Vintage 101: June 2025 Metagame Review
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of Vintage 101! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week I am officially back from vacation and checking out what is going on with Vintage prior to the BnR Announcement on June 30th. In addition to that we've got a brief look at the results from a paper event this past weekend as well as Challenge data from last week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Vintage June 2025 Metagame Review
We have a Banned and Restricted Announcement coming on June 30th, so I figure it's a good time to talk about where Vintage is at right now. This is based on data up to 6/17/2025 from 8/26/2024 (the restrictions of Saga + Bauble) from the Vintage MTGO Community's crowdsourced data. You can find the copy of the Dashboard I used here.
Let's first look at some of the graphical data surrounding the format.
This is some very interesting information we have going on here. So what's going on with Vintage? Well, it should not be much of a shock that a little over 30% of the Vintage format right now is a Lurrus deck. Lurrus has continued to be an incredibly powerful card, and while it encapsulates a lot of decks within its umbrella many of those decks do look or feel very similar in a number of ways (the major outliers being Lurrus PO and Lurrus Breach). In fact, my only criticism here is that while it's nice to know how much of the format is defined by Lurrus, there is those decks like PO and Breach that don't play the same way as Esper or Dimir Lurrus Control and are more or less primary combo game plan style decks and not fair tempo/control.
Still, I don't expect to see Lurrus diminish in play any time soon, and I rather expect it to continue to increase in play going forward. We've proven already that it is hard to print new cards greater than mana value 3 to try to push on Lurrus, and I don't expect that to actually change.
However, the top two individual subarchetypes in Vintage are not Lurrus decks. They are instead, Initiative and Dredge. Both of these decks have commanding presence in the format, but overall their win rates are slightly below 50%. Both decks can compete well enough in the format because they are very straightforward and powerful, but they certainly aren't the top dogs of the format in terms of win rate. Initiative has won a number of events though recently and a fair number of Top 8s, and did get some new stuff like Clarion Conqueror. Dredge on the other hand, is very much just cycling around like Dredge does, and is a good deck when people aren't expecting it.
We have to move down to the next two spots for Lurrus, and that comprises both Esper and Dimir Lurrus. These two decks are very similar in deck construction, with Esper Lurrus having access to removal like Swords to Plowshares and the like. However, Dimir Lurrus' two-color manabase does allow it to operate a bit more cleanly and it does have a slightly stronger win rate. In regards to play style as well, both decks are extremely similar.
On down the list is Jewel Shops, boasting a positive win rate of 51.23%. I do feel like Jewel also cycles in and out much like Dredge does. It's a deck that's great when people aren't really expecting it, and can be pretty bad if people are ready for it. I think this is a pretty powerful deck, but it is easy to metagame against if you really want to beat it. Below this at the bottom of the Top 6 decks is Lurrus PO, a deck boasting a solid 53.85% win rate and one of the higher win rates below Dimir Lurrus and Doomsday. Lurrus PO has been steadily gaining steam over time, and the deck is very good. There are a few different builds of it, but for the most part the 4C build (known otherwise as the unluckymonkey build) tends to be the most popular version.
So... with knowing where Vintage is at currently... is anything wrong? Well, I think for the most part, outside of the fact that Lurrus exists, I think the format is realistically okay. It hasn't changed all that much in the past few months really at all. Stock Up being printed was a solid and interesting card to have around, and it has continued to make waves in the format, but those waves have mainly stayed in the same lanes they were in before. The card didn't really generate the existence of any new decks, it just went into existing strategies and boosted them quite well. That being said, I do think the format is also a little bit stale in terms of its play patterns and can get old pretty quickly as the metagame just functionally hasn't shifted all that much since the printing of Stock Up. So while I think you can have fun with this format, I do also think it can get sort of tedious just as fast as you keep running into the same play patterns over and over.
I don't have a good answer for this because on paper and data-wise, the format is in a reasonable spot. I'd maybe look to unrestricting cards to possibly see what is safe to do so, but that's also somewhat risky. It also remains to be seen yet whether anything out of Final Fantasy could have any play in the format, but realistically the results sofar don't show a lot of promise there either. I have to imagine that ther will be no changes for the format this BnR, simply because the general vibe I get from a number of players is that they enjoy the format, and that's totally fine. I do believe they will continue to watch Lurrus, but I would certainly be surprised if they took action against the card now. I feel as if any major changes to the format will wait for Eternal Weekend to be done and over with to see what those events bring.
It's fine at the moment for Vintage to be just fine. There are certainly ways to enjoy the format but I do think long term not having many shifts in metagame can be problematic. We will see here in a few weeks what Wizards may decide to do, but my current predicition for that is no changes.
NYSE Open IX
This past weekend was a somewhat larger Vintage event, the NYSE Open IX in New York. This event had 86 players and its prizing was a Top 8 of Power 9 cards.
You can find the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Lurrus PO was by and far the most popular deck of the event at a stunning 31.4% of the metagame while also having a solid 54.4% win rate. Esper Lurrus was far less popular at 11 copies but it had an even better win rate. Overall, most of the decks across the cutoff were above or only slightly below 50% win rate.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Esper Lurrus | 1st | Jacob Bard |
| Doomsday | 2nd | Noah landaira |
| Sphere Shops | 3rd | Mark Hollaar |
| Lurrus PO | 4th | Hank Zhong |
| Esper Lurrus | 5th | Tristan Wylde-LaRue |
| Lurrus PO | 6th | TonyScapone |
| Lurrus PO | 7th | Tyler Ragels |
| Lurrus PO | 8th | Brian Coval |
Lurrus in general was a huge part of this Top 8. 4 Lurrus PO lists + 2 Esper Lurrus is a lot of Lurrus. At the end of the event it was Esper Lurrus that won.
This is interesting and generally what we've come to expect out of Esper Lurrus builds. Only one Stock Up is certainly interesting.
In Second Place we had Doomsday.
Jace, Wielder of Mysteries! I love that card. I also dig the Sheoldred and the Abhorrent Oculus in the sideboard as some juke action going on. Very solid looking list.
Vintage Challenge 32 6/12/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 43 players in it thanks to the Vintage MTGO Community Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Both Initiative and Lurrus PO were the most played decks, with Initiative having a positive win rate while Lurrus PO had a less than 50% win rate despite a Top 8 finish. Sphere Shops and Dimir Lurrus also did very well as did Esper Lurrus.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Sphere Shops | 1st | _Shatun_ |
| Esper Lurrus | 2nd | wiky |
| Lurrus PO | 3rd | xfile |
| Sphere Shops | 4th | HyuugaHeir |
| PO | 5th | Bullwinkkle6705 |
| Dimir Lurrus | 6th | O_danielakos |
| Initiative | 7th | canepis16 |
| Dimir Lurrus | 8th | bless_von |
Half of the Top 8 here is Lurrus, with some other decks sprinkled in the remaining four. At the end of the event it was Sphere Shops that won.
Scrawling Crawler is a solid addition to these Shops decks. It's a super cool card and does a lot for these decks.
In Second Place we had Esper Lurrus.
This is a pretty standard looking Esper list. Not much frills to speak of here.
Vintage Challenge 32 6/13/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 38 players in it thanks to the Vintage MTGO Community Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Sphere Shops and Initiative were both the top played decks, but Sphere Shops' win rate was very poor. Initiative had a solid win rate, as did "Other Lurrus" decks and Doomsday.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus PO | 1st | ecobaronen |
| Initiative | 2nd | Bawer |
| Beseech Storm | 3rd | musasabi |
| Grixis Lurrus | 4th | adamwasmo |
| Initiative | 5th | AFX |
| Doomsday | 6th | RatherBplayingMTG |
| Initiative | 7th | chanel-santini |
| Initiative | 8th | choutin |
Quite a bit of Initiative here. At the end of the event however, it was Lurrus PO that won.
This list looks super fun. I love the Wizard synergy with Flame of Anor which is sweet. I wonder if there's room for Black Mage's Rod even just as a one-of in one of these decks, because that seems super cool.
In Second Place we had Initiative.
This is a fairly straightforward and solid looking list. I love how much Clarion Conqueror has boosted this deck quite a bit. It has certainly been a great addition for it.
Vintage Challenge 32 6/14/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 43 players in it thanks to the Vintage MTGO Community Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Lurrus PO was the most played deck, with a solid looking win rate. Doomsday also did very well as did Initiative. Most of the decks here did above the 50% mark, with the big outlier being Esper Lurrus at 41.7%.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Doomsday | 1st | discoverN |
| Lurrus PO | 2nd | jake-upLVT |
| Initiative | 3rd | chanel-santini |
| Lurrus PO | 4th | unluckymonkey |
| Dimir Lurrus | 5th | John1111 |
| Sphere Shops | 6th | Dark_Shine |
| Dredge | 7th | L4rss0n |
Very interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Doomsday that won.
This is a pretty interesting list. I like the Tempo element with Frog and Tamiyo here.
In Second Place we had Lurrus PO.
This is a very straightforward list much like previous lists that have done well this previous weekend. Nothing too crazy here.
Vintage Challenge 32 6/15/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 32 players in it thanks to the Vintage MTGO Community Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative and Lurrus PO were both the top decks, with both having good win rates. Jewel Shops also looked really good, as did regular non-Lurrus PO and Beseech Storm. Sphere Shops and Doomsday didn't do very well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Initiative | 1st | TeamLeaderNA |
| Initiative | 2nd | AFX |
| Jewel Shops | 3rd | Hampuse1 |
| PO | 4th | helvetti |
| Lurrus Breach | 5th | kabloom |
| Jewel Shops | 6th | svessesvv |
| Dredge | 7th | crK |
| Lurrus PO | 8th | unluckymonkey |
This is a pretty well spread Top 8. At the end of the event it was two Initiative decks that faced down in the finals.
Not a crazy amount of differences between these two lists. Mostly sideboard changes. Very straightforward and solid lists both of these.
Around the Web
- kindamtg has BUG Chocobos! Check it out here.
- Revenantkioku has some Yorion action with Cloud. Check it out here.
- Justin Gennari has a Tournament Report for NYSE. Check it out here.
- Brian Coval also has a Tournament Report for NYSE. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
This list 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!
