Vintage 101: Side Courses
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of Vintage 101! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're basically wrapping up on a Secrets of Strixhaven set review by looking to see if there's anything still left that's interesting now that we have the full spoiler. In addition, we have our weekly recap of MTGO events and a look at a few Challenges from last week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Secret Book Club
I know we talked about a brief few Secrets of Strixhaven cards last week, but I figured since we have the full spoiler now, it might be interesting to see what could also be playable. There isn't a ton, really, which I think is reasonable after how much previous sets have had some strong cards.
Emeritus of Ideation / Blazing Firesinger / Prepared Creatures in General
I know I jokingly shared Emeritus of Ideation last week, but let's seriously talk about Prepared creatures that always enter Prepared. Now granted, a good number of these things are very costly mana-wise, and that for the most part makes them not so great, but there is interesting space here due largely in part to cards like Displacer Kitten, a card which occasionally sees play in Jewel Shops. For example, Kitten and Blazing Firesinger basically go infinite, as you just get to keep casting Seething Song and generating all the red mana you could ever desire. Is this good? I don't really believe it could be, but it would make for some cool brew space for people to explore.
Of course, this only really works with creatures that ETB prepared. Anything that has a real condition probably is not good anyways.
Mathemagics
I only point this card out because I assume Justin Gennari will make a video with it. That is all.
Fractal Anomaly
New PO win con? Probably not but adorable. See aforementioned comment about Justin Gennari videos.
Ark of Hunger
If you're playing Sewer-Cam without Lurrus, then I could see this as a Welder target. It should work when you weld it out and exchange it with something else, which is kind of cool, but it can also sit in play and work with another artifact being welded out for Sewer-Cam as well. It does gain some life, so that's groovy too.
Naktamun Lorespinner
Yo dawg, I heard you liked Wheel of Fortune.
Weekly MTGO Recap
As always, thanks to Justin Gennari for his community-supported data and weekly recaps. You can find his social media info here. This week was pretty bare minimum. The first Premier Play season is over and Vintage stops being a Premier Play format for Season Two, so things generally tend to get quieter for Vintage. It's supported by a pretty solid base of people who really enjoy the format, but it's not dragging in a ton of new players, so there tends to be a fair number of repeat faces in these events.
We had the following events this past week:
| Event Name | Top 32 Link | Data Sheet Link | Number of Players |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vintage Challenge 32 4/9/2026 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 36 |
| Vintage Challenge 32 4/10/2026 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 44 |
| Vintage Challenge 32 4/11/2026 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 48 |
| Vintage Challenge 32 4/12/2026 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 32 |
As stated, it seemed like a bit of a slow week. Compared to last week's 209 deck entries, we only had about 159 of them, so literally 50 fewer decklist entries.
Let's take a look at the graphical data for the week.
Workshops decks were a huge part of the overall metagame, actually taking one over on Lurrus by exactly one copy. Translating this over to individual decks, this past week it was none other than Raker Shops as the most played deck in the metagame.
While Raker Shops was very heavily played over this past week with a pretty similar number of decks from last week. While last week the deck did very well, this week the deck did not do as hot, having a 45.2% non-mirror win rate. While the deck did have some reasonable finishes, it was overall poor performing.
Tied with Raker was Dredge.
Dredge improved in a large number of ways, having a 52% non-mirror win rate. Dredge is one of those decks that can definitely thrive if the overall metagame is focusing on different decks or just not playing enough graveyard hate. It does a good job of capitalizing on these decks not being prepared for it.
Esper Lurrus was third in line for decks played, and it did just sort of okay, with a 50.6% non-mirror win rate. During this same time frame, the Dimir version of this deck has had a much better win rate at around 58.6% non-mirror. I think the two decks tend to flip-flop between each other, and that both are pretty reasonable strategies that can do well depending on the week. I think the flexibility here is in identifying when to switch things around and play the other variant.
Jewel Shops also saw a lot of play, contributing to the overall large factor of Shops being heavily played. Jewel did very well overall this past week, having a 63.4% non-mirror win rate. Like with Raker, those two decks just kind of flip-flop back and forth in terms of how good they are. This is a good thing, honestly. It means that the two decks are just rotating around the format like they should be.
Surprisingly enough, while it had several weeks of poor performance, Initiative crept back up into the Top 5 of decks, and it had a solid 53.8% non-mirror win rate. I like to see this because it proves how the format is shifting every week and moving properly.
Honestly, Vintage continues to look great. It's rotating and shifting week to week around all of the major pillars of the format and no single deck seems like it's the best thing to be doing in the format. It's the perfect expression of a rock-paper-scissors style metagame that is pretty stable and fun. Are you enjoying Vintage currently? Let me know in the comments below!
Vintage Challenge 32 4/10/2026
The first Challenge event we are covering was the Friday event. This event had 44 players thanks to the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Raker Shops and Dredge were both the most played decks, and while both decks had pretty good Top 8 success, only Dredge had a pretty great win rate. Raker didn't quite have a great win rate. Initiative showed up in force here, having a solid 59.4% win rate. Esper Lurrus and Oath did not perform well here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dredge | 1st | Cudibunda |
| Raker Shops | 2nd | musasabi |
| Jewel Shops | 3rd | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Dredge | 4th | Wizard_2002 |
| PO | 5th | crK |
| Doomsday | 6th | RatherBplayingMTG |
| Initiative | 7th | Filly |
| Initiative | 8th | xDingusKhan |
Pretty interesting Top 8. At the end of the event, it was Dredge that won.
Pretty interesting list here. Kind of a combination of the full-on pitch lists with Forces and MBT, along with Silversmote Ghoul. I am curious to see how these lists will evolve post-Strixhaven.
In Second Place, we had Raker Shops.
A miser's Stonecoil Serpent is kind of sweet. It's a solid backup plan that can close games out, but it can also hold out against stuff like Oath as it can block Atraxa for days.
Also in this Top 8, we had PO.
Oh now this is a cool list. Kind of like a mix of Raker and PO. You get some sweet Fleshraker action by PO'ing your Moxen and stuff and then generating a whole lot more mana with the Fleshraker triggers.
Vintage Challenge 32 4/11/2026
The final Challenge event we are covering was the Saturday event. This event had 48 players thanks to the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Raker Shops & Dredge were again both super played, with Raker having a less than stellar win rate and Dredge actually doing okay. Both Dimir Lurrus and Lurrus Breach had solid performances, while stuff like PO did not do well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Lurrus | 1st | Montolio |
| Lurrus Breach | 2nd | discoverN |
| Jeskai Control | 3rd | Dark_Shine |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | _Chamytinho_ |
| Lurrus Breach | 5th | RatherBplayingMTG |
| Initiative | 6th | monzatubarao |
| Dimir Lurrus | 7th | jake-upLVT |
| Lurrus PO | 8th | Parrotlet |
Fair bit of Lurrus here, and at the end of the event, it was Dimir Lurrus that won in the hands of Montolio.
Extremely straightforward list, but I absolutely love the main deck Seal of Removal here, and also the fact that we're just on multiple Mindbreak Trap in the main. Crazy stuff, but it makes a lot of sense given the current metagame.
In Second Place, we had Lurrus Breach.
Solid focused game plan here. I kind of would like to see a few Hexing Squelcher in the list though, I think that card is very good.
Also in this Top 8, we had Jeskai Control.
Oh, so just like... JACE and Dack Fayden. Cue Robin Williams shouting "What year is it?!?!"
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari always has some things for us:
- ValueBeforeVictory posted a metagame video. Check it out here.
- StraddaG posted a video on Oath. Check it out here.
- Montolio has a video on his Dimir Lurrus Challenge win. Check it out here.
- BoshNRoll has a video on Dimir Lurrus as well. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
ENERGY!
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!
