(Story time) What was your first magic deck or mtgpq deck? --or similar stories

FindingHeart8

What was your first mtg or mtgpq deck (or your most memorable near the beginning?)

I was a little kid when I first got into magic back in '98, one of my first decks, that all the older magic kids hated, was my (totally awesome) wombat deck.  It ran just wombats and clones (of which I would only clone wombats).  If anyone else got too powerful I'd just take their creature and give them a wombat! (usually ones from Dance of Many).  It won a surprising amount actually.  Of course, death by wombat is the best way to go.

What was yours?

Mburn7

The first deck I ever played with was the old Ravnica Block Simic Graft pre-built deck.  A friend lent me his at camp and taught me how to play, and I came home and begged my parents to get it for me for my birthday that year.  I then lost it at some point later on (RIP Protein Hulk) when my mom totally didn't throw them out by mistake, she swears.

Then I stopped playing for a while, until high school when I met a new group of friends who played MTG (games club FTW), where the teacher advisor had been playing since 1st edition and would lend out all of his decks to us.  That's where I really learned to play and deckbuild, starting with 5 mono-color decks, 1 of each, all of which had 75 cards (60 cards each and a pack of 15 artifacts that would come out and add on to each deck that I used).

None of them were good, since they were 90% bulk commons, but man did I love those things.

mrixl2520

Fun!

Back in the day, junior-high in the 90s, I had basically 1 deck. It was mono-black board stall: 4 Royal Assassins, 4 Icy Manipulators (the Ice Age one with really weird art), 4 Bad Moons, 4 Will-o-the-Wisps, 4 Nightmares, 4 Lord of the Pits, 4 Breeding Pits. Typically a friend and I would play until our last card then flunge. With every card in my deck out, I would usually swing for over 200 damage, but my friends had built decks to counter me. It didn’t win a lot, but it was fun.

My more recent (2008 onward?) delve into MTG involved a much better understanding of the game. One of my first powerful cards was Linvala, Keeper of Silence. I built a white green deck that slowly evolved into a deck that could give any or all my creatures indestructible and then play a board wipe. It still holds up pretty well! When I introduce a friend to Magic I have them play with the deck. It feels powerful to have indestructible creatures, so they enjoyed playing it.

I can’t quite remember what my first MTGPQ deck was, but I seem to remember one of my early rares was Skysnare Spider (6/6 Reach for 16 mana). I build a Nissa.1 deck with it, some pump spells, and ways to give my creatures berserker. For a time it felt OP, I won a lot of games with it. I’m sure it would get absolutely steam rolled now!

Pantagruel

It was black. It had 7 Pestilences in it. This was in the time before you could only play 4 copies of a single card in any deck.

Narcoticsagent

The decks that are most memorable to me are the decks that I did well in tournaments with. 

My first ever magic tournament I played I used a mono white rebel deck that relied on my opponents not knowing how to deal with Worship (we were all noobs). I got second place and was hooked on competitive magic from there on. 

I had a home brew astral slide deck that got me my first tournament win.

I home brewed my way into caw blade before it blew up and took that to 4th at state's. That was my first top 8 finish in an event with more than 200 players. 

The last one that's really memorable for me was a sealed deck that got me my first ( and only) win against a hall of famer (Olle Rade). It was a stacked sealed deck with a jace 3 murders 2 vampire nighthawks and a vampire nocturnus. I actually lost round one to a guy with almost the exact same deck except he had 2 jaces...  Then went 9-0 from there to top 8. This deck is one of the very few things I kept after selling my collection.

This is a fun topic. Thanks for starting it!

Pantagruel

Narcoticsagent said:

This is a fun topic. Thanks for starting it!

It is, but it's off topic and should be moved to Other Games/General Discussion.

Heartstone

Ah, old memories...

My first good deck in paper magic was a discard deck. "The Dark" was just out and hymn to tourach just blew my mind. Hypnotic specter and mindstab thrull were also in that deck.  With 4 dark rituals and black vise, it could kill very fast...

My other favorite theme deck at the time was a burn deck with ball lightning and all variants of lightning bolt.

Stormcrow

Black/Red. Black Knight (this guy was a STAR), Mon's Goblin Raiders, Unholy Strength, Terror, Dark Ritual, Stone Rain, Sedge Troll (I think I only had 1 copy but he was a beast!), Sengir Vampire (I think I had 2 copies? Somehow I never seemed to get them into play before my neighbor got his Serra Angel out). I don't remember what else. Then shortly after I started playing Fallen Empires came out and my local games store was practically giving away the packs and so I had a lot more cards to choose from.

jtwood

My first Magic paper deck was a Rotlung Reanimator deck that could beat just about everything people played at the time: except for the Circular Logic madness deck. Problems was that the madness deck was the top tier deck, so I never got too far without losing to it. 

Firstofhisname419

First precon decks I played with were the 5th Dawn (Mirrodin block) decks; my favorite was the 5 color Sunburst deck. That inspired my first serious deck I made, a 5 color shrine deck from Kamigawa block.  My friends hated that deck, which I never understood. Sure, the wins tended to be spectacular, but it really only won about 50% of the time.

Incidentally, I can't believe we have a fairytale-themed set, but Wizards hasn't revisited Kamigawa. Yeah, that block screwed the pooch, but they could do a lot better with Samurai/Ninja/Spirits/Japanese Dragons. And more shrines, dangit!

FindingHeart8

Firstofhisname419 said:

First precon decks I played with were the 5th Dawn (Mirrodin block) decks; my favorite was the 5 color Sunburst deck. That inspired my first serious deck I made, a 5 color shrine deck from Kamigawa block.  My friends hated that deck, which I never understood. Sure, the wins tended to be spectacular, but it really only won about 50% of the time.

Incidentally, I can't believe we have a fairytale-themed set, but Wizards hasn't revisited Kamigawa. Yeah, that block screwed the pooch, but they could do a lot better with Samurai/Ninja/Spirits/Japanese Dragons. And more shrines, dangit!

I LOVE Kamigawa.  Favorite set next to Mirrodin and Theros.  Would be amazing if they returned to that, and we got a ninja planeswalker we could eventually play on mtgpq 

Theophilus

It has been waaaay too long for me, like about 25 years, since I've played paper. I remember my favorite card was Serra Angel, but mostly I loved to build around white. I'd use Crusade and Castle with some cheap first strike creatures, some lifelink/buff creature enchantments (Blessing, Divine ??, Spirit Link). I also loved to build around Mill Stone and destroy their deck before they could do anything with it. 

Have any of y'all ever played the old DOS game Shandalar? It was a MTG game where you would travel around a map visiting/helping cities and conquering dungeons. I loved it!

Firstofhisname419

I always wanted to try Shandalar, but was never able to find it. I mean, my friend was never able to find it when looking for games to run on DOSbox.

madwren

One thing I remember is my friend making a deck full of nothing but mountains and lightning bolts and nothing else. This caused me to gravitate towards white (CoP: Red ftw), and it remained my favorite color ever since. 

FindingHeart8

madwren said:

One thing I remember is my friend making a deck full of nothing but mountains and lightning bolts and nothing else. This caused me to gravitate towards white (CoP: Red ftw), and it remained my favorite color ever since. 

That sounds obnoxious to play against, looks like you found a good solution though

I remember (a few years into my mtg obsession) of having an epic "red deck wins" that, on a good day, could kill a player on turn 1.  I once played a white deck that was able to prevent enough damage and gain enough life back to weather the storm of my entire deck.  It left a lasting impression of me both being incredibly frustrated yet quite impressed.