Vintage 101: Steel City Spectacular's Battle for a Black Lotus
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of Vintage 101! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're taking a look at a pretty sweet set of events from over the weekend in paper. In addition, we've got some Challenges from over the week to take a look at.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Battling for a Black Lotus! The Steel City Spectacular
This past weekend at the Steel City Spectacular event, a large multi-day weekend event held at David Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh (the same event center Eternal Weekend is typically held in), there was a super sweet event held as a part of the overall weekend. The first prize of this event? An Unlimited Black Lotus. Yeah. This is sweet. Winning Power in general is always cool, but winning a Lotus? That's amazing.
This event had 100 players overall in the event competing for this, which is a stellar turnout for such a sweet event.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Esper Lurrus was the most played deck of the event, but it's win rate was reasonable at around 52.6%. The real breakout star of this show was Raker Shops. Seems like a solid weekend for Tezzeret, Cruel Captain. However, Lurrus PO was also quite insane in this event.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Raker Shops | 1st | Joshua Cronk |
| Lurrus PO | 2nd | Gabriel Balannik |
| Lurrus Breach | 3rd | Ryan Hayes |
| Lurrus PO | 4th | Justin Gennari |
| Raker Shops | 5th | Marshall |
| Esper Lurrus | 6th | Adria Pares Palacin |
| Lurrus PO | 7th | Hank Zhong |
| Lurrus PO | 8th | Adam Wolloch |
So much Lurrus in general here. At the end of the event it was Raker Shops that won in the hands of Joshua Cronk. Sort of... we'll talk about that, but this is the recorded winner of the event overall.
Tezzeret looks great in this list. This is a solid place for the card, as it has a bunch of tutor targets in addition to a lot of things it can untap. What a really powerful performance.
In Second Place we had Lurrus PO.
Quite a strong list. Flame of Anor works so well with the Wizards the deck plays, and Forth Eorlingas! is a really strong win condition.
Overall this seems like it was a truly exciting event. My understanding from looking at a lot of the hubbub on this event was that the prizing was split four ways between the Top 4. That's certainly a thing that can happen in these kinds of events, so I guess a Lotus split 4 ways? >_>
Steel City Spectacular Vintage 3K
In addition to the Lotus event, there was also a Vintage 3K that had 49 players in it overall, which is pretty good.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Esper Lurrus was the most popular deck here, and it had a really strong win rate. Lurrus PO also looked great, in addition to Lurrus Breach. The decks that underpeformed here was Dredge, Scam, and Sphere Shops.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Esper Lurrus | 1st | Spencer Warburton |
| Esper Lurrus | 2nd | Arjun Talpallikar |
| Lurrus PO | 3rd | Gabriel Balannik |
| Lurrus PO | 4th | Tyler Ragels |
| Lurrus Breach | 5th | Ryan Hayes |
| PO | 6th | Dominic Vernazz |
| Lurrus DRS | 7th | Joe Brennan |
| Esper Lurrus | 8th | Adria Pares Palacin |
SO MUCH LURRUS. The end of the event was dual Esper Lurrus's's's's.
For the most part, these decks are pretty close. The Second Place list has some more main deck Swords to Plowshares while the winner has the main deck Null Rod action. Very interesting for sure.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/14/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 49 players in it thanks to the data from 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 its win rate was pretty good. Dimir Lurrus was also good looking as well. Doomsday and Lurrus PO didn't look too great here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Initiative | 1st | _Shatun_ |
| Dimir Lurrus | 2nd | 2plus2isfive |
| Initiative | 3rd | Kuranari-Jackpa |
| Raker Shops | 4th | oosunq |
| Initiative | 5th | Frejat |
| Initiative | 6th | sokos13 |
| Jewel Shops | 7th | TrueHero |
| Dimir Lurrus | 8th | Navas |
Fair bit of Initiative here. At the end of the event it was Initiative that indeed won.
Pretty solid looking list. Very clean. I like Stillmoon Cavalier in the sideboard.
In Second Place we had Dimir Lurrus.
Very stock list here. Not a lot of crazy stuff going on.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/15/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 38 players in it thanks to the data from 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, but its win rate was below 50% despite having a good number in Top 8. Esper Lurrus looked good here too.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Esper Lurrus | 1st | duke12 |
| Doomsday | 2nd | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Cats | 3rd | s8shock |
| Initiative | 4th | adm29 |
| Lurrus PO | 5th | MagerMistake |
| Dimir Lurrus | 6th | vwxyza648204 |
| Initiative | 7th | Bezerra_da_Silva |
| Initiative | 8th | _Shatun_ |
Very interesting Top 8. At the end of the event it was Esper Lurrus that won.
Very strong list here. Not much of a variation from a stock list for sure. But Lurrus is good.
In Second Place we had Doomsday.
Very nice list for sure. Very focused on Doomsday as the game plan.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/16/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 46 players in it thanks to the data from the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Both Initiative and Lurrus were popular, but Initiative was below 50% despite a good Top 8 appearance. Lurrus PO also did very well here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus PO | 1st | Diem4x |
| Initiative | 2nd | VitorCarvalho01 |
| Oath | 3rd | Wesal |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | MayhemDJ |
| Esper Lurrus | 5th | Viatt |
| Dimir Lurrus | 6th | Mogged |
| Red Prison | 7th | WadeB |
| Dimir Lurrus | 8th | Montolio |
Extremely varied Top 8 overall actually. In the end, it was Lurrus PO that won.
Powerful list. Thundertrap Trainer is a great card.
In Second Place we had Initiative.
Very clean looking decklist here. Crazy still seeing four copies of Void Mirror.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/17/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 40 players in it thanks to the data from the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative was the most played deck and it had a good win rate, as did Jewel Shops and Dimir Lurrus. Lurrus PO also looked good.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Initiative | 1st | choutin |
| Dimir Lurrus | 2nd | Montolio |
| Initiative | 3rd | Schiaveto |
| Dimir Lurrus | 4th | vwxyza648204 |
| Jewel Shops | 5th | Capriccioso |
| Initiative | 6th | luvadepedreiro |
| Sphere Shops | 7th | kristofff |
| Esper Lurrus | 8th | ziofrancone |
Quite a bit of Lurrus and Initiative. At the end of the event it was Initiative that won.
Not much to really say about this here. We've seen this deck a lot this article already. :)
In Second Place we had Dimir Lurrus.
Pretty straightforward list here, but a singleton copy of Seal of Removal is gas. Just bounce your opponent's creature every turn? Neat.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari always has some good stuff:
- Montolio has a bunch of stuff too:
- FiretruckModo has some Combo Dredge. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook has some Vintage Beseech with Tezzeret. Check it out here.
- Revenantkiouku has a bunch of videos too:
The Spice Corner
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!
