Memories

[CCClark]

I was sitting down one day and a kid came over and asked to look through some of the cards I had in the top of my ultra-pro case.   I keep oddities that I like up there.   He pulled out one of those old German regenerating swamps, mulled it over and then pulled out a beta regrowth.  He then asked me "Is this real?".   I was kind of dumbfounded by the question for a second.  I answered "Of course it is" without thinking too much.  

It occured to me later that kids nowadays haven't seen half the card pool out there anymore.   I occationally like to use older cards just for sheer nostalgia.   I may add the 'ol Juzam just for style points or maybe a Shahrazad for entertainment, but I don't think much about it anymore.  

I look around now and see kids who regard us older players as legends in a odd sort of way.  They really haven't seen most of these older out of print cards.  It just seems strange to me now.  Then again, I remember when I thought $40 for a mox was a ridiculous price and no one in their right mind would buy that.  

I guess I got old for a Magic player.  This whole scenario made me remember back when I had my "super" deck.   I think it was about the 3rd deck I made by myself.   It's whole premise was based on getting Mahamotti Djinn into play somehow and beating the other guys head in.

This was about what it consisted of

4X - Mahamotti Djinn
2X - Hypnotic spectre
4X - Mana Drain (this was to get mana for casting motti)
3X - Animate Dead  (this was for bringing Motti back if they killed him)
2X - Control Magic
2X - Invisibility (yup, for putting it on the Motti)
Energy Flux, Ivory tower, Nightmare, and a couple other one-offs rounded it out.  

I can't remember it all but that's pretty close.  Not bad for a starter, I think I picked good cards accidentally pretty much.  I used to spend many a night playing a friend of mine's Kobold / Martin stromgald deck and his roomates Guantlet of might/ mana flare / Fireball deck


Ok, I guess i should get to the point.  What was your old favorite deck like?  Did you learn the tabletop way or netdeck your way in?  What was in it?   Do you have any memories of playing late nights with friends and doing some amazing play that just seems dumb by your own standards today?

Cmon, I'm sure there's some interesting stuff you guys have to tell.

[CrazyCarl]

I remember a few years after I first started I had this mana acceleration/fatties R/G deck.  It was great.  I had a couple of Gaea's Cradles, a Deranged Hermit, a Weatherseed Treefolk(ohhhh yeah), one or two Verdant Forces, an Elvish Piper or two, some elves, a Rolling Thunder or two and some other things.  That deck was awesome.  I think about a year later I was on the JSS circuit playing Accel-Blue and Replenish.  Ahhhh Replenish and Accel-Blue.

My first Type 1 deck was basically BBS and I used Mana Crypt to sub for Black Lotus(Though I did have Drains, Ancestral, Walk, Sapphire and a Library.)  Go me

[Trollstorm]

A friend of mine taught me and my brother how to play. My brother and I, in turn, taught our mother how to play, because she's that kind of lady -- liked computer games, crossword puzzles and d&d. For years my mother was one of the best players in our area, and after half a year to a year after first learning (antiquities) my mother opened up a card & gaming store which I now help run. If it hadn't been for my mother, I probably wouldn't still play this game. Older cards are nothing new to me, and I still get a kick out of newer kids going "oh my god he's playing with the power 9 omg"


Edit: My favorite deck was an ancient black discard deck with 4 Mind Twists and other awful heresies against the standards of magic.

[Machinus]

I started playing when my friend wouldn't let me play tetris on his game boy (my mom smashed mine when I was little...long story) until I played him in magic. So he showed me some simple rules and I played a couple of games and I got to play tetris.

Eventually I started my own collection, and destroyed his 5C sliver deck that he was so proud of. It featured sliver queen, ashnod's altar, and heartstone as it's combo. He put together his monoblack deck with scrolls, hymns, and hippies, and it was really good, but eventually I beat that too.

He stopped playing because he couldn't tell good cards from bad ones without testing them out first, and I traded for and played with better cards. The real rules were too complicated, and he couldn't follow them.

Standard is way too commercial for me. Type 1 is also more fun.

[Komatteru]

I was into the older cards right from when I got into the game.  I dug up my old box that I used to keep my cards/decks in...it has what was my motto written on the side: "The Game of Magic will be won in the air.  Air superiority always wins."  I used to play a control type decks with a bunch of decently big flyers in there.  Somewhere in there I switched to an aggro control deck with Flying Men and Unstable Mutation.  I had Moat in there.  Man, that card used to be my hero.  For a while I used stuff like Radiant, Archangel, Serra, and a bunch of other stuff.  Then I started experimenting with Morphling and that changed my world.  I still have my Morphlings I bought when the set came out.  I paid $3 for those Morphling and will never get rid of them.  I feel like I was one of the first to discover that card as the bomb it is (was).  Aside from the Morphling, I think back to my deck and laugh.  It was soooo bad.  But I won nearly every week with it (I played every Friday at a place with a bunch of scrubs, although they seemed good at the time).

I remember Replenish.  I used to lose to a kid who played that.  Man, that was like the worst combo deck ever.  It would cast Replenish (somehow it always resolved) and I'd get all my lands Parallex Waved out and stuff.  I remember after it combo-ed out you'd be like "That's the combo?  You're going to beat me next turn with a bunch of attacking enchantments?"  It was the lamest thing ever.  God I hated losing to that.  On a scale of 1 to losing to Spiketail Hatching and Cloud of Faeries, losing to Opalescene garbage ranks about 11.

I look around now and see kids who regard us older players as legends in a odd sort of way. They really haven't seen most of these older out of print cards. It just seems strange to me now.

It's pretty funny like you mention.  Like I was talking about Vintage at an FNM once and mentioned something about owning Mana Drains.  Several of the players commented that they had never seen one.  I whipped out my 4CC deck and everyone was ooh-ing and aah-ing.  A couple weeks ago, I was playing (something) and some kid saw my Power and was like "Those are fake aren't they?"  Someone else who knew me was like "Don't be so insulting."  The kid commented that he had never seen real Power before.  Most people don't know what unlimited cards look like.  They can't spot the difference between a xerox and the real thing. Current T2 players haven't even seen their share of dual lands, let alone Power and Mana Drain.  They flip out when you start flashing T1 cards everywhere.  Hell, my trade binder goes back to Beta, and everyone just mires over it, flipping though saying things like "I can't afford most of this stuff."  My binder isn't even impressive by Vintage standards but it's the most amazing thing T2 players have ever seen.  I went to States and did some of the most amazing trading ever, but people were still in awe of my binder and decks and whatever.  They'd look at my binder and be like "Oh, I have nothing you'd want."  It was like they were afraid to trade with me because they were afraid I might laugh at their collection or something.  To their surprise, I was almost always able to find something of interest.  To more inexperienced players, we are like legends.  It's really pretty funny.

As for Juzam Djinn, remember how he used to be a central character in Inquest?  Everyone knew who he was, even if they didn't own/play T1 back then (~1997-1999).  Nowadays, I don't think anyone would get the joke.  I know that people would look at Juzam and say "why does this cost $150?"  It's so funny that the "power creatures" of yesteryear, all removed from the basic set for being too powerful, have been reprinted and are laughed at for being so not powerful.  Serra Angel, Sengir Vampire, Erhnam Djinn, Juzam Djinn, Mahamoti Djinn, Royal Assassin, Serendib Efreet, Ball Lightning.  Those were the days, ne?

[Eddie]

What was your old favorite deck like?

I still have a decklist of the thing. I sold everything when homelands came out   .

Note: this list is out of order. Mana base is between all the other cards. But this is the way I typed the list.

1 Balance
1 Berserk
1 Black Lotus
2 Black Vise
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Candelabra of Tawnos
2 City of Brass
1 Diamond Valley
3 Disenchant
2 Erhnam Djinn
1 Fastbond
1 Giant Growth
2 Icy Manipulator
1 Library of alexandria
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Psionic Blast
1 Regrowth
4 Savannah
2 Serendib Efreet
3 Serra Angel
1 Sol Ring
2 Spirit Link
3 Swords to plowshares
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
2 Forest
3 Plains
1 Island

The candelabra was for factory trix. 1 Giant Growth was my secret surprise tech. Apparently, I didn't believe in off colour moxen. Some (alright, most) of the card choices seem odd now.

Nowadays, new people don't know any old cards. I was playing at a prerelease (think it was 5th dawn) and the girl I was playing bragged she had a Coat of Arms in her "wall attack" deck she brought and most of the players there hadn't seen a Coat of Arms in there life. I tried to sound a little impressed when I looked at the deck, even though I had my Control Slaver deck with me at that time. I didn't have the guts to tell her her deck was absolute sh*t.

[serialjester]

The first tournament legal deck I built was B/R creatureless, I remember pretty much the whole decklist:

4 Black Vise
4 Howling Mine
1 Underworld Dreams
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Fork
1 Abyss
1 Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale
1 Feldon's Cane

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Syphon Soul
4 Disintegrate
4 Sinkhole
4 Dark Ritual

4 Badlands
4 Strip Mine
1 Sol Ring
1 Maze of Ith
1 Library of Alexandria
5 Mountain
5 Swamp

I don't remember the sideboard, except for it having Flashfires because of COP Red or Greater Realm of Preservation, which was big in My area in 95.  I really wanted to work white into the deck, as I wanted to swap out Abyss and put Moat/Gravity Sphere in the deck, those were fun times.

[Necrologia]

I started playing back around fallen empires/revised. My friend Calvin showed my little group how to play by shuffling his pile of green cards up and dealing them out. I can still remember being ticked that he got both the Wall of Wood AND the War Mammoth.

The first not every-card-I-owned deck was something like this:

4 Pestilence
4 CoP: Black
4 Death Speakers
4 White Knight
4 Order of Leitbur
2 Cemetary Gate
2 Disenchant
2 Nightmare
Dark Rituals, maybe some enlightened tutors or something.

It was so good in comparison to everything I was playing against that if I played a swamp or plains first turn some people would just scoop. That was around visions or so. After that I pretty much quit magic until Masques.

My first tournament caliber deck was good old Legend Black. 5 proxy would turn it into Nether Void, and I played that deck for years.

Come to think of it, I still have some of my old decks together in boxes that I haven't touched for years. Some of them include U/R enchantments (Hermetic Study, Giant Strength, Metathran Elite, Horseshoe Crab), and B/G reanimator, with Thalids to make tokens, and Fallen Angel, Recurring Nightmare, and Ravenous Vampire. Good times.

[Upinthe]

My very first "successful" type 1 deck was a Prison deck at around the time of Fallen Empires. It used Icy Manipulators, Relic Barriers, Meekstones, Serra Angels, Counterspells, Underworld Dreams, Duals, and Wrath of God. I used to go to a store to participate in "Friday Night Dueling". You had to pay $0.50 to start and for every game you lost. There were a lot of colleges in the area,  so I'd end up  spending friday nights hearing about how some of the players had gotten drunk last weekend, etc.. I was only 14 at the time, but I picked up quite a few tips about college ahead of time.

Eventually they switched it to type 2, and the sort of took the fun out of it when I couldn't use my cards anymore.

[Shikari]

my first scrubby deck was like Red wood treefolk, borgarden phoenix, grizzly bear, disintergrate and stuff like those...it was just a 80+ card R/G deck...

My first decent deck was is a B/W deck abusing Pestilence and White Knight/ Order of the White Shield/ Knight of Dawn... it was pretty dumb..but it worked well back then. I even put in afew Serra Angels when I could afford them lol... Spirit Link was used too i think...

[Grollub]

Serra Angel, Sengir Vampire, Erhnam Djinn, Juzam Djinn, Mahamoti Djinn, Royal Assassin, Serendib Efreet, Ball Lightning.  Those were the days, ne?

Demonic Horde + Instil Energy was my favorite combo, I loved it in my Royal Assassin/Icy deck, heh.

But it's so much fun flashing your pimped out deck to T2 players, they are all like "Uuuuuuh, I guess my all foil deck isn't all that braggy anyway...". Heh, but trading Legend legends to kids (for practically nothing - don't like to rip them off) is fun, so little can make someone's day.

[Anders Noer]

One of the decks I remember the best, was this creation back when The Dark came out. When you look at it now it's really bad. I had no idea about the concept of mana curve and thought that 20 lands was just fine. I can't believe I won Anything at all with this pile. Luckily my meta was likewise back then.

Here's what I remember:
4 Tundra
4 Scrubland
4 Underground Sea
1 Safe Haven
some other lands
1 Sol Ring
2-3 Fellwar Stone

4 Will O' The Wisp
4 Serra Angel
4 Air Elemental
4 Sengir Vampire
2 Vesuvean Doppelganger
2-3 Mahamoti Djinn
1 Preacher

4 Swords To Plowshares
4 Counterspell

2-3 Control Magic

//And I'm not sure if these were actually in, but I recall being very fond of these Silverbullets and they may well have been in there somewhere:
Amnesia
Holy Light
Seasinger
Dance Of Many

[Bram]

I've played Magic since about Mirage, and was taught by a good friend (who's my age and recently published an article in the American 'Science' magazine. Mad props, dude!). I didn't do much for a while other than add random cards to the Kaz and Zak theme deck that came out shortly after.

I was always fond of black, and build an interesting deck at one point whose goal was to go Swamp - Ritual - Buried Alive (find 3 Spirit of the Night). Next turn: swamp - Ritual - Ritual - Living Death. I was SOO disappointed when someone pointed out this didn't work

I started getting slightly more serious about the game around Urza's Saga, where I actually built a 'combo' deck for my creature-heavy environment. I was based around getting hugely overcosted stuff like (again) SotN in my hand using variosu tutor effects while killing of opposing critters with weenies and utility creatures I sacced to Attrition. Eventually I would play Body Snatcher, sac it to Attrition, murdering the last semblance of blockers on the other side, and bringing back either the big d00d I had discarded to it, or one of the game-ending utility creatures. It still surprises me today that it actually kind of worked.

Then ofcourse, I was shown the error of my ways and found out the raw power of card advantage and control. I ran a mono-blue permission deck with Peregrine Drake as its only win condition for quite a while, and it wasn't even half bad provided you didn't play a mirror match

Another 1337 combo I invented at the time was enchanting a Sabre Ants with Bravado, while getting Pandemonium out. Just shock it and BOOM! Infinite damage and an arbitrarily large creature. I used Bull Whip to force opposing creatures to attack into my Ants if I didn't have Pandemonium out or couldn't find a Shock.

I then proceeded to play a horrible home-cooked prison-like build using Noetic Scales and Megrim. Again, pretty decent in a creature heavy  environment.

My first competitive deck was a T2 Black/Red 'Burning' Bridges' deck based around Ensnaring Bridge, Grafted Skullcap (favorite card ever) and some recurring Hammer-like Zombie whose name slipped my mind. After that, I netdecked various T2 builds, pwnt a couple of local tourneys, got bored, and started playing T1 where I could at least use the Hymns that my Noetic Scales deck owed so much to, again

[WildWillieWonderboy]

I always made the kitchen sink decks, probably because I started playing at age 7 or so. I just played very casual magic with my dad and his co-workers, just using shitty unlimited cards mostly and it didn't occur to me until several years later that decks can have more than one color. I didn't play magic during eighth grade (because Masques block sucked). I didn't play real magic until odyssey block came out, because that's when I learned to draft. Then I learned several fundamental rules of magic: any magazine blows cock and has no clue what it's talking about, netdecking is necessary in standard and a couple years later that it doesn't matter because type one is better than anything else.

[Nibble]

Oh boy. I remember (somewhat) the first deck I ever brought to a tournament. Must have been at least 90 cards of completely random junk, and I got schooled pretty hard. As I recall, it ran at least one Scaled Wurm, a Nacre Talisman or something, and at least five Counterspells. (There was no pre-match deck checking or anything. Small, pretty casual environment.) After a couple matches vs. more experienced players, they were kind enough to give me a few tips (I remember one guy asked to take a look at my deck, and upon seeing the Talisman, basically tossed it aside and said, 'Nobody plays with these.').

Eventually I started to get a bit better, and through trading and buying we put together a decent amount of playable 1.5 cards - most notably, a large amount of dual lands. One of the last couple decks I remember playing in our little tourneys all the time was a decent U/W control that ran plenty of counters, a WoG or two, and the savage Spellbook/Whispers of the Muse/Gerrard's Wisdom combo. Win condition was Rainbow Efreet or Kjeldoran Outpost, with a Coat of Arms for the occasional giant Soldier beats.

The other deck I had built and really loved was 5C Slivers. Manabase was something like, duals duals duals, 4x Reflecting Pool 4x City of Brass 4x Gemstone Mine. Ran the obligatory Sliver Queen/Heartstone/Ashnod's Altar, which I think I got to work like once. Crystalline Sliver was the star of the deck, and everyone in our little meta used to groan when he'd hit the table, cause he's just so annoying. I also ran Muscle, Victual, Acidic, Hibernation, Winged, Clot, and possibly Talon. (I stopped playing around Legacy, so no Legions Slivers existed yet.) My only non-Sliver, non-land cards were like, two Disks and an StP or two. I still love this deck, despite its complete badness. It's funny, too, because I brought it to school here last year, and we'd play multiplayer games, and everyone would complain how the land I'd have on the table by like turn 4 was worth more than their decks combined. And I was using those lands to cast Slivers.

My dad also played, and he had a pretty solid deck that he played, pretty much without change, for as long as I can remember. The list is something like:

4x Tropical Island
4x Volcanic Island
4x Taiga
4x City of Brass
?x Undiscovered Paradise
maybe another land or two

4x Kird Ape
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chain Lightning

4x Counterspell
4x Arcane Denial
2x Force of Will
4x Serendib Efreet (this was a fairly impressive card to have back in the day)

4x Erhnam Djinn (I swear, he was like the baddest creature around back then. next to like, Juzam, of course, but none of us could afford Juzams)
4x Birds of Paradise

4x Spirit Link (savage combo with Serendib omg)
2-3x Swords to Plowshares
1-2x Wrath of God


Yeah, those were the days.

[BWM]

My first deck was actually some hibernation of what would become sligh after a while...


Mountains
Burn
Big creatures (I only used creatures with power=4 because it was easier to count opponents life-total that way, I didn't figure out yet I could also burn him to 0) It was probably something like:

20 Mountains

3 Shock
4 Seal of Fire
4 Volcanic Hammer
2 Incinerate
4 Arc Lightning
3 random Burnspell

4 Viashino Warrior
2 Craven Giant
4 Lightning Elemental
2 Flowstone Overseer
3 Flowstone Crusher
1 Ancient Hydra (stupid 4-power-rule)

after a while all the creatures and burn became cheaper and more efficient...

[LotusHead]

I started playing magic during the last week that Unlimited was avaliable (I had a Berzerk, for those who want to know...)

My first deck I built, with the idea of "My deck should work no matter what I am playing agianst" was W/B Weenie

2 Stone Throwing Devils
2 Tundra Wolves
2 Black Knight
2 White Knight
2 Unholy Strength
1 El Hejaz (the 2B 1/1 Spirit Link Guy) Tech!
1 lucky Lord of the Pits
2 Demonic Hordes (PWNED!)
4 Dark Rituials
2 Pestilence
2 Circle of Protection: Black (combo!)
2 Winter Orb (Circle of Protection tech!)
3 Icy Manipulator (Obviously!)
4 Swords to Plowshares (W: Remove Threat from the Game, Opponent gains an insignifigant amount of life, heh.)
Swamps and Dual Lands, etc
Duh: 4 Mishra's Factories (Beats!)
4 Strip Mines ()

B/W Weenie,!

[Trollstorm]

some recurring Hammer-like Zombie

pyre zombie. I used to use that card in a deck, but I can't rememeber which now, exactly. After the Invasion block was where I stopped making my own decks, because in invasion, you just picked your favorite 2-4 colors and put the good rares in. Seriously, my BUG deck was like:

4x Undermine
3x Counterspell
3x Mystic Snake
4x Spiritmonger
4x Pernicious Deed
4x Shadowmage Infiltrator
4x Birds of Paradise
3x Fact or Fiction
3x Kavu Titan (??)
(other nonsense.)


then oddyssey onward I just netdecked.

[Sagath]

I actually discuss this topic all the time between a few friends. I recently moved from Ontario, where T1 is pritty proliferant (sp?) to Edmonton, where about 3 guys have T1 stuff. I went to the CoK prerelease, and had all my T1 stuff with me ( I was judging, so my stuff was secure, otherwise I never bring T1 to prereleases, too much theft) and didnt have any decks built at the time. Needless to say, betwen bomb T1 foils, and other various  classics (workshops, bazaars, beta power, drains etc) I was the highlight of the prerelease.

They flip out when you start flashing T1 cards everywhere. Hell, my trade binder goes back to Beta, and everyone just mires over it, flipping though saying things like "I can't afford most of this stuff." My binder isn't even impressive by Vintage standards but it's the most amazing thing T2 players have ever seen.

They'd look at my binder and be like "Oh, I have nothing you'd want." It was like they were afraid to trade with me because they were afraid I might laugh at their collection or something.

Thats pritty much it to the tee. I traded so much stuff that day, from extra dual lands, all the way to 1.5 stuff, and I even traded away an extra mana drain I had to some kid who was the most extactic EVER. The trading rocked, but I so had to work to even get most people to show me their stuff because they seemed intimidated by the binder.

I think next time I'll remove the big name stuff, and just leave what I'm actually willing to trade towards more recentish stuff. Plus I'm tired of hearing the running joke of something to the effect of "Hey! would you take 4 Ravagers for your Lotus?!? hahaha" That gets REAL old REAL fast...

[Robert the Swordsman]

Way back around third grade or so, I remember seeing a kid on the schoolbus with a few Forests in his hand. I inquired as to what they were, and he replied that is was a "cool card game".

Later that year, at summer camp, I learned how to play Magic from some of the older kids there. They all had very similar black decks, and I remember that the first card I ever cast was a Fourth Edition Bog Wraith (I keep a Beta one in the back of my binder to remind myself).

Camp got out and me and my brother bought on of those cool Fourth Edition two-deck sets that came with the glass beads and the neat leather pouch. This was roughly a week before Alliances came out. I eventually ended up with a gigantic U/G deck, toting the likes of Force of Nature (he was my main win condition for the next six years), Deep Spawn, Polar Kraken (omg 11/11!!1), Hungry Mist, Deadly Insect, and I the only card I had four of was Fog, which is what most people knew me for.

When highschool started for me, I met a guy in my Latin class who said he and some people get together at Borders Books on Sunday nights and play. I showed up a few times and had decided to make a new deck at that point, a R/W deck, and it included the first thing in Magic that I had ever put thought into: Dwarven Warrior + Soldevi Simulacrum. I got smoked all over the place, but at least I got to see what was out there.

After roughly a year of getting massacred at Borders in twelve-player group games and such, one of the guys who used to go with us opened a store near where I lived called "The Gathering" (yeah, the Cape store). The first time I ever spent money on a deck was when I decided to make a mono-green deck had Living Lands, Winter Orb, and Vitalize. I thought it was such a cool combo until I realized that it really was a one-shot thing, and even still, wasn't too good. I replaced the Winter Orb with Overrun, and eventually it became: turn four, play Living Lands, turn six, Overrun + Vitalize, attack for twenty-four. It won me a few games here and there.

Still, I was getting better. This was right about the time Onslaught came out. I went from Mono-G to Booby Trap, then to a Yawgmoth's Bargain + Ivory Tower deck with Channel + Fireball for the win, that was the first deck I won a few tournaments with. From there to Mono-G LD (I bought the Ice Storms from the shop for about $10 each, the decklist was actually pretty cool), to a U/B/R Underworld Dreams deck (I bought the Dreams for $40 each two weeks before they announced it'd be reprinted in Eighth, I later sold them for about $6 each), to the Politics deck that I played for some time (the first deck I went to a Power tournament with), to For the Glory (which did real well for me at Waterbury, that was still like the best day of my life because it was such a friggin' cool deck), to the W/B deck I'd played for nine months, and now to a deck I'm not going to talk about except that it runs good cards like Mana Drain.

Memories, indeed.

[Mixing Mike]

Well, I actually started as a pokemon player, because my cousin got me into it.  When I was a Sophmore in high school, I heard about this 'World Games Club' that one of the teachers ran after school.  I had actually had him as my Spanish teacher the year before.  I show up and see one of my best friends from orchestra (he was the other bassest so we were very good friends), and a whole bunch of guys I already knew.  They were all playing Magic.  I stuck out like a sore thumb, and joined the bandwagon.  We eventually weeded out all the scrubs and made Team Underground out of our group of 6.  One of us quit senior year, but the other 5 have remained strong.

We got our name from this contractual issue the teachers were having with the school board.  No after school fun activities.  It was my senoir year, and I wanted to play magic after school damnit!  So I got the teacher to hold a few 'underground' meetings after school.  After that, the name just kinda stuck.

Wow, sophmore year.  That's 3 years now.  Sure doesn't feel like it.

[Royal Ass.]

I still keep the Revised Rule book and the Ice Age rull book that came with the starter packs in my ultra pro.  People always get a kick out of them.  If you still have these things, i suggest flipping through one, its a trip.

The other day there were some kids sitting around playing magic during a type one tournament.  I went up and asked if they had any dual lands to trade.  They all gave me a dumb look and asked what they where....

I still have this really old cardboard box that I kept all my cards in from when I first started playing.  I would always draw on it with a sharpie.  One time i drew all the expansion symbols that existed at the time on the side of the box.  The most current expansion symbol is fallen empires.

Check out the "Remember When..." thread in this forum for more nostalgia.

[Nibble]

I still keep the Revised Rule book and the Ice Age rull book that came with the starter packs in my ultra pro.  People always get a kick out of them.  If you still have these things, i suggest flipping through one, its a trip.

Remember how any effect in a stack that produced damage always resolved last? Why did that rule even exist, anyway?

I also really loved reading their example matches. I think some guy's most savage play was like, second turn Swamp, Ritual, Scathe Zombies. Oh boy.

[Bardo]

I remember bringing an awful blue deck to the first tourney I went to. This was right at the time when Fallen Empires (right after The Dark) was in the store. So it must have been early-1994 or so.

"BardoHeap"
Spring 1994

4 Mahamoti Djinn
4 Vesuvan Doppelganger
2 Air Elemental
2 [card]Zephyr Falcon[/card]
1 [card]Azure Drake[/card] (!!)
1 [card]Ghost Ship[/card]
1 Serendib Efreet
1 Flying Men
1 Wall of Air

4 Control Magic
2 Psionic Blast

4 Counterspell
4 Remove Soul
2 Power Sink

1 Braingeyser
1 Copy Artifact
1 Feldon's Cane
1 Ivory Tower

1 Stasis (huh...)

19 Islands
1 [card]Tolaria[/card]
1 [card]Svyelunite Temple[/card]
1 [card]Sand Silos[/card]
1 Sol Ring

(Note: I don't remember what else was in this forgotten gem. Maybe a [card]Sunken City[/card], [card]Puppet Master[/card], or the all-powerful [card]Blue Mana Battery[/card].)

Apparently I liked Vesuvan Doppelganger and I was seduced by the bling-factor of Azure Drake. Who could resist? I'm not sure what that lone Stasis was doing in there. Maybe I was just trying to set up the deadly Zephyr Falcon/Stasis death-lock. My only draw spell: 1 Braingeyser. The only good thing I can say about: no one, other than me, in the history of universe, has created a deck with this exact list. Thank god for that.

I remember getting my ass kicked and by no less than a Meekstone/Dragon Whelp deck in that tournament. And I thought it was tuned to perfection.

[Trollstorm]

I still keep the Revised Rule book and the Ice Age rull book that came with the starter packs in my ultra pro.  People always get a kick out of them.  If you still have these things, i suggest flipping through one, its a trip.

Remember how any effect in a stack that produced damage always resolved last? Why did that rule even exist, anyway?

I also really loved reading their example matches. I think some guy's most savage play was like, second turn Swamp, Ritual, Scathe Zombies. Oh boy.

I have this beta rulebook I keep around. lemme find it. Oh, man... remember when you could float mana through your combat? Crazy times.

[Revvik]

my first time playing was around the Tempest Block, although Meijers carried everything back to the Dark at the time (Battle Creek is a horrible environment for gaming).

I ran slivers.  They were the hotness.  And when I noticed an Elf deck repeatedly winning in our little school tournaments, yeah - I did the only thing a lil' bastard can do, and board in Engineered Plague  

Hooray for being a kid.

[Arkeld]

Ah, nostalgia...

Started playing at university, must have been 1994. I picked up tons of cards back then, including my first set of power (parts of which I then sold a few years later only to buy them again, then upgrade to beta). But was I playing killer decks with those? Nah, course not. My favourite deck at the time was a 120 card monstrosity that managed to (reliably) cast all 5 Elder Dragon Legends. Many an evening was spent playing hilarious multiplayer games with that deck.

My first "tournament" deck, meaning the first deck I played at a tourney was a R/G thing with some very weird beaters like Two-Headed Giant, AErathi Berserker etc to complement the more reasonable Kird Apes etc. It did surprisingly well.

I moved on to a more competitive Zoo deck (Serendib Efreet, Kird Apes, Ernhams) and then to B/W Necro. Those were the days indeed.

As for the trade binder issue, yeah, I can relate. When you have a Lotus, a few moxen and drains in there, people kinda assume that you own every card under the sky.

And yeah, I do giggle at times when the kids in my local shop take out their "Type 1" decks. I stopped taking my 4CC along btw, it's just no fun (plus I'm a bit paranoid considering the value). I do have a powered FCG on me most of the time though, just for laughs. If I get around to it I'll make Bazaar Madness too.

[Ender]

The first few packs I bought was around stronghold where I bought multiple packs of stronghold, ice age, whatever. I still remember the first rare I pulled, sliver queen. My friends tried to teach me how to play but then one of them says "lethal damage is toughness + 1", it sort of discourages you.

My first deck was just WW with splash of red for burn just because I had the most red and white cards. My first tourney was at Forbidden Planet during an extended tournament. I played a red/green tribal beast deck mostly with onslaught block cards cause I bought a box of it. I remember beaten this Rock deck only because he had no removal outside of deed and my guys just never died. I lost very quickly to RDW in round 2 though =[

[MTG_Djinn]

Who dont remember the first deck?? The good old days.

I played B/U (with combo)

4x Netling Imp (make it come over)
4x Sorceress Queen (make ik 0/2)
4x Sengir Vampire (Free boost)

4x Icy Manipulator (tap)
4x Royal Assassin (kill)

4x Force of Will
4x Counterspell

4x Will-O-the-Wisp (Bite me)
4x Mahamoti Djinn (im bigger then you)

And some other stuff that could be used, but what were the basic deck.

-MTG_Djinn

[SimpleHiker]

My first type 1 tourney took place just after dark was released. I did play the hard core combo eleetness of gravity sphere + Island sanctuary!!!!
The goal was to protect my self then run the opponent out of cards... too sweet. I actually won two matches. I remember loosing to a monoblack land destruction / abyss deck.

The guy who won the event was playing WW with wrath of god and Jade statue... You just couldn't recover with that jade statue cracking your head open after loosing your creatues.

Other great decks I remember running were Lim-Dul's Vault + Mirror Universe and the most anoying deck ever... counter burn with force of wills, counterspells and Hammer of Bogardan.

SH