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Author Topic:   Origins 1993 testimonials
yoriagami
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posted September 30, 2014 08:07 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for yoriagami Click Here to Email yoriagami Send a private message to yoriagami Click to send yoriagami an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View yoriagami's Trade Auction or SaleView yoriagami's Trade Auction or Sale
Reaching out to the old-timers out there...

I am looking for witnessed testimonials of Magic's debut at Origins '93, or very shortly after its general release on August 5th that year.

How crazy was it at Origins?
How soon did Alpha sell out ("weeks", I am told, but 5 weeks? 10 weeks? ...?)
Was there much hype preceding Origins?
Any whacky stories from those days?


[Edited 1 times, lastly by yoriagami on September 30, 2014]

 
oldschool
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posted September 30, 2014 09:10 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for oldschool Click Here to Email oldschool Send a private message to oldschool Click to send oldschool an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
alpha, beta, unlimited and Arabian were pretty much sold out instantly. Very few shops were able to get their hands on those early sets and most were sold out before they could just sit on the shelves and gather dust. That's why they're so valuable now. The first set that I would actually say was available to the public for any period of significant time was revised. Antiquities and Legends were also more widely available but still rather limited.

Good cards were good and sought after from the start. Power 9 were always valued and wanted. When you hear about trades like Shivan for a Mox, it's not because Moxes were undervalued, it's because a Shivan was extremely sought after. Arabian Nights was huge from the get go. Library, Diamond Valley, Juzam, Ali from Cairo, Serendib etc. All big hitters and rare right away.

Magic was more fun because people didn't net deck or bitch about having all the cards. People built decks with what they had. You didn't NEED all 5 moxes all the power and all the lands. You just needed a brain and the ability to use what you had to the best of your ability. Decks were way more creative and IMO we had better players back then that were able to build decks to adapt to a variety of situations. No metagaming, sideboarding etc.

Another thing I remember is chaos orb. We all used it and never had issues. We had house rules and more serious games we used it as a point and shoot to avoid people wasting time spreading out their cards, making the game annoying. Timetwister was also an amazing card and played much more than it is now.

Lets see, another HUGE thing I remember is life. You didn't die until end of phase so many games you would go into negative life and recover before you ended your phase. Especially once zuran orb rolled around. I enjoyed that quite a bit and made for a lot of dramatic turns, draws, timetwisters, wheels etc.

 
Vegas10
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posted September 30, 2014 07:19 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for Vegas10 Click Here to Email Vegas10 Send a private message to Vegas10 Click to send Vegas10 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View Vegas10's Have/Want ListView Vegas10's Have/Want List
Gen Con that same year had Alpha's Me and my old man got some starters. I actually still have a few cards from those original starters. Early tourneys were wild, decks would range from 60 cards to 300 card monster decks, most tournies were single or double elimination. Rulings would often vary from store to store, card availibilty was a huge issue up until Revised/Fallen empire times. I vaguely remember my first tourney deck other than it was a R/B deck with cards like lightning bolt, Shivan Dragon, Sengir Vampire, Dark Ritual.
 
majicman
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posted September 30, 2014 08:25 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for majicman Click Here to Email majicman Send a private message to majicman Click to send majicman an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View majicman's Have/Want ListView majicman's Have/Want List
I started in January 1994 and my LGS in town had no Unlimited available. All they had was Antiquities. I hated Antiquities because there were no real playable creatures (yes Colossus of Sardia) and I had to buy land.

The following week I asked my friends where they got their UL cards and they mentioned a comic store in Hayward would allow you to buy 1 starter only (no boosters). The comic store held a weekend trade sessions on Saturday and during one of those sessions early on I asked some guy where he got his UL cards as he had a ton. He said he recently bought them at a hobby store in Campbell the prior day.

I literally jetted to that store 50 mi.es away and bought all 19 starters they had for 7.95/ea. That night I told everyone at our weekend gaming with magic that I had found a bunch and they were $12/ea. I wanted 3 for free so that was my price to cover the 3 decks and my gas. They couldn't open their wallets fast enough as they all knew how hard they were to find. By the way, the hobby store had 7 boxes of Antiquities on the shelf that I left behind (obviously I regret not buying those too at 90/bx).

Another LGS one city over had Starters for 12.95/ea and those didn't seem to last very long.

I went out to a gaming place in Modesto and some guy was selling boosters of Arabian Nights - 7 packs for $25. I bought them cause I never seen a display box of them at all.

In July 1994 I went to origins and bought Beta boosters for $15/ea.

This stuff was scarce and the price just kept going up.

Revised seemed to be around forever. One good thing back then, people didn't care about trading almost 1 for 1 of revised vs. UL for same card. Kick them down something small and they were good with it. Some people didn't care.

Those were the days!



[Edited 2 times, lastly by majicman on September 30, 2014]

 
TomCat36
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posted October 01, 2014 04:19 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for TomCat36 Send a private message to TomCat36 Click to send TomCat36 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
I'm one of the 'newer' old timers. I started playing during revised and really didn't get into magic until fall of 1994.

Stores that carried magic were becoming more and more common. Revised packs were readily available, and dual lands were plentiful. So plentiful in fact I couldn't wait to trade them away. I remember revised duals going for $2-3 each in my circles.

Duals in my area didn't hit $5 a piece until 4th edition.

It made sense in those days because there really weren't that many powerful cards. Serra Angel was a workhorse.
I main decked leviathan. Mahomati Djinn was really good, and Shivan dragon was king.

If you wanted powerful creatures in those days you had these options:

Green: Craw Wurm, Force of Nature
Blue: Air Elemental, Mahomati Djinn
Red: Shivan Dragon
White: Serra Angel
Black: Lord of the Pit, Sengir Vampire

that's about it. There was a HUGE premium on powerful creatures and the casting costs reflected that.

Even back then in late 1994, Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Arabian Nights were impossible to find. Antiquities and Legends were really difficult to find too, but not as bad.
The Dark could be found readily.

I honestly believe the scarcity of the early sets contributed to the success of magic in that period because it gave the game a sense of mystique. There were apparently powerful cards that nobody had heard about because they couldn't find packs anywhere.

Rumors of a 7/7 Flying dragon that when it attacked would cause a player to lose their hand was so ridiculously over the top relative to creature power levels at the time, it just fed into the mystery--at least in the mind of an adolescent teenager.

Playing for Ante was a thing back then, albeit a minor one. My circle of friends did it occasionally. Actually my initial group was drawn to magic because of the gamble of playing for ante.

When Scrye and Conjurer magazine finally came out and started posting pics of the power 9 and as internet access became more and more readily available, we started to learn about cards from ABU and AQ, AN, Legends

Ancestral Recall and Time Walk were nuts even back then--that was pretty plain to even our little group of 8th graders.

Black lotus was selling for $63 at the time. Moxes were selling for $30 each.

Ivory Tower was really strong in casual. Black vise was a brutal one drop. Counter Magic was really strong.

Wizards at that time had just decided to limit the effectiveness of land destruction. Our group never really saw things like Sinkholes and Ice storms being played--at least not till later.

The game was so young, there really weren't that many archetypes yet. Land destruction, Counterspell and Blue control, Burn, all existed.

But tribal wasn't really viable. In 1994, if i wanted to build an angel deck, I had Serra Angel...and that was it.

If I wanted to build a vampire deck, I had sengir vampire...and that was it.


Even merfolk decks weren't really viable. Again, cards from ABU, AQ, LE, An weren't readily available. It would have been easier to make a Djinn deck back then than an angel deck.


At that time my friends and I basically played until Chronicles, during the first great reprinting era by Wizards.

At first it was amazing to see so many powerful cards now accessible in packs. But the awesomeness of cracking open once coveted cards soon got boring. Chronicles followed right on the heels of 4th edition too, which also reprinted a ton of cards.

Once the cards we always wanted were so readily available, we soon lost interest and went onto other things.

I didnt return to magic until Ravnica.

 
slurpee
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posted October 01, 2014 07:19 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for slurpee Click Here to Email slurpee Send a private message to slurpee Click to send slurpee an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View slurpee's Trade Auction or SaleView slurpee's Trade Auction or Sale
Most of these statements are true at least in my circles in Texas.

I started In August 1994. I never saw alpha/beta unlimited at that point in sealed packs. Arabian never saw. Antiquities was available, but like someone else pointed out no one wanted it. It was widely known that you got less cards, the cards weren't that useful, you would get duplicates and it cost the same as revised. Legends was easy to find as well but the stores around here wanted 10.00 a pack. Revised was 2.00 at least at my store.

My store charged 15.00 per mox and 50.00 for the lotus. You would get the unlimited version of a revised card if you bought it as there was not an added value to unlimited at that time.

There was not a limit on cards so you would end up with a deck of 10 counterspells, or disenchants, lightning bolts. People played bigger games that lasted longer and played emperor a lot. You played with the cards you opened and like others mentioned shivan, royal assassin, visuvan doppelganger, clone, and serra angel were the big cards. People traded moxes for the cards as people would say well I don't play black so I don't need this mox jet.

To this day I can remember looking at Moxes and saying craw wurm is .25 and mox is 15.00. Hmm I would rather have four craw wurms. You couldn't find Shivans to save your life. Heck the play back then was to fork your wheel of fortune. Didn't really accomplish alot but it was fun.

I can remember that Christmas telling my mother I wanted a black lotus and she came back saying do you know they wanted 50.00 for a piece of cardboard?? Needless to say I didn't get the lotus.

one thing I will point out is that there were not MTG comic stores like there are today. There were baseball card stores and they didn't dabble a lot in MTG. It was more of their distributor sent them some. You couldn't just buy cards like today, ebay was really new, there were a few web sites you could trade on but it was a trust thing.

Part of the reason I bring up is that MTG wasn't really collected it was played with. You played with the cards you had and most unsleeved. MTG was played mostly by high school college students, who didn't have a lot of money. Therefore at 2.00 a pack lots of people bought packs, I think back well what if some rich person had come in and bought the store out then it would not have been as popular. MTG wasn't bought by well off grown ups, it was bought by the kid with little money. Now those same kids are buying their old cards back and driving up the prices because they have money.

Revised sold out and there were several printings/shipments but eventually even Michaels stores, book stores and video games places sold out. The reason Fallen empires even sold a pack was the desire for more cards.

I had quite a bit of summer cards, but like most things at that time unless it was one of the cards that everyone played it was hey you got a messed up disenchant or sol ring looks different. Word didn't spread like today, you more less learned by watching others. Heck I didn't know I had summer cards till I had quit, got rid of everything and went to college. Sad, but true.

That's my story at least from the early on parts.

 
Aleric
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posted October 01, 2014 10:30 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for Aleric Click Here to Email Aleric Send a private message to Aleric Click to send Aleric an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View Aleric's Have/Want ListView Aleric's Have/Want List
I had been a gamer from a young age, so when magic came out and people were getting into it, I got to hear all about it. About how addictive it was. I decided that I was not going to start playing it. I remember the day Antiquities came out and everyone at the gaming shop was gathered around the counter opening packs and talking about the cards. A friend of mine was trying to get some other people he knew into playing it so he would have more people to play with. He had been talking the game up and we started talking about the colors and the creatures and spells and it sounded cool. He built and gave me a deck of the colors I picked. You know, the first one is always free

The first card I knew I had to trade for was a demonic tutor. The first pay day after I started playing, I headed to a baseball card shop. I knew the owner and knew he had cards in. My first couple pulls were a Force of Nature and a Gaea's Liege and these were major cards. We had no price guides. Cards were worth what you could trade them for. I remember the first time I seen a Royal Assassin. A friend of mine had just pulled it from a pack and I wanted it. He wouldn’t trade it for anything I had and I had lots of dual lands, they were just another land in a booster pack, because every booster pack back then had multiple lands in it. Yes the Shivan Dragon was a huge thing back then, worth at least three dual lands if not more. A dragon Whelp was a flying fireball.

You met people and found out that they played and got together with their group. There were lots of groups that played, not a single card shop like there is now. Different people had different cards and it was as diverse as playing commander is today. A couple card shops popped up here and there, but didn’t last long. Some of the LGSs started selling singles. I remember passing up a chance to get a MOX JET for $40 so I could pick up two Fallen Angels for my BU deck. Chronicles ruined it for me, although a lot of the cards that I could not get, like the elder dragons, were now available.

Wizards printed Fallen Empires based on the success and demand of the cards that were already in print. In fact, they over printed it. I remember being at a gaming convention and they were giving away packs by the stack and people were turning them down, including me

 
mm1983
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posted October 02, 2014 05:25 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for mm1983 Click Here to Email mm1983 Send a private message to mm1983 Click to send mm1983 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View mm1983's Have/Want ListView mm1983's Have/Want List
quote:
Originally posted by slurpee:

MTG wasn't bought by well off grown ups, it was bought by the kid with little money. Now those same kids are buying their old cards back and driving up the prices because they have money.

This is true as I am one of those who fell into that group of people. I started with Revised and this December I will have been playing this game 20 years and I am now 31 years old. I remember the days of $10 or less dual lands, $40 or less Tabernacles, Candelabra of Tawnos, Bazaar of Baghdad, Moat, Mishra's Workshop, etc and not buying some of them because at that time seemed to be way too much money with exception of dual lands.

 
Volcanon
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posted October 02, 2014 02:32 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for Volcanon Click Here to Email Volcanon Send a private message to Volcanon Click to send Volcanon an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by mm1983:
This is true as I am one of those who fell into that group of people. I started with Revised and this December I will have been playing this game 20 years and I am now 31 years old. I remember the days of $10 or less dual lands, $40 or less Tabernacles, Candelabra of Tawnos, Bazaar of Baghdad, Moat, Mishra's Workshop, etc and not buying some of them because at that time seemed to be way too much money with exception of dual lands.

In fairness, tabernacle, candelabra and bazaar were cheap for many many years.

 
Jubert39
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posted October 05, 2014 05:14 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for Jubert39 Click Here to Email Jubert39 Send a private message to Jubert39 Click to send Jubert39 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View Jubert39's Have/Want ListView Jubert39's Have/Want List
Its crazy reading all these stories. Brings back so many memories. I started back when 5th edition just came out so I was fairly new compared to the rest of you guys. If there is one thing that I have to agree with that was mentioned above, Magic back then inspired you to be creative. You couldn't netdeck. Internet was new. I remember my first deck, mostly from revised to 5th.
Air superiority deck. Serra Angels, Air elemental, Majamoti Djinn, Counterspell, Swords to plowshares, etc....
I even played KARMA as my MVP card bc my best friend who used to play me a lot played mono black. Underworld dreams, megrim, hymn to tourach, Nightmare, and sengir vampire. Karma would absolute destroy him hehe.

I quit playing once I started junior year of HS, after the onslaught block.

Its crazy to think the game is so popular to this day. While the game has evolved a lot and is a ton of fun, nothing beats getting together with all your buddies and playing some kitchen table magic till 3am in the morning.

Now, 28 years old, casually checking ebay prices over the past few years, and hearing about the game from other folks, I thought it was crazy that an underground sea that was $10 when I was young, was approaching $100 each. Then $150, $200, etc... Now it sits at $350. WOW!
Magic prices are scary to think about. A Black lotus?? The nostalgia/childhood memories ultimately did me in and I got back into the game few years ago and bought the legendary Power 9. Its gonna be a sad day when I sell those cards again. Hopefully that will be for good. This game is an addiction!

 
MDunsh
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posted October 06, 2014 01:05 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for MDunsh Click Here to Email MDunsh Send a private message to MDunsh Click to send MDunsh an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View MDunsh's Have/Want ListView MDunsh's Have/Want List
Great stories. I started around August/September of 1994 just as I was starting High School. My friends who were into D&D introduced me too it. I had always like playing cards (gin, poker) collecting sports cards, and fantasy so I took to the game right away.

I remember the first day I played someone telling me a Royal Assassin could kill any creature and seeing a Lord of The Pit and I played mono black right away.

I'm in CT and recently when I realized we started about a year after the first release, I asked one of my friends who introduced me to MTG how they found it.

He said they had been looking for it for months and there wasn't any available out here. I never saw sealed A/B/U Arabian or Legends. We bought Revised and The Dark. I think a few spots had AQ, but, as has been said here, no one really wanted them.

Revised seemed plentiful, but we did have to know a dozen or so stores in a pretty wide radius that carried MTG because they were always running out. I'm sure I opened a few hundred revised boosters.

I vividely remember 5-6 of us remember pooling our money to pre-order two boxes of Fallen Empires. I'll never forget the disappointment realizing how bad the cards were.

Duals were not a huge deal and there were 10-15 Revised cards more sought after. Shivan, Fork, Royal Assassin, Force of Nature, Wheel of Fortune, were all more desirable.

Even Vetern Bodyguard and Blessing got some play.Juzam Djinn was widely recognized as the best creature. All the other big guys cost too much and had too much of a penalty.

Serra Angel was awesome, Mahomoti Djinn also a beast, Dark Ritual to a Hypontic Spector was a classc unless your opponent had a Bolt.

One of my friends played mono-white and constanly Karma and COP: Black'd me to death which causeed me to add white for Disenchant and the added bonsus of Swords to Plowshares and Serras. Eventually I added blue for counters and Djinns.

Arabanian and Legends were around but scarce. Mana Drain was I think the most valuable Legends card at the time. I remember that first time in a tournament a kid played a Sylvan Library and Librabry of Alexandria against me and I was like "those do what?!?!!?!?" That kid ended up being my class valedictorian and going to MIT.


Decks were more creative without the internet, but I do think almost all decks contained: Sol Ring, Maze of Ith, Black Vise, Strip Mine (to take out the Maze; as someone noted there was no land destruction in Revised) and Mana Vault with some other standards depending on colors.

While I agree it some of the mystique and mystery has been lost with the internet (and try putting that genie back in the bottle) I am amazed the job that has been done to evolve the game and I think it is a much better and more complex game now and that if it wasn't it wouldn't be around anymore.

One last memory, the Elder Dragons were cards that were sought after and VERY hard to find. I mananged to get all 5 and made an elder dragon deck (it was no big deal at all to get 20 or so duals to do this with, much harder to get the 5 dragons). The deck was awful. I don't think it ever won one game, but people liked seeing it.

I stopped shortly after Urza's, started again briefly Lorwyn and Morningtide, took another few years off and now mostly just collect and play online.

Great memories.

[Edited 2 times, lastly by MDunsh on October 06, 2014]

 
wjuseck
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posted October 06, 2014 01:30 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for wjuseck Click Here to Email wjuseck Send a private message to wjuseck Click to send wjuseck an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
So are you guys long lost friends or what? Very similar Karma story.

Edit: also both of you are from CT??

[Edited 1 times, lastly by wjuseck on October 06, 2014]

 
LegoWaffle
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posted October 06, 2014 05:15 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for LegoWaffle Send a private message to LegoWaffle Click to send LegoWaffle an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View LegoWaffle's Have/Want ListView LegoWaffle's Have/Want List
they gotta be having the biggest nostalgia trip right now, finding their childhood friends here on motl
 
MDunsh
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posted October 06, 2014 06:33 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for MDunsh Click Here to Email MDunsh Send a private message to MDunsh Click to send MDunsh an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View MDunsh's Have/Want ListView MDunsh's Have/Want List
Ha, didn't even realize that was Jubert above, I do know him, but only recently from on here.
 
Jubert39
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posted October 06, 2014 07:05 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for Jubert39 Click Here to Email Jubert39 Send a private message to Jubert39 Click to send Jubert39 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View Jubert39's Have/Want ListView Jubert39's Have/Want List
yep, i met mdunsh not too long ago. the game has adapted and evolved to match the current world trends... the internet
 
JayC
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posted October 06, 2014 08:21 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for JayC Click Here to Email JayC Send a private message to JayC Click to send JayC an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
I sold Underground Seas for $3.

The pain is still very present.

 
yoriagami
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posted October 07, 2014 01:53 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for yoriagami Click Here to Email yoriagami Send a private message to yoriagami Click to send yoriagami an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View yoriagami's Trade Auction or SaleView yoriagami's Trade Auction or Sale
I could have bought a ****load of FoWs for 3$ apiece when they rotated out of Extended and everyone was ditching them. *sigh*
 
Scuderia88
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posted October 07, 2014 02:51 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for Scuderia88 Click Here to Email Scuderia88 Send a private message to Scuderia88 Click to send Scuderia88 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
It's not even long ago when prices were much better than now...

I sold my Ex Alpha Black Lotus for 1500$ and my 4 Nm Workshops for 250$ each 2.5 years ago =(

It's still hurting a lot...a big lot...

 
implode
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posted October 09, 2014 01:15 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for implode Click Here to Email implode Send a private message to implode Click to send implode an Instant MessageVisit implode's Homepage  Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
I first say Magic being played at a school picnic in Jr High. Several kids brought several hundred unlimited cards with them and some decks. This happened shortly after AD&D released their cards to use with the game. I thought to myself, on no, not another thing to collect. I had a paper route downtown, and would go into the comic shop about the time of revised/legends and see them. I bought a ton of REV packs. But didn't want to buy the expansion stuff because I wanted a REV set and thought it would be distracting. I also didn't start right away, and missed out on UNL for the small period of time it was actually available.

Around our play circle the popular cards were Serra Angel, Demonic Horde, Shivan, and Doppleganger. VERY creature oriented.

 
TomCat36
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posted October 10, 2014 01:28 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for TomCat36 Send a private message to TomCat36 Click to send TomCat36 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
Back in 94 the stack didn't yet exist.

It's kind of crazy to think about now. But the game was really was something different. All counterspells were interrupts. Instants were cited as not being able to counter anything.

The game had very little lore at the time. None of the magic novels had yet been published.

It wasn't until later that various places and regions got fleshed out. What's a serra angel, as opposed to just an angel?

Magic already had plenty of other generic creatures.

Sea Serpent, Pirate Ship, Phantom Monster, Water/Fire/Earth/Air elementals, War mammoth, Grizzly Bear,
Wall of Stone, Wall of Swords, Wall of Ice, Force of nature, Pearled Unicorn, etc.

What's a Sengir vampire as opposed to a regular vampire Or Shiv-an Dragon for that matter?

Later on, Tolaria, Urborg, Serra, Shiv all became fleshed out as the lore and storyline behind magic developed.


But the fact is, there were tons of cards that were as generic concepts and it wasn't clear at the outset that Wizards was going to develop the lore behind it.

Legacy and Modern Staple 'Lightning Bolt' came from that Era. Hurricane and Earthquake too.

Now the same spells would probably be labeled something like Shock & Rock, Phyrexian Maelstrom or Balduvian Earthbreaker.

I didn't see the same kind of naming convention until Richard Garfield returned for Innistrad. "Civilized Scholar" sounds like the name of a card I hadn't seen in years.


Like I said, at the time with so much of the lore undeveloped, it wasn't clear where Wizards was going to go with that. But I think the initial generic names really helped alot of beginners break into the game because it helped them relate their own intuitions of fantasy to the game itself.


 
Ihateworking
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posted October 12, 2014 09:02 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for Ihateworking Click Here to Email Ihateworking Send a private message to Ihateworking Click to send Ihateworking an Instant MessageVisit Ihateworking's Homepage  Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
I'm probably alone here but I wish magic never evolved past the early to mid 90s.
 
coasterdude84
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posted October 13, 2014 10:17 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for coasterdude84 Click Here to Email coasterdude84 Send a private message to coasterdude84 Click to send coasterdude84 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Ihateworking:
I'm probably alone here but I wish magic never evolved past the early to mid 90s.

Nope, you're not alone. I liked the introduction of foils as a chase version of the cards, but the mechanics and storylines beyond Tempest really lost that classical fantasy feel.

 
mm1983
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posted October 14, 2014 01:11 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for mm1983 Click Here to Email mm1983 Send a private message to mm1983 Click to send mm1983 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View mm1983's Have/Want ListView mm1983's Have/Want List
quote:
Originally posted by TomCat36:

Magic already had plenty of other generic creatures.

Sea Serpent, Pirate Ship, Phantom Monster, Water/Fire/Earth/Air elementals, War mammoth, Grizzly Bear,
Wall of Stone, Wall of Swords, Wall of Ice, Force of nature, Pearled Unicorn, etc.


Grizzly Bears are too real for this game. That's why they printed Runeclaw Bears.

 
TomCat36
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posted October 18, 2014 03:06 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for TomCat36 Send a private message to TomCat36 Click to send TomCat36 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
Since Revised carried most of the cards from ABU, and since the return of Richard Garfield in innistrad also returned some of the generically named cards, I'm guessing we have him to thank for cards like grizzly bears, lightning bolt, and Sea Serpent.

There was something really cool and interesting about the way the old cards designed. There was very little magic lore on the cards. Instead there was Tennyson, Shakespeare, Coleridge, etc.

That's one of the things I miss about old magic. There was just something offputting about magic being based on its own specific lore.

Lightning bolt. Does 3 damage to any target. Sounds cool. Lightning bolts are powerful. 3 damage can kill a giant.
Relatable to real life and fantasy. Stokes the intrigue.


But if the same card was called. Dominarian Zeebozap.

What's a zeebozap? dunno... but you'll have to learn the lore to find out. Zeebozaps are fired by wompanwomp clouds in the mountains of uk-uk-tuk. Who are the Uk-uk-tuk? They are distant ancestors of JompDomp.

Totally off-putting...

 
yoriagami
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quote:
Originally posted by TomCat36:
But if the same card was called. Dominarian Zeebozap.

What's a zeebozap? dunno... but you'll have to learn the lore to find out. Zeebozaps are fired by wompanwomp clouds in the mountains of uk-uk-tuk. Who are the Uk-uk-tuk? They are distant ancestors of JompDomp.

Totally off-putting...


Well, when you put it like that... :P

Chide me for my presumption, but I take it card naming is NOT how you make a living?

 

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