It was either Pernicious Deed or Vindicate. When I first started playing Magic, I was enamored by the set Apocalypse. I don't know why exactly, but the badass expansion symbol probably had something to do with it. Those two cards embodied what powerful cards should be. Heck, I stand by that statement to this day. Pernicious Deed and Vindicate are still extremely powerful cards while simultaneously being simple and elegant. It doesn't hurt that they also ooze flavor as well.
I started around 7th ed. and absolutely needed to have shivan dragon and serra angel, but couldn't afford them for crap.
They were expensive cards even by the time of 7th edition?
Serra Angel was a rare up till 10th edition. 7th edition was still way before Wizards decided to power up creatures, so it was still a big deal at that time.
Serra Angel was actually uncommon from Alpha through 4th. It was way before Wizards knew what they were doing.
Spellskite, oh no $8 is far too much to pay... *grumble grumble* silly newbie Narv. Also wurmcoil engine but a friend bought me (a prerelease) one for my birthday pretty soon after I started playing. The spellskite wish took many years to finally furfil.
Snapcaster mage, this was the period I decided I actually wanted to play a good standard deck only to find they all the ones I wanted to play required 4 snapcaster mage. And $25 was way way too much to pay for a single card.. when I could get a whole deck for that much... *grumble grumble* Silly Newbie Narv *grumble grumble.
This.. still eludes me, I wanted to play modern grixis delver but couldn't afford snapcaster mage... so I proxied duals,force and wasteland and I play legacy delver instead. Legacy is a proxy only format here It is pretty impossible to get enough people for a tournament otherwise, duals are just too rare, but EMA allowed me to get all the commons uncommons I needed to have the < $100 parts of the deck.
I'll trade my expedition wasteland for 4 normal wasteland...
Spellskite, oh no $8 is far too much to pay... *grumble grumble* silly newbie Narv. Also wurmcoil engine but a friend bought me (a prerelease) one for my birthday pretty soon after I started playing. The spellskite wish took many years to finally furfil.
Snapcaster mage, this was the period I decided I actually wanted to play a good standard deck only to find they all the ones I wanted to play required 4 snapcaster mage. And $25 was way way too much to pay for a single card.. when I could get a whole deck for that much... *grumble grumble* Silly Newbie Narv *grumble grumble.
This.. still eludes me, I wanted to play modern grixis delver but couldn't afford snapcaster mage... so I proxied duals,force and wasteland and I play legacy delver instead. Legacy is a proxy only format here It is pretty impossible to get enough people for a tournament otherwise, duals are just too rare, but EMA allowed me to get all the commons uncommons I needed to have the < $100 parts of the deck.
I'll trade my expedition wasteland for 4 normal wasteland...
If you really want to play Legacy you can try MTGO. The cards are (mostly) much cheaper there.
I thought my Dakkon Blackblade (pulled from a Legends pack) was the coolest card ever. My friend had an incredible skill at pulling it for ante, but I would play the heck out of those games and never lost him. But the first card I truly thought "I must own you" was Channel. My friend had been to a card shop, saw someone pull off Channel-Fireball, bought the card and did it to me. I was in awe. I then played Channel-Fireball decks until it was no longer legal in Type 2.
I started around 7th ed. and absolutely needed to have shivan dragon and serra angel, but couldn't afford them for crap.
They were expensive cards even by the time of 7th edition?
Serra Angel was a rare up till 10th edition. 7th edition was still way before Wizards decided to power up creatures, so it was still a big deal at that time.
Serra Angel was actually uncommon from Alpha through 4th. It was way before Wizards knew what they were doing.
Only because the "rare" rarity didn't technically exist. I don't know if Serra Angel was a U1 or U2 card, but either way, it would be shown on gatherer as uncommon, even though U1 was technically a rare. I think, it was a U1. And don't forget, that boosters of those days had just 8 cards. With a several years gap between 4th edition and 7th edition, Serra Angel would have been hard to come by, a rare indeed.
Lusted is a big word though, we didnt exchange money for cards back in the days and there weren't mtg shop nearby, so it was difficult to be able to trade for one of those to the few that were dispose to trade their copy...
So it was a very coveted card which it took me a while to get and be part of my red/blue deck which was for a long time, the deck to beat
Nowadays i got about 20 copies of each revised icons cards such 24 Shivan Dragons
I started around 7th ed. and absolutely needed to have shivan dragon and serra angel, but couldn't afford them for crap.
They were expensive cards even by the time of 7th edition?
Serra Angel was a rare up till 10th edition. 7th edition was still way before Wizards decided to power up creatures, so it was still a big deal at that time.
Serra Angel was actually uncommon from Alpha through 4th. It was way before Wizards knew what they were doing.
Only because the "rare" rarity didn't technically exist. I don't know if Serra Angel was a U1 or U2 card, but either way, it would be shown on gatherer as uncommon, even though U1 was technically a rare. I think, it was a U1. And don't forget, that boosters of those days had just 8 cards. With a several years gap between 4th edition and 7th edition, Serra Angel would have been hard to come by, a rare indeed.
Core set boosters were still 15, plus there were 60 card starters with 3 (I think) Rares. Only expansions like Fallen Empires had 8 card packs. Also, there were three rarities, except in expansion sets like The Dark, or (again) Fallen Empires.
Core set boosters were still 15, plus there were 60 card starters with 3 (I think) Rares. Only expansions like Fallen Empires had 8 card packs. Also, there were three rarities, except in expansion sets like The Dark, or (again) Fallen Empires.
Hm, guess I learned some more trivia about Magic today. Though the early sets weren't printed in that large numbers, so the number of copies of the card would still have been quite limited, I'd imagine. Plus, it was a tournament staple for a very long time, and around 7th edition, it would still have been among the best creatures available.
Instead of just giving you the first card I ever lusted after, I would like to give you a short story of my most wanted cards during each step of my MtG-Career, because your most wanted cards over time can tell you a lot about your development as a player.
I started 2005 with Ravnica, so I am a lot less oldschool than many of you guys. Also, I was, it seems, quite a bit dumber than most of you. Unlike Serra Angel and Schivan Dragon, which are actually playable, one of the earliest Cards I can remember actually lusting for was... Grozoth. I kinda developed an abnormal fascination for this card. To this day, I have a stash of Grozoths lying around. I began collecting leviathans in general because of it. I delved into the mythology surrounding the leviathan, ended up learning a tiny bit hebrew and a LOT about mesepotamian mythology and history. It caused me to chose Ancient Greek over French in 7th grade. (Yes, you read that right. My school offered ancient greek classes.) While my leviathan-mania has subsided over the years, my love for ancient history remained.
While my first Deck ever was Dimir and I seriously envied my friend for his Glimpse the Unthinkable, every other deck I seriously pursued afterwards for over ten years was artifact centric. Because of that and because of my Grozoth-induced love for leviathans, Eater of Days was irresistably mesmerising to me. It took me about three years (more or less) to learn that skipping two turns while having your only beater oxidized is actually not good. But to this day I occasionally catch myself trying to come up with a potential use for it. (Torpor Orb! Thank MaRo for the Torpor Orb!)
Artifacts always fascinated me, so when I began playing in 2005, instead of buying Ravnica to boost my Dimir deck, I quickly began buying all the Mirrodin Starter Decks and precons in the store. By FAR my favourite of those was the Sunburst precon and my favourite card was the mighty Suncrusher. I gushed on and on about its incredible powerlevel. My friend who was actually slightly less retarded than me was highly sceptical. I regarded that as heresy.
My Sunburst Deck grew into a massive pile of everything I found to be fancy (Including Eater of Days and at one (very short time) Cackling Imp) but at some point I split the 95-card deck into a Sunburst deck and a five colour artifact combo deck. It wasn't any good at all, but I kept tinkering with it. Apropos tinkering: One day my Deck got absolutely stomped by a deck using Tinker. I was so excited by learning about this new and powerful card that I could not sleep that night. Tinker was the frst card ever that I ordered online after excessively lobbying my mother. My friends hated it. And what else do all combo decks lust after? Fast mana. I replaced all the basic lands in my deck with Urza's Lands, gathering which took me more than a year of desperate seeking and trading. (You know, I was a little boy who coudn't just order everything online. Online Shops also were quite expensive in 2007) But that wasn't enough. So I lusted for Sol Ring. I lusted for Mana Vault. I lusted for Metalworker. I lusted for Mana Crypt. I lusted for Tolarian Academy. And of course I lusted for Black Lotus. Over the years I was able to piece by piece add them to my deck. Except for the Lotus.
Slowly, around Lorwyn to Alara, my friends were adapting to my now rather powerful 5-colour-artifacts-combo deck with their mighty Kithkin and Merfolk tribals. Oblivion Ring rekt me hard. Around that time, my deck was based on two combos: Mycosynth Lattice + Leoning Abunas + Darksteel Forge, with Nevinyrral's Disk and Hurkyl's Recall thrown in for good measure and on Crucible of Worlds + Zuran Orb + Fastbond for infinite Mana into Fireball. With no more unfair but affordable fast mana available, I was aproaching the limit of what could be done with this deck power wise. (Though I hasten to add that I just tested it in goldfish mode and it does kill turn 4 to 5. Not bad for a noob's casual deck!) I decided to shelve it and start over and built a new, fully colorless deck with Cloudposts, Vesuva and Urza's Lands, centering around infinita Mana with Metalworker, some combos and a strong mana denial suite with Sphere of Resistance, Winter Orb and Static Orb. I think there also was a Smokestack. It was unstoppable. Mind you, objectively speaking it wasn't very powerful, but it wrecked casual multiplayer games. It was basically casual Staxx. With love. One of my friends felt compelled to build a deck specifically designed to kill mine in two-player matches. Now, once again, the race was on again. His deck consisted of 25 Mountains and 30 artifact removal spells and 5 finishers. In the beginning, it was a surprisingly fair match, but once he added things like Shattering Spree, I had to step up my game. Over time, I began to put in Tangle Wire, Rishadan Ports, City of Traitors. I had to outrace his deck, put him into a deadly lock to keep him from using his removal while crushing him with Smokestack. It became increasingly hopeless, my engine of Urza's Lands was just not powerful enough. What I needed what Mishra's Workshop, the very land that fueled my deck's big brother in Vintage. Getting my hands on these took me about a year, just like the Urza's Lands a few years before. Just very much more expensive and powerful. Two I got from people at the store and two I had to order online. It was an enourmous sense of pride to finally hold the full land base of a Vintage Staxx deck in my hands. What I had shaping up was looking more and more like the full blown Vintage Staxx deck. However, some cards were still missing. Exactly six, to be precise: 5 Moxen and one Black Lotus.
Two years later I began attending university and was somewhat strapped for cash. Sadly, around that time a beloved family member passed away. Through some weird rules I actually inherited a sum of money, although I wasn't the closest relative. I sat there thinking about what to do with this. I could have put the money into the bank to sit there until there is an emergency of some sorts, but that felt kinda meh... Incidentally, my share of the inheritance was approximately the price of a Beta Black Lotus at the time. Well... Wasting an inheritance on a stupid paper game like Magic? I gave it some thought and came to the conclusion, that buying a Black Lotus would be precisely the sort of thing my relative would have done in their life. Moreover, should I ever need some substancial amount of Money, selling the Lotus will actually give me more money than I spent on it.
So now, whenever I sit down with my playgroup and open a game with "Shop, Lotus, sacc Lotus, tap Shop, Lodestone Golem, Sphere of Resistance." I smile and think of my relative, knowing they'd approve of my folly.
Next major step? The five Moxen from Beta.
Yeah, that's true ... the BLotus simply keeps going up in value ... so it really was a good investment.
Olivia Voldaren was mine after someone gave me a vamp deck around the time of innistrad. Up to that point, I was a super casual player for years and never even really payed attention to what other cards were out there other than what I owned. That changed everything. 20k cards later...
What I find astonishing is the sheer number of players naming Shivan Dragon and Serra Angel. Current Magic is lacking such iconic cards for new beginners. I wonder whether that is unavoidable considering the much more even powerlevel of current sets and the demise of core sets. But most I wonder wether that is an aspect that Wizards should bring back or whether kids will always find a dragon they love.
Well, back then there were also just way fewer cards, and most casual players only bought the core sets, as you say, so it didn't take much stand out.
Though maybe now with the new Planeswalker decks targeted at beginners, the new players will be lusting after PWs.
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Serra Angel was actually uncommon from Alpha through 4th. It was way before Wizards knew what they were doing.
Snapcaster mage, this was the period I decided I actually wanted to play a good standard deck only to find they all the ones I wanted to play required 4 snapcaster mage. And $25 was way way too much to pay for a single card.. when I could get a whole deck for that much... *grumble grumble* Silly Newbie Narv *grumble grumble.
This.. still eludes me, I wanted to play modern grixis delver but couldn't afford snapcaster mage... so I proxied duals,force and wasteland and I play legacy delver instead. Legacy is a proxy only format here It is pretty impossible to get enough people for a tournament otherwise, duals are just too rare, but EMA allowed me to get all the commons uncommons I needed to have the < $100 parts of the deck.
I'll trade my expedition wasteland for 4 normal wasteland...
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
If you really want to play Legacy you can try MTGO. The cards are (mostly) much cheaper there.
If I want to play online video games, I can play those without having to pay money.
I play magic to play with people and get out of the house.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Only because the "rare" rarity didn't technically exist. I don't know if Serra Angel was a U1 or U2 card, but either way, it would be shown on gatherer as uncommon, even though U1 was technically a rare. I think, it was a U1. And don't forget, that boosters of those days had just 8 cards. With a several years gap between 4th edition and 7th edition, Serra Angel would have been hard to come by, a rare indeed.
Former Rules Advisor
"Everything's better with pirates." - Lodge
(The Gamers: Dorkness Rising)
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
Lusted is a big word though, we didnt exchange money for cards back in the days and there weren't mtg shop nearby, so it was difficult to be able to trade for one of those to the few that were dispose to trade their copy...
So it was a very coveted card which it took me a while to get and be part of my red/blue deck which was for a long time, the deck to beat
Nowadays i got about 20 copies of each revised icons cards such 24 Shivan Dragons
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
Core set boosters were still 15, plus there were 60 card starters with 3 (I think) Rares. Only expansions like Fallen Empires had 8 card packs. Also, there were three rarities, except in expansion sets like The Dark, or (again) Fallen Empires.
Hm, guess I learned some more trivia about Magic today. Though the early sets weren't printed in that large numbers, so the number of copies of the card would still have been quite limited, I'd imagine. Plus, it was a tournament staple for a very long time, and around 7th edition, it would still have been among the best creatures available.
Former Rules Advisor
"Everything's better with pirates." - Lodge
(The Gamers: Dorkness Rising)
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
"Be silent, thou accursed wolf;
Consume within thyself with thine own rage."
-Dante's Inferno (Canto VII)
That's a neat card.
just so big and dumb
Wow! That art! That name! That effect! It was a homerun for me back in the day
BGGRock
Modern
BRGJund
BBGRock
Yeah, that's true ... the BLotus simply keeps going up in value ... so it really was a good investment.
Phenax - Mill
Breya - Combo
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant - Token
Oloros - Combo
Jeleva - eh...working on it
Yidris - Soft Combo
Well, back then there were also just way fewer cards, and most casual players only bought the core sets, as you say, so it didn't take much stand out.
Though maybe now with the new Planeswalker decks targeted at beginners, the new players will be lusting after PWs.