The Year: 1998 - What Deck were YOU playing?

[Killer Joe]

Ah, the days of yore, <deep sigh>, it was the summer of '98 and the Standard environment was 5E, Mirage & Tempest Block, it was an age of discovery for me (In MTG, Sparky, I HAVE 2 kids already ), anyway, I had been working all spring on getting the rest of my <Insert "Gonna Fly Now" old Rocky theme> Five-Color Green Tradewind-Geddon Deck. Ooo, the excitement, I remember walking into a shop and saying to the owner, I'll pay $15 for a Tradewind, do you have any? Man, it was like a 'Who' concert with little kids rushing me flippin' through their Scrye Mags offering alot of bad rares for their marked value. I still remember the 5CG deck off-by-heart:
5CG Tradewind-Geddon (not my own creation)
2x Derelor
3x Man-O-War
4x Tradewind Rider
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Wall of Blossoms
4x Uktabi Orangutan
4x River Boa
4x Granger Guildmage
3x Quirion Ranger
4x Incinerate
4x Armageddons
4x Gemstone Mine
4x Undiscovered Paradise
2x City of Brass
1x Reflecting Pool
9x Forest
SB
3x Chill
4x Pyroblast
1x Honorable Passage
1x Gloom
1x Fire Whip
1x Sleight of Hand
3x Tranquil Domain
1x Lifeforce

Man, did this thing wreck, the only problem was, the deck was better than I was. Guys better than me would get 'ticked-off' when I would crush them with this thing. Every now and agin, I put it back together and lose horribly with it to the NEW Extended decks. <sigh, and a tear>

What were YOU playing!?

 

[superguy]

Considering I started when Legacy came out, I wasn;'t yet playing magic in 1998. But I would've been playing Counter-Phoenix.

 

[Apollo]

I was playing Sligh (or stupid red burn, depending on when in 1998 you are talking about). It was also the best deck I've ever had and the best I've ever done with one. I won many tournaments (and a Mox), virtually without losing.

Now, it gets slaughtered by anything in Extended, just like that 5cg.

 

[Gerode]

I had my first combo deck, a G/R pile featuring Familiar Ground / Goblin War Drums.

I had my shadow deck, a 3-color pile with probably 15 lands for 80 cards.

I had a mono-White deck. I remember winning my first game away from home or school with a War Elephant (2/2 Trampler Bander for 3W). I still have the deck around, and it still has 20 cards from the original (20 plains).

I was thinking about a deck based around Humility, but my Social Studies teacher wanted me to trade my one Humility to him.

Did I have the beginnings of my Goblin deck back then?

I also played my first tournament at the local card shop, an Urza's Saga Sealed Deck tourney where two other people showed up. My rares were Great Whale (my ONLY blue creature, blue was the color missing in my 4-color deck), Citanual Centaurs, and Thran Quarry, which I thought completely sucked. And I got 3rd place in the entire tournament! After the tourney I traded away some decent cards for what I later realized to be utter crap.

 

[Duel]

I was playing Fighting Fish
Turning my u/g oath deck of my own design (I'd never ever HEARD of oath) into my r/g sneak attack deck
Fine-tuning suicide black
Demolishing my Mr. Friendly (Multiplayers combo deck)
and, waiting. Voltaic key gives me the start to my artifact deck.....

 

[Zadok001]

I wasn't playing at the time (my requisite hiatus from Magic occurred right around then), but I had a strange Icy Control deck built at the time, even if I wasn't playing. U/G Icy Maniplator tricks, as I remember it.

 

[Gizmo]

I was playing the evil ProsperBloom deck or Schneider Sligh, my teammate Andy McNish had just invented CounterSliver, and Neil was crushing with CounterMoose.

But mostly we were designing Rath decks for our eventual Grand Prix winning run:

Smithers, Release The Hounds

4 Keeper Of The Beasts
4 Altar Of Dementia
4 Intruder Alarm
3 Verdant Touch
(an infinity-Mill combo)
1 Nature`s Revolt
4 Intuition
1 Reclaim

2 Mana Leak
4 Counterspell
2 Forbid
2 Reins Of Power
2 Interdict
1 Capsize

4 Watchdog

LAND
1 Wasteland
2 Skyshroud Forest
3 Reflecting Pool
7 Forest
10 Island

SIDEBOARD
4 Chill
2 Forbid
2 Propaganda
2 Verdigris
2 Tranqulity
3 Grindstone

Sutcliffe '$5000' Sligh

4 Jackally Pup
4 Mogg Fantastic
4 Raging Goblob
4 Mogg Chunkies
4 Firepinger
2 Dragon Rahji

4 Shock
4 Kindle
4 Sonic Brrrst
4 Maniacal Rage
2 Spellshock (the best spell in Magic)

4 Wasteland
16 Mountain

SB
2 Hand To Hand
1 Spellshock
3 Apocalypse
2 Bottle Gnomes
2 Torture Chamber
2 Mindless Automaton
2 Maze Of Shadows
1 Mountain

"In the finals I played Craig Jones with his sligh. I didn't imagine that sligh could make it that far and so I wasn't that prepared for it. But our deck had 4 walls and 4 sharks and in that GP it was 5-0 against sligh, until the very end. I could just sit there in amazement and look how a sligh beats you down if it gets the perfect draw. Almost always when I had nonbasics he had wastelands and I never could capsize a creature with pants before turn 5. Only in duel 3 I got a chance. He didn't start that well and I cast a 4th turn awakening. I started drawing cards like a madman and established a good defense before I bounced his lands and permanents. In the other duels I couldn't do anything. Except for the slingers his attacker were all at least 3/3, an attack with two flunkies and a manical raged pub was nothing unusual for turn 4. I lost in a hurry 3-1."
- Kai Budde
Oh, how we laughed.

This deck rocked and I played it for about another three months in T2, until the Necropotence/Will deck appeared - it was so good the Scrolls only made it to the SB!

PS:
Jamie Wakefield was playing some sort of deck with a green guy in and a bunch of plastic dinosaurs:
http://www.thedojo.com/t984/t2.981019jwa.txt
And here he recounts his quest to enlist the aid of the forces at his command:
http://www.thedojo.com/t981/t2.980327jwa.txt

 

[nodnarb24]

In 1998 I was playing a deck of my own creation called "Da Cheese." It was basically burn, wildfire emisarries, and viashino sandstalkers it was my favorite deck. It also kicked @$$ in tournaments. My current form of "Da Cheese" is creature-less burn.

 

[Teferi]

98 seems like such along time ago, i was palying counter phoenix, but i don't even have that deck anymore

 

[ErinPuff]

I was playing the same green ol' pile that I am today, but it was different.. it sucked.. now it can actually win sometimes

 

[Chaos Turtle]

Counter-Phoenix
Fish
Survival of the Deadest

Those were the days...

 

[Apollo]

Ah, Wakefield articles. And ones I hadn't read before! Thanks, Gizmo.

 

[Duel]

Yeah, that was the day. I didn't know about online magic, back then. I hadn't even HEARD of Wakefield. I got online in time to see his article on the quitting of magic.