Vintage 101: Terror on Duskmourn!
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 diving face first into the plane of Duskmourn: House of Horror and whether or not there's any cool Vintage cards as part of our first initial set review. In addition to that we've got some Challenges to discuss from last weekend.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
The Terror of Duskmourn!
The cute and fuzzy animals of Bloomburrow have retreated to their nests to make way for the horror house of Duskmourn! This set has a lot of new mechanics to it, primarily many of which don't seem like they will impact older formats too much. Rooms as a new Enchantment sub type feel neat but they also feel too slow for Vintage. In addition, anything with the Enchantment sub type in general feels fairly costed and too high for general Vintage gameplay.
There are some cool new things though, such as Delirium returning. Let's take a look at our first part of Duskmourn for Vintage.
Demonic Counsel
I am not sure how I feel about this card because it can definitely be turned into a Demonic Tutor and having four copies of that seems sweet, but at the same time Delirium seems much harder to achieve in Vintage versus Legacy where you are playing more permanent sources of mana, and while Bauble is a card, being able to turn off Delirium for this seems rough, and then what are you actually getting with the base mode? Likely nothing.
I'm curious to see if anyone can break this one.
Marina Vendrell's Grimoire
A one of these in Jewel Shops might be kind of sick. Draw five cards, no max hand size, and you can copy this with Metamorph to draw five more? Doesn't matter that it's Legendary. It seems kind of amusing for sure. Curious to see if Jewel picks it up.
Marvin, Murderous Mimic
This card is so weird, it feels like it should combo with literally everything under the sun. I don't know if it's good or not, but it does some really goofy things. Animate your Time Vault?! Probably not playable, but I'd love to see someone make this work somewhere.
Silent Hallcreeper
Yet another 1U threat that has an evasive ability. I don't think this one is very good, but it's worth mentioning due to the fact that it is another 1U threat with evasion that does things.
Untimely Malfunction
This card seems sweet, as versatility is always cool for me to see. I don't think it's insane and probably doesn't see any play, but the number of things it can do is pretty strong.
Valgavoth, Terror Eater
I like seeing new big insane creatures, but I don't think this replaces Atraxa all that much as a win condition for Oath. Atraxa's primary strength comes from the trigger of having more cards than your opponent (a certified way to win the game most of the time), and your opponent could just go off with Jewel or something else in response to this. The design is sweet though.
Withering Torment
Black getting an instant speed enchantment destruction piece is kind of interesting. It's flexible and instant speed, and you only lose 2 life? Yeah it's pretty neat.
Doomsday Excruciator
It's got Doomsday in the name. It must be busted, right? Right?
Vintage Challenge 32 9/5
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 51 players based on the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Dredge was super popular here, and it's win rate was fairly reasonable. Esper Lurrus rode the middle line while Jewel Shops looked great, as did Doomsday. BUG and Oath seemed to perform poorly here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jewel Shops | 1st | Gerschi |
| Jewel Shops | 2nd | YES_i_accept_SPLIT_ |
| 4C Lurrus | 3rd | unluckymonkey |
| Dredge | 4th | Firetruck |
| Dredge | 5th | Munchlax446 |
| Dredge | 6th | LucasG1ggs |
| Initiative | 7th | Capitano_CL |
| Initiative | 8th | varal |
Pretty much broken up into Jewel, Dredge, and Initiative here. At the end of the event it was two Jewel Shops lists that ended in the finals.
Not much major differences between these two lists, but Jewel is looking like it's one of the big winners of the post restriction metagame, so there's no reason to make any sweeping changes to an already super powerful deck. The really scary thing about this deck now is the main deck four copies of Sink into Stupor, which doubles as a land and a way to get rid of cards like Collector Ouphe, etc.
Also in this Top 8 we had 4C Lurrus.
Quite interesting still seeing some amount of Ragavan. Questing Druid still seems like a sweet card though, as does Tamiyo.
Vintage Challenge 32 9/6
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 42 players based on 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.
Jewel Shops was very popular here, and it's win rate looked quite reasonable overall. Wildly, despite the best finish of all, Dredge's win rate was actually less than 50% Esper Lurrus also looked quite good.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dredge | 1st | laughingrock |
| Jewel Shops | 2nd | ecobaronen |
| Esper Lurrus | 3rd | Montolio |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | JackSparr0w |
| Dimir Lurrus | 5th | Mogged |
| Blue Control | 6th | BiggestBird |
| Jewel Shops | 7th | jade-venus |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | Jumba |
Quite a bit of Jewel Shops here, but the end of the event was won by Dredge!
This definitely seems like a strong list. Going back to Silversmote Ghoul is quite interesting for sure. Having some additional threats is very good.
In Second Place we had Jewel Shops.
Not a huge number of frills here, but there is a Lodestone Golem in the sideboard which is pretty sweet.
Further down the Top 8 we had Azorius Initiative?
A blue control shell with White Plume Adventurer as the game-winning threat? Seems kind of cool actually. I like seeing Balance in a main deck capacity for sure.
Vintage Challenge 32 9/7
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 57 players based on 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.
Dredge again shot up in popularity but it's win rate was a straight 40%. Jewel was also popular and looked really good, as did Dimir Lurrus and BUG. Oath and Initiative both had sub 50% win rates, with Oath's down to below 40%.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Lurrus | 1st | duke12 |
| Dimir Lurrus | 2nd | adamwasmo |
| BUG | 3rd | bweezy |
| Jewel Shops | 4th | oosunq |
| Dimir Lurrus | 5th | Mogged |
| Countervine | 6th | Hitogoroshi80 |
| Esper Lurrus | 7th | Schiaveto |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | Slasher21 |
Lot of Lurrus here. At the end of the event it was a pair of Dimir Lurrus in the finals.
Leaning hard on Bowmasters and Psychic Frog makes sense right now. It's definitely a compelling thing to be doing right now in the format.
As noted the Second Place list was also Dimir Lurrus.
Nethergoyf seems like a cool inclusion into this deck, especially when you can bypass its escape cost by recasting it with Lurrus in play. Seems pretty groovy.
Also in this Top 8 we had BUG.
The Frog keeps getting better and better and it definitely is so very strong, and it's a weird card because I don't think restricting it ever happens, but it will continue to be a cornerstone of Vintage for a long time until they print something better.
Vintage Challenge 32 9/8
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 44 players based on 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.
Dimir Lurrus was super popular and it's win rate looked quite good. Initiative also looked great, as did Sphere Shops, Countervine, and even Doomsday. Jewel Shops suffered hard here, despite having a list in the Top 8.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Initiative | 1st | choutin |
| Countervine | 2nd | UrpurEmanure |
| Dimir Lurrus | 3rd | Mogged |
| Dimir Lurrus | 4th | kanister |
| Jewel Shops | 5th | _Mago_ |
| Dimir Lurrus | 6th | ecobaronen |
| Merfolk | 7th | SingPanMan |
| Lurrus DRS | 8th | etoustar |
Quite a bit of Lurrus here, but at the end of the event it was Initiative that won.
I'm still fairly certain playing even one Vexing Bauble in this deck is wrong, because then you can be playing Solitude more often, and Solitude seems really groovy right now with all the Frogs flying about. Anointed Peacekeeper pulling double duty of being able to shut off Frog is great though.
In Second Place we had CounterVine.
Subtlety main deck is kind of a neat inclusion. I get it though, being able to stop some important creature or planeswalker that lets you push through damage the next turn is nice.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Merfolk.
Still very surprised to not see any Harbinger of the Seas. Seems like a really good card still, but Merfolk is definitely one of those decks that I feel will continue to get better and better over time.
My Video for the Week
I've got a Vintage video on my YouTube channel this week! It's for a super sweet deck I've been working on lately, which is Vintage Bant Nadu! This deck was super fun. Also folks, I'm close to 500 subscribers on my channel! If you can take a moment to subscribe that would be awesome.
Around the Web
- KEEP SEVEN AND SLAY
- Justin Gennari has a video on the Vintage Qualifier event with Doomsday. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
POWERLESS ELDRAZI.
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!
