By Blake Rasmussen

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Things to Do In Vintage For Fun and Ponder | Decklists

Modern Masters Weekend might have made Magic history by the sheer size of the main event, but, if you’ve been following along, there’s been so much more happening than just the largest Magic event ever held.

Among the sea of side events was a jewel, a solitary, mid-sized event that, nonetheless, attracted a crowd while it played out over the course of five rounds. Players gushed at what they saw, forming fast bonds with the game play, spending all kinds of time walking around the tables, and workshopping new ideas along the way.

That event, of course, was Vintage.

Vintage is a tough nut to crack for a lot of players, simply because there are only so many Black Lotus and Mox Sapphires hanging around. Sure, cards like Young Pyromancer, Preordain, and Dig Through Time have made Vintage into a format that more closely reflects newer cards, but as long as the crown jewels of Magic are the hallmark of the format, getting enough players together in a room to battle Vintage can be a challenge.

But when the room is big enough, as it certainly is this weekend, Vintage is almost certainly going to follow. Its adherents love the format deeply and, as you’ll see, creatively.

Things to do in Vintage for Fun and Ponder

Vintage has more cards legal in it than any other format, so you’ll see plenty of wacky and interesting things happening thanks to more than 20 years of interactions—many of them unintended.

For example, I’m fairly certain Myth Realized was never tested with Standstill, but it sure seems good…

This one might have actually come up in testing the format, since they were actually from the same block! Blightsteel Colossus might be the biggest, baddest, one-hit-kill creature in Vintage, but this kitten knows how to hide even the most indestructible of artifacts.

One innovative player, Keith Newyear (who also has a keen interest in art) came with an Academy Rector deck that was made to search up Omniscience so it could do, well, so it could do this:

For Omniscience! Play all of the things!

And, of course, Vintage wouldn’t be Vintage without the occasional first-turn kill, courtesy an opening hand Leyline of the Void and a Helm of Obedience. For those playing at home, Helm only stops milling when a card hits the graveyard, and with Leyline, none ever do. Goodbye library!

Of course, not every deck looks to win on the first turn. Some just try to prevent their opponents from doing, well, anything at all.

There’s always room to innovate in Vintage as well. For instance, one player brought Stasis to the table. In the first photo, you can see one of the ways he planned to maintain the enchantment. In the second, you can see one of the odd ways his plans were thwarted.

At the end of the five rounds, however, many of the typical decks from Vintage came out on top.

Decklists

All of the decks posted below went at least 4-1 in the 5 round tournament. There were a variety of archetypes represented among the best performing decks, including Delver/Young Pyromancer builds, Steel City Vault, The Perfect Storm, Oath, Show and Tell, Cobra Gush, Shops, and Stax.

One of the most interesting things when looking at these lists are the most recently printed cards that are nonetheless played in the oldest of formats. Check out some of these recently printed cards that made the cut.

David Nguyen

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Planeswalker (3)

1 Dack Fayden 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1 Tezzeret the Seeker

Creature (2)

1 Snapcaster Mage 1 Blightsteel Colossus

Sorcery (9)

1 Demonic Tutor 1 Time Walk 1 Tinker 1 Yawgmoth's Will 4 Thoughtcast 1 Timetwister

Instant (13)

2 Mental Misstep 1 Vampiric Tutor 1 Brainstorm 2 Flusterstorm 1 Ancestral Recall 1 Repeal 1 Hurkyl's Recall 1 Mana Drain 1 Thirst for Knowledge 1 Force of Will 1 Dig Through Time

Artifact (17)

3 Mox Opal 1 Mana Vault 1 Voltaic Key 4 Sensei's Divining Top 1 Sol Ring 1 Time Vault 1 Mox Ruby 1 Mox Pearl 1 Mox Emerald 1 Mox Sapphire 1 Mox Jet 1 Black Lotus

Land (14)

4 Seat of the Synod 3 Volcanic Island 3 Underground Sea 2 Bloodstained Mire 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Tolarian Academy

58 Cards

Sideboard (10)

1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Sulfur Elemental 1 Toxic Deluge 2 Thoughtseize 2 Ravenous Trap 1 Ingot Chewer 1 Pithing Needle 1 Mountain

Deal Another Hand

Dylan Streater

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Sorcery (17)

1 Tinker 1 Mind's Desire 1 Wheel of Fortune 1 Time Walk 1 Timetwister 1 Ponder 4 Gitaxian Probe 1 Preordain 4 Duress 1 Demonic Tutor 1 Tendrils of Agony

Instant (15)

1 Dig Through Time 1 Ancestral Recall 1 Brainstorm 1 Thirst for Knowledge 4 Dark Ritual 1 Cabal Ritual 1 Mental Misstep 1 Chain of Vapor 1 Hurkyl's Recall 1 Rebuild 1 Mystical Tutor 1 Vampiric Tutor

Artifact (10)

1 Mox Jet 1 Mox Sapphire 1 Memory Jar 1 Mox Ruby 1 Mox Pearl 1 Mana Vault 1 Lion's Eye Diamond 1 Sol Ring 1 Mana Crypt 1 Lotus Petal

Enchantment (2)

1 Necropotence 1 Yawgmoth's Bargain

Land (13)

1 Swamp 3 Bloodstained Mire 4 Polluted Delta 2 Volcanic Island 2 Underground Sea 1 Tolarian Academy

57 Cards

Sideboard (15)

1 Swamp 1 Hurkyl's Recall 1 Rebuild 1 Notion Thief 3 Tormod's Crypt 2 Flusterstorm 2 Thoughtseize 2 Island 1 Empty the Warrens 1 Blightsteel Colossus

Deal Another Hand

Mike Kiesel

Decklist Stats Sample Hand