Vintage 101: The Premier Showcase
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 taking a look at the final Vintage Showcase event of Season One for MTGO's Premier Play program. In addition to that we've got the data on the other Challenge event of the weekend and of course... a Spice Corner.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Vintage Showcase Challenge 3/18
This past weekend was the final Showcase Challenge event of Season One of MTGO's Premier Play Program. This event is a Premier level event and required Qualification Points (QPs) to enter (specifically 40 QPs). These events feed in to the Showcase Qualifier at the end of the Season, with the Top 8 of this event being invited to play in that event. This event had 161 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
The major significance of this being the final event of the Season is usually because during Seasons Two and Three, Vintage is usually pushed aside for a different format to be Showcase formats over the course of each Season, so it is a little sad to see the final Showcase event for that reason.
You can find all of the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Mono White was very popular overall in this event, and it had a solid win rate as well. Across the board, the rest of the decks represented here had some great representation and pretty even win rates. Jeskai did the worst of the bunch, while both PO and Dredge did among the best. All in all, this looked like a really great event with a great amount of diverse pillars represented across the format.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Paradoxical Outcome | 1st | Fnoop |
| Mono White | 2nd | Tamarindo |
| Dredge | 3rd | T1_Tinker |
| Doomsday | 4th | gr33nashe |
| Dredge | 5th | Lord_Beerus |
| Mono White | 6th | boin |
| Mono White | 7th | hodortimebaby |
| Aggro Vine | 8th | FunkiMunki |
Very interesting Top 8 here. Lot of Bazaar-based decks and a good amount of Mono White. At the end of the event though it was the lone PO player in the Top 8 that cracked through to win it all.
Mono Blue PO is definitely very intriguing! In addition to the regular angles of attack we get from PO as a Tinker centric deck like Citadel and Urza's Saga, we also have cards like Urza, Lord High Artificer as a potential win condition as well. Also, getting to play four main deck Repeal is super fun, and the sideboard copy of Karn, Scion of Urza is pretty strong looking as an additional Saga-like effect.
In Second Place we have Mono White.
This is a very clean and powerful list. Utilizing Chancellor of the Annex here as a powerful speed bump to other deck's development / reaction to Mono White is very strong, and being able to utilize its floor of pitching to Solitude / Chrome Mox is quite strong. We are also starting to see a lot more Anointed Peacekeeper which is great, because of how well that card lines up vs Bazaar decks.
In Third Place we have Dredge.
These versions of Dredge have definitely become much more stock over time, and the only major difference we see in most lists these days is where the additional lands like Wasteland appear in either main deck or sideboard capacity. The real MVP of these decks though is Noxious Revival for sure.
Down to Fourth Place we've got Doomsday.
Very clean list here as well. I like the additions of splits between Cut Down and Fatal Push and of course Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is just an incredibly powerful sideboard juke that does what it says on the tin. Stellar result for Doomsday here for sure.
Outside of the Top 8 we had a Top 16 showing by Oath.
I love seeing Atraxa in these lists. The card is definitely quite strong and does a lot of really powerful things. I'm absolutely in love!
Vintage Challenge 3/19
The second Challenge event of the weekend was a regular event. This event had 40 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find all of the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Mono White was popular here, but it didn't do so hot in win rates. The rest of the decks were pretty evenly split across the board, with Dredge, Breach, and Esper Tinker decks all doing quite well. Combo Shops decks also did very well, while both Counter Vine and PO decks ran pretty cold.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Combo Shops | 1st | ecobaronen |
| Breach | 2nd | desolutionist |
| Doomsday | 3rd | Mogged |
| Dredge | 4th | Breckoroni |
| Azorius Initiative | 5th | Capriccioso |
| Mono White | 6th | JOSE |
| Doomsday | 7th | SenpaiBlank |
| Prison Shops | 8th | ManBoyChild |
Definitely an interesting Top 8 here, with a good representation across multiple pillars. At the end of the event, it was Combo Shops that won.
I really like the Jewel Shops deck. It's definitely got some interesting gameplay and it plays cards like Displacer Kitten which I love. I also enjoy seeing cards like Portal to Phyrexia as a sideboard card. Definitely a super fun deck.
In Second Place we've got Breach.
Very clean Breach list. I also just adore seeing Laelia in decks because I think that card is quite strong and super fun to play with. Very strong list overall.
Further into the Top 8 we've got Azorius Initiative.
Super cool list here for sure. This is more of a non-Tinker Initiative variant, leaning on putting cards like Seasoned Dungeoneer split across into the sideboard for other creatures like Lavinia, Mentor, and Hullbreacher. I also dig the split of Cathar Commando here. Very cool.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we've got Prison Shops.
I like seeing new cards, and there is an Argentum Masticore in the sideboard, so I really dig that card a lot. More threats that can't be hit by Dack Fayden is pretty nice.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari has some great content for us this week.
- We've got a lot of great content from Andy Markiton this week too.
- Revenantkioku has a great Challenge video on Doomsday. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 lists here.
Absorbentthree's lists are always so cool!
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!
