Vintage 101: Is Lurrus Too Good?
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 about Lurrus. In addition to that we've got some Challenges to discuss. I took last week off because I was in the process of recuperating from MagicCon Chicago, which was a real blast!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Is Lurrus Just Too Good for Vintage?
It's the beginning of March and in just a few weeks at the end of the month we will be having a Banned and Restricted announcement. Whether or not Vintage sees any changes in this announcement will certainly set the tone of where Vintage will be headed for what will arguably be another 2-3 months worth of time. I am curious what will happen with this announcement, but for now let's turn our attention to the topic at hand and that is one of Lurrus.
I recognize that much of this topic is going to be purely a piece of opinion and that my opinion might even be in a minority of the format. I have often considered Vintage to be a format that classically is able to absorb new cards well, and for a long while there it seemed that was the case, but repeated years of set like Modern Horizons sets and things like Lord of the Rings have had such an incredible effect on Vintage that it feels like this is possibly no longer true. At the same time however, one of the big root causes of the issues that currently affect Vintage is the presence of a card that as a macro archetype currently makes up close to 30% of the Vintage format, and that is of course Lurrus of the Dream-Den.
In general, the Companion mechanic has long term proven to be one of Magic's most divisive and at times detrimental mechanics. Multiple cards with this mechanic are banned in multiple formats, ranging from Pioneer down to Legacy. And it's not just Lurrus either, but cards like Jegantha, the Wellspring were very recently banned in multiple formats just in December. Companion has been not just a massive design mistake, but may possibly be one of the game's most egregious design mistakes of all time. And while there are certain Companions that don't really meet the bar for playability across formats, each format has at least one or two that actively may ruin the format by merely existing, and some of them are just a card printing or two away from possibly falling into the same boat.
In Vintage, the Companion mechanic is in something of a strange bubble. Cards in Vintage are typically balanced with restrictions, fulfilling the idea that Vintage philosophy is based on the notion that all cards outside of some extreme circumstances should be playable in Vintage in some capacity. This is a philosophy I do tend to agree with often, but Companion in general and to that greater extent Lurrus has proven that there is one thing you can't balance with a restriction. Restricting a Companion has no functional effect on a card like Lurrus, or even really any of the other Companions (Gyruda might care but that's about it), because the card's sole function is to sit in the sideboard of a deck as a singleton card anyways.
This aspect of the Companion mechanic was so egregious during the original Ikoria release under the old Companion mechanic rules that Lurrus had to be banned because there was simply no other way to balance it. After its banning, the entire Companion mechanic was reworked and changed to the implementation we see today. Lurrus was unbanned at some point in order to follow the Vintage philosophy. For a period of time, it seemed to be that this was a good thing and that Lurrus was a reasonable card to have in Vintage. Long term I believe that could have been foolish to consider given how things have progressed in the format.
Various printings allowed for Lurrus to exist as a card with very powerful threats that all fit rather neatly into its game plan. The Urza's Saga + Lorien Revealed package very much gave the deck a very powerful way of attacking the format.
Last year during August, Wizards did a bit of a shocking thing to a lot of folks and restricted Urza's Saga, something that was not incredibly expected. By this time, Lurrus Saga was an extremely dominant force in the Vintage format. During this announcement it was stated that this restriction was intended to target a number of the top decks in the format. While the restriction did force many decks in the format to readjust their heuristics of how to play against a world where Saga was a one-of, at the same time the restriction was completely ineffective at budging the actual metagame. It makes for a very strange restriction for it to have had so much impact on deckbuilding, but yet so little impact on the actual decks in that space.
In the wake of the restriction, Lurrus has done nothing but continue to grow and gain more tools, some of which were printed in the same set of the restricted card Vexing Bauble, namely stuff like Psychic Frog. Aetherdrift gives us new cards like Momentum Breaker which work quite well with Lurrus. Over the longer term, I do believe those tools will continue to exist and Lurrus will continue to make those tools overpowering due to the very presence of the card.
Is Lurrus too good for Vintage? At the base of the article is that question. Personally, I believe it is. I believe that Lurrus does a number of things from homogenizing gameplay to homogenizing deckbuilding constraints, where you are forced into a scenario of needing to play the card to have a consideration of competitive advantage. While recently we've seen some continued success from decks like Raker Shops, Lurrus has an extreme ability to adapt and find new ways to beat new threats.
Now to be clear, there are some restrictions that Wizards could possibly try before ever approaching dealing with Lurrus for good, but at the end of the day all of those things sound incredibly silly. For the most part, the idea of restricting a card like Psychic Frog or Orcish Bowmasters is absolutely absurd to consider, especially when you consider that any single printing that does something just like one of them and suddenly Lurrus' power level is back to normalized. The amount of threats that Lurrus has access to that it can leverage with its ability is really extremely high and frankly it's crazy to consider restricting one of those threats. Would Wizards ever actually do this? I don't actually believe they would, because I think the answer is clear on what the issue actually is. It's Lurrus. It's always been Lurrus, and if Lurrus isn't dealt with, it will always be Lurrus.
Unfortunately, even as we discussed a long time ago during the days of Ikoria, the only real recourse Wizards has for this is to just ban Lurrus. There's no world where they go through another errata of the Companion mechanic, or ban Lurrus as a Companion, or alter any other aspect of the rules ot make Lurrus less of a pain in Vintage. The only way to truly deal with it is to ban it.
And honestly, I personally believe they should, and they should do it on March 31st. I do recognize fully that is an opinion that some may not share, but Lurrus has proven that it is a problematic card in Vintage to me, and leveraging the only possible way to deal with it is something Wizards should be capable of doing.
The only question remains: Will they actually do it?
Vintage Challenge 32 2/27/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday 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.
Raker Shops was the most popular deck of the event, and it's win rate was just over 50%. This deck has climbed in popularity quite a bit, which is interesting to see. Lurrus decks did well here, with both Esper and Dimir Lurrus having strong showings. Lurrus PO had a slightly less than 50% win rate, despite putting one in the Top 8. Completely nonexistent here is Doomsday.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dredge | 1st | Lord_Beerus |
| Esper Lurrus | 2nd | cicciogire |
| BUG | 3rd | i_b_TRUE |
| Raker Shops | 4th | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Raker Shops | 5th | _Joseba_ |
| Lurrus PO | 6th | unluckymonkey |
| Esper Lurrus | 7th | PierrePoilievre2025 |
| Dimir Lurrus | 8th | O_danielakos |
Reasonable spread of decks here, quite a bit of Lurrus still. At the end of the event it was Dredge that won.
Dredge had a solid event given that only two players were on the deck and one of them won the event. That's generally a pretty good place to be. I think there's always going to be events where Dredge squeaks in and does well because players are not focusing on it or the sideboard cards don't always line up the way you want them to.
In Second Place we had Esper Lurrus.
No real frills to speak of here. There doesn't really need to be either. It's worth noting that many of these decks are playing nearly eight counterspell Forces (four Force of Will and three Force of Negation), so they are really stacked to interact with their opponent in a lot of ways. This is in addition to the fact that they're also main decking three Spell Pierce so that's something to truly be aware of.
Also in this Top 8 we had BUG.
BUG being the defacto "Four Collector Ouphe" deck is really something.
Vintage Challenge 32 2/28/2025
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.
Both Raker Shops and Lurrus PO were equally popular and both had solid win rates, with Lurrus PO having a really strong 63.3%. Dimir Lurrus seemed to suffer as well as Esper Lurrus here, as did BUG and Sphere Shops. Dredge rode the middle line.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus PO | 1st | benbot9003 |
| Raker Shops | 2nd | _INF_ |
| Lurrus PO | 3rd | karatedom |
| Initiative | 4th | IpseVenenaBibas |
| Raker Shops | 5th | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Lurrus PO | 6th | unluckymonkey |
| Raker Shops | 7th | Mogged |
| Initiative | 8th | Illao1 |
Equal parts Lurrus PO and Raker Shops, with two Initiative tossed in the mix. At the end of the event it was Lurrus PO that won.
Stock Up is continually proving itself to be a solid addition to these Lurrus PO builds. It is definitely very strong and I would expect it to continue to see play in these kinds of decks long term.
In Second Place we had Raker Shops.
The popularity trajectory of this deck is really interesting. It seems like it really has been a deck that has grown and refined over some time, which is always cool to see out of a format.
Further down the Top 8 we had a different build of Lurrus PO.
Thundertrap Trainer is an awesome little guy with a really strong effect that lets you do a little through your deck. The fact that you are more than likely going to hit a noncreature nonland most of the time is quite nice.
Vintage Challenge 32 3/1/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 59 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 PO was the most popular deck of the event, followed by Raker Shops. Both had pretty strong win rates. Doomsday was back and had a pretty good win rate, as did Oath.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Initiative | 1st | Asa_Akira |
| 4C Blue Control | 2nd | Kenzaburo |
| Oath | 3rd | etoustar |
| Lurrus PO | 4th | billsive |
| Lurrus PO | 5th | Viatt |
| Lurrus Breach | 6th | ziofrancone |
| Breach | 7th | Sommertroll |
| Dimir Lurrus | 8th | discoverN |
Fair amount of Lurrus here, but the winner of the event was Initiative.
Rather solid list here. The best place for a deck like this is when it knows what it needs to attack in the metagame, and I think that's where Vintage is at in the moment.
In Second Place we had a neat 4C Control build.
Both Thundertrap Trainer and White Plume Adventurer is kind of sweet. Also this deck gets to play Flame of Anor so it's automatically peak control.
Also in this Top 8 we had a pretty sweet Oath list.
Loot?! This is where you've been all along, huh little guy? Hanging out with the -- OH MY GOD IT'S MINSC WITH THE STEEL CHAIR! Okay yes, this list is pretty sweet.
Vintage Challenge 32 3/2/2024
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 39 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.
Three way tie here between Raker Shops, Initiative, and Lurrus PO. All three had strong win rates. Dimir Lurrus also did extremely well, as did BUG.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Raker Shops | 1st | RogeDeckWins |
| Initiative | 2nd | LasVegasChaos |
| Dimir Lurrus | 3rd | discoverN |
| Dimir Lurrus | 4th | Navas |
| Raker Shops | 5th | _Joseba_ |
| BUG | 6th | _INF_ |
| BUG | 7th | yoshiwata |
| Esper PO Tinker | 8th | albertoSD |
This is a pretty even spread of decks to be honest. At the end of the event it was Raker Shops that won.
This deck being able to get on board and just win the game very quickly is what really pushes it. Having an "I win" button in the Top loop with Fleshraker means you have to be very cognizant of that aspect of the game the entire time. Karn help us if this deck ever figures out how to play Force of Will.
In Second Place we had Initiative.
Dauntless Dismantler coming back is quite interesting, but honestly it might not be the worst thing to be doing if you want to counteract Raker Shops. It does shut down the loop by making Top ETB tapped and can blow up a bunch of artifacts if it has to.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Esper PO Tinker.
This deck does have some pretty cool stuff going on in it. Stock Up continues to look great, but also main deck Portal to Phyrexia is pretty gas with Tinker (and seems quite good right now against the field).
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari always has some great stuff for us.
- Zias has a video on Workshop Vine. Check it out here.
- KindaMTG has a video on Esper Plagon. Check it out here.
- FiretruckModo is feeling very Dimir. Check it out here.
- Revenantkioku has Stock Up Doosmday. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Zias has got the spice.
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!
