I think you're asking a lot of questions at once, so it might help to follow up and clarify exactly what you're looking for, but I'll try to throw some thoughts out.

For starters I'm obligated to reject the premise that vintage is in bad shape or dying at the moment ... but that doesn't mean that specific metagames aren't shrinking, and I'll take your post at face value and assume that it's getting less popular in your area

Are you trying to maintain the value of your collection?

"the rest of the cards I run should be as applicable as possible in Modern to avoid sudden collapse.

If you're talking about long-term #mtgfinance I think you have things completely backwards. Vintage cards don't really collapse in the same way Modern cards do. If you want to hedge against collapses, you'd try to AVOID cards that are in Modern, not buy into them.

Some Modern staples that come to mind as currently playable Vintage cards are Vengevine and Mox Opal. The risk of Mox Opal dropping is so much higher than the risk of Tundra dropping. The only cards in my collection that have ever gone down in price a year or longer after I bought them are cards that were popular in Standard or Modern.

If you fear that declining Vintage play will result in staples like Force of Will getting cheaper, you can stop worrying. Vintage has never been a real driver of card prices, and hasn't been since at least when I entered the format in 2002. Dealers, speculators, collectors, Commander players, Modern players and Legacy players have so much impact on these card prices that the tiny pool of vintage players never makes waves.

If you're really trying to protect yourself from sudden collapse, investing in Modern staples seems like one of the worst ways to do it, and reserved list cards one of the better ones ... though if I'm being totally honest, the real advice I'd give would be to play proxy vintage and keep your money in something safer than cardboard altogether.

Are you looking for strategies that are good in Vintage now and will be good in Vintage years from now?

That's not so hard, and there are lots of non-finance reasons to be interested in that question, too .... Shops, Grixis Big Blue, Dredge, Storm combo have all been around in some form or another for maybe 10+ years, these are all fairly safe investments from a "time spent learning to play" perspective, though I don't think you're asking about that.

Are you looking for decks that are cheap to get into if you already have a Modern collection?

Totally reasonable question, especially if you're trying to get non-Vintage Modern players into the format. I know very little about the Modern metagame, but I took a quick glance at MtGGoldfish.

Humans as you mentioned is very similar to decks that Vintage players have been running for years. I don't personally like Vintage humans, but it's certainly an established deck, and you could 15 proxy it from a Modern list with no real issues

Dredge in Modern is more than 15 cards away from a Vintage Dredge deck, but the cards its missing are quite cheap. A Modern Dredge player could absolutely buy into the Vintage version easily.

Hardened Scales has a ton of overlap with Vintage Ravager Shops, though buying into it, even with 15 proxies, might require some cards in the $30 price range like Wasteland.

Azorius Control is strategically very similar to a U/W Vintage Big Blue deck, or a slow version of Jeskai Mentor, a Modern Azorius Control player would be comfortable playing the deck, but they may not share enough cards for them to quickly build it.

And while I didn't explicitly see these decks listed as Modern decks, I'm willing to be there's a reasonable Modern deck that's close to U/R Delver, and a reasonable Modern deck that's close to BUG/Leovold Control.

Specific cards that jump out to me as played in both Modern and Vintage include:
All fetchlands, especially blue ones.
All cards with Dredge
Lightning Bolt / Path to Exile / Dismember
Thoughtseize
Noble Hierarch
Cavern of Souls
Walking Ballista / Wurmcoil Engine / Arcbound Ravager / Steel Overseer
Snapcaster Mage
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Mox Opal
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria / Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Bloodghast / Narcomoeba / Prized Amalgam / Gurmag Angler

Late notice but the Team Serious Invitational coverage is going live NOW! We have drinks, we have pretty cards, we have brews, you won't want to miss it!

www.twitch.tv/tmdbrassman

@revengeanceful Yeah, I know there's a whole history of Genesis Chamber Vintage decks that were around years before I picked up the deck in 2016. I felt bad that I didn't remember the people and cards involved, so thanks for the link

Click here to see the full blog post

Alright, I don't think we've gotten out of hand yet but let's step back for a second before things escalate.

First off:

@Rat3dE said:
if I knew how I would report you.

If you need to in the future, while you're logged in there's a little "three vertical dots" icon on the lower left of each post, and that opens a dropdown menu with a "Flag this post for Moderation" message. Certainly feel free to use this any time, whether there's a serious problem, or even if things are just getting mildly heated, like they are here. If there's something that needs my immediate attention, you'll probably get a faster response from me via Twitter (@TheManaDrain or @tmdBrassMan).

Moderator hat off and vintage player hat on:
I don't think anyone would disagree that there are both strong parallels and key differences between Mind's Desire and Paradoxical Outcome. There's enough gray area there that there's some room for argument on both sides, but it might help if those arguments are more clearly spelled out (which similarities or differences cause you to come to the conclusion you've come to?).

I think it might be good to remember that two cards being similar hasn't always historically been a reason (WotC has used) to restrict something. While Windfall seems to be on the list because of it's association with Wheel of Fortune, you have the case of Ponder vs Preordain and Sphere of Resistance vs Thorn of Amethyst, both of which seem to be examples of "2 of this card is too few and 8 of this card is too many.

Pragmatically speaking, "will WotC restrict a card" and "why did WotC make a particular restriction decsion about this card" and "should this restriction decision about this card have been made" are qualitatively different questions. New cards don't get restricted unless they cause problems, similarity to existing cards on the list has just never been a catalyst for restriction, just a post-rationalization made after a format imbalance has already appeared.

Rational objective neutral hat off entirely: (I feel like I need to post in different colors or fonts or something)

Mind's Desire feels like a dangerous unrestriction to me, even if I agree that there are many ways in which Paradoxical Outcome is a better card. Desire is interesting in that it's never been unrestricted in Vintage. I think it's the only card for which that's true (correct me if I'm mistaken please) ... we've never seen a Vintage with 4 Desires. It's very possibly harmless, but it feels like a high risk/low reward move to me. Of course as always, that depends on what you want out of the format, which there is no consensus on.

Saw a 2-minute clip of this, it was a blast watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt talk about Magic with the exact enthusiasm and mannerisms/language I've seen from Magic players for my whole life. Thanks for the link to the whole video.

Absolutely. It's not a staple of the deck, but people occasionally use the card in just the way you described.

Maybe a more experienced shops player could elaborate on which matchups it works best in / what cards it works best with

stunning. gorgeous. I would love to play with or against these.

Price of Progress in a Delver deck isn't completely unheard of, but it's definitely not a staple.

I suspect that the damage numbers just don't end up being too impressive, because the games can be compressed and a lot of manabases have artifacts in them. For every game against workshops where they double-Ancient Tomb themselves and Price just wrecks them, there's another where they're sitting on a Workshop and a Wasteland, 3 moxes and 15 life. I think the card needs to deal fairly high damage on average to make up for the fact that it doesn't affect the board.

Against blue decks, Gush can be a real problem, but since Delver hasn't been explored much since Gush was restricted, it's possible that Price of Progress has gotten better.

Consider that the broader/more diverse a field is, the worse a "metagamey" deck is going to do. (three decks are three times as hard to prepare for as one, of course). Unfortunately/Fortunately, in my opinion the format is at an all-time diversity peak at the top tiers, which means I'd wager to guess that a metagame-style deck has never been worse.

But not all is lost.

@moorebrother1 said in Anti-metagame deck ideas:

Fast Mana, Cantrips, artifact mana and heavy card draw

So I think this is only a fraction of the meta (this list ignores Dredge and doesn't particularly address the strengths of Workshops or Oath), but I think you can build a deck that attacks these things.

I think there are two natural places to look

BUG / Team Leovold which runs Null Rod and Leovold, Emissary of Tress]] to stop cantrips and draw directly.

White Eldrazi with Null Rod/Stony Silence and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to indirectly make cantrips and draw spells unprofitable.

Given your dislike of creatures, White Eldrazi is probably a bad fit. BUG lists can be creature heavy, but the deck is still very controlling and the creatures largely serve as utility, you might like it.

Some less mainstream ideas:

• Counterbalance/Sensei's Divining Top would clean up cantrips pretty handily, but is possibly quite slow and doesn't play nice with Null Rod.

• 2 Card Monte (the Leyline of the Void/Helm of Obedience combo deck) maindecks Leyline and can probably race a Workshop deck, but again, no Null Rod

• Spirit of the Labrynth is like a Leovold with a more forgiving casting cost. Playing Fact or Fiction or Gifts Ungiven with a Spirit in play is probably a lot of fun.

• Gorilla Shaman doesn't stop Moxes from accelerating like a Null Rod does, but is really quite good at nerfing a Paradoxical Outcome.