From my XP playing back then. DanDan isn't worth the hassle, I'd up the Flying men Count. Also, if you go the cheaper-cost aggressive route, Sunken City was a winner back then. A friend of mine had a similar deck.
You can randomly Channel-Fireball kill someone once in a blue moon.
Except for your mana base and the juggernauts, this is actually really similar to what I'm running now and my 'ideal' list. I picked up a Beta Channel and I run 2 Fireball and 2 Disintegrate instead of 4 fireball, mostly because I have betas of those. I also don't own an old enough regrowth, Black Vise or Wheel, but Wheel at least is on my wish list for the deck and they are all solid cards. Since the guy I played this against moved I've mostly only played the list against other 'casual' decks and not strictly 93/94 decks, and it still does pretty well.
As for the creature base, I've debated Juggernaut, he's pretty budget friendly but also easy to block so I feel like at 4 mana Roc of Kher Ridges is better due to the evasion. Su-Chi is also a budget option that survives bolt, and I tested with him a little too but it's been a bit underwhelming. With no budget and a good mana base though you could easily splash three colors and add Serendib Efreet instead of Juggernaut (which costs 3 instead of 4, survives a lightning bolt AND has evasion). Funny enough Juggernaut and Mishra's Factory are part of why I main decked a Scavenger Folk, and two of the things you should hold lightning bolts for. I'm also running a pixie now as a singleton and it is great, Two is probably the right number. But I think after playing the ogre for a while, I would not want to put him up to four copies. It's too risky, 2-3 is probably fine.
It looks like from your list that budget is not an issue, so I do have a couple of other suggestions. Berserk and Shivan Dragon. If the game goes long you need a plan. Ogre's won't get you there all the time and they are a terrible top deck. Lightning Bolts and Chain Lightnings often end up being your removal spells and if you end up at top deck mode flipping a dragon can put you back into the game. With Moxes and Lotus Dragon can also come in and start beating down pretty early. If you keep Juggernaut, Berserk makes them 10 power and provides trample... and that's a thing.
Yeah good advice. You're probably right. 4 Ogre is too many, especially when running City of Brass. I figured I had enough burn to keep control of the life totals but you never know.
I was generally favoring Fireball because there are few regenerators (no River Boa yet) and the power/toughness ratio on creatures back then just sucked compared to how much mana you could generate, so Fireball taking out 2 or more guys is a real thing.
I was thinking back to decks that were strong in the very early meta, and I remember Argothian Pixies being strong. Pixies mainly because Mishra's Factory was everywhere. Dervish was a strong meta choice due to popularity of monoblack. I guess Juggernaut is weak to a lot of things, but it seems decent with Giant Growth. I don't think Berserk is great for this build. It would fit better if I ran Blood Lusts on top of the Giant Growths, plus creatures like Ball Lightning. That's a completely different deck. Hmm...
Hmm.. once you blue splash, the deck goes in a whole new direction because blue gives you some incredibly powerful tools.
Completely different deck but also seems really fun. Back in that format Mana Drain was way worse because you could mana burn from it. Getting to Mana Drain into a Shivan or Mahamoti or big Fireball seems pretty freaking amazing. You can also profitably board into Earthquake, which has gotta wreck half the decks in the format.
If you don't do Earthquakes in from your sideboard you can board in Erhnam Djinn for your clones. Probably they're more impactful against say, WW, then a cloned Savannah Lions. I don't know though how are the clones working out for you in games?
Necropotence was unrestricted in 1995; so maybe if my friends and I played with Ice Age we would totally have the Necro Deck be a thing by unrestricting it Ahh... Broken times... Broken times...
In any case have you considered swapping out some amount of Terror for Paralyze? I generally prefer it since you can "remove" threats on turn one that are powered out with Lotuses and Moxen. However I suppose Terror is more permanent but it also cant hit Juggernaut, Su-chi and Juzáms/impactful black threats. Don't know how relevant that is in your meta but it is worth considering. What do the rest of you guys think?
A new website has gotten made for a new Oldschool format. It has a great URL too
landlotusjuzam.net
It allows through Ice Age, which allows for Portent and Brainstorm for cantrips and card selection. But they also made videos for their tournament which is really cool. Anyway just wanted to let you all know.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My lame attempt at humor...
Why does everyone in Bant hate the Lord of Riots? 'Cause they're all, Rakdos-intolerant! Awwww, yeah...
A new website has gotten made for a new Oldschool format. It has a great URL too
landlotusjuzam.net
It allows through Ice Age, which allows for Portent and Brainstorm for cantrips and card selection. But they also made videos for their tournament which is really cool. Anyway just wanted to let you all know.
Wow, VHS is such potato quality. Still fun to watch those old videos.
Thats awesome, I need to check that place out. Too bad power creep makes these awesome cards mostly unplayable, even in EDH these days :/
There are a lot of cards that are still playable. Kird Ape and Lightning Bolt are still playable. I'm trying to force Psionic Blast in Modern (was reprinted in Timespiral) though it's fun and catches people off guard, I'm not sure it's really still as good as I want it to be. But Llanowar Elves are still solid and you can't beat the old mana rocks like Sol Ring. Sure, there are a lot of cards that just haven't lived up to the test of time, but some are still kicking.
Yeah, I really wish they wouldn't have broken power surge. That card used to be so cool. Now you have to pair it with Manabarbs, and even then it's still bad.
I've been mostly cubing with my '94 cube lately. Still so much fun.
Nice, I've been working on Eel Aggro. I've picked up some Psionic Blasts, a beta Basalt Monolith and some Mishra's Factories. Still need winter, but I managed to find the other three through trades. I think I could put a 'playable' eel aggro burn list together. I just need 4 Unstable Mutations and a format legal Sol Ring. That requires me to take my existing red green deck apart for the lightning bolts and chain lightnings though. So I guess I'm stuck with just having one deck at a time sleeved up, but having enough old cards to have options is nice. My list would be similar to what Klinscy posted on page 1, minus the Serendibs and Juggernaut but adding some Su-Chi and a little more burn. I still have most of that tron list I posted as well, so I guess I'm just picking up all kinds of fun old cards whenever I see them.
The one other person that I could convince to play this format moved out of state, but I still keep the red green deck together for now and bring it out vs fair decks decks from time to time. It's a fun format. Kird apes and lightning bolts still stand up fairly well vs 'fair' decks, I wouldn't want to play it vs combo or well tuned modern decks though.
There were some good videos posted on youtube recently of people playing 93/94 by the youtube user magictime.it. It looks like they recorded some fun matches.
Edit: Update I picked up that sol ring and those other things I said and so I'm attaching an image of the Eel aggro deck. It's potato quality, but it's all the right sets. I had to unsleeve my red green deck to use the bolts and chain lightnings, but It's nice to play a different oldschool deck.
I guess I need to pick up more power artifacts now.
Changes go into effect June 1st. I'll also update the first post with the current rules changes. I'm not sure how I feel about Summer magic being allowed. On one hand I don't own any, so it doesn't change much for me, but it seems strange as it's essentially just an alternate printing of the Revised set, and Revised is not allowed. I understand the "pimp" factor. These cards are absurdly rare, but if you're going to allow them, why not also allow Revised? Adding Summer doesn't really make the format any more accessible, and it doesn't add anything to the card pool.
Current build. Oddly enough I sold off my Beta power recently, but decided to pick up a few UNL pieces just for this format. I am working on a lotus too.
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Vintage-Shops/BUG/Dredge Legacy-Death and Taxes/Nic Fit
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig!
Current build. Oddly enough I sold off my Beta power recently, but decided to pick up a few UNL pieces just for this format. I am working on a lotus too.
Nice. I had a Beta Ruby in mine for a while, but I needed money more. I put the red green deck back together and took the eels deck apart (I only have 5 lightning bolts that are legal if you are strict on the sets).
Mine can still use a lot of improvement both in the sideboard and in the mana base. I'd like to have some birds of paradise for it too, but it's starting to feel more refined and less like just a pile of cards that happened to be legal (except for the sideboard - I really need REB and lifeforce...)
This is the deck I've been building. Basically control the board and win via Underworld Dreams. Not sure if I should add another win con like a Shivan Dragon or a Nightmare or something.
4 Kird Ape
4 Ghazban Ogre
4 Elvish Archers
2 Argothian Pixies
2 Whirling Dervish
3 Juggernaut
//Spells: 21
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Giant Growth
4 Fireball
1 Channel
1 Regrowth
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Black Vise
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
4 Taiga
4 City of Brass
2 Mountain
6 Forest
You can randomly Channel-Fireball kill someone once in a blue moon.
Monored aggro actually seems really strong though. There are two tribal decks you can try:
LOLZ -- Aggro Prison
4 Kobolds of Kher Keep
4 Crookshank Kobolds
4 Crimson Kobolds
4 Kobold Taskmaster
4 Kobold Drill Sergeant
2 Kobold Overlord
4 Winter Orb
4 Blood Moon
1 Black Vise
//Spells: 11
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
2 Blood Lust
1 Wheel of Fortune
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
10 Mountain
So many Goblins:
4 Goblin Balloon Brigade
4 Goblins of the Flaarg
4 Goblin Rock Sled
4 Goblin King
4 Ball Lightning
//Permanents: 6
4 Blood Moon
2 Gauntlet of Might
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Fireball
1 Disintegrate
1 Wheel of Fortune
//Mana: 20
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
12 Mountain
Except for your mana base and the juggernauts, this is actually really similar to what I'm running now and my 'ideal' list. I picked up a Beta Channel and I run 2 Fireball and 2 Disintegrate instead of 4 fireball, mostly because I have betas of those. I also don't own an old enough regrowth, Black Vise or Wheel, but Wheel at least is on my wish list for the deck and they are all solid cards. Since the guy I played this against moved I've mostly only played the list against other 'casual' decks and not strictly 93/94 decks, and it still does pretty well.
As for the creature base, I've debated Juggernaut, he's pretty budget friendly but also easy to block so I feel like at 4 mana Roc of Kher Ridges is better due to the evasion. Su-Chi is also a budget option that survives bolt, and I tested with him a little too but it's been a bit underwhelming. With no budget and a good mana base though you could easily splash three colors and add Serendib Efreet instead of Juggernaut (which costs 3 instead of 4, survives a lightning bolt AND has evasion). Funny enough Juggernaut and Mishra's Factory are part of why I main decked a Scavenger Folk, and two of the things you should hold lightning bolts for. I'm also running a pixie now as a singleton and it is great, Two is probably the right number. But I think after playing the ogre for a while, I would not want to put him up to four copies. It's too risky, 2-3 is probably fine.
It looks like from your list that budget is not an issue, so I do have a couple of other suggestions. Berserk and Shivan Dragon. If the game goes long you need a plan. Ogre's won't get you there all the time and they are a terrible top deck. Lightning Bolts and Chain Lightnings often end up being your removal spells and if you end up at top deck mode flipping a dragon can put you back into the game. With Moxes and Lotus Dragon can also come in and start beating down pretty early. If you keep Juggernaut, Berserk makes them 10 power and provides trample... and that's a thing.
I was generally favoring Fireball because there are few regenerators (no River Boa yet) and the power/toughness ratio on creatures back then just sucked compared to how much mana you could generate, so Fireball taking out 2 or more guys is a real thing.
I was thinking back to decks that were strong in the very early meta, and I remember Argothian Pixies being strong. Pixies mainly because Mishra's Factory was everywhere. Dervish was a strong meta choice due to popularity of monoblack. I guess Juggernaut is weak to a lot of things, but it seems decent with Giant Growth. I don't think Berserk is great for this build. It would fit better if I ran Blood Lusts on top of the Giant Growths, plus creatures like Ball Lightning. That's a completely different deck. Hmm...
Hmm.. once you blue splash, the deck goes in a whole new direction because blue gives you some incredibly powerful tools.
4 Kird Ape
2 Ghazban Ogre
2 Scryb Sprites
4 Elvish Archers
2 Argothian Pixies
2 Ironclaw Orcs
4 Serendib Efreet
//Spells: 20
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Unstable Mutation
2 Blood Lust
2 Berserk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
4 City of Brass
4 Taiga
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tropical Island
That could be fun. But once you're playing all those fun blue cards, I'd rather ditch the aggro plan and just play URg drains-burn:
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Serendib Efreet
1 Clone
1 Vesuvan Doppelganger
2 Shivan Dragon
2 Mahamoti Djinn
//Spells: 23
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Mana Drain
3 Counterspell
3 Fireball
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Regrowth
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Taiga
2 Island
2 City of Brass
Completely different deck but also seems really fun. Back in that format Mana Drain was way worse because you could mana burn from it. Getting to Mana Drain into a Shivan or Mahamoti or big Fireball seems pretty freaking amazing. You can also profitably board into Earthquake, which has gotta wreck half the decks in the format.
My lame attempt at humor...
Why does everyone in Bant hate the Lord of Riots? 'Cause they're all, Rakdos-intolerant! Awwww, yeah...
Legalizing CE allows access to affordable, but still awesome-looking, Power and duals.
I'm currently running a mono-black deck that I need to get some Juzams for:
4 Hypnotic Specter
1 Royal Assassin
4 Sengir Vampire
Spells (27)
1 Black Lotus
1 Chaos Orb
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Icy Manipulator
1 Mind Twist
1 Mox Jet
1 Necropotence
4 Sinkhole
4 Terror
4 The Rack
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Strip Mine
17 Swamp
1 Urborg
4 Black Knight
2 Ihsan's Shade
1 Jester's Cap
1 Jester's Mask
1 Mirror Universe
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
4 Oubliette
[/deck]
That is a sweet looking deck.
In any case have you considered swapping out some amount of Terror for Paralyze? I generally prefer it since you can "remove" threats on turn one that are powered out with Lotuses and Moxen. However I suppose Terror is more permanent but it also cant hit Juggernaut, Su-chi and Juzáms/impactful black threats. Don't know how relevant that is in your meta but it is worth considering. What do the rest of you guys think?
My lame attempt at humor...
Why does everyone in Bant hate the Lord of Riots? 'Cause they're all, Rakdos-intolerant! Awwww, yeah...
landlotusjuzam.net
It allows through Ice Age, which allows for Portent and Brainstorm for cantrips and card selection. But they also made videos for their tournament which is really cool. Anyway just wanted to let you all know.
My lame attempt at humor...
Why does everyone in Bant hate the Lord of Riots? 'Cause they're all, Rakdos-intolerant! Awwww, yeah...
Wow, VHS is such potato quality. Still fun to watch those old videos.
There are a lot of cards that are still playable. Kird Ape and Lightning Bolt are still playable. I'm trying to force Psionic Blast in Modern (was reprinted in Timespiral) though it's fun and catches people off guard, I'm not sure it's really still as good as I want it to be. But Llanowar Elves are still solid and you can't beat the old mana rocks like Sol Ring. Sure, there are a lot of cards that just haven't lived up to the test of time, but some are still kicking.
Yeah, I really wish they wouldn't have broken power surge. That card used to be so cool. Now you have to pair it with Manabarbs, and even then it's still bad.
http://www.eternalcentral.com/old-school-of-thought/
I've been mostly cubing with my '94 cube lately. Still so much fun.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
Nice, I've been working on Eel Aggro. I've picked up some Psionic Blasts, a beta Basalt Monolith and some Mishra's Factories. Still need winter, but I managed to find the other three through trades. I think I could put a 'playable' eel aggro burn list together. I just need 4 Unstable Mutations and a format legal Sol Ring. That requires me to take my existing red green deck apart for the lightning bolts and chain lightnings though. So I guess I'm stuck with just having one deck at a time sleeved up, but having enough old cards to have options is nice. My list would be similar to what Klinscy posted on page 1, minus the Serendibs and Juggernaut but adding some Su-Chi and a little more burn. I still have most of that tron list I posted as well, so I guess I'm just picking up all kinds of fun old cards whenever I see them.
The one other person that I could convince to play this format moved out of state, but I still keep the red green deck together for now and bring it out vs fair decks decks from time to time.
There were some good videos posted on youtube recently of people playing 93/94 by the youtube user magictime.it. It looks like they recorded some fun matches.
Edit: Update I picked up that sol ring and those other things I said and so I'm attaching an image of the Eel aggro deck.
I guess I need to pick up more power artifacts now.
Changes go into effect June 1st. I'll also update the first post with the current rules changes. I'm not sure how I feel about Summer magic being allowed. On one hand I don't own any, so it doesn't change much for me, but it seems strange as it's essentially just an alternate printing of the Revised set, and Revised is not allowed. I understand the "pimp" factor. These cards are absurdly rare, but if you're going to allow them, why not also allow Revised? Adding Summer doesn't really make the format any more accessible, and it doesn't add anything to the card pool.
4 Paralyze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Stone Rain
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mind Twist
1 Chaos Orb
2 Icy Manipulator
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Juzam Djinn
2 Shivan Dragon
//Mana: 25
4 Dark Ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Strip Mine
4 Badlands
3 Mountain
5 Swamp
4 Llanowar elves
4 Kird Ape
3 Whirling Dervish
1 Juggernaut
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Giant Growth
2 Blood Lust
3 Berserk
1 Channel
1 Fireball
1 Storm Seeker
1 Desert Twister
1 Regrowth
1 Sylvan Library
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
4 Taiga
3 Mishra's Factory
7 Forest
5 Mountain
2 Shatterstorm
2 Crumble
2 City in a Bottle
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Lifeforce
1 Tsunami
1 Tranquility
Current build. Oddly enough I sold off my Beta power recently, but decided to pick up a few UNL pieces just for this format. I am working on a lotus too.
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig!
Nice. I had a Beta Ruby in mine for a while, but I needed money more. I put the red green deck back together and took the eels deck apart (I only have 5 lightning bolts that are legal if you are strict on the sets).
9x Forest (unlimited)
1x Maze of Ith
3x Mishra's Factory (each different - missing winter)
8x Mountain (unlimited)
1x Mountain (beta)
1x Strip Mine
Creature (15)
1x Argothian Pixies
1x Ghazban Ogre
4x Kird Ape
3x Llanowar Elves (unilimited)
1x Llanowar Elves (beta)
1x Shivan Dragon (unlimited)
3x Su-Chi
1x Whirling Dervish
4x Chain Lightning
1x Channel (beta)
2x Disintegrate (beta)
2x Fireball (beta)
Enchantment (1)
1x Sylvan Library
Instant (9)
1x Fissure
3x Giant Growth (alpha)
1x Giant Growth (beta)
3x Lightning Bolt (unlimited)
1x Lightning Bolt (alpha)
Artifact (3)
1x Chaos Orb (unlimited)
1x Mana Vault (unlimited)
1x Sol Ring (unlimited)
1x Argothian Treefolk
1x Avoid Fate
1x Ball Lightning
1x Blood Moon
1x Crumble
2x Fellwar Stone
1x Inferno
2x Onulet
2x Pyrotechnics
1x Scavenger Folk
1x Shatterstorm
1x Storm Seeker
Mine can still use a lot of improvement both in the sideboard and in the mana base. I'd like to have some birds of paradise for it too, but it's starting to feel more refined and less like just a pile of cards that happened to be legal (except for the sideboard - I really need REB and lifeforce...)
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig!
1 Sylvan Library
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Winds of Change
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Mind Twist
4 Fellwar Stone
1 Balance
1 Regrowth
4 Dark Ritual
1 Sol Ring
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Icy Manipulator
1 Disenchant
1 The Abyss
1 Mirror Universe
2 Terror
2 Fireball
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
4 City of Brass
4 Badlands
2 Scrubland
1 Bayou
1 Strip Mine
1 Maze of Ith
9 Swamp