Vintage 101: Heralding the End
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 talking all about ELDRAZI in Vintage! In addition to that we've got Challenges to discuss.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
From Beyond the End
While Modern Horizons 3 gave us a bunch of interesting new cards like Vexing Bauble and Psychic Frog, one thing it gave us that's taken a bit for people to catch onto is new ELDRAZI. While these tentacle monsters are definitely all over Legacy at the moment, Vintage hasn't had an Eldrazi deck in a long long time. In fact, Eldrazi used to be one of those decks that you could reasonably play as an unpowered deck (this is when Thorn of Amethyst was unrestricted mind you), as deploying a lock piece and a threat was a great way to close out a game of Vintage.
Well, thanks to new cards from Modern Horizons 3, Eldrazi is back on the menu!
The big new cards here are literally most of the creatures in the deck now! New cards like It That Heralds the End, Wastescape Battlemage, Glaring Fleshraker, etc. are all brand new and cost effective cards that are very powerful and get on board quickly. Fleshraker is an insanely powerful card because it can quickly end games very fast.
All of these cards combined with the fast mana that Vintage has available can be very fast and game-ending. It's a really cool new addition to Vintage overall and I'm excited to see if this continues to look good or not.
Also, as I mentioned that Eldrazi used to be a good unpowered option... I think this variant could also be a great unpowered option now that we have cards like Vexing Bauble in the format. This is just a very brief take on what that could look like!
Vintage Challenge 32 8/1
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday night 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.
Sphere Shops was super popular here, but it's overall win rate was lower than 50%. Lurrus Saga looked really good here, as did Doomsday.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Saga | 1st | McWinSauce |
| Dredge | 2nd | oskiyaa |
| Lurrus Saga | 3rd | Navas |
| Sphere Shops | 4th | _Chamytinho_ |
| Doomsday | 5th | kabloom |
| Ring Tinker | 6th | Zero_mana |
| BUG | 7th | bless_von |
| Initiative Tinker | 8th | justAlice |
Very interesting Top 8. Fair split of Tinker, Lurrus, etc. At the end of the event it was Lurrus Saga that won.
Psychic Frog continues to look very good in these Lurrus shells. It's an exceptionally strong card if you can pitch cards you can recast with Lurrus.
In Second Place we had Dredge.
Very clean looking list here. The numbers on cards in this deck have been very interesting overall to see how they've been mathed out.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/2
The second Challenge of the week was the Friday night event. This event had 35 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 popular and did very well, as did Jewel. Initiative Tinker did extremely well. Sphere Shops and Doomsday did poorly overall.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Initiative Tinker | 1st | vwxyza648204 |
| Lurrus Saga | 2nd | death_grips |
| Lurrus Saga | 3rd | AKvsJJ |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | _Chamytinho_ |
| Lurrus Saga | 5th | albertoSD |
| Blue Tempo | 6th | affinity4plains |
| Doomsday | 7th | ecobaronen |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | powered_by_VANYA |
Quite a bit of Lurrus and Jewel here. At the end of the event though it was Initiative Tinker that won.
Very interesting split of main deck threats here. More focus on White Plume overall than Dungeoneer. It's a very interesting and flexible list for sure.
In Second Place we had Lurrus Saga.
Straightforward list here, no frills. Main deck Consign to Memory is a super interesting inclusion though.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/3
The third Challenge of the week was the mid afternoon Saturday event. This event had 47 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 popular but it rode the 50% line. Doomsday did extremely well as did Blue Control variants. Initiative Tinker did poorly as did Sphere Shops.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Control | 1st | unluckymonkey |
| Doomsday | 2nd | Diem4x |
| Doomsday | 3rd | Bullwinkkle6705 |
| BUG | 4th | lordoflifegain |
| Lurrus Saga | 5th | death_grips |
| Shops | 6th | Munchlax446 |
| BUG | 7th | B-Carp |
| Initiative | 8th | Joshitoshekel |
Faurly interesting Top 8 here. Nice split of decks overall. At the end of the event the winner was Lurrus Control.
This deck is rather sweet. Manamorphose and Tamiyo? Two of them turns Tamiyo on in your turn, in addition to stuff like Ancestral and Brainstorm enabling her. It's powerful enough though using her to make Clues and draw through your deck.
In Second Place we had Doomsday.
Very clean looking Doomsday list here. No need to be too out there. There isn't even a true sideboard juke!
Vintage Challenge 32 8/4
The final Challenge of the weekend was the early morning Sunday event. This event had 46 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 very popular and despite a great event, it's overall win rate was dragged down. Doomsday was popular but did exceedingly poorly. Initiative Tinker did great as did Jewel.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Saga | 1st | jessy_samek |
| Initiative | 2nd | Joshitoshekel |
| Dredge | 3rd | Munchlax446 |
| Lurrus Saga | 4th | Ark4n |
| Initiative | 5th | Thomas_Serra |
| Initiative Tinker | 6th | vwxyza648204 |
| Initiative Tinker | 7th | lampalot |
| BUG | 8th | crK |
Quite a bit of Initiative cards in this Top 8. At the end of the event though it was Lurrus Saga that won.
Very clean stock list here, and it's clear that Consign to Memory over the weekend is definitely being played a lot more. It makes a lot of sense. The card is really really good.
In Second Place we had Initiative.
This is a strong looking list. I still don't know how much I like Bauble here, but I love how good Witch Enchanter is.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari has some videos for us.
The Spice Corner
SCAM.
Always fun to see KCI pop up.
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!
