MTG did not become great by printing loads of shit product, or pringle-foil quality cards. It did not become great by catering to transgenders or fat feminists. Nor did it become great by banning strong cards, or through printing and banning selective cards to push other decks.
All that stuff is new, and its all terrible.
Uh, LED had no cards to use it with. It was a soggy biscuit rare pretty much until the invention of Dredge. The timing rules when it was printed were very different, and there was no way to use the mana prior to discarding your hand.
you still can't use the mana before discarding your hand, you just hold priority while doing so and stack the top of your deck and a draw spell
unfortunately at the time noone considered brainstorm + vampiric tutor to be a viable combination
Nahiri kicking the shit out of Sorin was pretty amazing, but then they did build her up to be a powerful and likeable character.We want more female protagonists.
But they can't ever be put in peril or be seen to be overpowered by an enemy.
Vamp Tutor, stack top card, Brainstorm, hold priority sac LED... okay cool, now draw 3, return 2. You just discarded your hand, spent 3 cards, and a draw step to... what exactly?
doomsday, of course?
I played Brainstorm with Thawing Glaciers in block constructed and won my first PTQ with it, before Glaciers and Zuran Orb got banned. I mean on the whole decks were relatively untuned compared to now, but there's a lot of weird beliefs held by people. People talk about how long it took people to figure out Necropotence, but at the time the most popular deck was a Howling Mine/Black Vice deck with some land destruction. That's a very hostile environment for Necro. Once Vise got restricted in standard the first major event was PT1 and there was Necro and Land Tax decks everywhere.