[Article]Eternal Europe: The Three Most Important Decks Ever Built

[nedleeds]

Prosbloom absolutely wasn't the first combo strategy.

It's debatable whether it was the first engine. It was maybe the first 4 x 4 two card engine. Older engines existed pre type II or block in type one ... Storm Drain, Fastbond Manaflare but most of those lists are lost to history, buried in usenet, or in Steven M.'s series somewhere in the first few chapters.

[HSCK]

I think ProsBloom is the first combo deck to really matter though and is often cited as such.

[lordofthepit]

I thought the choices would be The Deck, Necro, and Sligh, but I agree with ProsBloom over Necro because The Deck had already paved the way for card advantage as a fundamental concept, even if many people ignored the lesson when Ice Age came out.

[death]

Why would you? Those weren't outstanding in history but mistakes for a season. Necro and Academy mirrors were plain boring and I'm sure people who did not play that decks overestimate their power and importance. Removing Flashs Power level errata was another brainfart by WotC after they pushed creatures with powercreep.

Depends on the criteria used to judge a deck's importance, but when 'ever built' or phrases like 'of-all-time' are thrown in the discussion, I THINK Necro, Academy and Flash were huge in their own rights. Prior to Black Summer, games were dragging as in draw-go top deck mode which for me is boring. Necropotence changed that. What was once regarded as crap rare turned out to be a game changer, it took a while before players realized the card's potential as a draw engine and called it power of the skull. Before Tolarian Academy and Stroke of Genius, combo sucked. Blue was the dumbest and slowest color all, Blue didn't have a turn 2-3 kill, of course Combo Winter shattered that perception when mono-Blue went against conventionality. This was also the time when Brainstorm first made an appearance, with Force of Will out of rotation, and it was in a combo deck. Memory Jar/Bargain decks are a contender but they were very short-lived, besides Necro and Time Spiral were already there, both of which netted 7 cards at least. As for Flash and Hulk, well, before there weren't any turn 0 kills in Magic.

You may consider these as mistakes. Probably a fuck up on WotC's part, but these were the firsts, monumental and definitely shaped WotC's future, their R&D and DCI.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Flash was a three-weeks affair and although it spoiled a Legacy gP, it hardly meant anything else. Game would be completely the same with or without it, while Necro (and Academy) decks were powers to consider for much longer time. In fact it took them some five years to finally crack the skull and send it to Type I forever.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Alright, finally healthy enough again to feel good about answering. Sorry about the delay guys and thanks for all the attention&positive comments.

@nedleeds: The other curved decks: That's a pretty sweet story, never heard about that. Thanks for letting me know!
Earlier combo-decks: I guess there were kind of engine decks before (the theoretical broken deck of all Black Lotuses, Ancestral Recalls and a Black Vise kind of is already) but they never made a big enough splash to actually make the concept known. Or if so, most people never heard about it at the time, me included, making ProsBloom at least the deck that gave the knowledge to the masses. I could have been a little more specific there, I guess.

@many of you suggesting other decks:
Necro was a powerful deck, but it really didn't do anything revolutionary. The original Necro deck was essentially mono B aggro control or control, backed by an insane draw engine. As powerful or dominant as the deck was, it really didn't influence the shape of Magic as a whole in any revolutionary way. As for later Necro-fueled combo decks - Trix especially - they were revolutionary in that they showed off how good Necro really is but that isn't a truly game-changing innovation, either, at least nowhere close to what the decks I mentioned did.

Academy admittedly is one of the most revered and feared decks of all time but, once again, the innovation involved in it had already been done by ProsBloom and only waited to be applied to the dozens of ridiculous cards in Saga block. In particular, Saga spawned so many ridiculous combo decks (Jar, Bargain, High Tide, ...) that singling out Academy just because it was the first everybody figured out doesn't make as much sense imo. The only reason to include Academy at all would be to highlight combo winter and the threat it posed to the game (plus WotCs reaction of massively scaling back on combo cards). However, that isn't the impact of Academy but of engine-combo being discovered plus no Development department at WotC's - as in, if you want a deck to represent that, ProsBloom is the historically more solid representative anyway because of that imo.

Flash: Flash is honestly nothing but a flash in the pan (pun intended). Yes the deck was broken and powerful, but there was nothing new or unique about it. As far as the game as a whole is concerned, two card combos that win the game are a dime a dozen and easily understood and the lasting impact of flash is pretty much zero as far as I can see.

Affinity: Affinity would make a certain amount of sense once again because of the threat it posed to the health of MtG as a whole. However, from the point of view of the game itself (instead of how successful it is) Affinity wasn't that revolutionary. It might well deserve a honorable mention however, for showing off the full potential of what can happen when creature decks get access to pieces that enable them to play as engine combo decks. The main argument against that remains that the majority of its strength came from Skullclamp, a card that, like Necro, was busted enough to break anyway at some point, Affinity or no Affinity (check the Goblins and Elves list from back then). I don't think it's impact would have been anywhere close to as bad if they hadn't had to ban Skullclamp only to have Affinity remain an incredible powerful deck thanks to receiving Plating once everybody was already sick of it from the Skullclamp era. I think Affinity might not have turned out any worse than Affinity or UW Delver in Standard did hadn't it preceded Plating by already being utterly broken and causing a ban.

@Lemnear: The importance of Sligh lies in understanding the power of an actual mana curve, not in having a deck with cheap aggressive creatures. The old school Zoo decks you're talking about tried to just play the cheapest big creatures they could to provide early game presence but afaik mainly did so because one drops are the easiest to dump and follow up with Wheel or Timetwister, not because the idea of having a mana curve was actually understood. I might be wrong, though.