Magic’s main format, Standard, is popular due to its rotation and smaller cards. A 60-card deck with 4 Lightning Bolts has about 50 more playable Lightning Bolts than a 90-card deck. The minimum deck size in Magic the Gathering is 60 cards, but it can be larger. The limit of 4 copies of each card (except basic lands) means that a larger deck would improve the game.
In Magic the Gathering, the minimum deck size is 60 cards, while in Limited (where you play with cards you’ve just opened), decks are 40 cards. In EDH, your deck is 100 cards. When building your deck, determine what you want your deck to do and have a mission. You can play as many cards as you want in a Magic deck.
A regular deck needs a minimum of 60 cards, while the maximum is technically infinite. A player must be able to shuffle satisfactorily within the normal time frame, putting the upper bound around 250 cards. However, building 60-card decks instead of 120-card decks means you can potentially build more.
The minimum official deck size for Magic is 60 cards, with EDH having a maximum deck size of 100 cards. In house games, if both players agree to a 250-card limit, they impose a more manageable 250-card limit for everybody.
There are many Magic formats, but most rules are 40 for Limited (Draft and Sealed) and 60 for Constructed. The only exception is Commander, which has no hard limit but requires players to be able to shuffle the deck adequately and in a reasonable amount of time. Limited decks must contain a minimum of 40 cards, and there is no maximum deck size.
📹 Magic Deck That Wins By Losing
Note: don’t build this deck Decklist: 1 Judge’s Familiar 1 Mother of Runes 1 Siren Stormtamer 1 Baleful Strix 1 Keen Duelist 1 Pain …
Can you have 100 cards in a magic deck?
Commander is a comparable Magic: The Gathering format that permits up to four participants to engage in competition with a deck comprising 100 distinct cards, inclusive of the designated commander.
How big is a limited deck?
Limited decks in Magic: The Gathering require players to build their decks from a more limited pool of cards than Constructed formats. These formats require players to open a specified number of Magic products and work exclusively with the cards from that product. Due to the nature of Limited formats, players cannot build their decks in advance of the tournament and must build their deck within the tournament itself. Two most common formats for official limited play are Booster Draft and Sealed Deck.
In Booster Draft, players in a circle look at cards from one booster pack, “draft” one to keep, and pass the remaining cards to an adjacent player. In Sealed Deck event, each player receives and opens all packs at once, with the finalized decks constructed from the cards obtained.
How small can a magic deck be?
The majority of constructed formats have a minimum deck size of 60 cards, which is typically the optimal number of cards for optimal playing conditions.
Can my Magic deck have more than 60 cards?
The Standard format requires a minimum deck size of 60 cards, including lands, for legal play in any event. However, players can still have more cards, as long as they can shuffle them in their hands. The official deck size was 40 before 1994, but it became 60 at a two-point transition. In January 1994, the Duelists’ Convocation International was formed, leading to sanctioned tournaments and rule changes.
The most notable change was the official ruling that Constructed decks had to be 60 cards at minimum, apart from the banned and restricted list. Technically, players can have as many cards as they want, but this is a separate discussion.
Can you have a 40 card deck in Magic?
Magic’s deck size has evolved over time, with the original rules dictating a 40-card deck, but this was deemed too small for Constructed due to its repetitiveness and easy key combos. The game now has a maximum of 4 cards with the same name in each deck, with exceptions for basic lands or if a card’s text contradicts this rule. The four-of-limit rule was not initially part of the game, but it was introduced by WotC after Alpha’s release. The maximum deck size is technically infinite, but a player must be able to shuffle satisfactorily within the normal time frame, putting the upper bound at around 250 cards.
Can you have a 40 card MTG deck?
It is preferable to limit the number of cards in your deck to 40 when incorporating shuffled cards from the graveyard. Nevertheless, in the event that this is not a viable option, it is possible to utilise a larger deck as an alternative solution.
What is the maximum deck size?
Magic’s deck size has evolved over time, with the original rules dictating a 40-card deck, but this was deemed too small for Constructed due to its repetitiveness and easy key combos. The game now has a maximum of 4 cards with the same name in each deck, with exceptions for basic lands or if a card’s text contradicts this rule. The four-of-limit rule was not initially part of the game, but it was introduced by WotC after Alpha’s release. The maximum deck size is technically infinite, but a player must be able to shuffle satisfactorily within the normal time frame, putting the upper bound at around 250 cards.
Is there a max deck size in Magic?
Constructed decks must contain a minimum of 60 cards, with no maximum deck size. Players can have a sideboard of up to 15 cards, and exchanges between games are not required on a one-for-one basis. A player’s combined deck and sideboard may not contain more than four of any individual card, unless stated otherwise. All cards named Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest, and Wastes are basic.
The Standard format, introduced in 1995, became the flagship format in the constructed deck tournament scene and is most commonly found at Friday Night Magic tournaments. A variation of the format called Arena Standard is used for online play through Magic: The Gathering Arena. This format consists of the most recent standard sets (expansion/core set) releases and is included for up to three years.
The number of sets included in the standard format is at its lowest immediately after the rotation and increases as new sets are released until the oldest sets are rotated out again the following fall.
As of May 2024, the current Standard set includes Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, Innistrad: Crimson Vow, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, Streets of New Capenna, Dominaria United, The Brothers’ War, Phyrexia: All Will Be One, March of the Machine, March of the Machine: the Aftermath, Wilds of Eldraine, The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Murders at Karlov Manor, and Outlaws of Thunder Junction.
How much land should be in a magic deck?
In a 40 card deck, play 17-18 lands, while 24 lands in a 60 card deck. If playing cards with five or higher mana costs, increase the number of lands. For example, if the critical cards cost four mana and you want to cast them on turn four, you need to hit your first four land drops. To draw four lands in ten cards, you need to play at least 40 lands, which means 16 lands in a 40 card deck. If your important cards are five drops and you want to play them on turn five, you need five lands in your first eleven cards, or 45 lands, which means slightly over 18 lands in your deck. With 17 lands in your 40 card deck, you have a 42. 5 chance of a randomly drawn card being a land.
Are 40k cards legal in MTG?
The Warhammer 40, 000 Commander Decks comprise 168 cards, which are available in three formats: Commander, Vintage, and Legacy. However, they are not available in Standard, Pioneer, or Modern formats. The deck is comprised of a number of components, including a foil Commander, ten double-sided tokens, a deck box, and a life wheel. The Tyranid hive fleets are voracious consumers, devouring all that they encounter in preparation for the emergence of significant threats. The card designated for release is 181.
📹 MOST EXPENSIVE MTG DECK EVER = TURN 1 WIN
Most Expensive MTG Deck = Turn 1 Win. Brian Weissman vs Peter Adkison (original CEO of Wizards of the Coast) Original video: …
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I did a similar deck with Lesha. Called it Life Hurts. VERY fun deck that wins rarely but can survive for a surprisingly long time with 0 win con (I once activated a different can’t lose effect 5 upkeep in a row and had 5 creatures/effects keeping me at exactly 1. Still lost cause they got Orrery out and could flash their win con…)
I cannot express in words how much this article has changed my life. I have watched it countless times, and each time I watch it, I discover something new and profound that I had previously missed. The article is about the meaning of life, and it has given me a new perspective on how to live my own. The article is so powerful and thought-provoking that it has become an obsession for me. I have spent countless hours analyzing every frame, every word, and every nuance of the article. I have replayed it so many times that I can recite it by heart. I have even taken notes on it, trying to capture every single idea and concept that the article presents. The article has given me a sense of purpose and direction in my life. It has helped me to understand that life is not just about material possessions or worldly success, but about living a meaningful life that makes a positive impact on the world around us. It has taught me that life is about making connections with others and helping others to find their own meaning and purpose in life. The article has also helped me to let go of my fears and insecurities. It has taught me to be courageous and to take risks in life, even when the outcome is uncertain. It has taught me to be resilient and to keep going, even when things get tough. I cannot recommend this article enough. It is truly a work of art and a masterpiece of storytelling. It has changed my life in ways that I never thought possible. I urge everyone to watch it and to let it change their lives as well.
I seen the picture of Platinum angel on the thumbnail on my feed, just wanted to say years ago I won a tournament with my Eldrazi deck with that creature at like -120 health. Last opponent in tournament had no way of dealing with a flying creature. Funny because I remember their deck going so fast I had like 1-2 hp the turn before and managed to get enough mana to cast the Angel.
Well, there are “some” problems with this deck but otherwise, it looks pretty sound. The things you will want to watch out for: blue decks. negate cards and counter cards will destroy your only means of making your “unable to lose” card invulnerable. They can also counter the “unable to lose” card itself. Return to hand does the same thing. Cards which can destroy lands (there are very few but they exist); cards that can swap or steal permanents (also very rare); plane (I forget the name of the deities) that have instant win conditions. White decks: banish cards are common in white decks and can often be used on any permanent. FTK and wombo-combo decks…there are A TON of powerful commanders given you can play just about any card in the game with this feature I think that’s it. Happy destruction!
I made something with the same concept 4 or 5 years ago with Zur, the enchanter at the helm. He can fetch Phyrexian unlife and Necropotence to set yourself up to 0 life points. it can also get Greater auramancy in case you used Lich or the likes to drop your life to zero so you dont immediately lose to ‘destroy target enchantment’ the deck which was supposed to be a gimmick ended up extremely oppressive once i tuned it up.also the best wincon was ‘Repay in Kind’ in my own list.
Because Noah wouldn’t go through the effort of putting a Decklist in the desciption, I put it together one-by-one myself. I don’t know why, but it has 109 cards. Here it is: Decklist — magicthenoah winning by losing deck — Shared via TopDecked MTG Main 1 Judge’s Familiar 1 Mother of Runes 1 Siren Stormtamer 1 Baleful Strix 1 Keen Duelist 1 Pain Seer 1 Priest of Fell Rites 1 Spellskite 1 Stormscape Familiar 1 Burnished Hart 1 Chasm Skulker 1 Cloudsteel Kirin 1 Midnight Reaper 1 Plaguecrafter 1 Spell Queller 1 Wall of Blood 1 Bane, Lord of Darkness 1 Corpse Augur 1 Defiler of Flesh 1 Kathari Remnant 1 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Spark Double 1 Bloodgift Demon 1 Karmic Guide 1 Mulldrifter 1 Shriekmaw 1 Magus of the Mirror 1 Sakashima’s Protege 1 Sun Titan 1 Platinum Angel 1 Gideon of the Trials 1 Swords to Plowshares 1 Wash Away 1 Lim-Dûl’s Vault 1 Forceful Denial 1 Necrologia 1 Toxic Deluge 1 Armageddon 1 Diabolic Tutor 1 Cleansing Nova 1 River’s Rebuke 1 Peer into the Abyss 1 Repay in Kind 1 Profane Transfusion 1 Sol Ring 1 Wayfarer’s Bauble 1 Arcane Signet 1 Azorius Signet 1 Dimir Signet 1 Fellwar Stone 1 Orzhov Signet 1 Swiftfoot Boots 1 Talisman of Dominance 1 Talisman of Hierarchy 1 Talisman of Progress 1 Commander’s Sphere 1 The Book of Exalted Deeds 1 Pact Weapon 1 Mirror Universe 1 Soul Conduit 1 Greed 1 Lich 1 Axis of Mortality 1 Arcane Sanctum 1 Azorius Chancery 1 Caves of Koilos 1 Command Tower 1 Darkwater Catacombs 1 Dimir Aqueduct 1 Esper Panorama 1 Evolving Wilds 1 Exotic Orchard 1 Goldmire Bridge 6 Island 1 Mutavault 1 Myriad Landscape 1 Obscura Storefront 1 Orzhov Basilica 6 Plains 1 Port Town 1 Prairie Stream 1 Skycloud Expanse 1 Sunken Hollow 12 Swamp 1 Tainted Field 1 Temple of Enlightenment 1 Temple of Silence 1 Terramorphic Expanse Shared via TopDecked MTG
I’m fucking extatic. In my mono black deck i use magus of the mirror as a plan b if my main combo doesnt work. i add insult to injury by using abyssal persecutor and then smuggling it onto my opponents battlefield with fateful handoff. It’s fucking glorious, making my opponent control the means by which I can’t lose the game lmao.
I remember making a deck whose sole purpose is to keep the game going forever. It contains Platinum Angel (you can’t lose the game and your opponents can’t win the game) and Abyssal Persecutor (you can’t win the game and your opponents can’t lose the game). Its entire goal is to keep those two cards on the board the whole time.
Make a M.A.D Deck…Mutually Assured Destruction. You dont win by losing. You just dont let anyone win. I have two. I reserve them for when i play against certain toxic players at my local card shop. They hate it. It actually becomes a race to see if i can nuke the entire pod, or they can take themselves out first.
Lich does not suck. You suck because, obviously, you don’t know how to utilize the card. Setting your life at zero with this card can have some crazy potential in combos. Nefarious Lich is worse than OG Lich, as is Lich’s Tomb and the Mirror one. Lich’s Mastery is the best one imo. I will have to play test the new Artifact one in Duskmourn, I think it has interesting potential in Grixis. I have 3 decks right now revolved around the “not losing” concept. Lich decks are sometimes difficult to pilot in Commander, but can be extremely rewarding. Having multiple, “you can’t lose” effects going on is the key. White is good cause it can help protect yourself and has access to lots of control elements. I have an Esper version, a Mardu version, and an Abzan version at the moment. I want to try a Grixis one next. Unfortunately, there are no real good Commanders that can help facilitate a heavy enchantment strategy. But Final Fortune on Isochron Scepter with Plat Angel out is gross. I like combining “you lose the game” concepts with “you can’t lose the game” effects. Lol
When i was making my Wizard blue deck, i had this funny combo with tunnel vision, mind over matter and toromods crypt. I fu***ng loved the way how you could have just looked at entire players library and next play just name a card and exile half of their deck essentially with toromods crypt pretty much immidietally. When i searched my own library however, it was good to pair this shit up with Psychic Spiral for uno reverse onto another opponent, and then toromod them back XD
Somewhat off topic… I played against a really funny deck once. The main focus was turning everything into an enchantment using enchanted evening. So games going pretty normally, right? Everything’s an enchantment but it doesn’t really matter… Right until they play spring cleaning. My entire board got wiped. I lost.
wait isn’t armageddon like…. Absolutely horrible in this deck? You need a lot of mana and one of your lands literally is a win condition. How was this even an option that chat could vote for? I understand the duty of a distiguished chatter to troll when they can, but like, why were they given this much power?
back in the day “ie in 2005 era” used to be a black/white deck that did the same thing kinda.. in short it was a combo where you used pestilence “may have been pestilence rats”, and everyone lost life.. if you could do it for enough to kill the highest life on the table “yes this was used in multi-player games a lot”, everyone was basically dead… the trick to the combo, and i forget the combo, was to have a card that let you gain life in the amount of the pestilence damage… so basically you still had life points at the final resolution phase….
Love the article. Love the glass cannon deck. Love the comments section. Makes one stop and legitimately want to hug folks and put on some 2006 uploaded monty python while playing. m.youtube.com/watch?v=pnq96W9jtuw the meager player running this deck outside in the real world: ‘hey everyone I’m low life. If you swing at me one more time I will hit you with a fish! or whatever this is? (cast zurin orb) not exactly sure how that got in here, they were all sold out of this seven drop and said this would help with losing faster.’ cough Epic fail taps all lands sacs them wins the game. Awesome article
This is why I can’t get into MTG anymore. The best deck I ever had was a Sliver deck and people refused to play against it, or outright banned it, and then turn around and justify “You can’t lose and your opponent can’t win” cards. It’s the most shameless pay-to-win, meta heavy TCG ever made, and you can’t be competitive without buying into the memes. It’s the equivalent of if COD had cheat codes which were tournament legal that could be paid for built directly into the structure of it’s competitive scene. It’s ridiculous. WoTC knows so little about “Balance” it’s amazing anybody has the capacity to even walk into the office without falling down.
Bear in mind, Richard thought people would spend about as much money on the game as a typical board game. So buy a starter and maybe a handful of boosters. He figured the main way of changing up your playgroup’s dynamic would be through winning and losing cards in the ante, and it wasn’t a problem if a particular card was overpowered because those were the rare cards which meant there might be one or two copies in your entire playgroup.
I know a guy who played during Alpha and he has told me of the fabled one turn kill. If you are lucky, it can be done on turn one, and doesn’t require you to give yourself more turns. This combo is: One Mountain, a Black Lotus, Fireball, and website. Play the Black Lotus, then play your land, sac the black lotus to play website and give you one spare mana to spend, tap your mountain to play fireball, spend 19 life to give you 19 more mana, and then fireball will deal 20 damage to your opponent. Granted, this deck that is being demonstrated is essentially a guaranteed win, it wins by giving you more turns to achieve that win, not winning on the very first turn you started on. Still was pretty cool to watch.
I keep saying this: the truly degenerate version is 15x Lotus+25xAncestral. You draw enough cards to hold the 13 Ancestrals to mill your opponent out. Far more consistent than burdening your deck with Moxen, Creatures, Time Walks and Twisters. Of course that deck is over a million bucks by itself, but it should get a higher win percentage than either of these. And just consider that it’s a deck where you decline to play mox saphire and time walk, because their power level is too low.
I remember back when I first started playing, they had just created the rule that limited each deck to four cards and my friend’s dad was rage quitting the whole game because he said it was over and no one would play MtG anymore. I tried to buy his deck, but he wouldn’t sell it to me because he felt bad ripping off a kid for $150. I really wish I could go back and convince him to sell it to me, because that deck would be worth probably more than a hundred thousand at this point. That’s one of the reasons that I hate the reserved list so much.
We always did highest casting cost on bottom to determine who went first. You also have to realize Moxes were about $50 back then and duals were $20. I remember when Beta was worth more than Alpha and thinking it was ridiculous when Beta Lotus hit $250. Man if I had only held on to my old collection….
The funny thing is that this isn’t even close to how broken this format would be today. Nowadays you could just have your deck be all Chancellor of the Dross, meaning your opponent loses 21 life at the beginning of the first upkeep. The only answer to this would be Soul Spike, which however also happens to work well with the Chancellor. But if both players do this, it cancels out and the game comes down to who decks first, meaning you probably also want tech for this case too… It’d be an interesting meta for sure.
The creature time walk strategy is interesting… When I heard about this format, the deck I ‘built’ was 20x Black Lotus and 40x Ancestral Recall. If your opponent’s deck is 53 cards on turn one (7 in their hand) then 18 Recalls are lethal, and these will require 6 Lotus to cast. If I cast 17 Recalls at myself I draw 51 cards, leaving 1 or 2 cards in my deck depending on if I am on the play or draw. Even if these are both Recall, there are enough Recalls in the deck to draw both decks, and only need 12 Lotus to cast them. In retrospect it may be possible to creep down on the Lotus count. Still, this deck was an incredibly consistent turn 1 win.
This was similar to my strat in the OG Spells of the Planeswalkers MTG pc game. That game had a cap of 5 per card, 40 card deck, and access to select cards from Antiquities and Arabian Nights as well as some game exclusives. It did also use the Ante mechanic so those cards were playable too. The win condition was an Atog pumped to the moon by consuming tapped moxes and recasting berserk. My brother and I attempted to break the final boss and see what number it took to crash the game out. Seems that recursive doubling of any number gets out of hand pretty quickly.
Tolarian Academy even in standard got Turn 1 wins fairly often. In the state Championships I played, I had one opponent kill me before my turn, and later in the tournament, I did the same to someone else. 7 Rounds + 4 rounds to Finals (both Academy decks) means I hit a turn 1 win about 4% of the time, give or take. Turn 3 was an average win. Also, that deck was relatively cheap back then. Not many people figured out the combo back in those days, so the cards weren’t too expensive a few weeks before states. Of course these days, it could not fly under the radar like it did back then.
In short, Yes the game is pay to win. I haven’t bought many cards in a few years and I know I don’t stand a chance against most players within my play-group. It is not that I don’t have what i’d call a fairly decent card collection. But it boils down to newer cards being better than older cards and more expensive cards being out of the reach of young players because they’re simply so good, which is why they’re so expensive. I believe I’ve said it before, my play group plays commander and the games which are most enjoyable are the ones which go back and forth and are a close run game. In a form of irony the deck I play least is one which is built to go off and win, unlike the others which are more for fun or longer play. When I use the winning deck, and I do win, I tend to feel like an asshole afterwards for having basically won a cheap victory. In comparison, after a long match, even if I loose, I tend to still feel better about the game and have had more fun playing it. So it’s pay to victory, but is the winner the player who claims fastest victory or the player who has the most fun in the game?
Serious question if anyone knows. I never played MTG but I really liked how the cards looked when I was young. This was back in the early to mid 2000s and my mom had a shop in a flea market. Every weekend when I was sitting there waiting for her she gave me some money and I went to this card booth and bought old packs of magic cards. I have some from beta a few from alpha and a bunch from what I THINK was called “ice age”. Still have them all, they’ve been in a binder at my mom’s til she passed last year. Now they’re in my closet. Are those old cards actually worth anything in general? I don’t think I’d ever sell them because they have a lot of sentimental value but if they were valuable enough I may.
MTG has always been pay to win. The only way to circumvent fighting against a debit card is to enter drafts. The bad part about that is you quickly surpass the cost of just building a good deck to begin with. I played heavily from 1994 to 2002. (12 years old to 20, for perspective) I owned a lot of powerful cards, and won a lot of tourneys at local hobby shops. That really bumped up my collection and helped me improve. I was too young to travel to play for any real money, and my hobby was funded primarily from cutting grass after school. My interests had changed drastically by 20, so I started putting my money into other things, and sold my 15,000+ card collection for 400 dollars. I shudder when I think about how much they would be worth today. Even then, it was plain to see that people with more money would stomp me out.
I grew up in a family with little money. I got most of MTG cards by getting tossed a few cards for sorting other people’s boxes for them. Like they would buy lots of ebay and I would sort by color and would get to get a few card as payment. Nothing great but I was able to make a deck and start playing. I remember when I beat a (at the time) $3000+ storm deck 2-1 for the finals of a FNM locals with my “pile o scraps” artifact deck that was under 20 bucks. Afterwords he dismantled his deck and never ran it again. Still in my top 5 personal MTG moments.
I honestly thought he was going to talk about the most dollar-expensive first turn 7-card win I know of… Forest Mox Ruby Mox Emerald Black Lotus Berserk Bloodlust Ball Lightning Play Forest, both Moxes, and Black Lotus. Black Lotus for red, play Ball Lightning. Tap Ruby and either forest or Emerald to Bloodlust the Ball Lightning. Tap Emerald or forest – whichever hasn’t been used yet – to Bersek the Ball Lightning and then attack. Dunno’ why I thought that.
This is amazing and fun to watch, but just like turning on cheats in a article game (yeah, I’m an old gamer), having all that power quickly makes the game boring. No challenge, no variety, only the surprise of drawing the next card, but even that’s been reduced by both deck’s compositions. Not to mention that being made of the original cards and having all that power means skipping out on the design innovations of later MtG. Having such decks would be really nice- particularly for the collectible and monetary values- but we and the hobby are really better off with the balances and limits that came after these cards.
I started playing at Ice Age, but even then the rules were better and the cards were already expensive. But I remember hearing about a first turn original combo that was 2-Lotus/Channel/Fireball. Why did they go so far with these crazy loops? (If the answer is, “because it’s fun,” I wouldn’t fight that. Just seems more efficient.)
Started doing Magic The Gathering on my website and so far my take from it is, it’s really the player and not the deck. You can have a deck at $100 value and beat a deck of a $10000 value, now i know there is a lot of luck in the game but the strategy does surpass the luck aspect of the game. I find the game is very well balance and is not as much of a Pay To Play compare to other TCG.
While definitely entertaining, the problem I have with Brian’s deck is how innefficient it is. He could have had a much quicker turn 1 win using far fewer cards with a better deck strategy, given so few deck limits. However, I do appreciate the irony of killing someone with a half million dollar deck using a Hill Giant. As far as whether Magic is pay to win or not, I think it pretty much is, but theres also a huge amoutn of strategy. I also don’t think the answer is to have more rules limiting what player’s can and can’t do with older cards. What I’d like to see is a style of play that’s freer with less limits, simliar to this kind of play, using older and new cards, all sets. But I’d like to see newer cards that can deal with the older ones. Interrupts that cost nothing, specifically targeting the power 7 for example.
Wait im confused why did he have over 4 of 1 card in the deck is there a rule in vintage idk about? So lost also his starting hand at the start he played 5 cards total drew 3 leaving him at 6 played another 4 so should be at 2 but looks like he’s got 4 in his hand still idk im beyond confused an I been playing magic for years mostly standard and edh tho sometimes draft
I thought the black lotus & wheel of fortune deck was pretty consistent too. No lands. You just had a bigger deck than op and played lotuses and a wheel turn 1 and so on until op had no deck you and you still did. Then they draw and lose on their first turn. I think there was a website fireball variant too but that one was hit or miss.
pains me that I used to open alpha, beta and Arabian Knight boxes while sitting in my living room perusal X files back in the early 90’s. Sold a bunch of cards via dial up BBS’s for very little of what they would fetch these days. WOTC was just down the road and card dealers were selling boxes for cheap, because their most popular cards were baseball. SP was the BB card boxes to buy at that time.
Yes indeed the credit card is the most powerful card in MTG BUT!! one important factor! Is it a true blue JP Morgan Chase Credit Card? A red, white or blue enter tapped new capenna bank of America credit card? Maybe its a green TD Bank credit card? Maybe a black DISCOVER credit card? Lol Off topic, been playing MTG Arena and over the last few days I’ve matched up against a guy username “nobluedecks”. I swear! My deck is blue and green 100 percent. So each time I played him wether he went first or me I played blue mana with my first turn and the person said “good game” and proceeded to let the time run out over several turns not doing anything and forfeiting. Happened 3 times now I swear!
Back in the day Rob Dougherty told me that he had a deck that ran 19x lotus, 20x ancestral, 1x fireball. He would just draw his entire deck turn one and fireball. Didn’t even bother with website. If he was playing for ante he’d put in a second fireball. He broke the deck up when it became worth $10K.
Peter’s deck isn’t legal. He has 39 cards! The deck lists they displayed are: Peter: 8x Mox Sapphire 8x Black Lotus 5x Ancestral Recall 6x Time Walk 3x Timetwister 3x Psionic Blast 6x Juggernaut Brian: 9x Mox Sapphire 7x Black Lotus 12x Ancestral Recall 6x Time Walk 4x Timetwister 1x War Mammoth 1x Hill Giant
In the first MTG computer game, the 4 of a card limit was in place, but there was otherwise no card restriction. My favorite deck involved using 4 Contract from Belows, 4 Ancestral Recalls, 4 Black Lotuses, 4 Time Twisters, 4 Time Walks, some moxes. Contract from Below can be risky of course, because ante’ing an extra card could remove your win condition, but hey: just cast ancestral recall 10 times on the stack somehow!
I always get a kick out of how unabashedly powerful the OG cards were. WotC only had a rough idea of how their game would eventually be played, so drawing 3 cards for 1 mana seemed “useful”. 0 cost Mana-generating artifacts were considered nice bonuses. Rod of Ruin for 1 damage without tapping? Not OP at all. “Take an extra turn after this one.” Okay I will 😄
why am i perusal this at 03:56 in the morning? anyways… seeing people play with paper playcards worth ~700.000$ each deck breaks my mind. i own a precon commander deck which i pumped up with some set boosters and single card purchases. it is maybe worth ~400$ and i feel VERY decadent with that already. oof.
Sheeesh them cards are still worth so much even after the values have plummeted by some accounts. . Btw, for those that might not know, “ante” as its used in cards, was not first used in mtg. Its a very old term, going back to at least poker games and other games played with “classic” playing cards used with betting chips. Whenever somebody would say “Ante up”, well you knew you had to sweeten “the pot” with a bit more cash in order to keep playing. But the way it was used many MANY decades after the invetion of playing cards once MTG became a thing, “ante” was technically used in a similar way, as you would put a card of yours into “The pot” that the winner would collect. All the cards in the ante would be forefeit, and this, and similar “betting” kids games like pogs and the like beforehand, were one of the reasons such games were banned and looked down upon by parents, and teachers and school administrators; often banning them on school grounds outright. THe other reason was the moral “panic” that hte magic elements inherent in the franchise created in peoples minds, much like what happened in other parts ofthe 20th century, most notably with the large strings of comic book burnings during post depression era ( ironic considering we went to war eventually against Germany, whom were themselves notorious for burning books), as well as the moral panic that was caused by Dungeons & Dragons, viewed by overzealous religious types that assumed the simple game of imagination and adventure was somehow a tool for actual black magic devilry.
they make it to complicated, I made a deck like that (in my mind) like 20 years ago, and it was pretty much just 20x Black lotus, 20x Time Twister, and 20x Ball lightning. (today, I would probobly make it more like 25/25/10, but still the same cards) It fit’s so much better, just need 3 cards, and both cards costs 3 mana, and ball lightning have haste, so no need to time walk, and it’s truely a turn one win. this deck is a turn 2 or later win, but you just make it so that you have multiple turns in a row
Aside of the “POWER OF CREDIT CARD”- this is one hell of a scummy deck without technically breaking the rules (at least old ones). I’m playing some Yugioh Master Duel recently (long story how I got into this) and this deck exemplifies people who do a 5-10min summon session that either makes the oponent forfeit the battle or get deleted turn one. And even if you survive most results of the 10min summon fuck ends up with a monster that gets back from GraveYard (Fuck Phoenix Enforcer, Eldlitch at least has points for not being used by glue sniffers)
Am mildly surprised that neither added a Force-type counterspell to be able to break up the opponent’s T1 win. Imagine if the answer to the Hill Giant had been a Force of Negation, thus removing both of the deck’s direct win conditions before even having a turn. Then they could have had an even longer mill game – what fun!
If original rules exist, and you can only have a 40 card deck ….. 15 Black Lotus, 18 Ancestral Recall, 7 Lightning Bolt. You win 1000% of the time. I even tried this with 60 cards at a 20/20/20 split you don’t lose. Obviously you only need 7 Bolts to defeat the opponent but …. didn’t much matter.
I mean, packs of Magic have always cost money, so even if people gave you your deck for free, SOMEBODY paid for the cards in it at SOME point. Since nobody can win without cards, I guess that makes it pay to win… but the person who paid might not necessarily be the person who wins, if you got your cards from an old shoebox at your uncle’s house or something.
I have played since Alpha, and personally I have never, ever met anyone that had more than 2 of the power 9, in fact most players I have met may of had one or two of the power 9 cards. We used to play with Ante and of course no max on cards. 10 white knights or 12 lightning bolts etc. Good times. In fact keep in mind that there was NOTHING in the world that identified as Power 9 or Rares etc. There was no price guide before Scrye, and that came out after 3rd edition. I played at a University with about 50 other gamers and we all had a single Alpha starter deck. all 5 colors, yep cause there was no way to get extra lands unless you bought another starter deck, or a booster pack. We all ASSUMED you had to use your starter deck. Then we started trading cards, lands, creatures spells etc. Kids that had $$$ bought more starters and boosters and could have multiples of cards. I saw one Black lotus out of 50 decks, The ones you see today are more than likely fakes. In June off 1996 I had no less than 500 Dual lands (revised) as you could buy them for under $10 especially in bulk, sometimes as low as $4, even less if not mint. Keep in mind Back then a ALPHA Black Lotus could be had for under $300.00 My friend Steve purchased a Unlimited Power 9 for $1000.00 It took him about 2 months to get it (from a single trader) but he did. Thats why there are so many counterfeit ones out there, the cost is INSANE.
I did won in turn 2once during a tournament in 2000. I played monoblack hatred. Enemy played green with eladamri’s vineyard. Turn 1 i play swamp and necrophage. A 2/2 black. During upkeep pay 1 life or tap him. Enemy turn 1 he played eladamris vineyard. My turn 2 during upkeep the vineyard gave me 2 green mana. I cast dark ritual and use the 5 mana for hatred. Paid 18 life to gave my necrophage +18/+0. Paid another life for the carnophage. My life is down to 1 but i swing for 20 life. Done.match over
Omg.. I did have lots of cards from first pokemon edition….. bought 2 (or 3?) booster boxes back then. I threw them all away when moving, had no idea that such a shitty game and ugly cards could possibly get value :/. This just adds a few more thousands or ten thousands $ to how much I lost, as i also did the same thing with my tempest block/urza s block cards.. Had 3 Gaia’s cradle, at least 1 or 2 of all rares of these 2 blocks (with 4 for all the very much played ones back then like oath of druids, survival of the fittest, living death, reflecting pool, Tradewind rider, time spiral, tolarian academy, cursed scroll, etc.. and I had stocked on wastelands, had 10+, like for some other uncos that I was expecting to become valuable).. no idea how much money I lost with that, given they weren’t in very mint condition, but definitely a lot :/. At least not too much regret for the netrunner and l5r cards, these didn’t go much up in value.
My friend had a crazy deck when we were 10 or so. Black lotus, mixes, duel lands, website, time warp I think? Astral recall I think. Roc of courage . Savannah lions, fork, jesters mask and the other jester, just an absolutely insanely expensive deck. His mom bought him a box of alpha for Xmas that year, it was $100 and that’s where he got his lotus. The lotus itself was only $100 at the store. Duel lands were $20 and moxes were around $50 I think? I never had any duel lands or moxes, everyone else did, but I played black white blue, and used to beat them all in tournaments lol. Counterspell, sorc queen, royal assassin, majommoti djinn, clone, serra angel, phamtasm, blue 4/4 flyer I can’t remember the name of, dark rituals, sol ring, and some cards I must be forgetting. We used to buy packs all the time, ice lands just came out, and strangely I would beat everyone most of the time. My friend would get me with website fireball fork sometimes though. I’d always save my counter spell for it.
Of there’s anything I learned after MH2 mtg is absolutely pay to win are you kidding me it’s been that way since even before the first modern booster packs were made I mean almost every format has a pay wall behind it. This applies to every format except draft and pauper. Then it goes standard is cheap but it’s like buying a used car. You’re looking at a couple months tops before something goes wrong. Modern is like buying a new vehicle good for years but more expensive. Then you have legacy where the cards are priced more expensive than my car litterally. Then there’s vintage where I’d have to sell drugs on the street not use a penny on food water or shelter work 2 full time jobs pull double OT open a new business become one of the luckiest entrepreneurs ever and still not be able to afford vintage decks. Then there’s this… You could unironically trade these pieces of cardboard for a house and NOT A GOD DAMN SOUL WOULD BAT A LASH I could give my apartment away for these pieces of cardboard and people would claim that deal was a steal. Shout out to the credit card. MTG really needed their Crack money.
It is. Kinda. Pay to win is not really a defined term. Win what? Tournaments pretty much not. Since most of the top players have all the best cards. So depending on the format there is not slot where you can throw in more cash to get an edge over your opponents. So high stakes competitive, its kinda not pay to win. Its pay to play, since you not gonna compete top tables if you dont have the best cards. Is it pay to win casually? Maybe. Depends on your group. If you get a budged of 1000€ vs 200€ and your job is to build the best possible 2 decks, the 1000€ deck will have an edge over the 200€ deck. So kinda pay to win. However, everyone knows that guy that has like a mana crypt, vault, library, maybe some moxes in his commander decks and still only wins if he gets magic wonderland starting hand. Because he cant build decks for shit. So him dumping like 300€ more per deck does not automatically win because he is not a better player. Generally speaking ofcause your deck is gonna get better, the higher your budget is. Just think about replacing tapped dual lands with shock lands, fetch lands or the real deal dual lands even. Its flat out better for more money. But a big part is about what you play and with whom you play. More looking for powerlevel agreements than card cost. Ofcause at some point you might have to drop some money to get to a certain powerlevel.
“Is Magic TrueType pay to win?” I can’t help but think, the answer depends on who you ask but myself, I lean towards ‘yes’ BUT it’s a matter of drawing the cards you need and always a risk of getting mana flooded or mana— you know, basically not getting mana (not sure about typing/ using that second word as it can/ could be considered profanity). So, never a guaranteed ‘win’ ever with those possibilities so, idk if it’s pay to win, as no matter how much you dump in, you can still lose…
Pay to compete, luck and skill are involved. It would not be as pay to win if WoTC reprinted the best staples (especially those functionally unique, not replaceable with just one card) at a decent enough rate to drop the prices to true attainable levels, say $10 or so. Also, when am I getting meta viable samurai? Never? Ok😔
I already did a statistical prove that MTG is not a pay to win game. I use ChatGPT to take 2500 decks with price and win rate and then calculate de Pearson Correlation between this two values. The result as a negative Pearson, so no expensive decks have not the best win rate. By the way, in the another hand, most expensive deck loses more games. I think that it occurs because players made his/her decks with a limit of money. May be if a player could have no limit of money so the most expensive deck could be also that one with the greatest win rate. And it’s good to remember that this correlation have a “ground”, I mean, the cheapest deck won’t have the best win rate! You need to spend money to get a “ground” where more money won’t take more win rate. And this “ground” is around US$450, what is a lot of money at least for us in Brazil. You can calculate the value of this “ground” by the average cost of decks.
A uni housemate went one better than these decks 😉 Demonic Attorney – opponent concedes, or both players ante an additional card. Jewelled bird – swap your ante for the jewelled bird card Timetwister to recycle cards, Ancestral recall to draw cards, a few emergency Time Walks, Lotus for mana. Unless your opponent concedes, an increasing amount of their deck gets put in the ante, which you win when they eventually cotton on and do concede. Basically, the win condition is “you don’t have any cards in your deck, and I own your deck” 😉 I guess the only possible counter to these decks in the article is Force of Will on the first Ancestral and hope they don’t have another, or a Timetwister.
Magic has enough variance that it isn’t a guaranteed pay to win. Back in 2000 I played in a type 1 tournament and beat a guy playing a variant of Keeper. I beat him using a really awful Aluren/Recycle Combo deck and a Trained Armadon. My opponent got the worst draws and never found his single copy of Moat.
Lol.. might as well just play like 15 lotus and 25 ancestral recall.. Cast recall on yourself until you have enough in hand to make your opponent draw his deck and die (or if you are worried about an opponent playing a big deck replace like 6 recall with black vice or just replace 4 recall with 2 website and 2 fireball) Plenty of decks we can make that win turn 1 every game except if you get all mana or no mana.
Ahh i remember when me and my brother lit his. Alpha, beta, unhinged,unglued cards on fire in the backyard. One by one into the fire. 2 black lotus and many other valuable cards gone forever. No paper card should ever be worth more thab 20$ in 100 years it will be a pile of dust. Get rid of em while you can get money for them. Go buy adult toys and enjoy life not stuck in your buddys basement 😉
whats sad is i played people like this back in the 90s when this game first released. the power of the wallet was real back then and the fact the game wasn’t ready for plays like this just. its the fucking reason why i don’t play Master Duel online okay? I downloaded that game and i spend 5 minutes perusal some fuck play the game summoning, z summoning etc etc and im like. Heres my 2 card play and move on. Fuck that boring shit.
If you have mana link 3.0, you can have both modern cards AND the 40 card minimum, no card copy limit. And you can replace Hill Giant with Viral Drake. 3U for a 1/4 with flying, infect and 3U to proliferate. With infect rules, it’s essentially a 2/4 to a player. And the built in proliferate hurts even more!
Sat next to Chang’s deck piloted by his friend in Wizards II some years back, Blackwise and Time Twister for win con instead of the War mammoth/Hill Giant. Fun to watch from the side, not so much from the other side of the table I guess. As we chose the next opponents between turns based on results, we never played 😉
I learned pain by the form of stasis, when i first started playing i never could beat the deck my cousin had, but i had one game go 2 hours as i was able to use Elixir of Immortality 3 to 4 times in the match drawing it out before i ran out of help, you never forget a game that goes that long… this match reminded me i’ll refuse to play against a stasis deck every time the offer comes up lol.
Love the article, I learn more about the game here than at a table. But it does remind me why I disagree with the reserve list and some cards on the banlist. I like to play with themes so my ‘white whale’ set is the 5 moxen but no way I can shell out 32k for 5 pieces of cardboard. Besides as a bunch of people said already, power creep is a thing. If this combo was played now it’d cap at like 12dmg. Besides Library of Alexandria isn’t broken anymore SET IT FREE!!! TLDR: I’m salty cuz I’m poor lol
Yeah, i remember that in the eldrazi times I built an aristocrats deck with cryptolith rites and it was a great and fun deck to play. Wasn’t even expensive if you didn’t play Hangar back walkers n stuff but boooooi was it annoying for others to play against… So I didn’t really play it that often 😅
My best friend and I play commander. So as part of his strategy he is tutoring all the time, and shuffling for 30 minutes after that. THEN, he always play to draw (because most of his tutors are putting the card on top), and then sometimes he takes an extra turn or two… so those turns generally go like this: “hey, did you see (MOVIE)?” “Nah, is it good?” “Yeah, maybe we can watch it while you play solitaire” xD
you should time it on the enemy turns, extra turns and such are technically turns, but they are mostly just actions for me, the really interesting question, how many actions and turns the enemy has. without zero mana instant, if the enemy has no turns, he or she cannot do anything, just watch. So and ideal run is zero turn, as in zero turns given to the enemy,.
I went and bought for $30 a nice looking proxie of power nine. But it has a differnent back and really cool art work that can never be rebacked as a real power nine. That is the way proxies should be. Everyone should have one proxie deck just to do bullshit with. But I didn’t take it to this level. I wanted to enjoy playing with it but still have people be willing to play. But damn seeing this tranwreck of legit cards broken in the stupidiest way. I’m sure their was a actual real turn one kill possible as well with something else.
I feel like these decks are a suboptimal version of this sort of deck that just has Lightning Bolts instead of Time Walks and creatures. Like, the Bolt version is basically just a deck full of Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus and enough Lightning Bolts for lethal (and a Twister or 2); also designed with the goal to just T1 kill every game. For the 4 mana to cast the Orge/Mammoth you’d already be 4 Bolts in to the 7 necessary, but the first Time Walk you’d be to 6 cmc and almost to lethal with Bolts. You might say, “but you need to draw 7x Bolts and that’s only harder than 1 creatures and 1 Time Walk. Well, you also need to draw and cast another 6 Time Walks too, so really you are running at least 9 cards for that kill and spending almost as much as 7 Lightning Bolts just to get it rolling. Play 8x Lightning Bolt (7+ 1 in case of ante hitting a Bolt) instead and slot in another card to help the deck be more consistent. I don’t see how playing a creature and a bunch of Time Walks is a better call than just playing Lightning Bolts unless the primary goal is for the deck to be the most expensive T1 kill deck rather than the best one.
This is a hard article to watch. I had Alpha and Beta when they came out. None of my friends wanted to try out DnD with me (they thought it was weird) so I found this new game called MtG for us to try. Everyone enjoyed the artwork and loved the game. Time went by and around 1999 a former family friend visited. She threw a fit about devil worshiping and all these news reports about these evil cards. When she finished her visit all my books with my MtG cards were gone. She claimed she didn’t know what happened to them, but the lord worked in mysterious ways. I’m almost 40 and it’s tough trying to get back into the game knowing what I had lost. I just watch these articles now. Crazy at what the value is now on stuff I played with every day.
Why did you use one graded and one raw price? You always price lowest possible raw never use a graded price. People ask whatever on graded there isn’t a set market. Raw you can put into tcg and get the valuation instantly. I just don’t understand why you would use one graded value and one raw value. Huge shot at credibility there but I’ll post this comment at the end of the article.
Honestly once you get past the coolness of seeing all these cards and the nostalgia of Black Lotus and the others it’s actually kinda boring(if your the person playing against them) and sorta annoying, this is not a even a match, heck not even a game between two people lol, it’s just perusal a guy play by himself while you’re just sitting there waiting till he kills you or decks you out(and believe me we all have been threw that once in our lives lol) . I’m glad Magic has gotten better since then and the rules have been changed.
it kinda is, and pay to play. But all games are like that, you either pay with your time in order to get better. or you pay with your wallet to buy packs and cards. This can be extended to any game in the world almost. with the exception being athletes. last i checked you cant buy a killer 100m dash…………yet
All games are pay to win to some degree or another. In the end, it comes down to skill and luck. I beat a $400 Teferi control deck with a $5 Golgari Thallid on luck. The big questions are how much are you willing to pay and do you play the game for fun or to win before your opponent takes their first turn?
its so funniest thing is how these cards where super expensive back in the day, i mean you had to pay 40-100 bucks for a black lotus maybe. who would to that for a random card game that probably dies in a year or 2. now we basically expect cards to be in that prize range while not expecting them to be worth 1000 times as much in 20 years.
Not that Arabian Nights would have been legal but Shahrazad and Black Lotus (or plains probably less effectively) and you go about 75 of each so you have a nice 150 card deck something like that. Should be enough if you can keep taking the play in the sub games, to just drill down about 6-7 subgames so that the opponent mills their entire deck, pass turn, they fail to draw, lose that game, half their life, and you just keep passing in the outer shells so they keep failing to draw, and eventually you end up with them at zero life.
14 lotus 15 time twisters 9 force of will 2 lightning bolt Beat THAT! I used to play “type 0” on the Chandalar duels mode. Mostly my opponents just disconnected before I killed them recycling the two lightning bolts. 1 bolt would be fine but I was always just worried something weird and unforeseen would happen.. like a turn 1 hill giant.lol.
Magics original designers: aight mark what will it be another time walk or a 4/4 for 7 mana. Mark: how about a one mana draw 3 Other designer nah but that elephant needs to be nerfed I say 7 mana for a 3/3 Mark: ok fine but only if you let me add the time walk and one mana draw 3 Other designer: deal
There’s a key difference between solitaire and this. In solitaire you get to entertain yourself. With infinite decks, you get to suck the fun from someone else while entertaining yourself and feeling like you’re more smart than you actually are. It’s not about fun, it’s about denying fun to someone else. And also, ya know, being an asshole.
Here is a real turn 1 kill or turn 0 even. Happened to me at the very end of a tournament I was playing mono red burn. He must have cheated, he had a perfect seven cards to do it. This is what happened. He was able to produce 4 mana to cast a sneak attack, and iirc he discarded a simian spirit guide to produce a red for his last card, serra avatar. Either way he used 6 cards to produce 5 red, the first mountain used to cast sol ring. Swings with Serra Avatar, I didnt even get a turn, not even my first draw. He then went on to the last game of the tournament… but he lost
Am I missing something? Why War Mammoth & Hill Giant? And Time Walk isn’t a first turn kill. If you want to avoid the obvious website/fireball and keep it mono blue, drop the creatures and add 2 braingeysers,and turn the 6 or 7 Time Walks into Black Vise (and if you’re claiming to have unlimited access to the cards, why isn’t every mox Sapphire another Black lotus?)
vintage even today is pay to win,unless you got thos cards back in 93,,i remever i payed 10 usd for a alpha black lotus then…rofl….today i have 9 alphas;O a shivan dragon was the most expessive card back then 15 to 20 usd,,,rofk,,,good old times,,,i no longer play with the cards from 93 roearly 94…all has beeb feass im 42y old now soon and i ll sell all my cards at my 50th b.day and live life:)