Vintage 101: Save a Snorse, Ride an Outlaw
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of Vintage 101! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're going to diving into a fun new card from Outlaws of Thunder Junction seeing play in Vintage, and that's Caustic Bronco! In addition to that we've got several Challenges to discuss for the week. Also yes, I'm well aware of the Modern Horizons 3 stuff floating about out there from Wizards officially, but we will discuss those cards in a proper set review later on.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Snorses Need Love Too!
We're a bit into the release of Outlaws of Thunder Junction and we're starting to see some of the effects of this set on Vintage as a format. While things like Simulacrum Synthesizer are big and flashy, it's one other card that actually seems like it might be the real deal in the format. That card? Caustic Bronco.
This card is actually incredibly interesting because more often than not your opponent isn't going to have a creature to block when it attacks. It acts as a pseudo Dark Confidant in these kinds of scenarios, but you can actively also set it up where you can then Saddle it and make your opponent lose a bunch of life by stuffing a Dig Through Time or a Treasure Cruise on top. Not to mention that even if your opponent does have a creature to block this, playing this in Lurrus of the Dream-Den decks means you can just recast it from your graveyard! Being an attack trigger is the big thing of this, as you're going to get that value regardless.
The fact that it also is just like Dark Confidant in terms of "putting the card in hand" as opposed to drawing it is very real as well. It makes it a bit better against Bowmasters in general. This seems like it will be a really interesting card to keep playing around with in these shells, because it does some really powerful things and the fact that it can be recast if it dies is very good.
Definitely a card I'd recommend keeping your eyes on going forward, because I expect it will see play in all the Lurrus Saga decks at some point.
Vintage Challenge 32 4/25
The first Challenge to speak about was the Thursday event. This event had 47 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Lurrus Saga was quite popular, but it's win rate was sub 50% despite showing up a bunch at the Top 8. Sphere Shops and Doomsday all did well as did BUG. Initiative did rather poorly.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Doomsday | 1st | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Dredge | 2nd | SuperCow12653 |
| Lurrus Saga | 3rd | Graciasportanto |
| Lurrus Saga | 4th | Jujkata |
| Lurrus Saga | 5th | MestariMatt |
| Lurrus Saga | 6th | handsomePPZ |
| BUG | 7th | littledarwin |
| Countervine | 8th | medvedev |
Huge amount of Lurrus in this Top 8. The end of the event though was won by Doomsday.
Strong looking list here. Doomsday does look very good right now especially with the Ponder unrestriction.
In Second Place we had Dredge.
Surprised to see the cut-in of Bridge/Therapy without Poxwalkers. Usually those go hand in hand with these decks.
At the bottom of this Top 8 we had Countervine.
Poxwalkers here is incredibly sweet, speaking of the card. Being able to pitch it and a Madness creature is very powerful.
Vintage Challenge 32 4/26
The second Challenge to speak about is the Friday event. This event had 44 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Lurrus Saga was again super popular and it had a solid win rate. BUG also looked quite good as did Breach. Jewel Shops did poorly here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Saga | 1st | handsomePPZ |
| Breach | 2nd | Bullwinkkle6705 |
| Lurrus Saga | 3rd | Maxtortion |
| BUG | 4th | _Shatun_ |
| Dredge | 5th | Lord_Beerus |
| Doomsday | 6th | discoverN |
| BUG | 7th | SuperCow12653 |
| Doomsday | 8th | revenantkioku |
Interesting spread of decks here overall. At the end of the event it was a split finals with the recorded winner being Lurrus Saga.
Fairly stock looking list here. No crazy frills for sure. Spreading Seas continues to be super cool.
In the recorded Second Place we had Breach.
Straightforward Breach list here. Leaning on the side of the PO basis of the deck as well as a way to win the game. Very cool.
Further down the Top 8 we had BUG.
Very nice list here. I like the one of Daze and also the Opposition Agent.
Vintage Challenge 32 4/27
The third Challenge was the mid afternoon Saturday event. This event had 60 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Lurrus Saga was again very popular with a very strong win rate. Shops decks also looked great in this event while Jewel and Dredge looked poorly.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Saga | 1st | handsomePPZ |
| Lurrus Saga | 2nd | bless_von |
| Jewel Shops | 3rd | _J0SE_ |
| Sphere Shops | 4th | Sommertroll |
| Lurrus Saga | 5th | John1111 |
| Lurrus Saga | 6th | ElfKid |
| Lurrus Saga | 7th | McWinSauce |
| Lurrus Saga | 8th | MestariMatt |
Lurrus Saga took up literally 6/8 out of this Top 8. Wow. It was a split finals once more, with the recorded winner and Second Place were both Lurrus Saga.
We talked a lot about Caustic Bronco in this article, so that is the major enhancement this deck at the moment.
Also in this Top 8 we had Sphere Shops.
Pretty straightforward Aggro Shops variant overall. Very clean and aggressive deck.
Vintage Challenge 32 4/28
The final Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Sunday event. This event had 44 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Lurrus Saga again very popular, but with a less than 50% win rate. Jewel Shops looked quite good, while Oath seemed quite insane.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Oath of Druids | 1st | mosh110 |
| Jewel Shops | 2nd | _J0SE_ |
| Jewel Shops | 3rd | Kenzaburo |
| Doomsday | 4th | discoverN |
| GW Aggro | 5th | Wesal |
| Initiative | 6th | 2radMTG |
| Lurrus Saga | 7th | bless_von |
| Lurrus Saga | 8th | Tw33ty |
Quite a spread in this event. This event also had a split finals with the recorded winner being Oath.
Definitely what we've come to expect out of Oath decks at the moment. The two copies of Impulse is super cool though.
The recorded Second Place was Jewel Shops.
Pretty stock looking Jewel list here. Don't fix what isn't broke, for sure!
Also in this Top 8 we had GW Aggro.
We see this deck show up here or there on occasion from this specific pilot. It generally looks well suited to this particular pilot's play style and it seems quite powerful.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari has some sweet videos for us this week.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some spice!
Brian Kelly continuing to be awesome.
SICK REANIMATOR DECK
Wrapping Up
That's all the time we have this week folks! Thanks for your continued support of the column and join me next week as we continue our journey into Vintage!
As always you can reach me at my Link Tree! In addition you can always reach me on the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the Vintage Streamers Discord.
Until next time!
