Which One Card Changed Your Magic Life The Most?

[netherspirit]

Well, as the title of the thread suggests, this is just a little question out of curiousity - which one card changed your Magic life the most?

For me it was Sinkhole. Now, I'd seen this a few times before I got into Vintage properly, but never actually realised how powerful it was. Once I'd gotten out of the noob stage I realised just how brilliant destroying any land was for 2 mana, my jaw hit the floor when I realised! 

Since then I've been building mana denial decks galore, always with four Sinkholes.

The card changed the way I look at Magic and the way I play it, and has spawned some of my favourite decks ever.

So, what about you?

P.S. Mods, sorry the post isn't hugely long, but there isn't really much else I could write for it.

[zeus-online]

Balance.
I remember reading something about this being the best white card, and i just couldn't see it....i was a noob back then though...however...i went to the local dealer and bought one cheaply, and in our weekly multiplayer game i just wrecked them all with it and was like "wow i get it!" - which lead to me buying some swords to plowshares.

Good ol' times

Other then balance i'd say Morphling...yeah good ol' superman, introduced the whole control thing to me

/Zeus

Edit: I actually love balance so much that i've bought a Judge Foil Balance, eventhough i've hardly used it at all after acquiring it!

[M.Solymossy]

Mindslaver.  The card expresses my need to control all aspects of the game.

[President Skroob]

The card that changed my Magic life the most is Force of Will, but they were not my own.

For a long time, I played only with my cousin and our friends in casual, kitchen-table environments. We mostly played with just the random cards we got in packs and had a lot of fun with it. I chose to leave tournament play and competitive Magic alone simply because that was for "other people."

Well, then my cousin bought a playset of Force of Wills, and proceeded to bust them out on us unsuspecting casualites. At that point it basically started my journey down the road into Vintage Magic, though I took awhile to get there. It began as an attempt to compete with the new power level introduced into our casual environment, but then became a lot more. Once I started busting out the Worldgorger Dragon combo there was just no going back.

And that is how Force of Will completely changed the way I approach and play Magic.

[diopter]

Tinker.

I went through several stages of Magic. For a while, I was reallly intrigued by the "coolness" of Magic - "ooh look creatures! and they have cool abilities! Man, summoning sickness - that totally makes sense!" type thing. As I began to actually learn how to play the game, I dabbled in making decks based around stuff like Squee synergies.

But then, I bought the Tinker deck that Jon Finkel used to win Worlds.

Tinker taught me how to make a broken deck. At the time, I was fixated on stuff like the aforementioned Squee, or Birds of Paradise/Llanowar Elves acceleration based decks, and they could do some pretty neat things. But it all paled in comparison to the sheer and absolute unfairness of the Tinker deck, to be able to make mana in the double digits by turn 2, and to be able to use that mana to cheat 19/19 token generators into play.

I eventaully stopped fooling around with the Tinker deck, but for years after, Extended, with its power level, became my favorite format. I was intimidated at first by Vintage ("Type 1" back then). As Extended reduced in power level due to rotations and bannings, I grew more and more to like Type 1. It's been about two years since I finally broke into Vintage, and I haven't looked back.

[Norm4eva]

The guy who taught me the most about Magic was playtesting a WW deck back in Odyssey Block and I was playing GW n00b Jank, and he breaks out turn 3 Battle Screech flashback followed by Divine Sacrament.  I picked it up and read it and instantly I was convinced that it was the coolest effect in the entire game.  Then they started piling up later on in the game and I watched as his stupid Bird tokens grew to be 4/4s.  I lost that game but I didn't care, I was stunned by the awesomeness of Divine Sacrament.  It amazed the shit out of me. 
Months later after I'd done the FNM thing and found Type 1, I took WW/u to a small local tourney.  Found out what proxies were that day too; pimped my shit out with Plains Ed Tundras and Black Lotus (retrospect - @ 5 proxy tournies, 4 Tundras with a set of fetchlands is stupid.  2 Tundra, 1 Lotus, 1 Recall, 1 Time Walk probably woulda been smarter.  fuck it). That deck would go on to win me a playset of Force of Wills that day.
Much to my dismay, Force of Will and Divine Sacrament didn't work well in the same deck. :(  And the FoWns have won me far more games than the Crusade effects, but I wouldn't have them at all were it not for Divine Sacrament and Armageddon pwning face one day back in '02.  To this day White Weenie is probably my favorite archetype, with or without Crusade effects.

[Parcher]

In an odd way, Abeyance changed my life when it comes to Magic.

I had been a casual player since Beta, that was mostly what went on at my local store. However, the store was full of extremely well-off little kids, that only cared about casual cards, so basically a trader's wet dream. Since I knew only the top cards in Magic, I switched up trades between Magic, L5R, and Star Wars to take advantage of what was hot at the store that week. When my friend and fellow trader, Joel Priest let me know through the grapevine that he wanted every Abeyance I could get my hands on, I was puzzled. I usually whored for Joel there as most store owners didn't want professional traders around.

When he told me he was selling this crap rare from Weatherlight for $12-15 at the latest PTQ, I had to find out why. The subsequent ruling explanation opened my eyes to a whole new world. I had Joel make up a deck for me to play, and never looked back.

[SpencerForHire]

Force of Will.  I use to play in casual tourneys and win.  A shadowmage infiltrator deck that ran Power Sinks and the like.  Then some guy showed up and started playing Keeper in the tourneys.  The second I saw FoW I bought 4 on Ebay..  (I actually started beating the guy when I figured out how keeper worked)   I just got more competitive from there.

[Matt]

Somethign out of Saga - probably Priest of Titania. It was the first card that made me say, "I have to get me some of that!" and made me start playing again after I had quit.

[Fubar]

I'd second balance.  Thereis a definate point when you get out of noob stage and "get it".  Everyone tells you how rankly powerful the card is, but you prob. keep misplaying it over and over. Then one game it clicks. . .

[BigMac]

In a strange way Wheel or Deal. I have been playing magic since 1993 and have been playing my own junk decks for a long time. I also have been taking breaks from the game from time to time. At the time my latest creation was a wheel or deal deck with megrims. When a friend of mine told me a cool new card was printed and that my deck could become really good with it.  It turned out to be tendrils of agony. That deck turned out to become my first TPS creation and i have been hooked on the game competitavely. I even am considering to try and go back to some standard next to vintage now. Basically when i hadn't have played the wheel or deal deck i perhaps never would have started playing TPS.

[pyr0ma5ta]

This thread could use more Chimney Imp.

[Klep]

Counterspell.

From the first time I saw this card, I recognized the power inherent in being able to tell my opponent "no."

I don't play aggro.

[EnialisLiadon]

The card that changed my magic life the most was probably Dark Ritual.  It helped me make sui back in '03, when it was decent.  Then, 3 years later, the same rituals powered out my Tendrils of Agonies.  It took me a while to grasp the concept of tempo--that I had gained two turns over my opponent...and probably more if I had opened with Duress + Hymn (or ritual, ritual, lotus, demonic, will, etc)

That ties with Goblin Welder.  I bought 2 on a whim a long time ago, after hearing about how they were "broken" or something like that.  I noticed how well they combo'd with Sundering Titan and Trike and Pentavus and Mindslaver and Memory Jar and Duplicant....I found out that the Welder was sweet with the big artifacts in my collection.  So I ebayed for some more, added some Careful Studies, Merfolk Looters and Thirst for Knowledges and I was off!  I also added Lightning Greaves and Grinning Totem, just for fun.  Then I built Control Slaver, and I play that quite a bit as well.

[Slack]

I'm going to go with Winter Orb on this one.  It essentially marked my move from Verdant Force + Forests.dec to something a little more useful.  As soon as I saw it I traded for 4 copies and of it and every card with the urza's untap mechanic (except Time Spiral, who needed that bad card...  ).  At the time I mostly played multiplayer.  My winter orb deck quickly made the game me vs. everyone else and I subsequently lost, but it was still fun.

I guess the guys I played with at the time can be glad it was Winter Orb I stumbled across and not Stasis.

edit: Shortly after my first game with the deck the most experienced of us explained what happened when he used Icy Manipulator to tap Winter Orb.   Yes, it was all downhill from there.

[Illissius]

Hmm. I don't recall ever having a major epiphany over "oh! -- so this is how Magic works", it just sort of evolved gradually over time. So there also isn't any specific card I can claim to have "opened my eyes", either. I remember one of my first favorite decks used Elvish Piper to make big Wurms. Survival of the Fittest became my favorite card not long after I found out about it, and has remained such ever since. And for cards I didn't initially realize the power of, the Pox family (Smallpox, Pox, Death Cloud) qualify, for similar reasons as Balance.

I suppose I nominate Survival, for its lasting influence.

[Jacob Orlove]

Way back in 1994, Nightmare taught me to play a deck that had one color, instead of 5. That was awesome until everyone started to run COP: Black. Of course, I was *actually* winning games on the back of Pestilence, but I didn't realize that until much later.

I think it was about 1995 when Island Sanctuary (plus Howling Mine) taught me the power of a good combination of cards, plus the value of a good control deck, and also that creature decks needed more than just creatures, and finally that counterspells were amazing, because if I was holding one counter for every Disenchant in their deck, I won.

[RThomas]

Probably Goblin Piledriver.  I had opened him up in a booster pack and I remember being enthralled at how big he got with the teamwork of other Goblins.  Making a deck around him oriented me towards playing decks like that and prepared me for the world of Magic. 

[Godder]

Rebels gave me a competitive casual and multiplayer deck, but Gaea's Cradle was the catalyst for real deck development, as well as a great love of decks that generated stacks of mana.

[Eddie]

Chaos Orb. When I was 17 or so, I finally saved $60 or something close to buy the card I always dreamed of. A few months later, they banned the darn thing. It didn't take long for me to quit the game after that. But now, here I am...

[The Chosen One]

Stifle- I cant say that it changed my life, but it made me want to play fish in every format I can. A spell for so little that can do so much. Pure gravy

[Roxas]

Red Elemental Blast. Just because.

Oh, and Sundering Titan, because it was largely responsible for my first (and only) SCG top8.

[Keno]

For me it's probably Psychatog. I won my very first tournament with a budget Psychatog deck. I build the deck the night before and simply choosed to play 'Tog because I randomly had 4 laying around somewhere. I fell in love with Psychatog that day. It was my first time I actually started to think about what the hell I was doing and why. The first time I killed with Psychatog I was like "Damn! This card is good!". The second time it was more like "This card is insane!". After just a few games I saw that Psychatog was able to kill my opponent from out of nowhere and that it was often better to just cast 'Tog/Fact or Fiction and go for the throat, then to just cast another Counterspell because thats what control was supposed to do, right? 'Tog also made me count the amount of resources I had to check If 'Tog was potentionally lethal. Not only was it a great feeling to just sit there, checking whether my 'Tog was deadly while my opponent was just sitting, waiting and worrying on the other side, it also tought me to plan ahead and to play for the long game. Finally, 'Tog also gave me the choice of to go all in, or to just attack for 3 every round, making me play around cards the opponent could have in his hand.

All in all, Psychatog was just a great skilltester for me, and has been one of my favorite cards since that 1 Extended tournament.

[freakish777]

Lightning Bolt.

I don't think I need to say anything else.

[Evenpence]

Wrath of God.

I was able to play creatureless decks and win because of it.  My playgroup knew me as the guy who wouldn't play creatures.

I started to play Vintage because I hated creatures so much.

[breed]

Counterspell

The power to say no to each opponent card is so good!

 

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

DRACO WINS PTQ'S FOR ELIAS VAISBERG!

[Komatteru]

Moat.  That card made me want to play Vintage cards ("Type 1" as it was) back in 1997.

[zeus-online]

I started to play Vintage because I hated creatures so much.

Oh i agree Though it has started to change a bit.. i no longer despises creatures as much, just hate good ol' stompy type deck...40 creatures, can you deal with it? If you can i loose...

/Zeus

[49 Cents]

Either Goblin Welder or Metalworker. Back in the days, we had 1 powered deck (with Shops and Workers), and we played that deck against other non-powered decks like Suicide Black and Mono Green aggro. Metalworker was so amazing, because you could throw out a Platz AND a Titan BY TURN 2! It was amazing.

Goblin welder was the creature that got me my first t8 (with 7/10), by activating multiple Jar's in a single turn all day long..