Vintage 101: Can Vintage Doomsday Beat Legacy Delver?
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 an interesting thought experiment in whether or not one of the top decks in Legacy currently (UR Delver) can beat a fully tuned Vintage Doomsday. It's definitely some of the most interesting Vintage content videos to come out in a bit. We've also got some Challenge data to discuss, and of course a Spice Corner.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
The Eternal Question - Can UR Delver Beat Vintage Doomsday?
This week brought us a very interesting though experiment and just a wildly cool idea. As all things do, a discussion started on the Vintage Streamer's Discord about how well one of Legacy's best decks (UR Delver) and whether or not the power house of Legacy could beat the Vintage Combo deck Doomsday.
Our good friend Revenantkioku put this idea to forefront of one of Legacy Delvers most prolific experts on the deck, Rich Cali. The results? Pretty glorious.
As we can see right off the bat, the critical mass of how Doomsday operates with the fast mana available in Vintage that Doomsday can very easily play around the power level of Legacy Delver. Main deck cards like Flusterstorm and just the sheer power of Black Lotus and being able to actively play through Daze as a card is just incredibly powerful.
The original thought process here is that out of most Legacy decks, UR Delver has a lot of tools that play well versus combo such as Daze and Force of Will combined with a faster clock that can usually beat decks that impact their own life total like Doomsday. In Legacy, Doomsday has a pretty poor matchup versus Delver because of this clock combined with the permission. In Vintage however, the landscape is vastly changed here and just the sheer power of restricted cards combined with the compact kill of Thassa's Oracle allowing the deck to play with so much more permission than Delver has access to traditionally.
It was definitely a super sweet thought experiment to see. Are there any possible combinations of cross-format decks that would be interesting for you to see play? Hit us up in the comments and let us know.
Vintage Challenge 1/7
The first Challenge of the weekend was the mid afternoon Saturday event, which had 64 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.
Mono White was nearly 30% of the metagame here and it had a reasonably solid win rate (55.4%). Oath was also very popular in this event which is pretty interesting, and down the line we had good showings by decks like Bazaar, Combo Shops, and Dredge.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Hollow Vine | 1st | KingHairy |
| Combo Shops | 2nd | teichou_aisu |
| Oath of Druids | 3rd | Jenara19 |
| Mono White | 4th | Shadaro |
| Mono White | 5th | SanPop |
| Dredge | 6th | ht991122 |
| Paradoxical Outcome | 7th | Solidsnake408 |
| Hogaak | 8th | kanister |
Definitely an interesting Top 8. Representation from a good amount of Bazaar and some Shops in addition to combo and Tinker (in the form of PO). At the end of the event, it was the Squee Hollow Vine deck that won it all.
This deck can just be incredibly explosive and powerful. Cards like Subtlety are interesting, but honestly I can see it if one of the better decks in the format is Mono White and that deck is typically playing Cavern of Souls so having a card that "counters" an Initiative threat or something similar in addition to bypassing Cavern is interesting.
The Second Place finalist was on Combo Shops.
I like where this deck sits in the metagame right now. Phyrexian Metamorph just seems really good right now. I am also enjoying The Mightstone and Weakstone in the sideboard here. Very strong deck that rides the line between Tinker, PO, and Shops.
Also in this Top 8 we had Oath.
Serra's Emissary feels insanely powerful in an Oath shell right now. Being able to shut off stuff like Mono White's ability to interact with you in regards to combat damage is insanely powerful and making an unblockable threat is even more powerful. If you manage to push a second one into play, being able to name Instant with a second Emissary is just going to slam the door shut. Very strong for sure.
Speaking of Mono White we had two of those in this Top 8, so let's look at the higher-placing one.
Karn is an interesting choice here in this build. There's definitely a nice amount of flexibility in builds for this deck and that is definitely what makes it interesting and strong.
Vintage Challenge 1/8
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Sunday event which had 53 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.
Mono White was popular as well, but so was PO. Mono White's win rate was less than middling in this event, while Jeskai's win rate was pretty exceptional. Still a lot of great representation down the line here, and I think we are back to settling into a cycle as a metagame once more.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jeskai Lurrus | 1st | unluckymonkey |
| Tinker Breach | 2nd | Sommertroll |
| 5C DRS | 3rd | CodeProvider |
| Jeskai Lurrus | 4th | Jessy_Samek |
| Paradoxical Outcome | 5th | NathanLipetz |
| Oath of Druids | 6th | shir kahn |
| Esper Tinker | 7th | mogged |
| Mono White | 8th | bless_von |
Definitely a varied Top 8, with a good amount of control shells, Tinker, combo, and even Mono White. At the end of the event it was Jeskai Lurrus that won.
Definitely have seen a good amount of Third Path Iconoclast in these decks as of late, and I think the card is very reasonable here, especially with four copies of Mishra's Bauble and Lurrus to back that up.
The Second Place finalist was on Tinker Breach.
Sheoldred always looks so good in these decks. Just absolutely very powerful alongside Hullbreacher and Opposition Agent. This deck looks quite good for sure.
Also in this Top 8 we ahd a sweet 5C DRS build.
Omnath, Locus of Creation! I love that card. It's so much fun to play in Vintage for sure. This is definitely an exciting deck. Very cool.
Further down the Top 8 we have some PO action by our good friend Nathan Lipetz.
Definitely a solid-looking list. I like the Urza, Lord High Artificer here because I think that card is just actually super sweet in the format.
Around the Web
- Our good friend Montolio has some new content for us! Check it out below:
- Our other good friend Justin Gennari also has a bunch of content for us!
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 decklists here.
Brian Kelly, please never ever 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!
