History of TheManaDrain

[Nazdakka]

points to anyone who can remember what the entire meandeck europe comment was about (both the card and the deck).

Vangue memory:

Someone (probably Smemmen) had taken a known deck (Drain Slaver?), cut some random cards, added four Brainstorms, renamed it 'Meandeck Slaver', and started talking about how it was a fundamental redesign of the whole thing.

[Jacob Orlove]

There was also another girl who used to post a lot at that time, It is a shame I cannot remember her nickname, she was playing on budget and always designing pretty nice unpowered decks.

MuzzonoAmi? Those decks were good, except for the budget Oath list that had ESG's for acceleration. Whoops!

Also, Nazdakka, the actual quote:

jpmeyer: oh man you are so reverting to the bd days
jpmeyer: HOLY SHIT
jpmeyer: 1 NEW CARD IN A DECK
jpmeyer: OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
Smmenen: w/e
Smmenen: the deck is functionally different
Smmenen: with brainstorm
Smmenen: it is terrible without it
Smmenen: absolute garbage
Smmenen: so it is a huge advancement
Smmenen: and its all ME

From https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/prstanto/www/tmdquotes.html which is a repository of awesome. Have we mentioned Phil Stanton yet? He did stuff like compile metagame data, save all those irc/aim quotes, etc.

[Godder]

While the supreme overlords have been named already, other admins we've had over the years are Azhrei, Toad, Leviat, Ferrett and me.

I was an admin briefly! For, like, a weekend. The only thing I did though was manually change my postcount and then forget what it originally was so now no one knows.

I remember that we had various temp Admins while Jacob was away at different times - you, Bram and Dante were all Admins at different times. Also, you can see your actual post count by looking at your posts in the control panel - it numbers them.

I heard from Kowal that MuzzonoAmi was a guy, not sure if that bursts bubbles!

[T00L]

MuzzunoAmi is totally a guy I met him at SCG Richmond lol

[LotusHead]

There was a time in TMD history when discussion of Auriok Salvager decks was forbidden on TMD unless somebody put up some results.

Luckily, I put up some results, but that was after a solid 8 months of silence on the topic.  (Yes, the Canadians broke out with their Bomberman builds at a later date, makeing people take the deck seriously).

TMD is much friendlier now.

[TracerBullet]

TMD is much less awesome now.

fixT.




TMD used to be like PsychoCid; he rocked so hard only dogs could hear him.

[Toad]

Wasn't this about Joel Rojo rather than PsychoCid?

[Dr. Sylvan]

SPEAK NOW UNTO THE TMD ORACLE

Have we mentioned Phil Stanton yet? He did stuff like compile metagame data, save all those irc/aim quotes, etc.

"Being white means to engage in a day-in, day-out struggle to prove that you are smarter than other white people." -SWPL

[TracerBullet]

Yet another reason to love the good Dr. Sylvan-

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/prstanto/www/tmdquotes.html


Edit - Shit, how has nobody mentioned Dandan yet?  I think his post on Drop of Honey interactions is my favorite in the history of TMD.

"Imagine: 'Destroy target furry animal.' Only a furry animal can ever be destroyed by this spell. A fish, being a creature without fur (sans fur for those who live in Canada) is not going to be affected EVER. It matters little if the aforementioned furry animal boards a Stealth plane and so cannot be targeted, the fish is safe (barring a crash landing at sea). The fish is never a furry animal. It might evolve into a furry animal but unless it is an Oath mirror match the game should have finished before then. Even sticking little bits of fur on the fish won't work, apart from in casual games."

[Matt]

While the supreme overlords have been named already, other admins we've had over the years are Azhrei, Toad, Leviat, Ferrett and me.

I was an admin briefly! For, like, a weekend. The only thing I did though was manually change my postcount and then forget what it originally was so now no one knows.

I remember that we had various temp Admins while Jacob was away at different times - you, Bram and Dante were all Admins at different times. Also, you can see your actual post count by looking at your posts in the control panel - it numbers them.

I heard from Kowal that MuzzonoAmi was a guy, not sure if that bursts bubbles!

According to the stats page, 8155, then.

[nataz]

Yet another reason to love the good Dr. Sylvan-

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/prstanto/www/tmdquotes.html


Edit - Shit, how has nobody mentioned Dandan yet?  I think his post on Drop of Honey interactions is my favorite in the history of TMD.

"Imagine: 'Destroy target furry animal.' Only a furry animal can ever be destroyed by this spell. A fish, being a creature without fur (sans fur for those who live in Canada) is not going to be affected EVER. It matters little if the aforementioned furry animal boards a Stealth plane and so cannot be targeted, the fish is safe (barring a crash landing at sea). The fish is never a furry animal. It might evolve into a furry animal but unless it is an Oath mirror match the game should have finished before then. Even sticking little bits of fur on the fish won't work, apart from in casual games."

DanDan gave me my fav moment in TMD of all time when he auctioned off his cards for charity when he was leaving the game. I remember thinking that was a really standup thing for him to do, and it reflected well on the populace of TMD. of course there were also people like kowal, who continuously talked about boners and cum dumpsters - so I guess there is sort of a balance.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Oh man, I so miss those old times when I had Vintage tournaments I could play in at a reasonable distance.... Tmd was sweet, the only place ever aside from our team-boards where you could have a meaningful discussion about Vintage. The first time I built a deck that I actually thought was sick was on here, working with Womprax (The Shining, if anybody remembers, shortly before Tendrils became printed and made the deck completely absurd - even though for some reason it never took off before the restriction of BWish killed it).
TMD saw it all - the birth, death and rebirth (as GermBus) of modern Keeper (I won my first Vintage tournament with a slightly modified version of Zherbus' and Azrael's four color, Fetchland and Brainstorm Cunning-Keeper list, C.o.P.:Red and SB Alter Reality tech included), it's renewed death and revitalization through Scepter, GAT and Long, the boom of Vintage, Gifted (and Smmenen stealing our thunder by finding the brokenness of Merchant Scroll and making it known as his deck afterwards ), the stupidity that was unrestricting Gush - though it was a lot of fun, it was also just plain broken. So many sweet memories...

I also met a ton of great people here I wouldn't ever even have heard about without tmd - meeting Toad and Gabethebabe while hitchhiking to Morocco was just the best. Thanks guys!

I think I also have to thank tmd for being close to bilingual in English - I practically spent whole days reading this site in my teens *g*

Oh yeah, one of my favorite features of early tmd were definitely jpmeyers Q'n'D reports - hilarious AND informative.

It's too bad I can't play Vintage any more since I've moved and therefore can't post anything constructive and have no real reason to follow the format and read tmd consistently enough to participate. It's sad, really... at least I've stumbled about this thread, so thanks for the nostalgia

I think I'll have to make it a habit to come back here and look in once in a while even though I can't really add anything of actual substance to the discussion any more. I miss this place!

[JR]

Can one of the mods, for the benefit of newer players, just show all the posts that got Ben Perry and Travis banned? They were pretty epic, and summed up what was so awesome about vintage a few years ago.

JR.

[honestabe]

Can one of the mods, for the benefit of newer players, just show all the posts that got Ben Perry and Travis banned? They were pretty epic, and summed up what was so awesome about vintage a few years ago.

JR.

[leviat]

The site was deleted as well, and all with no prior warning. TMD was forced to restart from scratch, this time hosted by one of Leviat's friends, although Leviat was able to use the backups to create the archives. Later, TMD was hosted by Leviat himself until it was moved to its present location on the SCG server.

You sir have a freaky good memory.

[Zherbus]

Oh man, I so miss those old times when I had Vintage tournaments I could play in at a reasonable distance.... Tmd was sweet, the only place ever aside from our team-boards where you could have a meaningful discussion about Vintage. The first time I built a deck that I actually thought was sick was on here, working with Womprax (The Shining, if anybody remembers, shortly before Tendrils became printed and made the deck completely absurd - even though for some reason it never took off before the restriction of BWish killed it).
TMD saw it all - the birth, death and rebirth (as GermBus) of modern Keeper (I won my first Vintage tournament with a slightly modified version of Zherbus' and Azrael's four color, Fetchland and Brainstorm Cunning-Keeper list, C.o.P.:Red and SB Alter Reality tech included), it's renewed death and revitalization through Scepter, GAT and Long, the boom of Vintage, Gifted (and Smmenen stealing our thunder by finding the brokenness of Merchant Scroll and making it known as his deck afterwards ), the stupidity that was unrestricting Gush - though it was a lot of fun, it was also just plain broken. So many sweet memories...

I also met a ton of great people here I wouldn't ever even have heard about without tmd - meeting Toad and Gabethebabe while hitchhiking to Morocco was just the best. Thanks guys!

I think I also have to thank tmd for being close to bilingual in English - I practically spent whole days reading this site in my teens *g*

Oh yeah, one of my favorite features of early tmd were definitely jpmeyers Q'n'D reports - hilarious AND informative.

It's too bad I can't play Vintage any more since I've moved and therefore can't post anything constructive and have no real reason to follow the format and read tmd consistently enough to participate. It's sad, really... at least I've stumbled about this thread, so thanks for the nostalgia

I think I'll have to make it a habit to come back here and look in once in a while even though I can't really add anything of actual substance to the discussion any more. I miss this place!

Just saw this. So bumpin'.

[spin13]

Ahh, the good old days of BDominia.  I never got along with Oscar and eventually got banned for calling him a mook, which was mistaken for a phonetically similar racial slur (a mistake that only proved my point).  I was later asked to join Team Paragon of which he was a member but we managed to stay civil until I quit MTG.  I remember joining TMD not only because BD was dying but because it was the only place I could get an account!

A few other found memories that happened, not necessarily online, but through the friendships I made on BD and TMD:

I remember traveling to Neutral Ground NY and meeting the infamous Legend, the black-shirt, purple-tied villain of BD.  He certainly wrecked face with four maindeck B2B, but he wasn't nearly as cocky in person.

I remember traveling to Syracuse for the 2nd (?) TMD Invitational and getting drunk with Crazy Carl and friends and writing "Sligh Sucks" on the face of a passed out Dave Kaplan.

I remember JPMeyer's propensity to use the word "wiener," as well as traveling to take a look at his university only to stay holed up in a dorm room playing Magical cards all night.

I remember playing ReapLace at Hadley and having to try really hard to convince one opponent to concede because even though I went infinite my only win condition was Ancestral Recall because I was playing a bad deck and didn't have room for Stroke of Genius in my 75.

I remember late nights on Apprentice playtesting and tweaking 4-color Enchantress control with CooberP.  I also remember losing a tournament because I didn't have a printed copy of the errata that changed the printed "successfully cast an enchantment" on Argothian Enchantress to just "cast."  To this day I still write "piece" instead of "peace" because of a habit I picked up from CooberP.

I remember meeting one of the founders of BD (can anybody help me out with his name?  Scrappy ex-Navy guy, I think it started with an 'E.' ) at a tournament in CT.   I was shocked that he had written on his LoA with a Bic but he casually reminded me that, "It's just cardboard."

A lot of people complained that BD was an ivory tower and the word "elitist" was like an never ended echo.  I liked that TMD made itself into an exclusive club.  Sure, things flared up here and there but I think it made for a tight and interesting community.  Even when my interest was waning and I wasn't playing to win (i.e., ReapLace...) I was willing to travel hours just to meet TMD friends 

I had a great time playing this game thanks to TMD.
-spin13

[MolotDET]

I don't think anyone has mentioned MolotDET as former staff, though he was here before my time.

Sorry to revive something so long dead but...

In 2001 my local game store held its first ever Type 1 Tournament. At the time all the people at the store told me to play because I played T1, but I had no idea what it was. Lo and behold I found out. I was directed to Bdominia.com by a friend who read it all the time and tried getting advice on a deck I had been working on. I posted this monoU Trix list i had been playing (with AK/intuition) and man did I get flamed. Anyway I won the tournament with it and skulked around BD for the remainder of its run getting a grasp of the place. I had been playing Type 1 since alpha came out and instinctively knew all of the things that made up magic theory, I didn’t know someone had wrote them down. I just built decks and smashed face. Amazingly I found out that the deck I had been playing for years had a name, Keeper (though I prefer “the deck”).

I joined themanadrain.com in July or August of 2002. It was a much warmer place than BD. Great conversations led to great innovations and great decks. I made a lot of friends and learned and taught a lot. I became a mod in early 2003 (before the first crash) and continued until after the second; into early 2005. Then quit playing competitive T1.

Things I remember doing:
Wrote a number of intro to T1 theory primers.
Was the first person to run Deep Analysis in T1.
Wrote a primer for monoU Trix – the best deck no one ever played until JP turned the skeleton into Hulk Smash.
Ripped the roof off Neutral Ground NY with said monoU Trix
Became a vintage adept.
Feared the Mullet.
First Turned LoA like a mizor.
Met lots of cool people, here, on irc, and in person at about a million tournaments I traveled to.
Birthed Ankh-sligh and wrote the primer.
Kicked ass and took names
Fought with Legend a lot. 
Ran a respectful number of Type-1 tournaments in New Jersey
Wrote long ass tournament reports.
Got invited to join meandeck by smmemenonenonenon.
Work on Keeper with Zherbus and Carl.
Worked on Long.dec with Smemnen.
Worked with Toad to build Meandeck-Slaver.
Always posted in bold blue text
Had lots of fun.


Btw no one has mentioned Cividel as staff yet, course that might be too old school for most people.


Looking back it was a great time in my life and I sometimes miss it. If I didn’t need to play magic to understand what is going on here I would certainly return but I satiate my hunger by coming back twice a year and reading some posts. And maybe posting like this. You guys are all great, except Randomizor…

[Samite Healer]

Man, and I totally thought Legend created Ankh Sligh for all these years.  Way to ruin my memories!

[MolotDET]

Man, and I totally thought Legend created Ankh Sligh for all these years.  Way to ruin my memories!