Vintage 101: Lurrus Lives On!
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 talk about what Wizards said in their blurb about Vintage in the Banned and Restricted Announcement from 3/31, in which there were no changes to Vintage. In addition we're wrapping up our look at Tarkir: Dragonstorm and looking at Challenges from last weekend, notably the Showcase Challenge.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Banned and Restricted Announcement 3/31 - No Changes to Vintage
We had a Banned and Restricted Announcement this past week on 3/31. In this announcement there were no changes announced for Vintage, but as Wizards has been doing more and more they provided some context on why they made no changes to the format, and the discussion held about Vintage. You can find the full announcement here, but I'm putting the verbiage from the Vintage section below so we can talk about it.
It is important to understand from the get go that Wizards is not calling on any other card here for its discussion, and isn't even attempting to hide the fact that this discussion centered not around restricting around this card, but fully on this card, and that is of course Lurrus of the Dream-Den.
Lurrus has certainly been one of Vintage's most contentious cards for a lot of reasons, and I think it's good for Wizards to put the focus on it instead of speaking to cards that exist in the Lurrus shells, since there really isn't any one card in those shells that seems incredibly problematic at the moment. Immediately Wizards calls out that they restricted Urza's Saga with the hope that it would reduce the prevalence of Lurrus in the format. I think it's incredibly important to point out that Wizards notes that while Lurrus Saga decks disappeared and Lurrus diversified more, the actual raw metagame share of Lurrus didn't go down. It went up. I've mentioned this a number of times that the restriction of Saga felt more like a band-aid to me, and that it was such a wildly impactful restriction on the deckbuilding aspect of the format but didn't actually do anything at all to impact the metagame that existed at the time. In fact, it made many of the decks that used Saga better. It's so incredibly strange to see a restriction be both impactful and not impactful at the same time.
The blurb goes on to cover how Lurrus was originally banned under the original companion rules, and that in keeping with the spirit of Vintage (keeping as many cards as possible legal, a very real mission statement for the format) that they unbanned it nine months later in the new companion rules. They also point out that this unban was experimental and that Wizards would be willing to revert it if necessary. To be clear, there's literally no other way to balance this card in Vintage. Banning it is the only way to deal with it, because they will never make any rules changes further to Companion and restricting it does absolutely nothing. They also call out the fact that a discussion was had to determine if banning Lurrus would still be on the table. The determination there was yes, if Lurrus became a significant problem they would ban it.
The article calls out other types of things that are banned in Vintage. Attractions, Stickers, dexterity cards, etc. There's precedent in the Vintage format for banning things that are problematic from a logistics standpoint, and it is called out that while Companion is not a logistical issue it does have a unique interaction with Vintage and the restricted list to where banning it is still on the table. Wizards states that they won't let the format stagnate just to preserve the clarity of a rule that already has exceptions.
That being said, Wizards also states here that they don't currently believe Lurrus is at the threshold of stagnating the metagame to the point of needing to take action. They do call out that the threshold here is a bit fuzzy, but that they would need to see a much staler metagame concentrated around just a few Lurrus builds and a higher metagame share for Lurrus.
They cap off by saying they're keeping an eye on Lurrus, both in tournaments and with player sentiment and that overall results seem healthy. I will note, that there have certainly been some changes to Vintage as of late, with cards like Stock Up making their way into the format and allowing other decks to shine like Beseech Storm. Personally I'm of the mind that the format would be better off without Lurrus, but I will note that as long as things seem healthy, it is correct for Wizards to take no action in this regard. I am curious however, where things will go from here. Even with the advent of cards like Stock Up it seems as if Lurrus metagame share continually has gone up. What is the fuzzy threshold we're looking at here where Lurrus is too much? It will be interesting to see what happens next.
What are your thoughts on the BnR announcement? Share below in the comments.
Putting the Final Touch on Tarkir: Dragonstorm
Seeing as how we have the full spoiler now for Tarkir: Dragonstorm, I figured we could wrap up on that set review this week. Honestly there isn't much that I didn't cover last week, so it's a very light suite of things to actually look at.
Rot-Curse Rakshasa
It's amusing but it is a 5/5 with Trample for two mana, and Lurrus is a card that exists in this format. I don't know if this is actually good enough but it's cute.
Sidisi, Regent of the Mire
This is another kind of cool card to use with Lurrus, but it's worth noting that it's not X plus 1 or less, which makes it probably not as good. You'd need to sacrifice like... a Tamiyo to get back a Bowmasters, but then you can replay Tamiyo using Lurrus? It can get back your Lurrus if it dies and goes to the graveyard by sacrificing a mana value two creature.
Cori Mountain Monastery
I don't think this is good enough, realistically, but the effect is interesting enough. Four mana is a lot to ask for, though.
Stillness in Motion
This is just Doomsday, right? Right?
Vintage Showcase Challenge 3/29/2025
There was another Showcase Challenge this past weekend, the final one of this premier play season before the Vintage Showcase Qualifier upcoming this weekend. These are events where the Top 8 are invited to that Vintage Showcase Qualifier event. To that end there was 209 players in this event 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 the most played deck, and despite having a strong single placing in the Top 8, it's win rate was slightly less than 50%. Sphere Shops, Beseech Storm all looked pretty reasonable here, as did Breach. Really across the board most decks seemed okay except Oops, which had a 23.1% win rate.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Beseech Storm | 1st | TonyScapone |
| Esper Lurrus | 2nd | TristanJWL |
| Dredge | 3rd | LuckyLuce |
| Lurrus Breach | 4th | desolutionist |
| Lurrus Breach | 5th | discoverN |
| Initiative | 6th | _Falcon_ |
| Dredge | 7th | Mogg_Flunkies |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | _Chamytinho_ |
There's certainly a reasonable amount of things going on here in this Top 8. At the end of the event however, it was Beseech Storm that won.
Stock Up functionally resurrecting this deck is pretty sweet. It is exceptionally nice to see decks come back around. This list looks like it's a lot of fun, too. Even a value Beseech into Tinker for Citadel seems kind of nuts in this deck.
In Second Place we had Esper Lurrus.
The Esper portion of this deck has been vastly diminished to really just main deck Plow and sideboard cards. Lavinia seems to have gone the way of the dodo again, which happens from time to time. There's certainly metagames she's good in and some that she isn't. I expect long term she'll cycle back around somewhere.
Vintage Challenge 32 3/27/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 56 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 the most popular deck in this event, and its win rate was pretty good. Lurrus Breach also looked great, while Beseech Storm had a grand old time of two pilots with one making the Top 8. Oath and Sphere Shops had win rates far below 50%, as did Jewel and Oops.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Breach | 1st | SuperCow12653 |
| Raker Shops | 2nd | Schiaveto |
| Lurrus Breach | 3rd | slaxx |
| BUG | 4th | lordoflifegain |
| Beseech Storm | 5th | TonyScapone |
| Raker Shops | 6th | Nammersquats |
| Esper Lurrus | 7th | mashirorc |
| Dimir Lurrus | 8th | Thalai |
Fair amount of Lurrus and Raker here. At the end of the event it was Lurrus Breach that won.
Stock Up has also been good for these decks as well. Giving these types of decks an effect like that is quite strong. It's allowing the decks to locate the cards they need to win the game.
In Second Place we had Raker Shops.
Very solid looking stock list of this deck. I don't particularly think there are a lot of changes to be made to the primary lists for this pile at the moment. It seems quite strong. Most of the changes would end up being in the sideboard realistically.
Vintage Challenge 32 3/28/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday 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.
Raker Shops was the most played deck of this event, and while it did have one Top 8 appearance its overall win rate was slightly less than 50%. Beseech and Esper Lurrus looked very good, as did Dimir Lurrus. Oath and Oops seemed to not do good here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Sphere Shops | 1st | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Lurrus Breach | 2nd | BLJ |
| Lurrus PO | 3rd | unluckymonkey |
| Beseech Storm | 4th | monzatubarao |
| Beseech Storm | 5th | musasabi |
| Esper Lurrus | 6th | Montolio |
| Sphere Shops | 7th | Koby |
| Raker Shops | 8th | Lathyrus |
Good coverage of both Beseech, Lurrus, and Shops. At the end of the event it was Sphere Shops that won.
I like the implementation of Scrawling Crawler into these kinds of lists. It's seemed like a really solid card every time I've played around with it myself, that it deserves testing outside of the Raker shell too.
In Second Place we had Lurrus Breach.
I feel like I definitely want a surveil land in this deck. I do think you can find room for it. I just think those lands are so good that more people should be playing them.
Vintage Challenge 32 3/30/2025
The final regular Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 35 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.
Sphere Shops was the most popular deck, but despite a Top 8 finish its overall win rate was around 48.4%. Raker Shops looked good, as did Lurrus Breach. Oath, Beseech, and Oops all seemed to do poorly.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Doomsday | 1st | SingPanMan |
| GW Aggro | 2nd | Wesal |
| BUG | 3rd | yoshiwata |
| Lurrus Breach | 4th | _INF_ |
| Raker Shops | 5th | Ayyypeks |
| Dimir Lurrus | 6th | MyPotatoes |
| Sphere Shops | 7th | John1111 |
| Initiative | 8th | LasVegasChaos |
This is a pretty interesting Top 8. At the end of the event it was Doomsday that won.
Pretty solid looking Doomsday list. Abhorrent Oculus seems like a really sweet sideboard juke. Consider in the main deck is also great.
In Second Place we had GW Aggro.
Just a solid looking Wesal deck, it seems. Stoneforge and Archon of Emeria putting in the work alongside Outland Liberator. Really sweet looking.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari always has great videos for us.
- FiretruckModo has some Dredge. Check it out here.
- TURN ONE LAVINIA.
- DB3MTG has some 4C Lurrus. Check it out here.
- kindamtg has some Hermit Druid with Nadu from the Showcase. Check it out here.
- TonyScapone has a video covering his Vintage Showcase win. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
NOTION THIEF.
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!
