What is the Most Influential Magic Deck in Each Specific Archetype??

[Pulp_Fiction]

I am just curious about what people think about the most influential decks in Magic are. So, what do you guys think are the most influential decks in these categories: control, aggro control, aggro, and combo. This is supposed to be very broad, just write about what deck first comes to mind when you think about these archetypes. It can really be anything, whatever deck you remember just ravaging the format and had some kind of impact in shaping each respective archetype. You don't have to post lists but it would be cool to see what the old decks look like.

This is what I think:

Control - The Deck. The old school control deck simpley known as "The Deck" running Moat, Amnesia, Mana Drain, Black Lotus, Timetwister, and a ton more broken cards. The reasoning for this is simple, at the time there really wasn't anything that it compared to. I still think that this was the original control deck which won games by slowly outresourcing your opponent and then taking advantage after they have run out of gas.

1 Black Lotus
2 Disrupting Scepter
1 Jayemdae Tome
1 Mirror Universe
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Amnesia
1 Braingeyser
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Recall
1 Regrowth
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Counterspell
4 Mana Drain
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Disenchant
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Moat
2 Serra Angel

4 City of Brass
4 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
3 Plains
3 Strip Mine
4 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island

Sideboard
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Dust to Dust
1 Zuran Orb
1 Balance
2 Blood Moon
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Mana Short
1 Amnesia
1 Feldon's Cane

Aggro Control - Alan Comer's Miracle Grow. Another old school deck that ran something like 6-10 lands and Land Grant. It got its name because it abused Quirion Dryad better than anything else and ran Force, Gush, Daze, then later on it gained StP and other broken stuff. Love this deck, it literally embodies everything that I think aggro control should be!

6 Island
4 Tropical Island

3 Gaea's Skyfolk
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Brainstorm
4 Curiosity
4 Daze
3 Foil
4 Force of Will
4 Gush
4 Land Grant
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Winter Orb

Sideboard
2 Boomerang
4 Chill
3 Emerald Charm
2 Misdirection
4 Submerge



Aggro - Dave Price Mono-Red Sligh. When the Rath Cycle came out this was one of the sickest, and fastest decks ever seen. Packing cards like: Jackal Pup and Cursed Scroll. When I think aggro I think about this deck, the original lists are just pure aggression, and were easily the fastest decks in the environment at the time!

2 Rathi Dragon
4 Canyon Wildcat
4 Fireslinger
4 Jackal Pup
4 Mogg Conscripts
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Mogg Raider
4 Giant Strength
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Kindle
2 Scalding Tongs

16 Mountain
4 Wasteland

SIDEBOARD
1 Rathi Dragon
1 Apocalypse
2 Jinxed Idol
2 Scalding Tongs
4 Shatter
4 Stone Rain
1 Torture Chamber

Combo - Mike Long Prosperous Bloom. Fuck yeah, a 3 card combo using Squandered Resources, Natural Balance, and Cadaverous Bloom to generate a shit ton of mana and cast a big Drain Life on the opponent. This is almost the epitome of combo, it plays like storm combo before there was storm, and was one of the first real "consistent" combo decks that was capable of continually beating aggro and had a decent matchup against the blue control decks.

4 Squandered Resources
4 Cadaverous Bloom
4 Natural Balance
2 Drain Life

Manipulation and Card Drawing (15)
4 Vampiric Tutor
2 Elven Cache
4 Impulse
4 Prosperity
3 Infernal Contract

Counters (4)
3 Memory Lapse
1 Power Sink

Land (26)
4 Undiscovered Paradise
6 Island
8 Forest
8 Swamp

Sideboard:
3 Wall of Roots
3 City of Solitude
4 Emerald Charm
(all they had, couldn't find the rest)

So what do you guys think?

[FoulQ]

I'm a little biased because of when I first started playing competitive magic was around odyssey, and I'm not going to go into like you with crazy lists and shit, but here are some of my opinions...

Control: standard Astral Slide, the most boring deck ever, or perhaps my pick will be that even more boring Mirari's Wake deck.

AggroControl: standard UG Madness, although I'm not sure how aggrocontrollish this deck really is. I would definitely classify it as a tempo deck though.

Aggro: Mirrodin Block Affinity, without a question really.

Combo: Can't really think of one off the top of my head, because I don't play combo that much.

I think you probably have the most classic examples though, except for perhaps the Aggro-Control choice you made. Otherwise they look like the most standard choices one could make.

[eq.firemind]

From the decks I know:

Aggro: Green (Berserk) Stompy - just beats and pumps for better beats
Aggro-Control: UG Madness - one of my favorite decks ever.
Control: Old MUC - back in time when Nevinyrral's Disk was good.
Combo: Urza Block Tolarian Academy - craziest shit ever!

[Gocho]

I agree.
I liked a lot Prosperous Bloom years ago. It's a combo deck in Mirage CYCLE!

[lordofthepit]

When I read the thread title, I immediately thought Aggro, Control, and Combo as the three archetypes and thought of the exact three decklists you posted.

The Black Summer came a year or two before I started playing Magic, but Mark Justice's Necro deck and Tom Chanpheng's White Weenie are also extremely iconic and influential to me.

[Sevryn]

control: I think most people will choose a deck with blue in it, but when I think of successful control I think of Stax. Quickly powered out by artifact mana alongside Mishra's Workshop, the various lock components completely shut the opponent out of the game. On the play, t1 Trinisphere t2 Smokestack demands that you have Force of Will or it is over before it has even begun. One of the deck archetypes with the most inevitability, no other deck can survive late-game against Stax. The foil to Mana Drain, Stax relentlessly attacks the board without worrying about instants at all.

agro-control: 'Tog decks with upheaval. Or maybe Gro. Either way, just pairing blue control with black/green muscle.

agro: sligh... the man who first understood the mana curve and taught it to everyone else by killing them with jackal pups.

combo: Channel/Fireball --- you have no chance to survive make your time! But as far as influential... Trix really showed everyone how busted paying life for card-draw really was, and everyone learned a valuable lesson

[kicks_422]

For combo, it has to be the original Long.dec. I don't think no other combo deck has even come close to how broken that deck is. Flash comes to mind, but that's not a good option because of how goddamn boring it is.

[Rico Suave]

Aggro: Sligh.
Sligh was the first deck to sit on a low mana curve to maintain a quick and aggressive start, which would become a defining feature of every single aggro deck ever since. Dave Price's Sligh, as mentioned above, is an excellent example and he earned the title "King of Beatdown" from playing it.

Aggro-control: Fish.
If we're using the word influential, we can see Fish has had influence dating back to PT Rome in 2000 (despite an abundance of broken Academy decks at the time) through everything up to and including modern day Legacy.

Fish is the embodiment of aggro-control. It plays dirt cheap creatures that hit early then rides them to victory through light permission that will delay control/combo spells long enough for the deck to swing for 20.

Control: The Deck
The Deck is the foundation for every single control deck ever since. It was completely revolutionary for its time, and more importantly than the cards in the list came the ideas of Weissman and his theories of card advantage. This idea of card advantage would become the cornerstone of control and the entire reason why control is playable at any point in time ever.

In fact, "The Deck" dominated Vintage for many years and updated variants of it are still played competitively in Vintage even today.

Combo -
The most influential combo deck ever is certainly Necro-Trix. It is iconic in its streamlined beauty, grace and synergy. It had cheap disruption, cheap search and cheap acceleration to power up its engine - Necropotence. Once in play the skull would fuel the deck to a win with such strength that nothing could stop it.

Combo decks need to run answers to problematic cards, yet the skull would draw so many cards the deck could afford to run just 2 answers yet feel like it was running 6. The deck's win condition not only fueled the engine, allowing it to draw yet more cards, but also shored up the weaknesses of the engine. The synergy of one part into another is mind boggling. It is truly more than just a broken deck, it is a deck of elegance, flow, and massive potential.

When you take a look at this deck, keep in mind that it was Standard legal at the time.

Trix - Scott McCord

4 Mana Vault

1 Contagion
4 Dark Ritual
4 Demonic Consultation
4 Duress
4 Necropotence
3 Vampiric Tutor

2 Brainstorm
4 Donate
4 Force of Will
1 Hoodwink
4 Illusions of Grandeur

4 Gemstone Mine
3 Island
6 Swamp
4 Underground River
4 Underground Sea

[Doks]

Control - "The Deck", followed by U/W Control in all formats
Aggro - Sligh
Combo - (Grim) Long
Aggro-Control - U/R Fish


Maybe because I started playing Vintage after the "casual time" and only later switched to Legacy.

[Fuzzy]

Control - BBS, Forbiddian, Walamies.dec and Ur Trix (Budde).
Aggro - Tie with 3deuce and Sligh.
Combo - Cadaverous Bloom by far.
Aggro-Control - Fuck Miracle Grow, UG Madness and PT Junk, Counterslivers was awesome.

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

What about the most influential deck of all time:

LauerPotence, PT Chicago 1997

2 Bad River
4 Badlands
3 Gemstone Mine
3 Lake of the Dead
4 Scrubland
8 Swamp
1 Ihsan's Shade
4 Knight of Stromgald
4 Order of the Ebon Hand
4 Demonic Consultation
3 Disenchant
4 Drain Life
2 Firestorm
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Incinerate
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Necropotence

Sideboard:
2 Circle of Protection: Black
1 Disenchant
1 Firestorm
3 Honorable Passage
2 Mind Warp
3 Pyroblast
3 Terror

The deck that taught us the entire concept of card advantage, the concept of mana curves, life as a resource, the brokenness of Necropotence and the brokenness of Demonic Consultation. Every deck ever since in every format owes its understanding of CA and curving out to this deck.

[Rico Suave]

The deck that taught us the entire concept of card advantage, the concept of mana curves, life as a resource, the brokenness of Necropotence and the brokenness of Demonic Consultation. Every deck ever since in every format owes its understanding of CA and curving out to this deck.

The idea of card advantage came from "The Deck" and the concept of a mana curve came from Sligh. =p

I don't want to sound like you're wrong though, because there is a lot of truth to what you say. The CMU Firestorm-Necro deck is an excellent example of deck building. Life is not just the only resource used wisely, but mana as well. Other Necro decks at the time were using Necro to draw into expensive spells that also gave card advantage, however this deck changed that by focusing on Necro itself and playing cheap and efficient cards that weren't abstractly powerful. Instead of winning by playing more powerful cards, it simply expected to win by playing more cards.

It was ground-breaking for the Necro strategy at least.

[Illissius]

When you take a look at this deck, keep in mind that it was Standard legal at the time.

Where by "Standard", of course, you mean "Extended".

Also, everyone is forgetting Fruity Pebbles.

What about archetypes outside of the big ones? Things that were new and weird?

[Skeggi]

Control: I'd have to say Counterpost. It's the first really strong Blue White control deck, and seems like it layed the basis for modern Landstill.

AggroControl: I think Gro defined the current Aggro Control decks. Many decks nowadays can lead their roots back to Gro; not only about every Counterbalance deck there is, but also decks like Bant Aggro are virtually descendants of Gro.

Aggro: Black Suicide. Remember the black summer guys? Necropotence was the epitome of hordes of black stuff just pouring on the table. There was no stopping the overwhelming forces which spouted out of Necropotence.

Combo: I also have to say ProsperBloom. That deck was totally awesome. Combining card draw with huge amounts of mana in such an elegant way. You had to see it to believe it.

[FoolofaTook]

The Deck is a really good choice for control. The basic formula of deny, remove and stabilize followed by dropping 4 and 5 bombs is still in play in Legacy today in Landstill and The Rock.

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

The idea of card advantage came from "The Deck" and the concept of a mana curve came from Sligh. =p
I don't think so. The Deck and LauerPotence were responsible for different kinds of CA. The 1996 "The Deck" had very little means of actual CA, except 2 Disrupting Scepters and a singleton Jayemdae Tome/ Braingeyser in the maindeck and Balance in the sideboard. I would be more ready to call it the first example of VCA, since it heavily relied on counterspells, Moat, Strip Mine and other 1 threat-> 1 answer cards. LauerPotence is a much clearer example of actual CA, which is drawing and playing more cards than your opponent can answer. I think this link (http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Card_advantage) explains it nicely.

Meanwhile, the first Sligh deck (created by Jay Schneider, piloted by Paul Sligh) took 2nd in its debut tournament, losing to... a Necropotence deck (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/ash24).

[Grollub]

Combo: Prosbloom and FEB+Wheaties.
Aggro-Control: blue-based: Turbo Xerox, Fish and Countersliver. Non-blue: Three Deuce or PT Jank/Tax Rack.
Aggro: Senor Stompy and Sligh.
Control: The Deck, Oath, Counter Post.
Lock: Balance.dec, Squandred/Turbo Stasis and Ducttape (or was it named Ducktape?).
All time: Necropotence.


I don't think so. The Deck and LauerPotence were responsible for different kinds of CA.
The Deck introduced card advantage to the world, Weissman and his from realized the importance of card advantage from their casual playing where the player who drew the most (and most relevant) cards also usually won.

Necropotence showed that card advantage is everything.

[m03]

I don't think so. The Deck and LauerPotence were responsible for different kinds of CA. The 1996 "The Deck" had very little means of actual CA, except 2 Disrupting Scepters and a singleton Jayemdae Tome/ Braingeyser in the maindeck and Balance in the sideboard. I would be more ready to call it the first example of VCA, since it heavily relied on counterspells, Moat, Strip Mine and other 1 threat-> 1 answer cards. LauerPotence is a much clearer example of actual CA, which is drawing and playing more cards than your opponent can answer. I think this link (http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Card_advantage) explains it nicely.

Incorrect. You're forgetting Ancestral Recall, Wrath of God, Mind Twist, and Library of Alexandria, all leveraged as CA sources by The Deck. Most of us ran maindeck Balance as well. Beyond that, before Mind Twist was restricted, early versions of The Deck (circa 1994) were running 4.

[morgan_coke]

Aggro: Affinity. Before people learned to hate on it it won Vintage events as a block deck + P9.

Board Control: Astral Slide and variants. Nothing before or since has dominated the "in play zone" or "battlefield" like this deck type.

Counter Control: Psychatog. The word in counter based control decks. For a time dominated every format from Standard to Extended to Legacy to Vintage. Killed by a combination of Affinity and Tarmogoyf.

Aggro-Control: UG Madness. Another deck that played strong in multiple formats, from standard and extended through legacy.

Combo: TES. Storm decks radically redefined combo from a specific card combination into "play a bunch of spells in one turn and win".

Asymmetrical: Dredge. Attacked players and decks in a new and previously impossible way, making radical new use of a previously underutilized resource and cards.

I think to an extent this is really subjective. For me, dominance across multiple formats is important, for others, it will be influence on later decks, or purity of design, or longevity. Interesting discussion though.

[caiomarcos]

Combo:

I agree on PrspoBloom, a very beautiful and elegant combo. But I also have to mention Megrim/Memory Jar combo just for the out-of-this-world, instant impact it had, not only in the metagame but also how Magic was perceived. It came after a ton of bannings in the Urza block, in a time when people were sick and tired of fast, insane combo but still this came up. IIRC, other than the preemptive banning of Mind's Desire, Jar was the one combo that got the axe the fastest, it saw only a couple of tournaments.

Links for reference:

Daily Deck List - Memory Jar (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/195)
"The above decklist, which not only helped get Jar banned, but changed the game forever as prominent members of the Pro Tour were brought in to the R&D fold at Wizards to avoid creating such broken cards in the future."

SCG Daily: Public Enemy Number One (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=10023)
"It’s time to unveil the worst, most evil, most vicious and most unfair deck in Magic history. This time out, however, it is not a deck that dominated tournament Magic for season after season. This deck only survived for a few weeks before the DCI banned it."

Top 10 Extended Decks of All Time (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mf184)
"To the best of my recollection, this is the only deck to have ever prompted an emergency ban of a card in the middle of a season."

[Rico Suave]

I don't think so. The Deck and LauerPotence were responsible for different kinds of CA. The 1996 "The Deck" had very little means of actual CA, except 2 Disrupting Scepters and a singleton Jayemdae Tome/ Braingeyser in the maindeck and Balance in the sideboard.
I would be more ready to call it the first example of VCA, since it heavily relied on counterspells, Moat, Strip Mine and other 1 threat-> 1 answer cards. LauerPotence is a much clearer example of actual CA, which is drawing and playing more cards than your opponent can answer. I think this link (http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Card_advantage) explains it nicely.

First of all, a card like Moat is not virtual card advantage against a deck with creatures - it IS card advantage.

Secondly, we're not talking about the same deck, as "The Deck" runs a lot more than just what you described, including Ancestral, Mind Twist, Balance *maindeck*, hell even Amnesia later on.

Third, nobody understood why Necropotence was good until Weissman introduced the idea of card advantage. The "black summer" of Necro was like 2 years after Weissman's ideas of card advantage. -_-


Meanwhile, the first Sligh deck (created by Jay Schneider, piloted by Paul Sligh) took 2nd in its debut tournament, losing to... a Necropotence deck (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/ash24).

Except you'll notice that LauerPotence was not until 1997. People were running Necro decks before then, but they were *not* the streamlined low mana curve Necro decks. They were Necro decks that drew expensive cards like Nekrataal and Wildfire Emissary.

Sligh introduced the low mana curve in 1996, and it took until 1997 for it to bleed over into Necro decks.

[Forbiddian]

Aggro: Sligh
Control: The Deck
Combo: Trix

[Ozymandias]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned Midrange, which, like it or not, is totally an archetype, even in Legacy. The most famous example?

Jamie Wakefield- Secret Force '99
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Elvish Lyrists
4 Wall of Roots
3 Uktabi Orangutan
4 Spike Feeder
2 Spike Weaver
3 Verdant Force
4 Creeping Mold
4 Natural Order
3 Overrun

3 Gaea's Cradle
3 Wastelands
16 Forests

[jimirynk]

Best combo deck

20 black lotus
20 wheel of fortune
20 lightning bolt

</thread>

[Valdez]

Best combo deck

20 black lotus
20 wheel of fortune
20 lightning bolt

</thread>
http://www.image-ant.org/thumb/TNbc4cb2d18ae.jpg (http://www.image-ant.org/show/bc4cb2d18ae.jpg)
Gesichtspalme.

@ Topic:
I would say, the most influental combodeck für modern magic was Long.

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

Incorrect. You're forgetting Ancestral Recall, Wrath of God, Mind Twist, and Library of Alexandria, all leveraged as CA sources by The Deck. Most of us ran maindeck Balance as well. Beyond that, before Mind Twist was restricted, early versions of The Deck (circa 1994) were running 4.
Fair enough. The only list for The Deck I've seen is c.1996, which does actually include a couple of those cards too as you say. Do you have or know of any links to lists or articles that trace the origins of The Deck from its earliest incarnations in '94?

[FoolofaTook]

Fair enough. The only list for The Deck I've seen is c.1996, which does actually include a couple of those cards too as you say. Do you have or know of any links to lists or articles that trace the origins of The Deck from its earliest incarnations in '94?

Go look for articles on the Balance decks that dominated play from late 1994 through mid 1995 when Balance was restricted.

The main archetype that was trying to compete with the Balance decks at that point was the blue/white permission archetype which subsequently evolved into The Deck.

[walkerdog]

I'd throw Zoo in as one of the more influential aggro decks. It's a little late to the table, but is played in a lot of formats, plays a lot of signature cards, and kind is a posterboy for a greedy aggro manabase and ridic cheap critters.

[Holiday]

What if we narrow the list to just Legacy decks?

I'd probably say something like
Aggro: Vial Goblins
Control: Landstill
Combo: Solidarity

To me Threshold has been one of the most influencial deks for as long as I've been playing. I'm not sure how to classify it (Aggro/Control? But there are different builds ofc) I always find myself testing decks against Threshold before anything else.

[Rico Suave]

Fair enough. The only list for The Deck I've seen is c.1996, which does actually include a couple of those cards too as you say. Do you have or know of any links to lists or articles that trace the origins of The Deck from its earliest incarnations in '94?

The biggest problem is that magic websites simply did not exist in 1994.

There were a number of California players in 1994 who were playing "the 56 card deck" and the only real difference between them was how they killed. Some used Serra Angel, others Millstone, etc. Either way it is only through the words of these people that we learned about it.

The Deck 1995, Brian Weissman, as posted on The Dojo

Blue (11)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Braingeyser
4 Mana Drain
2 Counterspell
1 Recall

White (12)
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Disenchant
2 Moat
2 Serra Angel

Black (2)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mind Twist

Red (2)
2 Red Elemental Blast

Green (1)
1 Regrowth

Artifact (4)
1 Ivory Tower
2 Disrupting Scepter
1 Jayemdae Tome

Mana (28)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Strip Mine
3 City of Brass
1 Plateau
1 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra
3 Plains
4 Island

Sideboard (15)
1 Plains
1 Disrupting Scepter
1 Jayemdae Tome
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Control Magic
1 Counterspell
2 Blood Moon
3 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Divine Offering
1 Moat

[Lothian]

What about the most influential deck of all time:

LauerPotence, PT Chicago 1997



Black summer you say???

No Zuran, no Disc, WTF??

4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Strip Mine
17 Swamp
2 Dancing Scimitar
4 Hypnotic Specter
1 Ihsan’s Shade
4 Order of the Ebon Hand
1 Dance of the Dead
4 Dark Ritual
2 Demonic Consultation
4 Drain Life
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Ivory Tower
3 Necropotence
4 Nevinyrral’s Disk
1 Zuran Orb

That's more like it

BLACK

[badjuju]

Do you believe Aggro-Combo deserves an archetype title? I would consider Affinity back in T2 and Dredge under that category.

[Aggro_zombies]

Do you believe Aggro-Combo deserves an archetype title? I would consider Affinity back in T2 and Dredge under that category.
That's never really been a major type of deck with the exception of a couple of decks that crop up occasionally. There's been tons of control, combo, aggro, and aggro-control decks throughout the game's history.

Affinity isn't even the most influential deck in the "Format-warping decks that made lots of players unhappy" category.

[walkerdog]

First of all, a card like Moat is not virtual card advantage against a deck with creatures - it IS card advantage.

Secondly, we're not talking about the same deck, as "The Deck" runs a lot more than just what you described, including Ancestral, Mind Twist, Balance *maindeck*, hell even Amnesia later on.

Third, nobody understood why Necropotence was good until Weissman introduced the idea of card advantage. The "black summer" of Necro was like 2 years after Weissman's ideas of card advantage. -_-



Except you'll notice that LauerPotence was not until 1997. People were running Necro decks before then, but they were *not* the streamlined low mana curve Necro decks. They were Necro decks that drew expensive cards like Nekrataal and Wildfire Emissary.

Sligh introduced the low mana curve in 1996, and it took until 1997 for it to bleed over into Necro decks.

Moat is virtual CA. If they have Fling, for example, they can still get use out of those cards. Same with Soul's Fire, Wonder (demonstrating how it would be -1 CA, but +x virtual CA as you get all of those non-fliers back in action).

[Tao]

Aggro: Thunder Bluff
Aggro-Control: Thunder Bluff
Combo: Thunder Bluff
Control: Thunder Bluff

[Citrus-God]

I'd like to think that Vintage Psychatog had the most profound influence on our decks being designed today. It's balance of control elements and raw aggression is elegance with a killer instinct.

[Infinitium]

Dredge should be on that list. Not only did iterations of it seen extensive play in both T2 -and- all eternal formats simultaneously to great success and made Tormod's Crypt a sideboard staple, but it also redefined what could constitute a valid Magic Deck (which some still maintain isn't) and once and for all proved the notion that synergy alone could make a pile of otherwise unplayable cards into a contender.

It's also one of the prime reasons why I believe that Standard as a format reached it's apex during the few weeks of Ravnica/Time Spiral/9th blocks after which it has gone in a consistent downward spiral.

[dahcmai]

It kind of depends on what you are wanting to call influential. If you mean the first of the archtype, that's easy.

Control - The Deck
Combo - Timetwister/Regrowth Braingeyser idiocy that pretty much decided to get them all restricted.
Aggro - Kird Ape Channelball
Aggro Control - Necro


Now if you mean the ones that had the largest impact on the format at the time.

The Deck would still take the top spot for control

Combo - The God deck or "The Masturbator" (Chapin and his loving names) which single handedly managed to get everything in the deck restricted but one of the lands and convince wizards to do the mass bannings of anything combo related. Academy days. The vintage version was unreal, I'm not talking about that wimpy turn 2 win standard crap. I think there were something like 15 cards all resticted at once during that time. Deck was dumb. Punch through double Force of Will, Gorilla Shaman with three mana open on the first turn dumb.

Aggro Control - Still stays with Necro since it was rediculous for the time and never let up until it's restriction.

Aggro - Sligh seems to be the most iconic and laid the groundwork for future decks using a formula.



It's really hard to lay a solid lable on any of them though since each deck over the years contributed to it's peice of the overall picture.

[Broham]

I pretty much agree with the OP, I think there's just one thing I'd like to mention.

Control: CounterPost - While 'The Deck' is certainly iconic, it was simply a good deck made of the best cards and played well by a good player. I don't think the build influenced deckbuilding a whole lot. It certainly did show us why the powerful restricted cards were restricted though.

Anyways, I think the Counterpost Control model has had the biggest impact on control decks. I kind of see it as the streamlined successor to 'The Deck'. The beauty of building an entire deck to surround and protect your one kill card that chips away at your opponent while you give him hell with permission spells has certainly been seen since Counterpost's creation. Decks built around Nether Spirit, Sacred Mesa, Decree of Justice, Blinking Spirit, Snake Basket, etc etc all lend some bit of lineage to Counterpost.

Lastly, the reason I'm picking Counterpost over 'The Deck' is that to be influential, people have to know about you. And sadly, the community had not quite gelled yet, the Duelist magazine had just started and there was no Type2 yet. Whereas Counterpost was really there at the heart of Magic's golden age - Necropotence, Sligh, combo decks, The Duelist, and block expansions were in full swing and the talk of the town.

[Skeggi]

The biggest problem is that magic websites simply did not exist in 1994.
Here's a decklist I found of the control deck which won the 1994 Worlds. It's not quite The Deck, but may be a set-up to it:

Zack Dolan's "Dolanesque" Deck, Aug '94

2 Old Man of the Sea
1 Clone
1 Vesuvan Doppelganger
1 Time Elemental

1 Mana Drain
1 Control Magic
1 Siren's Call
2 Stasis
1 Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Serra Angel
4 Swords To Plowshares
2 Disenchant
1 Wrath of God
1 Kismet
1 Armageddon

1 Birds of Paradise
1 Ley Druid
1 Regrowth
2 Meekstone
1 Icy Manipulator
1 Howling Mine
1 Winter Orb
1 Black Vise
1 Ivory Tower
1 Mana Vault
1 Black Lotus
5 Mox
1 Sol Ring

1 Library of Alexandria
2 Strip Mine
4 Savannah
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra

Sideboard:
1 Power Sink
1 Presence of the Master
1 Reverse Damage
1 Chaos Orb
1 COP: Red
1 Copy Artifact
1 Winter Blast

Sideboard (cont):
1 Sleight of Mind
1 Kismet
1 Diamond Valley
1 In the Eye of Chaos
1 Floral Spuzzem
2 Karma
1 Magical Hack