Welcome! Today I’m going to run you through the Vintage gauntlet! Let’s begin!
Creatures (27)
- 4 Ichorid
- 2 Cephalid Sage
- 2 Flame-Kin Zealot
- 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 3 Golgari Thug
- 4 Stinkweed Imp
- 4 Narcomoeba
- 4 Street Wraith
Lands (8)
Spells (25)
- 4 Cabal Therapy
- 4 Serum Powder
- 4 Chalice of the Void
- 1 Darkblast
- 4 Leyline of the Void
- 4 Dread Return
- 4 Bridge from Below
Sideboard
Archetype: Aggro-Combo
Game Plan: The idea behind this deck is to generate free men and then use Dread Return on Flame Kin Zealot to kill your opponent on turn 2.
It’s a simple five-step process that can occur in the space of two turns. Step 1) Mulligan into Bazaar of Baghdad, aided by Serum Powder. Step 2) Begin to Dredge using Bazaar. As you dredge, put Narcomoebas into play. Step 3) Flashback Cabal Therapies to clear out opponents’ countermagic and removal. As you flashback Cabal Therapies, you generate Bridge From Below tokens. Step 4) Dread Return Cephalid Sage to dredge the remainder of your library. Step 5) Flashback Dread Return on Flame Kin Zealot and attack with a horde of Bridge From Below tokens to kill your opponent.
Tactics: Key tactics include knowing what to name with Cabal Therapy. Generally, your first Therapy should name Force of Will. If they have it, then you strip it from their hand and get a peek at the rest of their hand. If they don’t have it, then you have information that will aid your next Therapy.
Post board, you need to know how to sideboard to combat cards like Ensnaring Bridge, Leyline of the Void, Yixlid Jailer, and Platinum Angel. You do this by sideboarding in answers like Reverent Silence, Darkblast (or Contagion), and Oxidize.
Strengths: No deck in Vintage has a better game 1 win percentage. You consistently kill your opponent between turns 2 and 3. It is also a virtually unstoppable kill. Countermagic can’t stop it as none of the key steps in the game plan are disrupted by it. Neither does mana denial. Bazaar of Baghdad is a land. Dread Return is free. And Dread Return is always preceded by several Cabal Therapies to clear the way of pesky disruption spells that might stop Ichorid from comboing out. Unlike previous Ichorid iterations, this deck is practically immune to Wasteland and Tormod’s Crypt simply because of the goodness printed in Future Sight in Street Wraith, Bridge From Below, and Narcomoeba. The Ichorid deck has a favorable Hulk Flash matchup, ironically.
Weaknesses: Hopelessly linear. Cards like Leyline of the Void are truly deadly for Ichorid. The solution is to sideboard up to 15 cards, diluting the maindeck tremendously. The good news is that while lots of decks are currently running Leyline of the Void, that number will diminish as people expect less and less Ichorid. However, cards like Yixlid Jailer and growing in popularity and in many ways it can be even more annoying because so much of your sideboard space is necessarily devoted to Leyline. Finding and resolving a solution to Yixlid Jailer may just be a pipe dream.
Popularity: This is a modestly popular deck. If you were to play in a tournament of 25 players, no more than a couple would be playing it. Great Vintage players tend to steer away from this deck because it doesn’t permit them to readily outplay their opponents. Nonetheless, it’s a great gateway deck to Vintage and relatively cheap to assemble, especially in proxy environments. However, its lack of tournament success has further hindered its growth as a popular archetype. People’s deck choices are heavily influenced by tournament results.
Status: This deck is a Tier 2 deck. It hasn’t shown the ability to ever win a major (or even minor) Vintage tournament because it is so weak against hate and the hate is so dense against it. Since it lacks the ability to win tournaments, it is a perennial competitor that can never break the Tier 1.5 threshold. However, it’s unrivaled game 1 power, its ability to obliterate unprepared opponents, and its ease of play and cheap-to-build shell keeps the deck in the metagame and performing. In smaller tournaments, Ichorids are frequently seen in Top 8s. However, since hate is prevalent in more than just Top 8s, Ichorid has had a difficult time making Top 8 in larger Vintage tournaments of late where the Swiss is longer.
Bomberman
Creatures (10)
Lands (17)
Spells (33)
- 1 Sensei's Divining Top
- 4 Brainstorm
- 4 Mana Drain
- 4 Force of Will
- 1 Sol Ring
- 1 Time Walk
- 1 Ancestral Recall
- 2 Merchant Scroll
- 2 Thirst for Knowledge
- 1 Echoing Truth
- 1 Aether Spellbomb
- 2 Misdirection
- 1 Black Lotus
- 1 Mox Emerald
- 1 Mox Jet
- 1 Mox Pearl
- 1 Mox Ruby
- 1 Mox Sapphire
- 1 Tormod's Crypt
- 1 Engineered Explosives
- 1 Pithing Needle
Archetype: Control-Aggro
Game Plan: The idea behind this deck is to control the game with an assortment of mid-range disruptive and utility men that eventually win the game.
Tactics: Aven Mindcensor is the lusty new addition to this framework. It shuts down opponent’s ability to search their libraries at will with the plethora of Vintage tutors. Trinket Mage can find a toolbox of solutions like Tormod’s Crypt, Pithing Needle, Aether Spellbomb, and Engineered Explosives. A very nice play is to Trinket Mage for Black Lotus while holding up Mana Drain or Aven Mindcensor. In addition, Auriok Salvagers can eventually generate infinite mana with Black Lotus so that you can draw most of your deck with Aether Spellbomb and then play all of your men, Time Walk, and win the game.
Strengths: This deck is best situated to abuse cards like Aven Mindcensor, which are format hosing cards in a format with many, many Merchant Scrolls, Polluted Deltas, Protean Hulks, and Demonic Tutors. It also destroys whatever Gifts Ungivens and Grim Tutors remain. The decks toolbox of solutions is very powerful against the rest of the Vintage metagame. Pithing Needle and Tormod’s Crypt are very powerful against Ichorid. Aether Spellbomb recursion and Engineered Explosives are huge headaches for GroAtog. The deck is also the best remaining Mana Drain deck in Vintage right now.
Weaknesses: Few. One of the deck’s key weaknesses is that it is somewhat underpowered. This is Vintage, the format with Mind’s Desire, Necropotence, and Yawgmoth’s Will. This deck runs mostly fair cards and small critters. The deck also doesn’t run Black, the clear second best color in Vintage.
Popularity: Very popular. Expect this to be one of the most popular decks in any Vintage metagame.
Status: Strong Tier 1.5, if not Tier 1. This is one of the best decks in Vintage. This deck is a consistent performer and always seems to find its way into the Top 8 and Top 4, not just by itself but in multiples. The only problem with this deck so far is that, while it is a solid performer, it doesn’t seem to be a tournament winner. While you can expect to see this deck in the finals, this is the deck that doesn’t take home the top prize.
GroAtog
As suggested by Rich Shay…
Creatures (4)
Lands (14)
Spells (42)
- 4 Brainstorm
- 1 Fastbond
- 3 Mana Drain
- 1 Vampiric Tutor
- 1 Mystical Tutor
- 1 Yawgmoth's Will
- 3 Duress
- 4 Force of Will
- 1 Regrowth
- 1 Demonic Tutor
- 1 Time Walk
- 1 Ancestral Recall
- 4 Gush
- 1 Cunning Wish
- 1 Brain Freeze
- 4 Merchant Scroll
- 1 Echoing Truth
- 2 Misdirection
- 1 Black Lotus
- 3 Opt
- 1 Mox Emerald
- 1 Mox Jet
- 1 Mox Sapphire
Sideboard
Archetype: Aggro-Control-Combo
Game Plan: Slip a Quirion Dryad onto the board and play as a Control deck with countermagic, disruption, and a robust draw engine of Scroll for Ancestral followed by Gushing and then Yawgmoth’s Will plus Fastbond for the win.
Tactics: Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall. Scroll for Mystical Tutor to find Yawgmoth’s Will. Gush plus Fastbond. Yawgmoth’s Will plus Fastbond. Cunning Wish for Berserk. Gush with Psychatog in play. Regrowth is in the deck primarily to replay Ancestral Recall or a countered Yawgmoth’s Will.
Strengths: This deck was once the most dominating deck in Vintage and Gush was restricted as a response to its degeneracy. This deck is a combo, an aggro, and a control deck. It can combo out on turn 1 with the right hand, or it can be the most dominating control deck or the fiercest aggro deck. The deck is easy and intuitive to play, but difficult to master. This deck also can pack maximum punch into a 60-card frame because only one-third of the deck is mana, compared to one-half for most Vintage decks.
People get confused about this fact, but one nuance to this deck is role. Some people seem to suggest that one list may be preferable to another because it “plays the control role” better or vice versa. The truth is that role is a function of the metagame, your hand, and matchup. As the metagame seems to slow, Mana Drains become better and better because Aggro-Dryad is a less effective plan without Drains as a mid-game backstop.
This deck is also incredibly flexible and dynamic both in how to play the deck and in how to design it. Since you can run four colors on a nineteen-mana-count manabase, you can run practically any card in the Vintage format from Artifact Mutation to Yixlid Jailer as a solution to anything that threatens this deck. It is a dream deck for metagame tweakers.
This is the best Yawgmoth’s Will deck in Vintage right now. In fact, it might just be the best deck in Vintage period. Whether played as an aggro deck, a control deck, or a combo deck, this deck has a monster Yawgmoth’s Will. Fastbond plus multiple Gushes plus Yawgmoth’s Will is a recipe for murdering your opponent.
Weaknesses: It’s light manabase makes this deck possible prey to resurgent Stax-type decks. Turn 1 Sphere of Resistance is a huge pain in the you-know-where. Turn 1 Trinisphere is practically game over. The other key weakness of this deck is that players might get trapped into thinking that they can only play one role and make the wrong play. As a general rule, you shouldn’t be protecting your Dryads, but maintaining control over the board state itself so that you can eventually win for real with Yawgmoth’s Will. Knowing when to protect Dryads or not can be a key skill with the deck.
Popularity: This deck is very popular. It will be one of the most popular decks in any given Vintage tournament. In a tournament of 25, expect about 5-6 GAT decks, and at least a few of those to be in the Top 8, and one probably the tournament winner.
Variants: GATr with Red Splash.
Status: Tier 1. A proven tournament winner, historically and recently. Deck to beat.
The Mean Deck
Lands (14)
Spells (46)
- 1 Tendrils of Agony
- 4 Brainstorm
- 1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
- 1 Vampiric Tutor
- 1 Mystical Tutor
- 1 Yawgmoth's Will
- 4 Duress
- 4 Force of Will
- 1 Necropotence
- 1 Sol Ring
- 1 Demonic Tutor
- 1 Time Walk
- 4 Dark Ritual
- 1 Ancestral Recall
- 1 Mana Crypt
- 1 Burning Wish
- 4 Merchant Scroll
- 1 Memory Jar
- 1 Chain of Vapor
- 2 Misdirection
- 1 Tinker
- 1 Rebuild
- 1 Black Lotus
- 1 Fact or Fiction
- 1 Lotus Petal
- 1 Mox Emerald
- 1 Mox Jet
- 1 Mox Pearl
- 1 Mox Ruby
- 1 Mox Sapphire
Sideboard
Archetype: Combo-Control
Game Plan: Generate Storm and kill with Tendrils of Agony. It’s a three-step game plan. Step 1: Scroll for Ancestral Recall to generate card advantage. Step 2: resolve a restricted bomb (Yawgmoth’s Will, Bargain, or Necropotence, for instance). Step 3: Play a lethal Tendrils.
This deck is a Merchant Scroll combo deck built and the evolution of Mean Deck Gifts and Ritual Gifts.
Tactics: Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall is a key play. Scrolling for Mystical Tutor helps you find Yawgmoth’s Will.
Strengths: This deck was, in my opinion, the best deck in Vintage before the restriction of Gifts Ungiven. It takes the shell of the Gifts game plan, replaces Gifts with stronger and better cards, and brings the maximum abuse to Merchant Scroll, the most broken unrestricted tutor in Vintage. It is the deck in Vintage with the best cards, and it’s currently the best deck at abusing Dark Ritual.
Weaknesses: The changes and metagame shifts wrought by the printing of Future Sight, the restriction of Gifts, and most importantly, the unrestriction of Gush, has greatly disturbed the Mean Deck as a solution to the Vintage metagame. GroAtog equally abuses the Merchant Scroll engine and is just as disruptive. The primary difference is that GroAtog is and will always be more consistent.
Popularity: Although this isn’t a deck you should expect to see at little tournaments, be prepared to see this deck played and played well in major Vintage events.
Status: Solid Tier 1.5, possibly Tier 1.
Hulk Flash
Creatures (9)
Lands (12)
Spells (39)
- 4 Brainstorm
- 1 Vampiric Tutor
- 1 Mystical Tutor
- 4 Force of Will
- 1 Demonic Tutor
- 1 Ancestral Recall
- 1 Imperial Seal
- 4 Merchant Scroll
- 2 Chain of Vapor
- 4 Flash
- 2 Misdirection
- 1 Black Lotus
- 1 Lotus Petal
- 1 Mox Jet
- 1 Mox Sapphire
- 3 Nix
- 3 Pact of Negation
- 4 Summoner's Pact
Sideboard
Archetype: Combo
Game Plan: Flash puts a Protean Hulk into play which then dies and finds five hasty, poisonous Slivers into play to kill your opponent. Some Hulk Flash lists use the familiar Kiki-Jiki, Karmic Guide, Carrion Feeder kill.
Tactics: This deck is packed to the brim with cheap and efficient countermagic like Pact of Negation, Misdirection, and Force of Will. In addition, to help find the Hulks, this deck runs Summoner’s Pact. A key trick if you have multiple Summoner’s Pact is to Pact for Elvish Spirit Guide and then use the Spirit Guide to generate the second mana necessary to play Flash. This deck is nicely metagamed with Nix to stop opposing Force of Wills and Gushes.
Strengths: This deck is the best combo deck in Vintage. It’s focused, powerful, and can win on turn 1 with multiple countermagic backup. It runs a light manabase and a full complement of Merchant Scrolls (sense a trend?) to find Flash and flexible answers as well as the powerful Ancestral Recall.
Weaknesses: This deck can’t win if a Leyline of the Void is on the table, and it will struggle to remove basic cards like Tormod’s Crypt. The Sliver kill is stronger against Pithing Needle, but weaker against cards like Ensnaring Bridge.
Popularity: Check your local metagame results, but Hulk Flash is showing up everywhere and is about 10% of the Vintage metagame (2.5 players out of every 25).
Status: Tier 1.5. Although this deck is powerful on paper and does well in small Vintage events, there is very little evidence that this deck has what it takes to succeed on a larger tournament canvass. This deck was slaughtered at SCG Roanoke and is unacceptably linear to many Vintage players. The talk of restriction of pretty absurd. Aside from one tournament, Hulk Flash hasn’t won anything.
Emerging Archetypes:
The two big decks that may be waiting on the wings to enter the Vintage metagame are Gush Tendrils variants (which look like a fusion of The Mean Deck and GroAtog) and Stax variants. Time will tell if Stax or Gush Tendrils are good enough to join these five decks.
Until next week!