Most degenerate historical decks in legacy (and other formats)

[perm]

What do you think is the most absurdly format warping and degenerate deck in legacy history? and other formats, if you so care to share.


Personally, my vote goes to Flash Hulk, which was nigh unbeatable when future sight rolled around.

[Pastorofmuppets]

inb4 everyone says Survival.
Also, weren't Goblins really strong back in the day?

[Solar Ice]

Yeah, Flash was pretty brutal. Other than that, I can't think of much else in Legacy that the format struggled to cope with. Except for, perhaps, Vengevine Survival (though that deck was nowhere near as good as Hulk Flash by comparison).

As for other formats, who could forget the infamous Urza Saga Standard, with Academy, Time Spiral, Stroke, etc. The B/W Yawgmoth's Bargain/Academy Rector/Soul Feast/Skittering Skirge deck that spawned as well later on was also nutz in T2.

How about Trix (Necropotence/Illusions of Grandeur/Donate) that once dominated Extended? ProsBloom comes to mind as well.

The Tezz decks in Vintage with the erratad Time Vault/Key combo?

[GGoober]

I've never played with Necro, but now I'm sitting here trying to imagine:

"How do you win against Necro when Necro resolves?"

Is the answer: "You don't, you either win before your opponent's Necro resolves or you resolve yours." ? lol!

[Hanni]

I remember old Extended right after Mirrodin Block came out, and everyone and their mother was playing 4 Tinker's before Tinker got banned. That was an annoying time to be playing Extended.

[Solar Ice]

I remember old Extended right after Mirrodin Block came out, and everyone and their mother was playing 4 Tinker's before Tinker got banned. That was an annoying time to be playing Extended.

Yeah, I remember that as well and it's certainly worthy of a mention in this topic. Speaking of Mirrodin block, Affinity was another degenerate deck for Standard at the time.

[rufus]

I've never played with Necro, but now I'm sitting here trying to imagine:

"How do you win against Necro when Necro resolves?"

Is the answer: "You don't, you either win before your opponent's Necro resolves or you resolve yours." ? lol!

The tourneys I played it, once I was the necro player, the other time I burninanted him. I remember those days. Every deck had 4x Strip Mine.

[Artowis]

Flash for Legacy. That's probably the only true horror show I can remember.

Standard: anything with skullclamp, affinity post-clamp

Extended: Necro, Necro-Trix, Tinker, Grim Jar and others. Extended had some really broken shit.

[Rico Suave]

Some decks may or may not be broken by modern standards. The only truly awful deck in Legacy was Flash, for example. But some of these decks were extremely broken during the time people were playing them and with the card pool available to that format.

Black summer Necro was really, really good. You had 4 each of Hymn, Consult, Strip Mine, Ritual, Necro...and the guy across from you was playing Circle of Protection Black and Karma to try and stop you.

[Grollub]

Black summer Necro was really, really good. You had 4 each of Hymn, Consult, Strip Mine, Ritual, Necro...and the guy across from you was playing Circle of Protection Black and Karma to try and stop you.
I usually had them playing Necropotence. ;-)

Anyhow, I'd say Jar across the formats in the small window it had.

[aahz]

The Tezz decks in Vintage with the erratad Time Vault/Key combo?
Nope. By Vintage standards Time Vault is almost fair. Look at how many Time Vaults actually show up in T8s. Although I guess on reflection, Vault/Key was pretty dominant prior to the restriction of Thirst for Knowledge. I bet it wouldn't be that ridiculous right now though with all the new Workshop toys, the return of Gush, and the constant escalation of Oath fatties. I don't even run Thirst in my Tez deck at the moment.

The original Long.dec with unrestricted LED and Burning Wish? That deck was pretty sickening. I was pissed when Burning Wish got restricted (cause I wanted to use it for a different, more fair combo), but that deck was over the top. I can't remember if it was really dominant in tournaments though. I seem to recall the restrictions were more of a preventative measure. But that was back in 2003, so who knows.

[Julian23]

My vote goes to the never actually existing Flash Hulk deck that was banned right before Pact of Negation and Summoner's Pact were about to become available for it. Maybe it existed for like 5 hours before the banning was official.

Besides that we got the usual suspects, Trix+Necro, Academy, Jar.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

It's hard to beat Hulk-Flash. Shit, forget Future Sight; you didn't really need it, you could already pack more disruption than Gro. Plus the Pacts would've required you to run the Disciple kill, which was weaker and took up more slots.

[dahcmai]

Don't forget my Bazaar Reanimator. There was nothing like smacking people for 7 and making them discard their hand first or second turn. Which sadly lost Vampiric Tutor and was no more. What's funny is I still had it put together for nostalgia reasons and added 4 Imperial Seals just in case they got playable. then those go knocked out of Legacy before I ever got to use it again. Grrr...

Scroll Tax had a good day in the sun while it lasted also.


I think the worst offenders have to be these in order.

1. Flash hulk
2. Jar / Megrim
3. Black Summer Necro
4. Bazaar Reanimator
5. Scroll Tax
6. Goblins with Recruiter
7. Survival I guess? I never thought it was that bad.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

When did people start calling it Flash Hulk? Hulk-Flash is better because it sounds like Hulk Smash. Only instead of being smashed you're staring at a giant green dong.

[Finn]

Boys, during combo winter, you literally could not play anything but combo. Standard and Extended were both ruined. Even during the worst days of Ravagers it did not compare.

[perm]

Also as far as standard goes, skull clamp. I dont know how they printed that card. then again they printed tarmogoyf a few year later

[DragoFireheart]

Necropotence

[Fuzzy]

Extended Dredge. Seriously, they are playing the EXACT Ledless list we play in Legacy today in a format without Force of Will.

[Solar Ice]

Nope. By Vintage standards Time Vault is almost fair. Look at how many Time Vaults actually show up in T8s. Although I guess on reflection, Vault/Key was pretty dominant prior to the restriction of Thirst for Knowledge.

True. I should've added "Prior to restriction of TfK"

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

Boys, during combo winter, you literally could not play anything but combo. Standard and Extended were both ruined. Even during the worst days of Ravagers it did not compare.

Why is combo so unpopular among non-combo players? I know MaRo and other RnD members have mentioned that people prefer to have their creatures removed than countered, not have their lands blown up, be attacked but not Tendrils'ed, etc. There just doesn't seem to be a reason for it, aside from "just because." If you took the first sentence of the quoted text and told me just that, I would probably respond that it's travesty for Legacy to have begun that way and several years later look the way it does now. I'm very sure if I'd have been playing Standard & Extended during combo winter, I'd have quit magic by now because of how far it's fallen. Since when is bolting and turning dorks sideways "more fun" than chaining spells into a lethal whatever? As long as you have the possibility to interact, isn't it all the same? Shouldn't you give people more ways to win rather than less?

[juventus]

I remember playing against 1.5 decks with 4 bazaar, 4 worldgorger dragon, 4 entomb...yea that was pretty unfair.

Most degenerate legacy deck I ever got to sleeve up was definitely food chain goblins.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Standard - Urza's Block garbage, really Affinity was worse overall though because it took them wayyyy too long to ban it and while it was legal it was the only deck worth playing which completely ruined an entire year and 1/2 of Standard that should have been a great T2 enviroment otherwise (as evidenced by how fun the format was after they banned affinity stuff).

Extended - Trix was stupid, if I named everything that was legal in Ext at the time (including dual lands) people who weren't playing Magic yet would be like, "You have to be shitting me..." I think 1/3 of that deck is probably on the Legacy banned list right now.

Legacy - Hulk Flash by a mile, SurvivalVine wasn't even close to Flash in brokenness. I think it ended up being better than any of the pre-Legacy 1.5 decks were.

Vintage - Academy was unbeatable. Literally the most broken Magic deck ever to be legal in any format. It was a completely unstoppable beast. I can't tell you how many games of Vintage I played during that period where I never got a turn 1.

[TsumiBand]

Not one mention of Tight Sight? Come onnnn.

[Fossil4182]

I feel old for referencing these, but Peter Jahn did a series of articles on SCG about the "ultimate Extend Tournament" where he took all of the broken extended decks and pit them against one another. Its a cool historical read if you're into that sort of thing.

I feel even older for referencing this, but the old Balance decks were stupid good when they dropped a bunch of moxen on turn one and resolved Balance which would usually leave an opponent with 1-2 cards in hand on turn one! I remember one game in particular which went: Strip Mine, Mox, Mox, Mox, Lotus, Balance. Dropped the opponent to one card before their first turn. Then the Balance player untapped on turn two resolved Ancestral on the following turn and refilled their hand. Obviously not an instant kill like Academy or Flash decks but relative to the time period, it was extremely "degenerative". There were also decks that were composed of 20/20/20 split of Lotuses, Fireball and Channel. This was way back before "civilized" Magic. Just say: God Bless Force of Will...

[Zlatzman]

Why is combo so unpopular among non-combo players?
I guess it might be because people like having a main phase before they lose?

[Nelis]

Why is combo so unpopular among non-combo players? I know MaRo and other RnD members have mentioned that people prefer to have their creatures removed than countered, not have their lands blown up, be attacked but not Tendrils'ed, etc. There just doesn't seem to be a reason for it, aside from "just because."

Since players mostly bitch about mana screw (rightfully so) I can imagine that LD isn't very popular. Most people (me included) would like to actually have their spells resolved thus don't like their creatures and other spells being countered, if a creature is removed at least I got to play it. And I think a lot of (casual) players don't know how to deal with counterspells either, it has taken me a long while as well.

Just as with life it's all about the basics. Nobody likes their basic values being attacked and resolving and being able to play spells are magic basics.

I think another basic value is playing a spell means playing one spell (and not x copies). And its not that there are that many spells that can handle storm copies (Stifle, Trickbind, Voidslime, thats about it). A creature can be answered by many more cards (creatures, different spells) than storm copies and thus is considered more fair to most people. And it usually takes a couple of swings before you win by attacking with a creatue.

[Nonex]

That depends on how you see it. All my favourite decks lose to storm combo, but at least I don't have the time to feel frustrated when I'm paired against it. I prefer a lethal Tendrils on the stack pointing at me rather than a Counterbalance locking me out of the game.

[Doomsday]

Some decks may or may not be broken by modern standards. The only truly awful deck in Legacy was Flash, for example. But some of these decks were extremely broken during the time people were playing them and with the card pool available to that format.

Black summer Necro was really, really good. You had 4 each of Hymn, Consult, Strip Mine, Ritual, Necro...and the guy across from you was playing Circle of Protection Black and Karma to try and stop you.

And we had our sideboard Gloom. Great time to be playing magic lol.

EDIT: and to actually answer the question, Long.dec in Vintage was by far the best deck I've seen in comparison to what else was around.

[Sims]

I remember old Extended right after Mirrodin Block came out, and everyone and their mother was playing 4 Tinker's before Tinker got banned. That was an annoying time to be playing Extended.

I think that was the only time I played extended and had fun.... Twiddle-Desire with the back up of knowing that against decks that could actually disrupt the desire combo I could just Tinker for DSC? Mmmm..

[Finn]

Why is combo so unpopular among non-combo players? I know MaRo and other RnD members have mentioned that people prefer to have their creatures removed than countered, not have their lands blown up, be attacked but not Tendrils'ed, etc. There just doesn't seem to be a reason for it, aside from "just because." If you took the first sentence of the quoted text and told me just that, I would probably respond that it's travesty for Legacy to have begun that way and several years later look the way it does now. I'm very sure if I'd have been playing Standard & Extended during combo winter, I'd have quit magic by now because of how far it's fallen. Since when is bolting and turning dorks sideways "more fun" than chaining spells into a lethal whatever? As long as you have the possibility to interact, isn't it all the same? Shouldn't you give people more ways to win rather than less?You are not getting it, man. It was only combo. Combo is as important to competitive Magic as the concept of mana or the Swiss round structure. It was stupid because the biggest advantage you got in those games was not your metagaming knowledge, your skill with the deck, or even your luck in landing a good matchup. It was going first. Nothing else comes close to being that homosexually retarded.

EDIT: And even if there were options such as, oh I dunno...creatures, it still does not change the fact that Academy, Megrim-Jar, Tide, and whatever were masturbatory. The PTQs had more young men playing with themselves than a boys college. Does anyone here think there is something at all rewarding about watching another guy play with his deck to see if he is going to go off?

[AriLax]

In the post-Saga era aka when I've paid attention:

Clamp in general
Flash Hulk
New Orleans Tinker
4 LED Long (at least 60% to turn one, often Duress backed and keep in mind this was the first real Storm deck)
The lists people made in the about 4 days between Mind's Desire being spoiled and it being restricted.

[Puzzle]

I was on a playing break during the combo winter, so I can't talk for it but otherwise, this :


Some decks may or may not be broken by modern standards. The only truly awful deck in Legacy was Flash, for example. But some of these decks were extremely broken during the time people were playing them and with the card pool available to that format.

Black summer Necro was really, really good. You had 4 each of Hymn, Consult, Strip Mine, Ritual, Necro...and the guy across from you was playing Circle of Protection Black and Karma to try and stop you.
I remember maindecking Guerilla Tactics...

[FieryBalrog]

Since when is bolting and turning dorks sideways "more fun" than chaining spells into a lethal whatever? As long as you have the possibility to interact, isn't it all the same?

I think you answered your own question there, chief. It's nice when decks without blue permission aren't complete dogs all the time.

Also, sitting there staring at your opponent trying to figure out his deck isn't very gripping gaming. Sure, you might love fiddling around with your lines of play and trying to solve the combo puzzle, it's a valid form of entertainment. It does however kind of make it boring for the other guy who has to wait 3-10 minutes at a stretch..

[Crysthorn]

And its not that there are that many spells that can handle storm copies (Stifle, Trickbind, Voidslime, thats about it).
Mindbreak Trap would like to have a word with you.

[from Cairo]

I'd add Oath decks circa 2000, when the deck was extended legal with Enlightened Tutor and Force of Will. It maybe wasn't "turn 1 combo your opp's face" busted, but it certainly invalidated a large chunk of potential decks.

[AngryTroll]

Would Hulk-Flash really be that bad today? With Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Counterbalance, and no Mystical Tutor, would the deck be that unbeatable? Or would Hulk-Flash simply run those cards and make it even worse?

Is the combo over the top with Mystical Tutor?

[socialite]

Fruity Pebbles

[Koby]

Fruity Pebbles

This deck preceded Trix, from which it took both Mana Vault and Necropotence engine.

That whole era was like a PTQ circuit to find the most broken Extended deck. Who knew that 4x Demonic Consultation + 4x Necro would lead to shenanigans?

I present Classic NecroSpike (was still legal until May 31,2009):

3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Daze
4 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
4 Lotus Petal
4 Necropotence
3 Ponder
4 Soul Spike
4 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Thoughtseize
3 Tombstalker

Performance in Classic 2x tourneys (Classic POY 2009):

Deck Total POY Pts. Top 1 Top 2 Top 4 Top 8 (4-0) (3-1)
1 Merfolk 102 299 12 7 12 22 10 39
2 Zoo 86 263 9 6 14 30 6 21
3 Pox 76 205 4 6 8 25 11 22
4 Elves 73 196 2 9 14 16 3 29
5 Dredge 73 145 0 3 9 10 10 41
6 NecroSpike (unrestricted) 62 254 8 11 19 24 0 0

Strange meta-game aside, the deck participated 62 times, winning 254 points compared to Merfolk's 299, with 40 fewer participants. The deck was an animal!

[perm]

Would Hulk-Flash really be that bad today? With Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Counterbalance, and no Mystical Tutor, would the deck be that unbeatable? Or would Hulk-Flash simply run those cards and make it even worse?

Is the combo over the top with Mystical Tutor?

From what i've read, hulk flash was as close to unbeatable as has ever been

[Solaran_X]

I'd have to vote for either Black Summer (Necropotence-based deck) or Combo Winter (Tolarian Academy-based deck) for the most broken decks either. Those two "seasons" are true examples of a warped format - you either played the broken deck, or played to beat the broken deck. Nothing has even come close to that since then. Even Hulk Flash wasn't on the level these two decks were on.

[FieryBalrog]

PT: Tinker is the single most ridiculous performance by an archetype that I know of. More so than Flash, Trix, and the like. It's possible that a foil may have been found and the ludicrous numbers put up by the deck might have gone down to just plain "horribly broken", but the performance remains.

[Oddball]

The Time Vault/ Flame Fusillade Deck earns a reference as well.
Flash>Flame Vault>Survival
But Flash is the only ever "degenerated" Deck in Legacy

[Skeggi]

I present Classic NecroSpike (was still legal until May 31,2009):
(...)
4 Necropotence

I'm pretty sure you've got the date wrong.


# Vintage tournaments (see Rule 911) have restricted this card since 2000/10/01.
# Legacy tournaments (see Rule 912) have banned this card since 2000/10/01.
# Extended tournaments (see Rule 913) have banned this card since 2001/04/01.

I suppose you mean May 31, 1999?

But in that case, over half the cards in that deck aren't even printed then. So... what did I miss?

[Rune]

The old Replenish decks were pretty evil. Back in school, there was a kid who kept rolling us with it. We could basically never beat him with our shitty decks unless he stalled on 1 land for 3 turns. Decklist was something like:

4 Frantic Search
4 Atunement
4 Opalescence
4 Parallax Wave
x Replenish
x Mystical Tutor
x Enlightened Tutor
x Counterspell

I guess it was a Standard deck(?). After a while we found out that Replenish had been banned in a bunch of formats

[Sims]

I'm pretty sure you've got the date wrong.



I suppose you mean May 31, 1999?

But in that case, over half the cards in that deck aren't even printed then. So... what did I miss?

I know Ruckus is an MTGO player, and he did mention Classic in the deck name, so he might be referring to the Online Classic format which is basically onlines version of vintage... in those terms, the date would make perfect sense.

[troopatroop]

Old 1.5: Dragon/Mud/FoodChain/ Landstill

Post Separation: Hulk-Flash

[Dark Ritual]

From what I heard of hulk flash, you either a) played some variation of it or b) played a deck tuned to beat hulk flash. That was the meta until flash was banned. And at GP Flash it was funny because the winning decklist by Steve Sadin played the countertop engine in it and had only 14 lands but he ran 4 chrome mox as well. Also of note: Ryan Trepanier top 8'ed with flash hulk without playing a single mystical tutor but he ran 4 serum visions a card terrible by todays standards. And there were only 6 mystical tutors in the entire top 8.

Most broken deck? Long.dec with 4 wishes, 4 LEDs, and 4 mind's desire. Mind's desire is just bonkers. Runner ups are affinity pre clamp banning and necro trix. In vintage in 2007 when academy was still legal as a 4 of that deck was retarded too it could smash through 4 force of wills and still win. Along with the fact that it could just win turn 1 too.

[Koby]

So... what did I miss?

Aye, it is indeed Classic Online format.
linky to format (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Resources.aspx?x=magic/rules/mtgoclassic). It exists only on MTGO, and it took about 8 months before the metagame spiraled down to be 50% NecroSpike in top8 every event.

Long story short, Necropotence is busted.

[Ubiquitous Druid]

Any deck that contains 4 of Necropotence (or >1 Tolarian Academy). The other 56 cards are largely meaningless when you get to draw 7 a turn.

I didn't even combo win with Necro. I put an asshole discard/land destruction deck together that just mind-twisted for 7 on turn 2 and beat with Hypnotic specters and avalanche riders.

[Solar Ice]

In vintage in 2007 when academy was still legal as a 4 of that deck.

According to Crystal Keep, on Acadamy:

Vintage tournaments (see Rule 911) have restricted this card since 1999/01/01

Not 2007.

[Julian23]

Would Hulk-Flash really be that bad today? With Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Counterbalance, and no Mystical Tutor, would the deck be that unbeatable? Or would Hulk-Flash simply run those cards and make it even worse?

Hulk-Flash could go second and kill you before you even had you first landdrop. I admit that really didn't happen consistently but it outlines its raw power. Killing someone on their first upkeep is - even in terms of Legacy-combo - too degenerate.

[Rizso]

Remember Mask block constructed just after nemesis got released. There was a pt after where port was more common then basic mountain :P Led to port and Lin-sivi geting banned in mask block :P

Caw-Blade with jace, Stoneforge and Batterskull! Affinty with Ravager, Clamp and vial.

There where so many crazy decks durring saga block. yawgmoth will powered Hightide decks, Academy, Trix, Peebles.

Loved The rector-bargin deck.

[ReAnimator]

Also of note: Ryan Trepanier top 8'ed with flash hulk without playing a single mystical tutor but he ran 4 serum visions a card terrible by todays standards. And there were only 6 mystical tutors in the entire top 8. and 12 Visions! though to be fair there were a lot of really bad cards in that top 8.

As the designer of Ryans deck I can speak to this (i couldn't go to the GP but lent my physical copy to a friend who top 64'd with the same list). Essentially the reason i put visions in there over mystical, is cause mystical couldn't find you Hulk, Land or some Sideboard cards. All the other search could find any card and with a list as super redundant as this you really didn't care if you were finding anything specific you just wanted to see a bunch of cards, also having LDVault as well as mystical was just way too clunky and vault was better cause it found you hulk. The list is all 4 ofs in the spell department other than the 2 bounce spells and there weren't any bullets i wanted in the main as the format was all mirrors and irrelevant decks so just maxing speed and redundancy was fine for game 1's. When i was testing there really was nothing worse than opening a hand of mystical and flash when playing the mirror and having to tutor for a different search spell or for protection or disruption, this wasn't like reanimator where mystical can find you anything but land that you might want, the only things you needed for game 1's were a hulk a flash and 2 lands, mystical doesn't find 75% of that.

It might not have been right but i did test mystical and it just wasn't as good in here, that is what my testing told me and it worked out pretty well for the 2 pilots of the list.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I ran Portents over Visions in that meta, but I tested a lot of different builds and can verify that M Tutor didn't work in the same deck as LDV, and the latter was much, much stronger.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Hulk-Flash could go second and kill you before you even had you first landdrop. I admit that really didn't happen consistently but it outlines its raw power. Killing someone on their first upkeep is - even in terms of Legacy-combo - too degenerate.

Yeah, those builds were really awful though and lost to the builds that were fine with killing you on turns 2-4 with consistency and a shit ton of disruption and protection.

[(nameless one)]

I ran Portents over Visions in that meta, but I tested a lot of different builds and can verify that M Tutor didn't work in the same deck as LDV, and the latter was much, much stronger.

I see where ReAnimator is going there though. Like how some current combo decks would run Preordain over Ponder (on top of Brainstorm).


Btw, speaking of Necro...

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I've never played with Necro, but now I'm sitting here trying to imagine:

"How do you win against Necro when Necro resolves?"

Is the answer: "You don't, you either win before your opponent's Necro resolves or you resolve yours." ? lol!

Yes.

As for the actual thread subject:

Legacy:
Hulk Flash, nothing has come even close to being as ridiculous in this format.

Other decks that were utterly ridiculous:

Vintage:
Trix with 4 Necro/4 Consultation - Necro is just that ridiculous in a combo deck (not that it's actually fair in other decks). This is probably the absolute best deck ever and would likely beat the crap out of just about every other deck I'm going to mention.

Academy was the original broken combo deck. Check out Extended versions and imagine you get to play 7SoLoMox, 4 Mana Crypts and 4 Lotus Petal instead of crappy artifacts to enable it.

Gro-A-Tog the first time around. The deck was busted enough to need to be banned again years later when the format was much more developed.

Gifts - yes, people played other stuff. No they probably shouldn't have.

Extended:
Trix again. I mean you could play the same deck that dominated Vintage just without the Moxen (but with enough other accel).
Academy, High Tide in both forms (fueled by Time Spiral or Yawgmoth's Will), Megrim Jar (only legal for like two weeks but bonkers enough I'd still bring it to a Legacy event today if they'd let me) were all oppressive and would have dominated the format single-handedly had they not been all legal at the same time.

Standard:
The original Necro-deck (the already mentioned Black Summer), Academy (combo Winter), RavagerAffinity with Skullclamp, Caw Blade

@Dark Ritual: 4 Desire Long was never legal. With a single Desire the deck was ridiculous but never as dominating as one could have expected for something that fast and powerful. Though I know Smmenen would disagree.

[PeAcH]

I guess the most degenerate one would be the Megrim Jar deck which lead to an emergency banning of Memory Jar itself in the old extended (only one in history which did not wait for the normal B&R announcement).

It was too much, plain and simple:

3 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Brass
2 Gemstone Mine
3 Underground River
4 Underground Sea
4 Mox Diamond
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mana Vault
4 Dark Ritual

4 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Vampiric Tutor

4 Defense Grid
1 Megrim
2 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Tinker
4 Memory Jar

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/195

Vintage Flash would be the second one for me.

Just ABSURD bonkers. Unfair and unfun to the max.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I guess the most degenerate one would be the Megrim Jar deck which lead to an emergency banning of Memory Jar itself in the old extended (only one in history which did not wait for the normal B&R announcement).

It was too much, plain and simple:

3 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Brass
2 Gemstone Mine
3 Underground River
4 Underground Sea
4 Mox Diamond
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mana Vault
4 Dark Ritual

4 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Vampiric Tutor

4 Defense Grid
1 Megrim
2 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Tinker
4 Memory Jar

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/195

Vintage Flash would be the second one for me.

Just ABSURD bonkers. Unfair and unfun to the max.

Vintage Flash was indeed ridiculous but far less dominant than most of the other decks because of how ridiculously high Vintage's power level is/was. Dredge, Stax and a multitude of different Gush decks kept it well in check. That doesn't mean it wasn't ban-worthy for being utterly boring to play with or against while definitely being one of the best four decks in the format. Legacy Flash was much more ridiculous simply because of what the rest of the format could (not) do.

[bum_man]

Vintage: The theoretical Long decklists, days before Mind's Desire was restricted prior to its release (how could you not win if you could desire your whole deck?)/Original Long Decks with 4 Burning Wish and 4 L.E.D., Black Summer (4 Necropotence, nuff said.), Hulk Flash because it just wins, much like Black Summer, before it was nerfed, if your deck isn't tuned to stand toe to toe with it, you lose the round.

Legacy: Hulk Flash, even in Vintage they still had to nerf this bad boy.

[Meekrab]

There was a time where you could play 4 Yawgmoth's Will and 4 Necropotence in Extended. The deck didn't end up being all that broken relative to some in this thread because most of the other busted cards were banned at the time, but recasting all your Duresses and Edicts and Urza's Baubles and Drain Lifes twice a game made for some sick card advantage.

[Rizso]

Yawgmoth's Will didnt really turn Yawgmoth's Win until THE storm cards was unleashed upon the world.

Control Black - Jakob Slemr durring 1999 worlds ran multiple Vampiric Tutors, dark Rituals and Yawgmoth's Will but it still was pretty fair.

[Zilla]

Hulk Flash is unquestionably the strongest deck in the history of this format, even if you include pre-split 1.5. I'd take Hulk Flash over fully powered Dragon or MUD any day.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

There was a time where you could play 4 Yawgmoth's Will and 4 Necropotence in Extended. The deck didn't end up being all that broken relative to some in this thread because most of the other busted cards were banned at the time, but recasting all your Duresses and Edicts and Urza's Baubles and Drain Lifes twice a game made for some sick card advantage.

Actually that deck was STANDARD legal during Tempest-Urza days for a time. Still one of the funnest decks I've ever played. I'd love to be allowed to run it again. Broken, but interestingly not disgustingly so (you didn't have tutors to find Necro and your kill - Corrupt/Drain Life - was pretty slow and fair. There just weren't any combo-kills left to splice into it).

[SpikeyMikey]

Hulk Flash is unquestionably the strongest deck in the history of this format, even if you include pre-split 1.5. I'd take Hulk Flash over fully powered Dragon or MUD any day.

Interesting question though. Depends on where you're placing the split. If you're talking Hulk Flash as it would've been after the Pacts became legal, it's unquestionable. If you're talking Dragon with just Bazaar, then definitely Flash. But if you're talking Dragon with Entomb AND Bazaar vs. Hulk Flash at the GP, well, I'm not sure that I don't take Dragon there. I played Dragon with Bazaar and Entomb in T1, back before people realized that Bazaar was the dead nuts for the deck. Granted, I had some Moxen and better tutoring, but it was still incredibly fast, consistent and resilient. No potential turn 0 kills though :P

[Purgatory]

I remember old Extended right after Mirrodin Block came out, and everyone and their mother was playing 4 Tinker's before Tinker got banned. That was an annoying time to be playing Extended.

Agreed, I was at the time especially fond of the list that Rickard Österberg won PT New Orleans with, which was the same one that all the Swedes at the tournament was playing IIRC.

"George W. Bosh"

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Brass
4 City of Traitors
2 Great Furnace
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Shivan Reef

1 Bosh, Iron Golem
4 Goblin Welder
1 Masticore
4 Metalworker
1 Pentavus
1 Platinum Angel

2 Chromatic Sphere
1 Citanul Flute
1 Gilded Lotus
4 Grim Monolith
3 Lightning Greaves
1 Mindslaver
4 Tangle Wire
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Tinker
3 Voltaic Key

Sideboard
3 Defense Grid
1 Elf Replica
1 Mindslaver
3 Rack and Ruin
2 Shattering Pulse
1 Triskelion
4 Welding Jar



Tinker aside, the Extended meta was quite crazy, with Food Chain Goblins being able to combo out and kill you on turn two and with Belcher + Mana Severance being actually good. Thus I don't think that Tinker was actually that degenerate since the rest of the format was so broken :)

[Koby]

Same format also had a Goblin deck playing Charbelcher with Goblin Recruiter.

Fun times.

[(nameless one)]

Same format also had a Goblin deck playing Charbelcher with Goblin Recruiter.

Fun times.

Can anyone provide a list with that? I want to build a 'Classic' deck featuring that strategy.

[Koby]

Pro Tour: New Orleans 2003 - Day 2 Decks (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=sideboard/ptno03/d2decks)

Legacy, by comparison, looks tame... Short list of broken cards featured in decks:

Hermit Druid
Tinker
Goblin Recruiter
Oath of Druids
Vampiric Tutor
Mind's Desire
. . .

[emidln]

Current Vintage Titan Dredge and Vintage Flash (4 Scroll, 4 Brainstorm, 4 Flash w/Reveilark+Body Double+Fanatic kill) are the two most degenerate decks I can think of. Both are highly resilient combo decks capable of heavily protected turn 1 and turn 2 kills, with the ability to fight through basically any amount of hate.

I would take the Flash deck over 4 LED Long or 4 Necro, 4 Consult Trix.

[Skeggi]

When Urza's Saga was released, there was this deck with 4 Tolarian Academy which won turn 3. In Standard (or Type 2 as we used to call it). That was pretty bonkers.

I believe it was something like this:

Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Brass
4 Tolarian Academy
4 Tundra
4 Volcanic Island

Artifacts
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mana Vault
4 Mox Diamond
2 Scroll Rack
3 Voltaic Key

Enchantments
3 Mind Over Matter

Instant
3 Abeyance
3 Intuition
3 Power Sink
4 Stroke of Genius

Sorceries
4 Time Spiral
4 Windfall

[Damoxx]

I remember playing Arena League and the format was T1 Vanguard. Hanni + Tolarian Academy deck was bonkers. It won turn 1 about 90% of the time.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Oh, speaking of, online Legacy with vanguards, Dakkon Blackblade was pretty crazy good. +1 starting hand size, you can play any colored card from your hand as a copy of a basic land chosen at random that can produce mana of one of the card's colors.

I didn't actually own Forces online but the ideal list now would probably be something like;

4 Force of Will
2 Commandeer
4 Daze
4 Force Spike
4 Annul
4 Spell Snare
4 Spell Pierce
4 Counterspell
2 Negate
3 Cryptic Command
4 Repeal
2 Echoing Truth
2 Capsize
4 Think Twice
4 Fathom Seer
3 Dominate
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Goblin Charbelcher

With Charbelcher obviously being a one-card combo in the deck.

Online you could still see what each "island" actually was, making Fathom Seer pretty fucking bonkers, basically a three mana draw four + body.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Man, why does no one play that format. Some of these things seem silly. Birds of Paradise, Seshiro, Oni of Wild Places, and Peacekeeper stick out a bit to me. Ink-Eyes also might be crazy good. Out of date list; http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=magic/magiconline/vanguard

eta:

First draft of BoP control:

15 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Scrying Sheets
4 Maze of Ith

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Path to Exile
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Counterbalance
3 Vindicate
4 Pernicious Deed

4 Eternal Witness
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Ajani Vengeant

Oni of Wild Places in Elves also seems a bit broken.

[(nameless one)]

Pro Tour: New Orleans 2003 - Day 2 Decks (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=sideboard/ptno03/d2decks)

Legacy, by comparison, looks tame... Short list of broken cards featured in decks:

Hermit Druid
Tinker
Goblin Recruiter
Oath of Druids
Vampiric Tutor
Mind's Desire
. . .

I love how deliciously broken that format looked.

I also love how Recruiter is legal while Goblin Lackey is banned.

[Admiral_Arzar]

I love how deliciously broken that format looked.

I also love how Recruiter is legal while Goblin Lackey is banned.

That looks like teh greatest format evar. Yes, I'm a combo player :P.

[fregle]

the most degenerate deck is of course the original 20/20/20 black lotus/channel/fireball deck that got destroyed by the then-new 4-maximum rule (the store-owners were always the winners of those tiny unsanctioned tournaments as they were the only ones capable of building such a deck, even though black lotus was only worth around 125$, you just couldn't get your hands on it). It was still extremely strong though, so the power 9 got restricted (by then the ante cards were banned as well if I'm not mistaken, since everybody hated and ignored the ante-rules in those early magic sets). After that there were still extremely powerfull decks that warranted restrictions but none of those decks would be as degenerate in todays eternal formats (people tend to forget how small the card-pool was at that time).

I never really hated the necropotence decks pre-Saga, they were very strong, they were everywhere, but you could make viable rogue decks against it, I have to say it was a very fun time to play for me, I got lots of successes with a rogue deck that used howling mine to make necropotence impotent (:p), winter orb to shut down its resources (but that was more useful against decks like counterpost) and island sanctuary to keep the grunts at bay. Starting with mirage it also got enlightened tutor to get the pieces and a life-gainer that gave me lots of life if it got discarded, from weatherlight it also got gerrard's wisdom (instead of the previous life-gainer) which made it more solid against sligh decks (its achilles heel), and icy manipulator to give me the freedom to do what I wanted and to shut down some dangerous stuff I can't remember anymore. It wasn't like what came after tempest-block (also a great time to be playing magic):

Combo winter... and judging by the reactions of some people here you had to live through (part of) it to really know what it was... To put it simply: I entirely stopped playing the game I loved most from right before urza' destiny...

...past most of the degenerate eternal decks mentioned in this thread (I'm happy to have missed that period), that I only knew about through the stories I heard...

...up until scourge came out (strange though that it was another degenerate set that drew me back in, but Mind's Desire got banned/restricted quickly enough), just to get knocked out of the game again by...

...skullclamp... A card that had the same effect on me as the first time I saw Tinker and the Academy, a lot of disbelief mixed with some goosebump-excitedness... But it proved to be as horrible a period as combo winter... Affinity didn't really bother me that much as I didn't play standard (too many old cards, no wish to invest a lot of time and money in the game), but I noticed that it did bother many many standard players. I came back though, immediately after Skullclamp got banned.

After that all was calm for a long time (from my point of view), until the hulk-flash period started, but that was very shortlived (for which I'm very happy). It wasn't as bad as combo winter or Skullclamp though, it was more similar to the necropotence days, you still had viable rogue decks (but fewer of them, so to me hulk-flash was more degenerate).

And since then there haven't been any degenerate decks I noticed, but Mental Misstep was something special in the field of degeneracy... It didn't propel one single strategy to dominate the field, but it was suddenly everywhere, like dual-lands but in a very bad way. It didn't really feel that bad though, nor did the survival-vine deck, that one was a lot weaker (comparatively) than the Necropotence decks of yesteryear...

[Gheizen64]

Pro Tour: New Orleans 2003 - Day 2 Decks (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=sideboard/ptno03/d2decks)

Legacy, by comparison, looks tame... Short list of broken cards featured in decks:

Hermit Druid
Tinker
Goblin Recruiter
Oath of Druids
Vampiric Tutor
Mind's Desire
. . .

You know what's the most funny thing? This list:

4 Bloodstained Mire
8 Mountain
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills

4 Blistering Firecat
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Jackal Pup
4 Slith Firewalker

4 Cursed Scroll
4 Firebolt
4 Seal of Fire
4 Tangle Wire
4 Volcanic Hammer

Volcanic Hammer. Seriously lol.

[dontbiteitholmes]

T1 - First generation Academy decks (pre-nuke fucking everything restricted list fix) I think I played probably 1/10 as many games against this as I have against Belcher over the years and I probably lost before my first turn in about twice as many games vs. Academy
Legacy - Flash, hands down no contest
Ext - I say Trix (Illusions Donate combo), it was such a good deck and there were like 5 different waves of bannings trying to fix it and it was still tier till the end. Before the first wave of bannings it was untouchable though. I mean Necro, Rit, Illusions/Donate, Force, Duress, Mana Crypt, and of course Duals were still in Ext back then, it was just so brutal.
T2 - Combo winter obviously. I think this was the low point in MTG as a whole. A higher % of people quit the game around this point than at any other time period of Magic. At the same time I'd say Affinity was worse. The reason being it too WotC entirely too long to fix it. I mean Combo Winter was a Winter, Affinity was over the course of 7 sets. It started in Mirrodin and was allowed to continue for some reason until the last set of Kawigama came out. Affinity should have been banned at latest around the end of Mirrodin block. WotC says they don't test Eteral, but apparently back then they didn't test T2 either or they would have known nothing in Kawigama would matter for shit until Affinity got nerfed.

[dschalter]

T1 - First generation Academy decks (pre-nuke fucking everything restricted list fix) I think I played probably 1/10 as many games against this as I have against Belcher over the years and I probably lost before my first turn in about twice as many games vs. Academy
Legacy - Flash, hands down no contest
Ext - I say Trix (Illusions Donate combo), it was such a good deck and there were like 5 different waves of bannings trying to fix it and it was still tier till the end. Before the first wave of bannings it was untouchable though. I mean Necro, Rit, Illusions/Donate, Force, Duress, Mana Crypt, and of course Duals were still in Ext back then, it was just so brutal.
T2 - Combo winter obviously. I think this was the low point in MTG as a whole. A higher % of people quit the game around this point than at any other time period of Magic. At the same time I'd say Affinity was worse. The reason being it too WotC entirely too long to fix it. I mean Combo Winter was a Winter, Affinity was over the course of 7 sets. It started in Mirrodin and was allowed to continue for some reason until the last set of Kawigama came out. Affinity should have been banned at latest around the end of Mirrodin block. WotC says they don't test Eteral, but apparently back then they didn't test T2 either or they would have known nothing in Kawigama would matter for shit until Affinity got nerfed.

Affinity's initial dominance is often overstated. Affinity was just another deck after Mirrodin and the Skullclamp era was actually more diverse than is remembered- there were other decks that could use Skullclamp more effectively than Affinity and thus they were real players. Furthermore (because of the tremendous popularity of Mirrodin, sales-wise) tournament attendance was through the roof, with the 2004 spring regionals getting huge attendance. After Skullclamp was banned and Cranial Plating became legal, things became degenerate, but the deck still wasn't really driving people away, because Affinity was cheap to build and also because it wasn't really that hard to beat if you wanted (winning percentage<50% at the last major premier event of Onslaught-Mirrodin standard). The real problem was that Kamigawa was brutally underpowered and that they put the Affinity trump in the third set of the block- by the time Kataki came out months of misery had meant that Affinity was already banned out of existence.

[nedleeds]

Assuming we are measuring decks against their contemporaries, since power creep and card pool expansion makes comparing difficult.

T1: Pre-alliances. Balance .... mishra's factory and often burn, racks and bazaar. It was absurd in a world without FoW or Dredge. Also, no Paris rule ... only no land into fresh 7. Also first player also drew. You would sometimes start the game with 2 cards. You could have 4 strip mines, 4 balance, your regrowth etc. It was horribly demoralizing. This is circa summer 94.

T2: Necro. With 4 strip mine, 4 spector, 1 ivory tower, 4 factories, 4 hymns ... games were just complete fucking blowouts.

1.5: drain control was a beating, but the format was pretty wild west back then

block: the month of full on rebels with linsivii.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Affinity's initial dominance is often overstated. Affinity was just another deck after Mirrodin and the Skullclamp era was actually more diverse than is remembered- there were other decks that could use Skullclamp more effectively than Affinity and thus they were real players. Furthermore (because of the tremendous popularity of Mirrodin, sales-wise) tournament attendance was through the roof, with the 2004 spring regionals getting huge attendance. After Skullclamp was banned and Cranial Plating became legal, things became degenerate, but the deck still wasn't really driving people away, because Affinity was cheap to build and also because it wasn't really that hard to beat if you wanted (winning percentage<50% at the last major premier event of Onslaught-Mirrodin standard). The real problem was that Kamigawa was brutally underpowered and that they put the Affinity trump in the third set of the block- by the time Kataki came out months of misery had meant that Affinity was already banned out of existence.

This is true. Most people forget that powerful Onslaught-block-based decks like Goblins and Astral Slide were on a par with Affinity and the meta was relatively balanced - until Onslaught rotated. At this point Affinity and Tooth and Nail were the only decks that survived rotation, and Kamigawa block offered almost nothing remotely good to balance things out.

[dontbiteitholmes]

This is true. Most people forget that powerful Onslaught-block-based decks like Goblins and Astral Slide were on a par with Affinity and the meta was relatively balanced - until Onslaught rotated. At this point Affinity and Tooth and Nail were the only decks that survived rotation, and Kamigawa block offered almost nothing remotely good to balance things out.

Yeah I actually forgot about Onslaught because I quit T2 for Onslaught through the day Affinity got nuked. Slide Rift Mirrors were not exactly tons of fun so I ran just Legacy at that point and Affinity was always a dumb deck, even if you had the blowout hand they could randomly drop double Disciple Ravager and just eat your face.

[GtF]

Trix in extended is the one that I remember the best as being the most broken for the longest time. Like a hydra, they kept trying to cut it down via bannings and the heads just kept growing back.

[TeenieBopper]

This is true. Most people forget that powerful Onslaught-block-based decks like Goblins and Astral Slide were on a par with Affinity and the meta was relatively balanced - until Onslaught rotated. At this point Affinity and Tooth and Nail were the only decks that survived rotation, and Kamigawa block offered almost nothing remotely good to balance things out.

The OLS/MD5 T2 era wasn't that diverse. The only reason that Affinity wasn't far more dominant was because it was difficult to fight through the hate. The thing was, a skilled pilot could do it successfully. Affinity smashed both Goblins and Astral Slide. Elf and Nail, a deck designed to beat affinity, was only a 60/40 favorite at best. I played mono-white control with 12 sweepers (including Akroma's Vengeance) with maindeck damping matrix and my match-up against affinity was probably only marginally better than Elf and Nail. So even when OLS was in the format, Affinity was still easily the best deck. Of course, once it rotated, shit went so far off the rails that not even the banning of skullclamp fixed it. Bitch had to be nuked from orbit.

[Fuzzy]

Man, why does no one play that format. Some of these things seem silly. Birds of Paradise, Seshiro, Oni of Wild Places, and Peacekeeper stick out a bit to me. Ink-Eyes also might be crazy good. Out of date list; http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=magic/magiconline/vanguard

eta:

First draft of BoP control:

15 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Scrying Sheets
4 Maze of Ith

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Path to Exile
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Counterbalance
3 Vindicate
4 Pernicious Deed

4 Eternal Witness
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Ajani Vengeant

Oni of Wild Places in Elves also seems a bit broken.

I still had the Oni deck, with Phyrexian Soulgorger and Sheltering Ancient (Need updates, like Memnite, who I'm too lazy to buy)

I remember the good old times where we can could play 2-man queues with it...

[lordofthepit]

Does anyone have a decklist for a Tolarian Academy combo deck that was legal in Standard (pre-ban)?

[Grollub]

Does anyone have a decklist for a Tolarian Academy combo deck that was legal in Standard (pre-ban)?
They were basically the same as Tommi Hovi's extended list from Rome and primarily mono blue instead.

[DragoFireheart]

What was more degenerate in Standard for its relative era: Affinity post-Onslaught ban, or Caw-Blade?

[daPaule]

Does anyone have a decklist for a Tolarian Academy combo deck that was legal in Standard (pre-ban)?


Below is a sample decklist from 1998, a Type II Mono-Blue Academy deck. This decklist was taken from a Type II Neutral Ground tournament report by Jon Gordon ( November 1st, 1998)

4 Mind Over Matter ( Currently Restricted in Type I )
3 Stroke of Genius ( Currently Restricted in Type I )
4 Voltaic Key ( Currently Restricted in Type I )
3 Scroll Racks
2 Mox Diamond ( Currently Restricted in Type I )
4 Lotus Petal ( Currently Restricted in Type I )
4 Mana Vault ( Currently Restricted in Type I )
2 Meditate
4 Power Sink
4 Time Spiral ( Currently Restricted in Type I )
4 Windfall ( Currently Restricted in Type I )
2 Intuition
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Tolarian Academy ( Currently Restricted in Type I )
12 Island
SB:
4 Chill
4 Wasteland
3 Force Spike
2 Capsize
2 Turnabout

From here (http://www.mtgnews.com/showthread.php?t=118212).

[MTG Junkie]

Not sure if anyone has said these already,because I'm just seeing the thread now.

Anyways....Dragon was a very warping deck. Mishra's Workshop Survival was also Very dominant.
Pebbles,Trix,Wishatogg,Earthcraft/Squirrel's Nest and Donate where all very powerfull combo decks.


Man those where the days.........

[lordofthepit]

From here (http://www.mtgnews.com/showthread.php?t=118212).

Ugh, that is disgusting.

[feline]

Freshmaker, an anti artifact red/green deck became popular during affinity standard back then, i actually did my first states playing freshmaker, but i switched artifact destruction and land destruction around, so whenever i fought affinity i increase the hate accordingly, and against non artifact like decks, i push heavier land destruction post sb games.

Even after affinity died, "erayo affinity" even bounced around for a bit, but it wasn't the same in numbers after all the stuff got axed. >^,^<

[Fossil4182]

NecroSummer or Academy decks (in standard and extended) were probably the most degenerate times to be playing Magic. FlashHulk is probably the most "degenerate" deck in Legacy. Goblins and Solidarity were both dominate back at the onset of the format but never crushed in the same way FlashHulk. In the more modern era (last three to fou years) I suppose the Mystical Tutor decks (troll) and the Survival deck are about as close as one could get to "degenerate".

[Darkenslight]

This is true. Most people forget that powerful Onslaught-block-based decks like Goblins and Astral Slide were on a par with Affinity and the meta was relatively balanced - until Onslaught rotated. At this point Affinity and Tooth and Nail were the only decks that survived rotation, and Kamigawa block offered almost nothing remotely good to balance things out.

Heartbeats and Death Cloud beg to differ, but yeah. I remember playing Heartbeat combo when Champions came in. Then WhiteSteel(WW equip) got amazing with the Pointy Stick of DOOM in the precon of Betrayers.