Vintage 101: Avatar All Stars
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 just how much of Avatar: The Last Airbender has appeared in Vintage since the release on MTGO, in addition to the Challenges from last week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Yip Yip! The Avatar Comes to Vintage
Avatar: The Last Airbender is here on MTGO, and already we're seeing some cards from the set find their way into the Vintage format. Sofar the two biggest ones that I think have really shown up are Mai, Scornful Striker and Wan Shi Tong, Librarian.
Both of these cards do some different things, but both of them have really strong play within Vintage overall. Mai being a card much in the same vein as Kambal, Consul of Allocation but being two mana versus three and all in one color that can be easily splashed into any shell is really powerful, and also being a 2/2 with First Strike means some interesting things. First, it means your opponent can't kill it with a single Orcish Bowmasters, but it also means they can't Bowmasters it and then use the token to block Mai to kill it. First Strike will keep her alive in these scenarios. Even if the opponent puts both the token and the Bowmasters in front, if the token is only a 1/1 they still won't be able to beat Mai. This is a solid place to be in with a card like this. Being two mana as well means that she's easily recurred from the graveyard with Lurrus, which is great for a hate effect like this to have that stickiness to it.
I don't think this is 100% a card you're playing a lot of in a deck either, because the Lurrus effect and stickiness makes excessive copies not as good. Playing one is reasonable because you can definitely find it if you need it.
On the other hand, Wan Shi Tong, Librarian is a card with a lot of upside potential as a very big threat that also has a lot of that same stickiness. The biggest upside of the card is that because it enters with X +1/+1 counters and you only draw half that rounded down no matter how many cards you draw your opponent can't kill this card with an Orcish Bowmasters. It also flies, so Bowmasters isn't going to be able to block it. Psychic Frog is a bit of a concern, but Wan Shi Tong is just another threat that if you can keep your opponent's Frogs off the battlefield, it will stick damage and end the game quickly. It also presents a conundrum to the opponent of any searching whatsoever (fetch lands, tutors, you name it) grows Wan Shi Tong as well as allows you to draw a card. Maybe whatever they're tutoring for isn't enough to deal with the increased power and toughness of the card.
The only really awkward thing about the card is its interaction with Lurrus, because Lurrus says that you can only cast things with mana value two or less from the graveyard, and Wan Shi Tong is XUU, which means the only X you can cast him at is X=0 which basically is making a 1/1. His flash speed also just doesn't seem to matter there, because you can only use Lurrus' ability on your turn. It's a little rough, but I think it's still fine in the Lurrus shell as a source of strong card advantage.
Another card I saw this past week is Badgermole Cub, which is pretty cool.
Earthbending in general is super interesting because of how much it allows you to play with reusing certain lands like Wasteland. You can sacrifice Wasteland after it's been earthbent and get it right back into play tapped to use again on a follow-up turn.
In addition, Badgermole Cub's secondary ability is actually slightly awkward with Deathrite Shaman here, because Deathrite's first ability is not a mana ability. The cub says "whenever you tap a creature for mana" which is weird because you would think that you are doing so with DRS, but you're actually not. It's an activated ability that targets a land and has to resolve to add the mana as it uses the stack. Because of this distinction, it does not work with DRS. What really makes it awkward in this kind of deck is that there are no other mana producing creatures that the Cub works with outside of any Earthbent lands, and that in and of itself makes it hard to desire.
I do think there may be a shell for the Cub, though, the card seems quite strong and does some very powerful things, especially when played in multiples.
At the end of the day, people are trying a lot of new things, and it's exciting to see how cool this set is for Vintage.
Vintage Challenge 32 11/20/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 39 players in it thanks to the MTGO Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Raker Shops was the most played deck of the event, and despite having two Top 8s, it had a rather poor win rate. Lurrus PO and Tinker both looked strong here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus PO | 1st | DrPP |
| Dimir Lurrus | 2nd | pirol94 |
| Dredge | 3rd | Munchlax446 |
| Raker Shops | 4th | magiclaszlo |
| Initiative | 5th | VitorCarvalho01 |
| Lurrus PO | 6th | SilversRayleigh |
| Raker Shops | 7th | 4FunNoWin |
| Esper Lurrus | 8th | ziofrancone |
Fair bit of Lurrus here, but honestly, it's a pretty diverse Top 8. At the end of the event, it was Lurrus PO that won.
Very solid and clean-looking list. I do rather enjoy the Forth Eorlingas! version of this deck because Forth is such a back-breaking way to win the game, even if you aren't PO'ing them.
In Second Place, we had Dimir Lurrus.
Very stock-looking list for the most part. No Urza's Saga is a very interesting choice, though. Usually, that makes for a good backup plan in general.
Vintage Challenge 32 11/21/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 40 players in it thanks to the MTGO Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative was the most played deck of the event, and honestly, it had a reasonably good win rate. Dimir Lurrus and Raker Shops both looked strong, as did Oath. Sphere Shops did very poorly here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Oath | 1st | wongdeck |
| Raker Shops | 2nd | LucasG1ggs |
| Raker Shops | 3rd | _Batutinha_ |
| Dimir Lurrus | 4th | HJ_Kaiser |
| Lurrus Breach | 5th | desolutionist |
| Dimir Lurrus | 6th | vwxyza648204 |
| Raker Shops | 7th | crK |
| Dredge | 8th | TadalaDe20 |
Fair bit of Dimir Lurrus and Raker. However, at the end of the event, it was Oath that won.
Solid-looking list here. I like the standard SnT/Flash/etc variant of this deck quite a bit.
In Second Place, we had Raker Shops.
This is a pretty stock Raker list, honestly, but this list works really well, so I don't think you need to play with the formula too much.
Vintage Challenge 32 11/22/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 40 players in it thanks to the MTGO Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Raker Shops was the most-played deck of the event, and its win rate was great (especially once you see the Top 8). Dredge and Oath fared poorly here, while Lurrus Breach did very well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Breach | 1st | Aigis |
| Tinker | 2nd | Theflotist |
| Raker Shops | 3rd | yPrincipe |
| Raker Shops | 4th | Terminus0 |
| Raker Shops | 5th | Andy_Over |
| Raker Shops | 6th | Zenith777 |
| Lurrus PO | 7th | IamActuallyLvl1 |
| Initiative | 8th | LasVegasChaos |
Quite a bit of Raker in this Top 8, but the winner overall was Lurrus Breach.
Did somebody say Suplex a TRAIN?! I do think this list is very powerful and definitely a deck worth playing right now.
In Second Place we had Esper Tinker.
Big Tinker is pretty wild, especially with stuff like Hullbreacher and friends. Stock Up really does enable a lot of things for sure.
Vintage Challenge 32 11/23/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 33 players in it thanks to the MTGO Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Raker Shops was the most-played deck, and despite having a Top 8, its win rate was not as great. Esper Lurrus, Breach, and Jewel Shops all did very well. Dredge seemed like it fared poorly.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Scam | 1st | crK |
| Raker Shops | 2nd | _J0SE_ |
| Lurrus Breach | 3rd | desolutionist |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | sm294 |
| Doomsday | 5th | Jujkata |
| Esper Lurrus | 6th | MyPotatoes |
| BUG | 7th | lordoflifegain |
| Esper Lurrus | 8th | albertoSD |
Fairly diverse Top 8. The end of the event was decided by Scam.
Mai, Scornful Striker got some publicity earlier on in this article. It seems very good in a deck like this that wants to keep the opponent off balance.
In Second Place, we had Raker Shops.
The only major change here is no Scrawling Crawler, which is interesting. Kozilek's Command is one heck of a card, though. It does everything you want it to do ever. It can even make your Doomsday opponent draw from an empty library at instant speed.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari has some great content for us.
- Revenantkioku has a video on Doomsday Lurrus league. Check it out here.
- Kindamtg has a video on BUG Scam. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Brian Kelly, never change.
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!
