Vintage 101: Lurrus' Pride
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 a set of cards from Modern Horizons 3 that could possibly be good in Vintage! In addition, I've got some news of my own as well as some Challenges to discuss.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Some Crazy News Regarding TWITCH!
Before I get to the meat of this week's article, I did want to call out something kind of cool that happened last week. I was extended to become a Twitch Affiliate! I'm doing a lot of reworking of things now at the moment, but this means more streams from yours truly! In fact, I will be starting on August 29th here to stream at 7:30 PM EST every Thursday! I may not always be streaming Vintage (although there's a firm possibility my first stream will be Legacy due to any possible bans on August 26th), but I will always be streaming something on MTGO!
You can find the announcement of my stream schedule here, and my Twitch channel here. Follow along for more info on when I am streaming!
Lurrus and Even More Cats - Can Ocelot Pride Be Good in Vintage?!
There's a lot happening in a lot of formats at the moment, and Modern Horizons 3 provided a lot of new toys to play with. I have a feeling we'll be revisiting MH3 a lot going forward. Take today's combo of cards for example. This combo has been very good in Modern and even in Legacy, but how good are these two in Vintage?
What makes this combo very potent is the fact that you don't really need to attack with Ocelot Pride in order to get its triggered ability at end step. Guide of Souls handles that part for us, by creating life gain that enables the ability to turn your Cat into a Delver of Secrets. Oh wait, there's one other Cat in Vintage that these probably work very well with isn't there?
Riiiiiight yes, Lurrus! Being both below mana value 2 or less, both Guide and Ocelot seem like they go well in a shell with the Nightmare Kitty. When scouring decklists looking for something I did find this little gem.
This seems like a really strong way to approach this deck, by utilizing many of the cards that make Lurrus + these kinds of permanents good. Pride + Guide are great at spreading out over the game, providing you life gain and the ability to make evasive threats. DRS is also great at doing what it does, and Dark Confidant is a card that I can see makes great use of all of this extra life gain the deck has going on.
Honestly, it seems like this definitely could have real legs in Vintage. Both Guide + Pride are a powerful combo, but the thing that makes it rough is that separate they are not as great. You need both to make them both good, but there are a lot of cards here that can lay on the pressure.
I'm excited to see if people take this one and run with it though.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/15
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. According to the MTGO website, there was 50 players in this event. There was no data for this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Saga | 1st | pepeteam |
| Turbo Vault Key | 2nd | Gerschi |
| Jewel Shops | 3rd | strava187 |
| Lurrus Saga | 4th | MestariMatt |
| Dredge | 5th | TheManLand |
| Prison Shops | 6th | satu2112 |
| Oath | 7th | KingHairy |
| Prison Shops | 8th | Munchlax446 |
Quite a bit of Saga and Workshops decks here. At the end of the event, it was straight Dimir Lurrus Saga that won.
This is a strong looking list here. Consign to Memory seems very powerful in Vintage as well. It's so very versatile.
In Second Place we had an Esper Turbo Vault Key list.
Tamiyo and Oswald here seem quite good. Oswald being able to upconvert a Clue into a one mana artifact seems incredibly interesting to me. Grab your Vexing Bauble? Your Manifold Key? Yeah, this is neat.
Also in this Top 8 we had Dredge.
Pretty nice list here. I think there's several ways to build this at the moment, but I like having Bazaar + one Strip Mine in the main deck.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/16
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 datasheet here.
Both Jewel and Lurrus were well represented here, with Jewel having a slightly over 50% win rate and Lurrus being slightly under but with a strong finish. Sphere Shops and Initiative Tinker did very well, while Dredge and BUG did poorly.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Sphere Shops | 1st | almana3 |
| Initiative Tinker | 2nd | TrueHero |
| Sphere Shops | 3rd | jben |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | jade-venus |
| Doomsday | 5th | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Lurrus Saga | 6th | Schiaveto |
| Initiative | 7th | Hamuda |
| Initiative | 8th | Fake_Caetano |
Lot of Workshops here in the top part, and a reasonable amount of Initiative. At the end of the event, it was Sphere Shops that won.
You know one card that's REALLY good versus Psychic Frog? Stonecoil Serpent! Having reach and pro-multicolored makes this card the dream versus the Frog. Stellar deckbuilding choice.
In Second Place we had Initiative Tinker.
This is a strong-looking list. Main deck Consign to Memory is sweet. I like how we're only leaning on White Plume Adventurer as the primary Initiative threat because it's cheaper and comes down faster.
Also in this Top 8 we had Jewel Shops.
Very stock-looking list overall here. No reason to make big changes to this shell really, it does what it does very efficiently and very well.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/17
The third Challenge event of the week was the 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 datasheet here.
Jewel and Sphere Shops were very popular here, but Sphere didn't do so hot while Jewel did very well. BUG also did very well, while Initiative Tinker fumbled.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Doomsday | 1st | Enrichetta |
| BUG | 2nd | Shamwowfella |
| Initiative | 3rd | MLGSKELETONS |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | Marcuzinho |
| BUG | 5th | Montolio |
| Jewel Shops | 6th | s063 |
| Lurrus Saga | 7th | death_grips |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | Johnni |
Good amount of Jewel in the Top 8, but it was Doomsday that won the event overall.
Great, straightforward, ABCD deckbuilding here. Always wanting to cast Doomsday and not having to focus on other plans is smart.
In Second Place we had BUG.
Psychic Frog here seems great for sure. Honestly seems even better than Tarmogoyf in these shells. It can even in a pinch pitch something to the graveyard for DRS to eat for damage or life gain.
Also in this Top 8 we had Initiative.
Very aggressive and very straightforward here. I am coming around slowly on the Vexing Bauble in this list. I suppose it is possibly better than I expected!
Vintage Challenge 32 8/18
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 the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Lurrus Saga was highly popular here and it's win rate was very good. Doomsday and Oath also looked quite good as did Initiative Tinker. Lurrus DRS builds did rather poorly.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Saga | 1st | Mogged |
| Initiative Tinker | 2nd | Deathnote1999 |
| Jewel Shops | 3rd | _Chamytinho_ |
| PO | 4th | V4nquish |
| Lurrus Saga | 5th | Ark4n |
| Lurrus Saga | 6th | albertoSD |
| Oath | 7th | KingHairy |
| BUG | 8th | crK |
Lot of Lurrus and stuff in this Top 8. At the end of the event it was Lurrus Saga that won.
Very powerful-looking deck here, and the Surveil land in the main showcasing how good those cards can be in Vintage as well. I think they are exceptionally powerful lands for sure.
In Second Place we had Initiative Tinker.
Very much exactly like the other list that did well in the Top 8s this weekend. Don't change what isn't broke!
Also in this Top 8 we had Oath of Druids.
I like this list quite a bit. Into the Flood Maw is a really interesting and unique card. Hilariously in Oath it's another way to gift an opponent a creature and bounce a permanent at the same time!
Around the Web
- Revenantkioku has a video on Boros Initiative. Check it out here.
- Justin Gennari always has some great stuff for us:
- Montolio has a video on Aggro Shops. Check it out here.
- Turn One Win has a video on Channel Charbelcher. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Green Shops?
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!
