Vintage 101: Reaching for the Cosmos
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of Vintage 101! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week I'm thinking about Cosmogoyf in Vintage. He's dreadfully dreamy. In addition, we've got some Challenges to look at from last week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
UNLIMITED COSMIC POWER!
I've been thinking about Cosmogoyf lately, because I think the card is pretty interesting. I have definitely not seen anyone put any results with it unfortunately since the release of Edge of Eternities, but I imagine a lot of that is people really going hard on Tezzeret as a card. So I figured I'd see what I could come up with.
My initial thoughts on this strayed to Deathrite Shaman as an enabler. At its base, Deathrite grows the Goyf at bare minimum by 1 power just by exiling a land. That's not insanely significant so I started thinking deeper. We still want DRS because it has an immediate effect in terms of all the things it does being individually powerful, but we need some other ways to juice a Goyf.
Oh yes. Frog! Frog definitely juices the Goyf a bit, by growing it by three every time it activates. This is also an instant speed trick, so you can have some fun with pitching cards and exiling for extra damage. In addition, Keen-Eyed Curator represents as much damage as you can put mana into it, while also being a way to control your opponent's graveyard AND it gets an added benefit when it hits four or more card types exiled by turning into a 7/7 with Trample. Not bad.
So this is a good way to also help boost card draw in this sort of shell, as you're being given an opportunity to draw an extra card a turn (per Skimmer) by either activating Frog, Curator, or Deathrite. So at the same time we're growing the Goyf and drawing cards.
This is an absurdly hilarious nuclear option that lets you one shot an opponent out of nowhere if they don't have a way to interact with the Goyf. Making your Goyf insanely huge in one shot is super fun.
This is where I generally landed.
I don't know if this is super good, but it looks fun. Lurrus is definitely something to want for this deck, because of being able to replay Goyfs or other threats from the graveyard. It's a neat idea for a deck, and I'm excited to see if anyone picks it up and tries it out.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/7/2025
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the Thursday event. This event had 48 players in it, thanks to the data provided by 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 here, and it did have a passable win rate. Jewel Shops did very well, as did Dimir Lurrus. Regular PO was in the tanker here along with Esper Lurrus.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jewel Shops | 1st | wongdeck |
| Dimir Lurrus | 2nd | bless_von |
| Initiative | 3rd | aplapp |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | morenoHARDCORE |
| Raker Shops | 5th | adm29 |
| Initiative | 6th | Capitano_CL |
| Initiative | 7th | _Shatun_ |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | LucasG1ggs |
Fair bit of Initiative and Shops here. At the end of the event, it was a split, with Jewel Shops being the winner.
Looks pretty straightforward, but then you see the Chimil, the Inner Sun. Sweet.
In Second Place the other split was Dimir Lurrus.
Pretty fair stock-looking list here. Not much frills going on.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/8/2025
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the Friday event. This event featured 43 players, thanks to the data provided by 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 just okay despite a Top 8 finish. Dimir Lurrus and Esper Lurrus both did well as did PO.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Lurrus | 1st | Montolio |
| Sphere Shops | 2nd | Koby |
| Lurrus PO | 3rd | jake-upLVT |
| Dimir Lurrus | 4th | B-Carp |
| Esper Lurrus | 5th | Richie727 |
| Jewel Shops | 6th | LucasG1ggs |
| Dredge | 7th | matttothec |
| Initiative | 8th | monzatubarao |
Pretty varied Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Dimir Lurrus that won.
Momentum Breaker seems like a solid card for these Lurrus decks. It's powerful at any stage of the game because it either forces sacrifice or discard.
In Second Place we had Sphere Shops.
One lonely copy of Tezzeret, which is weird to me because there's no Keys to abuse with it. I guess you're just getting Vexing Bauble with it, or a mana rock.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/9/2025
The third Challenge event of the weekend was the Saturday event. This event had 48 players in it, thanks to the data provided by the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Jewel Shops was the most played deck of the event, but its win rate was less than 50% overall. Raker Shops looked worse as well. Initiative was weirdly underplayed but did very well. Esper Lurrus did well in addition.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Initiative | 1st | Frejat |
| Esper Lurrus | 2nd | HJ_Kaiser |
| Doomsday | 3rd | _SickDraw |
| Countervine | 4th | oosunq |
| Initiative | 5th | j_money10 |
| Jeskai Lurrus | 6th | BiggestBird |
| Sphere Shops | 7th | Koby |
| Lurrus PO | 8th | RespectTheCat |
Honestly, it's a pretty varied Top 8. At the end of the event it was Initiative that won.
The interesting aspect here is the four copies of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in the sideboard. Also FOUR Void Mirror in the main deck? These people do not like colorless mana, no sir.
In Second Place we had Esper Lurrus.
Not much frills here to speak of. This is a pretty standardized Esper list for sure.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/10/2025
The final Challenge event of the weekend was the Sunday event. This event had 32 players in it thanks to the data provided by the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative regained the most played spot here, and despite having one Top 8 it had a less than 50% win rate. Raker Shops and Jewel Shops were the name of the game here, both havign impressive win rates.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Raker Shops | 1st | Hampuse1 |
| Jewel Shops | 2nd | airsick_lowlander |
| Jewel Shops | 3rd | RatherBplayingMTG |
| Dimir Lurrus | 4th | yoshiwata |
| Initiative | 5th | _Joseba_ |
| Raker Shops | 6th | crK |
| Raker Shops | 7th | musasabi |
| Raker Shops | 8th | Dreddybajs |
That's a lot of Workshops. At the end of the event it was Raker Shops with a TWIST that won.
Slotting Paradoxical Outcome into a deck that wants to recast a whole bunch of colorless spells with Glaring Fleshraker on board seems like a rather solid idea for sure. This is sort of like if Jewel and Raker had a baby deck.
In Second Place we had Jewel Shops.
Not an incredibly nonstandard list here, for sure. This is about as stock as it gets for Jewel. If anything, the fact that they've invested one Sink into Stupor into something else is interesting but not insanely interesting.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari always has stuff for us.
- BoshNRoll has a video on Tezzeret PO. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Singleton PO, the way Justin Gennari intended.
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!
