Vintage 101: Vintage in Bologna
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 Bologna, Italy for some Vintage! That's right we're going to be talking about the recent 4Seasons weekend and their Vintage main event. In addition to that we have two Challenges to talk about. This weekend is both Eternal Weekend North America AND Eternal Weekend MTGO, so it's going to be an action packed weekend ahead of us for the format, so be on the lookout for that info next week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
4Seasons - Bologna, Italy
Last weekend was a huge weekend for Eternal Magic in general, with the hosting of the 4Seasons event in Bologna, Italy. As part of this event not only was there a sweet Team Trios event (Vintage/Legacy/Modern) but there was a Vintage main event that got 64 players battling it out for prizes. You can find all of the 4Seasons tournament info on their Twitter. They've also posted all the Top 8 decklists over here.
While I believe this is on a bit of a smaller side of an event for 4Seasons, it's still a very good turnout. A lot of players were playing Legacy this past weekend too so there's usually a good amount of cross overlap there. The overall metagame of this event was highly combo centric as we have a metagame breakdown provided to us by our good friend Log.
As noted, quite a bit of combo as Breach was highly represented here across the room. There was a lot of other Tinker Saga variants as well and a good amount of Jeskai.
We do have a Top 8 to look at too, so let's take a look!
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Esper Tinker | 1st | Marc Tobiasch |
| Jeskai Lurrus | 2nd | Joe Brennan |
| Aggro Shops | 3rd-4th | Samuele Tombesi |
| Jeskai Lurrus | 3rd-4th | Tomáš Már |
| Breach | 5th-8th | Nicola Mattia Fantini |
| Esper Tinker | 5th-8th | Davide Marcotti |
| UB Tinker | 5th-8th | Werther Masi |
| Mono White | 5th-8th | Francesco Santinelli |
Definitely an interesting Top 8 here, with some good amount of Tinker and Jeskai variants. At the end of the event it was Esper Tinker that took it all down.
Esper Tinker is definitely quite strong, as the power of cards like Mentor and Lavinia are very apparent. The removal sweet is quite strong too and you still have the black tutors like Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor. Definitely a very solid deck.
The Second Place finalist was NA Eternal Weekend previous winner Joe Brennan on Jeskai Lurrus.
This deck continues to gain a lot of steam and it seems very powerful. Between the power of Wasteland being quite good in the format right now and Lavinia/Dreadhorde/Ragavan plus Lurrus, it seems like a solid deck to be on.
Be sure to check out all of the 4Seasons information on their Twitter and look for info on their upcoming events!
Vintage Challenge 12/3
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the mid-afternoon Saturday event. This event had 68 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 datasheet here. Be aware that there is still a bug with MTGO decklists pulling in Swiss order and not in final Top 8 order.
Jeskai was exceptionally popular in this event, but its win rate was medium at best. However, new kids on the block Mono White (new because well... you'll see) were also on the map and Hogaak did the best out of everything with a raw win rate of 58.5%. This event looked great though.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono White | 1st | HanktheObese |
| Doomsday | 2nd | Diem4x |
| Breach | 3rd | Kinarus |
| Hogaak | 4th | swiftwarkite2 |
| Paradoxical Outcome | 5th | mourning palace |
| Paradoxical Outcome | 6th | Clamavus |
| 4C DRS | 7th | Eonwe7 |
| Goblins | 8th | grumsh |
Wild Top 8 here, with some Combo action, Tinker, and... the INITIATIVE. ROLL TO SEE WHO GOES FIRST!
That's right. The winner of this event was on Mono White Initiative Aggro, the new hotness that has been spreading a little bit like wildfire through both Legacy and it now seems has definitely extended to Vintage after our article on it two weeks ago. This deck functions on the power level of White Plume Adventurer and Seasoned Dungeoneer and is exceptionally powerful at closing games very quickly.
The Second Place finalist is on Doomsday.
While a deck that is a powerful Turn 1 combo deck may seem like the greatest thing ever against the Mono White deck, the Mono White deck does have a lot of options vs this deck that can impact Doomsday's gameplay, and most notably the biggest of that is the life lost from Doomsday itself. Any sort of "pass the turn" pile with a Doomsday can possibly be disastrous versus the deck playing Thalia, Loran of the Third Path, Archon of Emeria, or just the Initiative itself causing things like life loss. It's interesting to see how these decks match up together for sure.
Near the bottom of the Top 8 we have Goblins!
I love Goblins. That is all.
Vintage Challenge 12/4
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Sunday event. This event had 50 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 datasheet here.
Jeskai was again at the top of popularity and had a solid 56.6% win rate here. Mono White also did very well yet again in this event too with a 63.0% win rate, and the rest of the metagame was up and down in the middle somewhere.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jeskai Lurrus | 1st | kasa |
| Jeskai Control | 2nd | ZYURYO |
| Storm Combo | 3rd | desolutionist |
| Prison Shops | 4th | Breckoroni |
| Mono White | 5th | HanktheObese |
| Jeskai Lurrus | 6th | _Shatun_ |
| Combo Shops | 7th | CherryXMan |
| BUG Lurrus | 8th | yeldarbflactem |
Lot of Jeskai here and some Shops decks. The Mono White Initiative deck from Saturday also Top 8'ed again on the same player, but at the end of the event it was Jeskai Lurrus that won.
We get to see new card Third Path Iconoclast here, and I think that card is quite powerful in Vintage, due to the plethora of artifacts and spells the format flings about. Definitely quite strong.
The other Finalist was also on Jeskai, but not on Lurrus.
This deck gets to expand past the two drops into things like Mentor, Dack Fayden, and a sweet miser's copy of Maddening Hex in the main deck. We also get a sweet spicy one-of Fury in the sideboard to top it all off. Really sick list.
Also in this Top 8 we had a really interesting Storm list.
Very reminiscent of more old school Storm ideology of playing more discard spells and killing your opponent with skulls, this deck has a lot of skulls. Just look at them all. So many skulls, so little time. I love Dauthi Voidwalker here as a bit of a Leyline effect that also attacks which seems insane versus Bazaar decks, and Dark Confidant pushing through the library is pretty cool. Super fun-looking list for sure.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari's content machine cannot be stopped! Here's our wrapup for this week:
- Jarvis Yu is Smelting some Vats! Check it out here.
- Our good friend revenantkioku posted a new Challenge video! Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook posted a video on Grixis Tinker Breach. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 decklists here.
Never ever change, Brian Kelly.
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!
