MTG Top 10: The Most BROKEN Decks EVER | Magic: the Gathering | Episode 514

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[wehpudicabok]

Good list, but I'm a bit surprised Standard Simic Food (i.e. Oko) didn't make an appearance. That was a deck that had three cards banned from it right away (Oko, Once Upon a Time, and Veil of Summer), and each of those cards would go on to get banned in other formats too, so you can imagine how busted they were all in Standard at once!

[johnsanko]

The joke about Memory Jar was that the early game was determining turn order, mid game was drawing your hand, and late game was turn one.

[fatpad]

It was wild to watch reddit figure out Hogaak. When it first dropped, there was a lot of "that's weird, looks like an interesting commander card"... but then people started actually brewing with it and discovered just how easy it actually was to cast.

[bigdaddybork]

I really like this combination format of video. It's a really clever and interesting way to bring attention to your deck history videos that don't usually put up the impressive numbers that the top tens tend to, and it's always refreshing to me when you switch up the top ten video format from time to time. Great video as always, thanks for all the work you do pumping out quality content Nizzahon.

[AlexAlddn]

Your channel together with Rhystic studies are my fav mtg channels to know about the history of the tcg we all love. Keep up the great work, cheers. 👏🏻👏🏻👍🏻

[michaelawilliams]

Way back in 1994, I ran a deck at an event on the Queen Mary in Long Beach that never let my opponent take a turn, It had the entire power 9 in it with the basic premise of playing artifacts that generate more mana then they cost and then using Hurkyl's Recall to return them to my hand and repeat the process over and over again until I could fire off a Time Twister (or, alternatively, a Time Walk). Then repeats the process again with even more artifacts and Hurkyl's Recalls. Regrowth returns the Time Twister (or Time Walk) to my hand allowing me to repeat the entire sequence with an ever-increasing amount of mana. Fastbond would let me play multiple lands and Candelabra would eventually get used to untap the lands. Constantly repeating the Time Twister over and over again (or the Time Walk), the whole time building more and more mana until finally Brain Geysering my opponent's entire deck. Since this was in a best 2 out of 3 match format with a one-hour time limit, I could legally take 59 minutes before finally casting the BG because I was mana gathering the whole time (not considered stalling). Typically, I would therefore advance after only one game was actually played without my opponent ever seeing a turn. This deck was ridiculously broken and, appropriately, its contents would cost over $100, 000 to reproduce the deck today. People were stunned at how the deck worked. It was about the Time Twister more than the Time Walk. Not taking infinite turns, but one continuously long turn was better. I would use City of Brass and often take 20 damage during this one turn but because death did not resolve until end of phase, when I brain geysered my opponent they lost immediately and so my life total being zero was irrelevant. Since Mark Rosewater and Alan Comer helped design the deck, I think the three of us may have been responsible for the banning of several cards and certain other rules changes that occurred shortly after the event. The power 9 were restricted by then, but running 4 Demonic Tutors and 4 Regrowths was still legal. In any case, that was both the most broken deck in history and the most expensive one. ;)

[delathenleso]

I'd love to see a video about Lurrus, and their effect on every format and why and when it got banned everywhere.

[Calintares]

I was expecting Caw-Blade to get an honorable mention at least

[TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

Oh man, now *this* is a list I can get behind. Even though not a single deck from Vintage made the list (which I guess makes sense, since nothing is banned there), I will still find a way to suggest that you should do "Top 10 Vintage Cards (Minus Power 9)" by sending you lightly played copies of Memory Jar with requests written in various tones for the video on it!

[kobisjeruk]

My friends and I started during urza's saga (i.e. the beginning of urza's block). It was a wonderful time. At the time people were lamenting about combo winter, we had no clue about whats going on in the world and just play with cheap echo critters.

[TrilainaBloodwind]

To this day, I DESPISE Hogaak as a card. I'm a big fan of unique cards like Bridge from Below existing for design tinkering around with in different formats, and when this abomination of a card came out, WotC decided to hit LITERALLY EVER OTHER CARD in the deck until they FINALLY banned it in Modern. It was a clear case of them wanting to push sales on MH1 and for the card to be played and bought. It wasn't until even AFTER they banned all the other cards that they FINALLY banned Hogaak. Even after that, though, they didn't unban the other cards, which is infuriating.

[Windowlick_]

I played in that GP Dallas mentioned in the Hogaak graphic. I was on UW control with 2 copies of maindeck Rest in Peace. I lost 2 different matches despite getting turn 2 RiP on the play in game 1 in both of them. That's how warped that metagame was and how busted Hogaak was.

[Poetkaj]

There was a strange combo with Wall of Roots, because at one point there was something between turns where you could put as many counters on the wall and get the mana in you upkeep.

[hoofhearted]

I started MTG just before Mirrodin. I remember pulling an Arcbound Ravager from a pack, having no idea what it was at the time, and someone gave me some shit in trade for it. got ripped off a lot in my early days.

[DrugzMunny]

This deck doesn't mention Long's Burning Desire or Trix. Although, Trix wasn't snap-banned as soon as it emerged, it was pretty dominant, and eventually mitigated by 2 bannings (and it played 6 cards that were ultimately banned/restricted in various formats). But Burning Desire got snap-banned right after Mind's Desire was printed.

[theunwelcome]

really started to expect Necro to be the #1 deck, that thing was insane in its time

[creestab]

Was surprised Eldrazi was at 10 considering how popular it was and the duration it lasted.

[goatdb]

Sweet list, very nostalgic. I’m surprised not to see a mention of any vintage shops decks though

[blklotus]

I've been playing standard decks against each other from different eras for more than a decade (we call it Ultimate Standard) and I can confirm that Academy is one of the strongest standard decks ever, also the standard version of Memory Jar, which didn't get played much before it got banned, was very strong. Two more decks that deserve mention:

Spiral Blue, which was the version of Academy after the first round of bans - this deck reinvented itself as a draw-go build with lots of counterspells, waiting to play Mind Over Matter when it was time to go off and use Mana Vault instead of Tolarian Academy to generate mana. Spiral Blue actually beats Academy and Memory Jar (counterspells tend to block combo decks) so it might be one of the best ever, except that it does have a weakness to aggro.

The other deck is Simic Food, or the Oko deck... also a standard deck... this deck actually beat Academy in our testing, and went undefeated across two years of matches. The Simic Food deck is crazy strong.

[quantum_beeb]

combo Oath and recurring nightmare/survival of the fittest decks were busted as well.