“If a Cow was a vegetable, I’d eat a vegetable.”
– Joe Bushman
Have you ever wondered what the best Magic deck ever conceived might be? Like the debates over whether God exists or whether the Hulk is stronger than Superman, it seemed destined to remain unresolved.
Not so. The history of Magic has dark underbelly – a littered wasteland of brutal decks that tore apart metagames and resulted in restrictions and bannings, as well as the lingering memory of brutal metagame dominance.
Each of these decks had a Vintage counterpart that upgraded them to truly terrible and brilliant creations – half Frankenstein, half Einstein. The questions that nagged at me were such quandaries such as: Would Academy remain as powerful as the day it showed up? Would it wreck Long and GroAtog? Would GroAtog lose to Long? How does GroAtog measure up against Mono Blue (4 Fact or Fiction Blue)? Last year I played a dozen games of GroAtog (4 Gush Gro) versus 4 Fact or Fiction Accelerated Blue (which was then illegal) and found the decks split 50-50. Other thoughts that tugged me down this path were: What would happen if Fact or Fiction were to be unrestricted? How much of a difference do newer cards like Mind’s Desire really make? A mini-tournament of the banned decks might provide some insight into the current restricted list.
What to Play?
I floated the idea around my playtest group and it quickly gained steam. The first step was to figure out what to play. I figured no more than eight decks, but no fewer than six would be ideal. Would there be a Balance deck? An unrestricted Tolarian Academy deck? That and more. It would include the most brutal and unrelenting cards and strategies seen in Magic. It would be a battle for the title of the best deck ever, and it would be, a battle of the banned decks. If you have ever wondered what the best deck in history might be, follow along.
Out of the well of the past we have fished the best that Vintage has ever offered. The Maysonet Rack-Balance (MRB) deck was an obvious choice. People proudly proclaim Balance as the most powerful card ever printed. Balance has been neutered through restricted for nine years now. Forty expansions later, would Balance hold up?
The next most obvious choice was Academy. Unrestricted Academy has taken upon a mythic stature as the most broken deck in history. It drove people out of Magic – even in Type Two. The Academy list from the era looks like the who’s who of the Vintage restricted list that can be played in multiples. There are several other decks from that era worth playing – after an intensive search I stumbled upon a Dream Halls deck and we found a good Jar deck.
The Vintage portion of the 2000 Magic Invitational was dominated by Trix decks fueled by four Necropotence. We would be remiss if we didn’t include this monstrosity. Finally, we enter the modern era of Vintage and our deck choice is clearly decided by the restrictions that have driven them: four Fact or Fiction Legend Blue, GroAtog (restricting Gush), and the infamous Long.dec (Burning Wish and Lion’s Eye Diamond). Out of this mix, we decided to keep out the Dream Halls and Jar deck for another day to maintain a nice cross-section of competitors.
We searched high and low, but if a deck couldn’t compete with consistent turn 1 and 2 combo decks, and deal with the most powerful Control and Aggro-Control, then it probably wouldn’t make the cut. Most decks that one can think of really can’t compete with that mix. With six decks chosen, we were almost ready. We had to decide on lists and rules.
The first item we decided on in regards to decklists was that you had to be able to”cite” the decklist – i.e. no alterations for the metagame or corrections for misbuilt decks. We also decided that we would use the rules that existed for the deck at the time. This meant that for the Balance deck, its’ Red Elemental Blasts would be at interrupt speed, besting counterspells. It also meant, regrettably for the Balance deck, that it couldn’t paris mulligan (because Balance is much stronger when you can mulligan to five. But it did have the ability to land mulligan (for those of you who don’t know what that is – you were permitted to mulligan if you had no land in hand). The Balance deck also has Chaos Orb. Check it out.
The Maysonet Rack-Balance Deck
Adam Maysonet, pre-restriction
Main Deck
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Maze of Ith
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Plateau
4 Savannah
4 Taiga
3 Atog
4 Balance
1 Black Lotus
1 Candelabra of Tawnos
4 Chain Lightning
1 Chaos Orb
2 Consecrate Land
3 Disenchant
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Library of Leng
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
4 The Rack
1 Regrowth
2 Relic Barrier
3 Sylvan Library
Sideboard
2 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Consecrate Land
1 Disenchant
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Relic Barrier
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Tranquility
Here is Adam Maysonet’s primer on the decklist.
Academy
With the assistance of Dr.”Sylvan” Stanton, we had no trouble digging up old decklists. We found two Academy decks, and in retrospect, probably played the least broken of the two: Zvi Moshowitz.
4 Hurkyl’s Recall
4 Windfall
4 Force of Will
3 Mystical Tutor
1 Capsize
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Regrowth
4 Stroke of Genius
3 Prosperity
1 Braingeyser
1 Fastbond
2 Abeyance
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
4 Mana Crypt
4 Mana Vault
4 Lotus Petal
4 Tolarian Academy
4 City of Brass
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Strip Mine
Here is Zvi’s commentary on the deck, found on Classic Dojo:
Trix
Necropotence was unrestricted for far too long in Type One. Again, we probably chose the inferior list here.
Kai Budde
4 Illusions of Grandeur
3 Donate
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Pyroblast
4 Necropotence
4 Dark Ritual
2 Demonic Consultation
1 Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1 Time Walk
4 Force of Will
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Timetwister
4 Duress
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith
3 City of Brass
2 Gemstone Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Badlands
4 Underground Sea
2 Underground River
Sideboard
2 Hydroblast
1 Parallax Nexus
1 Wheel of Fortune
2 Abeyance
3 Pyroblast
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Gorilla Shaman
2 Phyrexian Negator
Legend Blue (Blue Bull Sh*t a.k.a. BBS) a.k.a. Accelerated Blue
Legend Blue: (July 2001)
4 Morphling
4 Back to Basics
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Counterspell
4 Mana Leak
2 Misdirection
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Powder Keg
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
19 Island
Sideboard
2 Misdirection
2 Powder Keg
2 Nevinyrral’s Disk
4 Hydroblast
4 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Island
You can read his Ed’s first report with the deck from Neutral Ground which he introduces the deck in:
http://t1.zongo.be/report/010729leg.txt
The short primer on the deck is that it counters key spells, plays Back to Basics against control and aggro-Morphling against aggro.
Ed concludes his first report with the following:
I would just like to close with a few comments about Type I. I think that this result signals that there is one true dominant deck in Type I right now. A new era has dawned, and it is looking very blue. To be sure, Keeper, Sligh, and Suicide Black are powerful, even quasi-dominant at times, but I have never seen a deck like Legend Blue. In my 4 Type I tournaments at Neutral Ground during July, I took first 3 times with this deck, all 3 times going undefeated. I don’t think that this is a coincidence. This deck, with no broken decks like Trix or Academy present, and with no true grave threat such as the Classic Necro Deck, may very well continue to run amok in the Vintage format. This is a rampage that may not come to an end anytime soon.
However, I do hope that this tournament report and my comments, along with this unusually large Type I tournament, all serve to heighten interest in Type I. I do not doubt that another truly great deck will soon come along to challenge this behemoth. Type I is the greatest and oldest format in Magic, so I hope to see continuing interest in the best environment Magic has to offer. Goodbye, that is all for now.
Edward A. Paltzik
AKA: Legend
I recommend his highly entertaining double report here (http://t1.zongo.be/report/011215leg.txt )
GroAtog
By Stephen Menendian
Gro-A-Tog:
4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
5 Fetchlands: Polluted Delta/ Flooded Strand – feel free to make one an Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
4 Brainstorm
3 Sleight of Hand
3 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
3 Counterspell
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Gush
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Fastbond
1 Regrowth
1 Berserk
4 Qurion Dryad
3 Psychatog
I wrote the primer on this deck – you can read it here. (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=4552 )
The short version is that it wants to play an early Dryad, then a Tog, then combo out either with Gush + Wish + Berserk, or multiple Gushes, Fastbond and Yawgmoth’s Will.
Long.dec
Revised List: 8/28/03
By Stephen Menendian
The Mana, a.k.a. 5 Lotuses, 8 Moxes(n), and 5 Rituals, and some land.
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
5 Moxen
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Underground Sea
Setting up and protecting the Combo
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm
Cards that Fetch cards that win:
4 Burning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
Cards that Win:
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Tinker
1 Mind’s Desire
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1 Memory Jar
Finisher:
1 Tendrils of Agony
Sideboard:
Finisher:
1 Tendrils of Agony
Engines:
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Diminishing Returns
Control Hoser:
4 Xantid Swarm
All Purpose Hoser:
1 Balance
1 Primitive Justice
1 Simplify
1 Hull Breach
1 Regrowth
1 Vindicate
2 Seal of Cleansing
I also wrote the primer on this deck. You can read it here. The short version is that it plays Burning Wish for Yawgmoth’s Will generating enough mana to win on turn one and two with Tendrils of Agony. You can read Buehler’s comments about how egregious this deck was here.
The Predictions:
Here were Dr. Sylvan’s Predictions:
Dr. Sylvan
TMD Oracle and Supercomputer
Posted: Sun May 02, 2004 2:31 am
4-1 – _,1,0,1,1,1 Long
3-2 – 0,_,0,1,1,1 GAT
5-0 – 1,1,_,1,1,1 Academy
2-3 – 0,0,0,_,1,1 Trix
0-5 – 0,0,0,0,_,0 Balance
1-4 – 0,0,0,0,1,_ Legend Blue
Control blows. Four Tolarian Academies will hopefully walk all over everyone. I’m probably not perfect on these, as I tend to underestimate control’s ability to beat turn 1-2 combo.
_________________
Philip Stanton – Former Nerdiest TMDer
TMD Quotes | Jedi Master Debater
Here were JP Meyer Predictions:
Posted: Sun May 02, 2004 9:43 am
Post subject:
Trix is mad winning
1) Trix
2) Long
3) GAT
4) BBS
5) Academy
6) Rack-Balance
Academy is so the suck.
How do those wildly different predictions hold up? Let’s find out!
The Results
Balance/Rack Match Report
The guy in our test group was excited about getting to play this deck. He was going to get to use my Bazaars and Chaos Orb, and play with four Balances to boot! With all the hype the deck had gotten, I thought the deck might have some synergies that weren’t apparent. Poor Ted Dickenson, who piloted this deck through five miserable matches was ready to quit Magic at the end of the night. This deck turned out to be a steaming pile. It wasn’t that the deck was misbuilt (which it was) or that it was old (which it was), but the strategy itself was fatally flawed in a format with Force of Wills and in which decks won by turn 2.
Complicating matters was the fact that we were using 4th Edition rules for the deck (LIFO) and therefore you didn’t have a paris mulligan (something that would enable Balance enormously). The only two games the Balance deck won were games that Trix and Balance played while they were waiting on someone else after Trix had won 2-0 for the official match. Cards like Library of Leng, Consecrate Land, and The Rack are not powerful strategies and beyond trying to achieve synergies, the deck has almost nothing going for it.
For amusement, I recorded my game of Long versus the Balance deck that was played in round four.
Round Four: Long.dec
Ted Dickenson, piloting Balance, wins the roll and elects to play first. He looks at his hand, says that he wishes he could paris mulligan, and keeps. He drops a Plateau and passes the turn.
My hand is: Mana Crypt, Mox Emerald, Chromatic Sphere, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Gemstone Mine, and Demonic Tutor. I drop Mox and Crypt and tap Crypt for two. I drop Sphere and pop it for Black drawing Burning Wish. I tutor up Black Lotus and play my Gemstone Mine. I Wish up Will sacrificing Lion’s Eye Diamond in response and handily win by replaying my goodies and tutoring up Tendrils.
Game Two:
Ted drops Mishra’s Factory and plays The Rack.
I play land, go.
Ted plays Plateau and attacks for two.
I play LED, LED, and Consult for Burning Wish in response sacrificing both LEDs. I Wish for Will and replay the LEDs, and Consult for Wish for Tendrils with just enough storm.
Turn 2 Win.
We joked for a bit how bad the Balance deck was. Ted had proxied most of it and he said that burning the deck was probably too good for it (sans my cards of course). Some cultures burn out of respect. Someone said”are you going to take a dump on it?” half jokingly. Ted replied”I was thinking about it.”
Suffice to say the deck is a pile and would lock you into hands that were simply terrible. Even in the incredibly slow ages of Magic’s first era, I simply cannot see how competent decks weren’t fast enough to deal with this. It must have been the distorting influence of the deck squeezing out decks which might be able to handle the Balance deck.
BBS Match Report
Vs. Balance
BBS tears apart the Balance deck.
Vs. GroAtog
This match was very tense and close. According to Joe’s notes, Joe got the nuts game one with Dryads, Fastbond, and multiple Gushes, winning on turn 2. Game two involved Joe being completely locked down under Back to Basics while the BBS deck played multiple Fact or Fiction and finished him off with Morphling. Game three was very close, but Psychatog proved too large for Morphling. I think this match could go either way, but today was not the day for BBS.
Vs. Trix
BBS counters every spell Trix plays and Back to Basics and Powder Keg lock down the mana.
Vs. Academy (see the Academy report below)
Vs. Long
This was one of the most amazing matches of the tournament.
Long wins the roll
Game One:
Long mulls away Lotus Petal, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Brainstorm, Windfall, Wheel of Fortune, and Tendrils of Agony into:
Gemstone Mine,
Black Lotus
Mox Pearl,
Duress,
Wheel of Fortune,
Burning Wish
I won on turn 2 after turn one Duress + Wheel.
Game Two:
Hand:
Xantid Swarm, Ancestral Recall, Chromatic Sphere, Mox Jet, Demonic Consultation, Burning Wish, Black Lotus
Justin played first and did:
Turn 1:
Mox Sapphire. Island. Go.
I played Mana Crypt, Black Lotus, Lion’s Eye Diamond (which I drew), Chrome Sphere bust it for Green. Draw Gemstone. Xantid Swarm. In response, Justin Mana Drain’s the insect.
In response, I Ancestral Recall – and Justin Force of Wills that too. At this point, I’m in the clear. I just need to sacrifice my Black Lotus for Black playing Demonic Consultation for Burning Wish and sacrifice my Lion’s Eye Diamond in response to play Yawgmoth’s Will with one floating which I can use to Consult for Wish again to Tendrils for lethal.
I go to sacrifice my Lotus for Consult and sacrifice the Lion’s Eye Diamond but Justin has another Force of Will. Ironic – but only triple counterspell wins him that game – and he had it. I could have recovered the game but I gave him a Fact or Fiction of four and one that just gave him too much card advantage.
Game Three:
I mulligan into Mox Sapphire, LED, LED, Burning Wish, Chromatic Sphere, and Brainstorm. I manage to resolve a turn 1 Necropotence and win the game handily from there.
GroAtog Match Report
The Joe Bushman was piloting GroAtog, a deck that he is well familiar with and equipped to win last year with. Here was his quick and dirty report:
Round One: Long:
Game One: Turn 2 Necro = Turn 3 win.
Here are my notes from that match:
I kept the moderate hand of:
Glimmervoid,
City of Brass,
Lion’s Eye Diamond
Mystical Tutor,
Demonic Tutor
Chromatic Sphere,
And Duress
Joe Mulligans
Turn One:
I play City of Brass and Duress I see the following junk:
Island, Tropical Island, Library of Alexandria, Force of Will, Merchant Scroll, and Psychatog. Of course, I snag the Force of Will.
Joe:
Underground Sea, go
Turn Two:
I draw Mox Diamond. I play it. I could play conservatively, but since his hand was so terrible and he didn’t play a cantrip, I decide to go for it. I play Demonic Tutor and respond by sacrificing Lion’s Eye Diamond for Black and play Necropotence that I fetched out of my library. I Necro for twelve and pass the turn.
On my end step, Joe plays Vampiric Tutor (which he obviously drew)
Joe plays Ancestral Recall and then Library.
Turn Three:
I play and tap Mox Jet for Dark Ritual and Duress
Seeing: Force of Will, Mana Drain, Tog, Polluted Delta, Psychatog, and Tropical Island.
I obviously take the Force of Will and then play Dark Ritual, Mox Emerald, Lotus Petal, Tinker for Black Lotus. Then I Burning Wish for Yawgmoth’s Will which I use to easily win by finding Tendrils with Demonic Tutor.
Game two was obscene, as I won on turn 1 through a double Force of Will from Joe.
Here are the rest of Joe’s notes:
Round Two: Rack/Balance
Game One:
Double Dryad = The Win
Game Two: Good Hand = Dryad Combo
Round Three: BBS
Game One:
“The Nutz”
Game Two:
Back to Basics pwnage.
Game Three:
Dryad Beatz
3-1
Round Four: Academy
Game One:
Prosperity Pwnage
Game Three:
Dryad Beatz
Round Five: Trix
Game One:
Win.
Game Two: Loss
Game Three:
Win.
Trix
The Trix deck is extremely broken. The problem is that if it can’t resolve one of its Necropotences, then the deck will have problems. It’s amazing tutoring power and disruption helps towards that goal. It gave Long a real run for the money and very nearly stole the match, losing only 1-2. Trix beat Academy and only lost to the two Aggro-Control decks and to Long only because we were using an inferior build of Trix. Next time.
Academy
Round One: BBS
Kevin said Justin went Land, Mox, Leak. Stroke of Genius for six in response. Justin drew five pitch countermagic spells that game and won.
Game Two:
Justin cast three Fact or Fiction and Kevin only had three threats the whole game, each of which was countered.
Round Two: Long
These games were ludicrous, but Long played with Burning Wish while Academy played Stroke of Genius.
Round Three: Balance
Kevin’s life goes to twelve and he wins.
Game two: Kevin’s life goes to nine and he wins. That was Academy’s only match win.
Final Results:
So how did Doc Sylvan’s and JP’s predictions stack up to the real results? Well, the good Doctor correctly guessed that Balance/Rack would go zero-five. He didn’t underestimate control’s ability to beat control – he just overestimated the strength of old decks. JP was almost entirely correct with the small difference of Trix performance – which might be explained by the variant we chose.
Here are the final results:
Deck | Long | GroAtog | BBS | Trix | Academy | Balance/Rack |
Long (5-0) | 2-0 | 2-1 | 2-1 | 2-0 | 2-0 | |
GroAtog (4-1) | 0-2 | 2-1 | 2-1 | 2-1 | 2-0 | |
BBS (3-2) | 1-2 | 1-2 | 2-1 | 2-1 | 2-0 | |
Trix (2-3) | 1-2 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 2-1 | 2-0 | |
Academy (1-4) | 0-2 | 1-2 | 0-2 | 1-2 | 2-0 | |
Balance/Rack (0-5) | 0-2 | 0-2 | 0-2 | 0-2 | 2-0 |
All in all, it was a very fun experience. I highly recommend it to anyone else who might be interested, if you are looking for something else to do besides your old routine. The tournament was an enjoyable break from the more intense testing we normally engage in. The result was a lot of joking and wisecracks.
Joe Bushman is one of our players that isn’t really known for preferring healthy food. Bluntly put, if it isn’t brown and runny, Joe probably isn’t interested. When he eats Wendy’s he buy’s five or six Bacon Junior Cheeseburgers – removes anything that isn’t brown and stacks them up and eats them together as one sandwich. Someone joked that Joe doesn’t eat Vegetables, and I said if a cow is a vegetable, then Joe’d eat a Vegetable – to which Kevin quipped that that would make a great T-Shirt.
So why did things pan out the way they did? How in the world did the predictions about Academy fall flat? The one observation I think is worth noting is that the winning decks won in reverse chronological order. Long was first, and GroAtog second, etc. Does that mean that the more modern decks are more broken? Possibly. It could just mean that the more modern decks had the advantage of a larger card pool – a facet outweighed by not getting 4 Academies or 4 Mana Crypts, etc. Or, it could just be that decks are built better these days. I think it’s more of that than anything else.
Undoubtedly we’ll do this again – but next time we’ll play the superior Trix and superior Academy lists (in fact, we might just play Memory Jar instead of Academy, period). The Jar Deck is grotesque, including most of the broken Long cards as well as the fun Academy parts. We’ll probably also run a Dream Halls list I found on the Dojo. The results probably won’t change that much – but it will sure be a fun experience. Hopefully, you can join in the fun too and hold your own B.O.T.B.D. Tournament.
[I would contend that it would be interesting to just open up the Banned and Restricted list for the next testing period and see if you can update the older decks to include all of the best cards, while still retaining their original flavor. – Knut]
Until next time,
Stephen Menendian
Steve dot menendian at gmail dot com