Vintage 101: The Eternal Weekend Announcement
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 diving into the announcements from this past weekend for Eternal Weekend 2023. In addition to that we've got two Challenges to discuss from this past weekend as well as an update to a paper event upcoming in September (the BCDL Vintage Open).
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Eternal Weekend 2023
We got a great announcement this past week with dates and details on Eternal Weekend 2023! You can find all the details in the announcement here.
This year we are getting three paper Eternal Weekends, each with their own Vintage Championships event featuring a trophy painting. It is worth noting that at this time there is no planned Eternal Weekend event for Magic Online, as has been confirmed by Daybreak Games and Wizards.
For this year's paintings, all three of the paintings are different variations of the card Black Lotus! In addition to that, the Top 8 promo for all three weekends this year is a retro-frame foil copy of Mental Misstep.
I have to admit I am fairly pleased with the choices of these Top 8 promos thus far (last year's being Gush) being restricted cards. It's a great way for players who do well at these events to gain a piece of bling for their deck that is unique and they only ever need one copy thanks to the restricted status. (Honestly, even though it's not restricted, a retro frame Lurrus of the Dream-Den would be super sweet)
Let's go over each of the events!
Europe Eternal Weekend 2023
This year marks a return of paper Eternal Weekend to Europe as last year's return to paper in general did not have one of these for the European market. This event is going to be held in Prague, Czech Republic and is hosted by JK Entertainment. The event takes place on November 17-19.
The trophy painting of Black Lotus is done by Raoul Vitale.
Asia Eternal Weekend 2023
The Asia Eternal Weekend event is again held in Aichi, Japan, and is again hosted by BIG MAGIC. This event takes place on November 24-26.
The Black Lotus trophy painting for this event is done by Jarel Threat.
North America Eternal Weekend 2023
North American Eternal Weekend is back again this year as well, with a move back to a city it has been in before with Pittsburgh, PA. This event is hosted by Card Titan and takes place on December 8-10.
The Black Lotus trophy for this event is done by Scott M. Fischer.
BCDL Vintage Open 9/30/2023
The Buffalo Chicken Dip Vintage Open is set to take place on 9/30/2023 at the Brewdog Hotel & Brewery. We got a recent update on this event in the form of a revised playtest policy. This event is now full playtest card allowable in order to allow everyone able to play, utilizing the same rules that BCDL typically uses in their normal LGS community events.
You can find the post and full update here.
Vintage Challenge 8/12
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the mid afternoon Saturday event. This event had 61 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find all of the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative was the most popular deck and it had a pretty strong win rate. Blue Ring Tinker variants seemed to fall just below 50% and both Prison/Combo Shops didn't do so hot. Jeskai, BUG, and Doomsday all performed well here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jeskai Lurrus | 1st | unluckymonkey |
| Initiative | 2nd | J0se |
| Esper Tinker | 3rd | s8shock |
| BUG Midrange | 4th | Xenowan |
| Initiative | 5th | mattsoree |
| Doomsday | 6th | ecobaronen |
| Dredge | 7th | snakerman |
| Initiatve | 8th | TaJoordan |
Nice amount of Initiative here plus a few other differing decks. At the end of the event it was Jeskai Lurrus that won.
This is an exceedingly straightforward and powerful deck in the current format. It does a lot of really powerful things and always looks very good. Forth Eorlingas! here looks pretty great.
In Second Place we have Initiative.
Very stock looking list here. Not much of this list has been innovated on since arriving at what most of these lists now look like. It's a strong deck and does some pretty powerful things.
Also in this Top 8 we had Esper Tinker.
Standard looking Tinker list here. Only one copy of the Ring but with all the other hallmarks of this deck. Bowmasters is cool here too though, and so is Lorien Revealed.
Further down the Top 8 we had BUG Midrange.
Solid looking list here, utilizing Bowmasters well and hating on lots of artifacts with four main deck Collector Ouphe. Soul Rend is a sweet sideboard card here.
Vintage Challenge 8/13
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Sunday event. This event had 54 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find all of the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative again was very poplar, but its win rate was less than 50%. BUG did very well as did AggroVine variants.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Breach (Pirate Wheels) | 1st | TeamLeaderNa |
| Lurrus DRS | 2nd | _Batutinha_ |
| BUG Midrange | 3rd | TrueHero |
| Paradoxical Outcome | 4th | Cioffo86 |
| Initiative | 5th | _Shatun_ |
| Aggro Shops | 6th | adm29 |
| BUG Midrange | 7th | LeoFa |
| Initiative | 8th | TaJoordan |
Fairly diverse all around here. At the end of the event it was a split finals with the recorded winner being a fun deck (created by Vintage Streamer's Discord user notmi) notably that's Breach, but also called "Pirate Wheels".
Pirates abound here as Ragavan and friends make their way through this insanity. Hullbreacher and Wheel of Fortune/Timetwister all seem really strong, and having the Breach plan is great. This deck is fun.
The recorded Second Place finalist was on Lurrus DRS.
More of an Esper Lurrus build here, using DRS as a mana producing creature and for its drain effect is quite strong. Very solid list for sure.
Also in this Top 8 we had PO.
Very standardized list here. Seems quite good though and very powerful.
Further down the Top 8 we have a sweet Aggro Shops deck.
This having the Painter combo in it seems kind of fun. It can then post board into a full on Aggro Shops variant which is super interesting.
Around the Web
- Only one video from Justin Gennari this week as he is on a much deserved vacation. Check out the Doomsday Tinker video here.
- Revenantkioku has a Vintage Challenge Doomsday video. Check it out here.
- I'm the Problem it's Squee!
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 lists here.
Invasion of New Phyrexia with Lurrus? Sweet.
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!
