It was able to 'go off' consistently at around the 4th turn and win, and there's very little that the opponent can do about it. And it doesn't help that the deck uses a lot of old, hard to get rares that only veterans had access to.
A few years ago, a standard deck was able to do a 3rd turn kill. With Goblins, no less.
- Mountain; play Goblin Prospector
- Mountain; sac Prospector for Red mana; Goblin Chief (All goblins get Haste and cost 1 mana less to cast.)
- Mountain; play 3 Goblin Piledriver (1R: Whenever Goblin Piledriver attacks, it gets +2/+0 until end of turn for each other attacking Goblin. 1/2); attacks with 4 goblins for 23 points of damage. Game Over.
And if anyone needed further evidence of how horrible M:tG is right now, you can just look at this deck. Which boasts an average win at turn 1.5. One and a half turns, and it's game over. On average.
It needs TWO cards, and TWO mana, goes off, and game over.
Hell, with the right cards in hand, you can even go off at turn 0.5, and win before your opponent even gets to draw a single card. EVEN IF YOUR OPPONENT WAS GOING FIRST! You can win on HIS FIRST TURN!!
Turn 0: Put Gemstone Caverns in play.
Turn 0.5: Just before your opponent reaches out to draw his first card...
- Discard Elvish Spirit Guide for 1 Green mana.
- Tap Gemstone Caverns for 1 Blue mana.
- Cast Flash, drop a Protean Hulk.
- The Hulk dies, and you dig through your library for 4 Disciple of the Vault, 4 Phyrexian Marauder, 4 Shifting Wall, and drop them all into play.
- The Marauders and Walls are 0/0 artifact creatures, thus they die immediately.
- For each artifact going to the graveyard, Disciple of the Vault's ability triggers, and your opponent loses one life.
- 4 Disciple of the Vault x 8 artifacts dying = Opponent loses 32 life.
- Pick up trophy, you're the new champion.
You know what? I believe I still have a copy of Flash in my collection somewhere. Wonder if that card can fetch me a couple of bucks now.
