Vintage 101: Fantasy of Power, Part 2
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of Vintage 101! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're finishing up on Universes Beyond: Final Fantasy for Vintage purposes. In addition we've got some sweet MTGO news, and some Challenges to look at.
It's worth noting that after this week's article I will be on vacation for the first two weeks of June. This means there will be no articles during these two weeks. It's weird getting to take a break, but it's going to be fun!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Finaler Fantasy, Part 2
I'm finishing up my set review for Final Fantasy this week. The set is still fully being spoiled, but I haven't really seen anything that seems too absurd for Vintage. But still, there's fun cards to talk about.
Absolute Virtue
As far as Oath targets go, this one is pretty bad. You only get the protection, not your permanents and not this, AND it's Legendary. Pretty bad indeed.
Fire Magic
The fact that this is just an Instant speed 1 damage to everything for R that then scales up from there is kind of neat. I don't know that this is insane, though, and probably not super playable, but it does clear out some creatures fast.
Astrologian's Planisphere
This being Lurrus-able and coming with a creature is kind of cool. You do get the benefit of making the creature big whenever you cast a noncreature spell AND whenever you draw your third card each turn. It's sort of like a blue Managorger Hydra but it doesn't have the evasion of that card.
Vaan, Street Thief
If only Ragavan saw play anymore. This card kinda slaps with Ragavan. Double Ragavan triggers every time he connects? Yes please.
Xande, Dark Mage
I have to imagine this is not good, because its four mana value, and it really relies hard on having stuff in the graveyard that isn't a creature. I don't think this is all that reasonable.
Papalymo Totolymo
These effects of "deal 1 damage with noncreature spells" add up really quickly. Very interested to see if they are actually any good.
Matoya, Archon Elder
Huh. Neat.
The Regalia
BEEP BEEP COMING THROUGH!
MTGO Spellgrounds Events
This past week, the folks over at Magic Online debuted their new Spellgrounds project. This is a sweet week long event where you get to pick a deck Super-Jump draft style and play three matches! There's six decks and you're randomly presented three to pick from when you queue for the event. The regular Spellgrounds events are completely FREE, so there's no pressure of prizes. If you'd like to play for some prizes, there is a Gauntlet style event for some play points. You can find all the information from the MTGO blog post here.
What makes this event structure awesome is that it's a great way to get people to try out different formats! The current format this week is Modern, but on June 16th that week will be VINTAGE! This is a superb way that if you've ever thought about trying out Vintage, now you can for absolutely free and have a unique way of doing so. This is really cool, so be on the lookout for these events.
Vintage Challenge 32 5/22/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 41 players in it thanks to the MTGO Vintage Community.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Lurrus PO was the most played deck of the event, and its win rate was very reasonable. Doomsday did super well here, while mostly everything else either rode the middle or just above or below.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus PO | 1st | unluckymonkey |
| PO | 2nd | Bullwinkkle6705 |
| Jewel Shops | 3rd | AFX |
| Lurrus Breach | 4th | KingHairy |
| Doomsday | 5th | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Esper Lurrus | 6th | albertoSD |
| Stiflenought | 7th | littledarwin |
| Beseech Storm | 8th | musasabi |
Good amount of Lurrus but also some non-Lurrus stuff. At the end of the event it was Lurrus PO that won.
This continues to be a really powerful deck in Vintage at the moment. I think it will take a bigger shift to actually change that. This is something worth looking at if you're looking at any bigger events, because it's going to be good to dive deeper into and learn.
In Second Place we had Non Lurrus PO.
Otters still good even without Lurrus! This is a pretty neat list. Stock Up very much continues to look incredibly good in this format for sure.
Vintage Challenge 32 5/23/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 37 players in it, thanks to the MTGO Vintage Community.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Lurrus PO was again the most popular deck, but its win rate was only slightly over 50%. Non-Lurrus PO did exceedingly well, as did Jewel Shops and Raker. Initiative and Dredge both seemed to do poorly, but Dredge at least had a Top 8 appearance.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| PO | 1st | Bullwinkkle6705 |
| Jewel Shops | 2nd | Shuichi_Saito |
| Sphere Shops | 3rd | _Shatun_ |
| PO | 4th | death_grips |
| Dredge | 5th | Munchlax446 |
| Lurrus PO | 6th | unluckymonkey |
| PO | 7th | molimomaro |
| Raker Shops | 8th | Marcola |
Three Non-Lurrus PO decks in the Top 8 is really interesting to be honest. In fact, one of them won the event.
This was the same pilot to place Second in the previous event. It's certainly a solid-looking list, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is where anything goes if Lurrus gets banned.
In Second Place we had Jewel Shops.
No Talon Gates of Madara is rather surprising. Every time I've played against Jewel with that card it has always seemed extremely good at stopping something that's preventing them from doing their thing.
Vintage Challenge 32 5/24/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 51 players in it, thanks to the MTGO Vintage Community.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Dredge was the most played deck of the event, and despite actually winning the event, the win rate was dragged down a bit. Lurrus PO looked great, as did Jewel and Raker Shops. Lurrus Breach looked rather poor.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dredge | 1st | Jujkata |
| Lurrus PO | 2nd | EnihcamAmgine |
| Lurrus PO | 3rd | unluckymonkey |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | Jumba |
| Raker Shops | 5th | mortr3d |
| Dimir Tinker | 6th | Erik157751 |
| Lurrus PO | 7th | TonyScapone |
| Sphere Shops | 8th | nicoprietob |
Fair number of Workshops. At the end of the event, it was Dredge that won.
It definitely seems like the more aggressive versions of this deck are the flavor of the Dredge lately. I've not seen a bunch of the ones playing 8 Forces and 4 MBT main in a while, and it's been mostly the Silversmote Ghoul lists. These things tend to wax and wane with this deck for sure.
In Second Place we had Lurrus PO.
Interesting enough that this is close to Monkey PO, but doesn't have Forth Eorlingas! I do think that card is pretty good in the Lurrus PO shells. It makes for a super strong win condition.
Vintage Challenge 32 5/25/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 40 players in it, thanks to the MTGO Vintage Community.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Dredge was the most played deck, but its win rate was incredibly bad. Sphere Shops and Doomsday both looked great as did Dimir Lurrus. Initiative rode the middle and even Raker Shops didn't perform that well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Lurrus | 1st | s8shock |
| Doomsday | 2nd | discoverN |
| Sphere Shops | 3rd | Jinjaa |
| Blue Control | 4th | TimesCAR |
| Lurrus PO | 5th | Jujkata |
| Sphere Shops | 6th | _Shatun_ |
| Sphere Shops | 7th | Montolio |
| PO | 8th | helvetti |
Good amount of Sphere Shops in the Top 8. At the end of the event, it was Dimir Lurrus that won.
Not much to really say here. This is pretty stock for the most part. I love Momentum Breaker. That card is really neat.
In Second Place, we had Doomsday.
Pretty solid Doomsday list. Going very deep on a full set of Ponder and Preordain is quite strong.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari always has some cool stuff for us.
The Spice Corner
UNSTOPPABLE PLAN.
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!
