Vintage 101: Five Decks for Vintage Eternal Weekend 2025
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of Vintage 101! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're talking about five decks to consider for Eternal Weekend North America 2025! In addition to that, we've got some Challenges to discuss.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Five Decks for NA Eternal Weekend 2025
North America Eternal Weekend 2025 is approaching this weekend in Pittsburgh, PA, and as of right now, there are roughly 298 enrolled players. I don't expect that needle to move too much this year. This is sofar less than last year's number of 407 players. This year's event is based fully on attendance for Swiss rounds, and this year has a slight change in that Vintage starts on Friday and then Top 8 is played on Saturday, rather than Sunday like it usually is.
With that being said, let's look at five decks that you might be interested in for Eternal Weekend.
#1 - Dimir/Esper Lurrus Control
I think it makes the most sense to mention the quote unquote "best deck in the format". This is a deck that a good majority of players will understand how to play because this deck is trying to force other Vintage decks to play Legacy. This is the fairest deck in the format, and it's powerful. If you know anything about how to play a control deck or tempo deck in any other format, this a deck you can understand and learn how to play.
One of the more interesting flex spots is the Timetwister. It's a cool combo when you can catch an opponent with an Orcish Bowmasters where you can lights out your opponent in a single turn. It's very powerful.
#2 - Mono White Initiative
Initiative is an extremely popular deck, so it's worth having on your radar as a deck that is playable in this current format. This deck has a lot of really straightforward turns, and it's yet another deck trying to police the format with its plays. Between powerful cards like Clarion Conqueror and Archon of Emeria, there are a bunch of things this deck does that are exceptionally powerful.
This deck also has a lot of stock to its list, so it's also easy to learn and pick up. Much of this deck's decision-making is heavily influenced by sequencing and mulligan decisions, but it is a solid deck for Eternal Weekend, as it has had a great showing at these events in the past.
#3 - Oath of Druids
Oath is just one of those decks for Eternal Weekend. It's a powerful deck and very straightforward. It's always super popular at these events, and it has some really powerful plays. This deck is heavily appealing because it does some really Vintage-y things, and for some people, coming to Eternal Weekend is good for doing Vintage-y things.
I think this is a deck that's also actually pretty good. It has its moments and it's powerful, but it's really cool. I love Oath myself, and I feel like it's always one of those decks that has a chance to do well in these events.
Another really cool thing about this deck is the fact that the Mono White Initiative deck is very popular, and Oath tends to have a very strong matchup versus Initiative as Atraxa is very good versus Initiative.
#4 - Jewel Shops
Jewel is another super Vintage-y deck, which often makes it super popular to play around with at these kinds of events. It's a deck that plays a lot of Power and does a lot of really powerful things, and like Oath that appeals heavily to many players. Lots of players come to Eternal Weekend to play Vintage, and decks like Jewel are Vintage.
It's a cool deck, but not quite my favorite cup of tea. If you're going to play a deck with Paradoxical Outcome in it, I'd likely look at Lurrus PO first. Jewel does have a fair amount of problematic issues and is does struggle quite a bit against a lot of things the format is doing, especially with Lurrus being the deck that is policing the format.
#5 - Sphere Shops
Sphere Shops is on this list because Mishra's Workshop is powerful, and new cards like Scrawling Crawler have really boosted the power level of this deck hard. Between that, Patchwork Automaton, and Stonecoil Serpent the threats in this deck are really good and aggressive, while also keeping up the deck's penchant for prison pieces.
Shops is a strong choice and it's popular enough, and it's another deck that really is trying to force other decks to slow down a lot and play to its level, and if the deck can do that, it's very good at it.
Wrapping Up
These are just five decks that you might want to consider for Eternal Weekend. If you have any others, please let us know in the comments what deck you think you might be interested in!
Vintage Challenge 32 10/2/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 47 players in it thanks to the Vintage MTGO Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Both Initiative and Lurrus Breach were very popular here. Initiative sat at the middle of the road, while Lurrus Breach did very well. Most of the other decks in the cutoff teetered between Dredge looking good down to Lurrus DRS and Jewel Shops not looking so good.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Breach | 1st | DethFrmAbove |
| Initiative | 2nd | YES_I_accept_SPLIT_ |
| Lurrus Breach | 3rd | duke12 |
| Dredge | 4th | Munchlax446 |
| Oath | 5th | RatherBplayingMTG |
| Doomsday | 6th | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Initiative | 7th | Predrag133 |
| Dredge | 8th | blackdecks99 |
Breach, Initiative, and Dredge all here. At the end of the event it was Lurrus Breach that won.
Mana Drain and Gifts Ungiven are pretty sweet together. It's pretty cool to see a format where those cards are good again.
In Second Place we had Initiative.
Very straightforward version of the deck here. Super clean numbers and strong cards.
Vintage Challenge 32 10/3/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 40 players in it thanks to the Vintage MTGO Discord.
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 while it weirdly had 3 Top 8 appearances, its overall win rate was still less than 50%. Sphere Shops looked super strong, as did Initiative.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Sphere Shops | 1st | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Other Shops | 2nd | notmi |
| Initiative | 3rd | valentinaaaa |
| Dredge | 4th | VicentStrange |
| Dredge | 5th | vwxyza648204 |
| Dredge | 6th | TadalaDe20 |
| Esper Lurrus | 7th | cantillon |
| Initiative | 8th | MatheusPonciano |
Pretty interesting Top 8. At the end of the event it was Sphere Shops that won.
This is kind of neat. I like some of the silver bullet lands that Golos can get here. Bojuka Bog as a main deck inclusion is super cool.
In Second Place we had Jewel without the Jewels.
I think the most important card here is pretty much The One Ring and it doesn't feel close. I feel like you really want to resolve this and then use Metamorphs to copy it and reset it so you can keep going until you have so much card advantage it doesn't even matter.
Vintage Challenge 32 10/4/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 47 players in it thanks to the Vintage MTGO Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Both Initiative and Breach were popular here, and while Initiative had a less than 50% win rate Breach had a positive win rate. Sphere Shops and Dimir Lurrus also looked good, as did Oath.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Sphere Shops | 1st | _Shatun_ |
| Lurrus Breach | 2nd | DethFrmAbove |
| Oath | 3rd | _SickDraw |
| Lurrus Breach | 4th | discoverN |
| Sphere Shops | 5th | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Dimir Lurrus | 6th | i_b_TRUE |
| Lurrus DRS | 7th | Billbuscus |
| Esper Lurrus | 8th | 416FrowningTable |
Honestly a pretty cool Top 8. At the end of the event it was Sphere Shops that won.
Pretty similar list to the list that won the Challenge the day before. One thing to note is having a main deck Swamp is really good for having cards like Dismember to not cost you a million life to cast. Very cool stuff.
In Second Place we had Lurrus Breach.
I love how singleton the sideboards of these decks can get. Literally the only card with two copies is Soul-Guide Lantern. Just quality deckbuilding right there.
Vintage Challenge 32 10/5/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 38 players in it thanks to the Vintage MTGO Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Oath and Breach were super popular here, but Oath's win rate was pretty bad. Breach did very well, as did Dredge and Dimir Lurrus.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Breach | 1st | desolutionist |
| Dredge | 2nd | blackdecks99 |
| Initiative | 3rd | Munchlax446 |
| Dimir Lurrus | 4th | AFX |
| Lurrus Breach | 5th | discoverN |
| Dimir Lurrus | 6th | albertoSD |
| Lurrus Breach | 7th | wiky |
| Sphere Shops | 8th | Tsubasa_Cat |
Lots of Lurrus here, and in fact the winner was Lurrus Breach.
Kind of surprised to continue to see Chain of Vapor instead of Into the Flood Maw, but I know Chain has an added bonus of being able to bounce your own things which can be pretty good. There's probably a better case for Chain being more flexible, but I just really like how powerful Flood Maw is.
In Second Place we had Dredge.
I love when Dredge doesn't even care about Tabernacles. Not a Strip Mine or Wasteland in sight here, just good clean Dredging.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari has some great videos for us:
- kindamtg has some Spider-Punk Beseech Storm. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
SCAM
Fiddlebender!
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!
