So this weekend at GP Memphis, I did my best to talk to people about vintage as much as possible. As usual, most people blanch and back away until you start saying “Hey, you haven’t lived until you write Black Lotus on a Plains.” With the dollar signs out of the picture, folks seem much more interested in talking about the format.
That said, especially older payers almost immediately launched into stories about their favorite wacky deck tech from back in the day (whichever day that was), and it got me thinking, especially in light of the most recent vsl and several quality brewing posts here in the last few weeks.
There are a solid handful of decks that this community recognizes as outside of the current pillars, and then another subset of decks that frequently get labeled as Fringe decks. I would be interested in hearing discussion about:
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Which decks will more than likely always be Fringe and why those particular lists (Lookin’ at you Belcher) will remain there despite popularity and ability to win, regarding their consistency, resilience, available hate etc?
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What does it take to bring a Fringe deck (either generally or a specific list) closer to the mainstream? For instance, there are several Null Rod / Mono X Hate Bears lists that seem solid but don’t seem to get traction to become as viable as midrange decks like Team Leo and BUG variant pals.
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Which decks right now do you consider right on the verge of tipping into good either for the first time or making a comeback, whether metagame shift or printings, restrictions etc? It seems here there are some decks where older vintage strategies or particular cards are constantly angling to be good again, or lists that would Like to become a new archetype but that just don’t quite have the gas against the current meta game (heh, or any metagame perhaps). Would love to see maybe some ranking of which are the most likely to hit that mark given the current conditions.
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What most keeps decks from emerging and or making comebacks? It can’t all be misstep and Ravager...right? What is blocking off your favorite cards from being good right now?