[Format] Old-School Magic

[H]

I haven't seen it discussed here too much, but there are a few versions of this format currently being supported by tournaments:

The "Original:" Magic: 93/94 (http://oldschool-mtg.blogspot.com/p/historik.html)


93/94, Old School Mtg, started 2007 in the casual Magic scene in Gothenburg, Sweden, and have since grown with players across Europe and North America. A total of seven sets are allowed in the format; Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends and The Dark. Non-English versions and reprints after Unlimited are considered proxies, and 93/94 is not played with proxies. The hard, time consuming and expensive road to build most decks is considered an important feature of the format. You play with what you own, and try to find what you need.


Ban/Restriction
Legal sets:
Alpha
Beta
Unlimited
Arabian Nights
Antiquities
Legends
The Dark
Only English versions are allowed in 93/94 Constructed.

As of May 11th, 2015, Summer Magic is now legal for 93/94 play.

Restricted in 93-94 Constructed:
Ancestral Recall
Balance
Black Lotus
Black Vise
Braingeyser
Channel
Chaos Orb
Demonic Tutor
Fork
Library of Alexandria
Mana Drain
Maze of Ith
Mind Twist
Mishra's Workshop
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Recall
Regrowth
Shahrazad
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
Time Vault
Time Walk
Timetwister
Wheel of Fortune

As of May 11th, 2015, Power Artifact and Mirror Universe are no longer Restricted.

Banned i 93-94 Constructed:
(The ante-cards are banned in tournaments that doesn't play for ante)
Bronze Tablet
Contract from Below
Darkpact
Demonic Attorney
Jeweled Bird
Rebirth
Tempest Efreet

Errata:
Chaos Orb (2)
Artifact
1, Tap: Choose a nontoken permanent on the battlefield. If Chaos Orb is on the battlefield, flip Chaos Orb onto the battlefield from a height of at least one foot. If Chaos Orb turns over completely at least once during the flip, and touches the chosen permanent, destroy that permanent. Then destroy Chaos Orb.

Eudemonia in California has rung a few events with a slight modification to the 93/94 rules (also ran by JACO and Nedleeds at Eternal Weekend with a different restricted list (see below)): Old-School Magic (http://www.eudogames.com/magic/150111-old-school-magic)


Format:
This format is based off of the 93/94 format with several changes to set legality and the banned/restricted lists.
Legal Sets:
Alpha
Beta
Unlimited
Revised
Arabian Nights
Antiquities
Legends
The Dark
Fallen Empires
Chronicles
Collector’s Edition — in double-sleeved decks only
International Edition — in double-sleeved decks only

Banned Cards:

Bronze Tablet
Contract from Below
Darkpact
Demonic Attorney
Jeweled Bird
Rebirth
Tempest Efreet

Restricted Cards:

Ancestral Recall
Balance
Black Lotus
Braingeyser
Channel
Chaos Orb
Demonic Tutor
Library of Alexandria
Mana Drain
Mana Vault
Maze of Ith
Mind Twist
Mishra’s Workshop
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Power Artifact
Recall
Regrowth
Shahrazad
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
Time Vault
Time Walk
Timetwister
Wheel of Fortune

Special Errata:

Chaos Orb (2)
Artifact
1, Tap: Choose a nontoken permanent on the battlefield. If Chaos Orb is on the battlefield, flip Chaos Orb onto the battlefield from a height of at least one foot. If Chaos Orb turns over completely at least once during the flip, and touches the chosen permanent, destroy that permanent. Then destroy Chaos Orb.


Unrestricted in JACO's Eternal Weekend Old School:

Black Vise
Fork
Hymn to Tourach
Mana Vault
Mirror Universe
Mishra's Workshop
Power Artifact
Shahrazad
Strip Mine

One more formats has emerged in the NY area recently: Magic: 1995 (http://www.landlotusjuzam.net/)


THE RULES:

Your deck must be at least 60 cards, with a 15 card sideboard.

Only spells crafted from Alpha to Ice Age are legal.

You shall duel with "modern rules" with respect to our wish to reinstate "mana burn" and "damage stacking".

(Tapped blockers will deal damage, tapped Winter Orbs and Howling Mines will be deactivated.)

The mighty Chaos Orb shall read as follows:

1, Tap: Choose a nontoken permanent on the battlefield. If Chaos Orb is on the battlefield, flip Chaos Orb onto the battlefield from a height of at least one foot.
If Chaos Orb turns over completely at least once during the flip, and touches the chosen permanent, destroy that permanent. Then destroy Chaos Orb.

And Aladdin's Lamp shall cost a total of 10 mana.

THE RESTRICTED LIST:

You may only have ONE copy of the following spell in your dueler's deck:

Ancestral Recall
Balance
Black Lotus
Black Vise
Braingeyser
Channel
Chaos Orb
Demonic Tutor
Ivory Tower
Library of Alexandria
Mana Drain
Maze of Ith
Mind Twist
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Power Artifact
Recall
Regrowth
Sol Ring
Time Walk
Timetwister
Wheel of Fortune
Zuran Orb

THE LIMITED LIST:

You may TWO copies of the following spells in your duel's deck:

Fastbond
Fork
Hymn To Tourach
Jester's Cap
Mirror Universe
Mishra's Workshop
Necropotence
Strip Mine
Time Vault

THE BANNED LIST:

You may not have any copies of the following spells in your library:

All Ante Cards
Shahrazad

Additional Reading:

Old-School at Eternal Central (http://www.eternalcentral.com/oldschool/)

Old School - Europe: Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/OldSchoolMTG)

Old School - Europe: YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoUCyIp1W9cyIBQJRmKVZmQ)

93/94 Discussion Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/338394126221637/)

East Coast 93/94 Discussion and Marketplace (https://www.facebook.com/groups/EastCoastOldSchool/)

Old School '93-'94 - Europe: Facebook Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/787068121359062/)

Midwest USA 93/94 Old School Magic (https://www.facebook.com/groups/642730772493427/)

Magic '95 Homepage (http://www.landlotusjuzam.net/)

Danny Friedman's Vintage & Old School Blog (http://understandingancestralrecall.blogspot.no/)

[Ace/Homebrew]

Any idea why Chaos Orb was nerfed? It is already restricted to one copy. Card is bad if you have to specify a target and then hit said target, no? :eyebrow:

I have never gotten to play with the card, so perhaps I am misjudging how easy it is to hit a specific target from a foot off the table with at least one full rotation...



Edit - A friend said it may have to do with Guardian Beast allowing a player to re-use Chaos Orb...

[H]

Any idea why Chaos Orb was nerfed? It is already restricted to one copy. Card is bad if you have to specify a target and then hit said target, no? :eyebrow:

I have never gotten to play with the card, so perhaps I am misjudging how easy it is to hit a specific target from a foot off the table with at least one full rotation...



Edit - A friend said it may have to do with Guardian Beast allowing a player to re-use Chaos Orb...

I think it is that, plus the old way used to have people playing with all sorts of bizarre board lay-outs, with all their important cards circling their Library or everything super spread apart just to avoid a blow-out from the Orb.

[nedleeds]

You can't enforce the timing. The person announces chao orb and there's nothing that says you can move all your permanents all over the fucking table. It just gets stupid. Unconditional removal for 2+1 is actually pretty insane. Now ... I couldn't hit water with a fucking oar at the last Old School and it ended up being a total waste of time. But if you are accurate with it it's an auto include and a very very good card even with the errata.

[H]

You can't enforce the timing. The person announces chao orb and there's nothing that says you can move all your permanents all over the fucking table. It just gets stupid. Unconditional removal for 2+1 is actually pretty insane. Now ... I couldn't hit water with a fucking oar at the last Old School and it ended up being a total waste of time. But if you are accurate with it it's an auto include and a very very good card even with the errata.

I have been lead to believe that once upon a time, you couldn't actually do that:


You can arrange your cards any time before the Orb is put into play, but not after. (Snark 1993/11/01)
In general, you should not stack cards or put them in places where your opponent cannot read the names of all of them or count them. This is recommended good gaming practice. (Aahz 1994/12/03)

From Crystal Keep (http://crystalkeep.com/cgi-bin/magicsearch.cgi?cardName=Chaos%20Orb).

Still, it's dumb and the errata makes a lot of sense.

I like the idea of adding Ice Age, but the idea of allowing two-ofs is odd and I feel it doesn't jive with the idea of historical Magic (I don't think there was ever a time where a format only allowed 2-ofs).

[JACO]

Eudemonia in California has rung a few events with a slight modification to the 93/94 rules (also ran by JACO and Nedleeds at Eternal Weekend): Old-School Magic (http://www.eudogames.com/magic/150111-old-school-magic)To be clear, the event we ran at Eternal Weekend 2014 (http://www.eternalcentral.com/eternal-central-old-school-93-94-tournament-results-from-eternal-weekend-2014/) used the Eternal Central recommended Banned & Restricted List, which is different than the Eudo and European lists. Ours allows Fallen Empires (printed towards end of 1994), and does NOT restrict the following cards that some other lists do:
Black Vise
Fork
Hymn to Tourach
Mana Vault
Mirror Universe
Mishra's Workshop
Power Artifact
Shahrazad
Strip Mine

We believe in allowing for more deck innovation rather than less, and frankly not much is very busted. Each of these allow for a far wider range of decks to be played in strategies that otherwise wouldn't exist, or be remotely competitive if those individual cards were restricted. Strip Mine may at first glance look incorrect, but after almost a couple years of testing, I can reaffirm that with a restricted Strip Mine the 3-5C 'Power Blue' decks are usually beyond the power level of anything else. But opening up Strip Mine, Workshop, and some of the other more combo-ey cards levels the playing field a bit, to allow for combo decks and actual aggro and aggro-control decks to compete (whereas the 2 latter aren't really a contender without Strip Mine, which functions essentially as Wasteland in this format).

You can find the EC recommended Banned & Restricted list for 93/94 Magic in the right hand sidebar here, along with a handful of Old School articles by myself and others.
Old School Magic on Eternal Central (http://www.eternalcentral.com/oldschool/)

This is the most fun I've had playing Magic in the past few years, hands down. Also, if you can master flipping Chaos Orb, it is probably the second best restricted card in the format (behind Mind Twist), because it can go in any deck, and serves as efficient removal for anything. My vote for the best unrestricted card would probably go to Disenchant, and the most underutilized card is probably Sylvan Library.

[H]

I apologize, I missed that there was a separate list for that event, I'll change that in the first post.

I did add a link to the Eternal Central Old School page at the bottom before, but always good to have another.

I definitely agree though, more decks should be running Sylvan Library. Also, I think there is a horribly broken card that is completely unrestricted in the format that allows Ice Age, but it could be that there is no combo deck that can really use it...

[nedleeds]

I have been lead to believe that once upon a time, you couldn't actually do that:



From Crystal Keep (http://crystalkeep.com/cgi-bin/magicsearch.cgi?cardName=Chaos%20Orb).

Still, it's dumb and the errata makes a lot of sense.

I like the idea of adding Ice Age, but the idea of allowing two-ofs is odd and I feel it doesn't jive with the idea of historical Magic (I don't think there was ever a time where a format only allowed 2-ofs).

" put into play, " ... let me know how that works out. I'm thinking of countering your orb while it's being cast and as part of how I got in the tank I spread my possessions across the table. The wording the 94 guys, Eudo, and EternalCentral have put forward are the best compromise for keeping the orb around but making it sane in my opinion. Again I couldn't hit a god damn mule with mine from an inch away from ass so I'm truly impartial.

I've talked at length about Strip Mine and feel like it's simply not old school magic without it (or the Vise). It functions much like Wasteland does in modern vintage, not being able to stand up a fetchland arguably increases its power level but the format as a whole is slower so I think it balances out. Without Strip Mine and Vise there is effectively no reason to play anything other than blue. There are also strong arguments that Mishra's Factory is too powerful and ubiquitous in 1 Strip Mine rule sets. Strip Mine is a natural predator. There's a little bit of recursion, 1 Regrowth, Recall, maybe Cane or Twister to get Strips back but nothing like Loam or Crucible exists.

Some of my victims at Philly might disagree that getting Stripped, Sunkholed, and having a turn 2 Nether Void cave in their skull isn't fun but Magic is really a zero sum fun game, I simply sucked up all the fun and had it myself.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5d9BrLN5K4

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I'd play this format for the rest of my life, if only:
- there'd be actually anyone to play it with
- Power Sink worked

Also, I started in 1996, so ABU-Alliances would be my format of choice. With all the good stuff lands from Alliances - oh hai "fetchland" prototype -, and the mana fixation of painlands (for balance reasons I'd allow the APO cycle, it's not like the Veldt and stuff has any meaning in a game of Magic), four Strip Mines are a must, of course.

Not that it matters. There are about two or three ppl in my area who'd play this/whom with I'd play this, and one of them is solely interested in Legacy, while the other one is uninterested in wasting money.

gl, hf anyone playing this format, I guess it's a blast.

[H]

I've talked at length about Strip Mine and feel like it's simply not old school magic without it (or the Vise). It functions much like Wasteland does in modern vintage, not being able to stand up a fetchland arguably increases its power level but the format as a whole is slower so I think it balances out. Without Strip Mine and Vise there is effectively no reason to play anything other than blue. There are also strong arguments that Mishra's Factory is too powerful and ubiquitous in 1 Strip Mine rule sets. Strip Mine is a natural predator. There's a little bit of recursion, 1 Regrowth, Recall, maybe Cane or Twister to get Strips back but nothing like Loam or Crucible exists.

I think the combination of the two (Vise and Mine) is potentially unbalanced, but probably mostly fine.


I'd play this format for the rest of my life, if only:
- there'd be actually anyone to play it with
- Power Sink worked

Also, I started in 1996, so ABU-Alliances would be my format of choice. With all the good stuff lands from Alliances - oh hai "fetchland" prototype -, and the mana fixation of painlands (for balance reasons I'd allow the APO cycle, it's not like the Veldt and stuff has any meaning in a game of Magic), four Strip Mines are a must, of course.

Not that it matters. There are about two or three ppl in my area who'd play this/whom with I'd play this, and one of them is solely interested in Legacy, while the other one is uninterested in wasting money.

gl, hf anyone playing this format, I guess it's a blast.

Well, Power Sink does still work...sort of...

I have essentially the same problem. My local group was interested in Vintage...for a bit. It's dropped off now, so I know it will be almost impossible to get them to play this, but I'm still interested in the format none-the-less.

[Ace/Homebrew]

I'd play this format for the rest of my life, if only Power Sink worked.

Well, Power Sink does still work...sort of...
I do not understand. Can you explain?

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I do not understand. Can you explain?

I wasn't clear... With current rules, Power Sink doesn't work as it worked back in the day when it was an interrupt that drawn the mana of pool. Today you may respond to PS with an kind of instants, then tap the lands and empty the pool. With pre-6th rules - and correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe even 5th Ed. rules with their mana sources and such worked similarly to nowadays rules -, Power Sink resolved first (interrupt) and then it was a bit impossible to play instants, due to the tapped out lands and emptied mana pool.
Not that it's that crucial. There are other troubles with the format, just that it was the first one that popped up on my mind. Cards availability, playgroups unavailability, fragmented communities, etc., all these factors work against the format. But who knows, maybe it's the next EDH?

[H]

I think card availability is a huge issue and that will ensure that this format forever stays fringe. Hell, it's hard enough to get people to play Vintage, let alone a format that requires both Power and extremely fringe (and old, reserve list) cards. I mean, honestly, how many people are there who have playsets of random Legends cards? I can't imagine the number is very high (I, for one, don't even have a playset of most Legends stuff), let alone many of those people in one geographic area.

It's kind of funny that this format not only uses cards from way-back-when, but the "problems" playing these cards now are almost identical to the problems we had back then, hard to find cards, hard to find opponents, etc, at least to some extent. Funny how everything kind of cycles like that, but that's part of what makes this an interesting format, at least to me.

The Power Sink thing is an unfortunate side-effect to actually using the Stack, but I still think that Power Sink is still a pretty good card, because in a time where there is no Force of Will, being able to tap your opponent out is pretty critical.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Yes H, you're right.
Thing is, we'Re not children anymore, so the time we may spend on "dead" format is limited...

[H]

Yes H, you're right.
Thing is, we'Re not children anymore, so the time we may spend on "dead" format is limited...

Definitely true. That's why I now just play Legacy and try to fit in some Vintage when I can. I don't even have time to play EDH anymore.

I am hoping to make it to Eternal Weekend this year and so I am hoping that there might be an Old School event there again...

[nedleeds]

Exclusivity is what makes it awesome. If you don't have the cards or money to buy them then you can't play. The decks look awesome. The card pool makes strange old cards useful (I couldn't deal with Wall of Heat). There are no children or new comers.

[Ace/Homebrew]

(I couldn't deal with Wall of Heat).
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=1725&type=card

Do you have any photos from those matches? Like you said... the decks look awesome.

How do powerless decks stack up in the format?
Is there a red deck that hates on expensive cards?

[mini1337s]

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=1725&type=card

Do you have any photos from those matches? Like you said... the decks look awesome.

How do powerless decks stack up in the format?
Is there a red deck that hates on expensive cards?
Cheapest viable unpowered deck is White Weenie.
Essentially:
4 Tundra Wolves
4 Savannah Lions
4 White Knight
3 Benalish Hero
2 Serra Angel
2 Preacher

ENCHANTMENTS (7)
4 Crusade
3 Land Tax

SORCERIES (4)
3 Armageddon
1 Balance

INSTANTS (8)
4 Disenchant
4 Swords to Plowshares

ARTIFACTS (5)
2 City in a Bottle
1 Jalum Tome
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring

LANDS (17)
15 Plains
1 Strip Mine
1 Maze of Ith

That is a standard core, but you tune it to your metagame (AKA City in a Bottle). It can have difficultly versus fully powered decks but has put up decent results in the past.

Burn decks all splash blue, so they have a pretty big leg up. That said, they are linear and while they are viable, they really don't represent the sort of play experience most people aim for with this format. This one placed 3rd in a small event:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K-40c2h1t2o/VME2ai537uI/AAAAAAAAEWc/7trLq85UfKE/s1600/3-kalle.jpg

I've seen similar things before, but what I really want to see if a 4x Gauntlet deck where people power out Fireball and Shivans using Gauntlet and Candelabra. You could fill some of the dead space with either a small Goblin's core (to take advantage of the +1/+!1) or go for the more powerful suite of 4x Bolt and 4x Chain Lightning with a blue splash for power (Wheel effects included).

Personally, the two best decks to play in M94 are The Deck or "Project M", aka Guardian Beast bullshit. The Blue Mage in everyone loves the grindy play you get from The Desk and Project M allows you to Tinker and one-sided Nev Disc... so damn good.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Exclusivity is what makes it awesome.
Oh so, I never knew it's another "pimp my bithc" fromat, I thought that it's about nostalgia and amazing old art; I stand corrected. But nevermind, even thought I'm not into spending money on cardboard luxury, the decks still look nice.

What I'd love to build is GW Geddon

4 Elves
4 Lions
4 Elf Archers
4 Dervish
4 Erhnam
2 Serra

4 StP
3 Geddon
3 Disenchant
3 Land Tax
2 S. Library
1 Slo Ring
1 green Mox
1 wite Mox

lands

[H]

Oh so, I never knew it's another "pimp my bithc" fromat, I thought that it's about nostalgia and amazing old art; I stand corrected. But nevermind, even thought I'm not into spending money on cardboard luxury, the decks still look nice.

I doesn't "have to be" a "pimp format" but like any other, people's feelings on ascetics vary widely, so to each their own.

Unfortunately, I will always have white-boarder Power, since I couldn't afford Beta years ago and I certainly can't now, so there is certainly a limit.

Even so, I am trying to pick up some FBB stuff, since the nostalgia factor is still real high in my book.


What I'd love to build is GW Geddon

4 Elves
4 Lions
4 Elf Archers
4 Dervish
4 Erhnam
2 Serra

4 StP
3 Geddon
3 Disenchant
3 Land Tax
2 S. Library
1 Slo Ring
1 green Mox
1 wite Mox

lands

Actually, JACO ran a very similar deck recently:

http://www.eternalcentral.com/9394bantamgeddon/

http://i.imgur.com/2tx4XAo.jpg (http://imgur.com/2tx4XAo)

[nedleeds]

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=1725&type=card

Do you have any photos from those matches? Like you said... the decks look awesome.

How do powerless decks stack up in the format?
Is there a red deck that hates on expensive cards?

Coverage can be found here:

http://www.eternalcentral.com/eternal-central-old-school-93-94-tournament-results-from-eternal-weekend-2014/

There aren't decks, there are legal cards. You can make a red deck if you want, plenty of good cards to pick from.

[JACO]

How do powerless decks stack up in the format?
Is there a red deck that hates on expensive cards?
Powerless decks are fine if you play cards that help mitigate the other powered stuff. Things like Energy Flux, Dust to Dust, Strip Mine, and Blood Moon all go a long way. Ancestral Recall is definitely a great card, but it's rarely gong to lose you a match (unlike say, an unmolested Library of Alexandria for 10 turns). RW and UR are both very cheap combinations for the budget minded. White Weenie, as mentioned, is also one of the premier budget strategies as well, because you get the most efficient removal in Swords to Plowshares and Disenchant, and you have access to plenty of cheap threats, as well as artifact disruption.

[H]

Looks like some of the Old-School guys made a YouTube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoUCyIp1W9cyIBQJRmKVZmQ

So far, only videos from Ovino, but some pretty cool stuff. Balance is a totally fair card, :laugh:

[H]

B&R Update from the Official 93/94 Blog (http://oldschool-mtg.blogspot.be/2015/05/banned-and-restricted-update-2015.html)

Summary:

Mirror Universe and Power Artifact are no longer Restricted.

Summer Magic is now a legal set.

[FoolofaTook]

It's not a true reading of 93/94 Magic if Balance, Black Vise, Hymn to Tourach and Mana Drain are restricted. None of those cards was restricted until early '95 and all of them not until '97.

The other problem is time limits on rounds. There were no time limits on rounds in constructed Magic tournaments in 1993 and 1994. Judges would gather around the late games of a round to make sure people weren't dawdling but you would often have two hour matches when the wrong lists matched up against each other. I can't remember a 256+ person tournament finishing in less than 12 hours in the year and a half I played in that meta.

Finally, the mulligan rule has to be all land or no land and once only for a full grip returned.

Without these this is just a way of making a hyper-expensive bad format.

[mini1337s]

It's not a true reading of 93/94 Magic if Balance, Black Vise, Hymn to Tourach and Mana Drain are restricted. None of those cards was restricted until early '95 and all of them not until '97.

The other problem is time limits on rounds. There were no time limits on rounds in constructed Magic tournaments in 1993 and 1994. Judges would gather around the late games of a round to make sure people weren't dawdling but you would often have two hour matches when the wrong lists matched up against each other. I can't remember a 256+ person tournament finishing in less than 12 hours in the year and a half I played in that meta.

Finally, the mulligan rule has to be all land or no land and once only for a full grip returned.

Without these this is just a way of making a hyper-expensive bad format.
Touching on that last point of M94 being a bad format (I'll agree with you on expensive, but that's the nature of the beast), you really can't be farther from the truth. Is it 100% true to the actual gameplay of that era? No, but the things that are eliminated are also that things that most people hated about Magic at that point; uninteractive resource denial. Anyone who wants to relive 4x Balance, 4x Twist, 4x Strip era are welcome to, but I imagine you'll find fewer people willing to play with you than those who will play M94.
If you are basing your opinion of Magic 94 solely on having played in 94, I would suggest that you actually play with the oldschoolmagic.blogspot B+R list before making a decision. It really fixes a lot of the things that sucked about Magic of that time, but retains some of the authenticity of times past.
Honestly, my experience with the format has been comboless Vintage with limited-power level creatures. Every deck has the potential to do some obnoxiously powerful things, but it's not so swingy that you ever get that T1 Balance hopeless feel.

[FoolofaTook]

Touching on that last point of M94 being a bad format (I'll agree with you on expensive, but that's the nature of the beast), you really can't be farther from the truth. Is it 100% true to the actual gameplay of that era? No, but the things that are eliminated are also that things that most people hated about Magic at that point; uninteractive resource denial. Anyone who wants to relive 4x Balance, 4x Twist, 4x Strip era are welcome to, but I imagine you'll find fewer people willing to play with you than those who will play M94.
If you are basing your opinion of Magic 94 solely on having played in 94, I would suggest that you actually play with the oldschoolmagic.blogspot B+R list before making a decision. It really fixes a lot of the things that sucked about Magic of that time, but retains some of the authenticity of times past.
Honestly, my experience with the format has been comboless Vintage with limited-power level creatures. Every deck has the potential to do some obnoxiously powerful things, but it's not so swingy that you ever get that T1 Balance hopeless feel.

Hopeless on turn 1 was a real part of 93/94 Magic. The Balance players didn't get to mull to their perfect hand because of the mulligan rules and once Hymn to Tourach showed up they didn't have inevitability either.

I'm also really not on board with no the Revised restrictions. Magic was a tiny competitive environment before Revised showed up. In fact organized tournaments that tried to follow a similar set of guidelines didn't really exist until Revised showed up in the spring of '94. There were tourneys before that, mostly small ones, but they used house rules on restrictions and things like that. I remember showing up at a tourney at Columbia University in January '94 in which Serra Angel was a restricted card.

93/94 is an interesting concept but it does not look like 93/94 Magic at all.

Imagine in 2025 doing a 2010/2011 Legacy format in which Brainstorm, Force of Will, Sensei's Divining Top and Counterbalance are all banned and Paris Mulligan is the rule.

[H]

Well, if your point is to recreate history, then the idea of Old School is not what you are looking for.

The idea here to to get to play with the "old" cards in a way that recollects, not recreates, history. While there is certainly loss by using the current rule set, there is also gain.

On a side note, Balance is probably the most horridly broken card ever made in Magic, besides Contract from Below. Sure historically it was allowed as a 4-of, this just is not a good idea though. However, if it's that important to you, make a format with it, get people to play and I'll add that information into the first post.

[Teluin]

Why do people even reply to the guy on these forums? He writes about formats (Legacy, 93/94, probably others) that he clearly knows nothing about.

[JACO]

It's not a true reading of 93/94 Magic if Balance, Black Vise, Hymn to Tourach and Mana Drain are restricted. None of those cards was restricted until early '95 and all of them not until '97.

The other problem is time limits on rounds. There were no time limits on rounds in constructed Magic tournaments in 1993 and 1994. Judges would gather around the late games of a round to make sure people weren't dawdling but you would often have two hour matches when the wrong lists matched up against each other. I can't remember a 256+ person tournament finishing in less than 12 hours in the year and a half I played in that meta.

Finally, the mulligan rule has to be all land or no land and once only for a full grip returned.

Without these this is just a way of making a hyper-expensive bad format.
It's not supposed to be a 'true reading' of anything. The rules in 1994 sucked, as did the Banned & Restricted List management back then. The advent of the Paris mulligan rule, as well as other modern Magic theory, ideas, and application of those have made for better Magic playability, as a game. To give you a very small example, Ali from Cairo was restricted back then, and we all know that sucks. This is more of a retrospective look back at playing with really fun old cards, which look badass, and applying a more modern understanding of the game of Magic to all of the sweet old cards. I play Old School about once every week or two right now, and it is easily the most fun I have had playing Magic in about a decade.

You're welcome to make up your own format, rules, or B&R List, and get people to play. Nothing is concrete or set in stone, but rather an opportunity to just do something fun and different. That's how new organic formats are born - out of a desire to do something different and interesting.

EDIT: We also don't play time limits on rounds. Most finish pretty fast anyway, but it's never something we've concerned ourselves with.

[H]

Hey, I recently created a group for East Coast 93/94 players.
It can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/EastCoastOldSchool/
Could you add it to the main post and delete this post?
Thanks in advance!

Added to the first post. Not a mod, so I can't delete your post though. All set - Jander

[Fallen_Empire]

I feel like this website should have an old school board. There are a lot of legacy players that play old school. There isn't a mtgthesource equivalent for old school on the internet that i'm aware of. I think there is still design space worth exploring with brews and discussing the meta and thesource would be a great platform for deck development.

[Strawberry Dwarf]

Old-School is indeed wonderful format, but old cards are virtually non-existent on the market, and since reprints and proxies aren't allowed, it is out of reach for me. I started messing with MtG in the Tempest era and the oldest cards I own are playset of Llanowar Elves and a few basic lands from Revised.