Vintage 101: Getting Ready for Eternal Weekend Europe
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 ahead to this weekend's Vintage Champs at Eternal Weekend in Europe! In addition to that we've got a few Challenges to look at.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Eternal Weekend Europe 2024 Is This Weekend!
This weekend is the final of our three parts of Eternal Weekend events, being held in Prague by JK Entertainment. This is already looking like it's going to be quite a weekend with a lot of players in attendance, so I figured it's a great time to look ahead at what to expect out of the weekend from a Vintage perspective. So let's hit some big points of what Vintage is probably going to look like this weekend, shall we?
1 - Lurrus is likely to be highly represented
If you're going to be prepped for anything this weekend, it's really a must to make sure you are prepped for your matchup versus Lurrus decks, and namely Psychic Frog versions of those decks in general. Lurrus, Frogs, Bowmasters, Lavinia. These are all really good cards that you must absolutely consider to be important to understand how they play and how to beat them. Especially knowing the key differences between Esper and Dimir is important (Lavinia, Swords to Plowshares, etc.) and how to work through defeating either variant.
Lurrus is very much a functional pillar of the format at the moment in terms of how much play decks with it in the format, so it's 100% something you need to prepare for.
2 - Jewel Shops is still good
Jewel Shops is still very much a deck that has an existence to be considered in Vintage. The deck can be metagamed against quite well, but it's still a very powerful deck and worth understanding how to play against and beat. It's also worth knowing how to actually play this deck because it definitely has a lot of micro decision points to it that can be exploited. Just like Lurrus though, it's a popular deck and you can expect to see it.
3 - Sideboard space is really stretched thin
Between things like Dredge, Oath, Jewel, and Initiative, the sideboard space in Vintage decks at the moment is very much at a premium for what you need to deal with, and sometimes you are not going to be able to deal with everything. Dredge alone takes a number of different pieces of graveyard interaction due to how well the deck can angle itself to beat various forms of single interaction. Oath requires some pretty straightforward interaction, but it has a number of different ways to beat those. Initiative has some very specific things that interact with the deck that don't exactly cross over to other decks (you're not exactly slotting in Virtue's Ruin into your sideboard for anything but Initiative after all), which then eats up into the space in your sideboard.
It's a good idea here to list out the major matchups you want to consider and work on crafting a 75 that meets the demands of those matchups. Write out a sideboard matrix for the important matchups and things you need to remember when playing in those matchups. This is general tournament advice for sure, but at the same time it's important to know what matchups you might be missing in Vintage due to just not having the space for cards devoted to it.
4 - Expect the unexpected
Vintage Champs events in paper do always tend to have a lot of unexpected showing up alongside all the other normal decks, especially when you start diving into Power-less builds that are inevitable at any Eternal Weekend event. Red Prison decks are especially popular here, because they've gotten a lot of printings over the past few years that have really powered them up even without playing a Lotus or Moxen. The key here is to expect to run across unexpected things. People are trying out cards like Pyrogoyf as Oath targets, it can be quite wild out there sometimes, so it's not incredibly unexpected to run across them in an Eternal Weekend setting.
5 - Have Fun!
Regardless of what your goal is for a Vintage Champs event at Eternal Weekend, always remember to have fun and enjoy yourself! Meet your basic needs, hang out with friends, and sling some sweet cardboard. Sanctioned Vintage events happen so infrequently (now really only 3x/year in an official Wizards capacity with Eternal Weekend) that remembering to have fun playing your cards is quite important. Vintage is in a weird space right now, but it can still be super fun and enjoyable. Go forth and cast a Black Lotus (or not if you're Power-less) and have a great weekend!
Vintage Challenge 32 11/28
The first Challenge event of the week 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 the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative was the most popular deck of the event, and it's win rate was reasonable. Esper Lurrus had a slightly below 50% win rate despite having a good showing. Jewel did really well here, as did Breach.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Doomsday | 1st | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Initiative | 2nd | Bezerra_da_Silva |
| Esper Lurrus | 3rd | Viatt |
| Breach | 4th | TrueHero |
| Initiative | 5th | _J0SE_ |
| Dredge | 6th | _bwonsamdi_ |
| Jewel Shops | 7th | Butakov |
| Esper Lurrus | 8th | JakeTMS |
Bit of Lurrus, bit of Initiative, but at the end of the event it was Doomsday that won.
This is a solid looking list here. I like the addition of the surveil lands to these kinds of decks. They give this deck a very interesting way of performing selection via a land drop and allow for some really clever tricks.
In Second Place we had Initiative.
Interesting list, integrating the restricted copy of Urza's Saga into the mix. It does allow the deck to have some additional aggressive beats and searches up Sol Ring or Lotus well.
Vintage Challenge 32 11/28
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 43 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 the most popular deck here, with a slightly above 50% win rate. Dredge performed poorly here, but Esper Lurrus did very well as did Shops. Scam did not do great as did BUG.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Esper Lurrus | 1st | duke12 |
| Lurrus PO | 2nd | unluckymonkey |
| Oath | 3rd | Marcuzinho |
| Lurrus Vault Key | 4th | cigarettesaftershrek |
| Jewel Shops | 5th | jewdan |
| Initiative | 6th | GzusReturned |
| Esper Lurrus | 7th | Viatt |
| Doomsday | 8th | HanktheObese |
Fair amount of Lurrus in the Top 8 (4/8 were Lurrus decks of some sort) with the winner being Esper Lurrus.
Having access to the removal in white is one of the big reasons to be on this deck, but also Containment Priest out of the sideboard is incredibly important for the wide variety of things like Oath, Dredge, etc that are running about the format at the moment.
In Second Place we had Lurrus PO.
Honestly I think my favorite thing about this list is the copy of Forth Eorlingas! That card is so powerful and seems great as a Fireball-esque way to win the game after going off with PO.
Vintage Challenge 32 11/30
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 52 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.
Esper Lurrus was insanely popular here, which meant that despite it's great showing in the Top 8, the win rate was dragged down a little. Dimir Lurrus had a solid win rate too, while it was really only things like Oath and Lurrus Vault Key that didn't do too hot.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Breach | 1st | KingHairy |
| Esper Lurrus | 2nd | eccelleente |
| Esper Lurrus | 3rd | kobayui |
| Initiative | 4th | Graciasportanto |
| Initiative | 5th | Magic_Dads71522 |
| Jewel Shops | 6th | haveaboavida |
| Jewel Shops | 7th | Johnni |
| 4C DRS | 8th | HanktheObese |
Three decks make up most of this Top 8 (Jewel, Lurrus, Initiative), but at the end of the event it was Breach that won.
These lists continue to always look quite powerful. Breach being a deck that has the capability of not having to play Lurrus is kind of nice. It's a breath of fresh air that there are still decks that don't want to play it.
In Second Place we had Esper Lurrus.
Speaking of Lurrus... I will note that the sideboards of these lists are quite varied in nature. Consign to Memory is a card I really think deserves to see more play overall for sure.
Vintage Challenge 32 11/31
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 36 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 the most popular deck, but it's win rate was not as great despite one Top 8 appearance. Initiative also didn't do too hot, while everything else was reasonable with the exception of Scam which apparently just did not do well at all.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| BUG | 1st | Wesal |
| Doomsday | 2nd | discoverN |
| Lurrus Vault Key | 3rd | unluckymonkey |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | ecobaronen |
| Jewel Shops | 5th | oosunq |
| Red Prison | 6th | MyPotatoes |
| Esper Lurrus | 7th | Gitaxian_Probe |
| Painter | 8th | adm29 |
Reasonable spread of decks here. At the end of the event though it was BUG that won.
I have not seen a Jace, Vryn's Prodigy in Vintage in a hot minute! Jace being able to flash back Ancestral Recall or Time Walk used to really be a powerful thing to do in the format, so it's kind of cool to see him here.
In Second Place we had Doomsday.
discoverN continues to be one of the gold standards of Doomsday as a deck builder. Their lists are always continually powerful and very well built. This is always a great place to start with this archetype.
Around the Web
- Maxtortion has a video covering his Vintage Champs win at Eternal Weekend. Check it out here.
- kindamtg has a video on Belcher. Check it out here.
- Andrea Mengucci going full steam into Vintage? Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook has a video of one of his matches from EW Vintage. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Top+Fleshraker is sick.
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!
