Vintage 101: Containment Cracked
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 looking solely at one of the new toys we received in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. No it's not Boseiju, it's Containment Construct! This card seems super duper sweet and it seems fun to build around. In addition to that we have two Challenges to talk about as well as a Spice Corner (Dr. Strange hasn't messed that one up... yet)
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Construct in Containment
One of the more interesting looking cards in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, the combination of Containment Construct and Lion's Eye Diamond was quickly identified as a very super synergistic thing in Legacy. There was much talk about the card's function in that format with Artificer's Intuition, but in Vintage where we have only one copy of LED, what happens to be the best way to abuse this super interesting card?
Oh right... Bazaar of Baghdad and Mishra's Workshop of course!
Utilizing Bazaar with Containment Construct is an incredibly interesting way of approaching a deck like this, where you are able to turn the "downside" of pitching cards to Bazaar into upside with Containment Construct's ability. Once you have a Construct in play, Bazaar becomes positive in cards much like how it used to work with a card like Uba Mask in the past. One of the really strong things you can do with this combination is Hollow One with this card, as Hollow One becomes a free pitch for Bazaar with Construct in play because it can then be cast from exile for its cost reduction of six because Bazaar discards three cards. Workshop offers a lot of strength to this since Construct can let you play lands from exile, and acts as ramp for casting other threats from exile.
This sample list is provided to us by our good friend Zias, who is almost always at the forefront of these kinds of sweet Bazaar/Workshop decks.
One of the more powerful things you can do with this deck is get a Construct on board and begin using Bazaar as a powerful card drawing tool, using Construct's ability to push through the cards in your deck and make aggressive threats like Stonecoil Serpent and friends. There's definitely a ton of strength in this card as a cool build around.
The downside of Containment Construct in Vintage is just as pronounced as any other artifact-centric strategy in the format, and that's cards like Force of Vigor and now Boseiju, Who Endures that can easily make quick work of the card. The deck's utilizing this card also are doubly soft to cards like Ravenous Trap, Soul-Guide Lantern, and Leyline of the Void due to the fact that in order to resolve Construct's trigger, you must exile the card from your graveyard, and if you can't do this then you do not get to cast the card from exile.
As such, I think this card will easily settle into an interesting space in the format and may not do a ton here, but it is a very neat card with a lot of ways to build around it, whether that's building with Bazaar or even cards like Riddlesmith as an engine. These lists look super fun and I can't wait to see if there's even more evolution to occur to shells with this card.
Vintage Challenge 2/12
We had two Challenges this past weekend, the first of which was the mid-afternoon Saturday event. This event had 58 players in it thanks to the efforts of the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find all of the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Quite a bit of the Blue Tinker variants, but they all had a pretty fair win rate overall. Doomsday did quite well and so did PO decks. One of the decks that didn't make the cut but had pretty much the best event ever was 8Cast, simply because there was one pilot on the deck in the entire event.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| 8Cast | 1st | TeferiBokaer |
| Doomsday | 2nd | MaxMagicer |
| Grixis Tinker | 3rd | fingers1991 |
| Paradoxical Outcome | 4th | L4rss0n |
| Jeskai Control | 5th | gucci_gabe |
| BUG Midrange | 6th | Bryzem1 |
| Dredge | 7th | Bennybo |
| Bant Archon | 8th | MarioBBrega |
This is a solid Top 8, but that ONE 8Cast player I mentioned? Yeah, they won the whole event without dropping a single match.
Very powerful decklist here, and very cleanly designed. I don't know how much of a fan I am still of Bolas's Citadel in these decks running several seven mana value cards like Thought Monitor, but more than likely the corner case of that coming up is probably pretty low overall that it's still worth the insane power of the card. At the end of the day, this is a solid record and a well-deserved win.
The Second Place finalist was on Doomsday.
I'm a simple man. I see Sleight of Hand, I enjoy whatever else is going on here. But seriously, Doomsday continues to push the envelope as one of the best combo decks in Vintage right now. I don't know if that changes much with Kamigawa in the mix, but it's still going to be very good for as long as Thassa's Oracle exists.
Also down the Top 8 we had Jeskai Control.
Really solid list here for sure. There's so much you can do in these blue Jeskai lists that it's always going to be a reasonable deck to have around in the format.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we have Bant Archon.
We get to see our first look at a list running copies of Boseiju, Who Endures and this pilot opted for a split of two between the main deck and sideboard. This card seems tailor-made for these kinds of solid midrange piles, but most especially Bant which doesn't have things like Assassin's Trophy or Abrupt Decay to lean on against decks like Shops. Boseiju does all of that and is also nonbasic land destruction versus Workshop and Bazaar. Quite strong indeed!
Vintage Challenge 2/13
Our second Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Sunday event which had 52 players in it, thanks to the efforts of the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find all of the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Tinker shells were again really well represented and they had a reasonable win rate as well. Doomsday did quite well, as did Hogaak and PO based decks. This is still just a really solid spread of decks across the current format and while there's some polarizing win rates here or there, the overall format looks pretty great still.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Esper Tinker | 1st | Snoopy-Magic |
| Esper Tinker | 2nd | SenpaiBlank |
| Bant Archon | 3rd | ecobaronen |
| Doomsday | 4th | SingPanMan |
| Paradoxical Outcome | 5th | Oosunq |
| Hogaak | 6th | musasabi |
| Hollow Vine | 7th | hopeof130 |
| 4C Tinker | 8th | TrueHero |
Quite a few Tinker shells in the Top 8 here alongside some combo and some midrange. At the end of the event though it was a Tinker v Tinker battle with both pilots on Esper Tinker. Let's look at both.
Pretty similar lists all around. I do like Opposition Agent in the First Place list as a main deck card, as it's a great hedge against the third Chapter from Urza's Saga while also being really relevant versus Doomsday decks as well. I also really enjoy seeing the two copies of Dress Down in the sideboard because I feel that card is vastly underplayed in the current format.
Further down the Top 8 we had a showing by Hogaak.
Another deck with Boseiju in it. It's worth noting that Boseiju is an effect that is actually pretty unplayable in any of the other Bazaar decks (unlike other stuff like Force of Vigor) because those decks don't often have actual mana sources. Hogaak does so it makes sense here to have a copy or two across the 75. I think this is actually a pretty nice factor to the card as it doesn't bolster any of the other Bazaar archetypes and provides counterplay versus them at the same time.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had TrueHero on a 4C Tinker variant.
Multiple copies of Ragavan and Wrenn and Six paired with Boseiju seems like a really ultra powerful thing to be doing in the current format. Jamming that stuff into a Tinker shell? Insane. Solid deckbuilding here for sure.
Around the Web
- We've got a Doomsday vid from our good friend revenantkioku. Check it out here.
- Justin Gennari is hitting us with a little Tameshi Bomberman this week. Check that out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find the past week's 5-0 lists over here.
This week's entry is OTTERLY MAGNIFICENT (see what I did there?)
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 Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, and Patreon! In addition, you can always reach me on the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the Vintage Streamers Discord.
Until next time!
