Yesterday was the latest installment of the now weekly Vintage Challenge on MTGO. Unfortunately I was out of town, but Matt (@ChubbyRain ) was able to take down the tournament with a modern take on Drain Tendrils. Congrats! Thank you to Shawn (@desolutionist ) for entering in match results and to Matt for watching the replays.

Top Finishes

1. ChubbyRain - Paradoxical Drain Tendrils
2. Jazza - Precursor Ravager Shops (without wires)
3. Dan9IN - Inspector Ravager Shops
4. The Atog Lord - Paradoxical Tezz
5. Kozel - Paradoxical Tezzstorm
6. echecetmat35 - Jeskai Mentor
7. desolutionist - Gifts Drain Tendrils
8. Hrymfaxe - Precursor Ravager Shops (without wires)

Top 32 Decklists

Metagame

50 Players

Closing Note on Decks Outside the Top 32

Since Wizards now publishes the top 32 decklists, we only have to rely on replays for finishes beyond this. Since there are often fewer matches to watch (dropping early) and fewer games where a deck successfully executes its gameplan, we have to put a fair bit of guesswork into classifying and tagging these decks. If you think we misclassified any of these decks, please let Matt or me know. The spreadsheet can be found here.

Almost all of the tags have a positive win percentage. Isn't that a little weird?

But (Jeskai) Mentor is the clear loser here. One of the three top decks with the lowest win percentage.

@diophan Isnt there a 'x' vs. 'y' win percentage display? edit okay I see it in the spreadsheet

Mentor had a 31% against Shops while Paradoxical had a 63% against Shops. Amazing!

@desolutionist That is interesting. I computed a few by hand and it appears to be working correctly, but if anyone looks at the spreadsheet and notices anything fishy let us know. A few points related to what you noticed:

1. There wasn't a clear best performing (around 60% winrate) archetype like the past few of these events.
2. Winrates for the most part for archetypes and tags were close to 50%.
3. Concerning tags specifically: since most decks are tagged multiple times there's no zero sum game going on with the winrates. The Paradoxical decks typical include many tags and did quite well this time around. Another explanation is that since we have complete information on only the top32 decklists, there should be a slight positive correlation between winrate and number of tags. This is unfortunate but hopefully not too problematic.

Congratz @ChubbyRain !

Congrats to @ChubbyRain. I really wish I could have perfomed better: After starting 4-0, the wheels fell off. The combination of opponents drawing insane openers and then my mulligans to 5 against Jazza ended my hopes for a Top 8. I ended up sliding all the way to 16th. Frustrating, but it's magic.

No Wire in Shops removes a huge barrier to the format, and that archetype. What a great development.

@vaughnbros to which barrier are you referring?

I'm not sure I understand the cut tbh. Wire seems like a good card to have access to. Maybe no longer a 4-of, but 2-3 can be the final lock piece in a lot of games. I understand that Workshops have become more aggressive since Bastilla was printed, but when Bactgudz was playing perhaps the most aggressive Workshop deck in history (Affinity Shops, likely the precursor to today's Workshop decks), Wire was probably the best card in that deck. It was the finisher the deck needed to close out the game. Perhaps Wire is less effective against Outcome which has become a troubling dominant trend in the meta?

@vaughnbros Wires are down to ~10-15 tickets I believe. so if you mean barrier online, then I'd disagree. They're about $5 in paper.

@MSolymossy 6-7 now actually. 2-3 for the hideous FTV. How the mighty have fallen.

@enderfall Ah didnt know the price dropped so much.

I hope Shops players continue neglecting Tangle Wire. It's almost always a Time Walk, often two Time Walks and sometimes three Time Walks.

@Griselbrother I so agree...the vast majority of Shops hate you see these days is sorcery speed (by force, fragmetize) and unless you are staring down an army of Inspectors and a trinisphere no one is setting explosives at 3. No tangle wire seems like it can leave shops pretty naked to a By Force blowout

@p3temangus By Force is really weak against the Precursor Golem though, because you have it individually target just it.

@MSolymossy That is very true.

I wonder how this trend will translate to the Paper Shops players...i guess with NYSE around the corner we will have an answer soon.

It's not exactly BAD against Precursor Golem ... it just turns into a "regular" 1R removal spell, which happens to kill 3 of their permanents. That's still a good deal – Golem is still a liability against By Force, not the other way around.

@Brass-Man I mean sure. I'm just saying that By Force isn't the end all be all - being sorcery speed, you really want to tap out to blow up their thorns/spheres, and then get to your next turn and Win. But Precursor Golem is a FAST clock against that strategy.

For what it's worth I came in 3rd with Tangle Wires still in my deck. I've seen a lot of Wire-less (heh) lists running around, but I feel like PO and Mentor decks can do so much so quickly if you don't have enough lock components. In playing the deck I'm often most concerned about the oppt casting Mentor, Oath, Tinker, and other sorcery speed bombs that practically end the game. It helps that Fragmentize, By Force, and Dack are also sorcery speed. I get the argument for having a faster clock, but a clock without disruption is rarely good enough these days so for now I'm erring on the side of more lock pieces.

fwiw, By Force is a LOT better against Precursor Golem than Ingot Chewer...

If we are talking about things that are good against Precursor Golem, I've been loving my copy of Repeal. It leaves them with the original, but kill 2, draw 2 for 1 mana + spheres feels like value.

The best card against Precursor Golem is Yawgmoth's Will

No but I actually lost in the top 8 because By Force wasn't efficient enough against a Precursor, Revoker, Foundry Inspector, and Thorn. I only had 4 mana because of the Revoker on Sol Ring, so in retrospect I should have Mysticaled for Toxic Deluge instead of By Force.