Vintage 101: Might As Well Jump

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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 taking a look at JumpStart and whether or not there are any cards for the format from this product. Thankfully it doesn't seem like there is much for Vintage from this set, but there are a great number of cool reprints.

In addition to that, we have both Challenge events from over the weekend to talk about as well as our Spice Corner.

Without further ado, let's dive right in!

Jump Around, Jump Around

In addition to the never-ending Spoiler Season, we have JumpStart arriving. There are far less new cards here and mostly reprints but there are still two cards that caught my attention.  This does not appear to be a set with a lot of Vintage insanity, thankfully.

Scholar of the Lost Trove

This card is somewhat interesting with the card Oath of Druids in that it can potentially flashback a spell that has been milled by the Oath trigger, or it can flashback an artifact that hits the graveyard. This is a very unique effect, and unique effects generally warrant some amount of testing or playing around with. What is cool with this card would be to hit Time Walk with it, then get another Oath trigger on the Time Walk turn and hit a second one of these to flash something else back. Definitely interesting.

Allosaurus Shepherd

While there aren't a ton of predominantly green decks in the format the fact that this makes green spells uncounterable is honestly really decent and could relatively slot into decks that want to play around with the card Fastbond, or who knows it has the right creature type that it might possibly create a way to handle Elves within the format as well. It would be pretty sweet to see what Vintage Elves could look like for sure.

Tinybones, Trinket Thief

This card is just super adorable. That is all.

Community Vintage Update

Edward Bonar reached out to me concerning an event upcoming in October in Oklahoma hosted by Wizards Asylum. This is what he had to say about the event:

The first Oklahoma Vintage Championship is taking place October 17th at noon central time. Hosted by Wizards Asylum in Norman, Oklahoma. Entry is $100. An Unlimited piece of power will be awarded to first place. There will be a prize for the highest placing unpowered deck in the form of a revised dual land. Additional prize support including unpowered prize support will be based on attendance. We are capping attendance at 48 players so register now in order to reserve your spot. For registration, call Wizards Asylum in Norman, (405) 292-4263. For any questions regarding the event, contact Edward Bonar II via Facebook or email, edward.bonar2@gmail.com.

If this sounds like something you're interested in, definitely check it out!

Vintage Challenge 6/20

We did indeed have two Vintage Challenge events this past weekend, so let's dive right into the first Challenge, which is the normal Saturday Challenge, and it's Top 32 Metagame Breakdown.

This was certainly a really interesting Top 32 metagame, with quite a bit of diversity going on. Jeskai Xerox was one of the most popular decks and continues to remain so amongst the US crowd, but despite this, it didn't really convert any copies to the Top 8. However, that being said, the Top 8 was exceptionally interesting for this event.

Deck Name	Placing	MTGO Username
U/R Xerox	1st	Notmi
Grixis Urza	2nd	GGoggles
HollowVine	3rd	Montolio
Merfolk Oracle	4th	AooAAooa
Breach	5th	KauffJ
POath	6th	AnziD
PO Storm	7th	Bryant_Cook
Breach	8th	MisplacedGinger

This was definitely a really interesting Top 8 with a lot of interesting archetypes represented here. It seems like there is a lot going on within the format now, and generally, the feeling I've gotten from others is that it is relatively positive and fun to play currently.

At the end of it all, however, it was Notmi on U/R Xerox who took it all down. Notmi is a regular on the Vintage Streamers Discord, so major congrats to them on their finish!

I really dig this list a lot and the power behind it. Dreadhorde Arcanist is a real house alongside Sprite Dragon, as Arcanist's ability to flashback spells simply improves upon the Sprite in every little way. Especially cool here is the Scab-Clan Berserker in the 75, which is exceptional against many Vintage decks but especially against PO. Furthermore it is really cool to see a singleton copy of Chandra, Torch of Defiance in the sideboard. Just an ultra powerful card and can do some really powerful things in long and grindy matchups.

In Second Place we have Grixis Urza.

This list is also really interesting, with the inclusion of Saheeli, Sublime Artificer as a sort of Monastery Mentor-like inclusion that generates value with all of the non-creature spells the deck can play. Urza himself is a great value play and win condition, which is really powerful.

In Third Place, we have our good friend Andy Markiton on HollowVine.

This deck continues to astound me with the results that it puts up, as well as the general power of the shell. It is capable of some truly busted Vintage-like turns and has a lot of free pitch magic to back it all up.

In Fourth Place, borrowing a bit of tech from Legacy is a Merfolk Oracle deck.

Variants of this deck have been doing well in Legacy as of late, and it's simply just another way of approaching a win condition with Thassa's Oracle, this time with Paradigm Shift. However, this deck also gets to play the Fish game plan as well by having aggressive creature threats, many of which end up having Islandwalk for many of the blue matchups. This deck is cool.

In Fifth Place we have Grixis Breach.

This deck continues to be very powerful, and is I believe one of the more powerful combo decks in the format right now, even better than PO in my opinion. Breach has some incredibly busted wins in it, and has been performing ultra consistently in good player's hands. KauffJ here won a Challenge on this deck, so don't sleep on this if you are looking for something combo in nature.

In Sixth Place we have our good friend Anuraag Das on a PO/Oath hybrid deck.

This deck is really super cool. It has all the ways of winning like an Oath of Druids deck with Griselbrand, but can also turn a corner into a PO win as well with Tendrils of Agony. Very cool stuff indeed!

In Seventh Place, we have our good friend Bryant Cook on PO Storm.

One thing I like about Bryant's list is the integration of some of the Breach list technology such as having a Breach in the deck itself, but also cards like Sprite Dragon out of the sideboard. It's safe to say the little Faerie Dragon has found a good home in Vintage in decks like this.

Rounding out the Top 8 we have a Jeskai Breach hybrid build.

This deck is a bit of a hybrid because it can play out as a normal Jeskai Xerox deck, but then it can also turn a corner sharply with Breach + Brain Freeze and suddenly it's a combo kill. Makes for a very strong combination.

Outside of the Top 8 we saw a rare appearance of the card Fastbond! Not only that, it was a variation on Ziasbond!

I love love love this list a lot. Especially digging the Hall of Heliod's Generosity in the list. Very cool stuff indeed.

Now let's take a look at the 2019-2020 cards in this event. Remember, to be included as a 2019 card, it needed to have 10 copies or greater. We will eventually start doing this with 2020 cards as well as things start progressing into the rest of the year.

Card Name	Number of Copies
Force of Negation	32
Dreadhorde Arcanist	21
Force of Vigor	21
Narset, Parter of Veils	21
Stonecoil Serpent	15
Collector Ouphe	12
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade	12
Mystic Sanctuary	12
Oko, Thief of Crowns	12
Once Upon a Time	11
Sprite Dragon	11
Underworld Breach	9
Soul-Guide Lantern	8
Thassa's Oracle	4
Fire Prophecy	1

Definitely the spread of new cards we've come to expect here in the format. 2019-2020 has definitely kept up with Vintage as a format. It's also worth noting that this challenge had absolutely zero decks playing Lutri, the Spellchaser so it seems simply that the Otter has become a little outclassed or has become extreme fringe play for the most part.

Vintage Challenge 6/21

Our second Challenge event of the weekend was the early Sunday morning Challenge, which is generally in a good time frame for the EU and Asia regions. It also had a pretty interesting Top 32 Metagame, so let's dive right into that!

The duality of these two Challenges every weekend always reminds me of how different things can be just simply based on region and how players in different regions approach the game. The same is really true with Magic Online and these two Challenges at different time periods have really shown that well. One obvious thing here is the popularity of the 4C Control Deathrite Shaman based decks. These decks have been generally pioneered by Tomas Mar (Svaca) and are popular as a result.

Now let's take a look at the Top 8.

Deck Name	Placing	MTGO Username
RUG Xerox	1st	Dazai
PO Storm	2nd	NVitral
Golos Stax	3rd	Loriwwa
4C Control	4th	Lenka
Dredge	5th	SingPanMan
POath	6th	AnziD
Ravager Shops	7th	DiscoverN
Hogaak Bazaar	8th	NoProps

What was really cool about this Top 8 is the sheer differences in lists in it. Lots of macro-archetypes (Blue/Bazaar/Workshop) but lots of individuality within those macro-archetypes which is really cool to see overall.

At the end of the event it was Dazai who took it all down on RUG Xerox.

I like this deck a lot, but I'm also pretty partial to RUG based strategies and especially ones that include the card Wrenn and Six, because I relatively enjoy the overall power level of the card in conjunction with Gush and Mystic Sanctuary. This is definitely a powerful list worth looking at.

In Second Place we have PO Storm.

Nearly right down to being identical to the list that Bryant Cook Top 8'ed the Saturday Challenge with. Not a bad thing at all since the list is very strong.

In Third Place we have Golos Stax.

This deck is really solid still, in my opinion. It has a lot of really powerful cards behind it, and the main deck Grafdigger's Cage is really strong against not only Dredge/HollowVine, but also against things like Bolas's Citadel. This variant is a bit slimmer than normal though, eschewing cards like Mystic Forge as a 1-of and even Smokestack, which does feel a bit weird to me, but it seemed to work out!

In Fourth Place we have 4C Control.

This version of this type of deck leans on the card advantage provided by Dark Confidant and also utilizes cards like Dreadhorde Arcanist for additional card advantage options.

In Fifth Place we have Dredge by SingPanMan.

Be still my undead heart, there's a Flayer of the Hatebound in this list! Super cool to see, in addition to the tech of Creeping Chill. Really cool and solid deck!

In Sixth Place, in a repeat performance made possibly only by Anuraag Das is POath. Congrats on the double Top 8, Anuraag!

In Seventh Place we have Ravager Shops.

It is pretty cool to see Golos continue to pop up in non Stax builds. The card is very powerful even when you are not really attempting to utilize the second ability, as its ability to continually ramp by use of Karakas plus it is pretty strong.

Rounding out the Top 8, we have a sweet Survival-esque deck without the Survivals in a Hogaak Bazaar list.

This deck is super cool. It has a bit of a HollowVine aspect too it but is more aggressive slanted with cards like Bloodghast. I especially like the Deathrite Shaman in this list, as that acts as both accelerant and win condition here.

Outside of the Top 8, we have another appearance of Ethereal Forager in a U/R Delver shell.

I'm still not overly sold on this card, and especially in a list cutting Dreadhorde Arcanist (which is generally a slam dumb alongside Delver). Maybe it is better than I considered, however!

Now let's take a look at the 2019-2020 cards in this event.

Card Name	Number of Copies
Dreadhorde Arcanist	24
Narset, Parter of Veils	21
Force of Negation	19
Stonecoil Serpent	17
Sprite Dragon	15
Underworld Breach	15
Wrenn and Six	14
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade	13
Collector Ouphe	11
Oko, Thief of Crowns	11
Soul-Guide Lantern	11
Mystic Sanctuary	10
Ethereal Forager	2

Definitely all the normal hits on 2019-2020 cards we expected to see here, and again zero Companions/Lutri. I'm willing to give it more time for sure, but I definitely think it is likely that the Companion Mechanic change really did what it was intended to do. It very nearly makes me wonder if it would be possible at this point to actually unban Lurrus, but I also don't believe that Wizards would actually do so for a long while. Still, it is an interesting conundrum to ponder (and maybe shuffle).

The Spice Corner

I should just start calling the Spice Corner the Brian Kelly Corner yet again now that the Master of Spice is back playing Vintage.

Wrapping Up

That's all the time we have this week folks! As always thanks for the continued support of the column and join me next week as we continue our journey into Vintage!

As always you can reach me on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, and Patreon. In addition I'm always around the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the Vintage Streamers Discord Server.

Until next time, keep jumping up and down!