Reanimator

Deck by Gajol

Reanimating fatties is a strategy as old as the game itself; and if something is as old as the game itself of course you can build a deck based on it in 93/94. The game plan is the same as with any other reanimation deck in any other format, you just use different cards. That means that you first of all need a discard outlet to put a creature in your graveyard. Then you also need some cards that let you put creatures from your graveyard onto the battlefield.

The cards that you have at your disposal for the second part of the combo are Animate Dead, Resurrection, All Hallows Eve and to a lesser extent Hell’s Caretaker and Reincarnation. To bin your fatties, you can use cards like Jalum Tome, Bazaar of Baghdad and Mind Bomb. Just mix and match as you see fit to make up you deck. When it comes to the big monsters there are some problems as most of the big creatures in this format have horrible downsides. But some examples of creatures that you can use are Nicol Bolas, Chromium and Shivan Dragon.

Another reanimation target is the humongous Colossus of Sardia, but then you also need a plan for how to untap it. A couple of cool and interesting ideas that have been used in the past is getting another one with Transmute Artifact or sacrificing the monster with the card Sacrifice to end the opponent with a big Fireball, or to cast another Colossus of Sardia.

TaxEdge

Deck by Mg

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

Classic words that fits this deck perfectly! First you tax your opponent with Land Tax and then you make his or her death swift with the help of Land's Edge. Or to put it in Magic terms, you keep your land count lower than the opponents so that you can activate Land Tax over and over again to fill your hand with lands. Then you use Land's Edge to throw those lands at your opponent face. This is the foundation of the deck but the other part you can build in two different ways.

One way to go is to play cards like Swords to Plowshares, Disenchants and Ivory Tower to keep you alive until you can kill your opponent with the combo. The other way to build the deck as an aggro deck with a bunch of small creatures and Lightning Bolts and use the combo as the finisher.

Another card that can be played is Winds of Change, as it lets you exchange the lands in your hand to actual cards.

MirrorBall

Deck by Martin Jordö

MirrorBall is an unusual deck that actually wants the player to take damage, but in controlled forms of course. Why? you may ask. The answer is quite simple, you want to use your life as a resource to put yourself ahead of the opponent and then use Mirror Universe to change life total with him or her. The main card the deck uses for this purpose is Sylvan Library but there are other good cards as well.

Channel lets you convert your life into mana and Force of Nature is a formidable finisher, especially when you can skip paying the upkeep cost. Last but not least, if you don't include a Force of Nature don't forget to put in another wincon that you can use after you change life total.

Eureka!

Deck by Kenneth Mossberg

This is the Show and Tell deck of it's time and the game plan is simple; get to four mana as fast as possible, play Eureka and put a bunch of big creatures into play. For that extra surprise factor you can also play a couple of Concordant Crossroads so you can drop one with Eureka and attack right away.

This can even be a part of your main plan as Concordant Crossroads let you play creatures like Nicol Bolas who would otherwise be hard to keep around for one turn because of his upkeep cost.

The deck usually also have a plan B and that is to use mana dorks to actually hard cast the creatures. Another plan B that can be used is to play cards like Bazaar of Bagdad and Animate Dead as another way to put fatties into play to early. Last but not least you can also use Mana Flare as another way to cast your fatties.

Enchantress

Deck by Kenneth

The Enchantress archetype can be built in many ways but the foundation of Verduran Enchantress, Wild Growth, Fastbond and Sylvan Library usually stays the same. Verduran Enchantress is of course the engine of the deck as it lets you draw a whole bunch of cards if it stays in play. The cards you draw helps you build up a lot of mana which is later used to win the game in some way.

One classic wincon is to just Fireball your opponent to death but as 21 mana could be hard to reach the deck often use the combo Mirror Universe and Sylvan Library. Pay a bunch of life to draw a couple of cards and then change your life totals so the opponent becomes easier to finish of.

The Machine/Coffin Combo

Deck by Hardy

These two decks share the same idea, are quite similar and sometimes use the same cards so we'll bunch them together here. The idea is to reset the counters on the creatures Triskelion and Tetravus, so you'll be able to swarm the board with 1/1 creatures or just shoot the opponent in the face for a lot of damage.

Coffin Combo utilizes Tawnos Coffin for this purpose as it remembers the amount of counters on the creatures it exiles. Therefore, the creature returns with both three new counters and the ones it had when it was exiled.

The Machine instead uses Hell's Caretaker to reanimate the creatures over and over again and use the counters on them between each repetition. That's about it. The rest is up to you!

Candleflare

Deck by Felipe Garcia

This deck is all about cast huge fiery X spells right at your opponent's face. In the early game the deck focuses on playing mana ramp like Mana Vault and mana doublers like Mana Flare and Gauntlet of Might. Then, with a mana doubler or two in play the deck can use Candelabra of Tawnos to produce even more mana and when the time is right put all that mana into one or two giant Firaballs.

Another strategy that can be used is bouncing the Candelabra and Mana Vaults with Hurkyl's Recall to "reset" them and produce more mana. Last but not least the Candelabra of Tawnos can also be used with Mishra's Factory, Maze of Ith and Library of Alexandria for some extra value.

You can build this deck without Candelabra of Tawnos and instead go all in on the mana doublers and Forks, then the deck sometimes is called Big Red.

Twiddlevault

Deck by Felipe Garcia

This deck is a fragile but powerful combo deck that spends its early turns developing its board with Mana Vaults, Sylvan Library and Howling Mine. The plan after that involves getting a Time Vault on the table and as that card is restricted the deck usually plays a couple of Transmute Artifact. When the Time Vault is in play the deck starts to go off by untapping the Time Vault using Twiddle.

Each Twiddle becomes a one mana Time Walk and thanks to Howling Mines and Sylvan Library you usually end up drawing another Twiddle, Regrowth, Recall or actual Time Walk to continue taking turns. While taking all of the turns you also slowly build up your mana to be able to cast a big enough Fireball to end your opponent.

To make the kill a little easier the deck often utilizes Mirror Universe and Sylvan Library to give the opponent a lower life total to Fireball away.

Power Monolith

Deck by Gordon Andersson

This is a combo deck that utilizes a powerful combo which Wizards actually thought was to powerful and therefore tried to stop on many occasions by issuing different erratas.

The combo works by combining Power Artifact with Basalt Monolith. This makes the Monoliths untap cost become one colorless and as it still taps for three colorless you are able to get infinite mana. This mana is then used to end your opponent with a huge Fireball or sometimes the classic artifact Rocket launcher (but do remember that Rocket Launcher has "summoning sickness").

The rest of the deck can be built in many ways but it usually uses a lot of counterspells to keep you alive and protect the combo. Sometimes the deck is built like a toolbox deck that uses Transmute Artifact to get the right answers or combo pieces like Basalt Monolith and Rocket Launcher.

Trick Deck

Deck by Hardy

This deck is all about resolving an Underworld Dreams and then letting your opponent draw themselves to death. Of course that would take some time if you don't help them on their way, therefore you play cards like Wheel of Fortune, Winds of Change and sometimes also Howling Mine. If you want, you can also pair the Howling Mine with Relic Barrier.

The deck usually complements the main plan with a bunch of Lightning Bolts which can be used both as creature removal or for extra reach so that you can finish of the opponent after Underworld Dreams has done its thing.

Sometimes this decks contain a couple of creatures for another angle of attack but it can also be built completely without creatures so you can play a couple of The Abyss.

Leprechaun Ward

Deck by Henrik Berntsson

Leprechaun Ward may be the strangest deck in 93/94, but it's probably also one of the most fun decks. Especially if you like playing cards that no one else are playing. So let's dive into what the deck is all about; the foundation of the deck is to play a lot of green and white cards that synergizes in different strange ways. One of the more important cards is Circle of Protection: Green, and yes you heard right, green(!). The plan is to cast the COP: Green and then protect yourself from the opponent by making all his stuff green with the cards Lifelace and Aisling Leprechaun.

You can also use the card Green Ward to give the Leprechaun protection from green so that it will never die in combat and just continue to make all of you opponents creatures green. This should make you able to repel the opponent’s creatures quite well but of course you also need to win. One way is to use Force of Nature, as it only has a upkeep cost of 1 if you have a COP: Green on the table. And who knows, maybe you Leprechaun have turned all of your opponent's creatures green, then you can just put a Green Ward on your Force of Nature to make it "unblockable". How does that sound?

Parfait

Deck by Pefken

Parfait is an old Vintage archetype which started as a mono white tap out control deck with prison elements. The 93/94 Parfait deck is also often based in white but the main part of the deck is the artifact package. There are four central artifact pieces of the deck and those are Howling Mine, Winter Orb, Relic Barrier and Icy Manipulator.

These cards synergize heavily with each other and make up both the decks card engine and lockdown engine. The plan is to use Icy Manipulator and Relic Barrier to tap down the Howling Mine and Winter Orb so that only you get to draw cards and untap all of your lands.

Aside from these artifacts, the deck uses white for cards like Disenchant and Swords to Plowshares to be able to survive until it can set up a lock, and it can also use blue for counterspells. With blue the deck also get access to Transmute Artifact and of course, power.

Last but not least, don't forget to put in a wincon or two.

The Void

Deck by "oldschool"

This deck revolves around the card Nether Void and as with many other decks on this site The Void can be built in many different ways. Nether Void itself is a extremely powerful enchantment from Legends that makes everyone pay an extra three generic mana for all of his or her spells. This usually stops the opponent from playing spells and if you don't play spells you usually lose.

Of course the enchantment also affects you but as you know it's coming you can build your deck around it. One way is to combine Nether Void with a lot of land destruction, making the deck play a lot like Ponza but later locking the opponent out of the game completely by dropping a Nether Void.

Another way to build it is with cards like Dark Ritual and Mana Vault to power out the Nether Void even before the Opponent has three mana. Mana Vault is also quite good after the Nether Void has hit the table as you can untap it every other turn and cast expensive spells the other turns.

You can also choose to not play that many expensive spells so you can function even with the Nether Void in play. As with most prison style decks the deck run few wincons and one of the best is of course Mishra’s Factory as it doesn't cost any mana.

Ponza

Deck by Roland Johansson

The one archetype that WOTC hates more than anything else is without a doubt land destruction. That means that they sadly nowadays never ever print good land destruction cards.

Fortunately for us, things were quite different in the 90's and WOTC printed a bunch of nice land destruction cards in 1993 and 1994. Those cards are exactly what the Ponza deck is all about! Ponza is usually a black, red and green deck that include playsets of Sinkhole, Stone Rain and Ice Storm.

The deck's plan is simple, stop your opponent from playing magic by destroying his or her lands. The rest of the deck and the wincons differ but Dark Rituals and evil black creatures is a common way to go. Another card that could be considered is Crumble as it lets the deck destroy moxes as well.

Stasis

Deck by Henrik Jerberg

Few deck archetypes are so frowned upon as Stasis. But it's also loved by many players who essentially don't want their opponents to be able the play the game. Or in other words, they want to have ALL the fun themselves. The decks game plan is to use the namesake card Stasis to lock down the game until you can win.

How you win is probably the least important part of the deck and the wincon can be anything from a Feldon's Cane, which let you deck your opponent, to a Serra Angel that can attack without worrying about not untapping.

The most important part in the deck is how you turn Stasis is an asymmetrical effect. The most common way for this is to bounce Stasis at the end of your opponents turn with Boomerang or Time Elemental and then replay it on your turn. Another way is to use Reset to untap your lands and last but not least you can also play a Birds of Paradise and enchant it with Instill Energy.

Other cards that you usually find in a Stasis deck is removal and counterspells so that you can answer everything that slips through your Stasis lock. You can also use Howling Mines to deck the opponent even faster and Kismet to make his land drops obsolete.

Artifact Toolbox

Deck by Mg

This is a toolbox deck that is based around artifacts and its namesake card, Transmute Artifact. It uses Transmute Artifact and a bunch of different artifacts, mostly one ofs, to always be able to have a good answer to whatever the opponent is doing. As this format contains a lot of powerful artifacts the possibilities are endless, but some of the more common ones are Mirror Universe, Triskelion, Icy Manipulator, Jayemade Tome, Ivory Tower and City in a Bottle.

The two most common ways to build this deck is either mono blue or black and blue. The main reason for playing black is the card Guardian Beast. The beast helps you keep your artifacts intact by making them indestructible, but it also gives you access to two powerful combos. The first combo is with Chaos Orb as it lets you flip the orb without the orb being destroyed. The second combo is with Nevinyrral's Disk and lets you blow up all of your opponents permanents while all your artifacts, including the disk, stays on the table.

Distress

Deck by Mg

Distress is a deck with a very fitting name, because if you meet this deck, you will surely feel a lot of distress. The deck uses cards like Underworld Dreams, Warp Artifact, Pestilence and Black Vise to slowly bleed out the opponent instead of beating down with creatures.

To be able to slowly bleed someone out the deck of course need to stop the opponent from doing his or her thing. This is usually accomplished by playing Sinkhole, Icy Manipulator, Nevinyrral's Disk, The Abyss, City in a Bottle and the above mentioned Pestilence.

The deck often also uses the card draw engine of Relic Barrier and Howling Mine as both cards also serves other purposes, like tapping down Mishra's Factory and dealing damage with Underworld Dreams.

The Deck

Deck by Martin Berlin

This is THE control deck of the format. It's been around since the beginning of the game and was the best deck for many many years. The core of The Deck is blue and white but it splashes the other three colors to get access to all of the formats most powerful and restricted cards. It then combines those powerful cards with the formats most efficient answers in the form of Counterspell, Disenchant and Swords to Plowshares.

Another very important card is Jayemdae Tome which lets The Deck draw the answers it needs to survive. As wincons the deck usually use cards like Mishra's Factory, Serra Angel, The Hive or something similar.

Field of Dreams

Deck by Gordon Andersson

Ever heard of the Modern deck Lantern Control? This is the old school equivalent. The deck's signature card is Field of Dreams, a card which makes both players play with the top card of their library revealed.

With Field of Dreams in play the fun start as the deck then can use Millstone to control what the opponent will draw by milling him or her when there is a dangerous card on top. It can also be used to keep the opponent from ever drawing mana sources, which is even more fun (at least for the player who plays this deck).

Two other cards that the deck usually uses as card drawing engines are Sylvan Library and Sindbad. With Field of Dreams in play you will always know if Sindbad will work and Sylvan Library works well with Millstone as it lets you choose the best card out of three each turn. Also, Sylvan Library and Sindbad combos great with each other as you are able to put a land on top with the library and then draw it with Sindbad.

The deck's name comes from that the only way to win a timed round is to get the opponent to concede.