I was the only one in our playgroup who realized how powerful this card is. I would play this on turn one with dark ritual, my deck used discards with rack as my damage dealer along with drain life. Sold all my necropotence but one, the one I pulled out of a pack, because I took a long break from playing MTG during affinity wars.
I had to toss out nearly 100 of my old Inquest magazines when I moved a a few years ago. The best part of having them was looking through the old articles and card catalogue (with the rating and average price) many years after the set had been released. Hindsight can be a lot of fun.
I remember really disliking Necropotence when I saw it, too. One of the people I played with started pairing it with Mirror Universe. In those days you could (we thought, at least) exist at 0 life as long as you fixed that situation before the end of the phase, so he'd use Necropotence to go to negative life and then pop Mirror Universe to swap life totals before the phase ended. None of us had any idea what was being played in tournaments; it was just blind luck.
Those were the golden days of Magic, before the internet or the professional tournament scene, you'd go to local tournaments and face off against a practically-random assortment of decks. There were trends and the latest deck de jour, but it was a far more diverse game than the "which of the 3 pro-designed decks are you using?" that tournaments would later become.
Just confirming that under the rules in those days you would not lose from being at 0 or less life until the end of the phase, just as you say. A lot of Mark Rosewater's "Magic: the Puzzling" puzzles in Duelist magazine would revolve around this fact.
I hadn't thought of the Mirror Universe/Necropotence combo, but you're correct about the old rules. The best block constructed deck of the MI/VI/WL era abused that rule.
Ice Age is when I first started. I was young and didn't last long but have always dipped back into magic every so often. I didn't have this card but I voted for this video. Thanks.
I started playing in revised, bought packs of ice age, read issues of inquest, and was one of those folks who didn't understand magic well enough at the time to recognize how good the card was Damn did I love that art though, holy moly Hard nostalgia for black summer, but I had no idea the permutations necropotence went through, awesome vid
This may be apocryphal (cos I read it in an issue of TopDeck or Scrye 20+ years ago, and never anywhere else) but the small trend of naming decks after cereal started with Fruity Pebbles, when the deck registrar saw the list and told the pilot, "You'd have to be Fruity Pebbles to play this deck"
Ahhhh man I miss the cereal naming deck days!!!! I played Trin while it was legal full power Trix. Most powerful deck I ever had in my hands. Fruity pebbles was also a popular deck similar to coco but no black so no necro. Was goblin B and enduring renewal!!
About Standard, you forgot to mention the version that came up after "Urza's Saga" (and died before "Urza's Destiny" as "5th Edition" - and so Necropotence - rotated out). From memory, it looked like: 4 wasteland 18 swamp 3 skittering skirge 3 corrupt 4 drain life 4 necropotence 4 dark ritual 4 yawgmoth's will 4 urza's bauble 4 diabolic edict 4 duress 4 nevinyrral's disk
Reading about Necropotence in InQuest inspired me to make my first real deck, instead of just piling together all the cards I owned. My Necro deck got me first place in my first tournament!
The championship winner of 96/97 or something that used a Necro deck lived in my neighbourhood. He opened up an internet café after that. Was kinda weird having the world champ from Australia
Haha, in the intro I love watching your hands move up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down
My necroptence deck was Esper but the blue and white were just splashes, white for swords to plowshares and blue for counterspell and force of will. All lands except the strip mine produced black and the core was hymn, sinkhole, icequake and hypnotic specter. Also drain life and a single mind twist. Also white contributed disenchant to the sideboard. Once,.. really just to be an arrogant jerk I added a single copy of Chromium because I knew that if my deck was working I could use any win condition I wanted even a terrible one because my opponent couldn't do anything about it having no cards or lands. I actually won that tournament, but not with Chromium, I only won a single match with the elder dragon the rest were won with either specters or drain life.
I came up with a necro deck before I had ever heard it was a good card. My fast mana was lotus petals and dark rituals. I ran bad moon and 2 drop creatures. Terror for some removal. Lifedrain and Necro for sustain.
Trix may be the perfect deck in terms of synergy. Fast, consistent, and resilient. Basically all the cards, except the combo, are either still Legacy staples or banned from the format. And I think Brian Davis’s free spell Necro should have deserved a mention since it got 2nd at PT Chicago 1999. There were also good Necro decks in Tempest/Urza’s/5th Edition Standard. Necro plus Yawgmoth’s Will was quite something.
I don't think Randy played disenchant main for the mirror. You generally didn't want to kill your opponents Necro, as they could just use it in response, and would often have redundant copies in hand anyway.
I didn't know Moxen is plural of Mox, I literally googled "Moxen + Lotus", I thought that's a card. 'Maybe he meant Mox Lotus, there is something like this, wait, Unhinged, nope' And in the very end I did had to add up mentally all the cards in that deck list to check that, yes, 2 moxen + Lotus, means 2 moxes and 1 black lotus. Maybe you were tight on the right column, but left had tons of space. Ignore me please, I just feel dumb right now :P Very nice video, thanks!
With so many videos with History in the title on Nizzahon Magic, how long until we get videos with Magic in the title on Nizzahon History? Maybe something about witches and sorcery misconceptions or something?
Getting back to 1995 it is clear why Necropotence wasn't a good card. So many decks was stacking your hand for you that you didn't even need card advantage cards. Playing your threats fast was the name of the game and Necro simply didn't fit into that environment. But as you said, once Black Vise was restricted Necro decks finally became legit.
I can remember the day Ice Age was released and me and my buddies bought packs. I opened a Necropotence and we read it. We thought it was the most terrible card ever created. We...were...wrong.
I remember Ice Age in 96’, no such thing as commander back then so it seemed ridiculous to forfeit life for cards when you only had 20 life. That’s also why no one liked this mail away card called Mana Crypt, who wanted to take 3 damage every turn 🙄😂
As a Commander player, I have... Mixed feelings on Necropotence. If you can gain massive amounts of life, dump all of it into Necropotence, and god forbid you have a way to make your hand endless in size. Ugh.
Necropotence + exquisite blood + psychosis crawler whenever you draw a card you take a point of damege psychosis crawler deals damege when you draw exquisite blood makes you healso you get cards for free
That doesn't actually work as Necropotence doesn't "draw" any cards. You activate it to exile cards face down which are then put into your hand at the end of the turn, but it doesn't trigger draw effects. You could use Yawgmoth's Bargain though.
Ah the dreaded Skull. The bane of my early Magic existence and the only reason Spectral Bears was playable. Speaking of Mark Justice, how about a history of cheating in high-level tournament play?
Have you ever explained to the newbies why combo decks were named after breakfast cereals? If not, a video on the breakfast cereal decks like Trix and Fruity Pebbles might be a good topic.
I love this series, as a fairly new player (i started playing in 2016) its really cool to learn about magic's history.
I was the only one in our playgroup who realized how powerful this card is. I would play this on turn one with dark ritual, my deck used discards with rack as my damage dealer along with drain life.
Sold all my necropotence but one, the one I pulled out of a pack, because I took a long break from playing MTG during affinity wars.
im waiting eagerly for the history of 8-rack and storm!
8 rack ftw
I love 8 Rack
To be fair, that's some badass art on Horseman
I had to toss out nearly 100 of my old Inquest magazines when I moved a a few years ago. The best part of having them was looking through the old articles and card catalogue (with the rating and average price) many years after the set had been released. Hindsight can be a lot of fun.
I know several people who would have paid good money for those magazines.
I remember really disliking Necropotence when I saw it, too. One of the people I played with started pairing it with Mirror Universe. In those days you could (we thought, at least) exist at 0 life as long as you fixed that situation before the end of the phase, so he'd use Necropotence to go to negative life and then pop Mirror Universe to swap life totals before the phase ended. None of us had any idea what was being played in tournaments; it was just blind luck.
Those were the golden days of Magic, before the internet or the professional tournament scene, you'd go to local tournaments and face off against a practically-random assortment of decks. There were trends and the latest deck de jour, but it was a far more diverse game than the "which of the 3 pro-designed decks are you using?" that tournaments would later become.
Just confirming that under the rules in those days you would not lose from being at 0 or less life until the end of the phase, just as you say. A lot of Mark Rosewater's "Magic: the Puzzling" puzzles in Duelist magazine would revolve around this fact.
I hadn't thought of the Mirror Universe/Necropotence combo, but you're correct about the old rules. The best block constructed deck of the MI/VI/WL era abused that rule.
Ice Age is when I first started. I was young and didn't last long but have always dipped back into magic every so often. I didn't have this card but I voted for this video. Thanks.
Epic video my dude! These deck history videos are now easily becoming my favorite kinds of videos on your channel! Keep it up dude! ❤️
I started playing in revised, bought packs of ice age, read issues of inquest, and was one of those folks who didn't understand magic well enough at the time to recognize how good the card was
Damn did I love that art though, holy moly
Hard nostalgia for black summer, but I had no idea the permutations necropotence went through, awesome vid
There is a Facebook group that runs monthly tournaments for old type 2 formats. September is Fallen Empires/4th Edition/Ice Age.
I really like the arrangement of this thumbnail
The story of this card is amazing
I never knew how these decks worked. Thank for clearing that up, love your work!
I loved Black Summer. I'm still obsessed with Mono Black decks to this day because of it.
This may be apocryphal (cos I read it in an issue of TopDeck or Scrye 20+ years ago, and never anywhere else) but the small trend of naming decks after cereal started with Fruity Pebbles, when the deck registrar saw the list and told the pilot, "You'd have to be Fruity Pebbles to play this deck"
Ahhhh man I miss the cereal naming deck days!!!! I played Trin while it was legal full power Trix. Most powerful deck I ever had in my hands. Fruity pebbles was also a popular deck similar to coco but no black so no necro. Was goblin B and enduring renewal!!
Honestly, this is my favorite series. Keep up the great work!!
About Standard, you forgot to mention the version that came up after "Urza's Saga" (and died before "Urza's Destiny" as "5th Edition" - and so Necropotence - rotated out). From memory, it looked like:
4 wasteland
18 swamp
3 skittering skirge
3 corrupt
4 drain life
4 necropotence
4 dark ritual
4 yawgmoth's will
4 urza's bauble
4 diabolic edict
4 duress
4 nevinyrral's disk
This deck is gross. I regret not playing during Urza's block.
Reading about Necropotence in InQuest inspired me to make my first real deck, instead of just piling together all the cards I owned. My Necro deck got me first place in my first tournament!
As a new player to mtg, i enjoy this video a lot, thank for making it !
The championship winner of 96/97 or something that used a Necro deck lived in my neighbourhood. He opened up an internet café after that.
Was kinda weird having the world champ from Australia
Wait, he used a counter white deck maybe. Tom Chanpheng
Haha, in the intro I love watching your hands move up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down
Can't wait for the history of Stompy!
8:44
"Choking Sangs." XD
Also don't forget the classic Badlans on Randy Buehler's list at 10:40 or so
I haven't listened to it yet, but I love your style and that's an immediate thumbs up
i love how claustrophobic the vintage deck lists have to look lol
I have played the MB Necro version Yawgmoth's Will, I really enjoyed this version and I have won several tournaments.
I’m loving these deck histories
Knowing Necro only sees Vintage plays nowadays, it was good to see that Necro decks were very different until the "Cereal years" of MtG.
My necroptence deck was Esper but the blue and white were just splashes, white for swords to plowshares and blue for counterspell and force of will.
All lands except the strip mine produced black and the core was hymn, sinkhole, icequake and hypnotic specter. Also drain life and a single mind twist.
Also white contributed disenchant to the sideboard.
Once,.. really just to be an arrogant jerk I added a single copy of Chromium because I knew that if my deck was working I could use any win condition I wanted even a terrible one because my opponent couldn't do anything about it having no cards or lands.
I actually won that tournament, but not with Chromium, I only won a single match with the elder dragon the rest were won with either specters or drain life.
I still have every issue of Inquest I ever bought. They're quite amusing to look back on today.
They are historical documents at this point.
I came up with a necro deck before I had ever heard it was a good card.
My fast mana was lotus petals and dark rituals.
I ran bad moon and 2 drop creatures.
Terror for some removal.
Lifedrain and Necro for sustain.
In cEDH there is Necro-Zur
When I was a teen I had a deck with 4 copies of necropotence and all unglued swamps. I thought I was so cool
Fantastic timeline!
Completely missed the popularity of the Necrobloom decks.
One might say, they can prove their Necropotence by Donating their opponent Illusions of Grandeur.
Such a fun play. Got me into magic
Trix may be the perfect deck in terms of synergy. Fast, consistent, and resilient. Basically all the cards, except the combo, are either still Legacy staples or banned from the format.
And I think Brian Davis’s free spell Necro should have deserved a mention since it got 2nd at PT Chicago 1999. There were also good Necro decks in Tempest/Urza’s/5th Edition Standard. Necro plus Yawgmoth’s Will was quite something.
I don't think Randy played disenchant main for the mirror. You generally didn't want to kill your opponents Necro, as they could just use it in response, and would often have redundant copies in hand anyway.
I am really enjoying these history lessons. 👍😀👍
Missed out on Free Spell necro that Brian Davis play in the PT that Bob Maher won
Can we get the history of different guild decks? Aka comparing how different color combos changed over time. Keep up the good work
No mention of Necrobloom? I remember the Black Summer, but what I remember most was the Necrobloom.
Ice Age was such a great expansion.
I think I still have my original Necropotence from way, wy back, in a binder somewhere
Necropotence was when the term card advantage was coined
Anyone else still down with the sarlac pit disc
I didn't know Moxen is plural of Mox, I literally googled "Moxen + Lotus", I thought that's a card. 'Maybe he meant Mox Lotus, there is something like this, wait, Unhinged, nope'
And in the very end I did had to add up mentally all the cards in that deck list to check that, yes, 2 moxen + Lotus, means 2 moxes and 1 black lotus.
Maybe you were tight on the right column, but left had tons of space. Ignore me please, I just feel dumb right now :P
Very nice video, thanks!
With so many videos with History in the title on Nizzahon Magic, how long until we get videos with Magic in the title on Nizzahon History? Maybe something about witches and sorcery misconceptions or something?
Using that magazine do a top ten on the best 1 star cards that actually are good
The good old days of black vice Stone rain strip mine decks
Would you say adding Yawgmoth’s Bargain into a vent age deck gives a virtual second copy of necropotence?
I think necro was played in BG Bloomdrain too
I remember when Ice Age came out and all people at my LGS thought Necropotence was total garbage
Also you cant exactly exile your entire library in Vintage unless you have a BUNCH of life to spend
My signature card when I started
Getting back to 1995 it is clear why Necropotence wasn't a good card. So many decks was stacking your hand for you that you didn't even need card advantage cards. Playing your threats fast was the name of the game and Necro simply didn't fit into that environment. But as you said, once Black Vise was restricted Necro decks finally became legit.
Where I live it's still Tuesday for 40 mins......
Nvm me just putting bookmark 8:56
Ice age top 10!
I had no idea people really played ebon strongholds... or any of the counter lands or whatever they're called.
My favorite card.
aw man, you really had to post a video a 3 am... well, i might need more coffee
"Chocking Sangs" :)
To this day I still run Necropotence and Zur's Weirding because it annoys everyone
potence is beast
InQuest's biggest blunder
Their second biggest blunder was calling Dream Halls the worst card in Stronghold. Turns out it had to be banned in multiple formats. Oops!
@@SirZapdos oh man that brings back memories :D I loved Stronghold
I can remember the day Ice Age was released and me and my buddies bought packs. I opened a Necropotence and we read it. We thought it was the most terrible card ever created. We...were...wrong.
I remember Ice Age in 96’, no such thing as commander back then so it seemed ridiculous to forfeit life for cards when you only had 20 life. That’s also why no one liked this mail away card called Mana Crypt, who wanted to take 3 damage every turn 🙄😂
I hear ya. That was the real reason no one thought it was good. No one had figured out yet that life isn't the be all and end all yet.
I've been to bad lans myself.
black summer of ‘96✊🏽
Land's Edge?!?
As a Commander player, I have... Mixed feelings on Necropotence. If you can gain massive amounts of life, dump all of it into Necropotence, and god forbid you have a way to make your hand endless in size. Ugh.
and then you draw the ire of the entire table because you went super low and look to be in a position to combo off
Oko next
Necropotence + exquisite blood + psychosis crawler whenever you draw a card you take a point of damege psychosis crawler deals damege when you draw exquisite blood makes you healso you get cards for free
That doesn't actually work as Necropotence doesn't "draw" any cards. You activate it to exile cards face down which are then put into your hand at the end of the turn, but it doesn't trigger draw effects. You could use Yawgmoth's Bargain though.
@@christopherlundgren1700 oh that's true dang it thanks for telling me
This is a good series but you never show the decks sideboard. How come you don’t do that? Sideboards are as much a part of the deck as anything else 😉
I'm mad that I traded my foil Necro away :(
Is it just me or has Quintin Reviews lost some hair
👍
💜
Mill please :(
Ah the dreaded Skull. The bane of my early Magic existence and the only reason Spectral Bears was playable. Speaking of Mark Justice, how about a history of cheating in high-level tournament play?
Have you ever explained to the newbies why combo decks were named after breakfast cereals? If not, a video on the breakfast cereal decks like Trix and Fruity Pebbles might be a good topic.
Trix was called that because the art on Illusions of Grandeur depicts a rabbit riding a dragon. In other words, a silly rabbit.
PizzaHome
NIZZAHONEY
Man, hearing necropotence pronounced like that kills me.
(Not really lol.)
¿Spoiler? Better play White. 🤍
12:00 😍 Still Have it 🤤🤤🤤 Very proud and Nice to Play.
One (Of my 50 favorites) ❤
Let see what happens 😏😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊