Nostalgic for Nostalgia

There’s nothing like putting on a pair of rose-colored Sunglasses of Urza and looking back upon a pleasantly distorted sense of the past. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but every time I see an OG art Hurricane, Nightmare or Breeding Pit, a wave of soothingness and calm washes over me.

Echoes of the past. Lifeblood of the present.

Something I’ve noticed over the last couple years is that Old School Magic is starting to feel… old. 2024 ushers in the five-year anniversary of the Akron Legionnaires (if anyone wants to buy me a gift of wood, I’d happily settle for a Mox Ruby), and I’ve been acquiring and playing underpowered Magic: the Gathering cards from the mid-90s for almost ten(!). For as much as I like to tell stories about experiences as I remember them from “back in the day,” my earliest experiences with “Old School” as an MtG format and community are starting to feel more historic than contemporary. Not that 2015 could ever elicit in me anything rivaling 1995, but the years definitely do keep moving.

Father Time, as they say, is undefeated.

A part of me keeps morbidly waiting for the other shoe to drop. When will brewing and playing with these old cards just not feel the same anymore? When will I run out of Duelist and InQuest articles to satiate my seemingly endless hunger to relive a bygone era filled with raging hormones and teenage angst?

Ask about my collection of free inserts :)

I hope the answer is “never,” but the reality is that I’ve been hedging against it for years. I tend to brew slowly, refining my uber-casual AL deck gauntlet often just one card at a time. I jot down deck ideas that I know may not be realized for literal years, if ever. We expand our jank card pool by playing Ice Age block (not at all sparingly), Mirage block (somewhat sparingly), and newer old-frame nonsense as much as you want, so long as you don’t break the causal meta and “push out” the sacrosanct likes of Coal Golem and Tower of Coireall. The goal is to keep the options fresh and varied... though no matter where I start to dabble, returning to 1994-era mono-green Thallids always feels like home.

Format staples

The point, I guess, is that I try to make sure I always have cards/decks/ideas in the hopper, because I never want to run out. Mathematically, there’s a lot you can do with a couple thousand-odd unique cards in a world where nothing is unplayable and adulting limits your MtG playing time to a handful of hours every few weeks. I think the longevity is there, for most of us. (As for the magazines… I try not to devour them too quickly or too often. It’s amazing the reread value you can squeeze from content that truly brings you joy.)

I’m not really one for decklists, but who knows if I’ll get around to posting again for another year or more... and I’d really like to show more of what we do within our “regular” AL meta, as opposed to just our wacky, semi-annual(ish) Legionnaire Nights. Our local playgroup here in northeast Ohio runs on self-regulated, casual Magic with (mostly) old school cards, continually striving for an environment where just about anything can be playable. I wasn’t kidding about Coal Golem up above, and have definitely lost games to a Golem-fueled Inferno at the hands of @old_school_unlimited. @seodfac will march all over you with Desert Nomads... after giving you control of one of his Deserts with Gauntlets of Chaos. Make no mistake, we walk the (desert)walk around these parts.

Call it jank, call it theme decks, call it whatever you like; it’s Legionnaire Magic to us. Here’s a photo of my deck “The Village,” assembled in the fall when we were obsessing over Halloween and I wanted to skew white (M. Night Shyamalan style) in a meta filled with thrulls, Headless Horsemen, and Black Carriages. The idea is that you’ve stumbled upon a creepy village inhabited by unscrupulous Moneychangers, Repentant Blacksmiths, and Preachers. If you’re not careful, you’re likely to get Brainwashed or sacrificed upon the Altar... maybe even exiled to the City of Shadows.

The three face-down cards? Not for the faint of heart...

We’re white weenie, but we run no Crusades, Savannah Lions or Swords to Plowshares. We have Pikemen. The village houses a lone White Knight and his Squire. Our priests conjure Holy Light and speak of Fire and Brimstone. We stave off evil by rousing an Angry Mob or calling upon our Exorcist. But lo: the villagers get into some dark dealings in the surrounding Ruins and Plains; should they happen to uncover the Black Mana Battery or open the Bottomless Vault, they might even unleash the...

...madness.

I love the foreboding, ominous mood that so many of these cards evoke, especially those painted by the esteemed Drew Tucker. I had the privilege of meeting and talking with Drew for the first time at Eternal Weekend in December, and was beyond thrilled to reacquaint him with his 1994 interview from Duelist #3. He was kind enough to sign it for me, along with a few of my constituents:

Legend

And so, I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief glimpse into our underground within the MtG underground; maybe we’ll find you here with us, someday. Until then, I leave you with a quote from one of humanity’s great modern thinkers:

“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”

We’re still in them, fellow old schoolers. Live them to the fullest.