Most of the decks were either mono colored, or 5 colored, but, no one played with enough land or dual lands, so, many of us discarded card after card. The big card of that night of multi-player was Glasses of Urza.

For the second game, I purchased some packs, brought the deck that was given to me, and made some changes. I still lost. It was a hundred card deck, perhaps bigger. I think I had 20 land. Clearly, we all had a way to go.

A few months pass by and I traded most of my comic book collection, 1K worth, for unlimited Revised, a few packs of Beta, and Arabian knights cards. I made out (Don't ask about my collection that was stolen by my Ex, and sold for drug cash, just don't) and played in my first real tournament that had people pay an entry fee. Met some cool people, made some trades, and had my deck ready to go. I had gotten my decks down to 60. I had either 3 or 4 of all the cards I really wanted. My first deck, without card sleeves (Card sleeves didn't exist back then) was:
3 Hypnotic Spector Mox Emerald
3 Serra Angel Mox Jet
3 Sengir Vampire Mox Sapphire
3 Swords to plowshares Mox Pearl
2 Wrath of god Mox Ruby
3 pestilence Black Lotus
1 Blaze of Glory 2 Dark Ritual (All I owned)
3 Animate Dead 2 Scrubland (Again, all I owned)
2 White Knight 8 swamp
3 Black Knight 8 plains
2 Demonic Hordes
2 Disenchant
2 Mind Twist
1 Royal Assassin
2 Icy Manipulator
2 Terror
1 Chaos Orb

Yep, It was pretty bad. Most decks were back then. It won, but, barely. Magic was bad back then b/c no one had any cards. No one had any sleeves. Cards were getting crinkled and bent from shuffling. Cards were destroyed. There were no Ante' games during the tournament, however, people played for ante' on the side. Don't forget, magic was supposed to be a game of ante'. At first, it was random ante', until people lost their black lotus (the other guy had a dark ritual at stake). The random ante' really died quickly in our area when someone built the first all common deck, so, he didn't care if he won or lost a card.

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Originally posted by evilempire22:
http://classic.magictraders.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/025370.html

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Originally posted by evilempire22:
http://classic.magictraders.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/025370.html

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I started playing in revised and the first good deck I ever played was with 4 contract from below, 4 erg raiders, 4 black knights, 4 hippies, 4 dark ritual, 4 unholy strength, 4 Mishra's Factory...I don't remember what else was in there but it wouldn't surpise me if there were a couple dredge skeleton, willow the wisp or royal assasins in the mix. Contract from below made the deck totally broken and it is the reason I LOVE drawing cards .

Thanks again for the nostalgic story. It brought back good memories and a smile

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Originally posted by Dancam1:
I paid .75 for 3 Craw Wurm b/c I NEEDED them. They were big monsters back then.

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I started in 1998. Was shocked when my friend started tearing this awesome big green Craw Wurm for fun. I asked him to stop, get him to give me 4 of them and put them into my green deck.

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Originally posted by MTDetermine:
I started in 1998. Was shocked when my friend started tearing this awesome big green Craw Wurm for fun. I asked him to stop, get him to give me 4 of them and put them into my green deck.

Tough to get them out, and when they get out, they either get terror, STP, or Icy Man + Royal Assassin.....

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Oh, yes, that was the first combo. Here, we used Nettling imp + Royal Assassin, but, both worked fine. The thing is, it was very hard to find more then 1 Royal Assassin back then. Keep in mind people just didn't have the cards, and what they did have, they didn't want to part with.

However, I will say, the strongest colors were blue, white and green b/c each of those colors could be played alone. Black and Red needed help. Every sideboard playing white had 2 each of the COP's in it. I should try to recreate some of the decks back then.

We kept track of damage on the creature (we didn't know there was a healing phase). Kind of like D&D.

My first packs were Antiquities and if you have ever opened a pack of antiquities they are horrible to build a deck with (hardly any creatures). I say horrible...Mishra's workshop and Candlelabra were good cards, but you wanted the fat creatures.

We played with 100+ card decks with no mana ratio to speak of.

I was the first person to crossover to 2 color magic (Blue/White control). Then I splashed red and added vises. My deck was around 72 cards (a bit big by today's standards), but used Vises, Wraths, Geddons, Factory's. It was a blast.

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Originally posted by Dancam1:

However, I will say, the strongest colors were blue, white and green b/c each of those colors could be played alone. Black and Red needed help. Every sideboard playing white had 2 each of the COP's in it. I should try to recreate some of the decks back then.

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Green is actually the weakest of all. My friends and I have been playing full powered Alpha/Beta only decks for quite some time, and green is definitely not a color that you would build around. Black and Red are actually one of the better colors, along with White. Base on our collective experiences, the power level should be: White > Black > Red/Blue > Green.

We also play all the games based on the Alpha rule book, which means you settle any conflict by flipping a coin, and you don't lose the game until the end of phase.

I've won a game where my opponent tried to kill me with Psionic Blast during my turn, and I ended up casting a Demonic Tutor at zero life, grabbing a Drain Life, and drained him back FTW.

__________________
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NEQUAQUAM VACUUM

My girlfriend does good work | Whitehaven Kiwanis

Give me your Sleight of Minds

I had a deck which was built around Sleight of Mind and Magical Hack. It used cards like Light of Day and Karma.

It's funny... at one point I had something like 19 decks built (including a Dingus Egg/Staff deck w/pro red dudes). Now that I have a clue and I'm not just goofing off at my kitchen table, I have four legacy decks and four standard decks.

I think everyone had the dingus egg ankh of mishra red burn deck. That was so much fun back then.

Lets take a poll. How many of u did the infinite stasis deck? The early version had birds of paradise with instill energy on it. Instill energy was the bomb back then too. That on demonic hordes was game over. That card was broken, back then.

It was a blast back then, no internet to copy decks. No internet to buy or trade magic cards, just friends and tournaments (and the local shop). It was such a different game. I mean, u literally saw craw wurm for lightning bolt trades. Or 2 giant growths + 2 fog for a flame elemental. Those trades happened all the time. People were buying magic cards left and right b/c no one had enough to make 4 of a kind with and deck sizes were terrible, easily over 100 cards.

One of my earliest loses was to my sister. I was playing some crap, and she plays a turn 3 BIRD MAIDEN. At that moment, I realized that I HAD NO FLYERS AND HAD NO WAY TO KILL IT. The battlefield was cluttered with creatures on both sides that would be a draw. I literally watched that #$%$ BIRD MAIDEN fly over all my big fatties for 20 DARN TURNS until I died. I think my deck was green white and had all big land creatures.

And he was right, u didn't die right then and there, u had until the end of the turn to have enough life. plenty of matches were turned by someone gaining life at a bad time. Or, back then, the person with the lowest life lost, meaning if I was at 3 and u cast psionic blast and I'd go to neg 1. Later that turn, I attack u for 10 (u were at 6) and u drop to neg 4. I'd win unless u could somehow gain life. It was nuts.

And how many of us played cards wrong? I played drain life as an enchantment. My friend played COPS as an enchantment that could counter a spell if the spell would result in damage against u.

Mulder, we all had that deck. I had a shallow grave deck too. I'd mindbomb first turn and drop Nicol Bolos. Second turn, I'd shallow grave him and smack someone for 7 and he'd lose his hand. It was amazing. U know what was cool too, casting a Hymn to Tourach and getting 2 lands. It was like game over.

Vegas, u are right, it was double elimination and we'd do random pairings. Meaning that U'd play a guy that didn't have the same record as u. It was luck of the draw. say u were 3-0. U could face someone who was, 1-2, 2-1, or 3-0. It was totally random.

death by giant tortoise. I never had that, but, if u read above, I had death by bird maiden!! what's worse??

Yep, I remember the magical hack/sleight of mind deck too. Mine had DEATH GRIP in it. Get 2 out and sleight of mind and it was game over. U ever did that to the abyss and watch white knights die? that was my sideboard for a while. It was cool.
Yes, I played with laces in my sideboard to change the color of the abyss. How many of us played the lace deck? 2 card combo to kill anything on the board. 4 red lace, 4 blue lace, 4 red elemental blast, 4 blue elemental blast. That was a fun deck.

I mean, I can remember being offered a Juzam once for my Revised Shivan Dragon and telling the kid no way...simply because, at the time, the dragon was probably my favorite card in the world.

I can also remember trading a stack of like 100 blue cards for a friend's Lord of the Pit because I had no interest in the color at all. I then proceeded to just jam him into a deck and the first time I played him he ended up killing me.

I also remember massive confusion over Icy Manipulator the first time my group encountered one. For some reason, we failed to comprehend the mono artifact aspect of the card, so the guy thought he could tap as many things as he had the mana to pay for.

My first "good" deck involved using Tinder Wall to dump out an early shivan or ball lightning, slapping a giant growth on them, and then berserking them.

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Wisconsin - smells like dairy air!

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Originally posted by Dancam1:

Lets take a poll. How many of u did the infinite stasis deck?

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*waves like an idiot*

*cries*

Lhurgoyf was my favorite.

Pretty sure I traded a bunch of My Vampiric Tutors for Firestorm Hellkites and Viashivan Dragons.

As for tournaments, started playing in USG block.

Built Mono-green and would get SMASHED. Slightly discouraging, but it was tough back then when I was 13 and had an allowance and rarely bought cards - me and my friend would each have a deck and that's the only person we playtested against.

Eventually built a Rising Waters deck built around Bribery, Treachery, Indentured Djinn (which is a house in this deck), Counters, and Waterfront Bouncer. I remember a particular turn where an opponent played 2 Avatar of Woe for the discounted cost. I followed it up by bouncing one, Treachery'ing the other, and Bribery'ing another from his deck. The look on his face as a 13 year old kid beat him was priceless.
Came in 7th with it, which was AWESOME.
Funny because my friend would often build decks just to beat mine. He had a weird Red Black Deck that didn't do much except beat my deck. But I didn't play him in the tourney, and he didn't do so hot. He would OFT Persecute me on 2nd turn for blue with help of a Dark Ritual, and if I didn't have a Daze in hand, I was SCREWED.

When INV came out, I played Fires and he played Black/White Desolation Angel. He would dominate me based off Rout as an Instant followed by Des Angel. I had no response. Just couldn't kill him quick enough, especially when he played 3 WoG, 4 Death Grasp, 3 Rout, 3 Des Angel, 4 Gerrard's Verdict, 2 Persecute, 4 Duress, 4 Spectral Lynx (I HATED THIS CARD), 4 Dark Ritual, 4 Orim's Chant, and 4 Vindicate. He didn't play Phyrexian Arena because 'he didn't like losing life.' Once he figured out that between Gerrard's Verdict and Death Grasp, he ran 3 hahaha.
He actually made it far in that tourney (top4), because he played me in the Swiss.

Right before netdecking became the norm, me and my friend built some decks - He built a non-typical U/G madness
(Basking Rootwalla, Wild Mongrel, Circular Logic, Arrogant Wurm, Wonder, Roar of the Wurm, Spelljack, etc.) and I built an aggressive version of Snake-Tongue (Mystic Snake, BoP/Llanowar Elves, Flametongue Kavu, Call of the Herd, Beast Attack, Counterspell, Syncopate, FoF, Still Life, Obsessive Search, Nostalgic Dreams) - BEFORE WE HAD ACCESS TO THE INTERNET! When we later a couple months saw these decks won tournies, we were STOKED (it's like enjoying a song from a CD months before it hits the radio).

Also built a cool UWg Phelddagrif Control type deck once with Dueling Grounds, Peace of Mind/Wild Mongrel Madness Toolbox, Meddling Mage, Wrath's, Mystic Snake/Counterspell/Absorb, Armadillo Cloak. I was obviously going through a Blue Phase in my life (which never happens anymore) - probably because Counterspell was still the norm at 2 CMC.

Suffice to say, when Enemy Colored Painlands came out, me and my friends FREAKED. We loved it. Painlands were the old standard for multi-colored lands. And when APOC was made, it was our favorite set (I still think it might be my favorite - INV Block is my fave for sure).

That weekend was amazing and i got to see and play some games i still can remember vividly today