dude, Where’s my Seth? (T10)

NJ Turnpikemen (T11)

Vibedecking (T12)

The Ashen Gabbaghouls (T13) (but first in my heart)

Random Pics

 

Schwartz’s YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBZjBwfp2mThbSl-EnBAMRQ

Jeff’s YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@fullsendcollectibles