Your First Creation!

[Jak]

Well, I thought it would be fun to reminisce about some of our first original deck creations. A nice nostalgia trip.

My first deck that I made was pretty fun, IMO. I loved discard and Megrim. I figured out that I had so much discard that I wanted the opponent to draw cards so I could keep making them discard cards. Underworld Dreams caought my eyes and I created a deck. It was pretty creative, but just horrible because of the fact you let the opponent draw cards. Any way, here is the list I posted a while back on another site.

10 Swamp
6 Island
4 Underground River

4 Hyppie
4 Indentured Djinn
2 Visara, the Dreadful

4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Mana Leak
4 Undermine

4 Megrim
4 Underworld Dreams
4 Teferi's Puzzle Box
4 Wheel and Deal

I loved the deck, but it sucked. So post your first creation and tell a little about it.

[electrolyze]

does it goes about legacy decks or causal?

cause this was myt first atempt to a legacy deck when i begon having interest in the legacy format.

4xhippie
4xprodigal sorcerer
2xplague spitter

4xduress
4xhymn to tourach

4xforce of will
4xcounterspell
2xmisdirection
4xdark ritual
4xbrainstorm

4xcharisma

4xunderground sea
4xpolluted delta
4xswamp
4xisland
4xflooded strand

i wanted a deck with charisma and plague spitter and the sorcerer, it was a fun deck too and i actually beated goblins with it:plol but for the rest it sucked.

if it goed about a casual deck, this was my first deck:

4xkiki-jiki mirror breaker
4xintruder alarm

4xvulshock sorcerer
4xprodigal sorcerer
4xrazorfin hunter

4xbrainstorm
4xcounterspell
4xmana leak

4xseething song

4xcharisma

12xisland
8xmountain

it looked like a cool combo to me then, and i loves charisma:p

[Pinder]

The first deck I took to a tourney was a 75-card, 5 color Sliver deck.

Go figure.

The list (as best I can recall):

5 Swamp
5 Plains
5 Island
5 Forest
5 Mountain

2 Toxin Sliver
2 Essence Sliver
2 Brood Sliver
1 Synapse Sliver
1 Sliver Queen
2 Muscle Sliver
4 Ward Sliver
4 Plated Sliver
4 Hunter Sliver
4 Shifting Sliver
2 Winged Sliver
2 Heart Sliver
2 Talon Sliver
4 Crypt Sliver
4 Root Sliver
2 Horned Sliver
4 Quick Sliver
2 Spectral Sliver
2 Victual Sliver

Literally 5 of each basic and fifty slivers. Oh man, those where the days. I also had a B/W Cleric Tribal that somehow ran this guy (http://magiccards.info/le/en/82.html), and made considerable use of Vile Deacon and Starlit Sanctum. Also, it ran 3 Dark Supplicants and 1 maindeck Scion of Darkness. Occasionally I would go turn 1 Supplicant, turn 2 Supplicant Supplicant -> Scion. It was awesome.

[Eldariel]

A blue beats deck. Look how far I've come! Oh, wait...

Yea, it was something like:
16 Island
4 Faerie Conclave
4 Cloud Sprite
4 Flying Men
4 Unstable Mutation
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Skyshroud Condor
4 Serendib Efreet (I knew of the card but didn't own them so they ended up proxied)
4 Psionic Blast (likewise)
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Essence Flare


It was fun. Oh yeah, and as you can see, this was built in the Masques era. Before that, I didn't play with my own decks (didn't play much at all); I borrowed a deck from some friends when I was playing.

[Taurelin]

My first deck was a Mono-U Combo/Control Deck. It tried to buy time with Isochron Scepter + Counterspell, big blockers like Wall of Air and Azure Drake, bounce stuff etc. The kill was the neat combo consisting of

Jester's Cap + Reito Lantern + Tunnel Vision

It destroyed the opponent's library - no matter how many cards - except for 1 last card.


From this deck (which was feared and respected by my casual group) evolved my first tournament deck: a UW-ScepterChant variant with Back to Basics and the like. I went 2:5 on my first two tourneys.

Ah, those were the days... :wink:

[Lukas Preuss]

My first real deck was build around various combos:

Land Tax & Seismic Assault and the en-Cor creatures, Furnace of Rath & Mogg Maniac. I used Lotus Vale to help me against mana screw (since both Seismic Assault and Furnace need triple red!) and to have fewer lands than the opponent. It was able to deal infinite damage and come to think of it, was actually quite amazing. :)

The list must have looked something like this

4 Land Tax
4 Seismic Assaults
4 Furnace of Rath
8 En-Cor dudes
4 Mogg Maniac
2 Zuran Orb
3 Lotus Vale (didn't own 4)
some number of Plains and Mountains
various other very useful one- and two-offs like Swords to Plowshares, Disenchant, etc.

[DeathwingZERO]

I feel old seeing lists with Urza's block stuff. My first deck consisted of things from Ice Age, Revised, and some Alliances when it came out. For the most part, I know it was anti-white, so it used random things like Stench of Evil, Anarchy, and random other things.

[ParkerLewis]

I like those threads :D

My first deck wad a mono-U control deck too. Back at the time (in the Ice Age days), I was in complete and total love of counterspells as they looked like the universal answer to everything.

IIRC, my list at the time was something among the lines of :

Lands : 20 (because the rulebook said 1 land for 2 spells was good)
18 Islands
2 Soldevi Excavations

Creatures : 8
4 Air Elemetal
4 Water Elemental

Counter suite : 24 (holy f*ck, that was crazy !)
4 FoW
4 Counterspell
4 Arcane Denial
4 Power Sink (those were actually very good pre-6th edition rules)
3 Desertion
3 Dissipate (awesome tech against Hammer of Bagardan !)
2 Deflexion

Other spells : 8
4 Boomerang
4 Control Magic

It later evolved into getting rid of the elementals to replace them with 2 Mahamoti Djinns and 3 or 4 Suq'Ata Firewalker (my main opponent at the sime was playing mono red burn), and later into a UW Mill deck among the lines of

Lands : 20 (because the rulebook still said so)
10 Islands
8 Plains
2 Soldevi Excavations

Creatures : 4
4 Serra Angel (w00t !)

Counter suite :
3 FoW
4 Counterspell
4 Arcane Denial
X Dissipate/Deflexion/Desertion, don't remember how much nor which ones

Other Spells : 7
4 Millstone
3 Vision Charm ?

Other spells :
4 Boomerang
X Control Magic ?
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Disenchant

I actually kept this last deck up until only a few months ago (although with heavy tweaks along the way, like building an actual manabase, putting draw spells, get rid of the junky expensive counters, etc) when I finally retired it (plus I needed the Tundras it now used ;) )

Oh well. Good times.

[Nihil Credo]

The first truly competitive deck I made was for a T2 Mirrodin-Kamigawa-9th online tournament. I placed second out of a hundred or so, so it wasn't too bad. A pretty good metagame call given that the top decks at the time were Blue Tron and Vial Rats/Shaman.

Alas, the decklist is lost to time. As best as I remember, it featured Chrome Moxes, a playset of Damping Matrix to turn off both Triskelions/Mindslavers and Vials/Jittes, alongside the best green and black had to offer (Troll Ascetic, Hypnotic Specter, Rend Flesh) and with some fat to beat over creature decks (Razormane Masticore, Yukora, and Greater Harvester).

[YuanTi]

I cant remember the details, but it was something like this:

24 Island
1 Stalking Stones
4 Counterspell
4 FoW (I recognised great potential before everyone else, well not really, I just had them from Alliances packs)
4 Arcane Denial
4 Memory Lapse
4 Force Spike
4 Power Sink
4 Dissipate
4 Spell Blast
3 Disrupt

Its like MUC but without draw, and with shitty counters.

This always beat my friend's BW Control deck, and lost to my other friend's Burn/Sligh deck. It was like Rock Paper Scissors, except you knew the result before you started.

[KillemallCFH]

The first decks I ever tried to build in Legacy were both Tribal decks - Zombies and Elves. I might actually still have them saved on Apprentice. Yup, I do.
//NAME: Water Elves
// Mana
3 Chrome Mox
2 Forest
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Windswept Heath
4 Tropical Island
// Elves
3 Tribal Forcemage
2 Timberwatch Elf
2 Gaea's Skyfolk
2 Gempalm Strider
4 Coiling Oracle
2 Fyndhorn Elves
2 Llanowar Elves
4 Priest of Titania
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Llanowar Sentinel
// Other Creatures
4 Wirewood Symbiote
// Disrupt
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
// Other
4 Brainstorm
// Sideboard
SB: 3 Arcane Laboratory
SB: 4 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Caller of the Claw
SB: 4 Wirewood Herald
SB: 3 Wellwisher

-------------------------

//NAME: Zombines
// Mana
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scrubland
11 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual
// Creatures
4 Sarcomancy
4 Carnophage
3 Shepherd of Rot
3 Rotting Giant
2 Wretched Anurid
3 Lord of the Undead
4 Gempalm Polluter
4 Undead Warchief
// Other Spells
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
// SB
SB: 3 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 4 Withered Wretch
SB: 3 Engineered Plague
SB: 3 Serenity
SB: 2 Disenchant

[Illissius]

The first time my deck was something other than my entire collection, I split it up into two, one half had basically every 'tricky' way to kill the opponent -- all the milling, burn, evasion, and everything, while the other half had the stupid ground pounders. Later on I had a really awesome monogreen deck with Wurms of all shapes and sizes (and other fat creatures, including Force of Nature), and an Elvish Piper who was the nuts. Nothing beats Pipering out Rootbreaker Wurms on turn two because everyone's understanding of the rules says you get to drop all the lands from your opening hand directly into play.

As for my first vaguely competetive deck, with lots of 4-ofs and all, I really have no idea at all.

[Jander78]

This was my first real tournament deck......and I did win a tournament, prizes including one of the Elder Dragons from Legends, you know, back when the were worth a bunch of money (I don't remember which one, just that it wasn't Nicol Bolas and I was pissed).

4 Mana Flare
4 Fireball
4 Lightning Bolt

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Disenchant

4 Storm Seeker

4 Mana Drain
4 Braingeyser

4 Candelabra of Tawnos

4 Tiaga
4 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra
4 Plateau
4 Savanaah

[Sek'Kuar]

This pile was the first deck I ever built, Back when I first started. I was 9.

7 Mountain
13 Island
4 Labyrinth Minotaur
4 Earth Elemental
4 Fire Elemental
4 Water Elemental
4 Air Elemental
4 Sea Sprite
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Counterspell
2 Goblin Swine-Rider
2 Bay Falcon
4 Zephyr Falcon

[Bovinious]

My first deck was a Sligh deck in 1.5, lets see how much I can remember:

4 Jackul Pup
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Ball Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Seal of Fire
4 Incinerate
4 Fireblast
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Ghitu Encampment
16 Mountain

Something to that affect, I guess I had moderate success with it at local 1.5 tourneys until one day I built Vial Goblins (once the format became Legacy) to upgrade and have played more seriously ever since.

[Maveric78f]

My first deck was T2 when at Exode's time.

I don't remember exactly the mana base (it was exclusively basic as far as I can remember), but the MD was very redundant :
4 Mind Over Matter
4 Seismis Assault
4 Winter Orb
4 Howling Mine
4 Oath of Scholars
4 Propaganda
4 Counterspells
4 Mana leak
1 Feldon's Cane

4 cards I can't remember, probably impulse or power sink (if it was legal).

[Kadaj]

I built a weird concoction designed to get out Yawgmoth's Bargain and Platinum Angel in order to draw my deck and set up and infinite loop with Yawgmoth's Will, Lotus Petal, and Stifle. Needless to say my rules knowledge at the time was more than a little sketchy. Nonetheless, looking back it's kind of funny how close to modern Control Slaver and Gifts the deck really was. It had stuff like Thirst for Knowledge, Tinker (as a 4 of obviously, who needs a restricted list?), Goblin Welder, Counterspell, etc. It was fun until I learned what the rules of the game actually were.

[deviant]

A friend of mine made a very promising first deck:

They were kids and his friends had more money than he had, so they were able to get craw wurms etc. Bigger fat than he was able to get, so he had to innovate:
His deck had 11 power sink, 3 phasing creatures (not efreet though) and islands.
(~40 cards obv.)

After he broke the format, someone made up this stupid rule that you can only run 4 cards with the same name. Man was he disappointed :D

[edgewalker]

My first "deck" was elves and merfolk. Then eventually I graduated to trix. My first real deck was G/r beats I think I can remember the list

4 Jackal Pup
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 River Boa
2 Skyshroud Elite

4 Rancor

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Incinerate
4 Cursed Scroll

4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Wasteland
5 Mountain
3 Forest

SB
4 Hidden Gibbons (fucking insane)
11x ???

[matelml]

This was the first deck I designed myself that was intended to be competitive, ofcourse it wasn't:

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Helm of Awakening
4 Lotus Petal
4 Night's Whisper
4 Brainstorm
2 Plunge into Darkness
1 Mox Diamond
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Meditate
8 Island
8 Swamp
2 Words of Wisdom
1 Breakthrough
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Darkwater Egg

I played 1 Legacy tournament with it and I think my first game, first round went like this: Opponent is on the play and goes: Sea, Mox Diamond, Meddling Mage naming Tendrils. Right. Scoop.:tongue:

[freakish777]

Well, the first deck that I made that was completely fun and actually capable of winning was (after it got trimmed to 60 cards):

4 Zirilan of the Claw
4 Shivan Dragon
4 Dragon Whelp
1 Nicol Bolas
3 Crimson Hellkite (later when I restarted Magic in Onslaught block, this quickly became Kilnmouth Dragon).

4 Fling (Take double damage from my Zirilan'd up Dragon!)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
4 Pyroclasm
1 Nevinyrral's Disk (I only owned one, and clearly it had to go in my best deck)
1 Ruby Medallion
3 Rolling Thunder (this turned into Seething Song when Mirrodin came out)
3 Kaervek's Torch (this turned into 1 Seething Song and 2 Mountains when Mirrodin came out).

20 Mountains (this was originally 14 mountains and 6 Urzatron pieces).

[thefreakaccident]

My very first deck was a burn deck, which literally eventually transformed into a psychatog upheaval deck... great times!

[emidln]

1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 City of Brass
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Mishra's Factory
6 Island
6 Swamp
6 Plains
1 Maze of Ith
1 Bad River
1 Flood Plain
1 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Kjeldoran Outpost
1 Dark Ritual
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Diamond
1 Necromancy
1 Animate Death
1 Control Magic
1 Living Death
1 Serra Angel
1 Sengir Vampire
1 Baron Sengir
1 Mahamoti Djinn
1 Serendib Efreet
1 Seraphim
1 Archangel
1 Hypnotic Specter
1 Dakkon Blackblade
1 Chromium
1 Force of Will
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Mana Drain
1 Counterspell
1 Disenchant
1 Desertion
1 Balance
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Terror
1 Armageddon
1 Wrath of God
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Lim-dul's Vault
1 Library of Lat Nam
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Impulse
1 Braingeyser
1 Black Vise
1 Ivory Tower
1 Scroll Rack
1 Land Tax
1 Moat
1 Soldevi Digger
1 Library of Leng
1 Howling Mine
1 Island Sanctuary
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt

I remember not owning Black Lotus until much after I completed this deck (shortly after Stronghold was released). My cousin was the only person I played against, and his deck was within 10 cards of this. I found this list in an old Inquest about a year ago and put it on my desk as a reminder for anytime I think I have a "good deck". Sometimes I miss the epically long games though.

[Slag]

The first deck I played that wasn't a modified precon or loose collection of cards I happened to have was this:

x islands
4 cloud of faeries
4 HORSESHOE CRAB, BABY
4 high tide
4 snap
4 prosperity
4 psionic gift
4 daze
4 frantic search
x blue cantrips

That's right, combining one of the historically most successful engines with one of the most ludicrous kills ever. Generate a bajillion blue mana and drop a psionic gift on what I would have hoped was a horseshoe crab played the previous turn, and machine gun for the win. I seem to recall losing to a feeding frenzy in one match.

[Illissius]

Oh man, Horseshoe Crab + Hermetic Study was good times. Treacherous Link + Pariah (+ Sleeper Agent) too. I have whole notebooks and binders full of decklists from back then... (not that much has changed, only these days I use Opera's Notes panel instead). Then as now, I didn't actually build very many of them (read: any at all), but I'm particularly fond of this masterpiece I devised after I discovered Tortured Existence, which was the mirror image of Survival of the Fittest, my favorite card ever (still is).

The list, as written here before me and not altered in any way:

4 Vampiric Tutor
4 Intuition
3 Buried Alive
4 Force of Will
4 Forbid
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Krovikan Horror
3 Tortured Existence
1 Living Death
1 Corpse Dance
1 Unfulfilled Desires
1 Crypt Rats
1 Bone Shredder
1 Thrull Surgeon
1 Scrivener
1 Daring Apprentice
1 Bottle Gnomes
1 Ephemeron
4 Thawing Glaciers
4 Underground Sea
4 Underground River
2 Dust Bowl
5 Island
5 Swamp

Sideboard:
1 Tsabo's Decree
1 Nether Spirit
1 Teferi's Response
1 Rapid Decay
1 Perish
4 Annul
2 Forsaken Wastes
2 Chill
2 Corpse Dance

[Bardo]

A list I typed up from the summer of 1996 somehow has survived with me through the years. Here's what I was playing 12 years ago. The list is sorted by color, then multi, then artifacts, then land. Reformatted:

Some Shitty Rip-off of 'The Deck'
by me, circa 1996

Dudes
2 Serra Angel
2 Erhnam Djinn
1 Serendib Efreet
1 Old Man of the Sea
1 Mahamoti Djinn
1 Phelddagrif (sweet!)

Control
4 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Disenchant
2 Mana Drain
2 Psionic Blast
1 Wrath of God
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Braingeyser
1 Timetwister
1 Recall
1 Regrowth
1 Balance
1 Force of Will

Other Shit
1 Jade Statue
1 Ivory Tower
1 Sol Ring

Land
4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
4 Savannah
4 Adarkar Wastes
2 Island
1 Karakas
3 Strip Mine
1 Mishra's Factory (Winter)
1 Maze of Ith
1 Library of Alexandria

So, basically, a really shitty / under-powered U/g/w version of the Weismann deck from that era ("The Deck").

[MattH]

My first deck was B/G, it had...uh some Erhnams, hymns, Orders, a Specter or two. Rituals. Etc. etc. etc. I think Storm Seeker and Creeping Mold may have played a role. I know it had a Simulacrum...

[FoolofaTook]

The first deck I made that I can recall distinctly was this:

4x Badlands
4x Scrubland
4x Plateau
3x City of Brass
2x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Pearl
1x Black Lotus
1x Sol Ring
4x Dark Ritual

4x Erg Raiders
4x Juzam Djinn
3x Sedge Troll
2x Sengir Vampire
2x Serra Angel
1x Shivan Dragon

4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Disenchant
3x Unholy Strength
1x Fireball
2x Armageddon
1x Demonic Tutor

Sideboard

3x Spirit Link
4x Stone Rain
4x Sinkhole
4x Stripmine


That ate the smaller tournaments alive while people were still figuring out what worked and what didn't. It won a 128 eventually and then suddenly the Balance decks arrived and it was DoA and never recovered. Balance more than anything else created the permission decks that took over the format after Balance was restricted and it was DoA against those also.

[Media314r8]

My first deck was a budget 'make dudes and draw cards with clamp' deck, with the most expensive card in it being either bolts or goblin kings. Oh, the tournament (casual-like tournament at OSU, with like 14 people, non-sanctioned) I played this at only had things like P9, sol ring, and ante cards banned. Yay for legal skullclamp!

16 mountains
4 goblin burrows

4 skullclamp
4 lightning bolt

4 goblin sledder
4 goblin fanatic
4 mogg conscripts
4 goblin cohort
4 goblin war buggy
4 mogg flunkies
4 goblin king
4 goblin warcheif

Deck was hella fun to play, esp the interaction between warcheif, sledder, and undercosted goblins with clamp. I only wish mogg war marshal had been printed then. Whee!

[Shtriga]

after some atrocious creations like UB and UR packing 4 prodigal sorcerers as my main kill condition, and (my piece of résistance) a 5 color deck using 4 of each basic and 4 drain lifes, and a million shitty decks, my first decent deck was one of those humility/orim's prayer decks from when tempest was T2 legal (I still have nightmares with that shit though, so boring to play with and against, but that's all I had cards for). after that I built sligh (ball lightnings, good times)

my humility/prayer deck vs my friend's mono-blue control deck. ugh........ both using grindstone as main kill condition (for some reason I also ran cursed scroll lol..). it still did ok'ish in the local card shop

lol. remembered a friend's deck. before he built a 5c sliver deck, he had a mono green deck with like 200 cards. he just threw every green card he had and every forest lol. ofc it lost every time

[Jak]

Well, after thinking about it, the first deck I made was a pile. Basically, I raided my friend's binder the day he got me into the game. I took out every creature that was 4/4 or larger. 5 colors, 80 cards, 20 lands, and a horrible curve. I never one a game :(.

[n00bas4urus_r3x]

I played a hundred card mercenary deck back in Masques, but the first competitive deck was burn:

Burn-a-tron

18 Mountains
4 Ghitu Encampment
2 Mishra's Factory

4 Furnace of Rath
4 Aether Flash
4 Repercussions

4 Bolt
4 Incinerate
2 Chain Lightning
4 Kindle
4 Fire Blast
4 Shock
2 Flamebreak

[GiantGrowth]

I cant remember the whole deck, but ill tell you some of the cards included

wall of shadows
lady orca
wall of stone
incinerate
vizerdrix
teferi's puzzle box
oath of scholars

then someone at my school stole it and i was pissed!

wall of shadows was my favorite card. fuck your blockers!

[Silverdragon]

The very first deck I played in a tournament (unsanctioned) was a black-red landdestruction thingy with Choking Sands and Suq'Ata Lancer back when Visions was just released.
The first deck I played in a sanctioned tournament was either monored Stax or monoblue Draw-Go.
btw I'm proud to say that I never played a deck with more than the minimum of required cards. So far all my constructed decks had exactly 60 and all my draft decks exactly 40 cards (and all my highlander decks exactly 100 for those who care). Even the LD deck I mentioned above was exactly 60. Of course that didn't help me against the Necropotence deck I faced after defeating another scrub with his "87 cards of good stuff" deck ;)

[Waikiki]

My first tournament deck was funny to play. and very boring for opponents playing creature based decks. Just play tons of removal was the plan:

20 swamps

4 phyrexian defiler
4 phyrexian debaser
4 black knight

4 diabolic edict
4 duress
4 hymn to tourach
4 terror
4 Expunge

The rest I dont remember, but you'll get the point

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Behold! The Fabulous Three-Toed Boxing Sloth on Crack;

4x Argothian Enchantress
4x Enchantresses's Presence
4x Wild Growth
2x Gaea's Touch
3x Exploration
2x Sterling Grove(seems normal so far, right?)
1x Survival of the Fittest
1x Academy Rector
1x Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
1x False Prophet
1x Lifeline
1x Martyr's Cause
1x Spore Frog
1x Genesis
1x Ghurzigost
1x Argothian Wurm
1x Deranged Hermit
1x Faith Healer
1x Replenish
1x Sylvan Library
1x Worship
1x Solitary Confinement
1x Elephant Grass
1x Parallax Wave
1x Sacred Mesa
1x Planar Collapse
1x Aura of Silence
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Defense of the Heart
1x Dual Nature
a bunch of lands, including a Serra's Sanctum.

Fun combos;

Kamahl(to turn opponents lands into creatures) + Martyr's Cause(to sac all your guys) + Lifeline (to bring them back at EoT) + False Prophet (to clear their board). All for the low cost of 20 or so mana!

Defense of the Heart + Sterling Grove + SotF + Rector for lots of tutoring.

Lifeline + Spore Frog

Lifeline + Martyr's Cause + Deranged Hermit + Dual Nature = tons of giant squirrels that can take bullets.

Eventually it evolved into Solitaire. But this version was kind of fun.

[smoky squirrel]

4 Goblin Gardener
4 Avalanche Riders
4 Ghitu Slinger
4 Undertaker
4 Boneshredder
2 Attrition
4 Victimize
4 Dark Ritual
4 Fog of Gnats
2 Vampiric Tutor
2 Cinder Elemental

4 Spawning Pool
10 Swamp
8 Mountain

The deck revolved around the interaction between the multiple echo creatures and Undertaker. If you got one into play, then you get a soft lock by destroying all their lands or their nonblack creatures. You have extra synergy with Victimize and Attrition. It allowed for broken plays like saccing the Gardener, then putting 2 Avalanche Riders into play. Good times :)

[Brushwagg]

The "first" deck I can really remember was a mono-Blue back in Ice-Age. I'm not sure the exact card cout but I remeber it had Reality Twist, Polar Kraken, and Clone. Cloning Kraken was fun.

[adrieng]

My first deck was monogreen fatties during urza.
I played something like


16 forest+4 cradle

4 roffellos
4 llanowar
4 priest of titania
4 fyndhorm elves
4 wall of roots

4 deranged hermit
4 plow under
4 can t remember 7/7 regenerate titania
4 5/3 when it dies it comes back to hand for 2GGG
4 3G when opponent has 3 creature or more sac search for 2 creatures put them into play

I was finding it good but it was really bad in fact. lol nostalgy....

[Bryant Cook]

ShLong V. 1.0

// Lands
4 [AN] City of Brass
2 [WL] Gemstone Mine
1 [OD] Cabal Pit

// Creatures
4 [US] Priest of Gix
3 [FD] Trinket Mage

// Spells
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
2 [PS] Diabolic Intent
3 [MR] Chromatic Sphere
4 [b] Dark Ritual
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [JU] Burning Wish
3 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [VI] Helm of Awakening
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
1 [MR] Second Sunrise
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
2 [EX] Culling the Weak
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
1 [OD] Recoup
1 [UL] Snap

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 [OD] Recoup
SB: 1 [OD] Firebolt
SB: 1 [PT] Cruel Bargain
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [CHK] Cleanfall
SB: 1 [AL] Diminishing Returns
SB: 4 [UL] Defense Grid
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives

the first incarnation of TES.

[Liek]

In old extended (Tempest was earliest set, and this was after the Tinker bans.)

4 Mother of Runes
4 Ramosian Sergeant
2 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
3 Savannah Lions

3 Silver Knight
4 True Believer
4 Meddling Mage
4 Whipcorder

3 Armageddon
4 Aether Vial
3 Crusade
2 Sword of Fire and Ice

3 Chrome Mox
12 Plains
1 Island
4 Flooded Strand

Sideboard:
2 Parallax Wave
3 Topple
3 Disenchant
3 Rule of Law
4 Absolute Law

http://professional-events.com/decks/WotC/GPTSeattle05/GPTSeattle021205.htm

http://professional-events.com/decks/WotC/PTQ%20Philadelphia05/PTQPhiladelphia05021905.htm

I worked on the deck by myself (because back then I didn't know anybody that played in the PTQs.) I came very close to winning the first PTQ I ever played in, had I won the semis match I would have gotten RDW in the finals, the closest matchup to a bye possible.

Looking back at it now, there are several things I see that look like obvious design flaws. First, there isn't enough mana, there should be probably 3 more lands. Second, I probably should have played 2ish Adarkar Wastes over 2 Plains. 3rd, playing 2 Isamaru and 3 Savannah Lions seems silly.

[Willoe]

As far as I recall, this was my first deck when I started playing magic six years ago. Seriously, I was a great, great noob.

9 Island
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
10 Plains

1 Teller of Tales
1 Mistfolk
4 Counterspell
1 CoP White
1 CoP Blue
1 CoP black
1 CoP red
1 Cop green
1 Snap
4 Control Magic
1 Merfolk of the Pearl Trident
1 Sanbar Merfolk
1 Soothsaying
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Minamo Sightbender
1 Guardian of Solitude
1 River Kaijin
1 Kami of the Vanishing Touch
1 Walking Wall
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Wall of Glare
1 Redirect
1 Mishra's Helix
2 Energy Field
1 Riptide Mangler
1 Arcanis, the Omnipotent
4 Archivist
1 Jushi Apprentice
4 Anthroplasm

Approximately like that. Ever seen a pile as shitty as this? Poor mana base, maindecked CoP's that had a great chance of being off-color. The deck has to this day evolved to this pile:

23 Island

2 Raven Guild Master
1 Soothsaying
1 Meekstone
2 Temporal Adept
1 Braingeyser
1 Stifle
1 Mindslaver
2 Energy Field
1 Fog Bank
1 Shimmer
1 Twincast
2 Somnophore
1 Jushi Apprentice
4 Counterspell
1 Telling Time
3 Dominating Licid
1 Levitation
4 Control Magic
1 Rootwater Thief

Even though this deck sucks ass, it's a casual meta-game rapist where your enemies solely are giant beefs in all colors. This deck consists of excessive pieces that I don't use in my other decks. Goddamn it's fun to steal HARDCASTED Tidal Krakens. Laugh, but this deck current has a record against a gauntlet consisting of MonoGreen Threshold (Krosan Beast and Elephant Wurm, no mongeese), Angel Stompy (litteral, with Urza's Incubator), Dragon Stompy (litteral, too), WG spiritcraft and zombie tribal of 43-8. Yeah, I've been keeping track on 'em. Always used to play in the breaks between the classes. I got very unpopular because they always invested 9 mana on that akroma, and then I just took it with a Dominating Licid. Creature removal is too boring to play with in a beef-meta. You instantly got a physical <Player Lost> if you played Avatar of Woe.

Guess what? I traded my playset of vedalken shackles for 2 Raven Guild Master. I never had enough islands in play to steal Autochton Wurms. I loved these times...

[Mayk0l]

My first deck was a pile containing Quicksilver Dragons, Prodigal Sorcerors,　Counterspells and such. My first competitive deck was UG Madness Type II.

My first own design was actually Recurring Survival, but I had never seen it at that point. It ran Recurring Nightmare, Survival, Wall of Blossoms (and the awesome interaction with Cabal Therapy!), so something along the lines of:

Forests, Swamps
4 Birds of Paradise

4 Survival
4 Recurring Nightmare

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
4 Wall of Blossom
4 Skullclamp (attach three of them to Wall of Blossom and then Therapy? Yes Please. We played a slow format, I never had any trouble eventually finding Survival haha)

Fatties: 1 Akroma, 1 Visara, 2 Verdant Force. Awesomeness!

[Raider Bob]

My first deck was 1995 I was taught to play by my best friend and his friend and had a bunch of crappy stuff to put in my deck.

I decided to play Elfs and had a lot of 1/1 weenie dudes It looked something like this probably

20 Forest
4 Lanawar Elves
4 Ice age lanawar elves
4 Elves of the deep shadow
4 Grizzly Bears (2/2 beats rule)
then like 18 more little cheep dudes.


I over extended like a mofo and it was the first deck that I built where I won at least one game.

My second deck was a little more refined as I started reading Inquest and got into Brian Weismans 'The Deck' so I build a Balance millstone deck and went to my first tourny. Single elimination lost to the mirror match in round one in game three based on life totals. I had the blue aliance land that let you look atthe top card of your library and put it on the bottom if you didn't want it and was digging for the one zuran orb in my deck(As it was restricted at the time) But unfortunatly I did not dig fast enough and lost my first tourny effort.

My second effort was a Blackwhite Pestilence deck that ran Mind Stab Thrulls Hymn's and White Knights and Pump Knights I won three of the five rounds and lost to a Force of Nature. 8(

[goobafish]

I always loved the economics of the game, and as I kid I really really liked rares. So I made an all rare deck, which I took to a T2 event, and got 2nd.

Woeful

4x Avatar of Woe
4x Volrath the Fallen
4x Blazing Specter
4x Pyre Zombie
2x Tsabo Tavoc
1x Tsabo's Assasin
1x Twilight's Call
1x Lotus Guardian
1x Distorting Lens
4x Void
4x Phyrexian Scuta
4x Power Matrix

16 Swamp
10 Mountain


Power Matrix MVP!!

[C.P.]

Ah, Brings some memories.

My very first deck goes:

4 Blood Pet
4 Fog of Gnats
4 Kjeldoran dead
4 Hidden Horror
2 Shrieking Harpy
3 Skittering Horror
2 Grim Monitor
1 Nightmare

4 Dark Ritual
4 Feast of Unicorn
4 Terror
4 Dark Vanishing
4 Befoul
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Corrupt

1 Spwaning Pool
X Swamp


Something like this. Oh, the glorious days of 7/1 Kjeldoran Deads.



My first 1.5, when Legions just came out:

4 Carnophage
4 Sarcomancy
2 Skiitering Skirge
4 Dauthi Slayer
4 Dauthi Horror
4 Priest of Gix

4 Bad Moon
4 Duress
4 Cabal therapy
4 Diaboic Edict
4 Dark ritual

18 Swamp


Something like that. the deck became B/W and then became Eva Green, but yeah.

[caiomarcos]

The first thing I've had was a mono black creatures, way back in 96, before Mirage release.
It featured all sort of things:

Abyssal Specter
Cyclopean Mummy
Hippies
Funeral March
Black Knight
Junun Efreet
Abomination
Nightmare
Hymn to Tourach
Mind Twist
Mind Warp
Unholy Strength
Bad Moon
Terror
Drain Life
Dark Banishing
Ishan's Shade
Sengir Vampire
Dark Ritual
Paralyze

A true NOOB's deck. When Mirage came out it became more consistent with the best cards keeping their places as four-of's.

The best plays were Ritual - Hippie, or Ritual-Ritual-Hymn-Hippie and ritual-ritual-Sengir Vampire!!!

Oh, nostalgia!

[Shion]

The Earliest deck I can remember making was a Mono-blue control monstrosity, that hinged on Dream Tides, Sleight of Mind/Mind Bend, Flooded Shoreline and Shimmer. Backed up by a bunch of Counterspells, and no creatures I can remember..

I made it for the first tournament I went to, and unfortunatly lost to a red Sligh deck in the first round. Of course the tournament was single elimination, so I had a long time to ponder my failure while my friends were still playing. I never played that deck again...

It was a bad deck, but It was the first step on my path as a control player.

[pcccp]

RG_Beatz
---

9x Mountain
7x Forest
3x Terramorphic Expanse
4x Gruul Turf
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Horned Kavu
4x Scab-Clan Mauler
4x Kird Ape
2x Mogg War Marshal
2x Frenzied Goblin
3x Cosmic Larva
4x Fires of Yavimaya
4x Incinerate
4x Keldon Marauders
2x Seal of Fire


Sideboard

3x Naturalize
1x Shatterstorm
4x Tin Street Hooligan
2x Mogg War Marshal
1x Cosmic Larva
1x Tears of Rage
2x Seal of Fire
1x Eon Hub

This was the first deck i took to a legacy tournament. I had no idea what decks and cards would be played in legacy, because i was playing casual all the time. I started playing magic 3 month earlier with just a bunch of common and uncommon cards i bought at ebay. Nevertheless I had some success in that tournament beating Burn and Survival.

The main idea was to bring out Fires of Yavimaya as fast as possible to play cosmic larva as a Ball Lightning and bounce it back to hand with Horned Kavu. A lot of cards in the deck are crap or suboptimal, but i build it on the stuff i got.

[zulander]

http://www.mtg.ru/babelfish/www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14790.html


Oh God, the great memories.

My first non-competitive deck was like 24 islands, 20 counters, 10 draw and 6 creatures. It was horrible.

[Michael Keller]

I seriously can't remember the first deck I created, but I remember the first one I was excited about.

"Halloween" circa 1994.

All Hallow's Eve
Eater of the Dead
Dark Ritual
Ashes to Ashes
Hypnotic Specter
Sengir Vampire
Lord of the Pit
Mox Jet
Demonic Horde
Contract from Below
Demonic Tutor
Demonic Attorney
Cyclopean Mummy
Sol Ring
Sacrifice
Bog Rats
Drain Life
Urborg

As the years went on, I always revised it (and made it legal). I love and miss that deck.

[Versus]

My first deck was pretty bad. Nothing much has changed!

I still have it assembled actually....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v241/KSC2-303/phazingg.jpg