Vintage 101: 2025 is Here!
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of Vintage 101! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're here in 2025 and taking a look ahead to the year to come and what could possibly impact Vintage this year. In addition, we've got a bunch of events plus a Super Qualifier to look at!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
The Year to Come - 2025 for Vintage
2024 is dead and gone, and here we are in 2025! There's a lot to consider for this year, so we're going to be taking a look at what sets we know are coming out in 2025 and predict what we thing may happen to Vintage because of them. I'm breaking this up into the two halves of the year, as we know a bit more about the first half of the year than the second. Much of this we'll likely find out more on at Magic Con Chicago in February.
First Half of 2025 - Aetherdrift, Tarkir, Final Fantasy
The first half of 2025 is going to bring with it three large Standard sets coming out in February, April, and June respectively. The first of these is Aetherdrift, a journey across multiple planes in a "death race." Standard sets tend to have generally very little impact on Vintage usually, and I don't expect much coming out of this one so soon after Duskmourn.
Before Tarkir: Dragonstorm arrives in April however, there is going to be a Banned and Restricted Announcement on March 31, 2025. I am curious what Wizards may or may not do to Vintage at this time. Personally, I believe the best announcement for these formats would be to completely unshackle them from RC/PTQ style formats like Standard/Pioneer/Modern and put the eternal formats on their own banlist check-in cadence, one that is a little more frequent than waiting three+ months to get at bare minimum a check-in. It would be nice to see this announced in March for going forward for them to try this. I think it would be very beneficial to formats like Vintage and Legacy.
Tarkir: Dragonstorm releases in April and is a return to the plane of Tarkir. The original Tarkir block introduced some exceptionally polarizing mechanics by expanding on things such as Delve and gave the format at bare minimum three different restricted cards (Monastery Mentor, Dig Through Time, and Treasure Cruise). Is it possible that a return to Tarkir gives us something equally as broken or possibly even just good? Return sets have not always been highly powered to their original sets, so I don't think we likely will see something, but with the renewed focus on Standard there could be something that could slip through the cracks.
The last Standard set of the first half of 2025 is Universes Beyond: Final Fantasy. The UB sets have been exceptionally polarizing to a lot of people, specifically because a good majority of them have either been directly injecting cards into Vintage via Commander sets or the experiment that was Lord of the Rings being a Modern legal set much like Modern Horizons sets. This has meant that there have been cards that have pushed into older formats because they were not designed with these formats in mind and were designed with Modern power levels. Cards like The One Ring and Orcish Bowmasters, but also stuff like Lorien Revealed have pushed the format very hard. I suspect we will see less of these things occur with Standard legal UB sets, since they will need to be designed with Standard power levels in mind. Still, I would keep a close eye on this set especially. I feel if anything is going to happen out of this year, it will be out of the three UB sets we're getting this year.
Second Half of 2025 - Edge of Eternities, Spider-Man, Unnamed UB Set
The second half of 2025 is much murkier than the first because there's a whole set we don't even know what it is yet. The biggest aspect of the second half of this year is that 2/3 of the Standard sets here are Universes Beyond sets. One of those is Spider-Man, the first tie-in Wizards is doing with Marvel, and the other is something we don't know about yet. The first Standard set of this half is Edge of Eternities, a space-themed set coming out in August.
If anything, keep a close eye on Magic Con Chicago, because more than likely some details on these things will come then, but the murky nature of the second half of 2025 makes it hard to predict what we'll see. I do believe that the two UB sets as indicated previously will be things to really consider maybe having something for Vintage, and that's just simply because of how much Wizards will want to push these sets a bit to ensure they see play.
Not to mention there's Commander product coming with all of these sets, and we also don't know if there will be anything interspersed outside of these Standard legal sets either. Something could assuredly slip through the cracks.
Regardless, 2025 seems like it will be an exciting year for Vintage, and hopefully Eternal Weekend this year will have a lot more players to keep showcasing the format.
Vintage Super Qualifier 12/28/2024
This weekend had a Super Qualifier event for Vintage! Super Qualifiers are Premier Play events where the Top 4 of the event get an invitation to a tabletop Regional Championship to play for a spot on the Pro Tour. This particular event had 199 players in it, which is honestly super solid to see for Vintage! In fact, this was relatively close to the Legacy Super Qualifier that took place a few days before this one.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Jewel Shops was the most popular deck of the event, but despite a Top 8 finish, its win rate was less than medium. Esper Lurrus and Dimir Lurrus were both among the best-performing decks of the top decks here.
This continues to showcase Vintage's current metagame as currently revolving around a few different pillars, primarily Shops taken up by Jewel, Lurrus decks, Dredge, Initiative, and Doomsday. This seems to be the current core of the format as it stands, and I am somewhat bored a bit of it. I know in the past we've seen more diversity in decks, and I do think Lurrus may need to be addressed somehow in the future, due in part to the fact that it does homogenize deckbuilding. I'm not a fan of most Companions, but Lurrus is one I really don't care for. We'll see what happens but for now this is the format that people seem to be happy with right now.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
---|---|---|
Esper Lurrus | 1st | Montolio |
Lurrus PO | 2nd | billsive |
Dimir Lurrus | 3rd | matiaskm |
Esper Lurrus | 4th | duke12 |
Jewel Shops | 5th | Killerp0p0 |
Esper Lurrus | 6th | kobayui |
Initiative | 7th | LasVegasChaos |
Doomsday | 8th | Tsubasa_Cat |
Lurrus decks in general took up a huge portion of the Top 8 here, leaving only Jewel, Initiative, and Doomsday as the remaining lists. At the end of the event, it was Esper Lurrus that won.
Usually, we've seen these lists drop Lorien Revealed since they no longer tend to play even the restricted copy of Saga (it's off and on), but I like the card in the Esper builds personally because it does allow you to have additional ways of fixing your mana while also being a late game mana sink.
In Second Place we had Lurrus PO.
This version being the PO build of the format is not what I really would have predicted, but it is strong for sure. PO has always been a deck that does tend to adapt with the times, and this version is no exception to that. I do find it super amusing that this is the deck that Forth Eorlingas! found a home in Vintage with.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Doomsday.
I love that Undercity Sewers sees play in this deck, I truly do. Surveil lands were one of the coolest things to come out of 2024, and I would love to see many other decks adopt them as well. This build is also hot on the cantrips, playing a full four of both Ponder and Consider. Consider makes for some really intriguing lines in Doomsday piles,which is really cool.
Vintage Challenge 32 12/26/2024
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 36 players in it according to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative was the most popular deck here, and it's win rate was quite solid. Jewel Shops and Dimir Lurrus also did very well while Dredge seemed to do poorly.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
---|---|---|
Jewel Shops | 1st | _dr4gun0v_ |
Jewel Shops | 2nd | haveaboavida |
Initiative | 3rd | solace |
Initiative | 4th | _Shatun_ |
Lurrus PO | 5th | unluckymonkey |
Initiative | 6th | _Chamytinho_ |
Initiative | 7th | _Batutinha_ |
Countervine | 8th | brag1 |
Lots of Initiative here, but the finals was two Jewel Shops decks. Let's look at the winner first.
Talon Gates of Madara is kind of a sweet sideboard inclusion. This deck can definitely produce the mana to put it into play at instant speed as a trick. Being able to phase out a Collector Ouphe to go off on your following turn is pretty cool.
Let's look at the Second Place list.
This list's sideboard plan against the Null Rods is to just board into an aggressive strategy with Patchwork Automaton and friends. Honestly it's a pretty slick sideboard juke. Automaton can be pretty busted if you get out of the gate with it early, especially since the Ward makes it hard to get rid of.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Countervine.
Haven't really seen this deck in a while, honestly. It has not been doing rather well, but had a presence in this event at two players, one of which made it into the Top 8, which is nice. It doesn't really seem like the deck has changed all that much though, and really there isn't much innovation in this deck's space anyways. Subtlety in the sideboard is kind of cool.
Vintage Challenge 32 12/27/2024
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 50 players in it according to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative was the most played deck of this event, but it's win rate was very poor overall. Esper Lurrus and Dimir Lurrus were great here, but Dredge also looked great.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
---|---|---|
Dredge | 1st | Munchlax446 |
Jewel Shops | 2nd | Graciasportanto |
Dimir Lurrus | 3rd | mysteryman21 |
Dimir Lurrus | 4th | duke12 |
Esper Lurrus | 5th | McWinSauce |
Lurrus PO | 6th | Dr. Jon Osterman |
Jewel Shops | 7th | RogeDeckWins |
Jewel Shops | 8th | Caleb_Yetman |
Lot of Lurrus yet again, coupled with a lot of Jewel Shops. Was Dredge the hero here? It did win the event!
One interesting thing to note out of this list is no answers to The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale in the list at all. Usually these decks are playing at least a Strip Mine or a Wasteland package. What this tells me is a lot of decks aren't 100% on a lot of Tabernacles to answer Dredge to consider this sort of metagame call. It sure panned out for this pilot in the end for sure. Dredge does have a reasonable way of beating Tabernacle without these cards too, by just depositing Ichorid into play and turning sideways.
In Second Place we had Jewel Shops.
I do enjoy that Kappa Cannoneer is seeing play in these decks. Also, another sighting of Talon Gates of Madara in the main deck here! Seems like a really cool inclusion to this deck. Being able to instant speed phase something out is really strong.
Also in this Top 8 we had Dimir Lurrus.
This is a pretty solid Dimir list overall. Double Soul-Guide Lantern seems quite strong with Lurrus and the restricted copy of Saga. One important thing to note is the complete absence of the restricted copy of Vexing Bauble. I have to wonder how much that card really will see play longer term or if people realize it's not as great being restricted.
Vintage Challenge 32 12/28/2024
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 42 players in it according to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative was the most played deck again here, and despite a great finish it's overall win rate was dragged down a bit. Jewel Shops did great, as did Esper Lurrus and Lurrus PO. Doomsday did not do well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
---|---|---|
Initiative | 1st | _Shatun_ |
Jewel Shops | 2nd | John1111 |
Tinker | 3rd | albertoSD |
4C DRS | 4th | DeviousPenguin666 |
Initiative | 5th | musasabi |
Red Prison | 6th | WadeB |
Jewel Shops | 7th | Graciasportanto |
Tinker | 8th | desolutionist |
Not a bad-looking Top 8 for this event, outside of a bit of Jewel Shops. At the end of the event it was Initiative that won.
I still maintain that main deck Vexing Bauble even restricted is a mistake in these lists, but I do love Stillmoon Cavalier. It sidesteps so many of the current format's big hitter cards like Psychic Frog, Lurrus, and the mirror match.
In Second Place we had Jewel Shops.
A main deck copy of Simulacrum Synthesizer is a spicy inclusion. That card has not been seen very much since Outlaws of Thunder Junction given that Modern Horizons 3 came hot on its coat tails. It's a cool card though, and it seems sweet in a deck that plays Coveted Jewel and Phyrexian Metamorph.
Further down the Top 8 we had Red Prison.
Pyrogoyf! I wish there was more than one copy of that card here, as I don't really understand why there isn't. The card works so much better in multiples than as a single threat because of how its trigger works (triggering off itself or another Goyf). I would probably drop the Rabblemasters entirely, as that card is kind of meh to me in Vintage, and play more Goyf.
Vintage Challenge 32 12/29/2024
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 35 players in it according 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.
Initiative hit the trifecta with the third event in a row of being the most played deck. This time its win rate was quite good. Jewel rode the medium line here, while Lurrus PO and BUG both looked great. Esper Lurrus had a less than 50% win rate as well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
---|---|---|
Initiative | 1st | _Chamytinho_ |
Oath | 2nd | _epinephrine |
BUG | 3rd | BERNASTORRES |
Lurrus PO | 4th | Rooney56 |
Doomsday | 5th | discoverN |
Lurrus DRS | 6th | medvedev |
Initiative | 7th | _Shatun_ |
Initiative | 8th | FranMtg |
Fair amount of Initiative (again with those pillars!) to the point where it won the event.
Trinisphere is a neat restricted card I can get behind in this deck. Most of the decks's threats all cost three or greater, so 3-ball isn't really hurting them all too much. In addition typically its delaying the opponent long enough for the Initiative player to drop Seasoned Dungeoneer and really start going to work.
In Second Place we had Oath.
I don't quite understand the idea behind not running four Atraxa and also four Show and Tell. To me, that's a big thing of what makes Oath so good versus Initiative. I also don't like Vexing Bauble in the deck, and would just prefer a much more streamlined version overall. I would also like to have seen something like Serra's Emissary in the sideboard. It's such an absurdly powerful card versus stuff like Initiative.
Further down the Top 8 we had BUG.
Very straightforward BUG list. Frog looks good here as a replacement for Tarmogoyf in the long term (RIP Goyf, pressing F in the chat) and the suite of midrange spells is just very strong.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari always has some videos for us. Check them out below:
- Kindamtg has a video on BUG Countervine. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Haven't seen Beseech Storm in a hot minute.
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!