Cards you can't use anymore

[ICanHasDreadnought?]

I just recently found my old Magic decks, and after much rejoicing and celebrating, I headed down to my local comic store to play a few games. My euphoria was reduced a sort of faint sobbing noise when I was told I couldn't use some of my cards. What happened? Were the developers beaten soundly with these cards and decided nobody could use them?

Apologies for vagueness, grief has clouded my memory. My poor poor awesome deck

[firemanmm]

From what I understand, the Wizards puts out a new set of cards every once and a while, and once they do some older decks become "outdated" and aren't allowed to be used with the newer decks. It is a monetary ploy, as most people who play competitively will have to continually update their decks by purchasing a new deck, or set of cards.

As for friendly games, as long as your opponent is aware and doesn't mind you should have no problem using old cards. My brother-in-law and I still play, even though my black zombie deck is from the Urza decks, from like 8 years ago.

[Nonebutone]

Happened to me as well when I got back into magic, many of my older cards were banned in legacy type games, and were so many of my older decks were restricted to Casual gaming.

Did they Mention what cards were not allowed? Since You may have more fun duing a Legacy Tournament (if your local store runs those) as Stardard is the "new" stuff.

-None

[ICanHasDreadnought?]

Thanks guys. I think it really sucks that they don't offer things like Unrestricted/Open tournaments in more shops, I think it would really encourage old players who got disillusioned with the Devs banning certain cards. If players know what they're getting in to from the get-go then its fine in my humble opinion.

[ArqArturo]

Problem is also when they start banning new or relatively new cards (such as skullclamp and jace the mind sculptor). My soldier deck is only had four daru warchiefs and I can only use it in casual, and they're not exactly broken.

[IPlayThisGame]

I was thinking of starting magic again a while ago. But I haven't collected anything since the Ravnica block, and when I found out I couldn't use my Golgari deck, my Mirrodin block Blue/Artifact deck, or my even older Angel deck (most of the cards are from 7th Edition or earlier), I resigned them all to the dusty old shelf where hobbies go to die.

EDIT: Holy pooponastick, sorry for threadromancy, this part of the forums must be really slow for this to still be up by the top.

[Kris Knives]

There are several different tournament formats:

Standard - Last two blocks of cards
Extended - Last 6 blocks of card
Legacy - All non-banned cards
Vintage - All Cards allowed, but some restricted to one copy.

I think they need to probably add a 5th between Extended and legacy but honestly it would probably be neglected. Most tournaments are draft, standard and extended.

The reason they don't offer open tournaments is because it is very easy to build instant kill decks when you are not restricted. A standard or extended games usually needs to go to turn 5 before someone can even hope to end the game, Legacy is much shorter and vintage usually only last one or two turns.

Even decks some of the over power Mirroden decks wouldn't stand a chance against vintage play. You pretty much have to be able to draw any random 7 cards from your deck and play them all turn 1 if you want to play in those formats.

[madcap romanian]

You missed "Modern". Basically all cards from 8th edition to the most recent pack. We play this a lot at my store.