The Early Days of Vintage

[Tha Gunslinga]

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/20421_Untold_Legends_Early_Days.html

Absolutely fantastic.

[tito del monte]

I was lucky enough to get an early read of this, and I have to say I love it! I really miss that sense of mystery and wonder from when I first started (tail end of Revised); not knowing what cards even existed and this piece does a great job of capturing it. I guess it must be a totally different experience for anyone picking up the game for the first time today - does anyone have kids learning to play or little cousins or nephews? How do they find it?

Any - an awesome read!

[i_set_fire]

I agree, this is a great article.  He did a wonderful job painting a picture of how magic was before the interweb and other sources had published set lists and deck ideas.  When I started magic (unl/rev) opening packs was fun because you got to see new cards and think of how you might incorporate them into your deck.  Most people were unaware of rarity level and monetary value and traded to get the stuff they wanted for a deck, not a dollar sign.  Nowadays, you already know all the cards before you attend a prerelease and open packs with the hopes of getting a few choice cards.   
I also enjoyed how the writer described how he grew as a magic player and how new ideas quickly became the norm.  My friends and I all had a similar experience as we learned and created our decks.  New players now are able to net deck top decks and many of them can't make a deck for shit, whereas old time players had to learn to make a deck.

[Smmenen]

This was very exciting to see, and I can't wait to read it!   

[Rico Suave]

This brings back memories of when I was a little kid, and one Christmas I took a good chunk of money and bought 2 things with it:
-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures
-Packs of MTG cards

I, too, remember the first time I saw a Demonic Hordes.  I also traded with that guy to get my first ever Hypnotic Specter, though the Hordes remained his.  He also had a pretty sweet Nicol Bolas that I envied.  He ended up stopping when Chronicles was released, due to frustration with the set reprinting a number of cards like the Nicol Bolas.  I received the bulk of his cards after this.

I also remember the transition from 200+ card decks down to 60 card decks over to 1-2 color decks, though my personal progress was much slower than Zak's.  I ended up playing an all black deck, while one of my best friends played an all white deck.  Playing against him was a lesson in pain in large part because he had multiple copies of Balance. 

I also remember the first time I saw the 94 World Champion list in an issue of the Duelist; I remember specifically having absolutely no idea why it was any good.  That issue also had an article on card advantage by Brian Weissman which certainly helped open my eyes to a new world of playing.  From there this thing called the internet was becoming more popular, and after a transition to the Dojo I quickly became addicted to the internet MTG forums.  No really, just one more post before work I swear!

[GrandpaBelcher]

A friend and I once took our 200-card collections and straight-up traded all of my white and black cards for all of his blue and red ones.  Nothing of significance changed hands (we both started after Revised), but it's definitely something I look back on now and laugh about.

The rares in my first starter were Kormus Bell, Living Lands, and Aladdin's Ring.

[o uncola o]

It is funny to think about the decks my friends and I put together in the beginning.  I started playing in early revised and played through visions.  I stopped playing until timespiral and have been on and off ever since.  The "bombs" in most of the decks that we played were Royal Assassin, Sorceress Queen, Hypnotic Specter, Mana Drain / Counter Spell, Control Magic, and a few Mahamoti Djinn to beat down in the late game.  Other people played stompy style red green or weeny whit.  One great deck was an artifact deck with Atog for the kill. 

The author's sentiment about Juzam Djinn reflects the way that we felt about most creatures with a drawback.   Although Juzam saw a lot of play were we where, almost no other creature with a potential drawback did.  We could only see the bad and never the good.

Great article.  Brought back all kinds of memories.

[vassago]

This brings back memories of when I was a little kid, and one Christmas I took a good chunk of money and bought 2 things with it:
-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures
-Packs of MTG cards

LOL This was very similar to one of my B-day's when I was like 11 or 12.

[beder]

Very nice article, and so true...

With the release of Arabian, I played for the very first time against a "well built deck". The guy had built a black/white/green deck, which just crushed me badly. I still remember it, it was a real revolution for me. The guy was playing something like this :
- some bilands, some city of brass, some basics and some strip mine
- acceleration + Lotus + Sol Ring
- Dark ritual,
- Savannah lions
- Hypnotic specter
- Ernham Djin
- Juzam
- Swords to plowshare
- Terror
- Disenchant
- giant growth
- Mind twist
- Regrowth
- Demonic tutor
- some other old school stuff, can't remember exactly
And for most of those cards, there were at least 3 of them...

It was so simple but so efficent. A monster for the time being...The kind of deck which could kill you regularly turn 4, 5 or 6... Too fast, too consistant, too focussed. For my friends and I, this made us change fundamentally our approach of magic. After X games (X being huge), trying to defeat the guy with the different decks we were so proud about, we had to face the reality : this was just so so so better (euphemism) than what we had. Better in a way which was not just related to cards, but also to the way the deck was built. It opened our eyes which is good, but at the same time it ended our era of casual gaming.
Exit Will-o-the-Wisp and Shivan dragon, which I thought to be the best creature of the game. Exit the Two-headed Giant, which was so good at defending against several creatures. Exit the Living Wall, which we was so excellent in our games.  
We started some kind of race for efficency. The end of our magic childhood. Snif.
 
A few months after, I played against a guy which was using a deck with 4 balances, Counterspells, Wrath, Sword, Mishra, fast artifacts. Again, this was a shock. Damn it, even with my new efficent deck, full off efficent creatures, I keep on losing against him. This was my first introduction to the concept of control, which was something we didn't even imagine. Hopefully (or not), balance will soon be restricted.

This is the time where I started building my very first control deck, full of wrath of god, sword, some blue, some mishra factory and the best win condition "Serra Angel". But this was not so good. I kept on losing against my friends' white weenie deck. A savannah lion or a a white knight - boosted thanks to Crusade and Jihad - was pretty impressive at that time. Especially when your opponent plays armageddon to lock you as soon as he has a sufficent threat on board.
I had to wait up until the release of legend to finally have the cards that I needed for such a deck, with mana drain but even more important, the abyss + moat + mirror universe

At that time, I also started building and playing my favourite deck ever : a 4 color land-destroyer with Nether Void. Full Acceleration, 4 Sinkhole, 4 Strip mine, 4 Stone Rain, 4 Ice storm. Nether void for a pre lock,Time Elemental for the Lock and Serra Angel for the win. My friends really hated that deck, which was not so funny to play against (they changed their mind after playing against a new deck some guy brought, based on stasis, which replaced my deck as the "most painfull deck to play against").

A few years after, I also remember the release of force of will... I was like : "My god, this is so bad. Blue is about card advantage and this is card disadvantage"... Finally, in the final of a tournament, I played against a guy using a full package of counters, with 4 counterspell, 4 drain, 4 fow and 4 Arcane Denial. This had been a very bad moment for me, with him countering exactly all the important threats I could play, letting me with all my useless cards in hand. Not a good experience for me...

[zeromancer]

haha, yeah. I remember trading the only Force I opened to my 4 years older brother for some junk I thought to be great by that time. I was thinking, "ok this is a counter you will never play for 5 and losing two cards to get rid of one (which you can only do the time it's cast) cannot be good." It's even more funny when you come accross this very ratio in eternal forums and articles every few years.

Also, really nice article by the way.