I played in an “illegal deck” tourney many years back, probably around Fallen Empires release, so the card pool was still relatively small and power cards weren’t commanding the premium they do today. The rules called for a minimum 40-card deck but no limit or restrictions to any cards. I played decks that were literally just lotuses, mountains, channels, and fireballs and i frequently lost first turn. The deck i always think about from that tourney was composed of time walks, ancestrals, timetwisters, lotuses, sapphires, rubies, and ball lightnings. He would just keep gaining cards and playing more lotuses etc, take extra turns, throw a ball lightning at you, end turn, rinse and repeat. At least it took a minute to lose the game against him, lol!

I had a crappy deck loaded with Llanowar elves, giant growths, and the 1 berzerk i had. I only found out about the tourney after i got to the show, so it was just slapped together onsite with whatever i could find from vendors. It didn’t matter in the end–the deck didn’t stand a chance…but I’m glad i played–even if only to see some of these stacks of rare cards getting shuffled game after game without sleeves ಠ_ಠ