I always was a hedgehog player - RTS's, card games whatever. I was at happiest when behind 3-4 castles, lots of flying first strike creatures, and generating dozens of life per round from my lib of leng + ivory towers.
I did have a couple decks that if I got incredibly lucky could do a first or 2nd round kill, which was unusual in those days. Most involved a lotus, sol ring or dark ritual, drain life, and the one that converts life into mana.
Then you had the little annoying combos - vipers + flame whip (poison), etc.
I knew I was getting fed up with the game when I started seeing things like
1) friends sliver deck that generated about 200 10/10 flying, trampling, immune to effects creatures by round 5.
2) friend can immediately rattle off a dozen ways to generate infinite mana relatively easily.
3) They made Timmy Power Gamer in Unglued (fine), then made a REAL card that was EASIER TO CAST of the same thing.
One of my friends still plays. The cards he has are ludicrous (but considered normal now). This 'equipment' crap is gay. Give me banding back and requiring double digit casting costs for things that are ridiculously powerful and I may one day consider playing again. *sigh* It's particularly sad when you mention some old classic like Flame Wave and someone tells you there is a new equivalent that costs less than half the casting cost, has some oddball extra side-effect, and returns to hand after casting =p.