It's like Rai, but in Magic
I started Magic with Beta, then left just before Alliances, and finally really got back into it in the era of Time Spiral and Ravnica Standard. Since then, I've grown to really appreciate Kamigawa block. Watching and reading coverage of older events, it's been fun to see the different eras of Standard over the past half decade or so. One thing that I've enjoyed looking out for is how the two adjacent blocks in Standard interact, especially since getting the blocks to play well together has been a design goal for a couple years now.
Looking back through archived events, I noticed a deficiency. Does it stand out to you, too?
Pro Tour Hollywood 2008 - Time Spiral - Lorwyn
Worlds 2007 - Time Spiral - Lorwyn
Worlds 2006 - Ravnica - Time Spiral
Pro Tour Honolulu 2006 - Kamigawa - Ravnica
Worlds 2005 - Kamigawa - Ravnica
Worlds 2004 - Onslaught - Mirrodin
So what happened to Mirrodin - Kamigawa?
This bothered me, and I spent time poking around through the extensive Magic events coverage archive looking for Standard events during the right timeframe, and not finding any.
Today, while randomly clicking, I found that I'd somehow overlooked US Nationals 2005, the Standard portion of which was Mirrodin - Kamigawa. Finally.
You can check out all the decks that made 12 points or better during the seven constructed rounds of Nationals by clicking here. At a glance, lots of Tooth and Nail, red aggro, and midrange green. Perhaps most fascinating is how completely gimped the mana bases are, especially compared to today's environment where you can just roll out any old five-color monstrosity (and occasionally lose horribly to a Magus of the Moon).
I haven't looked over the lists as much yet as I'd like, but I'm glad I finally found some Standard decks from the overlap of those two blocks.
And I would totally have played Kirk Dalton's Rock deck. Four Eternal Witness, four STE, three Persecute, and three Cranial Extraction in the side? Pure joy.