Back from a LONG break

[Apollo]

I ran across this site about a week ago and I am thrilled that I did. I played magic in the old days, I actually bought my first starter when the expansion Ice Age released in 1995. I had quite a run at my local tournaments(Type I) and won a big tourney at WOTC in Redmond(Type II) before hanging up my gloves in 1998. While I sold my Power9 cards a long time ago I kept a couple boxes of cards and recently decided to play around with them. I've decided to get back into this game here but the changes from then to now are astonishing. I used to know what every card did, but now there’s 10x as many cards. I want to play legacy because at least I recognize SOME of the cards (Vintage is way too broken to interest me). I've been reading the decks to beat forum, scoping the strategies, and trying to learn about the new cards(just scratching the surface on this one). Learning about this new concept they introduced called the "stack" and a gazillion other new rules. Anyways I have lots of cards still and wanted to enter a local legacy tourney in the near future. I'm considering playing a mono blue control deck to get my feet wet. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to acclimate myself to the current game as quickly and efficiently as possible? I will try and test decks on workstation, read about the rules, etc, other then that is there any advice? Thanks and I WILL be around!

[Shriekmaw]

I think getting back into magic is great. I think Legacy is a great format, especially if you started way back in the beginning.

I would suggest to look at Classic Magic that a group of friends developed. I think that format is a ton of fun where you can get very creative with the old school cards.

You can read up on the format in the tournament annoucements on page 2.

Let me know what you think. Welcome back.

[Forbiddian]

Compared to 1998 T2, the game is much faster, and much less card advantage-intensive. My memory gets a little hazy from back then, but card advantage theory was really running the ball. Modern decks are designed to prevent the opponent from taking advantage of their draw spells, and some of the dominant decks don't have any draw spells.

Basically in the last 10 years, Wizards printed a TON of creatures that really pushed the limits of creature balance. There are 2 mana 4/5s now that occasionally can get even bigger. There are 2 mana 2/1s that let you draw an extra card every upkeep. There are 2 mana 5/5 fliers as well. Wizards also did not print decent countermagic (the staple used to be Counterspell, now it's 1UU). Now the most dangerous threats cost the same as the countermagic.


Because of this new really fast era and the banning of Mana Drain, Mono-Blue Control plays a lot differently than you might be used to. Hardcast countermagic (paying UU to stop a spell) is not nearly as effective when your opponent can easily play a game winning threat for less or earlier in the game.

Now since most good spells cost 1-2 or at most 3, you don't get a tempo advantage from straight counters and counter-based strategies fall behind the faster mana curves of speed-based decks (now called tempo decks).



Arguably the biggest change for Vintage/Legacy (Eternal) since 1998, a program called Magic Workstation was published. With MWS, you can make any deck you want (and any number of decks), and then test them instantly against other players, for free.

This way you can "get your feet wet," testing out new decks and ideas without spending a bunch of money.

Check out the Decks to Beat forum here, make some of the decks, and start playing around. Be prepared for some shell shock at how creature-based the format is, now, but as a longtime Vintage/Eternal player, I can say that the format is more fun than it's been since Mana Drain roamed the Earth.

[m03]

Vintage is way too broken to interest me

Don't let hearsay and rumor about Vintage discourage you if you want to explore that format. When I got back in, I had friends telling me that the format had completely devolved into nothing but super-fast turn-0 and turn-1 decks. It turned out to be complete and utter BS.

[Dan Turner]

I just got into Legacy and started with Vial Goblins since it was the easiest for me to pick up and learn.( Also the cheapest since someone had the deck minus the lands and sold it to me for about 75% of the MOTL value) I then picked up the lands I needed(I have a play set of duels from my olden days of playing) on Ebay pretty cheap (relative I still cant believe ports are so much)

[rockout]

If you want to play Legacy, this is a great place to learn about the format in a fairly quick manner. MUC is definitely a good place to start. Many of the staples of MUC, besides Force of Will, can be picked up rather cheap if you do not have them already.

Everyone on the Legacy scene is always really nice and I'm sure someone wouldn't be against letting you borrow cards in exchange for another fresh face for Legacy.

Welcome back. I love Magic. :smile:

[klaus]

Yeah. WB, indeed!

If you're interested in getting your feet wet with a strong blue-based control deck, there are two viable options:

MUC (MonoBlueControl) (http://www.deckcheck.net/list.php?type=Mono+Blue+Control&format=Legacy)

And the most dominant control deck atm: Landstill (http://www.deckcheck.net/list.php?type=Landstill+UWx&format=Legacy). You might want to look at those lists, too.

The links above are compilations of deck lists of the 2 archetypes that did well in the recent future.
Don't forget to mark multiple decks and use the "compare" function for a better understanding of the core concepts.

[Frenger]

Don't let hearsay and rumor about Vintage discourage you if you want to explore that format. When I got back in, I had friends telling me that the format had completely devolved into nothing but super-fast turn-0 and turn-1 decks. It turned out to be complete and utter BS.

And it still is. When I got back into magic and Legacy I stood clear of Vintage for over a year because I was convinced it was nothing but turn one combo decks. Eventually I picked up a legacy combo deck and found myself within ten proxies of a Vintage combo deck and decided to give it a whirl.

Vintage is now my favorite format, although I play legacy more since there are weekly tournaments while Vintage tournaments are few and far between.

Vintage is a really great format, and I would suggest taking a look at it and you'll see its not only turn one combo, and that there still is innovation. Legacy is a great segue into vintage though, since you'll build up a nice collection of staples that happen to be played in vintage as well.

So basically, turn 0 combo exists, but there's more to it than that, and Vintage is actually really fun.