Vintage 101: Off the Broadside
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 all about Red Prison in Vintage! In addition to that we've got some Challenges from the first week of 2025 to cover.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Off the Broadside - Red Prison in Vintage
For a long time, Vintage has often been the format of big blue decks and restricted blue cards... and while it's still somewhat that, there are at least many more options for those wishing to play some form of non-blue deck. Initiative opened up a bunch of space in the format for decks that are aggressive but don't play Mishra's Workshop or Bazaar of Baghdad, and now even more cards have opened up the ability to play Mox Ruby in a true Mono Red deck in the format.
But how did we get here? Well, I think arguably the biggest and most important card to allow this Mono Red deck to exist was none other than Broadside Bombardiers.
Bombardiers is an extremely efficient and powerful threat. It's also capable of really putting the opponent's life total to near death incredibly quickly thanks to its Boast ability. Bombardiers comes down and immediately gets to crack in for two, and it's usually going to hit thanks to Menace, but the real bread and butter lies in the fact that it can simply chuck any creature or artifact at something to either kill a creature or put damage upstairs. This card alone is definitely responsible for pushing the Red Prison deck hard, but it's not like this deck has any shortage of powerful threats.
Red Prison decks have been steadily gaining more and more pieces and while the deck is a big player in Legacy, it's taken a bit of time for players to discover that the strategy of deploying something like a Moon effect followed by an Initiative card or Bombardiers can be extremely lethal to a player's life total in Vintage. And honestly, it makes sense. There's a lot of decks that rely on Moxen, but realistically, a lot of the decks are no longer playing full sets of Moxen anymore unless they're very much a deck like Jewel Shops that can leverage the artifact mana. Many decks simply play the Moxen on color for their deck and that's it. This does open up a bit more for decks playing Magus of the Moon and Blood Moon to be good deckbuilding decisions.
Backing up these kinds of lock pieces is the fact that the aggressive power of the Red deck's threats has just gotten so good over time. Pyrogoyf is very powerful in multiples. Bombardiers ends games fast. Goblin Rabblemaster is still one of the cards that deals a ton of damage at 2R, and Caves of Chaos Adventurer is a bombastic threat that looms over the game with the Initiative. In addition, Fury and things like Laelia, the Blade Reforged are strong cards in their own right.
Put all of this together and you've got a real recipe for a deck that can not only lock the opponent down but also put the game away incredibly hard. There's a number of different ways to approach building this deck too at the moment, but I do think there's some meat there for a version playing four copies of Pyrogoyf mainly due to how broken that card can be when you are playing more than one. Still, with there being some innovation and evolution for this deck, it's a great place to be to catch people in the format offguard, since not a lot of people are expecting the deck either right now.
It's a slick deck, and it's also a deck you can play power-less, which is cool. Even without Power (which generally amounts to Black Lotus and Mox Ruby) the deck can have some incredibly explosive openings and demolish their opponent. If you're looking for something off the cuff to try out, or if you are already familiar with Red Stompy variants from Legacy, this might be a great deck to consider playing around with.
Vintage Challenge 32 1/2/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 62 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.
Initiative was the most played deck of the event and its win rate sat right on the middle of 50%. Lurrus DRS looked really good here, as did Dimir Lurrus. Doomsday and Dredge had poor win rates.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Lurrus | 1st | O_danielakos |
| Lurrus DRS | 2nd | KingHairy |
| Initiative | 3rd | haveaboavida |
| Esper Lurrus | 4th | PierrePoilievre2025 |
| Lurrus PO | 5th | unluckymonkey |
| Lurrus DRS | 6th | Killah_SUV |
| Lurrus DRS | 7th | GigaChadSigmaMale |
| Initiative | 8th | IpseVenenaBibas |
There are a lot of Lurrus here. Not going to lie, it's getting a bit much. Dimir Lurrus ended up winning this one.
This deck can easily afford to run the restricted copy of Saga as a backup win con. That is a bit harder in Esper, but you can make it work there too with more Lorien Revealed.
In Second Place we had Lurrus DRS.
It is amusing to see some main deck Initiative hate, but it's been the most played deck in many events lately, so it makes a lot of sense. Tourach, Dread Cantor is kind of sweet, honestly.
Vintage Challenge 32 1/3/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 44 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 played deck, two copies over Initiative. Its win rate however, was quite reasonable. Initiative had a slightly poor win rate, despite a Top 8 appearance. Lurrus PO and Dredge looked great, as did Oath.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus PO | 1st | haveaboavida |
| Esper Lurrus | 2nd | Univerce |
| Lurrus PO | 3rd | DrPP |
| Initiative | 4th | FranMtg |
| Oath | 5th | karatedom |
| Esper Lurrus | 6th | vwxyza648204 |
| Jewel Shops | 7th | Marcuzinho |
| Esper Lurrus | 8th | _Batutinha_ |
5/8 of the Top 8 was a Lurrus deck of some sort. At the end of the event it was Lurrus PO that won.
Surprised to see a version of Lurrus PO that's more Dimir focused than what we have seen out of this archetype. Usually they've played stuff like Questing Druid and Forth Eorlingas! as big time payoffs, but this list has none of those. It does have Balance, though. That's kind of sweet.
In Second Place we had Esper Lurrus.
Not much to really say here. These Lurrus Control decks have been mostly stock now by this point for a while now, and I don't know if there's much occurring in the next few months that actually changes that around.
Vintage Challenge 32 1/4/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 59 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.
Initiative was the most played deck again but its win rate was not so good. Dredge didn't fare much better. Esper Lurrus, Jewel Shops, and Doomsday all looked great, while both Dimir Lurrus and Lurrus PO rode the 50% line.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jewel Shops | 1st | Bezerra_da_Silva |
| Jewel Shops | 2nd | Firetruck |
| Esper Lurrus | 3rd | ecobaronen |
| Lurrus PO | 4th | unluckymonkey |
| Esper Lurrus | 5th | Viatt |
| Dimir Lurrus | 6th | O_danielakos |
| Doomsday | 7th | gr33nashe |
| Esper Lurrus | 8th | wiky |
Still a good amount of Lurrus here, but the finals was Jewel Shops throwdown. Let's look at the winner.
I still think Kappa Cannoneer is kind of a cool sideboard option for this deck. It seems like a very strong way of playing around the deck's major weaknesses in Null Rod. Having a big dumb beater that can't be blocked is something else.
Let's look at the Second Place Jewel Shops list.
Argentum Masticore is another superb card versus your Null Rod effects, because it's going to generally be able to remove those cards and it has both first strike and protection from multicolored which is great against Frog. It can run out of gas if your opponent has the pressure or simply has Swords to Plowshares though.
Vintage Challenge 32 1/5/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 44 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.
Esper Lurrus was the most played deck, just a tad bit over Jewel and Initiative. It's win rate was very good though, as were both the latter decks. Dredge, regular Shops, and Lurrus DRS all performed rather poorly.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Esper Lurrus | 1st | discoverN |
| Jewel Shops | 2nd | Hampuse1 |
| Initiative | 3rd | LasVegasChaos |
| Esper Lurrus | 4th | toonbleu |
| Jewel Shops | 5th | haqe |
| Doomsday | 6th | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Lurrus PO | 7th | helvetti |
| Merfolk | 8th | SingPanMan |
Bit more variety here it seems, but at the end of the event it was Esper Lurrus that won.
As I noted earlier, you can support the Urza's Saga in this deck with some more copies of Lorien Revealed. It's also worth pointing out the main deck copy of Consign to Memory, which just seems like an all around great card to have in Vintage right now.
In Second Place we had Jewel Shops.
I really like the tech of having at least one copy of Talon Gates of Madara in this deck. It's a really powerful effect, and it's neat that this deck can leverage that effect well. Having some form of uncounterable "removal" for the turn you need it is really slick.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari always has some cool stuff for us.
- Kindamtg has a video on Lurus POO?! Check it out here.
- Revenantkioku has a video on Doomsday with Stillmoon Cavalier. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
PYRO-OATH.
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!
