Vintage 101: Space, the Final Eternity
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 Edge of Eternities for Vintage! In addition to that, we've got some Challenge Data, some information on a large Vintage event ran last week as part of the Oklahoma Land Run, and a deck spotlight from that same event!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Retro Space Time
We're out on the Edge of Eternities here, and with the new set coming soon it is time to look at what could be Vintage playable. We already covered the big flagship card of the set in Tezzeret, Cruel Captain in an earlier article, so let's see what we can find elsewhere in the set!
Lightstall Inquisitor
I imagine this is not as good, because the opponent gets to choose the card and that makes it rough. I think we have to pass on this one.
Pinnacle Starcage
Usually a Temporary Lockdown type effect isn't the best in Vintage, and this probably isn't either, but this is an Artifact and not an Enchantment which has some amount of relevance. Being able to Tinker for it for example.
Seam Rip
Portable Hole sees a fair amount of play in specific decks like Lurrus PO. Is a Portable Hole that's an enchantment instead of an artifact any good? It might be since enchantments are probably a little more difficult to remove overall.
Cosmogoyf
So hear me out here, this and Demonic Consultation as a combat trick is kind of hilarious, and using it as a juke in Doomsday seems amusing as well. I hope someone definitely does this.
Pinnacle Emissary
This one is unique. It's like Sai, Master Thopterist, but you can stick it into play for a turn for U/R with the Warp mechanic and immediately get a bunch of value out of it with casting artifacts, and then get it back on a later turn for 1UR. Seems kind of neat, even if it is three mana value and can't go in Lurrus decks.
Dauntless Scrapbot
Graveyard hate that you can cast off Workshop? Okay sure.
Pinnacle Kill-Ship
Realistically this is not good, but paying seven mana to just dome something for 10 is kind of cute.
Surge Conductor
If only Ravager were still playable... but this does some other things. I don't think it's super good though.
Strip Mine
Oh okay, this is probably the most playable Vintage card in the entire set besides Tezzeret, right? Right?
Oklahoma Land Run Vintage Open 2025
This past weekend as part of the Oklahoma Land Run series of events, the OK Land Run Vintage Open was a big part of this event. This particular tournament at this event drew in 100 players for Vintage, which is pretty great to see. You can find out more about the OK Land Run series over at their website.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Esper Lurrus in general was the most played deck of the entire event, and its overall win rate was quite good at 57.9%. However, both Lurrus PO and non Lurrus Breach decks did very well, as did Lurrus Breach and Raker Shops. Despite a Top 8 appearance, Dredge did quite poorly overall, and so did Initiative.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus PO | 1st | Matthew Mowry |
| Esper Lurrus | 2nd | Joe Brennan |
| Lurrus PO | 3rd | Tyler Ragels |
| Dredge | 4th | Gabe Hoppe |
| Beseech Storm | 5th | Drewbie |
| Cats | 6th | CharlotteLegacyLeague |
| Esper Lurrus | 7th | Tom Hertfelder |
| Vivi Breach | 8th | Miky Solymossy |
This is honestly like, kind of a cool Top 8 from a metagame perspective. Overall though the winner of the event was Matthew Mowry on Lurrus PO.
This is a build we've seen folks like Justin Gennari pilot in the past, with less focus on 4 colors with things like Forth Eorlingas! and more stuff like Yawgmoth's Will and Demonic Tutor. This deck wins more by grinding you into the dust with a Vault/Key to win, or by making a bunch of huge Constructs off their restricted Urza's Saga. Either way, it's pretty cool.
OK Land Run Deck Spotlight - Vivi Breach
One of the other folks in attendance at the OK Land Run this past weekend was one of the friends of ours within the Team Serious group, and he also made Top 8 of this event with a pretty sweet and unconventional build of Breach, known as Vivi Breach. Mike Solymossy put this deck together originally for the Team Serious Invitational event known as The Land VI (which is hosted by the amazing Rajah James, Initiative Vintage Champion). Mike's goal for that event was to build a deck that didn't play Lurrus and kind of "soft ban" himself from playing the card. Another friend had suggested that Vivi Ornitier was functionally a blue Glaring Fleshraker, and that analogy stuck.
After testing the deck a bit and finding that it felt pretty good, Mike did make Top 4 of the Land event with the deck and proceeded to bring it forward to the OK Land Run with some tweaks. Here's what he settled on.
There's two big things to note here, and its not just Vivi Ornitier but also the presence of new card Astrologian's Planisphere. My own experience with this card directly has proven that it is very good. Mike pointed out a specific game to check out on the coverage that really showcased how good Planisphere is in Round 4 of the event against Lurrus Cats. Emry, Lurker of the Loch kept being able to bring back Planispheres in this match, and ending up with multiple tokens that all end up pretty big, with one having nine counters and another having six or seven.
Mike also related a really interesting set of plays that demonstrates just how fun and complicated blue decks can be in Vintage. Against an opponent with a Psychic Frog and a 4/4 Construct, he cast a Gitaxian Probe seeing several cards like Ancestral, two Forces, two other blue cards, etc. A very problematic place to be when dealing with threats on board. Mike has a Flame of Anor, Flusterstorm, and Lightning Bolt in hand. The card he draws with Probe is an Ancestral Recall. Casting Flame of Anor to mop up both the Frog and Construct (since having a Wizard in play lets you choose two modes), the other player attempts for Force, with Ancestral in response, and then a Force back from the opponent. Mike deploys Flusterstorm at the top of all of this, wiping out four cards from the opponent's hand with the two Forces as well as cleaning up both creatures in play, and getting to draw three cards in the process. Pretty cool play.
The deck has a bunch of redundant threats, and that helps it push through games. By also having the Breach kill, the deck can do that as an option and win the game handily, but it can also win via Vivi and casting a bunch of spells, which is really cool.
Mike also wanted to note some thoughts on some of the things about this deck that make a lot of sense. One of those is the sheer lack of cards like Time Vault and Keys, as often decks like this do run those cards. The big issue found when testing is that without some of the black tutor effects like Demonic Tutor, the Vault/Key line was just too inconsistent overall. Also, cards like Tinker would be hard because if you milled it with Emry, it was basically useless. This helps free up space from cards like Bolas's Citadel since you don't need it if you're not on Tinker.
Overall this seems like a really cool deck, and I hope that I see Mike continue playing it. It looks like a ton of fun, and I do think people could find some neat success with something like this out there even in the MTGO land. Thanks to Mike for providing me with a ton of info on this deck and congrats on making it into the Top 8 of the OK Land Run event!
Vintage Challenge 32 7/17/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 42 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.
Jewel Shops was the most played deck of the event, and its win rate was also pretty good. Sphere Shops however, looked even better, as did Dimir Lurrus. Initiative, generally very popular did not have a great win rate here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus PO | 1st | DrPP |
| Sphere Shops | 2nd | hermanomlg |
| Jewel Shops | 3rd | littledarwin |
| Tinker | 4th | TrueHero |
| Sphere Shops | 5th | _Shatun_ |
| Dimir Lurrus | 6th | Capitano_CL |
| Oath | 7th | Tsubasa_Cat |
Pretty interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Lurrus PO that won.
This is about what we have come to expect out of this deck. Cards like Flame of Anor and Thundertrap Trainer have really made this deck just even outside of the raw power of Stock Up, and it's not super surprising to see this shell do well.
In Second Place we had Sphere Shops.
What has really pushed these Shops decks lately is the Foundations card, honestly. Scrawling Crawler has simply proven to be the big buff that Shops decks needed to be fully back in the game. It's a powerful effect, it allows both card advantage for the Shops player but also punishes your opponent for their own card draw, while frankly being unplayable in the Lurrus shell and that alone is a great thing.
Vintage Challenge 32 7/18/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 44 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 took the most played deck spot this go around, but its win rate was really bad despite a single Top 8 appearance. Jewel Shops, Sphere Shops, and Doomsday all looked great.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jewel Shops | 1st | etoustar |
| Sphere Shops | 2nd | hermanomlg |
| Initiative | 3rd | MJ_23 |
| Doomsday | 4th | sixmp |
| Lurrus PO | 5th | RatherBplayingMTG |
| Jewel Shops | 6th | _Shikamaru_ |
| Jewel Shops | 7th | novaschin22 |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | MagicPlayer103758 |
Quite a bit of Jewel in this Top 8, and it in fact won the overall event.
This deck has really refined itself over time, and while there's some flexibility here or there, the deck in general has solidified quite a bit. I'm curious if that changes at all with Edge of Eternities.
In Second Place we had Sphere Shops again.
I have to imagine this is a version of the Shops deck that does not change too much, since Tezzeret, Cruel Captain doesn't offter much to this shell really. Primarily, Tezzeret wants to be played with the Time Vault package and Grim Monoliths, where this deck doesn't afford any of that.
Vintage Challenge 32 7/19/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 45 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.
Both Sphere Shops and Dredge were the top played decks, and Shops looked good, whereas Dredge had a sub 50% win rate despite two Top 8 appearances. Dimir Lurrus also looked good here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Lurrus | 1st | Montolio |
| Sphere Shops | 2nd | BERNASTORRES |
| Sphere Shops | 3rd | jake-upLVT |
| Sphere Shops | 4th | _Shatun_ |
| Dimir Lurrus | 5th | VitoCorleone |
| Dredge | 6th | pirol94 |
| Breach | 7th | Sommertroll |
| Dredge | 8th | sapro31 |
Lot of Sphere Shops in the mix here. At the end of the event it was Dimir Lurrus that won.
Momentum Breaker is a card that is one of those "interesting things to get back with Lurrus" kind of cards. Even if you're not at max speed, cashing it in for some life and then recasting it is good, and it's good even if your opponent doesn't have a creature since it also forces a discard if they can't sacrifice.
In Second Place we had Sphere Shops (AGAIN).
TINY ROBOTS. That is all.
Vintage Challenge 32 7/20/2025
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.
Jewel Shops was the most played deck of the event, and its win rate sat right on the 50% line. Lurrus PO, Dredge, and Doomsday all looked good, as did Lurrus DRS. Initiative again had a sub 50% win rate, despite one Top 8 appearance.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus PO | 1st | DrPP |
| Lurus DRS | 2nd | medvedev |
| Dredge | 3rd | Alico |
| Doomsday | 4th | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Tinker | 5th | desolutionist |
| Jewel Shops | 6th | _Shikamaru_ |
| Initiative | 7th | izzy-wilde |
| Lurrus PO | 8th | RikRin |
Solid looking Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Lurrus PO that won.
This same pilot won an earlier challenge with the same deck, and pretty much the exact same list. It's a powerful deck for sure.
In Second Place we had Lurrus DRS.
The one standout here for me is Auroral Procession. I love seeing new stuff see play and that is a really cool card.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari always has cool stuff for us.
- Revenantkioku also has some great content for us:
- Kindamtg is playing some Astro-Raker Shops. Check it out here.
- Full Warning has a new episode with Duane Haddix, Champion of TSI: The Land 6. Check it out here.
- RUNNING SCAMS AT THE BAZAAR
- Brian Coval is Counter-Vining. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
We have a bunch of really cool ones from the OK Land Run event.
LEYLINE OF THE GUILDPACT.
Eldrazi with Channel is dope.
Fastbond with Kozilek's Command seems REALLY cool.
CATS
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!
