If Magic's planes were D&D worlds...

[sawbones]

Au contraire. A red/green Thallid deck employing fireballs, streams of life and Ashnod's Altars could take out any deck I put it up against.

The thallids develop too slow. There were way better mana accelerators at the time. And the key cards in your deck are from other sets.

[Cole Deschain]

Not true.

My 1G Thallids could produce tons of meat shields.
My Elven Farmers could, too.
My Thallid Devourers could munch on them to pump up and dish out pain.
My Thorn Thallids, well, they were admittedly a poor man's Prodigal Sorcerors.

I forget what else was in the deck (sold it along with the rest of my cars some time ago), but I had four of every Thallid, Four Elvish Farmers.

I has more Saprolings than I could use.

Believe it or not, the fireballs and Streams of Life weren;t actually game-winners in and of themselves.

When I could summon green beasties faster than they could be killed, the reproductionrate easily overcame all obstacles. My only real bugaboo was a Pestilience deck, which I handled by sprinkling in a few FE red critters. That deck never lost while I played it.

[Le Noir Faineant]

http://www.trollandtoad.com/p116849.html


edit: Homelands, while not the most playable set in the cardgame, would likely make the best Roleplaying environment. It had the best developed story of any of the early sets, and the best developed characters as well. I can't speak as to anything after the Urza block as I've only played occasionally since then and haven't really followed the game.

Thank you for the link! *Homelands had a bit of the *Taladas* feeling, that was because I liked it so much...

[Dark Whisper]

The thallids develop too slow. There were way better mana accelerators at the time. And the key cards in your deck are from other sets.

You just needed to add Fungal Bloom (Enchantment, GG : GG Put a Counter on target Thallid). Combinded with the fast mana avaible to green, you could quickly put Saprolins into play.

I loved my Thallid Fun Deck; lots of Thallids, Skull Catapult and Mob justices...

[Dark Whisper]

very, very few of those cards ever made an appearance in any tourney deck

You mean except Hymn to Tourach in almost any black deck, Store Lands (Bottomless Vault, Hollow Trees) in Winter Orb decks, Order of the Ebon Hand in Necrodecks and the Aelipile in several Decks, to name the most common.

Hymn was probably one of the most brocken commons printed since 4th edition.

As for Homelands, Hungry Mists was not a bad card, neither were Broken Visage (if somewhat expensive), Ishan's Shade, Sengir Autocrate, Primal Order, or Deathspeakers.

Sure, on the other hand we had crap like Aysen Highway, Leeches or Mammoth Harness.

[JinnTolser]

I believe by the time Weatherlight came out, the only Homelands card still seeing much tourney play was Serrated Arrows. By that time (when I first paid any attention to MtG tournaments), Necropotence had been banned and Fallen Empires rotated out of Type 2 tournaments.

What I can say is this: in the formats where Homelands and Fallen Empires are legal today (Type 1 and 1.5, or Vintage and Legacy to use the terms WotC has coined), I don't think a single card from either set sees competitive play anymore. But that should really come as no surprise, since those formats are so insanely overpowered now.

But yeah, I would say flavor has definitely fallen by the wayside lately, because the storylines in Magic seem to get progressively blander every year (and they were never that good to begin with).

[Dark Whisper]

What I can say is this: in the formats where Homelands and Fallen Empires are legal today (Type 1 and 1.5, or Vintage and Legacy to use the terms WotC has coined), I don't think a single card from either set sees competitive play anymore.

Although I'm still an official DCI Judge, I've stopped paying attention to the official tournament development some time ago - and have never really been interested in Type 1 / 1.5 - but I still wonder, if you could not build an Anti-Type 1 - deck, focusing on cards that foil the power cards of T1 (Primal Order and that Artifact killing shaman come to mind, punishing the opponent for playing non-basic lands (of which we see a lot in T1) / killing of Moxes cheap).

But yes, the new expansion have traded so much flavour for sheer power that the most I buy from new expansions are the preconstructed decks to see some of the actual cards, use the new mechanics and have a little fun playing with my friends.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

But yes, the new expansion have traded so much flavour for sheer power that the most I buy from new expansions are the preconstructed decks to see some of the actual cards, use the new mechanics and have a little fun playing with my friends.

You really need to look into Kamigawa block. I think you'll enjoy it. It was made from the ground up with flavor in mind, and it really shows through in the cards. (It feels like a Miyazaki film.) Flavor doesn't have to mean story, either. They've deliberately moved away from imposing a story and are focusing on building interesting worlds.

There were tournament quality cards in FE, and you listed most of them above. The problem is they were mostly common (Hymn, Order). The rares (U1's actually) blew chunks for the most part, so no one really needed to buy a lot of the set.

I've seen a few VERY competitive Thallid decks. (You must use Fungal Bloom, and Gaea's Cradle gave the deck an enormous boost. And Skull Catapult is a must.)

[JinnTolser]

Yeah, Kamigawa is definitely a break from the "power over substance" trend in Magic. At least, to hear the competitive Magic players tell it anyway. So many of them complain that Kamigawa is weak because they compare it to Onslaught and Mirrodin.