The
excitement of Eternal Weekend 2013 along with the Bazaar of Moxen 8 (BoM8)
event has come to a conclusion, this allows us to examine the winning decks
from both of these events and to learn what kind of evolutionary route Vintage
has taken. First, let us take a look at the winning deck from Eternal Weekend
2013:
Merfolk By Joel Lim
Merfolk By Joel Lim
24
Creatures
13
Instants and Sorceries
2
Daze
5 Other Spells
3
Null
Rod
18
Lands
9
Island
Sideboard
|
Merfolk
is one of the most powerful tribal decks in Magic, it has both the speed of an
Aggro deck and the versatility of a Control deck.
A few
key cards that were printed in the recent sets made Merfolk a strong enough
deck to compete in the Vintage tournaments. For instance, Master
of the Pearl Trident, is a functional reprint of Lord
of Atlantis that provides several benefits. Master
of the Pearl Trident boosts the power level of all Merfolk while at the
same time granting Island Walk. a very important ability for creatures to have
in Vintage match ups. Phantasmal
Image further improves the consistency by creating a powerful army that has
the ability to make a copy of any creature on the battle field, including the
commonly used Blight
Steel Colossus.
In
addition to new creatures, Cavern
of Souls a land card printed in Avacyn Restored plays a key role in this
deck. About 90% of the decks in Vintage run some form of counter spells; the
ability to allow your creature to be un-counterable is priceless. Although Aether
Vial also allows creatures to bypass the counter spells; Pithing
Needle, Null
Rod, Steel
Sabotage and many other spells can severely hinder the performance of Aether
Vial. In comparison, Cavern
of Souls is a lot more versatile as it cannot be countered and also
has fewer weaknesses than Aether
Vial.
Overall,
we will be seeing more Merfolk decks in future Vintage events due to their aggressiveness
and versatility against Control decks.
Now let us take a look at the deck that won the BoM8 Vintage Championship:
BUG Midrange By Michael Bonde16
Creatures
7
Other Spells
3
Null
Rod
1
Mox
Jet
18 Lands
1 Bayou
15 Sideboard
| |
This BUG Midrange deck consists
of many utility spells that can be used to deal with many difficult
situations in the match up. Deathrite
Shaman is a multipurpose creature that provides mana advantage and
strategically removes cards from your opponent's graveyard; this makes cards
like
Yawgmoth's
Will and Crucible
of Worlds much less effective. In a way Deathrite
Shaman is like a mini-Planeswalker for one mana. Another recently printed card, Abrupt
Decay, is an un-counterable spell that can destroy many powerful cards in
Vintage, especially Chalice
of the Void.
With all the powerful utility
instants and sorceries packed in this deck, Snapcaster
Mage allows you to replay them and at the same time serves as a 2/1
body on the field. This BUG Midrange deck has the potential to counter all
"Pillar" strategies that are commonly seen in the Vintage metagame,
making it a tough deck to play against.
In conclusion as we have seen
in both of the Vintage events, creature based decks in Vintage are not only
on the rise they are actually performing extremely well. This may be a
driving force to cause existing Vintage archetypes to evolve further in order
to combat these creature based decks. I would not be surprised to see the
newly released Toxic
Deluge from Commander 2013 sets used in some of the
Vintage control decks. Toxic
Deluge is cheap spell that is able to remove both low and high toughness
creatures from the battlefield giving control decks a chance to catch a
breath against the aggressive new deck types.
As I have
mentioned before, Vintage is currently an extremely exhilarating format filled
with many different varieties of decks. I highly recommend players that
have not tried Vintage to proxy up a deck and feel the excitement of a
Vintage match.
Until next time, enjoy some Vintage Magic
|
No comments:
Post a Comment