Vintage 101: Vintage is FINE?!
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 Banned and Restricted Announcement from this past week. While there were no changes to Vintage, there was some commentary on Vintage in the announcement. We've also got some Challenge data to look at from this past week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Banned and Restricted Announcement 12/16 - No Changes to Vintage
This past week was a Banned and Restricted Announcement and while there were zero changes to Vintage's Restricted list, there was some commentary on Vintage. You can find the full announcement here. Let's see what they had to say about Vintage.
So there isn't a lot here to really unpack other than the fact that they are keeping an eye on Lurrus in general. It is interesting that they call out here that the metagame share of Lurrus decks actually increased with the restrictions, and that is important to note. Lurrus got better indeed with the restrictions, not worse. It's also worth noting that these decks even prior to the restriction were running Psychic Frog, but the eight+ colorless land aspect of Lurrus Saga definitely butted heads against the UB two drop creature's mana cost, so losing Saga to one copy was a huge net boon for decks wanting to cast Frog on something of a curve.
I would have liked a bit more of a thorough explanation of what other decks they believe are doing well here personally. While I get that the focus of this is on Lurrus, if Lurrus is the largest share and there's other strategies doing well, what are the decks that they see as doing well? I'd love more transparency in this regard with this format.
I do think it's nice to continue to call out the fact that restricting Lurrus would do nothing. The only real way to deal with the card would be to ban it. While that bar is certainly very high as noted, I do think Wizards would be able to do it if they needed to do so, and I appreciate the fact that it is something they would be willing to do, especially given that they did it once already.
I've said before on here already that I appreciate seeing more organic ways for metagames to adapt. One thing I've seen some players put forth is that if they unrestricted some powerful three+ drops that it might give Lurrus enough of a competition that always playing Lurrus would be a real choice. Some of those cards I've seen mentioned were things like Monastery Mentor and Narset, Parter of Veils. Realistically, I don't like using the restricted list as a method of trying to directly combat something in the format that is seen as problematic, and I don't think either Mentor or Narset would be exceptionally healthy for Vintage to go through again. I do think though that finding ways to provide incentives to not play Lurrus would be great to see, but already the biggest incentive is the Tinker + Bolas's Citadel package, and that isn't really seeing a ton of play overall outside of decks like Oath and Breach, which are decks that generally want that effect. The latter of these wants cards like Dack and Hullbreacher as well to supplement its game plan, so already that deck is not playing Lurrus anyways.
I do think that some unrestrictions would be fun or interesting, but only if they really make sense to unrestrict, and not just for the sake of shaking things up.
I'm curious what the next three months will bring for Vintage into 2025, as that is when the next Banned and Restricted Announcement will be. In that time we will get Aetherdrift in terms of sets and pretty much nothing else until April after the BnR on March 31, 2025. With only one real set in the mix (since Innistrad Remastered is a reprint set) and that set being a Standard set, I highly doubt we'll see much movement in Vintage before then, unless there is something from Aetherdrift that is absolutely nutters. I have to wonder what this means for Vintage as a format if people were already somewhat tired of Lurrus.
We'll see what happens, but I do expect that Vintage will largely be the same until then.
Vintage Challenge 32 12/12
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 44 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Dredge and Esper Lurrus were the two most popular decks of the event. Dredge had some good results but a slightly less than 50% win rate. Esper Lurrus did quite well. Doomsday was great in this event at a quite small sample size. Jewel Shops did not do well at all in this event.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Esper Lurrus | 1st | wiky |
| Doomsday | 2nd | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Esper Lurrus | 3rd | cicciogire |
| Dredge | 4th | ziofrancone |
| Dimir Lurrus | 5th | joker10289 |
| Shadow | 6th | TrueHero |
| Initiative | 7th | LasVegasChaos |
| Dredge | 8th | StormGuyisme |
Reasonable looking Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Esper Lurrus that won.
Main deck Dress Down is kind of a neat inclusion. This list is also going deeper on the colorless lands than these decks have been for a bit and because of that we see the re-inclusion of Lorien Revealed. It's certainly a very greedy manabase.
In Second Place we had Doomsday.
It's nice to see people really picking up on stuff like Undercity Sewers for Vintage. The surveil lands are really quite powerful and worth taking a look at. Having a fetchable piece of card selection is quite powerful when you need it, and Doomsday is a deck that can really utilize it well.
Vintage Challenge 32 12/13
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 45 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's 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 it's win rate was reasonably slightly over 50%. Doomsday again did well, while Esper Lurrus rode the middle line and Dredge was less than 50% despite a Top 8 appearance.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Initiative | 1st | musasabi |
| Esper Lurrus | 2nd | PierrePoilievre2025 |
| Lurrus PO | 3rd | unluckymonkey |
| Doomsday | 4th | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Initiative | 5th | death_grips |
| Dredge | 6th | Lord_Beerus |
| Esper Lurrus | 7th | Rooney56 |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | Peppembr |
Good amount of Lurrus and Initiative in this Top 8. At the end of the event it was Initiative that won.
This list is quite clean. I think Stillmoon Cavalier is quite a strong card in the world of Frogs and Lurrus in this deck. Having relevant protection abilities, but also being able to block Frogs all day long is very good.
In Second Place we had Esper Lurrus.
Functionally the same list as the one that won the previous event. Not much can be said about this deck. It's pretty much one of the best decks in the format for a reason.
Vintage Challenge 32 12/14
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 47 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Vintage Streamer's Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Dredge was super popular here and despite a Top 8 finish it's overall win rate was dragged down by that popularity. Initiative was also popular but it didn't have a great win rate. Esper Lurrus did super well here, converting three of its five players into the Top 8, and Lurrus PO was also in a great spot too.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus PO | 1st | unluckymonkey |
| Lurrus PO | 2nd | StormGuyisme |
| Esper Lurrus | 3rd | slaxx |
| Esper Lurrus | 4th | Viatt |
| Esper Lurrus | 5th | 416FrowningTable |
| Dredge | 6th | ziofrancone |
| Dimir Lurrus | 7th | bless_von |
| Lutri Combo | 8th | medvedev |
6/8 of this Top 8 was Lurrus decks of some sort. The finals was Lurrus PO vs Lurrus PO. Let's look at both.
This version of Lurrus has steadily grown in popularity over the past month or so on MTGO. While it didn't really have a huge presence at the Eternal Weekend events (specifically NA and EU which is after this deck started building popularity) it has had some really exceptional results in the Challenges. This deck has a lot going on for it, and it's not just the PO game plan that makes it interesting, but additions like Questing Druid as the Monastery Mentor and Forth Eorlingas! as a big Fireball-like spell that just ends the game.
It's a strong deck with access to a lot of really strong spells and I expect to continue to see it do well in these events heading into 2025.
Vintage Challenge 32 12/15
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 32 players in it thanks to 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.
Initiative and Dredge were very popular, and this time both of these decks had strong win rates. Lurrus PO, Vault Key, and Breach all performed rather poorly while Jewel Shops and Red Prison did very well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dredge | 1st | _Joseba_ |
| Initiative | 2nd | death_grips |
| Painter | 3rd | adm29 |
| Doomsday | 4th | Jujkata |
| Jewel Shops | 5th | haqe |
| Red Prison | 6th | MyPotatoes |
| Dredge | 7th | Munchlax446 |
| Initiative | 8th | GzusReturned |
Dredge and Initiative were 4/8 of the Top 8 here, with the winner of the event being on Dredge.
Dredge is certainly one of those decks that feels pretty omnipresent in Vintage again now that it's a strong deck again. It's kind of wild that for a while there was multiple different Bazaar strategies that existed, but seemingly most of those decks have just kind of disappeared out of the format. I feel like it would be nice to have that kind of diversity in the Bazaar archetype again, if only because it presents different ways to play the card than just Dredge, but in the same vein it being just Dredge allows other decks to have a better game plan versus the archetype.
In Second Place we had Initiative.
The addition of Trinisphere as a restricted hit is neat actually. Most of the important cards in the deck all cost three and you're usually having some amount of acceleration to cast the 3-Ball in the first place, so it's a great way to potentially lock your opponent out on the play and then follow up with an Initiative card or better yet an Archon of Emeria.
Around the Web
- Justin Gennari always has some solid videos for us.
- FiretruckModo has a video on their EW Prague Dredge list. Check it out here.
- Charlotte Legacy League has a video on Jewel Shops vs Esper Lurrus. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You uh, ever wanted to cast Headliner Scarlett in Vintage?
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!
