>>96165304
Combo Winter 1999 can be chalked up to inexperienced designers designing to a theme and a development team that wasn't strong enough. I believe around this time is when they started hiring winners and contenders from the pro tour to become Magic developers since those people understood power level very well.

Personally I remember when I started playing in 2002ish that Earthcraft/Squirrel Nest was my shit. In defense of early designers, it's easy to make half of a combo when the other half doesn't exist.

>>96165342
To this day I have a casual Lich's Mirror Storm combo deck that runs Ignite Memories. It's an absolute favorite