What is your all time favorite memory of playing VIntage Magic the Gathering?

[forests failed you]

Well, what is it...?

[SpencerForHire]

I would have to say when Trinistax first arrived on the seen and I got paired against it in the T4 of a Timetwister tourney.  I was all affraid of him beating the living hell out of me, then I proceeded to go 2-0 against him.

[Komatteru]

I think mine is that one time before Gencon last year when Mark Biller was looking for anti-Fish tech for Slaver.  He picked up the Magic Encyclopedia and found Juntu Stakes.  He then asked the store owner Brandon how much it was.  When Brandon replied $3, Mark said "That's too much.  I don't want it.  Juntu Stakes was good until it was $3."  Mark then paid $15 each for Old Man of the Sea at Gencon.

I saw one in the dollar box the other day and it made me smile.  Such memories...

[Klep]

I have a lot of great moments, but one of my favorites was back at Origins a couple years ago when I first met people.  I somehow ended up figuring out who Rich Shay was, and we sat down to play a couple games.  Me with Reaplace, him with extended Rats (and as this was before Kamigawa, I obv. mean Relentless Rats.  Despite my opponent having a bajillion black permanents, I still got annihilated.  This probably had something to do with the fact that i had 5 or 6 dead cards in the main as well as my opponents' black permanents being 6/6 men.  Nevertheless, it was absolutely hilarious.  In fact, that entire time was hilarious.  Origins++.

[BigMac]

My fondest memory comes from a time long long ago. Once upon a time (some 10 or 11 years ago, just after fallen empires release) i was playing a tournament in my then hometown. Back then i was still a student and we had a savage group of players playing 5 nights a week at least. (some 20+ people every night) Back then critters were the way to kill your opponent and back then a hypnotic specter was a very key critter. It was the second tournament i went all the way to the finals and got to play somebody i had never seen before nor heard of. I was playing some red black blue concoction as i wanted to play with Gwendlyn di Corci, my other creatures were tetsuo umezawa and four hypnotic specters. I also played some stripeffects (stripmine was not yet restricted) as well as bolts, hymns and sinkholes next to a black vise and some racks. To complement the damage i had some psionic blasts in there. Not such a good deck by our standards now, but back then it rocked. During the day i narrowly escaped once as my gwendlyn saved me against a horde of erg raiders. Then the final. My opponent was playing mono black and could start the last and final game.

He opened with swamp ritual hypnotic specter, which at that time was a savagely good play. Then i heard a friend of mine say: 'Marco can do better, he can i know he can'.
I looked at my savage hand and played stripmine, strip his swamp. Mox ruby, bold his specter. Black lotus and play my own specter. All he could do was play a swamp on the next turn as my draw was the rack. So i attack and rip a card. After that he manages to get down a black night but he never recovers from the five damage i do each turn as my hippy strikes for 2 and his empty hand gets hit for three with the rack. Bu the memory of my friend Arjan saying i could do better actually is my fondest memory, together with the owing and awing when i played my answer to his hippy.

[Outlaw]

Hopping into a car with  Kowal one day which then lead to us meeting Brassman which then meant us going to Richmond.  Staying at Sliverking's house after a massive 18 hour drive of hilarious fun.  Hanging with Marc Perez (a guy I use to joke about hanging out with when I was a beginner at magic).  Then taking 2nd on top of everything good that happend at Richmond.  My teammate Probasco was wicked happy that one of us made it, and it made me feel great inside. 

[Smmenen]

SCG Richmond II.  Half my team made top 8 with my deck.  Bushman beat Perez in Mac and Cheese Contest.  Ninjas.  Me with Shotgun. 

[Saucemaster]

SCG Richmond II.  Half my team made top 8 with my deck.  Bushman beat Perez in Mac and Cheese Contest.  Ninjas.  Me with Shotgun. 

Haha, I think that's mine, too.  Though I do have some really good memories of casual play back when I first started.

[dandan]

I remember beating a cocky SOAB in a local store final, then had him whine about how I was so lucky for ages. (I AM lucky, lady luck does not merely favour me, she positively kneels before me and unzips and .... ) I was playing old style Prison (complete with WOrb, Kismet and Icys) and he was playing Control with Abyss and Jade Statues/Factories for the win. Now most reasonable people would say that a mana denial deck is pretty strong against a control deck that needed mana merely to attack but this jerk bitched about how his deck was better than mine and how he would beat me easily in a rematch, etc.

Anyway I'll drink with anyone and lots of us from the store went across the road to the pub for a few beers (or ciders in my case). This guy went too (to be fair he wasn't as bad once he had downed a few) and as we both had our decks we played. I can't remember how many rounds of beers we had or how many games we played but I remember he lost every game. The beers seemed to shed the scales from his eyes and he seemed to appreciate that his deck ran better when it had mana.

My then girlfriend gave me 2 boxes of Visions for my stag party, thinking that I'd not be interested in any strippers or drinking too much with the option of opening packs, playing sealed deck, draft and the constructed. She knows me well.

I remember casting Channel, Fireball against someone with a COP Red and free mana once. If you are going to be dumb be really dumb.

Everyone played bad Type I decks back then, not just me.

[rvs]

Meeting Shock_wave (RichardM), both him coming over to Europe and going to Worlds Berlin with us, and we coming over to Canuckland and going to Gencon the year after that and meeting a ton of cool people.

[everythingitouchdies]

I would have to say Mulling to three against FFY in the semi finals of the windsor time walk tourney in summer 04, and then those three cards being bazaar, squee, squee. That was fucking bad ass.

[Eddie]

The best memory I have is my first T8 tournament. I played an RG deck with channel-fireball the day before channel got banned. I made it quickly on the train after I had 30 minutes of sleep due to a party the night before. The deck featured Kird Apes, and ghazban orgres and Craw Wurm. I lost to a berserked ball lightning, won against my friend after his cop-red saw a tranquility so I could use my channel, draw with a specter-rack deck and lost from a timetwister - black vise deck. If only I played my UWr-control deck without creatures. Drain into control magic is such tech!

[Bram]

Community-wise: Meeting and having fun with TMD'ers (esp. Jacob, Smmenen, Toad, Shock_wave, Womprax, Dozer, Britanny in no particular order). Also: the French Open T1 in Paris deserves a mention, thanks to both Toad and Brit.

Play-wise, positive: Playing Tinker.dec in Eindhoven for the first time, I couldn't borrow the lone Jester's Cap that I wanted in the main, so I randomly moved one Eon Hub from the board to the maindeck before handing in my decklist. Round one, I get paired against Oath. He starts and plays Mox, Orchard, Oath and passes. I go Land, Lotus, Mana Vault, and Transmute Artifact into Eon Hub. I will always remember the look on his face when first he read Transmute, and then Hub

Play-wise, negative: playing Nether Void in Castricum, casting Hymn to Tourach on my opponent in game one, turn one, and he randomly discards TWO Dodecapods...

[Jacob Orlove]

Community-wise, meeting people in Europe (Toad, Bram, rvs, Pyromaniac, Marco, Britanny, etc, again in no particular order) slightly edges out the awesome parties at the Reynolds mansion.

Play-wise, I'm not even sure. Hardcasting that turn 1 Pristine Angel was awesome, as was winning a torn lotus with WTF (that was also the first time I met many TMDers, which was awesome even though the event was so poorly run).

Winning my first actual tournament round ever was nice too (TnT, beating cooberp's enchantress). I won all my matches against people not named Jarad that day, but unfortunately he 4-0'd me in games (loss in the swiss, and in T4). Apparently Rector/Bargain is pretty good against TnT when I have no SB answers.

The weekend where Samite and I split for first at two events was also hot.

Oh, and there's a special category for each and every Waterbury I've been to: my first one where I went 2-3, the one where I barely missed T8 with welder mud, despite beating Long like three times, the january one where I made top 8 with GPR2, the one where I barely missed T16 with WTF, the one where I played Meandeck Tendrils, and the latest one, where I judged. Waterbury is awesome.

[Dante]

From a in-game standpoint - at one of the Crazycon's in Chicago, I was playing Dragon.  Not only did I get to mull to 4 and win (Bazaar, Dragon, Ancestral, Sapphire or something like that), TWICE I got to hardcast the dragon for the win.

From a community perspective, Gencon 2004.  I originally made plans to room with a bunch of guys from Minnesota, but then that all fell through and they had arranged to room the Canadians (Shockwave, Dicemanx, and Razor) and the Dutch guys (rvs, Pyromaniac, and Ancestral).  Never having met them and they didn't have cell phones, I had no idea when they would even show up, if they would show up, etc.  Turned out to be a ton of fun.  In addition, I got to lucksack/copy Peter's sideboard for Dragon, which was a monster vs all the 4cc decks that year and despite being the "least-good" player in our rooms, I managed the best finish at 9th in the main event...

[Matt]

When I played Foxfire on PsychoCid's Fog Elemental. Or the seventh time I cast Skyshroud Claim in a single game.

[Pyromaniac]

Community-wise: Well, there have been lots of special events etc, but the best must've been Gencon&t3h Canandians

Play-wise, positive: playing keeper in a tournament and going round 1, turn 1 Mind Twist for 6, not even knowing what my opponent played. MISE!!

Also, in a German event, I was playing Grim/PA (Power Artifact) in a control deck, and after getting Grim on the table, I played a Timetwister and remember I was thinking "If I draw Lotus, any Mox, PA and a Stroke or Tutor, I win on the spot". I count out my cards, after oppo cuts my deck, start looking at them. I see: Lotus, Mox, 2 lands, Brainstorm, Stroke (now I'm like OMG, this might work!), pick up the 7th card and see it's the PA. Sweet, playing some random combo in a deck is THE nuts

Play-wise, negative: Playing Dragon versus a R/G aggro deck, resolving CotV for 1 on turn 1, which I boarded in, and THEN trying to resolve an Ancestral AND a Sol Ring WTF was I smoking, drinking or whatever?. Even though it's not an excuse, that was the 1st time I EVER played with a Chalice

Other noticables include playing vs WMud, Long.dec and Academy (boring as hell), getting my ass kicked by Killer Bees during one Type 1 event.

[forests failed you]

mine was completing my set of Beta power.  It felt really good.

[everythingitouchdies]

Selling all my power and then whoring myself out to borrow cards to play has been the most fulfilling experience this game has ever provided.

"I'm Mike Long, Bitches!!!!"

[Smmenen]

I don't count Toad as magic moment, but the best thing magic brought me was meeting Toad who gave me a fucking fantastic tour of Paris. 

[nataz]

sitting in my cramped dorm room sophmore year (because I'm too embarassed to admit to the public that I play magic)

Me playing Mono-U fish vs. the original (4 LED, 4 B-WIsh) long deck.

loser of each match took a shot of ever-clear.

going 6-10
score.

[Gabethebabe]

Resultwise: Winning my first mox with monoblue Fish after Long removed three Donates from my opponents deck game 3.

Playwise: tapping 4 to play Gifts, getting Ancestral, Brainstorm, Mystical and Will against a complete dickhead and he gave me Brainstorm and Mystical. In my upkeep I mysticalled for Tinker, drew it, Brainstormed the Colossus that had stranded in my hand back into my library, also revealing the one land I needed to play Tinker for Colossus and the win.

Humor wise: the day I saw player 1 playing UW control with Forbids and a full hand and 2 life and a squee that was recurring against a guy playing the rock. The rock had 0 cards in hand and was recurring Spiritmonger with his Volrath´s Stronghold and playing it directly.
The rock did completely not see that he was in a forbid lock thanks to his opponents squee. That was good. It got even better when the UW player topdecked wasteland, wasted the Volrath´s Stronghold ruining his opponents "combo", who then proceeded to draw Treetop Village to win the match.

[Limbo]

Community wise: The visit to Paris in the beginning of this year. I dropped at the tourney 2-2, but Matt, Lia and Julie made it an unforgettable, awesome long weekend. Thanks again!

Play-wise positive: Top8-ing with Kobold Clamp in the highly competitive Eindhoven tourney. Putting three Auriok Steelshapers in the statistics was quite nice. Beating somebody twice first turn during that tourney was even better

Play-wise negative: Dropping a Mana Drain on the floor during the beginning of round 6 out of 8 at the Vintage Champs in Dutchielands (I was 4-1 at that time). Problem was it was the lower part of a double floor, where first it seemed the Mana Drain dropped directly on the street (which was below the "invisible" lower floor). Searching for the card yielded enough time spend to get a gameloss. I lost that match 2-1, putting me out of reach for T8. The positive side was I got to break open the floor to retreive my Mana Drain

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Road trips to the Eccono Motel at Chicago! Seriously. I would never drive out to Chicago/Indy for just Magic. It's the fun times with the cool people that motivate me to go. We all know nobody parties like CO does! The best Chicago was the third, as Lou, Travis, Jim, and I smoked a FAT blunt and proceeded to walk to White castle, where Lou manhandled 10 burgers. The roadtrips are pretty savage too, except for my nasty gas.

As far as my most memorable game of magic goes, it has to be my T4 match with Philip (moxlotus) at the GenCon pre-lims. Game 3 was by and far the most ridiculous game of magic I have ever played in my life.

-Bob

[CF]

Playing wise it's probably something involving Holistic Wisdom.. or just owning all the Necropotence decks with Replenish back in the day. Can't really remember anything specific that's extra awesome. The only Magic match I remember extremely fondly is a feature match of the 2003 Norwegian nationals where I played Moment's Peace 14 turns in a row and then decked him with Deep Analysis/Mirari. The frustration on my opponents face was quite funny.

Communitywise.. hm, haven't done much of that. I guess playing the Nordic Championships five or so years ago.

--
Chris

[Triple_S]

While you might expect it to be taking second place at the first Vintage championships, my favorite Magic memories are not of the Vintage variety.  I would have to say it is probably a tie between making the semi-finals of Virginia State Championships in '03 and making my first PTQ top 8 during the last season of 1.x with dual lands.  I was playing what is still my all time favorite deck that season (ThreeDeuce) and didn't expect to do well at all.  I only lost 4 games that day, and they were all to non-basic hosers (Ruination and Back to Basics).

In VA States I was able to play my favorite standard archtype (MBC) and I ran 4 of my all time favorite card in my sideboard (Underworld Dreams).  In the final round before being able to draw into the t8 I played against B/W control.  After winning game 1 off the strength of a 9/9 Demon token, I took game 2 with turn 3 and 4 Underworld Dreams when my opponent had sided out any possible way to destroy enchantments.

[Eddie]

Beating Bram with Black Sui and reading his signature afterwards stating that God must be Black...

[Bram]

Hahaha, yeah, that was awesome

[Meddling Mike]

I'd say alot of my fondest magic memories come from just chilling at the now closed down local magic store back in my "scrub days", playing games of Emperor and such with my first "coherent deck" (In that it was in no way competitive, but was more organized than the random pile of cards I had been playing with) based around pingers, meekstone and powerstone minefield.

As far as specific moments, I'd have to say the last SCG Rochester (Shooting Stars). I got to meet Brad Granbury AKA Rico Suave and between myself, Brad and Rich we came home with 4 pieces of power that weekend.

[Windfall]

Hmmmmm... I'll give you three guesses =)