Best formats in the history of MTG

[[SLAYER]chaos]

I was thinking recently about how both Yugioh and Pokemon have thriving scenes for older formats but that's virtually unheard of in MTG. Almost certainly because we still have a variety of formats to play older cards in. But I was thinking about how awesome it would be to have a proxied up gauntlet from an bygone era for MTG and wanted to know what people's favorite format of all time was. It could be standard, legacy, extended, vintage. It could be one year ago or 20 years ago.

[thecrav]

I wanna play Legacy from right after Survival was banned again.

[caiomarcos]

I have fond memories of the Kamigawa - Ravnica - Time Spiral era.
Maybe it was one of the worst formats by some (or many) definitions, but I really enjoyed playing Magic during that time.

[schweinefettmann]

Purely for nostalgia, but urzas block. That was great.. best of 3 match done in 15-20 mins!

But for seriousies, I guess legacy isn’t all too bad right now, though I am kinda sick of seeing oko everywhere.

Maybe legacy when deathrite got banned? That was pretty nice too!

[bruizar]

I want to play in a magical time when snapcaster and mental misstep were legal. [this was never the case simultaneously]

But as for an actual historical time for me was Bazaar of Moxen 3 in Annecy. i played the most epic games of vintage Oath, and my brother played sharuum-sharuum timevault fatestitcher dredge, which was a powered dredge deck running Time Vault, Black Lotus, Mox Sapphire and Ancestral Recall.

My brother played around 9 balls (spheres + trini) by tapping down 3sphere with Fatestitcher and hardcasting stuff through other spheres with a Black Lotus. All around crazy magic. I believe this tournament was won by a control deck with Bazaar of Baghdad running Basking Rootwalla as its only win condition.

That, and 1994 Predator & Prey Magic with 14 people sitting on one really long table, playing the game with all 14 people simultaneously.

[Mr. Safety]

Lorwyn/Morningtide-era Standard was when I started getting seriously into magic, that format was lit. Doran is still one of my favorite cards of all time. It was also around that time that Extended was incredibly fast with LSV doing his undefeated run with Elves Combo. If that sort of dominance happened now it would be whined about ad nauseam, but at the time it was just fun to see a super-broken deck. Legacy for a brief minute after the Top ban was super fun, before DRS became obnoxious.

[Mr Miagi]

Legacy when zoo was tier 1 deck, so basically legacy before Innistrad block.

[bruizar]

Also loved when Elfball was in standard.

[FTW]

I want to play in a magical time when snapcaster and mental misstep were legal. [this was never the case simultaneously]

I wonder if this was one of the (unwritten) reasons for Mental Misstep's ban. Snapcaster was coming out in the next set. Though it wasn't spoiled to the public, the design team knew it was coming down the line, and Snap-Misstep would have been even more degenerate than the Mental Misstep mirrors that were already happening. What even is Legacy if players can't resolve their Brainstorms in peace?

I really enjoyed 1999 Combo Winter with Urza block degeneracy. "Fair" decks in Standard were trying to cast Deranged Hermit on turn 2 or 5/5s on turn 1, and they genuinely seemed fair compared to what the combo decks were doing. Yet they thought Lightning Bolt was too powerful to be legal.

[mistercakes]

mirage + tempest blocks standard was really nice.
time spiral + lorywn standard was also really fun.

[Teluin]

I really enjoy the Old School variants, as they encompass what MtG is in my opinion.