MTG Salvation

Hey gang,

I was just curious if people knew/remembered what eternal formats were like before 8th Edition (the introduction of the new border). What decks existed in this eternal format? I'm just curious because it seems like so many vintage decks today are powered by Modern-era cards, and I want to know what hella powerful decks were like before 8th edition. What were P9 cards being used to abuse? What mechanics dominated? How fast was it as a format?

Thanks,
CatParty

8th edition was in 2003 and before that decklists and the like are somewhat hard to find. There were a lot of necro decks from the mid 90's and on though that I definitely remember.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Bazaar decks were a thing, even though dredge wasn't (hello Worldgorger combo)
Workshop decks were a thing, because of course they were - even though chalice, trinisphere and tons of other lock peices didn't exist yet.
Control was viable, in various multicolor forms.
Psychatog was also a major beater in the format.


Here are some 2003 Vintage decklists to give an idea:

I believe I made the top 8 in the Origins Type I tournament in 2003 with Mono-G Stompy. Or perhaps it was the next year I forget.

(which isn't to say it was a good deck choice at the time)

Ah, man. This thread hasn't hit upon Long.deck yet. I can't do a description of this beast justice. Check out Stephen Menendien's write up on SCG.

Look at it here. This deck was a monster.

There's a lot of coverage of the legacy and vintage championships in the archives from WoTC, as well as looking at The Mana Drain in there. It just takes a bit to sort.

Check out the TMD archives for some idea of the crap we used to play back in the day: http://www.archive.themanadrain.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=l5ljt86c3bav1hobubbl6bi0s7&board=24.0. You can also try searching for the old beyond dominia (bdominia) forums, though they appear to be completely lost.

Before the first type 1 world championships at GenCon in 2003, there wasn't much creativity in the format. Keeper was the deck to beat. Basically, if you had the power 9, you played Keeper or something similar. Keeper circa 2002 is my favorite deck of all time, likely because it was the culmination of my years of collecting and scrapping together the pieces. Keeper was an adaptation of "The deck," but it used Morphling as the kill card. Damage used the stack back then, so you could attack with Morphling for 5, stack the damage, then pump his toughness up to 6 to survive a block. The untargetable ability made it possible to run concurrently with the Abyss. You could fly over your own Moat. Morphling was the best creature in Magic. I also played one Masticore to beat up on aggro decks. Keeper was so good that my teammate ran a version of the deck called "Blood Moon Keeper." He ran 4 Islands and a Swamp so he could board Blood Moons in for the Keeper mirror. People called him insane. He won a Black Lotus at a local tournament because his opponent in the finals (also playing Keeper) was too proud to run basic lands. He REFUSED to run basic lands. Those were the days. My team of three made several GenCon top 8s playing Keeper.

Keeper was soon outclassed, though. Patrick Chapin, a little known pro at the time, showed up to GenCon. He played a deck called Miracle Gro, which pumped Quirion Dryad with cheap spells and was more efficient than Keeper. We played until 6 am the next morning and I think Patrick won every game. That was the end of Keeper for me.

The next year, I nearly made top 8 at the first type 1 world championships with U/R Phid. I wish I could find the decklist. That was the first time I saw the Worldgorger Dragon deck. Psychatog was the best deck that day. The early Workshop decks (TNT) were also powerful. There were even decks that combined Chapin's Miracle Gro with Psychatog (Gro-A-Tog). Soon, fetch lands were printed, and this changed vintage forever.

I used to do pretty well with a UR Fish decck powered by Cloud of Faeries and Standstill. Stax/MUD/TnT as an archetype was also quite powerful - you had both Smokestack, Tangle Wire, Goblin Welder, Juggernaut, Triskelion, Sphere of Resistance... Obviously the deck is better today.

It is times like these that I wish WotC had not eliminated their forums (stupid Gleemax project). There was a wealth of information there specifically for topics like this.

Quote from Woody Elemental »

Keeper was soon outclassed, though. Patrick Chapin, a little known pro at the time, showed up to GenCon. He played a deck called Miracle Gro, which pumped Quirion Dryad with cheap spells and was more efficient than Keeper. We played until 6 am the next morning and I think Patrick won every game. That was the end of Keeper for me.

Interesting, according to Menendian's School of Magic, Mono-Blue control was already on the rise vs. Keeper, as Back to Basics was also something of a house.

Patrick narrowly overcame a Saproling Burst/Goblin Bombardment deck in the first round, and lost to Zoo in the middle of the tournament, going 5-1 – enough to make the cut to Top 8. Also in the Top 8 was Matt Smith, once more, and Brian Cox, another Mono Blue Control player whom I lost to at Origins. Jeff Hegedus, who defeated Patrick in the Swiss with an unpowered Zoo deck, wrote a long and remarkable report. The Top 8 appears to have had at least 2 Mono Blue Control decks, 1 Grow, 1 Zoo, 1 Goblin-Sligh, and 1 Sligh, with the rest unknown, but likely more of the same.

There actually is a sort of lot of back and forth that went on between Chapin and other people taking about Type 1 at the time, most of which did not take Chapin or his ideas too serious. I can't really just copy and past the whole "book" but Menendian does do a pretty good job sourcing a lot of information.

Unfortunately, 2003 on are in a different book that I didn't buy.