Vintage 101: Looking Ahead to 2024
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 be taking a look at 2024 at a high level overview as to what we might expect from the sets this year for Vintage. In addition, we've got two Challenges to look at, the final two of 2023!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
A Look Ahead to 2024!
2024 is upon us, so it's time to get a look at a high level at some of the big tentpole releases coming this year that are likely to have an impact on Vintage as well as just other things going on this year.
Right off the bat, I want to call out the new decklist data we are being provided by Daybreak Games! Going into 2024 with more data than we've ever had before for Magic Online is such a huge deal when it comes to data collection and accurate classification of these older formats. This is by far my favorite thing to enter the year with!
Universes Beyond: Fallout
While this set falls into the same vein as Warhammer 40K and Doctor Who, it would not be surprising at all for this set to find a roleplayer or a new card that might be worth playing. The only problem here is whether or not these cards will make it onto Magic Online or not.
Modern Horizons III
This is probably the biggest release of the year that would have an impact on Vintage as a whole. Both Horizons sets to date have introduced major things to the Vintage format, so it stands to reason this set will as well. The Lord of the Rings was also sort of filling that role as a Modern Horizons-esque set and that in of itself had a huge impact on Vintage. This is the one to keep an eye on for sure this year.
The Annual Q3 Banned and Restricted Announcement
While we are getting attention to non-Standard formats every so often now as opposed to the ad hoc BnR announcements that were commonplace before these changes, but now we have a full-on yearly annual announcement to consider in Q3 of 2024. What may happen in Vintage there will simply depend on where the format is at this time, but this is something to keep in mind.
Eternal Weekend 2024
It's going to be way too early to say when these events will be, but it's something to keep an eye out for!
Vintage Challenge 12/30
The first Challenge of last weekend was the mid-afternoon Saturday event. This event had 74 players in it thanks to the efforts of the Vintage Streamer's Discord and Daybreak Games.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Lurrus Saga was the most popular deck of the event, but its win rate was dragged down a bit, while Jewel Shops did very well as did Doomsday.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jewel Shops | 1st | Maxtortion |
| Initiative | 2nd | LasVegasChaos |
| Doomsday | 3rd | Diem4x |
| Aggro Shops | 4th | adm29 |
| UW Lurrus Saga | 5th | Eonwe7 |
| Dredge | 6th | TheManLand |
| Jewel Shops | 7th | AlpInco |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | 416FrowningTable |
Quite a bit of Jewel Shops in this Top 8, and it won the event overall.
This deck has continued to prove that it's just a solid way to interact with the format at large at the moment. It does a lot of really powerful things and while it can be targeted pretty well, it's one of the most "Vintage" decks of the format right now.
In Second Place we had Initiative.
Dauntless Dismantler has certainly worked its way into this deck as a main deck option and it's not hard to see why. It's a very good card and can very much put a lot of pressure on opponents.
Further down the Top 8 we had Aggro Shops.
Chief of the Foundry Shops! This list is pretty sweet, leaning on the power of Patchwork and Chief to push in tons of damage quickly.
At the bottom of the Top 8, we had Dredge.
This list is leaning more toward where Dredge has been this year with stuff like Silversmote Ghoul. Strong list for sure.
Vintage Challenge 12/31
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Sunday event. This event had 51 players in it thanks to the efforts of the Vintage Streamer's Discord and Daybreak Games.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Both Lurrus Saga and Initiative were quite popular and both had some strong win rates. Jewel Shops underperformed here as did CounterVine, Oath, and Dredge.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Aggro Shops | 1st | TeamLeaderNa |
| UW Lurrus Saga | 2nd | Elfkid |
| UW Lurrus Saga | 3rd | mogged |
| Aggro Shops | 4th | revenantkioku |
| Grixis Tinker | 5th | TrueHero |
| Doomsday | 6th | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Doomsday | 7th | Diem4x |
| BUG | 8th | Wesal |
Fairly interesting Top 8! At the end of the event, it was Aggro Shops that won.
Stonecoil Serpent seeing more play is sweet, honestly. That card is very fun to play with and very powerful.
In Second Place we had UW Lurrus Saga.
The Spreading Seas tech is kind of sweet, honestly. Being able to answer opposing Sagas and also Bazaars seems quite good really, but Saga answering is where it is at since it can be recurred then with Lurrus.
Also in this Top 8 we had Grixis Tinker.
Main deck Gorilla Shaman is bananas!
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had BUG.
Pretty well-built version of the BUG deck here with all the threats one expects to see. Spell Pierce finding purpose as a main deck card in Vintage is really sweet.
Around the Web
- Martin Nielsen has a video on Doomsday. Check it out here.
- Justin Gennari helps us wrap up 2023!
- Zias has a video on ScamGaak. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Saga CounterVine?!
TIBALT'S TRICKERY
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!
