What is the strongest Type 2 deck of all-time?

[EGarrett]

If you held a massive tournament with a format that allowed basically every card printed since 1996, but with the requirement that your deck had to have been legal for a single Type II format at one period of time (meaning for example, you could play a Necro deck that was legal in 1996, with Strip Mine, Hymn to Tourach, 1 Ivory Tower etc., or a Fires of Yavimaya deck that was legal in 2001, with Rishadan Port, Saproling Burst etc but you couldn't mix the two)...which deck do you think would come out on top?

Which decks do you think would also fare well?

[death]

Yawgmoth's Bargain + Mana Vault + Memory Jar + Megrim

[caiomarcos]

Bargain + Vampiric Tutor + Yawgmoth's Will + Grim Monolith + Dark Ritual
(Was it Type 2? Saber Bargain?)

[Eldariel]

Bring Your Own T2 format covers this question but only in the post-bannings world; from what I've seen Urza/Masques Tinker takes the cake. Then again, if considering pre-bannings formats too, who knows what you might uncover.

[(nameless one)]

I am pretty sure the top 5 (no particular order) goes like this:


Academy
Megrim/Jar
Necro
Clamp Affinity
CawBlade (if New Phyrexia was included)

Academy, Megrim/Jar and Necro is without a doubt broken. Clamp Affinity can pull off fast wins out of nowhere. Laugh all you want now but CawBlade with Mental Misstep can actually go toe to toe with the mentioned decks above and is the most consistent of all.

[conboy31]

I am not sure that the old necro decks would compete with a lot of the newer printings. I played Necro in standard, and unless my memory is deceiving me it would not be in the top tier.

[Koby]

Yawgmoth's Bargain + Mana Vault + Memory Jar + Megrim

This was never legal in a Standard format at any slice of time. Memory Jar was banned within 2 weeks of printing, well before Bargain was in the format. Replace Bargain with Tinker and Vamp and you might have yourself a busted deck however.

[AriLax]

If you want to talk about any Caw deck, it was definitely the Splinter Twin hybrid list. It only existed for like 3 weeks, but it wasn't even close to fair. Caw-blade was just Caw-blade, but this deck functioned like the Dark Depths Thopter Extended deck that was equally unbeatable.

The short period where CB-Top was legal in Standard with Bob, Jitte, Remand, Disrupting Shoal etc was also fairly absurd. If a tournament of this format was run, I would probably put this on the short list of winners.

IPA-OTJ-7th Tog would also be fairly insane in the meta as a fair deck with Force Spike, Duress, Counterspell, FoF, etc.

[j_rb]

I'm pretty sure broken jar takes the cake in this discussion.

[phonics]

But jar was never legal in standard I thought.
Also I dont think tinker would be that busted, they only could get phyrexian colossus and processor at best?

[EGarrett]

Well here's a list of some possible decks if a 16-deck tournament were to be run. I played the game the most from 1996 until 2001 or so, so after that my knowledge is pretty limited.

Oh also, each deck would play roughly according to the rules of their time. So the Prison deck would be able to tap its Winter Orb with Icy Manipulator and so on.

1. Academy Combo (~1997)
2. Necro (~1996)
3. Caw-blade (~2011)
4. Affinity (2004)
5. Replenish (2000)
6. Tinker (2000)
7. Psychatog (~2001)
8. Prosperous Bloom (~1997)
9. Sligh/Red Burn (whichever is most powerful, probably involving Pups and Fireblasts)
10. Turbo Stasis (~1997)
11. The Prison (1997ish, Winter Orb/Icy Manipulator/Swords to Plowshares/Balance. Some deck should be packing Balance)
12. ?Bargain Combo (Bargain/Will/Ritual)
13. Fires of Yavimaya (2001)
14. Jund
15. ? Possibly an Oath of Druids deck?
16. ? One of the strongest from 2005-2010

[AriLax]

I'll do the inverse of the above post and cover the more modern era. Didn't start Standard until IPA-OTJ, so list should be mixable.

1. Academy (obvobvovo)
2. Necro (also obvobvobvo)
3. Replenish
4. Tinker
5. Faeries
6. Counter Top
7. TwinBlade
8. Clamp Affinity
9. Jund
10. Mythic
11. UB Faeries (TSP + LRW with Ancestral Visions)
12. Fireblast + Pup Sligh or Zen-Shards Red.
13. IPA-OTJ-7th Tog
14. Fires
15. Some kind of Bargain deck (Either the Zvi Show and Tell one or Sabre)
16. Something old school with stuff like Balance and Strip Mine.

Pros Bloom is definitely outdated and is worse than a TON of other combo options (Dragonstorm, Dredge, pure Splinter Twin, Elf and Nail, KCI just off the top of my head). Jund and Fires are competing for the honor of worst deck on the list in my mind.

I'd probably put money on Necro, Academy, Faeries, or CB-Top to win.

[Julian23]

I'd probably put money on Academy to win.

Fixed that for you.

[Koby]

But jar was never legal in standard I thought.
Also I dont think tinker would be that busted, they only could get phyrexian colossus and processor at best?

It was most definitely legal. Back then bannings didn't take effect until the first of the month.

[caiomarcos]

I think people should play that out, IRL, and film the whole shebang!

[xfxf]

There was an article series like that if I'm not mistaken, the most broken Extended decks battling it out.

Edit: Here's the extended one:
The Ultimate Extended Tournament (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/extended/13766_Yawgmoth8217s_Whimsy_167_The_Ultimate_Extended_Tournament.html)

And the Standard one:
The Ultimate Standard Tournament (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/19558_Yawgmoths_Whimsy_329_Decks_for_the_Ultimate_Standard_Tournament.html)

[nedleeds]

I am not sure that the old necro decks would compete with a lot of the newer printings. I played Necro in standard, and unless my memory is deceiving me it would not be in the top tier.

Necro when Type II had a restricted list would roll many legacy decks. Do you understand that you could play strip mine, balance and black vise in standard?

Edit: The first winter / spring of standard you could play 4 black vise and I believe 4 balance (not necessarily together) it was dark/revised/fe.

[EGarrett]

Prosbloom was probably a block-deck primarily, and was probably slower than the other combo decks. I also wanted to include a deck that uses some of the more broken enchantments like Recurring Nightmare, so I put RecSur into the open slot, along with the 2008 Faerie Deck, which is from the underrepresented mid-2000 period and also wins a lot in "Bring Your Own Type 2" tournaments. I also wanted to include one more older deck that uses a classic "super-broken combo," so I have bumped Prosbloom in favor of Vise Age from 1995.

This is what the All-Time Tournament List would currently look-like...

1. Academy Combo (1998)
2. Necro (1996)
3. Affinity (2004)
4. Caw-Blade (2011)
5. Replenish (2000)
6. Tinker (2000)
7. Psychatog (2001)
8. RecSur (1998)
9. Sligh (1997)
10. Turbo Stasis (~1997)
11. The Prison (~1997)
12. Sabre Bargain (1999)
13. Fires of Yavimaya (2001)
14. Jund (2009)
15. Faeries (2008)
16. Vise Age (1995)

I'm compiling lists of each of these and messing around with them to get a feel for how they played.

Note: This tournament would be fully-intended to be a "Battle of the Format Warpers," meaning each deck would be included in its MOST broken and feared form. Necro will have 4 Strip Mine, 4 Hymn to Tourach, Affinity will have its 4 Skullclamps, RecSur will play by its pre-errata rules, as will Prison in regards to Winter Orb/Icy Manipulator, and it will also have Land Tax and Balance...and Vise Age WILL be sporting Channel/Fireball.

In other words, a serious slobber-knocker.

Also, as was mentioned above, CounterTop is probably known enough to get a slot too. Perhaps a playoff between CounterTop, ProspBloom and two of the weaker decks in the current list would determine who gets 2 slots in the main draw.


There was an article series like that if I'm not mistaken, the most broken Extended decks battling it out.

Edit: Here's the extended one:
The Ultimate Extended Tournament (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/extended/13766_Yawgmoth8217s_Whimsy_167_The_Ultimate_Extended_Tournament.html)

And the Standard one:
The Ultimate Standard Tournament (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/19558_Yawgmoths_Whimsy_329_Decks_for_the_Ultimate_Standard_Tournament.html)Ooh, I'll check it out.

[nedleeds]

Necro will have 4 Strip Mine, 4 Hymn to Tourach, Affinity will have its 4 Skullclamps, RecSur will play by its pre-errata rules, as will Prison in regards to Winter Orb/Icy Manipulator, and it will also have Land Tax and Balance...and Vise Age WILL be sporting Channel/Fireball.


You could win a SCG open with either fully powered Type II Necro or Vise Age. No control deck can deal with 4 x Strip Mine and 4 x Black Vise with Winter Orbs. Oh you landed a germ and SFM? Balance. Taste the Vise. Necro would blow apart the loose mana bases of most Legacy decks, the only deck that would stand a chance would be burn ironically enough. Hoping the Necro player 7'ed himself. Granted if they untap they might Lake-Ritual-Drain the Burn player :)

[AriLax]

You could win a SCG open with either fully powered Type II Necro or Vise Age. No control deck can deal with 4 x Strip Mine and 4 x Black Vise with Winter Orbs. Oh you landed a germ and SFM? Balance. Taste the Vise. Necro would blow apart the loose mana bases of most Legacy decks, the only deck that would stand a chance would be burn ironically enough. Hoping the Necro player 7'ed himself. Granted if they untap they might Lake-Ritual-Drain the Burn player :)

Vise Age actually looks embarrassingly bad. The presence of Vise might force slower decks out of a metagame, but I can't imagine that deck being able to come close to beating any of these decks without a turn 1 Vise.

Also, the more I think about it, Fires was just a bad Mythic or Jund.

[br14n^lol]

jar was broken, turn 1 defense grid turn 2 - win was great back in '99. there was also an underplayed food chain bargain deck that was really cool/good. turn 2 food chain turn 3 bargain - win was good back in 1999. Id say anything with bargain/jar was/is pretty broken.

megrim jar was in standard for a short while when urzas legacy was first printed but broken jar raped extended for about 2 months.

[dahcmai]

I'd have to side with Jar. That deck was busted as hell. It just didn't have a chance to show people how bad it was in any tournament. It was banned before that. Gives you an idea of how bad it was just from that.

[HAVE HEART]

Rath + Urza cycles. Choose whatever ridiculous combo you want from that era. Sol Lands, Grim Monolith, Tolarian Academy, Yawgmoth's Will, Yawgmoth's Bargain. Oh, and then all of Artifacts that drew you a new hand (and Windfall).

[EGarrett]

Okay I looked at some previous "Ultimate Standard Tournaments" and both of them terminated before they even got to the finish. I seriously can't find anything on either of them beyond the first round. So that makes me lean towards doing this myself. And a 16-deck tourney of solitaire matches would probably be much easier to run than the 32-deck ones they were running where they had to build the decks on MTGO and find other people to play the other side. Hmmmm...

[joshpart23]

I have actually put together a few of these decks and played them against each other for fun. I used:

Necro (w/ 4 Strip Mine, 4 Consult, 4 Hymn, 1 Black Vise but pre-Alliances)
Academy (version that won States, Tempest Block, 5th and Saga)
UB Fae (TS/Lorwyn block version)
UW Caw Blade (w/ Batterskull)
Jund

I was surprised at how well the more modern decks did. Necro is actually fairly mediocre I think, it gets draws that just beat anything because that amount of discard and land destruction just cripple opponents, but it isn't as busted as I thought. Academy is the most powerful of these decks in a vacuum. I didn't put a Tinker or Bargain deck together so not sure about those. If this were run as a tournament it would also be different in that you could prepare for these decks. I just used old deck lists and tried not to metagame for the opposing decks. I think Caw Blade could sideboard to be competitive with almost anything. Also a side note, as far as I remember Balance was never legal as a 4 of in Type 2. I remember playing the mono white prison deck with 4 land tax, but Balance was restricted by then.

[Zombie]

Why do people underrate Lark-Blink (http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=24279) from TS-Lor so much? Yeah, Faeries was annoying, but the format would've been way worse without them. Reveillark was just broken. I might side with Faeries as well if the M10 rules changes are in effect, though, that kills Blink shenanigans so the deck is much weaker. But I don't think Faeries is such an automatic choice from TS-Lor.

[BL4kLotus]

Just found this forum (a little late) but I've been interested in this topic and have run 3 tournaments now to get some actual data. I also contacted some of the other people online who have done the same, and grabbed whatever results I could find from magic-league. Here's a link to the thread with all that info:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=420342

Skip to the end for the most recent tournament results, where Memory Jar goes undefeated.

So far, it looks like Memory Jar is the hands down best, Academy a close 2nd. Most of the other early decks, including Necro, just can't compete with the card quality and power level of threats since about, say, 2006. All decks perform differently in an "all-time" tournament than they would in their natural metagame. Most control decks have a harder time, combo decks do better. Various Monored, and Mythic Conscription have done very well. Jund is strong as long as it hits land drops. Post-skullclamp Affinity, Tinker, and Delver aren't as good as expected. Luck, as always, still plays a role.

[Eldariel]

In my experience at least on Magic-League, it would be crucial to find not only a competent, but a strong pilot for each deck. Playing something like Jar is one thing since it facerolls so much, but something like Tinker, Raffinity or Necro carries an obscene number of decisions that heavily influence how the decks do; they're unforgiving and powerful (not saying your results are wrong but e.g. I was just about the only one who saw success with Tinker on ML; I'd wager much of that is simply that I actually had experience playing it).

[HammafistRoob]

Doran Rock was super fun with Tarmogoyfs Thoughtseizes and bitterblossoms.

[apple713]

I am pretty sure the top 5 (no particular order) goes like this:


Academy
Megrim/Jar
Necro
Clamp Affinity
CawBlade (if New Phyrexia was included)

Academy, Megrim/Jar and Necro is without a doubt broken. Clamp Affinity can pull off fast wins out of nowhere. Laugh all you want now but CawBlade with Mental Misstep can actually go toe to toe with the mentioned decks above and is the most consistent of all.


+1, think he nailed it.