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Comment by jdmoreira | Hacker News Reader

Now we are talking. I just want to let anyone curious enough to get dragged into the rabbit hole... we are still playing these cards!

There are 2 main nostalgia formats, Oldschool 93/94 and Premodern. Here are some links:

- http://oldschool-mtg.blogspot.com

- https://premodernmagic.com

- https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/michaelflores-05182022-north-...

- https://www.wak-wak.se

- https://alltingsconsidered.com

Find your way to discord, podcasts and eventually your local clubs and join us in the MTG Underground.

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Interesting that they chose to use modern rules for premodern. I recently tried to play my oldschool Rock and Madness decks against one of my rather weak standard decks and got absolutely trounced. Partly due to power creep of course, but the rules change made these decks obsolete. I still find premodern intriguing, but it seems like the meta there can not be the same as it was before mirrodin.

Yes its not the same. For example a Mishra's Factory can block and then tap itself to pump and blocks as a 3/3. This was not the case back in the day.

I still very much prefer modern rules compared to the message they were in the early to mid 90s

I agree the modern rules are better.

Mogg Fanatic was massively nerfed in the modern rules though, which is sad, because it was such an iconic part of the monored deck. (It used to be able to sac itself and deal 1 in combat trade)

I played Tempest block, I remember! But it's still good enough nowadays to see play in the Sligh deck of Premodern

Back when the stack had been introduced to the game rules, and combat damage still used the stack to resolve/apply, is when the rules were the most fun to me.

No card has ever been nerfed as hard as that.

I came back to MTG a few years ago and these 2 formats hit my sweet spot right in the center!

The only drawback is the cost of the cards, but some communities allow proxies.

Might be the nostalgia, but there is something beautiful in the apparently simple and yet complex old cards.

I'm nihilistic.tutor in case you see me somewhere come say hi

And if they don’t allow proxies, they are not worth the time it takes to shuffle up and play with them.

Give MTG Arena a try. It's not the same feel/experience as in person, but still fun, convenient, don't have to spend to build (can win packs/wildcards to get what you need), and have multiple play formats.

This is awesome. Underground is right, I had never done across this before.

I played Mtg starting around 1995 until 2001. I've often thought about getting back into it but I also knew I was drawn for a nostalgia of the game that doesn't exist in the modern context. I recently found Flesh & Blood and found it interesting though I didn't commit to buying and playing. I'll be checking this out for sure, though.

In a similar vein, I've recently moved my DnD over from 5e to primarily OSR play and it's completely reinvigorated my love of the game.

> we are still playing these cards! There are 2 main nostalgia formats, Oldschool 93/94 and Premodern.

A bunch of those cards still get played in the eternal formats and commander. Old magic had extremely weak creatures, but absolutely busted cards in other types.

For instance Necropotence is restricted in vintage, and banned in legacy.

Still hilarious to me seeing Ironclaw Orcs in there, when a 2/2 for 1R had to have a drawback, compared to the absolutely absurd power level of even red 1-drops now. I understand the rationale over the years of re-centering the game on creatures and so pushing their power level, but it does result in a lot of very dull Standard metagames (e.g. right now).

I've always had a deck that was famous for being able to drop a Craw Wyrm (4GG) 6/4 in turn 3. Later, the Yavimaya Wyrm (4GG) 6/4 Trample meant I had to replace that iconic card. Much more recently, I bought my son a box with cards, and his deck has an Aggressive Mammoth (3GGG) 6/6 Trample but gives all your other creatures trample too!

Modern creatures are just so much better than anything we had back then. But my red/blue direct damage deck is suddenly unfair with its lightning bolts and cheap counterspells.

Big creatures were overpriced in the beginning. Most of the creatures that cost more than 3 in Legends were underpowered

True. Some cheap old creatures still see a lot of play: birds, elves, the merfolk lords for example.

They mostly see it in tribal or for mana or oddball abilities though. Old magic really over-estimated stats and combat abilities, you’d get heavy downsides on anything even passing the vanilla test (cf mogg jailer or mogg squad), especially out of color. And under-estimated fast mana and card draw.

They were in a slow deck, but my big green deck could get them on the table fast enough to win. I think it was mostly the 3/3 creatures for 4 mana that were a poor deal. But it's not like in the 1990s nobody used creatures, or spell-focused decks always won, but I guess the recent changes do give creatures the more central role they were always meant to have.

Yeah, the big-creature decks I recall that didn't suck from that era were green.

Black had great mana advantage too, but Mind-twist and Hymn were both better ways to spend it.

You want to see broken old stuff? Anything involving mana:

https://scryfall.com/search?q=mana

The thing that frustrates me is that there are so many creatures that you have to remove or they basically end the game in 2-3 turns, alongside a bunch of creatures that provide value even if removed. That means removal is "bad" but you still need a certain amount (~6-8 minimum) or you'll just outright lose a lot of games to a single card. It makes the game feel like paper rock scissors + a coin flip, with maybe one or two decision points (one of which may be your choice to mulligan) being the limit of your player agency.

Yes of course. What I meant was more of the sort, we are still "exclusively" playing these cards.

Non-sanctioned formats and mostly at pubs :)

Old magic had strong creatures too, e.g. Serra Angel and Sengir Vampire.

They are very weak for today's standards, while many of the spells are still extremely strong (bannably so).

They were very strong for the time, these days?

Essentially none of them is playable in any constructed format (unless they’re an oddball for an oddball deck). Compare Serra and Baneslayer, and that’s a 10 years old card, and keeping to non-legendaries (for legendaries see Ao the dawn sky).

Meanwhile many non-creature spells are strong enough to be restricted or banned.

The Walletslayer itself has been power creeped out of playability.

Serra Angel already became a draft deck uncommon when I last played over 10 years ago. Even creatures that were banned on this articles list for 1.5 wouldn't be particularly strong by 2012 standards.

Chicago has an excellent scene for nostalgia MTG. We play a variety of old school formats and have a 93/94/95 event coming up in October. Most events put entry toward a charity (if there is any entrance fee) and are held at pubs around Chicago. Check out Eternal Central[0] for rules and some past event coverage and our local club page, The Lords of the Pit[1]. One thing slightly different about the Chicago (and Midwestern USA scenes in general) is friendliness toward proxies, esp hand drawn/painted versions. New players always welcome!

[0] https://www.eternalcentral.com/

[1] https://lordsofthepit.com/

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