Collectible Card Game Headquarters

Back To '95
Challenge: 4-10
Unlocks: (?)
Description: Your deck must consist of cards from the early days of magic (sets release before 1996): Alpha/Beta/Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark, Fallen Empires, Ice Age, and Homelands

Please discuss this Challenge here!
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I beat this challenge with a standard winter orb control, my first idea was a tabernacle-living plane deck but this combo seems to crash the game... here's the winning list :

13 Plains
3 Mountain
4 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Maze of Ith
4 Plateau
4 Moat
1 Balance
4 Wrath of God
3 Gravity Sphere
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
4 Howling Mine
4 Ivory Tower
3 Icy Manipulator
4 Winter Orb
3 Millstone

Most reliable than a Channel - Fireball combo, this deck is made to lock your opponent.

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale + Winter Orb
Winter Orb + Icy Manipulator
and of course Gravity Sphere + Moat

Tap your winter orb with icy manipulator at the end of opponent's turn to see all your lands untap!

Like almost every challenge, the real problem is to lock faster enough. I tried to start with a 2 lands + moat every time, this saved my life a bunch. Be carefull with cards like Vindicate , Naturalize etc... try to keep 2 moat into play and everything will be ok.

There's no good or bad match up but flying creatures are longer to lock because you need a Gravity Sphere. Mirror match is a joke, the AI still don't know combo deck

Nice catch! I didn't know this rule was applied in old ML pre 6th rules, wonder if that mean old non C coded cards like Ankh of Mishra are still working that way...

Thank you Stassy!

I know this old rule because i played at the end of Revised edition and had luck to play this deck (without the Black lotus sadly ).

It's working with the orb and the Howling Mine, didn't try for the Ankh of Mishra but it's probably the same.

Of course this rule is outdated, the cards text change with the 6th. This strange rule definitely dissapear on May 2011 (Rules/Oracle Update).

For this challenge, I used a blue white control deck that mostly resembles The Deck from days past. It uses all the usual suspects, such as Swords to Plowshares, Wrath of God and Moat for creature control, Mana Drain to counter spells, and Ancestral Recall, Braingeyser, Library of Alexandria and Jayemdae Tome for card advantage. Perhaps it would be useful to cram an Ivory Tower in there somewhere, but all in all this deck worked wonders and let me take the challenge down in only a few tries.

.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.230 1 Sol Ring
.17 1 Black Lotus
.254 4 Tundra
.258 4 Underground Sea
.62 1 Demonic Tutor
.162 1 Mind Twist
.202 1 Regrowth
.10 1 Balance
.240 4 Swords to Plowshares
.290 2 Wrath of God
.131 2 Jayemdae Tome
.726 1 Moat
.44 3 Control Magic
.25 1 Braingeyser
.1 1 Ancestral Recall
.438 1 Library of Alexandria
.249 1 Time Walk
.250 1 Timetwister
.221 3 Serra Angel
.720 4 Mana Drain
.585 1 Boomerang
.64 1 Disenchant
.252 4 Tropical Island
.528 1 Strip Mine
.216 3 Scrubland
.212 1 Savannah
.126 1 Island
.84 1 Fireball
.266 2 Volcanic Island
.189 1 Plateau
.188 1 Plains

I went for the mana efficiency of Drop of Honey and Terror as tech, though they are often blanks. The 2 copies of Nevinyrral's Disk are for surprise situations. The Feldon's Cane is there to speed up the game or when Regrowth is burned on something other than Timetwister (often 3 Fireball are not enough). No particular matchups were tough except Goblin/Affinity god draws, and burn. Mana screw happens, maybe another land would be good.


1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Feldon's Cane

2 Disenchant
4 Moat
4 Wrath of God
4 Swords to Plowshares

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mind Twist
4 Terror

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Braingeyser
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk

4 Drop of Honey
1 Regrowth
1 Channel

3 Fireball

15 various dual lands

1 Library of Alexandria

My deck was, for all intents and purposes, the same one as markymark. Except I used the full set of Serra Angel and Control Magic. Also, I used Ring of Ma'rûf to find silver bullets to kill specific opponents (No restriction on the cards you can pick up with it, either ). Here's my list:

7 Plains
7 Island
4 Tundra
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

4 Serra Angel
3 Moat
1 Land Tax
1 Balance
4 Wrath of God
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Control Magic
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
4 Mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Ring of Ma'rûf

Not a lot of tweaking, given that I won on the 1st try, but you could probably replace the Timetwister and the Sol Ring with other, more useful options. I knew I wanted to keep the deck 2 colors to keep the mana as consistent as possible (I think the mana base probably needs more white sources), because splashing other colors can make you slow and you can't afford to be slow against Zombies or Goblins or even Slivers, and fast mana fixing just isn't viable in this format.
Feel free to constructively criticize or ask questions!

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but it doesn't seem to allow cards from Ice Age or Fallen Empires. It tells me there's an illegal card when I try to play decks with Hymn to Tourach, Necropotence or Adarkar Wastes. If these two sets are not allowed, I think the name shouldn't be back to '95.

This was supposed to be fixed in september 2013, I will report it.

Edit: Oups, according to Gargaroz

Guys, Ice Age is not allowed in this challenge (no Necropotence for an easy win, sorry !).
For the rest, I think I've added everything that was "lost in translation", but, believe me, with all those sparse IDs is a real pain.

So it's anything before Ice Age block up to Homeland I guess

Cool challenge that I showed domination for creature decks, run into a burn deck get ready to start over. Good luck guys, have fun.

.694 1 Karakas
.710 1 Land Tax
.438 1 Library of Alexandria
.377 4 Maze of Ith
.508 4 Mishra's Factory
.726 4 Moat
.351 4 Preacher
.806 4 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
.290 4 Wrath of God
.240 4 Swords to Plowshares
.221 4 Serra Angel
.396 1 Aladdin's Ring
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.17 1 Black Lotus
.230 1 Sol Ring
.188 12 Plains
.410 2 Diamond Valley
.398 1 Bazaar of Baghdad
.10 1 Balance
.503 4 Ivory Tower

Went with a UW control deck as well, nothing very funny. No Moats, more counterspells. Maze of Ith/Ivory Tower happiness. Easy challenge. Was close against affinity who went out fast and thoughtcasted a lot and took me down to 1 hp.

2 Plains
1 Island
4 Tundra
2 Scrubland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Underground Sea
4 Maze of Ith
1 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
1 CoP: Red (never used it, early ivory towers and counters were enough to beat burn decks)
4 Wrath of God
1 Balance (never used it)
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Mahamoti Djinn
4 Control Magic
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
2 Counterspell
4 Mana Drain
2 Boomerang
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Regrowth
5 Mox
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Jayemdae Tome
4 Ivory Tower


I have no idea what I unlocked, though? It mentionned something about 5 colors?