Magic Time Capsule

[Ephraim]

Suppose that you play Magic casually.  If you're reading here in the casual forum, I imagine that this is the case.  Think about the group of people with whom you most regularly play Magic.  Imagine the kinds of decks that they're playing this month.  Now, imagine the kinds of decks that they were playing two years ago.  Can you?  I bet that you can't, unless they're the sort of person who's been playing the same deck for the entire time.

A year and a half ago, I envisioned the idea of a Magic time capsule.  I took a Mirrodin/Onslaught era Zombie deck, put a sticker on it that said, "Do not open until September, 2007," and tossed it in a drawer.  How interesting is it going to be when, in another six months, I pull out that deck and play it again for the first time?  There will be kids around who've never seen a Wretched Anurid before.  Some people will look at Vicious Hunger and wonder "Why not Douse in Gloom?"  If they hadn't timeshifted Undead Warchief, he might have evoked exclamations of "I remember that guy!"

This is an idea that I think I might try to resurrect.  My initial plan was to put a different deck away every six months, to remain untouched for two years.  I haven't stuck to it, but if I get positive responses this September, maybe I'll give it another go.

Just a brief aside about this idea -- Mirrodin is a treasure trove of cards for capsuling.  Now that artifacts are played somewhat less frequently (Signets notwithstanding), cards like Drooling Ogre actually seem quite good.

[EnialisLiadon]

That's a fantastic idea!  I'd do it, but I have no patience.

[Necrologia]

I did something like that on accident a few years ago. When taking my cards out of storage a while back, I apparently missed a box that I stumbled upon last summer. It had a number of decks that I hadn't seen or played since middle/high school.

It brought back some great memories. At one point I had a friend break out one of his decks from years ago and we ressurected a match up that hadn't seen the light of day in years. It was definitely a blast.

If you can afford to store away cards every so often, I highly recommend it. It was some of the most fun I've ever had playing magic outside of Type 4.

[Twaun007]

Quick background check. I stopped playing mtg when the Dark came out and reemerged when Judgment came out and I totally have an experience that relates to this subject.

Jeff Blystone and I were creating a beast of an astral slide deck and during construction I found an old dusty box in my closet. Well to my knowledge, it was this old Pit Trap, Nettling Imp, Norritt, Sorceress Queen, and Sengir Vampire combo deck that was lost years ago. Holy crap I thought to myself. I pulled it out and took it with me to our mtg testing facility. It was great, all those old cards were completely unknown to everyone there since they just started playing magic. I still have it put together and bust it out every once in awhile. The idea of a MTG time capsule is great as long as you have some dedication to be able to hide a deck for a long time.

-Twaun007 

[LotusHead]

This bad boy is built to this day!

Pre-fourth edition R/G Beats! No Rares, 3 Uncommons! (Sol Ring, Channel, Regroth!)

The 4 Maindeck Tranquilities aint what they used to be (I have 4 REB and 4 Shatter sb now)

[Jacob Orlove]

Hey, I recently constructed a similar all-revised R/G deck:

3 Wild Growth
2 Giant Growth
2 Mons's Goblin Raiders
3 Grizzly Bears
2 Regeneration
2 Shatter
4 Gray Ogre
2 Orcish Artillery
2 Wall of Brambles
2 Tranquility
1 Lure
3 Hill Giant
2 Fire Elemental
2 Craw Wurm
4 Disintegrate
2 Stream of Life
13 Forest
13 Mountain

It's pretty terrible, but it makes for a nice challenge against anything that's totally outmatched by my Skittles deck.

[TestDrive]

I've got several Time Capsule decks: mono-colored decks for each color, designed for Pente play (first to defeat their two opposing colors wins the 5-player match): Revised-only, Fallen Empires-only, Ice-Age Block (pre-Coldsnap), and 4th Edition/Chronicles-only. All the decks work great considering their color/set/block restrictions, and no one color dominates any other in any of these formats (if designed well). Also, they totally bring back memories from when I started playing Magic 12 years ago! It's a blast to play Revised-only Pente and let the new players wow at powerful out-of-print cards being played during every turn. I'm working on some Beta-only decks since I've got complete playsets of Beta commons & uncommons, but I'm hesitant to take Beta lands out of my casual but beautiful T1 decks. I've also got the cards set aside to create Mirage Block, Tempest Block, & Urza Block decks, all of which leads to the thought that Block decks of years past are really great ways to make & keep time capsule decks--you don't just go and add new cards to them on a regular basis (except in the rare case of Ice Age & Coldsnap).

[soundwave42]

I built an affinity deck back during the Mirrodin block that is all commons/uncommons and 2 rares:

//(Creatures)
2 Broodstar
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Somber Hoverguard
4 Steel Wall

//(Instants)
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Shrapnel Blast

//(Sorceries)
4 Thoughtcast

//(Artifacts)
4 Tooth of Chiss-Goria
4 Pyrite Spellbomb

//(Equipment)
4 Bonesplitter

//(Lands)
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Great Furnace
4 Ancient Den
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Islands

I left the game for 2 years then came back This year with Lorwyn.  This was the only deck I had left completely constructed.  I started playing with it in my casual group and its still as good as it ever was for quick fun beats.  The affinity mechanic is still one of my favorites to play.  I don't think I will ever take this deck apart.

[Anusien]

Hey, I recently constructed a similar all-revised R/G deck:

3 Wild Growth
2 Giant Growth
2 Mons's Goblin Raiders
3 Grizzly Bears
2 Regeneration
2 Shatter
4 Gray Ogre
2 Orcish Artillery
2 Wall of Brambles
2 Tranquility
1 Lure
3 Hill Giant
2 Fire Elemental
2 Craw Wurm
4 Disintegrate
2 Stream of Life
13 Forest
13 Mountain

It's pretty terrible, but it makes for a nice challenge against anything that's totally outmatched by my Skittles deck.

Any proper time capsule deck should only be running 20 lands since that's all we knew to run back in the day.  It's a third of your deck!

[EnialisLiadon]

I've always had this obsession with both even numbers and symmetry.  And I used to think that making decks with even numbers of lands, creatures and spells was ideal.  And if it was a two color deck, then it should be symmetical.  Doing so would some how make the deck better.

So my first deck that utilized these breakthrough theories in deck design was a u/r merfolk-golin deck.  10 goblins, 10 merfolk, 10 counters, 10 burn spells, 10 mountains, 10 islands.

2x Benthic Explorers
2x Coral Merfolk
2x Lord of Atlantis
2x Merfolk of the Pearl Trident
2x Merfolk Seer
2x Goblin King
2x Goblin Mutant
2x Goblin Spelunkers
2x Kyren Sniper
2x Mon's Goblin Raiders

3x Counterspell
1x Dismiss
2x Mana Leak
2x Power Sink
2x Rewind
1x Disintegrate
1x Fireball
1x Kaervek's Torch
2x Lightning Blast
3x Lightning Bolt
2x Incinerate

10x Island
10x Mountain

It hardly ever lost a single game.

But that's mostly because I was the best among noobs.