Brandon Drennan Yeah! Until you guess wrong of course, or the meta diversifies. That’s why I said it’s not a reliable strat, the metagame has to be insanely saturated with one particular archetype for a “Solution” to actually work, and this saturated metagame needs to not yet have effective counter archetypes, *and* there need to be enough cards with hoser keywords in rotation to even construct a “Solution”. It is insanely unreliable and not a strategy that will win you multiple tourneys. But it doesn’t need to, because you only need to win *one* based off of a prediction strategy for people to think you’re a madcap genius and to get yourself some real fame (and a possible HoF spot, though that’s unlikely since at the very best you’ll be the second one to pull this trick). If you want to win consistently, build an actual deck instead of jank. If you want to play some high-stakes wizard roulette though, you try to make a “Solution”. Ain’t nothin’ like the thrill of a gamble.
The "Harmless Pact" deck would probably have done a little more in Standard - if Magic Origins (and with it Demonic Pact) hadn't rotated in Fall of 2016. Sure, it probably wouldn't have set the world on fire, but that combination of cards was only legal in Standard for about 3,5 months.
The pact deck was actually solid because you had silumgars command and disperse at instant speed to bounce pact on end step. So the only decks that could really stop you were green decks that could pop the pact or a deck with multiple cheap counter spells. Was easily one of my favorite standard decks. I once dealt 20 damage off of just pacts
I think you were harsh on #1. Deadly Insect I don't fully understand, but all the rest makes perfect sense in Pyroclasm heavy metagame. Often times Olle could pyroclasm before combat and attack with impunity.
Deadly Insect was great at the time. Particularly if you had lots of removal. He played Stormbind which basically meant every card could be removal. In a creature light environment it was very difficult to kill. The thing about pyroclasm misses the point. Yes, it died to Pyroclasm. But it ONLY died to pyoclasm, and basically nothing else. And none of his other creatures died to Pyroclasm. So basically, your opponent would either keep them in, and have them be almost worthless against most of your creatures, or take them out, in which case Deadly Insect was unkillable. Again: creature light environment.
For the entire time that demonic pact was in standard I ran decks that played it, I just loved the card so much. My favorite was definitely the demonic pact starfield deck. I basically ran all the o-ring cards, demonic pact, and starfield to try and beat them down with my enchantments.
GW Quest was one of my favorite Standard decks; its nut draw made you feel like you were playing Vintage and it played surprisingly well even when it couldn't pull that off.
Sooooo... some of the decks listed as janky are actually just very well constructed for their meta. Rade list was VERY well positioned against the field. And deadly insect was a total house against the right deck. His deck contained lots of 3/4 toughness dudes to avoid pyroclasm and the aggressive knight decks. Zvi made a great call as well. The quest deck was a gimmick deck. The goal was not to slowly get the armor out with stoneforge. It was designed for a lightning fast lock. Just because you dont understand the gimmick doesnt mean it was built poorly. Champagne had a lot of pro black knights in his deck, and would be playing against a lot of pro white knights. It was a pretty tech play. Not a bad include during that format. There are surely waaaay worse decks that have top 8 major tournaments.
I remember I designed a mono white knights tribal for Extended, around the time Mirrodim was out. Using Shared Triumph and Parallax Wave to handle blockers. It did great in local tournaments beating often the moments sensation first ever affinity.
Really fun analysis video! It's always fun to hear about the craziest ways players won, or the worst, or most mediocre things that found success! Thanks for uploading!
Great video, I had to comment about my favorite janky deck that won anything (though I believe it was only a PTQ top 8), which was a Warp World deck during Time Spiral/Lorwyn standard. It played tons of ramp like Wall of Roots and Coalition Relic with a gameplan of flashing in Bogardan Hellkite oppentent's EOT to draw any counters, then Warp World during your next turn if the coast was clear. Good times.
I have my own version of the Warp World deck & it's SO much fun to play. Using Kikki-Jikki on Avenger of Zendikar/Siege Gang Commander to flood the board with plant/goblin tokens then Warping most of your deck into play never gets old.
I love this kind of video! Interesting MTG history combined with thoughtful, subjective ranking, rather than a simple objective listing. Please give moar!
To me, the durdly artifact decks like Lantern Control, Eggs, and KCI are some of the most janky decks in the format, which also happen to be so successful that they've gotten cards banned.
A third copy of Serra Angel or more Armageddons would not have helped that White Weenie decks out against the monoblack Aggro decks that literally had 12 copies of 2 power pro-white for 2 creatures in the main. That’s also why he had those awful 3/4 Artifact creatures with downside.
The owling mine deck was a super great meta game choice because of the "House" deck that a lot of people played that year. It was a GWB deck that was a grindy midrange deck with lots of 3-6 cost cards and couldn't empty it's hand quickly. Owling mine was played by more than a couple of players and it essentially killed everything that wasn't cheap aggro. Which is what the rest of top 8 was that year. The Solution Deck was strictly a metagame call that was completely correct using the fact that most people aren't confident enough to not run the #1 best deck/cards at a PT level event.
Love these types of videos for the record. All your videos are awesome but for some reason I particularly enjoy the subjective ones. For example, I used your Most Confusing Cards video as a checklist of things to try :P
Nekusar has some key differences from Owling Mine tho', as he deals damage on each drawn card. This allows his decks to fill the table with symmetrical draw effects and wheel those cards out, not giving the opponents the chance to play their cards(which becomes frustrating in a Singleton format where not every deck has recursion.). The Owl has to wait for the opponent's upkeep and is interested in maintaining a high card count in an opponent's hand.
I honestly thought the quest deck was a top tier deck at one time. I never really played much standard but I definitely remember that deck being thrown around and I remember when some of the cards jumped up in value all of the sudden. Another deck that I kind of thought of was the sovereigns if lost Alara deck with eldrazi conscriptions. Not really sure how well the deck did but I thought it did decently but it felt like one of those decks that could have a lot of things go wrong. I loved the idea of it and I actually did play a little bit with it because I love that card
Zach M: Sovereigns of Lost Alara and Eldrazi Conscription were part of one of the most successful Standard decks of its time, Mythic Conscription. It was also the first Standard deck to break the $1000.00 pricetag to buy from scratch.
sdfkjgh That maybe true I don’t know all the statistics but I definitely thought the deck was kind of Janky By typical standard that’s why I mentioned it. Auras themselves typically aren’t played in competitive magic so a deck built around one like that I feel could be considered as such
I was never in the tournament scene back in the day, limited as it was in my country (and being quite young and inexperienced with card games back then), but I remember Deadly Insect being quite a sought card back in the day, reaching a nice price in the market.
Great topic, thank you! :) For another video idea - how about top 10 most out-of-place cards? Cards that completely go against the theme of their set, like if there was a crazy unicorn creature in a more realistic set like Kamigawa or something.
Ahh Draco Explosion... At the time I hadn't heard of it since I didn't follow tournaments, but I had my own variant of it going on the kitchen table around 2003 using Pyromancy instead of Erratic Explosion and also including other hilariously priced cards like Dragon Tyrant. There was just something fun about tapping mana, shuffling up your hand, and letting your opponent pick a card to kill them.
The rules for damage were different in the Ice Age block. Tapped blockers did no damage. The deadly insect was always paired with Icy Manipulator. People would attack with deadly insect then tap down blockers with Icy Manipulator, the Deadly Insect would Kill the blocker and still live.
At my LGS many years, this one guy who went on top8 a few big events, won a few FNM with a deck featuring Mythic Proportions plus Nomad Mythmaker plus any discard mechanic. It was janky as hell but it was also so good!
What about the Naya lightsaber deck from years back. It's argued as the worst deck to win a pro tour . Hell it actually put multiple people into a top 8 of a pro tour and they even called it jank.
@@Reinreith i never said it had to be #1. I just think it's amusing when a few well known players, can't remember which of the top of my head paint it to be better jank and they couldn't even understand how it did so well. At best it at least deserved an honorable mention. Although since it's personal preference for the list, I've gotta say it a good list.
@@mageius cascade and also lightsaber Tribal seems to be the engine at first glance. Even tho there's more big Mana cards than low mana I do like the look of it a lot ( :
You forgotten about the Pili-Pala, Grand Architect, Filigree Sages, Carnage Altar, Reaper King, Door to Nothingness, Skeleton Key deck that I had piloted. It sucked yet rocked.
Did the 61-card, 5-color deck that won world's in 1997 really not make the list? I feel like Winning the tournament with a 61st card should definitely get something on this list.
In certain cases, like with Gabriel Nassif's 5 color control deck, going with 61 can make your spell/mana balance better than if you had gone with 60. Of course, any more than that and you're just making your deck worse.
@@Magnivore519 Even though I'm the one who called it janky for having 61, I do actually understand the logic. A pro can look at the mana costs of the cards they have and the curve they make and mathematically determine the exact ratio of lands to spells they want in their deck for the highest chance to be able to play everything at the right at the time without flooding. The deck in question had 39 spells to 22 lands, a ratio of 1 land to every 1.77 spells. He could have removed a spell and had a ratio of 1: 1.73 or he could have removed a land for a ratio of 1: 1.86 If we assume that everything about his deck building was extremely deliberate, then he must have determined 1: 1.77 was closest to the ideal ratio for the deck, but as you can see he could only achieve that ratio by running 61 cards, and would have to settle for one farther from perfection if he only ran 60 cards. Still, decks are rarely built this way because there is a big price to it. Adding a 61st card slightly decreases the chance that you'll draw any given 4-of in your deck, so it can be a dangerous strategy for decks with some cards that are better for others, and especially for decks built entirely around 1 or 2 specific cards. For 61 cards to make sense you have to value that perfect land: spell ratio and being able to cast things more than you value getting to any given specific card in your deck. Hope that helped, and sorry if there's any factor I forgot to consider!
Olle Rade's PT Winning Deck is a testament to his Hall of Fame Inductee brilliance! Actually try the deck against the metagame, and you'll discover its perfect positioning, efficient cantrip card draw, and (relative to the format) aggressive beatdown strategy. The fact that people today are still knocking his first PT Winning deck shows how little people have bothered to learn about Ice Age Block Constructed. I almost qualified for that Pro Tour, so I playtested the format quite a bit. And I'd have to say his deck was not janky in reality, but on paper, yes, it does look janky to those who don't know the format. I remember seeing his list after he had won and thinking to myself, "Ahhh!!! Yes, that was perfect! Ugly, but perfect!!!"
@@NizzahonMagic It's all merely my own opinion, but here are my thoughts as to why i think, Yes, this deck made sense:... Apparently, 4 Main Deck Deadly Insects was a good call, despite any perception that the metagame had a lot of Pyroclasms in it. Fellow finalist Sean Fleischman had 2 main deck Pyroclasms in his blue/white/red/black control deck, but he also had SIX pinpoint removal spells: 3 Swords to Plowshares & 3 Incinerates. Therefore, Olle's 4 Deadly Insects shut down 75% of Fleishman's creature removal. During that Meta (Ice Age Block Constructed), pinpoint removal was HUGE (Swords to Plowshares, Exile, Incinerate, Dark Banishing, Stormbind, etc.), as evidenced in Sean Fleischman's Finalist control deck with 6 such spells, and to have 4 creatures in your deck that completely blanked all the pinpoint removal (which was far more common overall than Pyroclasms), while still having 10 Total Pinpoint removal spells/permanents yourself (4 of which are repeatable permanents) in terms of 4x Incinerate, 2x Orcish Artillery, 2x Lava Burst, and 2x Stormbind to clear the path for your 4 untouchable 6-power creatures was a brilliant strategy. Rade's single main deck copy of Pyroclasm was more of an emergency button "just in case" that would be no big deal for Olle to work around. Of course, I'm sure that when his other 2 Pyroclasms get sideboarded in, or if the opponent was playing Red, then at least 3 or perhaps all 4 of the Deadly Insects came out. Finally: Olle Rade made up for any weakness in having 4 main deck Deadly Insects against any Pyroclasms by ALSO having TWELVE other low-CMC creatures with toughness 3 or greater (including the Storm Shamans, which I liked also as another brilliant move as a repeatable Fireball-threat if Opponents dared to cast Pyroclasm.) In recent years, I've even spoken online with one of Olle's playtest partners for that specific event (1996 PT Columbus), and he told me that they were very aware of Pyroclasm and built Olle's deck appropriately for it. Of course, this is all just my own opinion & interpretation, but I knew that Ice Age Block constructed metagame very well and playtested heavily for it, and I personally thought Olle Rade's victory was well deserved for a very metagame-appropriate deck. Lady Luck could have had the cards fall many different ways that day, but Olle ceretainly worked luck in his favor, which he continued to do with his career total *FIVE* PT Top 8's (in an era with very few annual Pro Tours). Perhaps you've already seen this, but you can watch Olle Rade play the deck at PT Columbus 1996 both here: ruclips.net/video/v9OeRejEufc/видео.html and again in the finals against Sean Fleischman here: ruclips.net/video/JZVXIbVmEVA/видео.html. You will see some of the points I discussed above on display in the videos. Unfortunately, not every moment nor every game is shown, but what is there is quite insightful in understanding how Olle dealt with an equally amazing R/U/W/B control deck.
Hehe, I remember trying to play ‘Storm Shaman’ (3 mana 0/4 pumpable) in casual decks. It drew some respect, or my playing the card drew some respect, just because it had a top 8 finish. That must have been why people didn’t react Toni’s with, ‘totally stupid’.
I love jankie decks :> To me a deck that only wins 30-40% and relies on luck can be fun, because it's so awesome when it works :> My favorite decks from the past I've used. Tolarian serpent/bazaar of wonders mill deck, just so much slowly milling my opponent and him losing cards he can play while I'm almost always able to cast every spell I have. Only trouble 7 mana was a huge cost for the power of the serpent. Wich it was cheaper. 2nd turn force of nature rush, that was always fun, didn't win often, but the look on peoples faces when a 8/8 trample with upkeep I can play hits the table 2nd turn is funny.
I mean, if you know the meta, you can pretty much prepare for anything. Jund Dinos is a recent proof of this point. No one was prepared for M20's 2 special dinosaurs in the current standard meta and it did really well for a time. Izzet Phoenix did the same thing. In any new release, most people immediately gravitate towards what worked in the past meta, or they build Burn. But the best brewers immediately begin working with new cards to form an alternative strategy that covers against Burn and counters the current meta. And where do they show off their new decks? At the first big event after the release. From there it is relatively easy to top the event as long as you can manage the less predictable matchups such as other brewers with a brand new kit.
For that 4 mana, the Giant Mantis could be a 5/5 (with reach). An ability "G:", "GT:" or a combat trigger that is flavourful for him being a giant mantis would be nice too. Without the ability 4/6, 6/4, 5/6, 6/5, or even 6/6 seems reasonable.
I haven’t watched it yet but I’m betting that a dragon storm deck will be on this list and the deck that won worlds that had a 61 card library. Edit: So, I was completely wrong. That was some raw jank garbage. Good stuff
John finkel almost won an invitational with battle of wits he took 3rd on tie breakers. It was the one that made solemn i have a sideboard or scry magazine with the coverage of it.
I wouldn't consider it to count as it was the first deck to audit in favor of a curve. It really was one of the best decks of its time, and was copied successfully...so much so that non-tribal aggro creature-based decks are still oft referred to as Sligh, especially in red. It's only janky to our eyes today because of how much better creatures as a whole are now.
Holy crap, now i remember. One of the kids ended up 2nd on our FNM tournament with Draco and Erratic Explosion. We all thought how genius that was. Turn out he was a netdecker, that's so fucked up.
The funniest thing about Owling Mine is it's why One With Nothing was printed, iirc, as a counter to it. So if you're wondering why the king of bad cards exists, it's because of a jank deck.
Nope, that's an urban legend. They were printed in the same set. The way design goes, they had no idea Owling Mine would be a deck when they printed One With Nothing. There is also no record of people at the highest level running One With Nothing in their sideboards, as is often stated. The deck was flash in the pan, so needing to sideboard against it wasn't a big deal. My guess is one or two pros talked about putting it in their sideboard, and people have Mandela Effected that into "Everyone was sideboarding it!"
I hit top 4 in a huge tourney in mirage block with a griffin deck. They hosed black n red a ton and were all flying so very hard to deal with. Helm of awakening make em come out fast. Disenchant and swords to plowshares for pesky permanants, mangaras blessing and something ward from visions. Even ran cop in side board. I screwed myself cuz i was young n dumb n played a 2nd copy of zuberi golden feather n lost cuz it buried my other. Would have stomped him regardless, but he played wildfire emmisary n i could do nothing against it lol. Still was like 200 or so folk there and i got 3rd and was only like 14 or 15 at the time...id say i did rather well
Hey you forgot Lee Shi Tian’s Jeskai Ascendancy combo deck from circa 2015, with Dragon Mantle, Astral Cornucopia pure jank and that transformational SB with big creatures and Nissa lol
Did you just call GW Quest of the holy Relic an underwhelming deck? This was one of the top tier of that meta, not to mention that the only sword available back then was Sword of Body and Mind, making Stoneforge mystic not that useful and Argentum Armour a better choice.
My favorite janky deck that had a Top 8 has to be Guillaume Wafo-Tapa's Wild Pair Sliver Deck from Gran Prix: Montreal 2007. Looks like it was a blast to play though.
Unfortunately it was consistent even for as janky as it was. I remember my old LCS we had at least 2-3 people playing it. Ironically I ran the Temur Ascendancy combo 6 months later which felt way jankier.
Not a criticism, just a thought, you mention their "choices" alot in this one, but i think you forget, in magics early days the available singles pool wasn't anything like today, and subsequently lead to "you play what you've got" type strats. I think this could explain alot of the choices people made, they may have liked a certain card over another but had no way to get it. At least this was the case for me when i was younger. I buy booster boxes now sure, but as a child id be lucky to get a pack a week. And ran alot of jank as a result.
I think the point was that magic is more about skill than just your deck. Talk to guys all the time who built an all common deck and went to tournaments and kicked butt.
We want the deck lists FWIW; I kinda have to disagree w Deadly Insects being bad back then. It has 6 power (for the mana that was huge then) and on a clear board it was about as good as it got then. This card was played in a deck called bug bind that was included in the Garfield vs Finkel box. It’s what Richard Garfield lost w vs Finkel’s, I think, Necro deck. There are a few creatures like this in the deck that have hex proof and are x/1’s and stormbind kept the board clear w some success. If that deck was a red green “bug bind” deck I wouldn’t even call it jank for the time. Great vid as always though 🖖namaste
Yeah I definitely remember people treating deadly insect as an actual threat in those days. Part of it was that people ran less creatures in general (creatureless decks were munch more common) so it could get in some hits against an opponent.
@@NizzahonMagic The deck I remember was WAY before 2010, but I can see how it could cause chaos! Not sure if exile effects triggered Megrim's damage however.
I collected very few cards from Urza's block. There was such a flood of expansions since Visions, I could barely keep up. The last most collected for me was Stronghold/ Tempest, and some Weatherlight, then I stopped. Your channel is very interesting in that regard, since the cards I remember most are vintage, or as we referred to them as T1.
When I see "cat pact", I only think of how the dream could've been feasible had rotation not been changed at the time. You only got to see them together for 3-5 months. That plus you lost fetchlands and Dig Through Time as well. Then again, collected company and 4c dragons decks would've been in the format. I wanted so bad for a trix concept to be standard viable.
I think you were too harsh on Tom's slight of mind. The necropotence deck were big then and packed 8 pro white pump night main. Then in the board had gloom, dystopia, dread of night and other such nonsense.
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The trick of constructing decks like “The Solution” is that while prediction is not a reliable deckbuilding strategy, it only needs to work once.
So just make meta killers and go undefeated. Sounds good.
Brandon Drennan Yeah!
Until you guess wrong of course, or the meta diversifies. That’s why I said it’s not a reliable strat, the metagame has to be insanely saturated with one particular archetype for a “Solution” to actually work, and this saturated metagame needs to not yet have effective counter archetypes, *and* there need to be enough cards with hoser keywords in rotation to even construct a “Solution”. It is insanely unreliable and not a strategy that will win you multiple tourneys.
But it doesn’t need to, because you only need to win *one* based off of a prediction strategy for people to think you’re a madcap genius and to get yourself some real fame (and a possible HoF spot, though that’s unlikely since at the very best you’ll be the second one to pull this trick). If you want to win consistently, build an actual deck instead of jank. If you want to play some high-stakes wizard roulette though, you try to make a “Solution”. Ain’t nothin’ like the thrill of a gamble.
@@phillipmele8533 what about in yugioh, where rogue decks are willingly changed up from event to event specifically to take down whatever deck is #1
@@NoBody-ro3xj thats how metas work...
The best part about Owling Mine is that it's countered by One With Nothing.
Can't figure out my plan if I toss it out the window.
jank cannot be defined, for it's a lifestyle...
Oh yes please!!
Me: runs jank
Them: but this don't work its not tier strategies, cards, or deck
Me: Japanese kamakazies wore helmets.
@@NoBody-ro3xj lol love it.
Why ot showing the deck lists along? Would have been way cooler to understand why it is so janky!
You have the players and the events... Is not that difficult to look up the lists yourself.
@@TheStalk nor would it be that difficult for them to look up the lists and put them in the video, saving thousands of people time in the process
I don't think seeing the list is going to show me why it's janky. Nizzahon did the right move here.
IKR???? how am I supposed to find them??? I can't find them anywhere!
@@Shikogo here you go: magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/week-was/grand-plans-2006-06-02
now THIS is a list
The "Harmless Pact" deck would probably have done a little more in Standard - if Magic Origins (and with it Demonic Pact) hadn't rotated in Fall of 2016. Sure, it probably wouldn't have set the world on fire, but that combination of cards was only legal in Standard for about 3,5 months.
I ran owling mine back in the day and I loved it. I even ran some tidespout tyrant to keep my opponents hand full. What a fun janky deck
It was super fun for sure
The pact deck was actually solid because you had silumgars command and disperse at instant speed to bounce pact on end step. So the only decks that could really stop you were green decks that could pop the pact or a deck with multiple cheap counter spells. Was easily one of my favorite standard decks. I once dealt 20 damage off of just pacts
Jank should be celebrated, not scorned!
Jank is the primordial soup from which all other decks emerge.
👏👏👏👏
Thanks for a great video!
Olle Råde is actually a member of the hall of fame and has a card to his name , Sylvan safekeeper.
Donate/illusions of Grandeur was one of my first pet decks, so I was ecstatic when Cat Pact top 8'd.
If you think these decks are bad you should see what they beat.
I think you were harsh on #1. Deadly Insect I don't fully understand, but all the rest makes perfect sense in Pyroclasm heavy metagame. Often times Olle could pyroclasm before combat and attack with impunity.
Deadly Insect was great at the time. Particularly if you had lots of removal. He played Stormbind which basically meant every card could be removal. In a creature light environment it was very difficult to kill.
The thing about pyroclasm misses the point. Yes, it died to Pyroclasm. But it ONLY died to pyoclasm, and basically nothing else. And none of his other creatures died to Pyroclasm. So basically, your opponent would either keep them in, and have them be almost worthless against most of your creatures, or take them out, in which case Deadly Insect was unkillable. Again: creature light environment.
@@zbigreddogz oh, gotcha, thanks, sincerely.
For the entire time that demonic pact was in standard I ran decks that played it, I just loved the card so much. My favorite was definitely the demonic pact starfield deck. I basically ran all the o-ring cards, demonic pact, and starfield to try and beat them down with my enchantments.
As a Johnny player, this list has given me too many bad ideas..
Ian Ilgner Johnny Johnny... playing jank?
Ian Ilgner you mean *AWESOME* ideas.
GW Quest was one of my favorite Standard decks; its nut draw made you feel like you were playing Vintage and it played surprisingly well even when it couldn't pull that off.
Nizzahon,
Did you make an accidental error on Fauna quest by putting PT Paris 2001 instead of 2011?
Elliot Lesser so it would seem
You could use the criteria of decks whose cards have the fewest combined points.
Sooooo... some of the decks listed as janky are actually just very well constructed for their meta.
Rade list was VERY well positioned against the field. And deadly insect was a total house against the right deck. His deck contained lots of 3/4 toughness dudes to avoid pyroclasm and the aggressive knight decks. Zvi made a great call as well.
The quest deck was a gimmick deck. The goal was not to slowly get the armor out with stoneforge. It was designed for a lightning fast lock. Just because you dont understand the gimmick doesnt mean it was built poorly.
Champagne had a lot of pro black knights in his deck, and would be playing against a lot of pro white knights. It was a pretty tech play. Not a bad include during that format.
There are surely waaaay worse decks that have top 8 major tournaments.
I remember I designed a mono white knights tribal for Extended, around the time Mirrodim was out. Using Shared Triumph and Parallax Wave to handle blockers. It did great in local tournaments beating often the moments sensation first ever affinity.
Really fun analysis video! It's always fun to hear about the craziest ways players won, or the worst, or most mediocre things that found success! Thanks for uploading!
Seems like this list just proofs how important skill is in mtg, a bunch of the best players top 8ing events with jank
This proofs how important luck and cheating is in paper magic ;)
Do more of these!
Great video, I had to comment about my favorite janky deck that won anything (though I believe it was only a PTQ top 8), which was a Warp World deck during Time Spiral/Lorwyn standard. It played tons of ramp like Wall of Roots and Coalition Relic with a gameplan of flashing in Bogardan Hellkite oppentent's EOT to draw any counters, then Warp World during your next turn if the coast was clear. Good times.
I have my own version of the Warp World deck & it's SO much fun to play. Using Kikki-Jikki on Avenger of Zendikar/Siege Gang Commander to flood the board with plant/goblin tokens then Warping most of your deck into play never gets old.
I love this kind of video! Interesting MTG history combined with thoughtful, subjective ranking, rather than a simple objective listing. Please give moar!
Thanks!
I wish anyone would have won a Pro Tour Top 8 with The Cheese Stands Alone, err, with Barren Glory.
Yes I'd love to see that.
Fauna quest sounds like a deck that someone would build after SFM was banned just to feel powerful again
I love this concept I hope and trust the video will live up to expectations!
To me, the durdly artifact decks like Lantern Control, Eggs, and KCI are some of the most janky decks in the format, which also happen to be so successful that they've gotten cards banned.
dont think i could call them jank, those decks look like jank at first, but oh boi the brain you need to pilot that pile of nonsense
I wouldn’t call those decks jank because they’re pretty consistent. More like the MTG equivalent of a Rube Goldberg machine.
If a deck is consistent and successful, how is it jank?
@@a.velderrain8849 because he loses to it
Do you consider decks "janky" because you consistently lose to them?
A third copy of Serra Angel or more Armageddons would not have helped that White Weenie decks out against the monoblack Aggro decks that literally had 12 copies of 2 power pro-white for 2 creatures in the main. That’s also why he had those awful 3/4 Artifact creatures with downside.
The owling mine deck was a super great meta game choice because of the "House" deck that a lot of people played that year. It was a GWB deck that was a grindy midrange deck with lots of 3-6 cost cards and couldn't empty it's hand quickly. Owling mine was played by more than a couple of players and it essentially killed everything that wasn't cheap aggro. Which is what the rest of top 8 was that year.
The Solution Deck was strictly a metagame call that was completely correct using the fact that most people aren't confident enough to not run the #1 best deck/cards at a PT level event.
Fun fact: deck #5 won the very first World Champs and Tom is the original owner of the "1996 World Champion" card.
Love these types of videos for the record. All your videos are awesome but for some reason I particularly enjoy the subjective ones. For example, I used your Most Confusing Cards video as a checklist of things to try :P
Nekusar the Mindrazor is a symmetrical card deck in EDH and he is one of the most hated commanders out there
Nekusar the Mindrazer is asymmetrical, "Whenever an opponent draws a card, Nekusar, the Mindrazer deals 1 damage to that player"
OP means that the deck is built around symmetrical card draw effects. They're drawing a comparison between Nekusar edh decks and Owling Mine decks.
"Most hated" doesnt *necessarily* mean good. Besides, edh doesnt have premier events
Nekusar has some key differences from Owling Mine tho', as he deals damage on each drawn card. This allows his decks to fill the table with symmetrical draw effects and wheel those cards out, not giving the opponents the chance to play their cards(which becomes frustrating in a Singleton format where not every deck has recursion.). The Owl has to wait for the opponent's upkeep and is interested in maintaining a high card count in an opponent's hand.
I honestly thought the quest deck was a top tier deck at one time. I never really played much standard but I definitely remember that deck being thrown around and I remember when some of the cards jumped up in value all of the sudden. Another deck that I kind of thought of was the sovereigns if lost Alara deck with eldrazi conscriptions. Not really sure how well the deck did but I thought it did decently but it felt like one of those decks that could have a lot of things go wrong. I loved the idea of it and I actually did play a little bit with it because I love that card
Zach M: Sovereigns of Lost Alara and Eldrazi Conscription were part of one of the most successful Standard decks of its time, Mythic Conscription. It was also the first Standard deck to break the $1000.00 pricetag to buy from scratch.
sdfkjgh That maybe true I don’t know all the statistics but I definitely thought the deck was kind of Janky By typical standard that’s why I mentioned it. Auras themselves typically aren’t played in competitive magic so a deck built around one like that I feel could be considered as such
I was never in the tournament scene back in the day, limited as it was in my country (and being quite young and inexperienced with card games back then), but I remember Deadly Insect being quite a sought card back in the day, reaching a nice price in the market.
Great topic, thank you! :)
For another video idea - how about top 10 most out-of-place cards? Cards that completely go against the theme of their set, like if there was a crazy unicorn creature in a more realistic set like Kamigawa or something.
You mean like Sliver Overlord being the only sliver in it's set?
Ahh Draco Explosion... At the time I hadn't heard of it since I didn't follow tournaments, but I had my own variant of it going on the kitchen table around 2003 using Pyromancy instead of Erratic Explosion and also including other hilariously priced cards like Dragon Tyrant. There was just something fun about tapping mana, shuffling up your hand, and letting your opponent pick a card to kill them.
The rules for damage were different in the Ice Age block. Tapped blockers did no damage. The deadly insect was always paired with Icy Manipulator. People would attack with deadly insect then tap down blockers with Icy Manipulator, the Deadly Insect would Kill the blocker and still live.
The deck has 0 main board manipulators, and only one in sideboard.
i remember a deck nicknamed "TrollHammer" and it did rather well once in a top 8 event. Tribal Shaman for the janky win!
At my LGS many years, this one guy who went on top8 a few big events, won a few FNM with a deck featuring Mythic Proportions plus Nomad Mythmaker plus any discard mechanic. It was janky as hell but it was also so good!
What about the Naya lightsaber deck from years back. It's argued as the worst deck to win a pro tour . Hell it actually put multiple people into a top 8 of a pro tour and they even called it jank.
"multiple people" that's your problem, only the first deck has more than one point
@@Reinreith i never said it had to be #1. I just think it's amusing when a few well known players, can't remember which of the top of my head paint it to be better jank and they couldn't even understand how it did so well. At best it at least deserved an honorable mention. Although since it's personal preference for the list, I've gotta say it a good list.
@@mageius cascade and also lightsaber Tribal seems to be the engine at first glance. Even tho there's more big Mana cards than low mana I do like the look of it a lot ( :
I love jank decks. All of my best tournament results have been with jank decks. This list made me happy.
I like the costs 6 for a flying 9/9 card.
it could cost 4 if you include wastes, 2 if add new ugin
Perfect upload time as always
I hope battle of wits makes an appearance. Saw it at a few Ravnica PTQs.
I'm shocked that the Battle of Wits deck is only number 4. I thought that would top the list for sure.
Could you post a link to the full deck lists in the description for browsing and amusement?
You forgotten about the Pili-Pala, Grand Architect, Filigree Sages, Carnage Altar, Reaper King, Door to Nothingness, Skeleton Key deck that I had piloted.
It sucked yet rocked.
Sounds lovely and fun to run.
I remember "The Solution", Owling Mine, and the Battle of Wits decks. Those were all hilarious.
Did the 61-card, 5-color deck that won world's in 1997 really not make the list? I feel like Winning the tournament with a 61st card should definitely get something on this list.
In certain cases, like with Gabriel Nassif's 5 color control deck, going with 61 can make your spell/mana balance better than if you had gone with 60. Of course, any more than that and you're just making your deck worse.
@@hiimemily Can you elaborate on how adding a card improved the balance of the deck?
hi i'm emily Yeah, can you explain the math?
@@Magnivore519 Even though I'm the one who called it janky for having 61, I do actually understand the logic.
A pro can look at the mana costs of the cards they have and the curve they make and mathematically determine the exact ratio of lands to spells they want in their deck for the highest chance to be able to play everything at the right at the time without flooding.
The deck in question had 39 spells to 22 lands, a ratio of 1 land to every 1.77 spells. He could have removed a spell and had a ratio of 1: 1.73 or he could have removed a land for a ratio of 1: 1.86
If we assume that everything about his deck building was extremely deliberate, then he must have determined 1: 1.77 was closest to the ideal ratio for the deck, but as you can see he could only achieve that ratio by running 61 cards, and would have to settle for one farther from perfection if he only ran 60 cards.
Still, decks are rarely built this way because there is a big price to it. Adding a 61st card slightly decreases the chance that you'll draw any given 4-of in your deck, so it can be a dangerous strategy for decks with some cards that are better for others, and especially for decks built entirely around 1 or 2 specific cards. For 61 cards to make sense you have to value that perfect land: spell ratio and being able to cast things more than you value getting to any given specific card in your deck.
Hope that helped, and sorry if there's any factor I forgot to consider!
Chapin's Spinerock Knoll is my favorite jank of all time.
Kitchentable dreco deck i´m coming!
Olle Rade's PT Winning Deck is a testament to his Hall of Fame Inductee brilliance! Actually try the deck against the metagame, and you'll discover its perfect positioning, efficient cantrip card draw, and (relative to the format) aggressive beatdown strategy. The fact that people today are still knocking his first PT Winning deck shows how little people have bothered to learn about Ice Age Block Constructed. I almost qualified for that Pro Tour, so I playtested the format quite a bit. And I'd have to say his deck was not janky in reality, but on paper, yes, it does look janky to those who don't know the format. I remember seeing his list after he had won and thinking to myself, "Ahhh!!! Yes, that was perfect! Ugly, but perfect!!!"
How does Deadly Insect make sense in a Pyroclasm-heavy metagame?
@@NizzahonMagic It's all merely my own opinion, but here are my thoughts as to why i think, Yes, this deck made sense:...
Apparently, 4 Main Deck Deadly Insects was a good call, despite any perception that the metagame had a lot of Pyroclasms in it. Fellow finalist Sean Fleischman had 2 main deck Pyroclasms in his blue/white/red/black control deck, but he also had SIX pinpoint removal spells: 3 Swords to Plowshares & 3 Incinerates. Therefore, Olle's 4 Deadly Insects shut down 75% of Fleishman's creature removal.
During that Meta (Ice Age Block Constructed), pinpoint removal was HUGE (Swords to Plowshares, Exile, Incinerate, Dark Banishing, Stormbind, etc.), as evidenced in Sean Fleischman's Finalist control deck with 6 such spells, and to have 4 creatures in your deck that completely blanked all the pinpoint removal (which was far more common overall than Pyroclasms), while still having 10 Total Pinpoint removal spells/permanents yourself (4 of which are repeatable permanents) in terms of 4x Incinerate, 2x Orcish Artillery, 2x Lava Burst, and 2x Stormbind to clear the path for your 4 untouchable 6-power creatures was a brilliant strategy. Rade's single main deck copy of Pyroclasm was more of an emergency button "just in case" that would be no big deal for Olle to work around. Of course, I'm sure that when his other 2 Pyroclasms get sideboarded in, or if the opponent was playing Red, then at least 3 or perhaps all 4 of the Deadly Insects came out.
Finally: Olle Rade made up for any weakness in having 4 main deck Deadly Insects against any Pyroclasms by ALSO having TWELVE other low-CMC creatures with toughness 3 or greater (including the Storm Shamans, which I liked also as another brilliant move as a repeatable Fireball-threat if Opponents dared to cast Pyroclasm.)
In recent years, I've even spoken online with one of Olle's playtest partners for that specific event (1996 PT Columbus), and he told me that they were very aware of Pyroclasm and built Olle's deck appropriately for it.
Of course, this is all just my own opinion & interpretation, but I knew that Ice Age Block constructed metagame very well and playtested heavily for it, and I personally thought Olle Rade's victory was well deserved for a very metagame-appropriate deck. Lady Luck could have had the cards fall many different ways that day, but Olle ceretainly worked luck in his favor, which he continued to do with his career total *FIVE* PT Top 8's (in an era with very few annual Pro Tours).
Perhaps you've already seen this, but you can watch Olle Rade play the deck at PT Columbus 1996 both here: ruclips.net/video/v9OeRejEufc/видео.html and again in the finals against Sean Fleischman here: ruclips.net/video/JZVXIbVmEVA/видео.html. You will see some of the points I discussed above on display in the videos. Unfortunately, not every moment nor every game is shown, but what is there is quite insightful in understanding how Olle dealt with an equally amazing R/U/W/B control deck.
Great t10 doc!
Hehe, I remember trying to play ‘Storm Shaman’ (3 mana 0/4 pumpable) in casual decks. It drew some respect, or my playing the card drew some respect, just because it had a top 8 finish. That must have been why people didn’t react Toni’s with, ‘totally stupid’.
The fauna quest deck was 2011 but the headline says 2001.
I love jankie decks :> To me a deck that only wins 30-40% and relies on luck can be fun, because it's so awesome when it works :>
My favorite decks from the past I've used.
Tolarian serpent/bazaar of wonders mill deck, just so much slowly milling my opponent and him losing cards he can play while I'm almost always able to cast every spell I have. Only trouble 7 mana was a huge cost for the power of the serpent. Wich it was cheaper.
2nd turn force of nature rush, that was always fun, didn't win often, but the look on peoples faces when a 8/8 trample with upkeep I can play hits the table 2nd turn is funny.
I mean, if you know the meta, you can pretty much prepare for anything. Jund Dinos is a recent proof of this point. No one was prepared for M20's 2 special dinosaurs in the current standard meta and it did really well for a time. Izzet Phoenix did the same thing. In any new release, most people immediately gravitate towards what worked in the past meta, or they build Burn. But the best brewers immediately begin working with new cards to form an alternative strategy that covers against Burn and counters the current meta. And where do they show off their new decks? At the first big event after the release. From there it is relatively easy to top the event as long as you can manage the less predictable matchups such as other brewers with a brand new kit.
For that 4 mana, the Giant Mantis could be a 5/5 (with reach). An ability "G:", "GT:" or a combat trigger that is flavourful for him being a giant mantis would be nice too. Without the ability 4/6, 6/4, 5/6, 6/5, or even 6/6 seems reasonable.
I haven’t watched it yet but I’m betting that a dragon storm deck will be on this list and the deck that won worlds that had a 61 card library.
Edit: So, I was completely wrong. That was some raw jank garbage. Good stuff
I had to like this video. History is my favourite subject.
QUEST FOR THE JANKLORD!!!! QUEST FOR THE JANKLOOOOOORD!!!!
How the hell did those last two even win xD
John finkel almost won an invitational with battle of wits he took 3rd on tie breakers. It was the one that made solemn i have a sideboard or scry magazine with the coverage of it.
Does the original Sligh deck qualify? Because that thing is janky as heck.
I wouldn't consider it to count as it was the first deck to audit in favor of a curve. It really was one of the best decks of its time, and was copied successfully...so much so that non-tribal aggro creature-based decks are still oft referred to as Sligh, especially in red. It's only janky to our eyes today because of how much better creatures as a whole are now.
Where is the decklist? ^^
More deck themed vids pls. and maybe highlight more cards per deck next time, some of us aren’t as familiar with the older cards
Aceofacez10 same, but because some of us aren’t familiar with the newer ones ^^
To elaborate, I basically didn’t play from OG Ravnica until recently, but I know pretty much every card before then
Holy crap, now i remember. One of the kids ended up 2nd on our FNM tournament with Draco and Erratic Explosion. We all thought how genius that was. Turn out he was a netdecker, that's so fucked up.
The funniest thing about Owling Mine is it's why One With Nothing was printed, iirc, as a counter to it. So if you're wondering why the king of bad cards exists, it's because of a jank deck.
Nope, that's an urban legend. They were printed in the same set. The way design goes, they had no idea Owling Mine would be a deck when they printed One With Nothing. There is also no record of people at the highest level running One With Nothing in their sideboards, as is often stated. The deck was flash in the pan, so needing to sideboard against it wasn't a big deal. My guess is one or two pros talked about putting it in their sideboard, and people have Mandela Effected that into "Everyone was sideboarding it!"
I hit top 4 in a huge tourney in mirage block with a griffin deck. They hosed black n red a ton and were all flying so very hard to deal with. Helm of awakening make em come out fast. Disenchant and swords to plowshares for pesky permanants, mangaras blessing and something ward from visions. Even ran cop in side board. I screwed myself cuz i was young n dumb n played a 2nd copy of zuberi golden feather n lost cuz it buried my other. Would have stomped him regardless, but he played wildfire emmisary n i could do nothing against it lol. Still was like 200 or so folk there and i got 3rd and was only like 14 or 15 at the time...id say i did rather well
I hoped Ponza (GR Land destruction) was going to be on this list.
I would love to see the lists.
Wotc and a few other sites have most of the tourney decklists on them.
Imagine getting demonic pact to its final option and the opponent counters harmless offering
Hey you forgot Lee Shi Tian’s Jeskai Ascendancy combo deck from circa 2015, with Dragon Mantle, Astral Cornucopia pure jank and that transformational SB with big creatures and Nissa lol
Did you just call GW Quest of the holy Relic an underwhelming deck? This was one of the top tier of that meta, not to mention that the only sword available back then was Sword of Body and Mind, making Stoneforge mystic not that useful and Argentum Armour a better choice.
Total jank.
Nizzahon Magic maybe ur just bad
My favorite janky deck that had a Top 8 has to be Guillaume Wafo-Tapa's Wild Pair Sliver Deck from Gran Prix: Montreal 2007. Looks like it was a blast to play though.
Yeah, probably should have made the list tbh.
Well this is a highly specific video.
Much like my request for top 10 vintage cards (minus power 9). Make it h happen!
How about the retraction helix-jeskai ascendancy combo deck? That was pretty janky
Unfortunately it was consistent even for as janky as it was. I remember my old LCS we had at least 2-3 people playing it. Ironically I ran the Temur Ascendancy combo 6 months later which felt way jankier.
Mono-Red Dragonstorm 2007 from Worlds was funny/Janky.
Jank is the only way to play, when it comes to commander anyway.
These decks are wild
Will you do a collab with the Janklord crew?
Top alternate win conditions ( would love to see if any have more than a handful of points)
Chromantiflayer better be here!
Super interesting video!
Made a jank deck long ago that ran Shared Fate and Leveler. Was dumb.
You forgot cawblade...
I spoke too soon...
2015's RG(B) Sphinx's Tutelage/UW Sphinx's Tutelage
Not a criticism, just a thought, you mention their "choices" alot in this one, but i think you forget, in magics early days the available singles pool wasn't anything like today, and subsequently lead to "you play what you've got" type strats. I think this could explain alot of the choices people made, they may have liked a certain card over another but had no way to get it. At least this was the case for me when i was younger. I buy booster boxes now sure, but as a child id be lucky to get a pack a week. And ran alot of jank as a result.
I think the point was that magic is more about skill than just your deck. Talk to guys all the time who built an all common deck and went to tournaments and kicked butt.
I remember my brother had a deck with black vise and the rack with howling mines and discard. With mill. It was the worst..lmao
I am actually surprised that Sligh did not make the list.
We want the deck lists
FWIW; I kinda have to disagree w Deadly Insects being bad back then.
It has 6 power (for the mana that was huge then) and on a clear board it was about as good as it got then. This card was played in a deck called bug bind that was included in the Garfield vs Finkel box. It’s what Richard Garfield lost w vs Finkel’s, I think, Necro deck.
There are a few creatures like this in the deck that have hex proof and are x/1’s and stormbind kept the board clear w some success.
If that deck was a red green “bug bind” deck I wouldn’t even call it jank for the time.
Great vid as always though
🖖namaste
Yeah I definitely remember people treating deadly insect as an actual threat in those days. Part of it was that people ran less creatures in general (creatureless decks were munch more common) so it could get in some hits against an opponent.
How about that Megrim discard deck that used bottomless pit, and ensnaring bridge?
I mean, it also used Memory Jar, one of the most busted cards ever
@@NizzahonMagic The deck I remember was WAY before 2010, but I can see how it could cause chaos! Not sure if exile effects triggered Megrim's damage however.
@@mizz1970 What does Memory Jar have to do with 2010?
@@NizzahonMagic specifically meaning I was previously unaware of the card in 1998, since it didnt even exist during that block.
I collected very few cards from Urza's block. There was such a flood of expansions since Visions, I could barely keep up. The last most collected for me was Stronghold/ Tempest, and some Weatherlight, then I stopped. Your channel is very interesting in that regard, since the cards I remember most are vintage, or as we referred to them as T1.
7:04 in 1996, we didn't sleeve decks...
When I see "cat pact", I only think of how the dream could've been feasible had rotation not been changed at the time. You only got to see them together for 3-5 months. That plus you lost fetchlands and Dig Through Time as well. Then again, collected company and 4c dragons decks would've been in the format. I wanted so bad for a trix concept to be standard viable.
Ebony owl will work with experimental frenzy as long as they dont play red
The owl actually isnt that bad in commander feels like it belongs in a nekusar lockdown deck
I think you were too harsh on Tom's slight of mind. The necropotence deck were big then and packed 8 pro white pump night main. Then in the board had gloom, dystopia, dread of night and other such nonsense.
The idea was opponent went turn 1 dark ritual gloom and on your first turn you slight of minded it.