The Vintage Magic the Gathering format has entered the online realm officially, finally. It’s been interesting, writing as a longtime cardboard Vintage player, to see some of the metagame developments that have come out of it. Most of the decks will be familiar to players who have been around the format, though there are inevitably some rogue creations coming in as new players bring fresh eyes to the format.

[card]Mishra’s Workshop[/card] decks (especially Kuldotha Forgemaster-based lists) have been a dominant presence, as have aggro-control lists like the following Deathblade deck and various [card]Delver of Secrets[/card] builds. This could be because Workshops are powerful and relatively straightforward for players new to the format, and the aggro control builds are comfortably similar to those found in Legacy. Workshops also have an advantage against players who are new to the format since they’re so difficult to play against.

Combo has also been popular, both in the expected Storm forms that count to ten and finish with [card]Tendrils of Agony[/card] and in newer forms like the BUG deck that assembles [card]Thespian’s Stage[/card] and [card]Dark Depths[/card] (maybe copying [card]Library of Alexandria[/card] en route).

Beyond that, the online Vintage metagame has resembled the offline one. In fact, with some allowances made for the availability of the Power Nine and some other Vintage staples ([card]Wasteland[/card] and [card]Hurkyl’s Recall[/card], for example), the online metagame can be seen as a mixture of the sanctioned offline environment and a proxy offline environment. It’s the best of both worlds, with all the variability that individual events and players bring on any given day.

Thus we can look at the results of the first MTGO Vintage Premier Event, held July 13. This event fired with the full complement of 64 players in the following breakdown (thanks to user MasamuneK on The Mana Drain for the breakdown):

MUD, that being the format’s term for Workshop control, was strangely absent, but the rest of the format was present. Dredge is normally about 10% as expected, and the largest part of the pie is made up of blue-based control, aggro-control, and combo decks. Blue decks are regularly 50% of a typical Vintage tournament, which is expected when that’s the color that lets you run [card]Ancestral Recall[/card], [card]Time Walk[/card], and [card]Force of Will[/card]. Drawing cards and countering stuff has been, is, and will continue to be good in all formats.

The important thing is that those blue decks represented several different strategies and archetypes. [card]Oath of Druids[/card], [card]Dark Depths[/card], [card]Tarmogoyf[/card], [card]Goblin Welder[/card], Gush, [card]Restoration Angel[/card]s, and [card]Standstill[/card] all make for some very different-feeling blue decks that span a range from combo to heavy control. The format is healthy and exciting, with plenty of opportunity both online and off.

For this Decksmashing article, I thought it might be useful to look at the two finalists from the Premiere Event: Deathblade, played by jsiri84 into first place, and [card]Night’s Whisper[/card] Slaver, played by returning Vintage legend Ben Kowal.

[deck title=Deathblade – jsiri84]

[Mana]

1 Black Lotus

1 Mox Emerald

1 Mox Jet

1 Mox Pearl

1 Mox Sapphire

1 Sol Ring

1 Bayou

2 Flooded Strand

1 Island

1 Plains

3 Polluted Delta

1 Strip Mine

1 Swamp

1 Tropical Island

2 Tundra

3 Underground sea

1 Wasteland

[/Mana]

[Creatures]

4 Deathrite Shaman

2 Stoneforge Mystic

2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Dark Confidant

2 Trygon Predator

[/Creatures]

[Other Spells]

3 Sword to Plowshares

2 Mental Misstep

1 Ancestral Recall

1 Brainstorm

1 Flusterstorm

2 Spell Pierce

1 Steel Sabotage

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Hurkyl’s Recall

1 Time Walk

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Sword of Fire and Ice

2 Jace the Mind Sculptor

4 Force of Will

1 Batterskull

[/Other Spells]

[Sideboard]

1 Path to Exile

1 Swords to Plowshares

1 Flusterstorm

3 Thoughtseize

2 Grafdigger’s Cage

3 Rest in Peace

1 Hurkyl’s Recall

1 Umezawa’s Jitte

2 Energy Flux

[/Sideboard]

[/deck]

Many players will be familiar with Deathblade archetype and strategy from similar Legacy lists. Ideally it plays an aggro-control role, with turn one [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] or [card]Dark Confidant[/card] (played off a Mox) and continues from there. It can counter its opponent’s best plays, tutor for matchup specific cards, and can end the game quickly with [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] into [card]Batterskull[/card]. A deck like this might play more copies of [card]Wasteland[/card], if the player has them available.

This deck has a few interesting choices, clearly reflecting the current Vintage metagame online and off. Four-color decks like this one are often weak against Workshops and other decks with [card]Wasteland[/card]s since it’s possible to keep them off a color entirely, no matter how carefully they apply their fetchlands. This deck, however, has three basic lands in addition to its [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]s-strong mana to play through denial.

Maindeck [card]Swords to Plowshares[/card] (as well as the additional copy and [card]Path to Exile[/card] in the sideboard) is also a great choice right now. Not only is it helpful for clearing a path for [card]Batterskull[/card] and friends against the format’s recent influx of creatures, but it also relieves some of the deck’s counterspells from having to bear the load against Tinker. Sending [card]Blightsteel Colossus[/card] farming is a nice, efficient answer, even if it means going back a few turns of attacks.

Still, as an aggro-control deck, you want to use your counterspells judiciously to keep yourself alive and provide time to establish card superiority through [card]Dark Confidant[/card] or Jace. In some cases you might have a faster game, opening with [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] and attacking as quickly as possible, but the deck isn’t built for that. [card]Batterskull[/card] is a tool, but you want to have enough support.

All in all, a little bit of game against everything. The best way to beat this deck would be some early broken plays like [card]Tinker[/card] or [card]Oath of Druids[/card] before it can establish itself. A dedicated Workshop mana-denial plan could be tough to fight through, especially if [card]Chalice of the Void[/card] with one counter is involved. And Landstill and other long-game control decks might potentially be able to run this deck out of threats, especially with recurring or mass removal.

[deck title=Night’s Whisper Control Slaver – Ben Kowal]

[Mana]

1 Black Lotus

1 Sol Ring

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mana Vault

1 Mox Sapphire

1 Mox Jet

1 Mox Ruby

1 Mox Emerald

1 Mox Pearl

1 Library of Alexandria

1 Tolarian Academy

1 Strip Mine

4 Scalding Tarn

1 Misty Rainforest

3 Underground Sea

2 Volcanic Island

1 Island

[/Mana]

[Creatures]

2 Goblin Welder

2 Dack Fayden

2 Baleful Strix

1 Mindslaver

1 Myr Battlesphere

[/Creatures]

[Other Spells]

4 Force of Will

3 Mana Drain

2 Duress

1 Mental Misstep

1 Spell Pierce

4 Night’s Whisper

1 Yawgmoth’s Will

1 Ancestral Recall

1 Thirst for Knowledge

1 Time Walk

1 Tinker

1 Mystical Tutor

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Fact or Fiction

1 Gifts Ungiven

1 Merchant Scroll

1 Brainstorm

1 Ponder

1 Fire // Ice

[/Other Spells]

[Sideboard]

1 Flusterstorm

1 Darkblast

1 Mountain

2 Yixlid Jailer

2 Massacre

2 Red Elemental Blast

3 Ingot Chewer

3 Grafdigger’s Cage

[/Sideboard]

[/deck]

Ben Kowal (not to be confused with pro-player Brian Kowal) was a longtime Vintage player and multiple SCG Power 9 top-eighter. He disappeared for a few years but returned with the release of Power on MTGO. (Several players have made similar comebacks.)

The deck, Control Slaver, also took a break (mostly after [card]Thirst for Knowledge[/card] and [card]Brainstorm[/card] were restricted) and is making a resurgence with the printing of cards like Dack Fayden and [card]Baleful Strix[/card]. Slaver began its first phase of popularity and dominance around 2005, played by the likes of Brian DeMars and Rich Shay. Its hallmarks in most most iterations include [card]Goblin Welder[/card], [card]Mana Drain[/card], and using those cards to facilitate getting powerful artifacts into play. Usually these artifacts mean one or two big robots, sometimes [card]Crucible of Worlds[/card] to go with [card]Strip Mine[/card], and the eponymous [card]Mindslaver[/card].

In recent years, some players argued against [card]Mindslaver[/card] itself, saying it was too big and expensive, but it continues to put up results since it’s a good answer to control and combo decks despite its apparent clunkiness. It’s usable in so many situations since there are so many effective ways to squander an opponent’s resources with just one activation. At the very least it’s a [card]Time Walk[/card]. More if you can recur it with Welder.

Similar to the Deathblade deck, Slaver is going to produce good numbers against most opponents. It can put together a quick win by Tinkering or Welding in [card]Myr Battlesphere[/card] or it can win the long game with counters and [card]Baleful Strix[/card] attacks. Welder, Strix, and Dack Fayden also provide several good answers to [card]Mishra’s Workshop[/card] decks. Usually Slaver will play control just long enough to establish a big threat of its own and then win with restricted cards, usually on turn four or five.

The interesting thing about this list in particular is the addition of the four [card]Night’s Whisper[/card]s. As I mentioned, previous incarnations of Slaver were crippled when [card]Thirst for Knowledge[/card] and [card]Brainstorm[/card] were restricted because the control deck needed a reliable early-game draw spell to reload. Kowal is somewhat known for his affection for [card]Night’s Whisper[/card] and saw the opportunity for the spell to succeed in this role.

It’s a little odd for a [card]Mana Drain[/card] deck in Vintage to use the sorcery-speed [card]Night’s Whisper[/card] as a draw engine, but it has its merits. It draws two cards immediately and can be cast off a land a Mox on turn one. Dropping one of the Drains and adding Duress in its place also allows the deck to interact sooner, proactively, and during its own mainphase. Duress is also more flexible, better able to help important spells resolve at the right time rather than having to bait counters.

In the end, Deathblade won out over Control Slaver. [card]Dark Confidant[/card] would have been a factor in games that went long since it could draw more cards than [card]Night’s Whisper[/card], and more of its cards attack for damage without relying on synergy. Control Slaver still runs more objectively powerful cards, though, so the match really could have gone either way.

These decks are typical of Vintage: powerful, efficient plays in a shell that’s able to switch from the control to beatdown role quickly and decisively. Topdecking a [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] or refilling one’s hand with [card]Night’s Whisper[/card] could change the tone of a game in a hurry, not to mention the possibilities from any of the restricted cards in either deck.

Regardless, the format has gotten a bump of popularity thanks to the release of Power and other cards online. If you’re interested in getting into Vintage, feel free to proxy decks to test against friends. You might even be able to play them in a nearby proxy tournament. Visit www.themanadrain.com for tournament information as well as other Vintage resources.

Thanks for reading!

Nat Moes

@GrandpaBelcher