Vintage 101: The Ideal Eternal Format
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of Vintage 101! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week I am back! I took some time off due to some illness (I was like, super duper sick) and also Spring Break, but now we are back! We're going to be dissecting a statement made in the most recent BnR update about Vintage (because I think it's a very interesting topic), as well as doing our weekly recap of events and the Challenges that looked interesting from this past weekend.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Vintage is the Ideal Eternal Format
We had a Banned & Restricted Announcement while I was out of town on March 23rd, and obviously there were no changes to Vintage as a format, but one really interesting thing stuck out to me from the statement on Vintage.
Vintage is the IDEAL state of an Eternal format. That's it, that's the post. And honestly? I think Wizards is right about this. For some time now I've spent a lot of time waffling over Vintage and the existence of certain cards in the format, such as Lurrus of the Dream-Den. I'm well known for absolutely loathing the card, and for seeking out decks that don't play it often. But at the same time... I don't really believe that Vintage is in a state where a card like Lurrus needs to have action taken against it, and I believe that Lurrus has proven long term to be more beneficial to Vintage as a format than a negative.
Vintage has a lot of pillars to it, recognizing Lurrus as one of those pillars is pretty important stuff, because it shows how integral Lurrus has become to Vintage as a format, but that's not a bad thing. It's showcasing that while Lurrus does exist as a pillar, it also exists alongside a bunch of other pillars that make up the format. Workshop, Bazaar, Oath, and even Initiative all make up the fabric of Vintage, and the format continues to prove that it has a very rock-paper-scissors quality to it that keeps the metagame rolling and in check.
Vintage is a hard format to look at from a high level and go "oh clearly this is bad", because the format's metagame is constantly shifting around week to week and giving all kinds of decks a chance to have that read on the format and do well. It's a format that rewards time spent with it, and rewards micro-transactional gameplay even to this day. And honestly, I love to see it. Vintage is one of my favorite formats of all time, and I absolutely love to see that others recognize how wonderful of a format it is to play, because it truly is.
So yes, Vintage is absolutely the ideal state of an Eternal format. It shifts and twists and provides unique challenges to both deck building and gameplay and allows players to reap the rewards of understanding format knowledge to succeed. It's great, and more players should absolutely be experiencing this format.
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. We had a reasonable number of events last week, thanks to several Vintage Last Chance events. These events are LCQ style events meant to feed into the Showcase Qualifier coming up at the end of the season here. There was one Challenge that did not fire and that was the 3/29 Sunday event.
We had the following events this past week:
| Event Name | Top 32 Link | Data Sheet Link | Number of Players |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vintage Last Chance 3/23 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 45 |
| Vintage Last Chance 3/24 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 35 |
| Vintage Last Chance 3/24 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 42 |
| Vintage Last Chance 3/25 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 21 |
| Vintage Challenge 32 3/26 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 50 |
| Vintage Challenge 32 3/27 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 37 |
| Vintage Challenge 32 3/28 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 41 |
Let's take a look at the graphical data for this week, as provided by our good friend Justin Gennari.
A pretty big chunk of this week was rooted in Lurrus PO being the most played deck of the week. However, overall the deck's raw performance was less than 50%. It wasn't less than 50% by much though, roughly 49.7% non-mirror, so while it's underperforming, it's not underperforming by much. I think this is reasonably fine. It seems like people are finding the holes in this deck and poking those holes in, and that's great.
Shops decks were also very prominent in this past week, primarily Raker and Sphere variants. Of these, both had good performances, but Sphere Shops greatly outperformed Raker in a lot of ways, with a 57.9% non-mirror win rate over Raker's 53.4% non-mirror win rate. I think Raker is proving to be one of those decks that is easy to identify and easier to attack, whereas Sphere Shops is a deck that just frankly plays four Null Rod main deck a lot of times as all of its threats can win the game without using mana rocks, and they don't need to activate abilities to do things. Even Golos' ability is often not used, because more often than not he's just a "go find Tolarian Academy" or another utility land. I feel as though Sphere Shops is in a much better space this past week and it's definitely indicative of how good the deck is.
Esper Lurrus proved to be the most popular fair Lurrus variant but its overall win rate was exceedingly poor at around 42.9% non-mirror. This is pretty interesting considering how visible these Lurrus decks are in the format, but I think that's slowly becoming a downside for Lurrus. The fact that people know you're on a Lurrus deck will automatically prepare people to expect a certain subset of decks, and that in itself makes how these decks are performing pretty curious. Dimir Lurrus also suffered quite a bit in this space in terms of win rate, so in general if you were on fair Lurrus, you got a pretty good beating this past week. While this will wax and wane as normal, I do think players are figuring out how to demolish these Lurrus builds and exploit their deckbuilding.
Realistically, out of the actual Lurrus builds that exist, the one that did the best overall this past week was Lurrus Breach, a combo variant. I think a lot of this boils down to deckbuilding, and players being willing to try new things with the shell. Hexing Squelcher is a card I've seen a lot of in these shells, but also just Breach having a very compact win condition helps make it very strong.
It's also worth noting that this past week, decks like Doomsday, Initiative, and Dredge all did quite poorly, with Initiative sitting at a 44% non-mirror win rate. It also didn't have the numbers like the deck has had in the past. It's going to be interesting to see how things circle back around next week.
Vintage Challenge 32 3/26/2026
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 50 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.
Esper Lurrus was the most played deck of the event, but its overall win rate wasn't very good. Raker Shops, Lurrus Breach both looked pretty good here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Raker Shops | 1st | KurumimBagoRosa |
| Lurrus Breach | 2nd | slaxx |
| Oath | 3rd | Ecoscuro |
| Dredge | 4th | medvedev |
| Lurrus Breach | 5th | desolutionist |
| Lurrus PO | 6th | wiky |
| Initiative | 7th | sokos13 |
| Raker Shops | 8th | AFX |
Fairly interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Raker Shops that won.
This is fairly straightforward and honestly that's fine. This deck has pretty much found its groove and doesn't need any frills to be good.
In Second Place we had Lurrus Breach.
I can really dig how focused this list is on the major parts of the deck being kind of just splash colors honestly. This list is primarily just wanting to Brain Freeze out the opponent and then like, Ancestral them to make them lose the game. Kind of sweet. I love Tamiyo here. It's a bit harder to flip in Vintage than Legacy I feel, but it's still a really powerful card.
Also in this Top 8 we had Oath.
Okay okay okay, Raph & Mikey, Troublemakers is absolutely crazy tech here. You Oath into it and you get a free Atraxa out of the deal? The only other creature in your library at that point is going to be copies of Atraxa. What a silly and absurd way to just free roll an Atraxa. ALSO, IT GETS TO ENTER TAPPED AND ATTACKING?!?!?! Insane sorcery.
Vintage Challenge 32 3/27/2026
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 37 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.
Lurrus PO was the most played deck here, and while it had some good results in the Top 8, its overall win rate was less than 50%. Jewel Shops did super poorly here, while general blue control did very well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Izzet Murktide | 1st | DethFrmAbove |
| Lurrus PO | 2nd | _J0SE_ |
| Oath | 3rd | Ecoscuro |
| Lurrus PO | 4th | crK |
| Raker Shops | 5th | _Batutinha_ |
| Lurrus Breach | 6th | morsaaa |
| Raker Shops | 7th | DrPP |
| Raker Shops | 8th | LordRaistlin23 |
Quite a bit of Raker Shops here. At the end of the event it was a split finals, with the recorded winner being Izzet Murktide.
Straight up Izzet Tempo is crazy stuff. I love it. Seeing Cori-Steel Cutter in Vintage is pretty sweet.
The officially recorded Second Place was Lurrus PO.
I can dig multiple copies of Hexing Squelcher here. I think it fits really well into this deck's overall strategy by protecting the game plan, but also allowing you to hone in on using restricted cards like Vexing Bauble to great effect.
Outside of the Top 8 we had Azorius Initiative.
This is a pretty wild list. Quantum Riddler in general is very good, but having it alongside your Initiative threats is sweet. This is just very well designed and seems like a super fun deck.
Vintage Challenge 32 3/28/2026
The final Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 41 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 Raker Shops and Lurrus PO were the most played decks, but both had pretty poor performances. Sphere Shops and Lurrus Breach both did quite well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jewel Shops | 1st | Tunaktunak |
| Lurrus Breach | 2nd | RatherBplayingMTG |
| Sphere Shops | 3rd | monzatubarao |
| Dredge | 4th | MahfuzVanGogh |
| Vivi PO | 5th | IamActuallyLvl1 |
| Esper Lurrus | 6th | Ark4n |
| Initiative | 7th | Xenowan |
| Raker Shops | 8th | TRON_Bahiano |
Pretty interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Jewel Shops that won.
Pretty solid looking list here. Very straightforward and stock, but again, these lists don't need to play with frills. They operate on such strong margins that their core is important and having the straightforward game plan makes the most sense.
In Second Place we had Lurrus Breach.
Double Mindbreak Trap in the main deck is one heck of a statement, tbh. I can dig it.
Also in this Top 8 we had a cool PO list.
Vivi Ornitier is a sweet card here. You're definitely going to grow it a bunch just by playing a regular game of Vintage, and then that extra mana is just a lot of leverage. Seems like a really fun looking list overall.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari always has something for us:
- Kindamtg is playing Blue Shops. Check it out here.
- StraddaG is playing some Lurrus PO. Check it out here.
- MahfuzVanGogh is reinventing Vintage Dredge. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Oops, we all Spell'ed again.
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!
