First Decks Tournament

[dahcmai]

This is just an idea since I saw the other random tournaments that have been held here for Source members.


It might be fun to rethink the first decks you owned and see how they fare against other people's first ones they had built back in the day. Luckily, MWS doesn't require you to own the cards like MTGO.

My first deck was a monstrosity so it's sure to lose hard, but it might be fun since it's all older cards and when you pit it against some players who started with newer stuff, it might make for interesting games.

Only problem I see is people who literally started with net decks because a friend put it together for them who was a good player. I know a few people around here who's first decks literally were Goblins and such.

Thoughts?

[Dan Turner]

my first real deck and not just me playing with every card i owned was around ice age alliances LOL orcish lumberjacks the wall that you can sacrifice for mana and ball lightnings lightning bolts and such pretty much fast mana and fast damage.

[Digital Devil]

My first tournament was a few weeks after I started playing Legacy, back in 2006. I enjoyed playing Magic against my friends but I wanted to witness something different. I was searching for a cheap and fun deck to build, and Zilla's argumentations about Angel Stompy were so convincent I managed to build it right before the tournament. I only owned cards for White Weenie because (*here comes the stupid motivation*) when I used to play Microprose's Shandalar, the "Crusader" character always crushed me with Savannah Lions and White Knights, so I thought it could be a good deck to play. The gap between White Weenie and Angel Stompy was so easy to circumvent I decided to put all my money into the effort. A few minutes before the enrollment I succesfully obtained some Jotun Grunts, which were released the previous month, and reached the second place entirely on their back. Those were the coolest moments ever since I started playing Magic. Imagine the face of those 20-25 years old pros losing to a newbie like me. Also, it was the first time I played in a competitive environment, so I obviously had great luck. Back in 2009, I switched for 7 months to Dragon Stompy, but the thrill and the fun Angel Stompy used to give me in my early MtG experiences are huge parts of why I still play the deck.

[hungryLIKEALION]

Are we talking first decks we played in kitchen table magic, or first deck we played in a tournament? The first deck I played it kitchen table magic was a UR monstrosity of 120+ cards full of rolling thunders and blazes and disintegrates, backed up by stinging barriers and prodigal sorcerers...

The first deck I played in a tournament was white weenie. It was pretty fun.

[slayjay]

my first deck was a starter pack of fourth edition and some boosters of homelands und renessaince....great stuff like lord of the pit and errosion (even without three islands in this pack, d´oh)

my first tournament deck was arround 1996 / 1997, extended with my type 2 prosperity bloom deck, I was doing quite well for me and went 2-2...
so my combo madness just started...

[rockout]

My first few tournament decks were astral slide (how else do you auto beat 90% of the format being affinity?), tooth and nail ( big mana spells ftw), and UR urzatron with wildfires and such. 3 of my favorite decks to play. I wish legacy would become slow enough to run wildfire again <3

[Joon]

My first deck ever was Rw Goblins. Sweet deck, still like to play it although I don't own it anymore. Later it became the Rgw variant because of grip. In my very first tournament I got goddamn lucky, beating Angel Stompy twice. Since that I like VG so much :tongue:

[Ozymandias]

My first decks were me taking all the UBW cards I owned and putting them in a deck, and doing the same with all the RG cards I owned. Yawmoth's Bargain and Crimson Hellkite were the marquee cards.

The first competitive deck I built was a slightly rare-light version of Frog in a Blender- 1 Karplusan Forest and 1 Grim Lavamancer and then all of the G and R madness stuff.

The first deck I took to a tourney was MBC at one of the JSS qualifiers.

The first Extended deck I ever made was me taking all of my Goblins from Onslaught Standard, shoving in Goblin Ringleader and Auntie's Hovel and Blood Moon, and sacking the hell out of the tourney.

The first Legacy deck I ever made was Lion's Eye Diamond Dredge. I ended up getting the LEDs for 1 Goyf, Sower, 2x Clique, Scion, Glen and. five bucks. In retrospect, this was a very good choice.

[Atwa]

First deck I build was a Natural Order deck with Thorn Elementals and Overrun :)

First deck I build for a tournament (I held myself) was an Extended WU Pirates deck. Scepter/Chant, Ankh/Parallax and a bunch of bounce/counterspells.

First Legacy deck was Enchantress along with Angel Stompy.

I would love a source tournament with all those old decks. Don't attach a prize to it, just for fun. I'd love to rebuild that old Natural Order deck. Crash of Rhino's and Avatar of Might ftw :) And make it simply best out of 3, without sideboards. Noone knew what a sidebaord was when they started out on the kitchentable.

[dahcmai]

It would be first decks, not tournament decks unless people would rather have that. Though my first tournament deck wasn't much better. I do have the list for that still. I played tabletop for a long time so it was around the time of Visions or so before I played in a tournament.



4 Mana Drain
4 Mahamotti Djinn
2 Necromancy
4 Animate Dead
4 Hymn to tourach
4 Dark Ritual
2 Control Magic
1 Ishan's Shade
1 Infernal Medusa
4 Terror
4 Counterspell
4 Strip Mine
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Ivory Tower (that same first card)
20 land Can't remember the manabase really. I didn't have duals though.


Goal was to cast a Mahamotti off Mana Drain mana and then reanimate it if it died! Rawr! Such a plan!

[pi4meterftw]

In my first deck I tried to use shifting skies and cop red, as well as nomad's en-kor and task force to make two "unlimitedly tough blockers."

I also used cards like innocent blood. I guess I've always been a control player.

It's a good thing sligh was so popular at the time.

[Atwa]

I just rebuild mine for fun (even if we don't have a tourney). It took some time to remember, but this is my list:

My First Sony.

20 Forest
4 Hickory Woodlot
1 Yavimaya Hollow

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Heart Warden
4 Thresher Beast
4 Vine Trellis
3 Saber Ants
2 Thorn Elemental
2 Avatar of Might
2 Darba
1 Crash of Rhinos
1 Rushwood Elemental

4 Natural Order
3 Overrun
1 Whirlwind

God I love this deck. Must be one of the reasons why I love Survival Elves (with NO) so much :)

[Bardo]

Are we talking first decks we played in kitchen table magic, or first deck we played in a tournament?

I'm taking it to mean, "the first time you paid an entry fee to compete for prizes."

My earliest decks were all mono-blue (and really, really bad), after a brief run with mono-G, then B/G.

The first time I played in a tournament was 1995. Ice Age was legal but I don't think Homelands had been released yet. I didn't make lists back then, just continually add and remove cards. I'm pretty sure it was 64-66 cards--I didn't see how I could cut down to 60. It was something like this:

3 Mahamoti Djinn
3 Air Elemental
3 Clone
2 Wall of Air
1 Time Elemental
1 Vesuvan Doppelganger
1 Wall of Water
1 Wind Spirit
1 Flying Men

4 Control Magic
3 Unstable Mutation
1 Psionic Blast
1 Braingeyser
1 Recall
1 Feldon's Cane
1 Jester's Cap

4 Counterspell
4 Power Sink
2 Remove Soul
2 Mana Drain

23 Island
2 Svyelunite Temple

SIDEBOARD
Eh?

Card availability was a problem back then. Even getting enough basic lands was a pain in the ass at times.

Anyway, I went 0-2 drop.

Round 1 vs. Meekstone + Dragon Whelp / Kird Ape deck. Really. Never has an Unstable Mutation'd Mahamoti Djinn looked so sad.

Round 2 vs. Stasis + Zephyr Falcon, Serra Angel.

[Aleksandr]

I am not really sure, but I think that my first tournament try was with my Wildebeestsgeddon pet deck... :cool:

[Piceli89]

Crappy Affinity.
With that dude that costs 2uu, is a 0/2 and cantrips whenever you play an artifact.
And Scale of Chiss-Goria as a 3x.

But the fun fact is,
I played that crap in a VINTAGE tournament.
Against MUD.
Against Oath.
The only game (not match) that I remember to have won was because my opponent playing AngelOath popped Pernicious Deed and he didn't know Disciple still triggered, so he basically killed himself.

[paK0]

First Deck I build with something in mind was some BR "remove all ur stuff and drop Avatar of Fury"

First deck i took to a tournament was Wake, similar to Zinks version, as far as I remember I didn't screw up totally and endet somwhere in the middle =).

Back then I didn't know about sideboards, so I thought Cunning Wish's only use was to recur Moment's Peace^^.

[elof]

My first tournament deck was a monoU vintage deck with 4 Mana Drains, 4 Counterspells, 4 Ophidian and such. I won and the deck was really nice to play with :) So I'm definitly in :D

[santeria]

an unlimited tournament deck and some arabian boosters.

[wolfstorm]

Aggro Zombies go!

[Nightmare]

My first deck was Zoo. Of course, it was bad in 1994, but Kird Ape + Taiga was still awesome. I imagine it would be pretty easy to revamp that deck for today's tournament scene...

[Skeggi]

Wow, you guys actually have decks that work. I used to have a 14 forest, 46 random creatures like Craw Giant, Craw Wurm, Scaled Wurm deck (the buy-a-pack-grab-the-random-big-green-creature-and-put-it-in-your-deck-instead-of-a-forest-strategy). You can imagine I never won, because I never had enough mana to actually cast anything. God I can't believe I was that stupid. Unfortunately, I still am, but that's an entirely different story. Thank God for netdecks :wink:

[Mark Sun]

My first deck(s) were pretty terrible. I didn't know anything about Magic but I bought some cards from an older guy, obviously ripped me off, but made me these 30-card decks that were 10 creatures / 10 spells / 10 lands, one of each color. If I wanted to play, I could mix and match any of them LOL

Anyhow, having savage removal like Gaseous Form and dudes like Drudge Skeletons was great :tongue:

[emidln]

Are these the first tournament decks we constructed or the first decks we played with for kitchen table magic. My first tourney deck was Ruel's CAL during its PTQ season. My first kitchen table deck was a three color monstrosity that used Infernal Tribute to sacrifice my opponent's permanents.

[(nameless one)]

My 1st deck was an Elf deck (I started playing casually right when Scourge came out)

I still use the same Elf deck principle, although some of the cards have changed since.

[grahf]

I won a (very small and local) tournament in the Ice Age/Mirage Type 2 era, with R/G beats. It was basically the same deck I played at the kitchen table, except that I had to remove the Kird Apes because revised had rotated out. Llanowar Elves, Yavimaya Ants, Ernham and Nettletooth Djinns were my creature base, with the requisite burn and maindeck Pillage as backup. Plus a singleton Hammer of Bogardan which actually won most of my games.

Ah, the memories. That was a good time to play. Netdecking was virtually unheard of, and Necro hadn't been discovered yet (at least, not at my podunk game store).

[Forbiddian]

I remember that my dad taught me how to divide when solving the problem for "How many decks should be in my White Weenie deck." Richard Garfield said in a guide that around a third of the deck should be lands. My dad showed me that 40/3 was about 13.

Indeed, like magic, the deck performed much better with 13 land than when I ran it with 20 lands.

Mesa Pegasai banded with Pikemen were amazing.

[Pulp_Fiction]

This is awesome! My first deck ever was a 130 card mono-green monstrosity!! I had very little accelerants, maybe 20-25 lands, and cards like Craw Wurm, Rootbreaker Wurm, and Respite in it!! It was so bad but all I really wanted to do was play my creatures, and when Rootbreaker got into play ... nothing stops the 6/6 trampler!!!! Probably why I like combo so much, I genuinely don't give a shit about what my opponent does, I just want to play my deck!

My first ever tournament deck was suprisingly very good! I started playing right around Rath Cycle, makes since being as Exodus is my favotire set in the game! And I built this really fucking good white weenie shadow deck! The list was all over the place, probably something like:

4x Soltari Footsoldier (cause it was cheap)
3x Solrati Priest (cause I had them for some reason)
2x Soltari Monk
1x Soltari Champion
4x Brilliant Halo
4x Holy Strength
1x Cursed Scroll
2x Soltari Lancer
3-4 Soul Warden
1x Glorious Anthem
2x Crusade
18-20 lands

Something like that, and I got really excited when I found out that I could put Pariah on my protection from X guys and not ever lose the game to mono-red or mono-black! That deck was fun as hell!

[Wargoos]

HAHA!
All your base(ic) lands are belong to us!
My first deck ever was a 66-card deck packed with just 6/6 creatures and rampspells. :D
Whoever guesses the name "win's" a trip to oregon.

[Fatestitcher]

my first tournament deck didn't kill by lethal damage but by library death.
i went 2-2 dropped after being lobotomized by RecSur :tongue:
That was the last time i played it since the key components were banned thereafter.
i kept all the cards for nostalgia and now dream halls seems broken once again.

4 Dream Halls
3 Mind Over Matter
4 Stroke of Genius
4 Time Spiral
4 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Meditate
4 Counterspell
4 Mana Vault
3 Turnabout
1 Attunement

3 Ancient Tomb
18 Island

SIDEBOARD
4 Chill
4 Hydroblast
3 Power Sink
3 Capsize
1 Turnabout

[Cthuloo]

If I recall well I took 3rd place in a 16 people tourney in 1996 with something like:

4 lightning bolt
4 chain ligntning
4 ball lightning
4 incinerate
4 Pyrotechnics
4 Power Surge (Yeah! Loved the card)
4 black vise
1 Wheel of Fortune
Some Fireball, Disintegrate, Earthquake and Meteor Shower (:cool: )
Some Shatter
Some Blood Moons



4 strip mine (I think it still wasn't restricted, but I'm not really sure)
4 Mishra's factory (In a burn deck requiring RRR for ball lightning, and playing Blood moon - although at least in that case they could tap for R)
Some mountains

[kabal]

Mono Black "Revised Edition", since at the time I only owned cards from this set.

[Aleksandr]

My first deck was Zoo. Of course, it was bad in 1994, but Kird Ape + Taiga was still awesome. I imagine it would be pretty easy to revamp that deck for today's tournament scene...

I remember that some ZOO decks fared very well in that era. I cannot remeber if it was T1, T1.5 or maybe T2. It is possible that it happened maybe a year later, nevertheless it was something like:

4 Kird Ape
4 Savannah Lions
4 Serendib Efreet

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Counterspell
4 Power Sink (:really:)
4 Swords to Plows
etc.

? lands
? Solomox
? Mana Drain
and of course a number of utility spells like Black Vise... I am not sure what was used, but believe me, that people played nearly anything - be it Ivory Tower or Wheel of Fortune.

I know that it does resemble today's ZOO, but back in the 94/95, the Zoo.dec looked like this. The creature base consisted of the best kritters in terms of cost/power ratio (I'm not sure if some Ghazban Ogre or an Ernham was present, too... but 4-color manabase would be stupid in the pre-fetch, four-of-Strip Mine times...)

Few years later a friend of mine introduced me to the Zoo world. Believe me that playing Two-headed Giant was extremely funny with triple Zoo (fourth guy piloted Necro, if I remember it well...). Four to seven Howling Mines online made the Storm Seekers so strong that only tapping Ernham (and than Blood Lustx3, Giant Growth, Giant Growth) was more satisfying.
But it is another story.

EDIT: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/19041838/The_Dictionary_Deck-O-Pedia?post_id=324975486#324975486

The Decklists:"Scott Johns, The Zoo - 1996 Type 1 Championship" Hide
LANDS (21):
3 City of Brass
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Strip Mine
3 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
3 Plateau
2 Taiga
1 Tundra

CREATURES (10):
4 Kird Ape
2 Gorilla Shaman
4 Savannah Lions

OTHER SPELLS (29):
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Regrowth
1 Disenchant
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Balance
3 Psionic Blast
2 Mystical Tutor
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Black Vise
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus


wow.