Vintage 101: Eternal Weekend NA 2024
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 Vintage Champs from 2024 North America Eternal Weekend! This was quite an event and looked like a lot of fun. In addition we've got a bunch of Challenges to talk about from last week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
2024 North America Eternal Weekend - Vintage Champs
This past weekend was North America Eternal Weekend and with that comes this years North America Vintage Championships event! This event is generally a pretty big deal for NA players, because there simply aren't a lot of sanctioned events where players can play their real cards left. This year looked like quite a lot of fun, and I'm definitely sad I had to miss it. Unfortunately just not enough vacation and stuff like that in the cards for me this year. I definitely would love to make it next year. It would be fun to commentate instead of playing (WINK WINK CARD TITAN).
Still, it looked like quite a weekend, especially for Vintage. This year's Vintage Champs event had 407 players overall in it, up from last year's event at 385 players. This event was also streamed (with coverage by the ever wonderful Stephen Menendian, Kevin Cron, and even Reid Duke) on the Card Titan Twitch Channel.
You can find the decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
As a bit of a lack of surprise, the most popular subarchetype decks of the event were both Oath and Esper Lurrus. People have had this notion lately that Oath is a bad deck right now. They completely underestimate just how popular the deck is in paper and especially how popular it tends to be at Eternal Weekend. In addition to this great popularity, its win rate was very reasonable at a solid 52.4%. Esper Lurrus also did exceptionally well in this event at a solid 58% win rate. The spread across all the other decks here was very reasonable and the majority of decks hovered just under or just above the 50% mark.
The major story of this event didn't really seem to be all that much different than how the format has been on Magic Online. The most dominantly present macro archetypes overall of the event were Lurrus decks (at a near 20% of the metagame) and Aggro-based archetypes (this includes things like Initiative, Eldrazi, Red Prison, etc) at also near 20% of the metagame, despite the major presence of Oath specifically as a deck. A big note about the other Aggro based decks is that a number of these were also unpowered lists (primarily many of the Red Prison strategies), so it's not surprising to see this at Eternal Weekend. After all, there is a prize for this sort of thing at this specific event.
For the most part however, the metagame very much reflects what has been going on in general on MTGO, and not any major upsets it felt like within the event. While Legacy had a bit of a wild time realizing how good Mystic Forge Combo is, Vintage seemed by comparison relatively tame. And to me I think that's an okay place to be. It's a good Vintage tournament and nothing felt overtly broken or insane, despite the fact that I feel that the format is also relatively in a weirdly stale/meh place. I've had fun playing the format recently myself, but I think Vintage is fun regardless of what it's like (outside of some really extreme outliers) and despite that I do think the format didn't really "improve" or even get worse after the two restrictions, it just kind of stayed mostly the same as it was, and this event kind of showcases that a bit. We still had a lot of Lurrus decks, there was still a strong showing by Jewel Shops, and Oath remains popular because of the fact that it's always EW-popular.
There was however, a fun range of Power-less decks at the event, and essentially for a deck to classify for the "Budget" prize it had to contain no Power 9, no Bazaar/Workshop, and no Library of Alexandria (which is sort of amusing given how little that card sees play these days and people are jamming multiples of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale into sideboards).
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Esper Lurrus | 1st | Max Gilmore |
| Dimir Lurrus | 2nd | Chase Hoppe |
| Doomsday | 3rd | David Lyver |
| Oath | 4th | David Tao |
| Esper Lurrus | 5th | Christopher Brill |
| Esper Lurrus | 6th | Dave Kaplan |
| Jewel Shops | 7th | Tyler Klein |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | Doug Miles |
Quite a lot of Lurrus in the Top 8 here, with a smattering of other decks including Jewel, Oath, and Doomsday. At the end of the event however it was none other than Max Gilmore who was triumphant on Esper Lurrus.
First off, huge congrats to Max. Some of you might know him as Maxtortion on MTGO/etc. Max is a really great guy, a strong player, but also a solid friend who offers incredible advice and thoughtful commentary on lots of things.
The list he played here is very evident of some of his play style, and it was very interesting to see the singleton Nethergoyf, which did look like a very reasonable card. The finals run here for Max was a very clean sweep 2-0, wherein the opening play of Game 1 being a Wasteland that demolished his opponent's entire game as they began to draw no more lands other than a Strip Mine and having a Vexing Bauble in play. In the second game, Max was able to convert a large Goyf and Psychic Frog into a Bowmasters in response to a Ponder that really locked up the game. It was a very clean game and looked quite good from his end overall.
The Second Place finalist was Chase Hoppe on Dimir Lurrus.
Chase's list also looks quite good here, while not having some of the cleaner pieces of removal that the Esper list gains access to, you still get to have cards like Fatal Push but also access to Timetwister which is really sweet. Twister with a Bowmasters is usually lights out for a lot of decks. Chase's semifinals games against Doomsday showcased quite well the power level of this deck and how good this deck can be. I heavily encourage going to watch the Top 8 to see these incredible players duke it out. Congrats to Chase on making it to the finals! Solid showing overall!
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! We did mention Power-less lists. By my eye, the one player that hit the Budget prize at a super solid 7-2 record to make it to 18th place (just shy of Top 16) was Ben Hewitt on Power-less BUG.
Wow, this deck is wild. Not even a single piece of artifact mana that could be allowed that isn't Power 9, and it doesn't really need it. DRS does a lot of pulling its weight here, but also four Collector Ouphe is a really strong place to be with current Vintage, and the extra pieces of counter-magic and stuff like main deck Force of Vigor had to really help. Solid job, Ben!
Vintage Challenge 32 11/21
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 47 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Intitiative was the most popular deck here and its win rate rode the middle of the line, but it did have a strong top finish. Jewel Shops and Breach both looked good here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus PO | 1st | unluckymonkey |
| Initiative | 2nd | jade-venus |
| Dredge | 3rd | Munchlax446 |
| Esper Lurrus | 4th | Chefen |
| Painter | 5th | adm29 |
| Breach | 6th | billsive |
| Scam | 7th | FranMtg |
| Initiative | 8th | Dr. Jon Osterman |
Honestly a pretty interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Lurrus PO that won.
The kind of cool thing here is the minor red splash for Forth Eorlingas!, which seems like an utterly absurd payoff to a big PO turn (floating a bunch of mana, roll right into a Forth and just end the game). I can dig it. It seems like a pretty fun win condition.
In Second Place we had Initiative.
This is definitely an interesting and more clean take on the Initiative deck, and more on the really disruptive cards overall. Disruptor Flute is also kind of neat, as I can see it being able to be used on things like Psychic Frog but it also hits cards like Bazaar of Baghdad too.
Vintage Challenge 32 11/22
The second Challenge event of the week was the Fridat event. This event had 33 players in it thanks 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.
Dredge was very popular here, and it's win rate was very good overall. The breakout of the event was actually Scam with the highest win rate on the chart but only four copies of the deck. Oath and Oops seemed to suffer in this event.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Scam | 1st | WadeB |
| Jewel Shops | 2nd | jewdan |
| Breach | 3rd | jade-venus |
| Esper Lurrus | 4th | ecobaronen |
| Initiative | 5th | musasabi |
| Dredge | 6th | Lord_Beerus |
| Dredge | 7th | LucasG1ggs |
| Fleshraker Shops | 8th | crK |
Super cool Top 8, but remember what I said about Scam? Yeah, it also won the event.
This deck takes lots of cues of where Legacy was at the tail of the Grief metagame and puts the pedal to the metal for Vintage standards. The other interesting thing here is the presence of Abhorrent Oculus, which is super interesting given that it can be reanimated but also hit by Unearth. It works great with Psychic Frog here, as you can pitch to Frog then Reanimate it.
In Second Place we had Jewel Shops.
Somewhat surprised we have not seen a version of the Jewel deck specifically that plays Glaring Fleshraker. We did have a Fleshraker deck in this Top 8, but it's definitely more colorless Shops than the Jewel with FoW aspect.
Vintage Challenge 32 11/23
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 49 players in it thanks 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 again super popular but despite having a good finish it's win rate was less than 50%. Dredge did very well, as did Lurrus Vault Key and BUG.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Breach | 1st | jade-venus |
| 4C DRS | 2nd | kabloom |
| BUG | 3rd | Sprouts |
| Initiative | 4th | musasabi |
| Lurrus Vault Key | 5th | Navas |
| Dredge | 6th | Redhotphil87 |
| Countervine | 7th | PintuMtg |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | oosunq |
Very varied Top 8 here actually. Lot of distinct stuff going on. At the end of the event it was Breach that won.
I'm actually somewhat glad that we're seeing a bit of return to decks that don't need to play Lurrus to be good. Having a deck that very much wants to play the Tinker package and things like Dack Fayden again is really sweet.
In Second Place we had 4C DRS.
This feels like something I would play, honestly. I Was surprised at the lack of Lorien Revealed, but I also feel like there's very much no room for even one or two copies. Also, heck yeah Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes!
Vintage Challenge 32 11/24
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 39 players in it thanks 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.
Esper Lurrus was very popular here, and it had two good Top 8 results but overall its win rate was less than nominal. Dredge again looked good as did Initiative.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Initiative | 1st | Nanovo |
| Lurrus PO | 2nd | unluckymonkey |
| Breach | 3rd | KingHairy |
| Oath | 4th | snoopy-magic |
| Dredge | 5th | Danielpena397 |
| Esper Lurrus | 6th | ecobaronen |
| Doomsday | 7th | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Esper Lurrus | 8th | Mogged |
Quite a decent spread of decks, but it was Initiative that won.
Interesting list here actually. The restricted Urza's Saga is a very interesting choice for sure. Not sure if I like it, but it seems like it would not be too bad with all the other fast mana this deck tends to play.
In Second Place we had Lurrus PO.
This same pilot played the same list and won earlier in the week and it's a good-looking list. The other thing worth mentioning here is the presence of Meticulous Archive. I don't think I can state enough just how good the surveil lands have been in multiple formats. They always look so good every time I see them played.
Around the Web
- Bryant Cook has a sideboarding guide for Vintage Doomsday. Check it out here.
- Justin Gennari was off the Eternal Weekend, so he only has a video about his Challenge win recently. Check it out here.
- Kindamtg has a video on Vintage Outlaws? Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
This week's spice is pulling all from Eternal Weekend, so let's go!
Power-Less Red Prison at 6-3? LET'S GO.
FIRE THE CEPHALID CANNON. PREPARE THE NADUUUUUKEN.
Lutri Jeskai Walkers? YEAH BUDDY. COMET BEST BOI.
Fastbond Combo. I love Fastbond Combo, you shouldn't have!
AND FINALLY... CATS.
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!
