The current state of Vintage
If you are a Vintage player you should know by now that the Catalan Vintage League, aka LCV, is probably the biggest Vintage league in the world. During the past 5 years, the LCV has done nothing but grow. This is a thing that we’ve been really proud of, as we’ve proven how solid a community can be year after year. We’ve never allowed the use of proxies and that has never turned against us.
Last Saturday the folks who organized the LCV6 March Tournament in Igualada made an excellent effort to organize one of the nicest tournaments I’ve been around lately. Excellent prizes, good place to play, legacy side event, good menu for lunch and more. All their efforts were rewarded with the pretty low participation of 52 players.
We were used to have 70 to 90 players per tournament during the past years, but 52 seems to be the best we can do so far this year.
So, why is the participation at Vintage tournaments dropping?
The answer to that question is actually one of the hot topics being discussed in many forums. I’m not the one that has the exact answer and solution to the problem, but I do have my own opinion and I believe some things need to change as soon as possible.
First of all, I believe that the format sucks. Why is that? Well, no matter where you looked last Saturday that all you would be able to contemplate was Fish, MUD, Tezzeret & Confidants. (Of course there were few rogue decks and few Oath & Dredge players around).
Fish is too fast and too powerful. The “Selkie” deck has great elements of disruption while being able to put you a decent clock thanks to the new Exalted mechanic. The release of cards like Spell Pierce has improved their strategy to slow you down combined with others like Daze, Null Rod or Wasteland.
MUD is overpowered thanks to Lodestone Golem. You can’t stop a first turn Golem unless you have Force of Will. Sure you can pack your main deck with cards like Ancient Grudge, Hurkyl’s Recall, Lightning Bolt or Ingot Chewer, but none will actually save your ass efficiently against Lodestone Golem. If you actually manage to survive the 1st turn Golem, then get ready for what’s coming after it.
Saturday, Joe Gallego won the tournament with MUD.
Then we find Time Vault/Voltaic Key/Tezzeret the Seeker as the 3rd contender to the throne. This archetype can’t compete with the previously mentioned ones unless they get good hands. Control decks can’t really control the games anymore. The amount of restricted spells combined with the lack of drawing abilities to find answers makes it really hard for players to rely on this strategy. I’m not saying that Tezzeret decks aren’t good, all I’m saying is that you need lots of good hands in order to succeed in a tournament like the LCV. Mana Drain isn’t what it used to be. There are games that you’d probably win if you reach the second turn. Problem is that, nowadays, being able to cast a turn 2 Mana Drain is almost impossible.
When asking around to other players what’s their opinion about Vintage now, they all agree that Vintage sucks and that it needs a wash. I do agree that we need something fixed to make Vintage funny to play again. We are losing players that are actually bored of this format and prefer to play Legacy.
The obvious call is to review the banned and restricted list.
If the rumors are right and they print this:
Eldrazi´s Temple
Land
Tap: Add one coloress to your mana pool.
Tap: Add two coloress to your mana pool. Use this mana only to cast coloress spells.
With that card printed MUD needs something restricted. The cards that come to my mind that could be restricted are:
Restricting Mishra’s Workshop wouldn’t be such a problem as they’d replace those 3 slots probably with the new land. Still, there should be a cut on the amount of x2 x3 mana producers if you don’t want to have consistently first turn menaces landing the board.
Restricting Wasteland would allow the control/combo players to be able to consistently get the third producer and cast answers to golems/spheres (Hurkyl’s Recall or Ancient Grudge). By restricting Wasteland, we also reduce the power of Fish.
Restricting Null Rod alone would mostly hurt fish and allow control/combo players to fight against them in better conditions.
What else should be done? Well, we can’t just simply make MUD and fish worse when we have a 2 card colorless combo that wins for four mana. So…
Banning Time Vault in Vintage is safe if the previously mentioned restrictions take place. Without 4 Null Rod, 4 Wasteland and 4 Mishra’s Workshop I believe the right call would be to ban Time Vault. We need to slow down the format by not abusing the stupidly good cards.
We saw Brainstorm, Gush, Ponder, Merchant Scroll and Flash being restricted all at the same time. That made a HUGE change to the format. We adapted and we learned how to play under the new circumstances. I believe now is the right time for another big change if we want Vintage to be more appealing to the players, specially the ones coming from Legacy, that will probably try Vintage some day.
This Friday the new Banned and Restricted list should be announced and I hope something changes, else we shouldn’t expect nothing but the fall of Vintage. Which makes me sad.
(I know, I know! The poster rocks!)
Loading ...On the other hand, I think the problem isn’t just about restricting or banning some cards. I believe Wizards of the Coast should actually do something bigger in favor of Vintage. I’m not asking for a Vintage GP (although that would actually rock and gather more players than some standard GP’s…), but they should find the way to organize the Vintage tournaments around the world on a similar level than other formats. If Standard gets PTQ’s, GP’s, PT’s, etc…, Extended gets PTQ’s, GP’s, etc…, Legacy gets GPT’s & GP’s, why Vintage get no official tournaments?
Of course it’s hard to have Vintage as a competitive format, but I’m not asking for that exactly. I’m asking for a better organization of the Vintage events. C’mon! They’ve got great minds working at WotC, and I’m sure they could come up with something! We’ll have to wait few days and see what happens…
Regarding my performance at the tournament, I did pretty bad even though I had a deck prepared to beat MUD and Fish. My pairings went like this:
Round 1: 0-2 VS David Carbó playing BWG Fish
Round 2: 0-2 VS Ramón Romero playing Faeries Fish
Round 3: 2-0 VS Juan Espinosa playing Noble Fish
Round 4: 2-0 VS Leticia Sevilla playing BG Dark Depths
Round 5: 1-1 VS Lluís Perea playing UB Tezzeret (featuring Thada Adel, Acquisitor on SB…)
Round 6: 0-2 VS Arnau Rovira playing Dark Tezzeret (Got killed G1 on first turn with FoW back up, and G2 second turn…)
The Top8 players and decks were:
- Tomas Winand (Iona Oath) vs Àlex Delgado (Dark Remora)
- Joe Gallego (MUD) vs Narcís Mir (URB Tezzeret)
- Rubén González (Dark Remora) vs Omar Nieto (Wizards Fish)
- Angel Gorriana (Tezzeret) vs unknown player (Dredge)
I don’t know how the semifinals went, but I can tell you that Joe Gallego won the tournament. So congratz to him!
The problem is that this:
Eldrazi´s Temple
Land
Tap: Add one coloress to your mana pool.
Tap: Add two coloress to your mana pool. Use this mana only to cast coloress spells.
won’t see print…. While this:
Eldrazi´s Temple
Land
Tap: Add one coloress to your mana pool.
Tap: Add two coloress to your mana pool. Use this mana only to cast coloress ELDRAZI spells.
might see print, and sucks.
Both are rumored, so it has the same chances to be either one or the other.
Still, the printing or not of that land makes absolute no difference to the point of the article.
4 control decks made top 8 -that’s not a bad performance :p Only one fish (and not a common fish, Detion is quite original with his choices, so people can’t expect his plays most of the time), one oath, one mud and one ichorid.
I know control is the most flavoured vintage deck, since it features most of the restricted and broken cards in Magic, but half the top shows that there shouldn’t be restrictions to weak other archetypes. Null rod would be a great loss, as wasteland. The most powered card in that deck is the common one, qasali, since it beats, pumps other creatures and strips artifacts/enchantments as an instant for few mana. Too hard for me :p
And now Lodestone is like a qasali but bigger and maybe more annoying. A T1 Lodestone is often gg, so restriction can be a real possibility next update of BR List (not now, too early). Mud can be a top performer, but it is “easy” to counter with a good SB, as Ichorid. The problem is that Mud, as Ichorid, requires specific SB in order to be really effective, but there is still no trouble: 1 deck of 8 is not a great deal, even if it manages to win the tournament.
BTW, I’m with chapuzas, the land will only give 2 colorless mana for eldrazzi spells
I think Vintage is fine. Fish isn’t too fast, just not enough people are playing Oath where you’re at. Oath can abuse a Fish infested metagame, and that’s what keeps Fish numbers low in the USA.
I wouldn’t mind if Time Vault’s wording was changed again, but I definitely don’t want any more cards added to the Restricted List. That’s a big no-no.
Jason, the Vintage played in USA differs a lot to the Vintage we play in here, and the reason behind that is quite simple: Proxies.
These are the numbers provided by Roger Riera for the February tournament:
* Decks and average points by archetype:
20 Drain decks (39,2% of metagame, 5/8 at Top
— 5 Tezzeret Control: 11,6; F
— 3 TurboTezz: 16,7; C,T4
— 2 Remora Tendrils: 19; T4,T8
— 2 Almost Blue: 10,5
— 2 Remora Tezzeret: 9
— 1 Mono Blue Tezzeret: 9
— 1 Tezzeret Control transformer: 9
— 1 Intuitive: 7
— 1 Control Confidant: 6
— 1 Tezzeret Tendrils: 6
— 1 Drain Tendrils: 3
13 Null Rod decks (25,5% of metagame, 1/8 at Top
— 4 U/W/G Fish: 11,8; T8
— 3 U/W Fish: 8,3
— 3 Merfolks: 6,7
— 1 Oath: 9
— 1 Hexmage Depths: 4
— 1 B/G Control: 0
6 Workshop decks (11,8% of metagame, 1/8 at Top
— 2 Aggro MUD: 9
— 2 MUD: 9
— 1 U/R Stacks: 16; T8
— 1 Black Vised MUD: 12
6 other archetypes (11,8% of metagame)
— 3 Oath: 7,3
— 1 B/U/G Fish: 9
— 1 Wizards: 9
— 1 R/B/w Goblins: 6
4 Ritual decks (7,8% of metagame, 1/8 at Top
— 3 The Perfect Storm: 10,3; T8
— 1 ANT: 12
2 Ichorid decks (3,9% of metagame)
— 1 Manaless Ichorid: 8
— 1 Mana Ichorid: 3
Null Rod + Workshop VS Mana Drain are equal in numbers, the difference is that Mana Drain decks have lot more restricted cards than those other two archetypes.
This chart shows something interesting, the evolution of the archetypes from January (inside ring) and February (outer ring):
I’m actually waiting to see how it looks the March vs February chart.
I totally disagree with you, Pizzero. restricting those 3 staples in vintage would make combo and control run rampant, so no other archetype would shadow them.
On the other hand, banning Time Vault would make totally sense, since nowadays you can only choose to play the dumb combo (el tonto-combo) or a deck constructed to beat (if lucky) that stupid two card interaction.
Your wishes in Legacy (banning Tarmo) and Vintage (restricting Workshop, Null Rod, and Waste) come because of the decks you tend to play. Me, on the other hand loves to play those cards, and my wishes are that WotC BANN Time Vault.
Anyway, Noble fish can’t almost handle a Sphinx, since you need to maindeck swords against a CONTROL deck, a card that should be sided out against this archetype.
My 2 cents
You can’t just ban Time Vault and do nothing else. If you do that, then the format will be even worse as control will have absolutely no chances to defeat Shops & Fish.
Combo will, obviously, rise if the mentioned restriction ever take place. But you know how to combat Combo decks, right? Where’s combo now?
I agree that the article is influenced by what I play and my lack of success (although I don’t whine about it. I don’t win simply because I don’t play enough), but what truly made me write this article was what I could see at the tables.
All I’m saying is that Vintage needs a BIG change if we don’t want it to die. MUD decks are unfun to play against. First turn Golem is almost GG, the same way it was a first turn Trinisphere some years ago.
When a format becomes unfun, people tend to stop playing it. The printing of cards like Thorn of Amethyst or Lodestone Golem, added to Sphere of resistance, Trinisphere, Wasteland, Null Rod, etc… make the games truly boring and very hard to play. The same goes for restrictions/unrestrictions and re-erratas of certain cards. If you allow some cards with power level erratas to work as they were intended, then the format can also become boring and unfun (example: Time Vault).
Remember that the goal behind playing Vintage (and Magic) is to have fun. Personally, I don’t have fun with the current metagame.
Before Lodestone arrival vintage was an equilibrated format, taking in consideration the slightly metagame coverage of drain-based decks with classical blue-black platform (Drains+Fow+Library+Tolarian+Ancestral+TimeWalk+FoF+Tutors+Moxes+BL+Draw engine) splashed with green (Aggro-Tarmo) black (Drain-Tendrils/Tezz-Vault) and/or Red/white (silver bullets). I think that in this landscape templates like Oath, Dredge, MUD/Stax and Fish were highly competitive through Vault-directed sideboarding/regular engines (Pithing, Spheres, Tangles, Rods, etc). It’s true that Vault rising was so disturbing at the first time, however you’ll agree that last versions of Tezz (Turbo-Tezz or Steel City Vault even planeswalker-less) had several troubles to easily win against Fish or Stax.
Taking my first appointment… yes! the problem is not Vault, or Wastelands, Rods. The problem is Lodestone descompensation. Do you imagine a new demonic-like tutor for Combo?. Do you imagine a new dredge-10 card for Ichorid? No, because metagame would directly crash. Yes! This is what is happening now!. The solution is so easy.
- Lodestone restriction
- Permission of ponder and/or brainstorm
- Permission of ToK (this will let the re-entering of Bomberman and Slaver, just new old friends)
Pizzero I completely disagree with you. I cannot understand like a combo man like you is thinking to ban Vault (combo will be only Drain Tendrils and Remora Trap decks? OH MY GOD!). The solution is easier to trash vintage format looking at Wasteland, Rod or Vault restriction. Concretely, the restriction would increase the number of sigle-”powa” cards. What is our achievement? A random format? No`, please
Regards,
Zero
I understand the difference between US and Europe, but based on your statistics that doesn’t seem to have much limiting factor on what decks people choose to play. 4 people played Oath and 19 players chose either Fish or Workshop strategies. Oath is the natural predator to those strategies, and that’s what you should be playing. It’s not like Oath is more expensive than the 13 Tezzeret decks that were played.
Lodestone Golem is very good, but it’s not unbeatable. Play better cards against Workshop decks.
great article friend,but I cannot agree,with you
Just in my opinion,actually the game is quite balanced…..
artifact yeah has the new golem,but is simple to play with against-artifact cards….the real big deck nowadays is fish….spell pierce really rocks,and null rod too
but fish has not a good drawn-engine,that is relly important in vintage so….the game is still open
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