Entering Vintage under $500

Entering Vintage under $500

Today I am going to do my best at debunking one of the more serious obstacles many people see to entering and playing Vintage. When I have asked “Why don't you play Vintage”, one of the most common responses is “It is too expensive”. The majority of people seem to feel that all Vintage decks cost more than a car.

This is just not true.

Yes, there are very expensive decks, but I believe that the common misconception comes from two main sources; Deck choice and Pimping.

Deck Choice: I find that many people believe that to be competitive, you must run a Blue Based Control list, running the full Power 9, plus tutors, plus X,Y and Z. The whole plethora of expensive cards from the Vintage card pool. We see time and time again that the Control decks don't have all the answers and we have a different deck taking the top spot in any given tournament. Dredge has gotten faster over the past year, taking down the Vintage Championship. A number of wins from Workshop decks (Sandusky, Ohio- MUD) over the past year are there as well as different Null Rod decks winning(Full of Win Vintage Game Day #1 ). Apart from winning, all of the main deck archetypes are showing in top 8's everywhere throughout 2011 and I expect that pattern to continue into 2012. If you want to play Vintage you do not have to be tied down to a Blue Based Control strategy if that's not your thing.

Pimping: When many people see a Vintage deck, they don't just see the basics. Because of the non-rotating card pool, decks have a very long life span. Because of this long lifespan, many players pimp their decks over time. I myself have fallen into this trap, why use the duress from my recent draft when I can trade for a playset of Foil 7^th Duress'. Because of this many people see how expensive these decks are, not how much cheaper they could be. This especially goes for those who wish to use black bordered power/duals.

But onto the meat of this post:

I have stated and maintained that Vintage can be played for under $500. I will be using starcitygames.com for pricing and all cards where possible will be in SP condition. I am from Melbourne, Australia and every store here allows for some number of proxies. The two main stores that run Vintage tournaments allow 5 and 10 respectively, I am taking the middle ground and running maximum 7 proxies in the shopping cart. If you are not able to use proxies in your area, it is still entirely possible to play vintage, however I will not have deck lists for you to copy. I chose $500 because I read an article about entering Legacy on a budget and the author chose $500. I know many people don't have $500 sitting around (I know I did not) but at even $50 a month, and you can have your own tournament worthy Vintage deck before Christmas 2012.

Here are some decks that you may want to run in a tournament for under $500

Null Rod Decks. (Bold is proxied)

Dark Times-

1 Black Lotus

1 Crucible Of Worlds

1 Helm of Obedience

1 Lotus Petal

1 Mox Jet

1 Null Rod

1 Pithing Needle

4 Dark Confidant

4 Vampire Hexmage

4 Leyline of the Void

1 Necropotence

4 Dark Ritual

2 Diabolic Edict

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Liliana of the Veil

1 Demonic Tutor

4 Duress

1 Imperial Seal

1 Mind Twist

1 Sadistic Sacrament

4 Thoughtseize

1 Yawgmoth's Will

10 Swamp

1 Strip Mine

4 Wasteland

2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

2 Dark Depths

Total price after proxies: $ 474.76

This is Brienne Popes list that took second place at The Council Open #11.

I myself ran a Dark Times list at Eternal Masters in Melbourne to 9^th place without proxies (minus Lotus/Imperial Seal/Wastelands) missing top 8 on breakers. Dark Times is a powerful deck and its heavy discard theme backed up with quick win conditions and the card drawing of its many tutors and Bobs leave it a force to be reckoned with. A proficient Dark Times player will rip their opponents hand apart while threatening to beat face with an indestructible 20/20 or exile their entire library.

Goblins

Gabriele Tocchi took this goblins list to first place at a 27 man tournament in Savonna in Italy. The tournament was 5 rounds and cut to top 8.

4 Aether Vial

1 Black Lotus

4 Chalice of the Void

1 Mana Crypt

1Mox Ruby

3 Gempalm Incinerator

4 Goblin Lackey

4 Goblin Matron

4 Goblin Piledriver

1 Goblin Recruiter

2 Goblin Ringleader

1 Goblin Sharpshooter

1 Goblin Tinkerer

4 Goblin Warchief

2 Goblin Welder

1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

2 Red Elemental Blast

1 Seige-Gang Commander

1 Stingscourger

13 Mountain

1 Strip Mine

4 Wastelands

Total Cost $ 438.89 (only 2 proxies) without Wastelands the deck costs under $300

Goblins is one of the fiercest beat down decks in the format. I know my current deck probably cannot beat a good draw from goblins. Goblins breaks apart any format dominated by big blue spells (a la Vintage) and can steal wins from anywhere. The addition of Wastelands and Chalice of the Void will also severely cripple almost any decks mana allowing your attacking horde to pass into their life total unassailed.

Dredge

Chris Nighbor (GER) took his dredge list to 1^st place in Lindenhurst in November beationg the 25 other competitors over 5 rounds and then in the top 8.

1 Black Lotus

1 Lion's Eye Diamond

1 Lotus Petal

1 Mox Sapphire

4 Serum Powder

4 Bloodghast

4 Bridge from Below

4 Cabal Therapy

3 Dread Return

2 Golgari Thug

2 Ichorid

4 Stinkweed Imp

1 Ancestral Recall

2 Fatestitcher

4 Narcomoeba

1 Flame-Kin Zealot

4 Golgari Grave-Troll

3 Sun Titan

4 Bazaar of Baghdad

2 Cephalid Coliseum

3 City of Brass

1 Dakmor Salvage

4 Undiscovered Paradise.

Total Price $235

Dredge is well known as one of the cheapest decks to build, if you wanted to stay close to the $500 you could add a Bazaar of Baghdad and still have change. To put how cheap dredge is in perspective, Solar flare as written about by Gavin Verhey on Starcitygames.com will cost you $386.15 and that deck will rotate in 9 months whereas you will always be able to play dredge. Dredge if uninterrupted is one of the most consistent decks to get an early kill. Dredge has been known as the RDW of the format because it causes so many problems with the other decks that they have to devote 6+ Sideboard slots just to beat you. This is reminiscent of earlier times where most decks would play 4 COP:Red just to stay alive against Red decks.

Rituals

Ad Nauseam

Andrew Keeton took his Ad Nauseam deck to second place at Bloomsburg, losing in the final round to Espresso Stax after making top 8 after 5 rounds.

1 Black Lotus

4 Chrome Mox

1 Lotus Petal

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mana Vault

1 Mox Jet

1 Mox Sapphire

1 Sol Ring

4 Ad Nauseam

3 Cabal Ritual

4 Dark Ritual

1 Demonic Consultation

1 Demonic Tutor

4 Duress

1 Imperial Seal

1 Necropotence

3 Tendrils of Agony

3 Thoughtseize

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Yawgmoth's Will

1 Ancestral Recall

1 Brainstorm

3 Chain of Vapour

2 Hurkyl's Recall

1 Mystical Tutor

1 Ponder

2 Island

2 Marsh Flats

4 Scalding Tarn

2 Swamp

2 Underground Sea

1 Underground Sea

Total: $481.54 and with a Underground Sea to boot. In order to keep with 7 proxies a Underground Sea is included in this price. Ad Nauseam is a very all in style deck, once you resolve Adnauseam you are all in on winning that turn. Ad Nauseam is very streamlined to use the cheapest and most effective cards in the Vintage card pool to ensure a lethal Tendrils of Agony as soon as possible. The decks abundance of tutors and discard ensure it keeps its opponents on their back foot as it powers through spell after spell to end the game early before the other deck can “get online”. Rituals are not the powerhouse in the current metagame but this deck still has the power to punch through and get steal wins from even the most competent pilots.

There we have a number of decks and strategies that are known factors to reach the higher end of Tournaments covering three different archetypes. Nor are these the only decks that can be bought for under $500 at 7 proxies. Fish/High Tide/Christmas Beatings are all viable decks which can take down tournaments. Brian DeMars recently wrote an article about a GW Stoneforge deck he made the night before a tournament and took it to top 8 without any pre testing. This deck would thrive in a Shop/Oath heavy environment. Though on this list there is a distinct absence of blue based control is because I wanted lists that had taken down tournaments or at least 2^nd place at the out most. The problem with many High end blue based control lists is that they run 8 of the power 9 as well as a number of dual lands. If you were to play in 10 Proxy environments, both Blue Based control and Workshop decks would be easily made in under $500 but at 7 proxies I could not find any results from the seconds half of 2011.

I hope you found this interesting and if you want to know any more about these decks please feel free to ask.