Fortunate enough to have started MTG during Beta, but then unfortunate in terms of having my ridiculously valuable collection stolen a few years later. It was definitely a different game back then. I remember everyone's excitement when Colossus of Sardia came out because 9/9 was suddenly the new 8/8. I also remember the release of Antiquities especially because I traded for all my friends' Moxen and Lotuses to create an Atog deck with all artifact mana. I think at one point I had 30 Moxes and 5 Lotuses. Again, quite a ridiculous collection. Of course, most of us were also playing "house rules" back then, and commonly this included drawing two cards per turn and playing as many lands as you like per turn. This obviously devalued things like Moxen, Lotus, Ancestral, and Library in our circle, so I'd pick up a couple Moxen on trades for something silly like a Lord of the Pit. Ah, the good old days.

@POXEVERYTURN
If I remember correctly that's Richard Garfield's favorite card as well. Not that it should really make a difference, but I do also happen to agree with you.

@Tom-Bombadil
I'll always respect the argument that Lotus is the best card, but did you ever actually play back when we were running 4x Chaos Orbs? Again, no disrespect to your opinion, and you may even be correct. It's a sound and popular opinion anyway. I would say there have also been eras in MTG history where Library was clearly the best card, and of course Ancestral. Nothing really compared to the Orb, however.

I also know there has been some debate here recently insofar as speed vs. diversity, and I for one have no problem with adding a modicum of speed to encourage said diversity. I've been on both sides of a first-turn kill plenty of times, but that's just POWER VINTAGE to me and I love it. I expect I'm entirely on the fringe of this community here in many respects, but I'd advocate unrestricting/unbanning cards like Strip Mine and Chaos Orb (truly the most powerful card ever) to really shake things up in the format. In any event, I surely always enjoy TMD for these discussions.

@desolutionist
I completely agree with you and just wanted to reiterate that I no longer play MTG "competitively." It's just a nostalgia thing along with a pondering of why some of these former Vintage staples have become obsolete. Cheers.

So I was fortunate enough to purchase about 2 1/2 boxes worth of what are now commonly referred to as "Edgar" booster packs in 1994. I actually ran an auction for many of those cards on a primitive Geocities website the following year (much to my regret). At the time it seemed prudent, and of course I recall the joy I felt at yielding $40 for an Underground Sea or the $120 I received for one of my blue Hurricanes, but hot damn have the values skyrocketed since then. Douglas Schuler reached out to me back then for my "Edgar" Serra Angel, but I for some reason kept that one (until it was stolen along with my entire collection in 1997). I'm just curious if any of you ran into that misprint set as well. I purchased them in Kingwood, TX (a suburb of Houston), and the "legend" of that set and its accidental limited release still fascinates me. Perhaps it isn't altogether pertinent to Vintage strategy per se, but I do wonder as to where else these cards might have cropped up across the country.

@Topical_Island

Yeah, it really has to be THE PERFECT DRAW for that, and again I had to do like a triple-take when I drew that hand. Of course, this was like late 1993 or really early 1994 before real sanctioned tournament play, so we were all still trying to figure out the game. That was my first experience with a first-turn kill as I "recall" (had plenty more after The Dark came out with the classic Ball Lightning, Blood Lust, Berserk combo). I still think my very favorite, however, was establishing infinite turns before my opponent ever had a turn back in late 1994. This was actually a sanctioned tournament in Dallas, and of course Time Vault was banned at the time. It was another "god draw" that let me cast and recur Time Walk and Timetwister with a Fastbond on the board. Even Regrowth and Fork were restricted at the time so I basically kept lucking out until I bolted the guy to death. What really pissed him off was just how obviously inebriated I was at the time. I just kept getting transfixed by the artwork on my cards. Hey, man. I was 14 and in college. Not like I could get a date. You'd be on acid, too. ;)

I did the Lich Mirror Universe thing way back when, as I'm sure others did here, but my favorite tournament first-turn kill was dropping four Black Vises and casting Ancestral on my opponent. That was obviously the perfect draw, and it had never before occurred to me that I should ever use Ancestral on an opponent before I drew it and actually examined my hand. (This was all clearly well before Force of Will and the subsequent restrictions/errata).

Might not have been entirely relevant but the original post seemed to be pondering the difference between actual players and mere pundits. I would assume I'm not the only one whose collection has been stolen, and indeed I've read about other such horror stories on this very site. Hopefully it never happens to you other guys whose Vintage collections are intact.

It's the sheer expense. I'd be more of a Vintage "activist" than a mere "spectator" if my epic collection (including a ton of "Edgar") wasn't stolen back in the mid-90s. Sorry, but I haven't had the $250k to replace that ridiculous collection and play real Vintage again, and unfortunately no one helped me find the dude who stole it all. His name is Kenny and he owned a card store in Kingwood, TX in the 90s. Oddly enough no one had any information on his whereabouts when he took off with my cards, although all the locals seemed to suddenly have more Beta cards than before when I started asking around. I was quite vocal online about this for years and even hired a PI at one point who never found him. No one in the MTG community lifted a finger to help track this guy down, although admittedly not too many of us were online back in those days. As someone who started playing and seriously collecting in 1993, now I can only afford to reminisce about Vintage. I expect there are plenty others whose collections were stolen once the game started taking off in terms of card valuation. Still, I'm very appreciative of TMD even if I can no longer partake in Vintage play myself anymore.