I just recently moved, and just recently got back into the game, so I've had the opportunity to thumb through what is essentially my entire collection weeding out my 4-pt Shurikens to go in the "Standard" box. I've also been tearing apart my old decks, salvaging what's still tournament legal, and putting the rest away into storage when I came across my Gabe deck box. Inside it I found my Athena2 deck.

Tri-Symbol Athena

Characters - 1
1x 6/6 **Athena** +0M [Ev, Fi, Or]

Actions - 11
4x 1/5 Absurd Strength +1M [Ev, Fi]
3x 3/5 Expelled Humanity +3M [Ev, Fi, Or]
2x 2/5 Kung-Fu Training +1M [Ev, Fi]
2x 1/4 Dodge Step (Desp:0) [Fi]

Assets - 3
2x 0/6 Olcadan's Mentoring +0L [inf]
1x 3/3 Seal of Cesstion +2L [inf]

Attacks - 10
4x 5/3 Chain Throw (St:2, Thr, Wpn) 3M5 [Ev, Fi]
4x 4/3 Widow maker (Thr) 3M3 +2M [Fi, Or]
2x 4/2 Gaishiki Lunar Rebellion (Pun) 2M5 [Ev, Fi]

Foundations - 22
4x 1/5 Megalomania [Ev, Or]
4x 1/5 Transference +1L [Ev, Fi, Or]
4x 1/4 Manifest Destiny +1L [Ev, Fi]
4x 2/5 Vanity +3L [Ev, Fi]
4x 3/5 Experienced Combatant +2M [Fi, Or]
2x 3/4 Bitter Rivals +2M [Ev, Fi]

Split - 13
4x 3(3)/3 Goshichi (Ally) 3M3 +3H [Ev, Fi, Inf]
4x 2(3)/4 Evil Plans +2M [Ev, Fi, Or]
3x 2(2)/4 Superior Witch +1L [Ev, Fi]
2x 1(3)/5 Pure Violence +2M [Ev, Fi]

60/60

Sideboard - 8
2x 6/3 Final Confrontation +3M [Ev, Or]
2x 2/4 Greed's Influence +1M [Fi]
2x 3/4 Romanian Valley +1M [inf]
2x 0/4 Pull of the Tides +2M [Fi, Inf]

This painstakingly shaved down to 60 cards deck was born in the days of Promo Yun-Seong and Morrigan Happy Holidays Mill, and worked spectacularly well and hammering them. The trick was simply playing Goshichi before my opponent's first control check of the turn, and then responding with all of my Manifest Destinies and Megalomania to tap their board. Coupling this with Experienced Combatant, Athena's pseudo 11-12 card hand size, and Vanity ramping up difficulties, a Happy Holidays played essentially meant turn just foundation spamming, if it even passed. Aggro decks didn't stand a chance against this variety of control, and with Fire's amazing attack and pump line-up at the time, Athena could actually keep pace with Aggro, while outstripping the slow mill decks completely.

To top it all off, she was a fantastically fun deck to play, a Rube Goldbergian device built to shut down your opponent by the Second, and KO your opponent by the Fifth turn (about when you'd run out of Goshichis). Plus it wasn't a solitar game, all of the control pieces depended on your opponent's actions, actions that where predictable, but there none-the-less. I retired her after winning the local AoP (facing Morrigan and Yun-Seung in top 8) but kept her around because the local convention circuit was filled with players who wanted to run head long into it and see how they'd fair. This deck and that AoP actually made me a good number of friends, folks whom are just now getting me back into the game.

Suffice to say, she was spared the rending and reorganizing. She's left in tact, her four banned cards and all (2x Bitter, 2x Owl), and she'll probably be coming with me to Gencon. Maybe I'll lose the two banned cards and drop her into the Legacy event while I'm there. I'm totally up for suggestions.

Do any of you guys have similar decks? Ones you keep around because they've got good memories, excellent records, or noteworthy games and stories? Seeing Athena again actually reminded me about how much I enjoy this game. I personally can't wait for Tekken to hit the shelves, and when September rolls around I'll definitely be investing in the SC:IV and ShadoWar stuff I missed out on. I also hope that Gencon will be an opportunity to re-indoctrinate myself. Hope to see you guys there, and maybe a couple of your keepsake decks too.

Welcome back, Sam "VaporGekco" Waller!!!

For those who don't know, this version of Athena was the very first Athena ever to take a Regional-like event (AoP event in Santa Clara, CA) and to be posted on the old STG forums. Sam's Athena deck created an arch-type (i think 8 pages worth of thread posts on the old forums??), and really put Promo Athena on the map.

There have since been many other decks that ran the Experienced Combatant + MegaloFest commital control, but none before this one.

Yea, i certainly have a couple of Sentimental Deck builds i will post by tomorrow evening. Thanks for starting a thread like this.

Wow, I remember this! I could've sworn you were running more cards, though... I guess I didn't really pay attention back then lol.

I don't really have any lists (because I've never travelled or anything =( ) but Sophitia** was my deck for the longest, so fun. Playing bad cards like Katana O Modosu just to beat the Hammer... winning with Deadly Rave.

wow... looks so much like the deck the community helped me build for the Tn-Ky-VA AOP a year and a half ago, that deck brings back memories for me, mainly how broken Ibuki + Roam was... thank you Gaines... only difference i see here is i ran 24 attacks and 70 cards in the deck, was really helpfull especially in my match against Chaos Alba2, yay for 3 draw phases... still old school decks like this make me feel good to see again, maybe seeing decks like this will break the feau-pax of people not wanting to play or even post legacy decks anymore.

N.J.

I'm actually pretty darn excited about the chance to play Legacy. I only have a handful of days before I head out to the East Coast to hang out around NYC with some friends before the Con, but hopefully I'll have Athena and perhaps Zangief together for it. I always wanted to do the Contemplation + Spinning Pile Driver trick.

I would not be against Legacy becoming something worth doing, but I think it would be best if the game got to the point where Legacy was just something people played for fun, kinda like how magic has Type 2 (?), Extended, and whatever the "all cards" stuff is. I find myself very excited about Mini-Block actually. As a former vet player coming back into the game, I would be happy just skipping over set 10 (?) what with the 4-pt SF and SNK sets. I think I can still build something local tournament calibur with what I have from Cutting Edge and earlier, but when I start lancing up that new stuff, I'd love a format where I'm on equal footing.

As for that Legacy stigmata, I think it would be brilliant to have a sub section of the deck building forum dedicated to Legacy decks. Also, good to see other folks who remember me. I've been away for ages.

Ooooh. Good thread.

I recently highlanderized (it's totally a word) about 30 to 40 of my old legacy decks, then put together a few more (for a total of 44 highlander theme decks). I had a heck of a time when it came to stripping down a few of my first and favorite.

The four that stand out the most in my mind were Sagat 6-check Strength of the Mountain/Tiger Uppercut combo, Zangief SPD mill, Astaroth Theme, and Blanka/Talim Fire/Chaos multiple pump (running The Horns, Muay Thai Defense, Challenge the Master, etc. and Shadow Hunter, Criminal Uppercut, and Rolling Storm).

Interestingly, the new highlander versions of Sagat and Blanka/Talim saw play in the Jigs & Reels side tourney at the SoCal regionals this past Saturday. Blanka/Talim gave Chris A. his first win of that tourney (he went undefeated, playing almost entirely Fire/Chaos decks). The Sagat won the two rounds it was part of (and the combo came together out of luck at least once).

Astaroth also saw play first round (I was running him). Robert (my opponent) was running my Water/Life Ukyo deck and had chosen to start with an Ukyo w/o the life symbol (denying him about a third of the cards). I out-built him substantially, but I hadn't gotten too much damage through. On my last turn, I stacked a third copy of Astaroth onto the other two, and got both Kulutues and Kulutues* into play (Terror Moon was already in my staging area). So I'm all psyched, with my Mecha-Shiva Lv. 3 Astaroth wielding three axes... and time is called during Robert's next turn. I had over-extended and had no blocks. The Jigs & Reels tourney was single elimination, single-game rounds. He managed to squeak just enough damage through that turn to beat me by one point.

Since the Gief didn't see play, I pulled it out for a casual against Danny P.'s standard legal Seong Mi-na. I hit him with the one copy of Spinning Pile Driver 2nd turn, but got greedy and tried to follow it up with Contemplation in the same turn--failed the check. A turn or two later he ate two of my three foundations (Grappler and Ring Vet) with recurred Tsuji Hayate's, leaving me with no hope of passing the Final Atomic Buster sitting in my hand. Thankfully I managed to stack Zangief:.:, so I used his mill and damage reduction to live through a multipled Lunar Slash while SPD burning the whole time. In the end I got him down to 6 vitality with a Body Press (damage boosted and mill-burned twice using three different Zangief abilities, and mill-burned with the Body Press ability). He had Drifter'd the Lunar Slash, and got me for the win.

Conclusion: even in Highlander form (even against standard-legal non-highlander beasts) the old decks are mad fun. Don't be afraid to dismember and rebuild the old decks you love. As long as you keep the theme and basic play-style alive, you won't regret it. (: