Vintage 101: Vintage in September
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 where Vintage is at with an eye towards what Eternal Weekend might look like. We've also got some sick news about North America Eternal Weekend, and some Challenges to look at from last week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Vintage Metagame - September 2025
Since I took a short break after the convention I was at in Seattle, I figured it was a good opportunity to poke at Vintage and see where we are at with the current metagame, both from a larger perspective of everything since the restriction of Saga/Bauble, but also how things are since the release of Edge of Eternities. I'm using a copy of the current dashboard provided by the MTGO Vintage Discord folks, which you can find here. It is currently pre-filtered to the date of Edge of Eternities release.
Let's first take a look at some of the big overall numbers since the restrictions last year, as we are pretty much a year out from that now.
The amount of all encompassing Lurrus is pretty huge overall. As we've mentioned before though those numbers are from a standpoint of lumping every Lurrus deck into the same major macro archetype, which is in a sense somewhat fine because they are all decks that play Lurrus as a companion. There are however, a lot of different Lurrus decks within that umbrella, and that is where things get a little nuanced. Dimir/Esper Lurrus are definitely both fair decks while something like Lurrus Breach and Lurrus PO are most definitely not fair decks. If you were to place all the fair Lurrus decks into Fair Blue (which is where they would reasonably belong) and all of the Combo variants into Combo, things might look a little different (I thought about doing this just to see, because I am curious).
Putting everything that plays Lurrus in the same macro archetype however does tell us the penetrative effect that the card does have on the overall metagame though. It tells us that over 30% of the metagame is a deck that plays Lurrus. 31% of the time you are more than likely to face a Lurrus deck of some sort. Awkwardly though, that only tells you that you're going to see Lurrus as a companion. It does not give you much information as to which Lurrus variant you are playing against. Still, this is quite a bit of Lurrus. As well, if you were to combine both the Lurrus fair decks (Dimir and Esper) into one Lurrus Control data point, it would be the most played deck in the format. The two do however play somewhat different in relation to their removal suites so it is best to keep them separate, but just Fair Lurrus alone is around 1600 copies at least in the data set, with the next (and current highest with them split) deck being Initiative at 1309 copies.
Both Initiative and Dredge over this time frame remained very popular though despite having some slightly sub par win rates.
My eye on this is that despite the restrictions for the most part the format stayed almost exactly the same consistently with brief periods of new things occurring. The format has been rather consistently Lurrus, Initiative, Dredge, and Jewel.
Let's dial in a little deeper and look briefly at the period between the release of Aetherdrift (the printing of Stock Up) and Edge of Eternities.
During this period we did see some shifts, as this is the period where Raker Shops and Lurrus PO were very heavily played. At the tail end of this timeframe however those decks were definitely starting to fall back off, and while Lurrus was still a huge presence in the metagame, it was mostly because of Lurrus PO in a lot of ways, as Stock Up greatly enhanced that deck quite a bit, leading to the creation of the unluckymonkey 4C variant and the Esper variant. Initiative still maintained a big popularity but its win rate still hovered in that 48% range. The real kicker here is that while Lurrus PO was popular it didn't have an insane win rate (52.74%). It was Dimir Lurrus with the highest win rate in this set at 54.73%, and even that's not too insane for most standards.
It does showcase that while the popularity of the new decks like Raker/Lurrus PO was there, it was indeed the Fair Lurrus decks that continued to be the best decks.
Now let's look at the Edge of Eternities release. This is big because this is the printing of Tezzeret, Cruel Captain, of which we are over a full month into having. Has anything really changed with Vintage? Not so surprisingly... no.
In fact... if we really look hard at this, the deck that has been the biggest showcasing of Tezzeret as a card has mainly been Raker Shops... and it has a pretty sad 47.7% non-mirror win rate in this set of data. The format is still resoundingly 30% Lurrus decks, Initiative is still the most popular individual archetype and it even has a positive win rate here, but Dimir Lurrus has a solid 57.7% non-mirror win rate. The Blue Control result here is awkward because there's only four copies of that archetype, while we have 69 (nice) copies of Dimir Lurrus to look at meaning our sample size is a lot better with Dimir.
So this begs the question... Tezzeret was lauded as being exceptionally designed for Vintage, and Wizards themselves even called the card out in the last BnR update. Were we wrong about Tezzeret? Is it just okay? Or is it because the decks it goes in are already struggling and this just wasn't enough to boost them?
I do think the card is individually very powerful, but I think Lurrus is just a much better thing to be doing overall in Vintage right now. What really stinks about that is that while it's not overpowering the format and it's not putting up massive win rates week to week, the overall nature of the format is so much predominantly skewed and warped by the card's existence. I've been on record before saying that I'm not a big fan of Lurrus, and I'm still not, but what is rough is that the gameplay of the format has functionally persisted to be the same gameplay since the Saga/Bauble restrictions that it feels like every little thing since then has not been impactful enough to move that needle. Stock Up moved things slightly enough to result in the adoption of another Lurrus deck, but Tezzeret was supposed to be a big alternative to those decks and it just kind of did.... nothing.
I personally don't know what it would take at this point to move the needle on a mana value 3 or greater permanent that would be attractive enough to not play Lurrus. I don't think there is one. I'm not even sure if unrestricting cards would give us that. It might not. At the same time though, the general perception I get from hearing the communities that play on MTGO is that they feel fine with the format as it is right now.
What does this mean for Eternal Weekend? Well, we are getting a set here soon (Spider-Man) but whether that set actually impacts Vintage is unknown, and then after North America Eternal Weekend, but before Europe and Asia we get another set release in Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's unlikely that anything from these two sets move the needle anywhere, but they are important to keep an eye on as we've had multiple Standard sets this year attempt to move that needle with both Stock Up and Tezzeret.
Realistically, this means that Eternal Weekend is likely to be decided by Lurrus, Initiative, Dredge, and likely Jewel Shops. In fact, I could see the finals go any way here, but I very nearly suspect that Lurrus will win at least one of the EW events.
Paintings for Eternal Weekend North America
We all know that last year, Wizards ended the function of doing paintings for Eternal Weekend events across North America, Europe, and Asia. Paintings have long been a big tradition of Eternal Weekend, and so legendary artist Dan Frazier decided this year to do it himself. According to this post by Mark Aronowitz, Dan painted two different paintings (Mox Sapphire for Vintage, Mox Diamond for Legacy) for this year's North American Eternal Weekend, in addition to selling playmats at the event of the art as well. The paintings will go respectively to the winners of the NA Vintage Champs and NA Legacy Champs.
This is such a super sick thing of Dan Frazier to do for the community. Thank you so much Dan for continuing one of EW's most treasured and awesome traditions!
Vintage Challenge 32 8/28/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 48 players in it thanks to the Vintage MTGO 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 it did have a pretty good win rate, but Dimir Lurrus and Lurrus Breach were pretty big standouts here. Lurrus PO had a fairly sub par win rate here, as did regular PO, Tinker, and Oath.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Lurrus | 1st | Mogged |
| Jewel Shops | 2nd | TrueHero |
| Doomsday | 3rd | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Esper Lurrus | 4th | Bartowski |
| Dimir Lurrus | 5th | Capitano_CL |
| DImir Lurrus | 6th | O_danielakos |
| Dimir Lurrus | 7th | Six6Sick |
| Initiative | 8th | chevetteprateado |
So much Lurrus. At the end of the event it was a split finals with the recorded winner being Dimir Lurrus.
I really think Tamiyo is fairly underplayed in Vintage. The card is really absurdly powerful, but maybe the function of Brainstorm being restricted is just enough to keep it in check. There's not much else here that looks thrilling though.
In Second Place we had Jewel Shops.
The Endstone is kind of super neat. You're definitely going to get a bunch of cards off of it in this deck because you cast a lot of spells. The sideboard jukes of just boarding into big beats with Kappa Cannoneer and Simulacrum Synthesizer is pretty cool too.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/29/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 44 players in it thanks to the Vintage MTGO Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative was the most played deck and it had a very solid win rate, as did Jewel Shops. Oath also did pretty well here. Raker Shops tanked it hard, as did Lurrus PO.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Stiflenought | 1st | crK |
| Jewel Shops | 2nd | LucasG1ggs |
| Initiative | 3rd | Edraros3 |
| Initiative | 4th | YoungElf |
| Initiative | 5th | Illao1 |
| Dredge | 6th | silencsong |
| Initiative | 7th | Munchlax446 |
| Oath | 8th | etoustar |
Half the Top 8 here is Initiative decks. This was yet another split finals with the recorded winner being Stiflenought.
I also think Doorkeeper Thrull is a card more people could be playing. The card shuts down a lot of wildly random things that it is very powerful. Being a solid enabler for Dreadnought is just upside.
In Second Place we had Jewel Shops again.
Pretty similar list to the one before, but this one has some cool sideboard stuff like Chimil, the Inner Sun and Wurmcoil Engine.
Vintage Challenge 32 8/30/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 48 players in it thanks to the Vintage MTGO Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Jewel Shops was the most played deck here, and despite some Top 8s its overall win rate wasn't great. Dredge did super well here, as did Dimir Lurrus and Doomsday.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dredge | 1st | Lord_Beerus |
| BUG | 2nd | lordoflifegain |
| Dimir Lurrus | 3rd | O_danielakos |
| Sphere Shops | 4th | russell_wilson |
| Dredge | 5th | HyuugaHeir |
| Dimir Lurrus | 6th | Faria_Limer |
| Jewel Shops | 7th | MayhemDJ |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | TrueHero |
Interesting spread of decks here. At the end of the event it was Dredge that won.
I like the more aggressive slant than the more pitchy "Pitch Dredge" versions, personally. You're going to win a lot more Game 1s with a more aggressive game plan on average, and then you just have to worry about navigating the post board.
In Second Place we had BUG.
Looks like a fairly standard BUG list in all reality, but it is nice to see Leovold, Emissary of Trest in a deck. I do love that card.
Around the Web
- kindamtg has some Red Raker Action. Check it out here.
- FiretruckModo is dredging it up. Check it out here.
- Justin Gennari always has stuff for us:
- Affinity
- Lurrus DRS
- Raker PO
- Top 4 Challenge
The Spice Corner
SHARK TYPHOON PO.
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!
