Vintage 101: Happy Frog
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 digging into Psychic Frog in Vintage! This little frog that could is doing some cool things here. Next week we'll be talking about other Frogs when we travel to Bloomburrow for our set review!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Happy Frog, Psychic Frog
While we are in the middle of spoiling Bloomburrow, one creature type that is present in that set is doing some work in Vintage from Modern Horizons 3, and that creature is none other than Psychic Frog!
This little guy on the surface is very curious, because at a glance it seems good but not super good, but that all changes once you play with it. This card does it all. It draws cards, it beats out Bowmasters in this regard because of being a 1/2 and able to grow at a moment's notice, it even protect your cards in your graveyard from things like Surgical Extraction if you need it to, while also gaining evasion in the process. It's a powerful card and we're starting to see it appear in plenty of decks to showcase how good it is.
One such obvious inclusion is Lurrus Saga.
One obvious thing to point out here is how this deck has shaved on Orcish Bowmasters, which is insane given the world we were living in prior to MH3's release, where Bowmasters was simply everywhere. Frog being so good against the card means its harder to run in general.
We've even seen some straight Dimir Control decks as well as a take on Scam in Vintage with this card.
Attempting to emulate what Legacy is doing with this card is quite interesting space and seems very powerful. I do have to wonder how much space exists for a full on Scam deck in general.
Frog is a sweet creature that works well with all sorts of things, and I expect we'll continue to see it more and more as time goes on because it has a very high ceiling especially in a format where it can come down really quickly and start putting in some work.
Vintage Challenge 32 7/11
The first Challenge of last week was the Thursday event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. There was no data for this event. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jewel Shops | 1st | ElfKid |
| Initiative Tinker | 2nd | keiesu |
| Lurrus Tempo | 3rd | unluckymonkey |
| Lurrus Saga | 4th | etoustar |
| Sphere Shops | 5th | Asa_Akira |
| Initiative | 6th | _Batutinha_ |
| Lurrus Saga | 7th | Gregoriusil |
| Oath of Druids | 8th | Tsubasa Cat |
Pretty interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Jewel Shops that won.
Solid looking stock list here. Sink into Stupor has become more prevalent in this deck, which makes a lot of sense because it is very good.
In Second Place we had Initiative Tinker.
Haven't quite seen this variant in a little bit. The addition of The One Ring here is pretty cool though.
Also in this Top 8 we had Lurrus Tempo.
Tamiyo is kind of cool especially since she's generally always going to make Clue tokens to further draw cards. Seems like a really neat list for sure.
Vintage Challenge 32 7/12
The second Challenge of the week was the Friday night event. This event had 36 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.
Both Jewel and Initiative were very popular, with both having strong win rates. Doomsday also did very well as did Lurrus Saga.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Initiative | 1st | Cabezadebolo |
| Lurrus Saga | 2nd | albertoSD |
| Doomsday | 3rd | discoverN |
| Doomsday | 4th | TunnelGaam |
| Sphere Shops | 5th | ice_nine_BIGFAN |
| Jewel Shops | 6th | boytriton |
| Jewel Shops | 7th | ElfKid |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | MandrilllMan |
Lot of Jewel Shops in the Top 8 here, but the winner was Initiative.
I really truly feel that this shell is the wrong place for Vexing Bauble. This deck wants to really jam the grossest Turn 1 play it can, and Bauble sometimes means you're taking that turn off to do that instead, and that feels so wrong to me. Wrath of the Skies however is incredibly cool.
In Second Place we had Lurrus Saga.
We already talked about how good the Frog is. This list is really strong looking overall. I love Drown in the Loch here as well as Spell Pierce.
Also in this Top 8 we had Doomsday.
discoverN just continuing to be a real insane player with this deck overall. I like the one of Frog in the sideboard as a juke, tbh. It seems quite strong.
Vintage Challenge 32 7/13
The third Challenge of the weekend was the mid afternoon 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.
Lurrus Saga was the most popular deck here and it had a strong win rate, as did Doomsday, Sphere Shops, and Initiative. Oath did somewhat poorly here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Saga | 1st | duke12 |
| Jewel Shops | 2nd | Capitano_Cl |
| Initiative | 3rd | ecobaronen |
| OOps! All Spells | 4th | Cuikui |
| Lurrus Saga | 5th | etoustar |
| Sphere Shops | 6th | Carl63 |
| BUG Aggro | 7th | Montolio |
| BUG | 8th | danlogan |
Honestly a really neat Top 8 here, with Lurrus Saga taking down the finals.
One very interesting card showing up here that has been poking its way into these lists is Basim Ibn Ishaq from the Assassin's Creed sets. We didn't really cover this set in a review because we didn't initially see much to look at, but Basim seems quite interesting. Being able to make it unblockable turn by turn by recurring Mishra's Bauble with Lurrus seems great.
In Second Place we had Jewel Shops.
Again a very stock looking list overall here. This deck has definitely settled into a very firm list for sure.
At the bottom of this Top 8 we had a sweet new list from Montolio.
A more DRS focused Bazaar list, featuring some cards like Sneaky Snacker and Psychic Frog is really sweet. I can definitely get behind this one. This deck is sweet.
Vintage Challenge 32 7/14
The final Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Sunday event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. There was no data for this event.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Merfolk | 1st | SingPanMan |
| Lurrus Saga | 2nd | ARCII |
| Jewel Shops | 3rd | _Mago_ |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | taniguchi |
| Initiative | 5th | choutin |
| Initiative Tinker | 6th | TrueHero |
| BUG | 7th | musasabi |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | Brunninho |
Quite an interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Merfolk that won.
I continue to maintain that this deck is continuing to just get so many more tools over time to make it much better. More and more Merfolk are being printed that are hatebear-like effects, so I feel like this deck will become full meta someday.
In Second Place we had Lurrus Saga.
Very straightforward looking list here. Frog again seems quite good here.
Also in this Top 8 we had BUG.
Tamiyo seems cool here as does the Frog. Being able to potentially flip Tamiyo quickly is cool but the power of being able to make continual Clues is nice.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari has some great videos for us.
- Revenantkioku has a Challenge event video with Doomsday. Check it out here.
- Ecobaronen has a video on a Top 4 run with Initiative. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Brian Kelly and Skullclamp.
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!
