Ten Years of Legacy

[Finn]

Legacy turns 10 in October. I know this because I discovered and joined this site mere weeks before the format was created. The format had been called 1.5 before that, and it worked essentially like Vintage Lite. But Legacy promised to be totally different from it's predecessor, and I was excited to get in on the ground floor of this nascent format where my Candelabras, Tabernacles, Mazes of Ith, Mox Diamonds, Survival of the Fittest, Lotus Petals, etc. were open season.

Much has changed since then. Nobody had discovered what Goblins would look like yet, though the cards were available to make the deck similarly to what it looks like today. But beyond that, most of the best decks of today could not have existed then. It's mostly creatures that have gotten better, but not entirely. At the very beginning, the best creatures included...

Meddling Mage
Nimble Mongoose
Mishra's Factory
Tradewind Rider

...There were still trade magazines like Scrye and InQuest with price lists for every card ever printed, updated monthly. The first best deck was called Angry Tradewind Survival with Blue-White Landstill, then Vial Goblins, and then Blue-White-Green Threshold each taking a turn at the top spot in that order. It was many months before any combo decks at all were decent. The first was Solidarity. But really anything was possible back then. I mean, really anything.

In September of 2004 I came to this site to get help creating my first Legacy deck: Welder Survival. There were about 500 members with only a handful of active ones. The thread seems to be gone from the archive now. But when I arrived looking for some advice, I found out quickly that nobody really had any idea what was out there or what was going to be good. Survival of the Fittest and Goblin Welder, two cards with obvious synergy had never been played together in a 1.5 deck! I was home. Pulled it out of the archives for nostalgia and reference - Jander -- Welder Survival RGw (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?831-Deck-Welder-Survival-RGw-Survival-Aggro)

Here is something to drool on.

Underground Sea was $20.
Force of Will was $15.
Wasteland was $5.
Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale was $30.
Aether Vial was $4.
Karakas was $5.
Candelabra of Tawnos was $50.
Moat was $60.
Show and Tell was a junk rare. I have given between 6 and 9 of these away.
Rishadan Port was $10.
Sensei's Divining Top was $5.
Gaea's Cradle was $20.
Sneak Attack was $8 or so.
City of Traitors was about $12.
Humility was $2.
Lion's Eye Diamond was about $5.
Imperial Recruiter (not legal yet) was $5.
...and so on.


What are some of your memories from the first ten years of Legacy?

[(nameless one)]

I remember seeking for Merfolk advice we Lorwyn first get spoiled.

I learned that my old Extended Goblins was Legacy viable (minus the Recruiters). Though I was rocking an X-land Elf Stompy. Who needs Glimpse of Nature when you're beating down with Talara's Batallion and Wren's Run Vanquisher.

I kept on banking on Land Tax getting unbanned and hoping to develop it. But as time goes, what once was good does get outdated.

Legacy has changed a lot. Personally I haven't played it (or any Magic) for a while now. Though I am still keeping in touch of the format. I will still play, if life permits.

[Slag]

What are some of your memories from the first ten years of Legacy?

I remember how much of a house goblins was for the first few years of legacy. I would get crushed by turn one lackeys time and time again. It wasn't until I was playing R/G survival with burning wish, jitte, and shard phoenix that I really felt like I had a decent game against it, and I would still occasionally get demolished by a bunch of goblins. No matter how much the metagame has shifted, I think I will always have a healthy respect for the deck. I also remember throwing tormod's crypt in all of my sideboards, because hey, it costed zero, hosed IGGY-pop, and made Werebear and Nimble Mongoose tiny.

[ShiftyKapree]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dci/announce/dci20080602a
The day I quit Vintage and joined legacy, also the day vintage died in my book and for most people. I started playing r/g beats and uw landstill in legacy :laugh:

[JPoJohnson]

I was playing a Static Orb/Opposition Merfolk lockdown deck. I can't even fathom trying to run Opposition nowadays :laugh:

[weaselface]

I got into T1.5 around 98'-99' when Saga and Destiny came out. I remember rocking this sweet mono-U control list with Mana Drain, Morphling, Treachery, Powder Keg, Masticore and Ophidian plus ofcourse the usual suspects.

Cards were dirt cheap but as a 15 year old I wasn't exactly stacked. Still somehow I managed to get my Drains, Fows, Wastes and some duals even.

Once we cracked my friends' big brothers' box of Allinces without permission for some Balduvian Horde and Fows. Even then we were degenerates.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[danyul]

I remember running all over my high school trying to find the guy who had Goblin Lackeys. He would only trade them for a copy of No Rest for the Wicked. I never got those Lackeys.

I remember being an asshole and sharking FNM kids for Onslaught Fetches when those first came out because nobody thought they were good for anything.

I remember beating up on the some kid in my advisory class with a fully built Oath deck. He had a tribal Birds deck. My fatties were Spirit of the Night and Akroma, Angel of Wrath. We played everyday and he never got tired of losing.

I remember our local shop had an FNM where the only rule was No Kills Before Turn 4. Legacy was Type 1.5 at the time and I held myself to that format. Nobody else followed any rules. These two guys always won. I finally beat the Squirrel Opposition guy and the Tolarian Academy guy with UG Madness with FOW, fetches, and duals. I later built an Isochron Scepter deck with MD Echoing Truth, Sol lands, Voltaic Key, and Grim Monolith just for that Squirrel Opposition guy. I beat him.

I remember that mail-in exchange program when Urza's Legacy first came out. It was put in place so you could trade in your "banned before it was released" Memory Jars for Urza's Legacy boosters. I had to learn how to write a letter just to mail that thing in.

I remember going to the very first Source tournament. It was held somewhere in Canada I think? Near The Batcave. Bardo and some mods+adepts organized it. I'm not sure if I was even 21 (19 is the drinking age in Canada) but I got a bit drunk at the bar across the parking lot between rounds. I was playing UGW CounterThresh and drunkenly named the perfect card with Meddling Mage against a Storm player. He was sad. I think later I lost to Frogboy/Max McCall because his deathstare made me forget how to use Counterbalance + Brainstorm and he resolved a Terravore against me when I had a 3 drop in hand. He works for WOTC now and we have some mutual friends. They tell me he smiles now. On occasion.

I remember taking the bus and walking uphill for a mile to the closest card shop where I bought all my blue duals for $20-25 each. That was a ton of money for me back then. My mom often wondered how I burned through my lunch money so fast.

I remember asking my mom for $20 at the strip mall to buy a Force of Will from a dealer. I got $8 back in change and bought some pizza with it.

I remember the Official Wizards of the Coasts stores in the local malls and how odd they were. Me and my degenerate teenage friends would steal boosters because they were just sitting out there in the open. Onslaught was the newest set. After a few weeks of this, they moved the store around to put boosters behind the counter. I don't steal or egg houses anymore.

I remember almost maxing out my first credit card buying Future Sight booster boxes because I didn't feel like paying $35 a pop for Goyfs. I only opened 1 Goyf in 3 boxes and ended up maxing out the rest of my credit card just buying the rest of the Goyfs at retail. Dumb kids shouldn't have credit cards.

I remember when I had Landstill built and had to pray that nothing crazy happened after I cast my Nevinyrral's Disk. I remember having to use a Wooded Foothills to fetch up a Volcanic Island because I didn't have the right kind of fetches yet.

I remember buying a single booster of The Dark for $13 (I think?). I opened a Maze of Ith, just what I wanted.

I remember our shop owner had to make a rule about buying Scryes instead of just passing around the store copy because nobody ever bought them. The sharkiest traders always spent the $5 to have the newest Scrye issue.

I remember the Magic the Gathering novels. The Greensleeves cycle and the Brother's War trilogy were my favorite books. If I read them now, I'd probably hate them.

I remember that if you Googled "Magic the Gathering", the first 4 results were religious sites warning people that MTG would cause their children to worship Satan. The jury is still out on that claim.

[lordofthepit]

I remember running all over my high school trying to find the guy who had Goblin Lackeys. He would only trade them for a copy of No Rest for the Wicked. I never got those Lackeys.

I remember being an asshole and sharking FNM kids for Onslaught Fetches when those first came out because nobody thought they were good for anything.

I remember beating up on the some kid in my advisory class with a fully built Oath deck. He had a tribal Birds deck. My fatties were Spirit of the Night and Akroma, Angel of Wrath. We played everyday and he never got tired of losing.

I remember our local shop had an FNM where the only rule was No Kills Before Turn 4. Legacy was Type 1.5 at the time and I held myself to that format. Nobody else followed any rules. These two guys always won. I finally beat the Squirrel Opposition guy and the Tolarian Academy guy with UG Madness with FOW, fetches, and duals. I later built an Isochron Scepter deck with MD Echoing Truth, Sol lands, Voltaic Key, and Grim Monolith just for that Squirrel Opposition guy. I beat him.

I remember that mail-in exchange program when Urza's Legacy first came out. It was put in place so you could trade in your "banned before it was released" Memory Jars for Urza's Legacy boosters. I had to learn how to write a letter just to mail that thing in.

I remember going to the very first Source tournament. It was held somewhere in Canada I think? Near The Batcave. Bardo and some mods+adepts organized it. I'm not sure if I was even 21 (19 is the drinking age in Canada) but I got a bit drunk at the bar across the parking lot between rounds. I was playing UGW CounterThresh and drunkenly named the perfect card with Meddling Mage against a Storm player. He was sad. I think later I lost to Frogboy/Max McCall because his deathstare made me forget how to use Counterbalance + Brainstorm and he resolved a Terravore against me when I had a 3 drop in hand. He works for WOTC now and we have some mutual friends. They tell me he smiles now. On occasion.

I remember taking the bus and walking uphill for a mile to the closest card shop where I bought all my blue duals for $20-25 each. That was a ton of money for me back then. My mom often wondered how I burned through my lunch money so fast.

I remember asking my mom for $20 at the strip mall to buy a Force of Will from a dealer. I got $8 back in change and bought some pizza with it.

I remember the Official Wizards of the Coasts stores in the local malls and how odd they were. Me and my degenerate teenage friends would steal boosters because they were just sitting out there in the open. Onslaught was the newest set. After a few weeks of this, they moved the store around to put boosters behind the counter. I don't steal or egg houses anymore.

I remember almost maxing out my first credit card buying Future Sight booster boxes because I didn't feel like paying $35 a pop for Goyfs. I only opened 1 Goyf in 3 boxes and ended up maxing out the rest of my credit card just buying the rest of the Goyfs at retail. Dumb kids shouldn't have credit cards.

I remember when I had Landstill built and had to pray that nothing crazy happened after I cast my Nevinyrral's Disk. I remember having to use a Wooded Foothills to fetch up a Volcanic Island because I didn't have the right kind of fetches yet.

I remember buying a single booster of The Dark for $13 (I think?). I opened a Maze of Ith, just what I wanted.

I remember our shop owner had to make a rule about buying Scryes instead of just passing around the store copy because nobody ever bought them. The sharkiest traders always spent the $5 to have the newest Scrye issue.

I remember the Magic the Gathering novels. The Greensleeves cycle and the Brother's War trilogy were my favorite books. If I read them now, I'd probably hate them.

I remember that if you Googled "Magic the Gathering", the first 4 results were religious sites warning people that MTG would cause their children to worship Satan. The jury is still out on that claim.

This was beautiful. :cry:

[Purgatory]

I remember playing a lot of Vintage back in the day, and always playing budget decks. Back then, "budget" meant you could still play FoWs, ON fetches and blue duals, but no power. I remember swearing out loud when I had to pay around $85 for an entire set of Rev Underground Seas, which to me was a fortune back then.

After making the jump to Legacy, I was thrilled to actually be playing a DTB for once in my life. No more Null Rods, no more Elvish Spirit Guides etc. My first Legacy deck was CounterSlivers and I finished second in my first ever Legacy tournament of about 20 people. I lost in the finals vs. Mono-White Stax with Humility in it. :(

This was around 2007 or so, so I haven't been around for all of the ten years, sadly.

[the Thin White Duke]

I got back into Magic as Saviors was being released. DTB were Golbins, Affinity, Survival. I got back into Legacy with Standstill. I had three FoW and bought my fourth for $12.
I remember stocking up on duals, selling Rav shock lands to my LGS for duals. Two shocks lands for one revised dual.
I remember survival... Oh survival, how great was that deck?

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Winning a legacy tournament and buying my first volcanic with the prize money while being dead tired from work with gw maverick and my last round opponent rages out of the store

The best

Still not sure how I won honestly

[Esper3k]

I got back into MTG during Time Spiral and then Legac in 2007. Played some UGw Thresh for awhile then found Eva Green and was hooked on BG decks.

I remember being absolutely adamant about refusing to pay more than $25 for an Unlimited Tropical Island.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I returned to the game in 2005 or maybe even 2006 after a few years of hiatus. Our lgs had Extended tournaments and some time around 2007/8 we convinced the keeper to start Eternal. Luckily Vintage died nigh immediatelly and Legacy was the only format. I rmember the feeling "oh, I started too late" as the format was few years old and quite explored, and things were pretty expensive, like 20 euro per dual, etc. Nearly a decade later... and I don't have a clue what happened.

Also, I miss UGw Threshold. But maybe I already wrote that.
And, I miss non-blue metagame.

[Phelix]

played my first legacy event the week after it came into existence.

cant rembmer wth i played, but i lost.

the metagame was pretty much burn, goblins, and other extended decks.

so i quickly built life.dec and won 3 of the next 4 events.

after that we started having a more varied metagame.

[ESG]

I remember that mail-in exchange program when Urza's Legacy first came out. It was put in place so you could trade in your "banned before it was released" Memory Jars for Urza's Legacy boosters. I had to learn how to write a letter just to mail that thing in.

Jar was part of it. The other part is that WOTC banned a slew of combo pieces from Standard. The mail-in rebate was envisioned as a way to placate the people who were upset because of the bannings. Amusingly, the banned cards are worth way more today than the rebate packs would have been. I'll share this piece of history with the group ...

http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/25706714-841.jpeg

[Tormod]

I left Magic during Urza Saga so I missed the birth of Legacy.

I got started back into standard during Zendikar and was one of those who ported Cawblade into Legacy Stoneblade. I happened to keep a few select cards from back in the day to fuel the the acquisition of cards.

[Nuke is Good]

I think it was still called Type 1.5 when Apocalypse was around and it was the go-to casual format for my friends since we couldn't afford the rotating nature of type 2/standard. I scored my first win using the B/R deck from Deckmasters against my friend's winter orb deck.

I got back into Legacy during RTR-Innistrad-M14 standard, some of the cards I still had helped getting into standard easier, however buying the blue duals made me cry.


Imperial Recruiter was actually not legal in legacy at one point?

[Megadeus]

Ithink like portal and starter cards weren't legal or something

[cdr]

I ran weekly 1.5 tournaments starting I think around Odyssey, and naturally legacy once the format switched. I think Millennium was one of only a few places in the US if not the world running weekly 1.5. I think the weeklies peaked around 80 people, probably before legacy existed, but were still 30-50 for many years. I remember Dave Price playing a completely different deck every week, before playing Survival one week and never playing anything else again. I remember people making fun of the Hatfields for playing with threshold cards. I remember Big Arse, Big Arse II, that Canadian tournament, my GP Philly lynx deck that 3-0ed goblins...

ETA: Oh, and the lynx deck was one match of my lifetime 3-0 GP record vs Jamie Parke, and one of at least twice I knocked him out of day 1.

[coraz86]

I remember both the mothership's coverage being on a site called The Sideboard and reading physical copies of The Sideboard.

I remember, those first couple FNMs, when the promo Shock was trading at like $20. I also remember being legitimately stoked to get the foil Urza's Saga basics as door prizes.

I remember thinking fifteen bucks was too much for a Bazaar of Baghdad because it didn't even tap for mana, and I remember thinking this while I sleeved up that old Rath/Urza's suicide black list to protect such wise investments as Skittering Skirge and Dauthi Horror.

I remember being surprised that a guy would want more than four copies of a card, back before I knew how play groups worked or anything about speculation.

I remember that a close friend with whom I went to the Betrayers prerelease somehow could not correctly pronounce the word "Jitte" until after it had rotated out of Standard.

[twndomn]

That's funny. I joined Legacy the day Extended died. What else am I gonna do with all those Extended cards?

[Michael Keller]

There are so many memories over the last ten years since Legacy was created, it would be hard for me to pick out everything. I remember the road trips and driving with my team (Left Field) out to big events. I loved trying to innovate and create new and fresh ideas that worked - sometimes I had to stumble hard to find success along the way. But honestly, over the last ten years I can say I've met some of my best friends over The Source and through Legacy - that is my fondest memory of all.

I'm a dinosaur by today's standards of Magic play. To think I've been playing since before Kurt Cobain killed himself or the widespread use of the public internet is actually hard to imagine, because all I see these days are popular players in their teens with their faces plastered all over the internet - and I had been playing before they were even born. Christ that's too long. I won't get into the semantics of prices because we all know how cheap those cards were then, or at least folks have brought it up.

The old "1.5" was my favorite format, and I loved playing "Mask" as it was called back then. I had Drains, Workshops (seven, actually), Masks, Bazaars and all forty Duals at one point. So you can imagine I was a little pissed when the format changed. But it truly was a blessing in disguise.

These were some of the most successful and fun decks I've created/played over that span:

The Game. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?2627-Deck-The-Game-Time-To-Play-the-Game.)
The Polar Express. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?5663-Deck-The-Polar-Express)
Imperial Painter. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?10129-Report-Imperial-Painter-Finals-at-Hadley-6-28-08)
Mono Green Chalice Aggro. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?14341-Deck-Mono-Green-Chalice-Aggro)
The Gate. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?16885-Deck-The-Gate)
Dredge. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23432-Deck-Dredge)
Sneak and Show. (http://www.mythicgameselmira.com/Forum/news.php?item.27.2)
Manaless Dredge. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24895-Report-Return-of-the-Living-Dead-3rd-Jupiter-Games-NELC-w-Manaless-Dredge!)

I was never a big fan of larger tournaments, and I don't know why. To this day I have never competed in a Legacy Grand Prix - but that all changes this fall - after ten years of playing Legacy.

I never was the best player - but I always gave my best, no matter what. I always do.

Note: I've also had the "Hollywood" monicker since 1996 - an obvious homage to "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan - but more so for my love of film. To this day, the only people who still really refer to me as "Hollywood" are my fellow Legacy enthusiasts.

I also probably hold the record for "Most Avatar Changes" on The Source since joining in '03.

[Finn]

There is a giant difference between innovating a known design and creating it from whole cloth. Hollywood has always been one of the best original creators around. I have always considered the monored Imperial Painter build to be one of the coolest in the format.

Also...

Dirt!!! No link available. :frown: Ya know...Thunderbluff...
Loam Control (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?1126-Deck-Land-Ho!-Life-from-the-Loam-sleaze&highlight=)
Death and Taxes (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?6775-DTB-Death-and-Taxes&highlight=)
Merfolk (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?7355-Deck-Triton-s-Minions&highlight=)
Four Horsemen (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?21377-Deck-The-Four-Horsemen-Orb-Monolith&highlight=)


Also, thanks for the unlock, Jander.

[Richard Cheese]

Note: I've also had the "Hollywood" monicker since 1996 - an obvious homage to "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan - but more so for my love of film. To this day, the only people who still really refer to me as "Hollywood" are my fellow Legacy enthusiasts.

I also probably hold the record for "Most Avatar Changes" on The Source since joining in '03.

So how do you feel about the earlier WWF-era Hulkster? I could never get into the WCW stuff.

[Michael Keller]

"Hulk rules, brother!"

[ivanpei]

I remember starting legacy when I saw a store that sold Magic near central Station in Sydney. I also fondly recalled that I started playing again because I had a girlfriend in Uni and I couldn't get passed drunk and chase skirts anymore so I decided why not play Magic again.

I started with this really chappy UR counter burn deck because it was Ravnica and I though Izzet Guildmage plus a bunch of burn and counterspells was the most awesome thing ever. I then met a real legacy player who trounced me with his UGW Threshold.

I decided to really dive into legacy then and bought my chain lightnings for 8 dollars a pop and built a competitive burn deck. It hasn't changed much till today. I also recalled that I had a playset of Force of Wills I bought for 8 dollars a piece when I was a kid. And it was 25 dollars then. I was super proud and wanted to build a good blue deck. Started with landfill and spent 200 dollars on a playset of Flooded Strand and Tundra. That was a bomb for me back then. I could probably pass myself drunk a whole weekend with that money in college. But I decided to sacrifice and buy the damn lands.

That was when I got full on addicted to legacy and I was in the store everyday after uni. I had and still have a fullset of duals and fetches so I could build pretty much anything. I lent out my goblins, death and taxes as well as burn to other kids who couldn't afford legacy. It was a great time! I remember waiting for Tarmogoyf to drop since it was 5 dollars when it first came out. I thought it would never see standard play and I'd rather play wearbear because wearbear ramps into mystic enforcer. How wrong I was. Ended up paying 25 dollars each for my goyfs which passed me off so much back then.

I remember schooling people with Mystical Tutor into Ad Nauseum when it was legal and playing tricks with Lions Eye Diamond by floating mana during my upkeep into the draw step to cast an Ad Nauseum I put on top with Mystical tutor. I remember being called a savage cheater for that, but at the time it was perfectly legal so I had to bring a rulings print out when I play it in a tournament.

I remember building flash hulk because it was super broken but never getting to play a tournament with it because it got banned immediately. I remember trying to fight Flash with UWB fish but still losing terribly.

I felt so much pride that my homebrew UWg painter with countertop splashing goyf (everything splashed goyf back then) took down a local tournament. That was my last legacy tournament in Australia.

I then went back to Malaysia and remembered how my money basically shrunk 3 times and cards were so bloody expensive. But I met a fellow legacy enthusiast and he was building a Reanimator deck. I remember selling him a bunch of duals and staples to get him started. Today he is one of my best friends and fellow legacy player. Back then we were both broke. Today hes a doctor who just dropped 3 grand on a bunch of Foil futuresight Jaces and Liliana of the Veils.

I remember playing survival-loyal retainers iona before vengeance was printed. I remember being mad as fuck when survival got banned. I remember needing money when I bought a condo and traded down my foil legacy staples like bob, intuition etc into non foils. I also sold my all foil dredge deck and my beta recall. Pretry much paid half my housing downpayment.

Today I have a full pimp Miracles and Uwr Delver which costs more than 10k usd. Which is insane because 10k usd is the average yearly salary for the average Malaysian. I still play legacy and will never flip my cards unless some emergency occurs. I have so many good memories of legacy.

[DarthVicious]

I remember reading the MtG Pocket Player's Guide over and over. Lost my original copy, but I managed to find another one a few years back.

My first ever Magic card I owned, however, was a Beta Jump I found in the middle school parking lot. I went around to every lunch table to see if anyone had these cards and if I could watch them play for a while. I was hooked and intrigued before I even owned any basic lands. Rares weren't guaranteed in every pack, nor uncommons. This was way before I realized you could buy singles, and I acquired everything I had through starter decks or boosters.

I also remember opening my first booster pack and thinking, even then, that Hymn to Tourach was the shit. Force of Will was "another stupid counterspell" once Alliances was released. Lake of the Dead was wicked, but my favorite was Castle Sengir. I used to love cracking starter decks because you got so many more cards. I had a BUR Sengir deck (of maybe 200 cards) that basically had burn, vampires (before they were a 'tribe') removal, and bounce. The day I switched from blue to green for Deeds marked the day Baron Sengir would be the only survivor of the apocalypse.

I remember following tournament decks and building my own versions of them. I had Fires of Yavimaya, with various splashes I tried over time. Greg had whatever the BR nemesis of that deck was. Those were the Axis decks. Everyone else was the Allies. Once we had a 6 man game (for some reason we called them 'chaos games') and our 'best' decks got eliminated fast. So we started playing against each other. They all stopped to watch us.

Eventually I terrorized those 'chaos games' with a Saproling token generator deck. Once people saw it in full force they spent every effort they could to kill me before I got started. So... I brought old-school Wildfire to the table. Tectonic Break. Savage Twister. Covetous Dragon and Mungha Wurm. Death Cloud.

Oh, the devastation.


EDIT: Ok, so it's mostly not about Legacy per se. Sue me. Everyone likes to reminisce.

[Plague Sliver]

I'm a dinosaur by today's standards of Magic play. To think I've been playing since before Kurt Cobain killed himself or the widespread use of the public internet is actually hard to imagine, because all I see these days are popular players in their teens with their faces plastered all over the internet - and I had been playing before they were even born. Christ that's too long. I won't get into the semantics of prices because we all know how cheap those cards were then, or at least folks have brought it up.



Amen, brother.

I tried to find a life for myself after high school. This meant the end of Magical cards, right around Visions. Many years later, I got back into casual Magic right around Time Spiral. Dammit, Sengir Nosferatu seemed like such a sweet card back then. As did Plague Sliver :cool:

Started playing mono black in Legacy tournaments for the first time. Oh, wait...what's this? Tarmogoyf? He's pretty good. I had to get Bayous and Overgrown Tombs just to play him. Then I had to get the other duals to build Team America once I realized counterspells were good.

Haven't stopped playing since. Well, that was a damn SHORT trip down memory lane - but it still felt like ages ago. Much respect to those who played when it was called 1.5.

P.S. It's still called 1.5 in China, because the Chinese can't pronounce English words. It's kind of endearing, in a way.

[Richard Cheese]

I started buying cards at the local comic shop when Revised was out. At that point The Dark was still on shelves but I thought it was somehow incompatible with Revised so I never bought any. Split a box of Ice Age with a friend, and eventually started taking the game a bit more seriously.

The first place in the area to do regular events was Star City Comics, which you might know now as Star City Games. Eventually Standard became a thing, but for a long time I tried to stick with Type I because my Ice Storms and Demonic Hordes were legal there, except I got stomped every single week by the only other guy that showed up because he was on Mirror Universe. Played janky homebrews in Type II for a while, then between general disinterest and college coming up, stopped playing before Urza block came out (way to go, me).

Eventually got back in when I kept seeing ads for Shards online and decided to see what the game was up to, and when I read about Legacy and saw there was no restricted list, decided to either start playing again or finally sell everything. Looking at the casting costs of things in Shards, I thought I'd be made in the shade with my old BG Land Destruction deck, and I saw that a place just a couple miles from me was doing Legacy every Sunday. Of course I got stomped mercilessly, but once I saw decks like AnT and Imperial Painter, I was totally hooked. That, and all the guys at Asgard Games were super friendly and helpful, and I realized that the Legacy player base was made up mostly of guys my age in technical fields, so it was a natural fit. Since then I've made way more friends through Legacy than anything else, and that's probably 50% of why I keep playing.

Still blows my mind that Pete Hoefling is now running a fucking Magic empire, and it's still on the same shitty stretch of Williamsburg Rd. in Roanoke. He had to convince his dad to give him basically a corner of the comic shop to put gaming stuff in, now he's probably rolling an S-class, lighting Cubans with Underground Seas.

[Di]

I remember starting The Source.

This thread is both awesome and painful. Excellent.

[kirkusjones]

I remember someone having some loose pages of ice age cards when I was in third grade (circa 1995-1996) and managing to convince the kid to give me a Shambling Strider and a Gorilla Pack. I loved the art and the flavor text on Shambling Strider. By fourth grade, we were building horrible decks and middle school brought Invasion and Odyssey. I remember a friend of mine having a 100+ card BUG pile that somehow always managed to get his Spiritmonger into play. I remember thinking Laquatus' Champion and Lake of the Dead being an unbeatable combo and that paying anything more than a dollar for singles was a travesty. I played a series of trash decks through high school, including a spirit-based mortal combat deck and a deck that revolved around psychogenic probe. I didn't get into Legacy until college, but I played belcher and then mono-blue control. Senior year, I built The Cure and then sold it, only to see legacy prices explode shortly thereafter. I quit for awhile, sinking money from my collection into vinyl toys. I came back a few years ago, built Manaless Dredge, a BG Vengevine/Lotleth Troll/Abrupt Decay pile, then TinFins and have recently left legacy to play EDH (because I am the worst at competitive events). Plus, I have more fun seeing the look on people's faces when they realize (usually too late) how broken Norin the Wary is as a commander.

[Dragonslayer_90]

I've only been playing legacy for less than a year. It all started with Bloodbraid Elf getting banned in modern. That card was a kind of a pet card of mine. It was the reason I built Jund in modern the first place, not because it was the best deck. I decided I wanted to play Jund before Deathrite Shaman got printed. When Bloodbraid Elf got banned I was really at a loss and finally took the step to get into legacy by building legacy jund. I did some saving but actually got all the duals and fetches I needed by buylisting modern and standard cards. I had fun playing Jund but I knew before completing it that I eventually wanted to build Shardless BUG, the closest thing to Blue Jund in legacy so I can play awesome blue cards like brainstorm and Jace. At first I saw this as a step towards building Esper Stoneblade, the legacy deck that first got me interested in looking into the format. Then I fell in love with Shardless BUG. However, I did eventually move away from Shardless when the meta got to hostile to it with everyone trying to blood moon you out and cheat griselbrand into play. I played Shardless for most of last fall and summer in terms of legacy. I did have one small success with it since I won a Grand Prix DC Trial with it. Then moved on to Team America in November 2013 since Shardless BUG seemed bad at that point. At the time Team America was largely under the radar. No one new how insane it was so it performed really well for me. I was cashing a lot at my locals and almost Top 8'ed Indy in January, the one that got a bajillion inches of snow. Unfortunately I lost the last two rounds but my tie breakers were so good I snuck into to Top 32 at with an x-3 record. Shortly after that I haven't been having as much success with Team. It is probably partly due to it being more firmly established but I also just need to improve as a player, which I have been trying to work on when I can while trying to get through college. Still, I feel like it's good to change it up every once in a while, which means I might be going back to shardless, though I have been branching out and trying to other decks. Particularly I have been playing a lot ANT, one of my favorite decks to play honestly.

[rarehuntertay]

Being in high school and being offered Power 9 for $1500
Duals were $10
I refused to play FoW because I thought it was a stupid card.
Upheaval Psychatog was a thing
Winning my first tournament ever with a home brew R/G madness deck that won me a box of Onslaught.
Then I went to Boot Camp and didn't pick up another magic card until DD: Ajani vs Bolas

My how things have changed...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rarehunter]

Sweet not the only rarehunter here. What branch? I rembmer Tundras and hallowed fountains both costing about the same and I stopped caring about eternal at the time because the local store only had standard. Biggest mistake ever.

[Admiral_Arzar]

I remember a couple of friends teaching me how to play my freshman year of high school (spring 2003). I was given a U/R counterburn deck made of various commons and uncommons. Didn't actually start playing with any frequency until fall of that year (was playing Yu Gi Oh! instead regretfully). Built a goblin deck and a dragon deck with Onslaught-block stuff, then a terrible mono-green Timmy deck with the Mirrodin green starter deck. Played burn because Ball Lightning was the nuts. I remember thinking Affinity was the most broken thing ever (turn 3 Broodstar seemed unbeatable) and playing in my first draft (Mirrodin of course). Thought the new borders were stupid even then. Built Elves with Onslaught stuff, then added Skullclamp when Darksteel came out. I still love that card, but man it was dumb. Built MBC after looking at a list from when Torment came out. This became my favorite casual deck, because one million sweepers + Nantuko Shade was always a good time. I built Ironworks combo (budget because $20 Chrome Mox was way too expensive) and awakened my love of combo decks.

I remember Skullclamp being banned (the first time anything had been banned in type 2 in a long time) after there were 32 copies of it in a top eight. Of course, Cranial Plating came out right after that and made Affinity absurd again. Champions of Kamigawa came out, but people barely played any of the cards because they sucked compared to the stuff from Mirrodin. I wasn't really playing standard (just casually at school) but I was reading about how awful the format was, so it wasn't very surprising when the whole Affinity deck got banned. I played through Ravnica and Time Spiral, occasionally drafting (Ravnica was an amazing draft format) and playing in FNMs with bad standard decks (Hellbent Rakdos omg). After Future Sight came out, I took a long break from the game as I was in college and didn't have much opportunity to play. Unfortunately I missed out on picking up some 2-mana green guy as a result (and sold some stuff I never should have sold - Bobs, Wastelands, etc).

When I finally got back into the game at the release of Alara Reborn, I became more and more interested in this Legacy format. There were no tournaments for it in Denver though, so I just slowly put together a couple of budget decks. Bought LEDs for $25 apiece, but had no other staples of note. Played a lot of Alara/Zen standard with Grixis Control, my favorite standard deck. In mid-2010 I got a job in Houston, and started playing at Asgard games. The community there is awesome, and I've built up a pretty solid collection in the last four years. I still love combo (and hate new borders) though.

[TsumiBand]

Mostly I remember getting super excited about the format, only to find out I was the only person in my area that seemed to give a shit about anything that wasn't Standard. :/

I remember doing this G2 at one of the rare-ass tournaments in my area like 4 years ago:
T1: Ancient Tomb, Chrome Mox (on White), Glowrider, go.
Opponent untaps, draws, plays Lotus Petal.
"That costs 1."
"What? Oh." taps land. Picks up Glowrider. "Wait what?...................... all right."
T2: Beat for 2. Plains, face-down creature. Opponent eyeroll.

I remember my roommate dicking me over pretty hard, not paying rent for 3 months on the back of one excuse after another while they and their stank-ass cats left my house a mess. This prompted me to sell a bunch of cards just to keep the fscking lights on, and I have not really rebounded from that decision at all (in terms of the game -- IRL, whatever).

I remember helping my oldest daughter with basic math by encouraging her to add her own combat damage. Cenn's Heir has more application as a teaching tool than a beater, to be sure.

[cab0747]

Since some others in this thread haven't played much Legacy until recently, I will share my 'magical journey' with you all:

I don't remember when I started playing, but I know I was playing quite a bit with my friends in 5th grade (1997). We thought Lhurgoyf (ice age) was just the coolest thing ever followed closely by Demonic Hordes, Sol Kanar, the Swamp King, and Ihsan's Shade. Of course, the strongest creatures were the coolest, and when Tempest came out, Rootbreaker Wurm became my favorite card (it was eventually stolen by some jerk at recess when I wasn't looking). I played casually through middle school where I learned how annoying Royal Assassin was. Then, my buddy's older brother quit magic and gave us his cards which included many of the duals (revised). We had no idea how great the cards were but me and a friend split them up by the colors we played. I ended up with 3 Tundra, 4 Volcs, 4 Bayou, 4 Badlands, and 3 Taiga. It was only a few months later that we all stopped playing as well. All of my cards (including the duals) were put away in those white boxes and stored in the attic.

Fast forward to my Sophomore year in college (2006): I found out that two of my friends on the lacrosse team played. I busted out my old cards and they were amazed that I had so many duals. We played on and off throughout college but nothing serious. I actually ended up selling a Volc for beer money at some point :(

After college I quit for a little under a year. Then, I found out that a few friend I knew though Xbox Live played. We got together and played casually a few times. We then moved to standard, then finally settled on EDH (most of them were casual players).

In early 2013 I stumbled upon a SCG Open stream and watched the Legacy portion for 2 months straight. I LOVED watching all the powerful things going on in Legacy. Since I had quite a few of the staples required, I decided to invest in the ones I was missing and build UWR delver in the summer of 2013. Unfortunately, I have not played Legacy quite as much as I have played Modern (my availability is limited on the weekends when most Legacy events are held). However, over the past year, I have finished building Legacy Jund, DnT, and iPainter. I have been playing on MTGO more recently to better learn the format and I plan on attending many more Legacy events in the coming months as I will have much more free time on the weekends soon.


Boring, but that's my Legacy story! :D

[GoblinZ]

Haven't stopped playing since. Well, that was a damn SHORT trip down memory lane - but it still felt like ages ago. Much respect to those who played when it was called 1.5.

P.S. It's still called 1.5 in China, because the Chinese can't pronounce English words. It's kind of endearing, in a way.

Oh hi, I actually built a nearly real 1.5 sligh deck back in 2004 or 2003 when it was still called 1.5. I was a random player at that time, all I wanted was to play old cards and more broken cards. I played strip mine instead of wastelands because I didn't know strip mine is banned...

[TheArchitect]

I started playing Magic 13 years ago, right around the release of Planeshift. My first pack ever had an Orim's Chant in it (at the time the most valuable card in the set). I immediately traded it for an Endless Wurm and a Rancor and couldn't have been happier.

My LGS (Crossroad Games, Standish, ME), at the time had a casual type 1.5 event every saterday. 11 year old me, played awful things like tribal soldiers, RG Madness Sligh, DarkRitualintoHypnoticSpecter.dec. I didn't know what real legacy was, but I loved it anyways. I also played basically every day with friends at school and was obsessed with Essentialmagic.com. Good times.

I started to lose interest around Darksteel and still followed the game but played less and less until I got to high School (Around planar chaos I think?). I thought I was waaaay too cool for magic in High School. All my magic playing friends thought the same and so we kind of all quit... For a while.

I got back into magic near the end of High School around Alara Reborn when myself, and my magic playing friends, realized we were idiots for ever quitting magic. I played draft for my first time ever! But at the time, we started getting to serious legacy. UW landstill, Zoo, Goblins, RUG or WUG countertop were some of the DTBs, but my friends got into the competitive mindset much faster than I did. My first 30$, competitive REL, tournament I went to I basically took my casual RWB Underworld dreams wheel, Howling mine, Chant deck and barrowed actual duals to go with my fetches. I somehow managed to go like 3-3. I still remember beating an elves player by casting Wrath of God a turn after he Summoner's Pacted with only 3 lands out. And I still remember the puzzled look on a GB rock players face when I cast turn 2 Howling Mine off of a Scrubland and a Badlands, and he just said "What are you playing????". I had a blast, and actually decided to learn the meta and get into legacy soon after.

I transitioned to College in Ithaca NY and was lucky to find more Legacy playing Friends. I didn't realize it at the time, but Ithaca (central NY) is the perfect place for a legacy player. It was an hours drive to Jupiter or Mythic Games who had/have monthly large legacy tournaments, and is a 4hr drive to PA, Jersey or DC for big tournaments. And the LGS store in Ithaca basically said "fuck FNM", and just played Legacy every friday... until 1 year ago when they switched to modern :(

The first "real" legacy deck I bought was The Cure, which I learned of by reading here. I took 1st the 1st tournament I played it in but had little success beyond that. After I built Burn and Rw Stepp Lynx Sligh. Those decks paid for themselves after a few months. Around SoM time, I made Dredge, borrowing LEDs from my TES playing friend occasionally. I then found my first real love in legacy: Nic fit. I built GB and then added white for Rector. I traded my entire non-LED dredge for a NM English Signed Moat, which was a big deal at the time. It wasn't until around INN that got Scapeshift Nic Fit put together and actually started placing well at monthly 1ks and stuff. The deck was awesome and I still miss it sometimes.

By the time I finished my Undergrad Degree, I had a decent amount of money and decided to go balls deep into legacy. I sold off my previous decks, and got Esper Stoneblade, later Esper Deathblade and after that Miracles. Since then I haven't spent a penny on actual cards. I've been traveling to more events and only had to spend money on travel/entry fees and my (relatively small) winnings have made it so I always have a nice store credit buffer for whatever I need. Just a couple weeks ago I picked up UB Tezzeret and have been really enjoying that deck too.

[Peter_Rotten]

I remember starting The Source.

This thread is both awesome and painful. Excellent.

Particularly so since I'm seriously considering selling my collection. I haven't played in FIVE years!

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Particularly so since I'm seriously considering selling my collection. I haven't played in FIVE years!

:eek: What's the reason?

[thecrav]

I've only been playing for about five years but my how things have changed. I found the list for my second deck ever - a Bant aggro deck. It also had price notations. Including foils and gururs.... under 600... tapped out tells me that it's ~4K TCG mid not including the special lands or foils O_o

[Jander78]

Ah, memories...

Buying Birds of Paradise over a Moxen because they were $8 cheaper and gave me any color I wanted.

Winning an Elder Dragon Legend at my second tournament ever with a Candelabra of Tawnos / Mana Flare / Mana Drain / Braingeyser deck that won by making your opponent draw and then casting Storm Seeker.

Having the awesome showdown with Mishra's Workshop with Norm at the finals of the first Big Arse tournament. He floored me and I came in 2nd.

Whining with everyone else when the lists were split... We were wrong, but it really hurt when every single archetype was destroyed in one announcement.