I'm really excited to hear Kevin talk about his Solemnity deck in the next SMIP episode. Grats to @biggysmallz77 for the win. I'm always happy to see 2 Card Monte doing well.

Hey y'all. This is a very useful and helpful report. Are you still planning to publish the June version?

I am interested to see the number of anti-shops cards that the PO decks were running, and also to know whether or not the shops decks were running null rod. same for how many stonys the mentor decks were running.

I guess in the top 32 lists we have 2 null rods in the 1st and 11th place shops decks.

12th place mentor deck has 1 stony in the board, 20th place has 3(!) in the board, and 32nd has 1.

I'd say all of the top 32 PO decks are softer to shops than my list...

Thanks for the replies @ChubbyRain, @Brass-Man and @KingLeovold. Pre restriction, I would always play a 2 - 2 split of Flusterstorm and Pyroblast in Mentor decks but have found Flusterstorm to be less good since the restriction.

Last week I spent an evening trying out Scabs' Esper Mentor deck. His list played 3 Flusterstorm and I was interested to see how it would perform against Jeskai Mentor. We played for about 5 hours and it didn't go well for Esper. One of the things I missed most was Pyroblast, especially because my friend was playing 2 Jace, TMS which was often quite tough to deal with.

As Matt said, I have also found that Flusterstorm is quite strong in Thirst for Knowledge & Paradoxical Outcome decks.

Thanks again for your replies!

@PeAcH thank you!! I'm looking for something like these, not a fan of the card art ones that I've seen, i'll check them out!

I think outcome mentor will continue to succeed as lists become better and better, cutting bad cards like drain for more efficient ones. Props to Hoffman for his list, which is about as aggressive as you can possibly be, and providing one end of the spectrum for us to compare decks to. My list has shifted to be slightly more aggressive (3 mentors instead of 2) but still doesn't include the synod/thoughtcast package and includes more md bounce to deal with thorns, rods, and stonys.

Thanks diophan for the helpful response.

David's probably just exasperated that Fabian's playing an FTV Channel.

Love the Goyf-backed sleeves.

Mixed feelings about Tim finally learning how to beat Shops.

I love you guys. I love that the only deck that showed up in multiples was my deck, and I was not even there. Now I just need to patiently wait for the next TSI so I can get my medal back from @cutlex

Sounds like an amazing event. I haven't played much Type 1 since Neutral Ground closed, but I'm starting to get back into it online. By next year I'll hopefully be back on form and ready to come to NYSE VI. Looking forward to it!

@wappla Probably should unrestrict Ancestral Recall as well because it's only on the list because it's too efficient.

Of course 7 decks isn't a lot, but it seemed to be a pretty varied meta you got there, especially seeing Dragon winning matches must have been great.

@The-Atog-Lord said in Vintage Challenge - 6/10/2017:

@Smmenen said in Vintage Challenge - 6/10/2017:

Many, if not most, Vintage players play this format because it is the final place we get to play all of our cards.

Well, we get to play Gush. Or Mana Drain. But they were nearly mutually exclusive.

Which merely underscores the unjustified and unprincipled nature of these restrictions.

The foundational principle of the format is that players get to play with all of their Magic cards so far as can be reasonably accommodated. That doesn't mean you have a right to have any card be "good."

If Mana Drain wasn't playable because of Gush that doesn't justify restricting Gush. There are literally thousands of cards pushed out or marginalized by other cards in Eternal formats.

Arguing that the restriction of Gush is a "good thing" because it makes Mana Drain better is not only unjustifiable, but it is reminiscent of the darkest days of the format, where Keeper pilots or even Brian Weissman had a heavy hand in B&R policy.

It's completely illegitimate, factional, and unprincipled.

Mana Drain does not have a right to be good in this format. A right to play it, sure. But manipulating the B&R list to make Mana Drain good is completely unjustifiable.

Look for our next tournament, tentatively scheduled for August 12!!!!

@HouseOfCards I think combo was shut down hard by chalice which is part of the reason it went away. But instead of combo coming back, blue decks just started packing MD flusterstorm, mindbreak trap, etc to shut it down harder. More decks running MD null rod doesn't help either.

I love playing shops and I sort of like the blue meta because it allowed me to tinker with the right lock pieces for an expected meta. I don't think shops should ever be the "majority" because at its core, it's vintage's hatebear/prison deck.

It's similar IMO to how DnT always has game against the different delver variants in legacy, but will never be the most popular deck simply because the cards are individually shit and require a specific meta to shine. If everyone in vintage started playing 20 lands (or something else that makes a taxing effect less power i.e. landstill), shops would stop being as good.

I think we're only as good as the greedy blue meta is.

Cheers for running this, Sam! Always a pleasure coming up for Vintage.

I'm not sure which Austinite had more fun: me for getting to Null Rod people, or Bunk for eating about fifteen pizza crusts.

Which is to say that I don't think the DCI decision is going to be able to evaluated for a very, very long time.

Look at the Lodestone Golem restriction. There are many who felt that it was not warranted by the data. There are those who think it needed to happen.

Many who favored the Lodestone restriction pointed to the development of the Eldrazi deck as proof that it was good for the metagame. They pointed to the flourishing of blue decks and commented that shops had been weakened but was still good.

Six months later there were grumblings that the rise of a third form of prison deck was starting to make events less fun. Monastery mentor driven by a gush engine coalesced into a very powerful deck, and some felt it was perhaps broken. Many bemoaned the "oh look, another mentor mirror match" feel.

Some of the same people that said Lodestone golem needed to go for the sake of the metagame and felt that the DCI was absolutely "justified" in its decision to do so were also saying the the vintage metagame was in shambles and had grown stale.

Magic players love to complain.

I don't know if restricting gush and probe were good.
I think it is too early to tell.

I don't know if restricting Lodestone Golem was good.
The metagame that occurred afterward (in which many people felt something was off/unenjoyable) suggests it was probably hasty.

All I know is I dislike seeing cards restricted because it takes years for them to get unrestricted if it happens.

And I 'd rather see a metagame have time to work itself out rather than needing "course correction."

His deck was the only one I did not want in the top8 playing DPS.
Also Squee Tech was amazing.

It's amazing how different the online metagame than in paper. There were 0 Eldrazi lists in the latest Vintage Challenge and in this tourney it was the most represented deck; winning it all too.

I guess White Eldrazi has made a huge shift in the amount of wastelands in the 75. Just 1.

Apologies for the lack of vault key tags. The tags weren't filled in until I made quick guesses as to the correct tags. An oversight on my part for sure on the thieves lists, but note that it there's a lot of variability in decklists.

I appreciate everyone pointing out the mistags and I'll recheck through the posted decklists as soon as I can stop using a cell phone for internet later this week.