Three Against Hyllie

"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this, Vex, retired flipper of cards decided to dust off the cobwebs and go international again after a decade long hiatus. It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!"

Aye, as the corny intro points out, after much deliberation and fighting against the ever persistent demons of work, family obligations and outright boredom, I decided to finally join the rest of the local crew in their international adventures. Malmo Open seemed like a very nice way to get back into shape, in the "not too small, not too big" kind of sense. Perfect warm up for the madness that will be Utrechtin a month, which I'll also probably be attending.

Apart from the event size and the evident professionalism of the team running the event, Malmo also fit my "zero lift" travelling criteria, as it is probably easier to get there than most cities in rural Greece. Easy flight, cool short train ride from Copenhagen, great budget hotel across the road from the venue. 5 star experience there, duly followed by the event experience itself. Very well organized, superb spacious card gaming hall and excellent staff. It may sound weird that I'm spending that many bytes in praising the event, but after 30 years of travelling around to flip cards I have oh so many horror stories from events that could easily serve as scenics for Hostel IV or any iteration of the human centipede - so any time it's all sunshine and rainbows I feel obliged to tip my proverbial hat.

However, if we actually have to get down to the actual bussiness of playing, things are slightly grimmer. Against better judgement I decided to field my custom Luthen Rael remix Ashes Edition, in yet another hard boiled attempt to give this unsung Leader a few minutes in the spotlight - which was definately an unwise choice, especially since the deck was inherently deficient against the prevalent Blue Krennic that seemed to be the most popular choice. Doubly deficient since the last tune-up saw the removal of Lieutenant Gorn from the deck for more early space units in order to fudge slightly the odds against Luke/DV and other pilot decks. In hindsight, I should have swapped splash choices from Cassian Green to Azadi between main and side, since 14 matches over the weekend against the good director indicated that best way to try and outplay him is calling Mercenary with Azadi on T2. Anything else is simply prolonging the inevitable.

In the end, the deck ended up 2-5, but most of the match losses could actually have been wins since they were close 1-1 matches decided at the last card draw. Disappointing result, but maximum fun against very polite and fun/cool opponents. I had zero issues all weekend, and I think the other guys from the team mostly had positive experiences as well (there were a few odd things, but statistically way less than expected - even in the odour department). Of course, just as the two brothers had to kill themselves in the last gate of the ancient tragedy, true to our usual shennanigans I got to play my teammate on round 3 - just like our local PQs. Heh, quality drama :P

Day two was also pretty good, rocking my janky version of Admiral Sloane at the best of the rest event. This time, the gods of pairings were pretty kind to me and gave me several favorable match ups to ultimately see me ending up 4-2 and getting some loot to soothe the expeditions' bruised gaming ego. Again, Krennic was the hard matchup, and can certainly say I'm really excited for Homeworlds to stir things up, because it's super boring to dance the dance with the director, especially after facing 5 of them all weekend. Other than that, Sloane was a way easier deck to pilot than Luthen, with many brutal answers to dominant archetypes - especially my personal peeve Ashoka Blue. She is also unfairly under-represented in events I believe, and when you scramble 18 3/3 fighters it's always fun. So give the girl a spin!

Regardless, Malmo Open 2026 was a top notch experience and a fantastic crowd. Big shout out to the Greek/Norway expedition, great guys that I hope I'll get the chance to run into again in the future (it did feel a bit weird to play 1/3 of my total matches in Greek, but it was also homely). I'll certainly do my best to attend next year and bring more people with me. If nothing else, I think I got addicted to those weird cocunut bars in the VIP package!

Only real bummer is that I forgot to bring my Team House mat. I should be demoted to Red Shirt.