Vintage 101: October Vintage Metagame Review
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 where Vintage sits at in the overall metagame focus. In addition to that we've got some Challenges to look at from last week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Vintage in October 2025
It seems like a great time to take a look at how Vintage is doing in the past few months. For this article I'm specifically referencing the data collected by the MTGO Vintage Discord teams, which you can find a copy of the Dashboard here. I'm also specifically going back to only 7/29/2025 which is when Tezzeret, Cruel Captain was made available to Vintage. So let's look at the graphs.
The current size of this data set is around close to 2500 entries, and of that close to 20% of the metagame is Initiative. Honestly this doesn't surprise me. It's an extremely popular deck and with it winning Eternal Weekend I have to imagine more and more people try out the deck in general. The deck's overall win rate however is really in line at around 51.1% w/o mirrors and 50.94% w/ mirrors. Honestly this is great and really where you want something like this to be at. People have genuinely figured out the deck's pain points and where the deck breaks.
Dimir Lurrus however continues to look like the legitimate best deck in Vintage since then, with a solid 55.5% non-mirror win rate, whereas Esper Lurrus is in a lot rougher space at around 49.6% non-mirror. Lurrus decks such as Breach, Doomsday, and PO all continue to look great with very positive win rates as well.
Dredge continues to be very popular as well, but its overall win rate has consistently been quite low. It's one of those decks that if the format isn't prepped for it, it can do well, but if the format is even thinking about it, it's going to find that its in a bad place. Dredge being around 46.4% non-mirror is pretty rough for it.
Wildly, despite the fact that Sphere Shops is way down the list of decks in terms of raw Shops builds (Jewel and Raker being higher in metagame percentage than it), I think Sphere Shops with Golos is functionally in a lot better spot right now as it keeps doing very well in events and even keeps winning multiple events. Golos is a very powerful card and many of the deck's threats are very busted.
Overall, I think to me at least, it feels like Vintage is in a reasonable space since end of July. There's a fair number of different decks and strategies all doing well, and within the Lurrus builds there's a lot of wiggle room there too. I may not personally like the cat, but I do like the variety within it that it promotes, and realistically any format where the best deck in the format is functionally a deck trying to force busted decks to play Legacy instead of Vintage I think is in a good spot. Fair decks in general like Dimir Lurrus do a pretty good job of policing things, and while Vintage is a space for powerful gameplay, having a deck that tries its best to limit that is not terrible for the overall health of the format.
I'm definitely looking forward to the results from both EU and Asia Eternal Weekend. Will Mono White Initiative reign supreme at those events too? Or will Dimir Lurrus be the best deck there? Sound off in the comments below and let me know what your thoughts are.
Vintage Challenge 32 10/16/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 46 players in it thanks to the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative was the most played deck of the event, and despite a Top 8 appearance its win rate was slightly less than 50%. Dredge also didn't do well despite a Top 8. Sphere Shops and Oath both looked good here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
---|---|---|
Sphere Shops | 1st | _Shatun_ |
Tinker | 2nd | Erik157751 |
Blue Control | 3rd | XShockWaveX |
Esper Lurrus | 4th | DB_ecobaronen |
Initiative | 5th | _4L3 |
Raker Shops | 6th | LucasG1ggs |
Dredge | 7th | oosunq |
Oath | 8th | etoustar |
Very interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Sphere Shops that won.
This is a solid looking straightforward list. Looks fairly stock for what current Sphere Shops is doing now.
In Second Place we had Tinker.
Four Mana Drain is gas, not gonna lie. Being able to fuel Stock Up in general is pretty groovy.
Vintage Challenge 32 10/17/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 35 players in it thanks to the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative was the most played deck again. Despite two Top 8s it still had a slightly lower than 50% win rate. Dimir Lurrus didn't do great here, while Sphere Shops and Lurrus Doomsday did very well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
---|---|---|
Sphere Shops | 1st | _Shatun_ |
Raker Shops | 2nd | _Batutinha_ |
Sphere Shops | 3rd | Rivori9 |
Initiative | 4th | chanel-santini |
Lurrus Breach | 5th | desolutionist |
Lurrus Doomsday | 6th | Tsubasa_Cat |
Initiative | 7th | WadeB |
PO | 8th | BiggestBird |
Lot of Shops here. At the end of the event it was the same Shops pilot that won the previous event that won.
As this is the exact same list, I can't really say much more than that this list is very strong, and Golos is good.
In Second Place we had Raker Shops.
Tezzeret really ramped up this deck quite a bit, but didn't quite push it like how Mystic Forge is in Legacy. I have to imagine the overall power level and interaction of Vintage also being readily prepared for artifact decks in general as well as the fact that Saga is restricted really reinforces that.
Vintage Challenge 32 10/18/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 50 players in it thanks to the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative was again the most played deck, but its win rate was really in the tank here. Lurrus PO and Raker Shops both looked great, as did Esper Lurrus.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
---|---|---|
Dredge | 1st | LucasG1ggs |
Raker Shops | 2nd | bless_von |
Jewel Shops | 3rd | Terminus0 |
Esper Lurrus | 4th | lordoflifegain |
Lurrus PO | 5th | Sommertroll |
Lurrus PO | 6th | Diem4x |
Lurrus PO | 7th | CardGameAddict |
Sphere Shops | 8th | jake-upLVT |
Quite a bit of Lurrus PO here. At the end of the event though it was Dredge that won.
I think it's safe to say Dredge is back on the more aggressive train now, as I've just not seen a list going back to the more full on controlling main deck full Forces + MBT style gameplay. Silversmote Ghoul is definitely here to stay.
In Second Place we had Raker Shops.
The thing I love about Portable Hole in this list is that even if you decide you need to sideboard it into your deck, Tezzeret can find it, so it's like you're playing five copies of it. Pretty cool.
Vintage Challenge 32 10/19/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 32 players in it thanks to the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Dimir Lurrus was the most played deck here, and it had a little over 50% win rate. Raker Shops was very good here as was Doomsday. Lurrus DRS didn't do well here, and while Oath got a Top 8, it didn't sit well overall in win rate.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
---|---|---|
Doomsday | 1st | Enrichetta |
Raker Shops | 2nd | crK |
Raker Shops | 3rd | _Joseba_ |
Sphere Shops | 4th | PivoUlivo |
Dimir Lurrus | 5th | sm294 |
Jewel Shops | 6th | Ignotus97 |
Raker Shops | 7th | Terminus0 |
Oath | 8th | medvedev |
Quite a bit of Shops here. At the end of the event it was Doomsday that won though.
Very straightforward and solid looking Doomsday list here. Main deck triple Flusterstorm is pretty groovy.
In Second Place we had Raker Shops.
Ok so this is wild. Tezzeret in the SIDEBOARD?! What a very interesting deck building consideration. It's like, Raker but also trying to be aggressive with Nettlecyst which is wild.
Around the Web
- Robin Mannas has a video on Vintage Unpowered Goblins! Check it out here.
- Montolio is playing some UW Cat action. Check it out here.
- Tribal Kittehs. Check it out here.
- BoshNRoll is Oathing up some Trophies. Check it out here.
- Revenantkioku is playing some Powerless Mono Red. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Dimir Scam!
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!