Magic circa 1995

[zeus-online]

Actually, you could respond to (sorceries,) instants and abilities with instants, abilities or interrupts.  You could only respond to an interrupt with another interrupt which mean no tapping LoA to win a counter war.

And oh boy is that annoying when playing the old Shandalar pc game

/Zeus

[Anusien]

Actually, you could respond to (sorceries,) instants and abilities with instants, abilities or interrupts.  You could only respond to an interrupt with another interrupt which mean no tapping LoA to win a counter war.

And oh boy is that annoying when playing the old Shandalar pc game

/Zeus

You basically had to figure out on their upkeep whether it was worth casting Ancestral and risking having to discard on your turn.  So very obnoxious...

[zeus-online]

Yeah well, i kinda forget it more then half the time, being used to 6th ed. rules

But generally speaking, just drawing the cards is the right move.

/Zeus

[Mr. Nightmare]

Why did you ever need a second turn in Shandalar?  You can play unlimited Black Vise, Lotus, Twister, etc.

Although in my current game, I've been enjoying my Khabal Ghoul/Reanimator deck.  It still wins turn 2 though.  Stupid Summoning Sickness.

[GrandpaBelcher]

This got brought up in the "Funny Old Cards Written Text" thread:  Does anyone still play the Microprose Magic game regularly?  It's available for free at the Underdogs (here), where it's a member of the "Hall of Belated Fame" and a "Top Dog."

Lately I've been rocking what I call "PaleoStax," the deck that Stax would have been in 1995 had anyone known what Stax was.

4x Triskelion
4x Juggernaut
4x Icy Manipulator
4x Winter Orb
4x Ankh of Mishra
3x Transmute Artifact
1x Black Vise
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Time Twister
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt
1x Black Lotus
5x Moxen
1x Library of Alexandria
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Mishra's Workshop
4x Desert
4x Strip Mine
4x Volcanic Island
And three other cards I'm not remembering right now...

I've also made PaleoFish in UW, UR, and UB varieties; PaleoDragon, which animates Shivan Dragon instead of Worldgorger; and PaleoIchorid, which is terrible but uses Khabal Ghouls and Nether Spirits.  Most of my decks are Vintage legal except for 4x Strip Mines (which would  be Wastelands in real life, I figure), but since there are no 4-card or 1-card restrictions besides the ones you'd put on yourself, it's easy to put together decks that win on the first turn.  You even have unrestricted access to Contract From Below.

It's still fun to waste time on when there's nothing else to do, and it makes you feel so smart when you completely trounce the computer because it's not very good at Magic.

[Mr. Nightmare]

My current builds are approximately (Not on this computer):

Reanimator:
4x Animate Dead
3x Serra Angel
2x Mahamoti Djinn
2x Colossus of Sardia

4x Khabal ghoul
4x Black Vise

4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Contract from Below

Xx a bunch of other random broken cards


"Combo"
15x Contract from Below
15x Dark Ritual
Xx Black Lotus, Moxen, etc.
3x Timetwister
6x Jeweled Bird (SO important when you play this deck, since Contract can Ante your win conditions)
5x Black Vise
2x Drain Life
1x Braingeyser
2x Ancestral Recall

The game is almost not fun anymore once you get to the point of having crazy turn 1 wins.  I beat the end guy on the hardest settings with the combo deck, I had to recur Drain Life like 100 times since you can't float more than like 25 mana without the game crashing.  In the past, I've built these decks, too.

Shop Aggro:
6x Mishra's Workshop
10x Juggernaut
10x Triskelion
Broken Mana and Contract from Below

ZOO!
10x Kird Ape
10x Elvish Archers
10x Lightning Bolt
10x Aspect of the Wolf
4x Berserk
4x Fastbond
Duals
Artifact Manas
Wheel of Fortunes

Keeper is always good times to make.  Moat is absolutely busted in Shandalar.

[GrandpaBelcher]

My "Combo" is this:

4x Black Vise, Mana Vault, Sol Ring, Wheel of Fortune, Timetwister, Ancestral Recall, Mishra's Workshop, Braingeyser, Black Lotus, Mox Ruby, Mox Sapphire, Volcanic Island, Howling Mine, Island, Mountain

Black Vise is the best win in the game because the computer will play stupidly to avoid damage from it (e.g. casting Holy Strength on your creatures).

@FFY - I don't know the B&R lists from back then, so maybe.  I'm going based on now.  And like I said, the game imposes no restrictions itself.

[Mr. Nightmare]

As in every Shandalar thread, I must discuss the "Glitch" in this thread, too.

Put stops in your opponent's upkeep.  If they ever cast a turn 1 Mana Vault, you win.  You can tap it during their upkeep, adding 3 mana to their mana pool, which leads to 4 damage.  They never untap it, so you gurantee yourself like 6-8 damage from the Vault alone, plus the tempo (like it matters) of them not getting it in their deck full of crazy expensive cards.

[President Skroob]

I was so terrible at making decks back when I used to play Shandalar. My decks always ended up green, with the strategy being to survive long enough to find and cast Force of Nature, then win (or lose, of course, if they got an answer).

.. I sometimes like to think I've gotten better since then... Perhaps I will have to try my hand and attend the old skool once again.

[Anusien]

Why would you ever play Stax over Keeper?  Most decks are just dead to Moat, and you get to run ridiculous shit like PARALYZE.  Alright, so I comprised the pure Weissman strategy by overloading on creature removal and favoring Terror and Paralyze over StP because it took too long to swing for 5 a bunch when you STP their huge fliers.

[Nefarias]

As in every Shandalar thread, I must discuss the "Glitch" in this thread, too.

Put stops in your opponent's upkeep.  If they ever cast a turn 1 Mana Vault, you win.  You can tap it during their upkeep, adding 3 mana to their mana pool, which leads to 4 damage.  They never untap it, so you guarantee yourself like 6-8 damage from the Vault alone, plus the tempo (like it matters) of them not getting it in their deck full of crazy expensive cards.

I have an updated version where they fixed that

[Anusien]

I never found it worth the effort to get 20 Lotii in the world mode.

[Jacob Orlove]

I merged these because the posts were off-topic in the other thread.

[Mr. Nightmare]

I never found it worth the effort to get 20 Lotii in the world mode.

20 is definately overdoing it.  You really only need like 5 to go nuts, but for all intents and purposes, you can use Dark Ritual.  Ritual is actually better, since you can buy them at the Bazaars.

[zeus-online]

I usually keep to the old restrict list....so my current decks are:

Shop-Aggro
Mana: (25)
4 City of brass
4 Mishra's workshop
4 Strip mine
3 Underground sea
2 Scrubland
1 Tundra
7 Solomoxen

Beatz: (12)
4 Juggernaut
4 Su-Chi
4 Triskelion

Removal: (5)
3 Swords to plowshares
2 Disenchant

Draw/Search: (8)
4 Bazaar of baghdad
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of fortune
1 Ancestral recall
1 Demonic tutor

Other brokenness: (10)
4 Animate dead
2 Copy artifact
1 Regrowth
1 Berserk
1 Balance
1 Time walk




Draw, go!
Mana: (28)
20 Island
4 Strip mine
4 Mishra's factory

Critters: (8)
4 Giant tortoise
3 Ghost ship
1 Time elemental

Countermagic: (16)
4 Force spike
4 Spellblast
4 Power sink
4 Counterspell

Board-Control: (8)
4 Boomerang
4 Nevinyrral's disk



Yeah playing with unlimited amounts of power cards is funny.....but after about 5 games of doing a fireball for 40 or so on the first turn, it gets a little boring, you know?

/Zeus

[freakish777]

I never found it worth the effort to get 20 Lotii in the world mode.

20 is definately overdoing it.  You really only need like 5 to go nuts, but for all intents and purposes, you can use Dark Ritual.  Ritual is actually better, since you can buy them at the Bazaars.

Once you find one power card in the game, getting like 10 of it shouldn't be too hard.  You simply run into all the Shapeshifter / Doppelganger guys you can (they're the guys in black armor with blue capes or vice versa, they play with your deck for a mirror match usually, and when you win they offer you the chance to copy any one card in your deck, just do the dungeons for Ancestral, Twister and Lotus, and you can probably run into 20 of these guys before they start running away from you in fear.  They're really easy to beat also, well, basically everything is in that game barring the first 4 guys you run into since you get stuck with some crappy deck is easy to beat).

So yeah, like 5 Lotus, 4 Twister, 5 Ancestral isn't that hard to get.

[Mr. Nightmare]

It isn't hard to get a bunch of power, it's just tedious.  Another trick I learned that's fairly time consuming but effective is to save the game just outside a Swamp area, before going into it.  You can continually enter it, see what they give you, load the game and try again until you get power cards, then save it and find another.  Within an hour or two you can have a retarded amount of power.

[EnialisLiadon]

I made a nigh-unbeatable Stasis deck that smashed Arkazon in an epic (boring) match.

1x Black Vise
1x Feldon's Cane
4x Howling Mine
4x Ivory Tower
4x Boomerang
4x Counterspell
4x Force Spike
3x Remove Soul
4x Reset
4x Stasis
3x Transmute Artifact
4x Unsummon
20x Island

Aggro Shop was also extremely good--the computer could NEVER outrace it.  It was something nutty like...
4 shop, 4 factory, 1 strip, 1 LoA, some duals, solomoxen, mana crypt and vault...4 juggs, 4 su-chis, 4 trikes, winter orbs, a bunch of restricted shit and some removal.

Ubr fish was the first deck I made to beat the campaign or whatever when I redownloaded it.  Hyppies, Old Men of the Sea, Sedge Trolls, sinkholes, counters, removal, and 4 vises.

I also like making nutty decks that only work because the computer is soooo slow.

Sales Tax (as close as I can remember it)
//Mana--30
7x Solomoxen
7x Forest
4x Island
1x Library of Alexandria
4x Mishra's Factory
7x Plains

//Spells--30
4x Ivory Tower
1x Library of Leng
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Timetwister
1x Time Walk
3x Drop of Honey
1x Fastbond
2x Natural Selection
1x Regrowth
2x Sylvan Library
1x Balance
4x Consecrate Land
4x Land Tax
4x Bazaar of Baghdad

This is deck is sooo boring to play!  Just gain life.  Just sit back and draw cards and gain life.  Eventually, you'll have no library--everything will be in play!  So Time Walk.  Regrowth it.  Timetwister.  Time Walk.  Rinse and repeat.  Kill with Vise and/or Consecrated Factories.  Each game takes at least 30 minutes...and sometimes an hour.

I'll post more decks as I remember them.

[OfficeShredder]

I've never played the game before, but it looks cool.  Just a couple questions:

1.) How do you buy cards?  I go into towns, and they have cards for sale, but I can't buy them.
2.) How do you save?

[dandan]

1. Have money. You get money by selling bad cards. You will have lots of these. Of course you can have more fun by selling the good cards and playing with the bad ones (ride that Squire to victory!) but most people don't go that way. The game will also not let you buy cards if you already have a large amount (something like 400). So far I have not noticed an upper limit in real-life but I suspect that it is related to supply of sleeves.

2. I think it is right click whilst not in combat and choose the Save option. There is probably a menu realted way but I can't say I've ever used that. Save often as you occasionally enter a village after combat only to see no options and get a picture freeze. Save after each duel to avoid this.

[OfficeShredder]

1. Have money. You get money by selling bad cards. You will have lots of these. Of course you can have more fun by selling the good cards and playing with the bad ones (ride that Squire to victory!) but most people don't go that way. The game will also not let you buy cards if you already have a large amount (something like 400). So far I have not noticed an upper limit in real-life but I suspect that it is related to supply of sleeves.

I meant, I have 120 gold.  I go into the shop.  I want to buy a plains, which costs 10 gold.  What do I physically do to purchase that plains?  I don't see any obvious way, and have tried right clicking and stuff.

Thanks for the help with saving though

[zeus-online]

Use the "Y" button for "Yes"...yeees? 

/Zeus

[dandan]

Use the "Y" button for "Yes"...yeees? 

/Zeus

Here in Slovakia a Slovak keyboard is basically the same as a regular one but Z is in place of Y (and vica versa). I have to Shift-Alt to change keyboard language but I can be pretty sure that whatever I want, my keyboard will always give me the opposite. The reason I bring this up is that you might have to press a Z is you live in a country that thinks QWERTY should be QWERTZ.

[zeus-online]

Use the "Y" button for "Yes"...yeees? 

/Zeus

Here in Slovakia a Slovak keyboard is basically the same as a regular one but Z is in place of Y (and vica versa). I have to Shift-Alt to change keyboard language but I can be pretty sure that whatever I want, my keyboard will always give me the opposite. The reason I bring this up is that you might have to press a Z is you live in a country that thinks QWERTY should be QWERTZ.

Okay definetly didn't think of that one, Danish keyboards must be pretty much the same as american then....except for the inclusion of å æ ø i suppose.

/Zeus

[Hi-Val]

Any decks posted here that are not running 4 Balance will lose to a deck with 4 Balance in Shandalar unless you're doing something stupid like 20 Lotuses.

Balance was the most absurd card for MANY years.

[zeus-online]

Balance is actually on the restrict list found in the "Read me" so if you're playing it like me, you are only running 1.
(Except that i ignore that strip mine is on the restrict list :lol:)

but yeah balance is the nutz.

/Zeus

Edit: Oh yeah, you can play with Contract from below, which is not on the old restrict list or anything, that card is THE most busted card in all of shandalar.

[OfficeShredder]

Use the "Y" button for "Yes"...yeees? 

/Zeus

Yeah, I googled that and figured it out.  I thought the prices over the cards were supposed to be buttons you press, so I spent a good half hour trying to figure out unique ways of selecting a button

EDIT: Of course, now I feel really retarded because I bought a land tax, and for some reason am unable to get it to trigger in game.  This sucks  :lol:

[dandan]

Use the "Y" button for "Yes"...yeees? 

/Zeus

Yeah, I googled that and figured it out.  I thought the prices over the cards were supposed to be buttons you press, so I spent a good half hour trying to figure out unique ways of selecting a button

EDIT: Of course, now I feel really stupid because I bought a land tax, and for some reason am unable to get it to trigger in game.  This sucks  :lol:

You have to set up a stop in your upkeep and click on Land Tax. You also need to set up a stop (in Draw) for Sylvan Library. Upkeep stop is also needed if you play with Brass Man or against Paralyse. The computer really sucks against Paralyse, B to take out 4 lands is strong.

[President Skroob]

It's odd, because when I used to play this on my old computer I remember what the prompts looked like. Now, for some reason, I don't see them, which isn't so bad when buying cards in towns but at the random places where you can buy cards from the cardlist or trade amulets for them the prompt itself told you the cost of said card, and now it isn't there. Very mysterious.

[Lou]

Tonight was the first time I played this game. Now that it is 730 in the morning, I should probably go to bed for a few hours. How fun is this game though!