MTG Salvation

I finished my 1996 era gauntlet. I thought I would share it here.

I decided to build a gauntlet of decks from black summer. I'm using 4th/Ice Age/Alliances/Chronicals/Homelands/Fallen Empires as my sets with the following ban list.

Restricted
Balance
Black Vise
Land Tax
Ivory Tower
Zuran Orb

Banned
Mind Twist
Ante Cards




Sadly this is the first box like this that they made to my knowledge. I would have liked something a little older. If someone has the ability to print boxes on cardboard I would be interested in getting a more Ice Age-y one built. I still need to get two more Ice age starter decks to finish this off.

Onto the decks.



Pretty simple white weenie deck. I cut a Factory to help with the double white mana cost.


My favorite deck of the bunch. I should be running forces but I'm not for budget reasons.



Necropotence, the deck that everyone wants to play. It's amazing that the best thing you can do with a necro at the time is black knight.



The mono-red deck of the group. All the pump knights have been errataed to also be knights so An-Zerrin Ruins is spicey.



This is the deck I was most excited about, it has been a dud in most of our games.

So I hope you enjoyed this blast from the past.

Why no Birds of Paradise in the Ernhamgeddon list? Seems better than the Elves.

Why Goblins of the Flaarg in a deck with 5 Dwarves?? Something tells me that was the result of a dare/bet. There's probably a more optimal configuration of creatures that still respects the Sligh curve.

Noted on Birds.

At the time that specific deck came out they had to have 5 cards from every standard legal set if I remember correctly (sometimes dubbed the homelands rule). I should look into fixing that.

Quote from Pringlesman »

Noted on Birds.

At the time that specific deck came out they had to have 5 cards from every standard legal set if I remember correctly (sometimes dubbed the homelands rule). I should look into fixing that.

Are you looking at lists from Pro Tour: New York? I think that's the only time that rule was ever used. Necro summer persisted long after that without such a rule in place. You can modify your lists accordingly.

Your Necropotence deck might like Lake of the Dead as well. Some old school sideboard cards for monoblack include Gloom, Paralyze. Deathgrip, Dystopia. Cemetery Gate.

You could also try building a classic blue-white control list. And white weenie. Those were major archetypes.

It's been years, so this is just a rough stab, but something like this:


(Look Ma, no Force of Will! Though obviously if you have Forces they should come in.)

There's an interesting deck from the 1995 format that uses Underworld Dreams and all the old draw spells like Winds of Change, Wheel of Fortune, and Timetwister.

I don't know what Alliances offers you, but there might be something to take the deck further. If you go true 1996 and add Mirage and Visions, you get a lot more options for this deck.

Quote from FTW1987 »

[quote from="Pringlesman »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/casual-related-formats/624861-magic-1996?comment=3"]Noted on Birds.

Are you looking at lists from Pro Tour: New York? I think that's the only time that rule was ever used. Necro summer persisted long after that without such a rule in place. You can modify your lists accordingly.

No, I'm just trying to make decks that look like they came from this era. If I can get up to 8 decks built I would like to hold a tourney.

Quote from FTW1987 »

You could also try building a classic blue-white control list. And white weenie. Those were major archetypes.

It's been years, so this is just a rough stab, but something like this:

(Look Ma, no Force of Will! Though obviously if you have Forces they should come in.)

Thank you, that is exactly what I was looking for in decks. I'm going to need to buy so many strip mines and mishra's factories for this project. I'm going to update that red deck. It will contain some amount of Ball Lightnings. And I think Goblin Ski Patrol might be a better 2 drop then a good portion of those 2 drops.

Haha yeah. I think there was a point where Mishra's Factories were worth about as much as Revised duals, since basically every deck wanted 4, and at that point duals were still in print.

First deck built, now to work on the second deck.

I like it, but no Demonic Tutor?

Tempest Efreet is back!

Quote from GumgodMTG »

I like it, but no Demonic Tutor?

Demonic Tutor wasn't in fourth edition.

Ah, I see. I didn't catch that you were starting with fourth edition.

Updated the opening post with the finish gauntlet.

This is very neat, Pringlesman. I wish you had found three more archetypes to make the full 8.