[Free Article] The State of Vintage 2016
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This went up a few days ago, but I never got around to posting it because of the site issues. Anyway, I wrote an article about my thoughts on where Vintage stands going into both Eternal Weekends. Hope you all enjoy!
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I feel you missed some critical space with the entire omission of Spell Queller/Dark Confidant. That said, this was a gargantuan task to organize coherently, and you did this way better than I ever could. Thanks for the update.
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Great article, although I'm not entirely in agreement with your assessment of Leovold. "Leovold will singlehandedly redefine how decks are built in Vintage" is definitely a statement that will turn out wrong in my opinion. Leovold is good, no doubt about it, but I don't think it's that good. At least I'm not sure if using 6 spots in your Grixis Pyromancer deck to make room for 3 Leovold is worth it.
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If "redefine how decks are built in Vintage" you mean "just don't make all your removal spells Snuff Out", then sure. Leovold isn't ground-breaking.
It has an awkward mana cost so it can't realistically be played t1 without a perfect double mox hand, so it is vulnerable to Cabal Therapy.
Dig for a removal spell is also a scary workaround.
Leovold's biggest weakness is being terrible against nonblue decks and thus I think it is optimally played in the board.
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Leovold is optimally played with DRS, DRS is great vs. Thorn decks. Resolved Leovold isn't awful vs. non-blue Thorn decks, he interacts with Wasteland, TKS, Displacer (LOL), and even boarded plows. He's slow vs. dredge, but has as much text as alot of creatures in game one.
