Vintage 101: Fishy Tidings
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 MERFOLK in Vintage! In addition to that we've got some Challenges to discuss.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Fishy Fishy!
In keeping up with many things going on Vintage while we prep for Eternal Weekend, I've talked about this particular deck as it has had reasonable Challenge results, but never really super in depth. That deck is Merfolk! I think this deck is super underrated in Vintage right now, because frankly Wizards just keeps printing more and more Merfolk that do powerful things enough to be considered more of a hate bear deck than anything. Primarily the big new hits are:
The big things here is that many of these newer Merfolk that are powerful all have Flash, which makes them easy to put into play in response to something. Vodalian Hexcatcher turning all of your Merfolk into Force Spike's while also boosting your team is quite good, and Tishana's Tidebinder can not only counter Atraxa's abilities, but it makes it lose all of its abilities at the same time, making it a vanilla 7/7. And even moreso newer card Floodpits Drowner can tap down a big threat like Psychic Frog or Atraxa and get rid of it if it needs to.
Realistically as well, there's also cards like Harbinger of the Seas that can see play in this kind of shell as well, putting opponent's lands in a rough spot as well, which is great versus Workshops and Bazaars. This deck is only ever going to get better and reach a critical mass of good cards, because Wizards seems very interested in continuing to print very strong Merfolk cards. They are an exceptionally popular creature type for a lot of players, so Wizards has continued to push that.
Another card that I think has really helped this deck is the advent of things like Sink into Stupor, which allows the deck to handle various nonland permanents or spells as it needs to flexibly, but also being a land that pitches for Force of Will.
This is a deck I recommend trying out. It's better than it seems like it should be and has some really strong aggressive gameplay backed up by good threats.
Vintage Challenge 32 10/3
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the Thursday event. This event had 41 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.
Dredge was the most popular deck of the event here but its win rate was fairly low. Jewel Shops looked great, as did Initiative as well as Dimir Lurrus. Oath did not do well here, and neither did Doomsday.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Lurrus | 1st | Mogged |
| Initiative | 2nd | PintuMtg |
| Countervine | 3rd | martyr1207 |
| Esper Lurrus | 4th | oskiyaa |
| Eldrazi | 5th | Antarctica |
| Jewel Shops | 6th | morenoHARDCORE |
| Other Shops | 7th | Scooby_Snacks |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | mrandmrs657 |
Very interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event, it was Dimir Lurrus that won.
Very strong looking list here. Seeing these lists coalesce to the Bowmasters/Frog core shell, and it's very good. This deck having gotten way better post restriction is a really amazing thing to see.
In Second Place we had Initiative.
The inclusion of The One Ring is pretty cool here. Seems like a really neat way for this deck to push through and draw some cards as well as maybe find a turn to keep alive long enough for the Initiative to fully take over the game.
Further down the Top 8 we had Eldrazi.
I like this list a lot. I think Eldrazi is something that people are generally sleeping on in Vintage, because the MH3 Eldrazi cards are so very cool.
Vintage Challenge 32 10/4
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the Friday event. This event had 38 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 datasheet here.
Initiative and Dimir Lurrus both were popular, but Initiative's win rate was not as good, while Dimir Lurrus was quite good. Dredge looked great, as did Oath, while Jewel's win rate was pretty meh.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Oath | 1st | frostyyy_ |
| Dimir Lurrus | 2nd | cicciogire |
| Oath | 3rd | Ayyypeks |
| Initiative | 4th | Jumba |
| Dredge | 5th | Wizard_2002 |
| Dredge | 6th | Brunninho |
| Dimir Lurrus | 7th | wiky |
| Initiative | 8th | geekyjackson |
Big split between Oath, Lurrus, Dredge, and Initiative here. At the end of the event it was Oath that won.
Very strong looking Oath list here. I absolutely love Into the Flood Maw in these decks and will talk about that card a bunch. It's such a sweet little inclusion and it seems very innocuous but it's super powerful.
In Second Place we had Dimir Lurrus.
Fairly similar list to the one from the previous Challenge. Double Soul-Guide Lantern in the main deck is pretty interesting here as well.
Further down the Top 8 we had Dredge.
Dredge keeps walking back and forth between the Silversmote Ghoul variants and the Bridge from Below variants. It's interesting back and forth on this deck, and helps keep people on their toes of what they need to deal with out of the deck.
Vintage Challenge 32 10/5
The final Challenge event of the weekend was the Saturday event. This event had 46 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.
Dimir Lurrus was the most popular deck, but its win rate looked pretty bad. Oath and Jewel looked great, as did Doomsday. Initiative also looked very good. Dredge did not do well here nor was it super popular.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Doomsday | 1st | discoverN |
| Jewel Shops | 2nd | CLTLegacyLeague |
| Jewel Shops | 3rd | GoblinElder |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | John1111 |
| Esper Lurrus | 5th | stipulation |
| Oath | 6th | Gerschi |
| Initiative | 7th | Gregoriusil |
| Oath | 8th | etoustar |
Very Jewel heavy Top 8, but at the end of the event it was Doomsday that won.
Strong looking list here. Doomsday is a great-looking deck right now in the format. Seems very powerful.
In Second Place we had Jewel Shops.
This deck has a very high power level to it, but it waxes and wanes with events as players provide answers to it. The answers are very strong against it, but sometimes it just has a great run.
Further down the Top 8 we had Esper Lurrus.
Lavinia and Plow are a good reason to be in white, but the sideboard options of Containment Priest is great.
The Spice Corner
FEAR OF MISSING OUT.
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!
