Don't forget about Intuition for 3 of the same card. That's why Gifts was written like it was.
Also, while it was technically true that Academy wasn't the only deck in the format, it might as well have been. There were three kinds of players: players who played Academy, players who couldn't afford Academy and had their own little brew going, and people who hoped to hell they drew a Duress in their opener. Put lightly, Academy would be broken and oppressive in Vintage. Without playing a single P9. Or Sol Ring.
but many of us like myself, really keened their interest in collecting and playing because the powerful cards we saw and wanted badly. couldn't go online to just buy a playset of this or that. you had to trade or hope you could find the pieces of your deck in LGS.
i remember playing Hatred and mono green Stompy, trying to trade for Cursed Scrolls, trading a Gaea's Cradle for Serra Avatar (sheesh). so much fun even tho FNM was inevitably facing 4 or 5 Tinker and Opalescence decks. no doubt 1 of each was pimped.
those were the days. im glad i can play standard and not lose before getting a 3rd land now, but the game is different in so many ways since (and because of) the Urza block
Back in the day, Magic was about the power fantasies. Everyone was trying to build the most powerful, busted thing possible, and the idea of creating an interactive format was basically alien to us. The game was a lot smaller then, both in terms of cards and playerbase, and a lot cheaper, too. Many of the games of Magic that were played then would not be considered good games by the standards of today.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
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Compare to tolarian.dec. In never made a single major standard tourney, and only a couple of major extended tourneys.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/329576-the-top-decks-showdown#c10
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Also, while it was technically true that Academy wasn't the only deck in the format, it might as well have been. There were three kinds of players: players who played Academy, players who couldn't afford Academy and had their own little brew going, and people who hoped to hell they drew a Duress in their opener. Put lightly, Academy would be broken and oppressive in Vintage. Without playing a single P9. Or Sol Ring.
i remember playing Hatred and mono green Stompy, trying to trade for Cursed Scrolls, trading a Gaea's Cradle for Serra Avatar (sheesh). so much fun even tho FNM was inevitably facing 4 or 5 Tinker and Opalescence decks. no doubt 1 of each was pimped.
those were the days. im glad i can play standard and not lose before getting a 3rd land now, but the game is different in so many ways since (and because of) the Urza block
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit