Vintage is Magic's oldest and most powerful format. The format offers a level of complexity and thought second to no other format in magic. In vintage you get to play some of magic’s most powerful spells, such as Ancestral Recall and time walk, but you also get to play the best hate with cards like force of will and mental misstep. The format is hopelessly addicting, it could take years before someone tires of Vintage. Playing vintage feels like a powerful battle, two mages in an epic duel, that requires strategy, wit, and luck. every decision you make affects the rest of the game from playing ponder or brainstorm to what land to fetch. The beauty of the format is that this is what magic was always intended to be. While getting into vintage can be a scary task, it is well worth it.
Enter: Vintage
If you're interested in getting into vintage for the first time, this is a great first step. This article will show you the basics of each deck, how they work, their strengths, and their weaknesses. I'm not going to get into strategy to much as that is a slightly more advanced subject; this is merely the basics of this great format. One final note before we begin is that this is not a financial article, I’m not going to show you how to play vintage on a budget, how to buy into the format, or anything of that nature. Now, let’s begin.
In Vintage there are five “pillars” of the format which can be defined by five cards. there are the bazaar of Baghdad decks, Mishra's workshop decks, dark ritual combo decks, mana drain decks, and finally null rod agro decks. Each one has their own strengths and weaknesses, and one is not more dominant than the other. In general, any deck beats every deck, there are unfavorably matches, but not so much that you can't win it. That is one of the biggest appeals to me as a vintage player is that no match is completely one sided and it is possible to win out of nowhere.
Dredge: The land of the undead
Dredge is the graveyard deck of the format, it tries to mill its library into the graveyard and play it from there. The deck usually wins on turn 2-3 with a combo of dread return plus either flame kin zealot or the newly added Dragonlord Kolaghan. The main engine behind the deck is bazaar of Baghdad and serum powder. Bazaar is so crucial to the decks success that any hand that doesn't have Bazaar is a mulligan.
The core of the deck is the dredgers, which usually consists of Golgari Grave Troll, Stinkweed Imp, and Golgari Thug. What dredge does is if you were to draw a card, you may instead put that card into your hand, and put the top x cards of your library into the grave. For example, Golgari grave troll has dredge 6, if it is in your graveyard and you would go to draw a card, instead you may put the troll into your hand and put the top six cards of your library into your grave. This is how you mill your library, by replacing your draws from bazaar with a dredge trigger, and then discarding the dredger.
The next part of the deck is the creatures that can put themselves onto the field; usually these are Narcomoeba, Bloodghast, and Ichorid. Narcomoeba enters the battlefield if it is put into the graveyard from the library, which happens because of the dredgers. Bloodghast and Ichorid return themselves from the graveyard to the battlefield to pay for the flashback cost of cabal therapy and dread return. you can also use these creatures to grind out a game by constantly recurring them.
The next part of the deck is the flashback spells, cabal therapy and dread return. Cabal Therapy allows you to sacrifice Bloodghast and Ichorid to strip your opponent's hand to clear the way for dread return. Usually dread return will bring back either a Flame-Kin Zealot or Dragonlord Kolaghan. These cards work extremely well in conjunction with bridge from below. As long as the bridge is in your grave, whenever a non-token creature you control dies, you get a 2/2 zombie token. When there are 2 or 3 bridges in the grave it can get out of hand quickly.
Strengths: this deck has the highest game one percentage, it attacks in a way no other magic deck does and is very linear. Also it is very budget friendly in that there is no power, no duals, or anything of that sort. The most expensive card is Bazaar of Baghdad. Another strength of the deck is that it is very forgiving in play mistakes. The deck can still win even if its dread return gets countered by grinding the opponent down. Lastly, one piece of hate won't stop the deck, it usually take two or three pieces of hate.
Weakness: One of the strengths of the deck is also its weakness, because it is so linear it is easier to hate out, that's why the decks entire sideboard is to fight against hate, even then though it can usually fight through it with a skilled pilot.
Conclusion: Dredge is the cheapest and easiest way to get into vintage, it's cheap compared to the other decks, and their strategies is straightforward, dump your deck into your grave and win. The thing to watch out for is game two and three when they start to bring in things like Tormods Crypt. While one crypt won't stop the deck, it will certainly slow it down. It is a fun deck to play and is very forgiving in play mistakes.
Shops: the Machine of prisons
The next pillar to talk about is the Shops pillar. This pillar contains the artifact decks of the format. What the deck aims to do is slow the opponent down with cards such as sphere of resistance and tangle wire while deploying an aggressive plan with creatures such as lodestone golem and Arcbound Ravager. The deck plays fair cards with arguably the most broken land in magic besides Tolarian Academy, and that land is Mishra’s workshop. The reason the deck is so good is because of this land. It taps for three colorless mana that can only be used for artifact spells, and the shops player's deck is usually entirely artifacts. It is not entirely uncommon for a shops player to go turn one lodestone golem into turn two sphere of resistance plus tangle wire. Mishras workshop is supplemented by ancient tomb, which taps for 2 colorless at the cost of 2 life.
The heart of the deck is its various lock pieces. The first type of lock pieces are what are known as sphere effects, which make spells cost i generic mana more. The most common sphere effects are sphere of resistance, thorn of amethyst, lodestone golem, and Trinisphere. All of these artifacts make spells cost more, but because the shops player has lands like ancient tomb and Mishra's Workshop, there is more than enough mana to still cast their spells. The next type of lock is the mana denial pieces, Phyrexian Revoker, wasteland, strip mine, and to an extent tangle wire. The Revoker will usually name moxen to shut off artifact mana, and wasteland plus strip mine will blow up the opponent's lands to further deny them mana. The last lock piece is chalice of the void. This card has recently been restricted due to its oppressive nature. Shops players would usually play it for 0 to deny the opponent any type of artifact mana.
The next set of cards is the creature package. Lodestone golem is the main creature in that it is both a sphere effect and a huge beater, it is not uncommon to be played on turn one. The next creature as stated earlier is Phyrexian Revoker, Again the Revoker will usually name moxen to shut down the opponent's artifact mana. The last creatures that are usually played are Hangerback Walker, Arcbound Ravager, and Triskelion. These three cards together have many interactions, The biggest one being that you can sac artifacts to the ravager, sacrifice ravager to itself, and put the counters on either hang back walker to make more tokens when it dies or on Triskelion to deal more damage. Ravager is more of an engine type creature in that it feeds into the walker and Triskelion. Hanger back walker is a hedge against all of the spot removal for artifacts and all of the board wipes making it unfavorable to kill hangar back walker. Triskelion is in the deck to help fight against the Young Pyromancer and monastery mentor decks.
The last cards in their deck are the artifact mana and equipment. The artifact manas job is to help accelerate the deck and deploy more threats early to lock the opponent out or overwhelm them. The equipment package is usually sword of fire and ice and sometimes Umezawa's Jitte. The sword gives shops players a draw engine and also helps against any of the creature based decks, and the protection from red and blue is very relevant against cards such as lightning bolt, ingot chewer, steel sabotage, and any other type of spot removal. Umezawa's jitte is in the deck also as a hedge against the creature decks and provides some versatility in the different abilities.
Strengths: the deck has good game against anything wanting to play spells, which is most of the field. Decks like storm and Gush decks have a hard time against this deck. Also the deck can be metagamed very well to beat certain decks.
Weakness: This deck is very linear in that everything in it is an artifact. Any deck that can side into more red cards is hard for the shops decks; Also Dack Fayden is a very hard card for shops to beat. Also shops don’t have a whole lot to board into against most blue decks because it is a colorless deck.
Conclusion: shops is also a good way to get into vintage, it is an expensive deck though. It does have a hard time against mentor decks, but it is a beatable match. The deck has some game against dredge game one and it has some good sideboard options against it.
That's it for this week, next week I’m going to go over the ritual based decks and the null rod decks, and then i will end on the mana drain pillar. There are many types of mana drain decks so i believe it deserves its own article.
Well thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed. Until next time, keep calm, and tap your lands.