Vintage 101: Dangerous, Dreaded Dungeons
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 the Dungeon! That's right, it's our Adventures in the Forgotten Realms set review for Vintage! In addition to that we've got two Challenge events to discuss and also a Mythic Society event! Last but not least we've got a Spice Corner!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Dungeon, Dungeon, Dungeon, Mushroom Mushroom
We've got Adventures in the Forgotten Realms on the brain as of late, and with the set coming to Magic Online this week, it felt like a good time to talk about the cards from this set and whether any hit our interest for Vintage. There's a few major mechanics in this set such as the Dungeon mechanic (and Venture cards that go with it) and the Dice Rolling mechanic, but thankfully neither of these mechanics seem to do much for Vintage and look relatively safe. I do expect a Dungeon deck to come out of Justin Gennari for a Mythic Society event at least once.
That being said, let's take a look at the cards that piqued our interest. I asked about cards on Twitter, so some of these are also submissions to talk about from there as well as Discord.
Oswald Fiddlebender
This is a card that got suggested off Twitter, and I am not sure if this card makes the grade or not but the sheer fact of being a Birthing Pod effect for artifacts is very interesting. Being a creature and Legendary does make it pretty fragile, but I'd be curious to see it somewhere.
Portable Hole
This is a great piece of ultra flexible removal. Hitting any nonland permanent of mana value 2 or less is a really solid rate for W. The only major downside is that it is an artifact and Vintage as a format has a lot of safety valves for artifacts in general. Regardless, I like the flexibility of this card quite a bit.
Demilich
This card is a lot like a blue Hollow One type effect. I am curious where this could see play as a typical Midrange/Control shell might not want this kind of card, and Dreadhorde Arcanist is already legal in the format and probably a little better. However, we've seen the effect that Hollow One has for being free as a 4/4, maybe a free 4/3 with some recursive value and card advantage stapled onto it could be good.
Tasha's Hideous Laughter
I think this card is neat, but it's amusing to think of how many high cost things actually see play in Vintage decks when everyone is focused greatly on all the Moxen and stuff. Force of Will, Bolas's Citadel, the occasional Blightsteel Colossus, not to mention just the million high amount of mana values in Dredge decks makes me think this probably isn't as good as it sounds, however, there is potential with Vintage Mill with Crabs being a thing that this is just a solid finisher card to that deck since it exiles. Definitely high variance but maybe worth the reward for those kinds of fringe decks.
Deadly Dispute
Paging Justin Gennari, Paging Justin Gennari.
Wish
While this card obviously seems more powerful in Legacy (with the advent of being a 4x Lion's Eye Diamond format and all), Wish is definitely interesting in Vintage with the advent of all the fast mana the format has making it easier to cast spells you choose. This is still a format where it is hard to justify Burning Wish these days, so I'm guessing it's unlikely that this sees actual play, but the power level of the card is pretty high and I wouldn't be surprised to see people try it out.
Eye of Vecna
Repeatable card draw on an artifact is very interesting. While the life loss can add up (two life on the ETB and two life every turn gets rough especially if you factor in cards like Ancient Tomb) I do think this is very interesting. Being able to draw out of a Null Rod situation by the sheer fact of just having a way to draw more than one card a turn is realistic here. Will this see play? I'm not sure, but it does seem interesting.
Treasure Chest
Most of the dice rolling cards in this set are very awkward for Vintage play. This is only somewhat intriguing because the Natural 20 roll is functionally a Tinker effect and none of the other effects are so bad outside of the Natural 1. Is this interesting? I don't think it probably sees play but I would definitely say I could see it in a Mythic Society event.
Treasure Vault
The fact that this makes Treasure tokens and a lot of them is very interesting indeed, and I suspect this could see play alongside Urza's Saga based decks since the Treasures boost the Constructs. Ultimately though this requires a lot of investment that is maybe not worth it.
The Deck of Many Things
"Loses the game." Well, I guess I just lost the Game thinking about this card too hard. Nothing to see here folks. Move along. Move along...
Mythic Society 6/30
Just a reminder that every Wednesday at 7PM EST is the Mythic Society events on Magic Online! These are fun four round FNM style events, and really are great for trying new things out in the format. Check out the Mythic Society Twitter for information on their events.
The lone wolf 4-0 this week was a sweet Mono Blue Tinker build.
Thought Monitor is such a super sweet card. It's great that it is seeing play in older formats as it is really powerful.
Next up we've got Brian Kelly being Brian Kelly.
I love Brian's lists. There's always a little tidbit to pull out of them or to glean why he builds in the ways that he does and there's always justifications for every single card, and I admire that kind of dedication and attention to detail.
Finally for this week we've got a bit of Mono Blue DELVER?!
Four Murktide Regent is a heck of a statement, but not nearly as much as four Subtlety which is really cool. Very interesting list for sure.
Be sure to check out all of the Mythic Society events, and even maybe join in!
Vintage Challenge 7/3
Our first Challenge event of last weekend was the Saturday afternoon event. Thanks to the efforts of the Vintage Streamers Discord we know this event had 57 players in it overall.
You can find all the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
Quite a variety of things honestly at the top end, from combo to Golos and even Bazaar decks. It really does feel like Vintage is actually in a pretty reasonable place right now and the format feels very push and pull from week to week. The Top 8 from this week however did have quite a bit of repeating going on as we will see below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Hogaak | 1st | Nammersquats |
| Hollow Vine | 2nd | Jenara19 |
| Golos Stax | 3rd | Patxi |
| Golos Stax | 4th | BenCapen |
| Jeskai Control | 5th | SenpaiBlank |
| Hollow Vine | 6th | wordy333 |
| Hollow Vine | 7th | MagerMistake |
| PO Storm | 8th | Fnoop |
Lot of Bazaar action here with several Hollow Vine lists and also some Golos Stax going on as well. At the end of the event however, it was the Hogaak Bazaar deck that took it all down.
This is a pretty solid and clean list. Hogaak in general has a lot of power to it and can perform quite well when it needs to. Having both the axis of Hogaak beats plus grind value with Deathrite Shaman is really powerful.
The Second Place finalist was on Hollow Vine!
It's safe to say this archetype was the most impacted by Modern Horizons 2. We'll be doing an expose on this deck deeper next week, but the power level of the redundant effects in this deck is really what makes it tick.
Further down the Top 8 we've got a nice showing of a Jeskai Control build.
This pilot had a Whale of a good time with Ethereal Forager I am sure. There are some interesting sideboard choices here though, between Alpine Moon (turn your bad land into a multicolor land) and Gideon of the Trials which is definitely unique. I can only assume Gideon is for matches involving Doomsday since the emblem negates the Oracle win condition.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we've got PO Storm.
Spellseeker is pretty cool given all the cards that it finds in the deck at mana value two or less. Primarily going to be hunting down Ancestral Recall with it I'm sure.
Outside of the Top 8 we've got a pretty sweet Standstill list.
Utilizing this as a Time Vault strategy with Urza's Saga is really powerful for sure, especially since you can lock your opponent under Standstill, get the Vault / Key combo online by fetching the Key with Saga and take multiple turns with large Constructs. Seems good!
Further down the Top 32 we've got a White Weenie deck.
Esper Sentinel showing up is pretty sweet overall. Additional card draw for these kinds of decks that also gets way better with Luminarch Aspirant in play is really super cool.
Vintage Challenge 7/4
The other event of the weekend was the early morning Sunday Challenge, which thanks to the Vintage Streamers Discord we know had 49 players in it.
You can find all the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
Lot of variance up top in this event as well, with a big slant on combo decks like PO and Doomsday. I don't utterly consider UB Tinker a combo deck since it's primary game plan is turning creatures sideways with Sedgemoor Witch. Not as much Bazaar up top in this event, but it's spread out nicely. Looks like it was a decent event overall.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| BUG Midrange | 1st | Butakov |
| Doomsday | 2nd | discoverN |
| BUG Midrange | 3rd | Rank1Lynx |
| Hogaak | 4th | karatedom |
| PO Storm | 5th | JMahncke |
| PO Storm | 6th | Cyberpunker |
| Oath of Druids | 7th | WingedHussar |
| Jeskai Aggro | 8th | Slasher21 |
Definitely a much more varied Top 8 than the Saturday event with a lot of different things going on here. At the end of this event, it was BUG Midrange that won it all!
Three copies of Endurance main is a real statement for sure, given the card's power level versus decks like Doomsday which are very popular at the moment, and other graveyard shenanigans based decks. This is probably the Force of Vigor of Modern Horizons 2, in which it will long term be a solid card in the format simply because of the game it has against various strategies.
Speaking of Doomsday, you guessed it, Second Place was discoverN!
discoverN is one of the most prolific and powerful pilots on this archetype. Is there no stopping him? Find out next week!
Further down the Top 8 we've got a showing by Oath!
This is not your traditional Oath list, instead it has a Tinker sub game combined with a Storm kill in Tendrils of Agony. Oath sideboard all star Blazing Archon also shows up in the sideboard here.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we've got Slasher21 on Jeskai Aggro.
Solid list here. We discussed a lot about the cards Dragon's Rage Channeler and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer last week. We also get to see the aspect of Alpine Moon in this sideboard as well, which is really intriguing. The only major white cards in this list are Lavinia, Swords, and Fragmentize.
Outside of the Top 8 we've got a showing by STONEBLADE.
Kaldra Compleat feels pretty insane in this format. There is not a lot in the format that can actually block it profitably and live. Is it time for Elves and Progenitus to rear their ugly heads?
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari has a video on Timeless Dragon deck. Check out SuspendStill.
- Justin also has a video on Saga PO Storm that you can check out here.
The Spice Corner
Leave it up to our good friend Zias to really crank things up to 11.
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!
