Vintage 101: Lorwyn-esque
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of Vintage 101! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're going to be seeing what from Lorwyn Eclipsed may have started to pick up in Vintage! In addition, we've got Challenge data, and since we didn't have an article last week (I was sick, plus a lot of bad weather in my area), there was a Super Qualifier to discuss on 1/25/2026.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Eclipstical
We're only the first week of the release of Lorwyn Eclipsed on Magic Online, and we're looking to see what cards from the set are finding their way into Vintage! There wasn't a lot on the radar from this set for Vintage, but I think the big goblin in the room is definitely going to be Hexing Squelcher.
I was very curious where this might appear, because it has been a lot of people's discussion points. I was initially pretty low on the card, but I do think it has some potential in decks like Breach and Lurrus PO where it can be used to hedge against blue decks primarily. With how popular decks like Initiative/Raker Shops/etc are, I don't think hitting on removal is as important, and I do think this is likely more of a sideboard card than anything (but there's some solid cases to be made for main deck copies). That being said, we did see some results in several places with this card, specifically in the decks that I expected to see it in (Breach/PO).
Breach is a deck where I expect this card to have a lot of possibilities, given that it is easy to make the mana for the card. That being said, I would never be on just one copy of the card in a deck I want to play this in, because secretly the best part of Squelcher is having more than one copy in play. Doubling up on redundancy of your spells being uncounterable is already great, but the fact that the Ward stacks as a separate instance is really strong (so any creature would have two instances of Ward - Pay 2 Life).
That being said, you should always be making your opponent pay for Ward before trying to counter their removal spell, because the life payment can be absolutely pretty brutal.
As noted, we also saw it in both Lurrus PO and non-Lurrus PO.
Having the card in the main is definitely hedging on playing solely against decks with Force of Will in them, which is a fair assumption. It does sort of stink if you run across the Shops deck where they don't care about your uncounterable spells and more often than not they don't care about your Ward cost either. I would love to see some form of RUG deck that leverages the Squelcher into threats like Collector Ouphe and giving it protection from the removal spells.
Outside of Squelcher, there really wasn't a whole lot of big results from other Lorwyn cards. One thing I did see however, thanks to our good friend Justin Gennari, was a Survival list playing both Vibrance and Wistfulness.
The modal aspect of these cards is rather interesting, since you can Evoke them for cheap and get some solid effects out of them. Survival being able to go find these effects is even more interesting since you can convert any creature you really want to discard (Vengevine for example) into an Evoke creature that can possibly trigger Vengevine. I like it.
Finally, I did see Wistfulness itself in a Bant Beans shell, resembling sort of what is going on in Legacy at the moment. This list is kind of sweet, even if it didn't do well in the Challenge it was in.
I suspect long-term that Lorwyn's impact on Vintage is going to be pretty minimal, and it's possible that even Hexing Squelcher may long term go by the wayside, but it's realistically the only card that I could also see sticking in decks. Whether that's as a sideboard card or main deck hedge is really going to be the question.
Vintage RC Super Qualifier 1/25/2026
As noted, last week we had a RC Super Qualifier. These events offer a path to the Regional Championships and this particular event had 181 players in it, which is pretty cool. I always love seeing bigger Vintage events, because it's great to see the format get seen on larger scales.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Initiative was the most played deck of the event here, but its overall win rate was rather low at around 41.3%. Dimir Lurrus and Lurrus PO both had pretty strong win rates, while Lurrus Breach and non-Lurrus PO also did extremely well. Dredge had a slightly better win rate than Initiative, while everything else was just above or below the 50% mark. Lurrus decks did make up nearly 42% of the metagame here though, which is kind of wild.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jewel Shops | 1st | Tunaktunak |
| Lurrus PO | 2nd | etoustar |
| PO | 3rd | mei0024 |
| Lurrus PO | 4th | kasa |
| Dimir Lurrus | 5th | unstar |
| PO | 6th | Billbuscus |
| Esper Lurrus | 7th | Ark4n |
| Lurrus Doomsday | 8th | Univerce |
Five out of Eight of the Top 8 here was some form of Lurrus deck. At the end of the event, however, it was Jewel Shops that won.
This is a fairly stock list, it looks like, but I like it a lot. Tezzeret has continued to prove that it's an incredibly good card in these kinds of decks, but I agree on not wanting the full four copies in a list like this. This list draws a TON of cards in short order, so you are going to see your Tezzerets pretty quickly once you get the engine going.
In Second Place, we had Lurrus PO.
This list is fairly straightforward, but I do think there are things that these lists could be doing that would be interesting with Lorwyn cards. I definitely think this list especially, could find a place for Hexing Squelcher to be able to force through its combo kills, but also to ensure its big payoff spells resolve.
Also in this Top 8, we had Mono Blue PO.
Marang River Regent is one heck of a card, honestly. Being a draw three, discard one on one half but then being a 6/7 with flying that bounces some things is really interesting. What I think is incredible about this effect is that you can bounce some Moxen, replay them, and also PO the Regent for value. Also, this list has The Endstone in it, and that's automatically super duper cool.
Vintage Challenge 32 1/29/2026
The first Challenge event of the week was the Thursday event. This event had 41 players in it thanks to the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Lurrus PO was the most-played deck of the event, and it had a pretty solid win rate. Sphere Shops also looked quite good. There were a few archetypes that looked poor on paper with poor win rates, but put up individual results into the Top 8. Initiative did far worse than any other deck of the event.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Raker Shops | 1st | musasabi |
| Dredge | 2nd | blackdecks99 |
| Lurrus Doomsday | 3rd | Chocolate_Branco |
| Lurrus PO | 4th | DethFrmAbove |
| Sphere Shops | 5th | _Shatun_ |
| Esper Lurrus | 6th | Ark4n |
| Lurrus Breach | 7th | Kenzaburo |
| Dimir Lurrus | 8th | Messi_10 |
There's still a fair bit of Lurrus here, but it looks like a reasonable Top 8. At the end of the event it was Raker Shops that won.
There isn't a lot of frills here, but honestly this is the kind of deck you want to be lean and mean. One thing I do find super interesting here is being able to board more into a Sphere Shops style of gameplay with four Sphere of Resistance in the sideboard and threats like Stonecoil and Argentum Masticore. Seems like a neat juke.
In Second Place, we had Dredge.
Dredge had a pretty poor win rate overall in the event, but its performance here as the Second Place Finalist is pretty good. This particular list is not caring too much about effects like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (not even bothering to run any land destruction for it) and is just pedal to the medal aggression while trying to control things with countermagic.
Further down the Top 8, we had Sphere Shops.
I love how clean these Shops lists look. The math on these things is pretty interesting. When you see non-restricted cards in copies of threes, you know that there has definitely been some tweaking and math done on the backend at some point, even if the person playing the deck didn't do it themselves.
Vintage Challenge 32 1/30/2026
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 39 players in it thanks to the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Dredge was the most played deck of the event here, and despite a Top 8 appearance, its overall win rate was around 46.7%. "Other Shops" was very popular and strong (but at least two of these seemed to just be Raker Shops). Overall, this still looked like a pretty good metagame.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Raker Shops | 1st | AFX |
| Raker Shops | 2nd | _Chamytinho_ |
| Lurrus Doomsday | 3rd | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Dredge | 4th | blackdecks99 |
| Lurrus PO | 5th | IamActuallyLvl1 |
| Dimir Lurrus | 6th | WLS |
| Dimir Lurrus | 7th | Cazuza |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | hulk3rules |
Half of the Top 8 was a Lurrus deck in some fashion. At the end of the event it was a pair of Raker Shops that fought in the finals.
Both of these lists are the same, and both are leaning on the Sphere/threat juke. This wasn't marked as a split in the data sheet, so it seems like these two players did indeed duke it out. The Raker mirror is a weird one because it really just is two ships passing in the night for the first game, and then, post-board games the decks can either try to disrupt and play a longer game or try to get to their thing first.
Also in this Top 8 we had Doomsday.
I absolutely love Unable to Scream. It's such a cool card that is able to deal with a wide array of creatures and keep their abilities on lock down.
Vintage Challenge 32 1/31/2026
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 51 players in it thanks to the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Dimir Lurrus was the most played deck of the event, with a win rate of right on the line of 50%. Most of the decks here sat above the 50% mark, with some exceptions. Dredge did exceedingly poor here with a 14.3% win rate.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus PO | 1st | CardGameAddict |
| Dimir Lurrus | 2nd | jake-upLVT |
| Lurrus PO | 3rd | CrazyDiamond513 |
| BUG | 4th | Sprouts |
| Jewel Shops | 5th | whiterenren |
| Lurrus Breach | 6th | Kenzaburo |
| PO | 7th | MayhemDJ |
| Raker Shops | 8th | Bezerra_da_Silva |
This is a reasonable-looking Top 8. At the end of the event, it was Lurrus PO that won.
This feels relatively close to stock. Snapcaster is a card that floats in and out of this deck. I do really like Overencumbered as a sideboard option for decks like Dredge (since they just can't pay for it).
In Second Place, we had Dimir Lurrus.
I will say that the best thing about Lurrus is when it makes weird old cards like Seal of Removal playable.
Also in this Top 8 we had some BUG action.
Murktide Regent as a top-end threat is pretty sweet. So many decks have removal suites that hinge on cards like Fatal Push because everyone is playing less than three mana value creatures, so having a creature that is hard to kill with those kinds of removal is a solid way to exploit the metagame.
Vintage Challenge 32 2/1/2026
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 32 players in it thanks to the MTGO Vintage Discord.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Both Raker Shops and Lurrus PO were the most-played decks, and both had pretty solid win rates. Lurrus Doomsday looked pretty good on two copies in the event. Oath had a poor win rate, but it did well in the event in terms of a single Top 8. Initiative looked very poor.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lurrus Breach | 1st | MyPotatoes |
| Oath | 2nd | helvetti |
| Lurrus Doomsday | 3rd | IHateJAJAJA |
| Lurrus PO | 4th | etoustar |
| Lurrus PO | 5th | CrazyDiamond513 |
| Lurrus Doomsday | 6th | Tsubasa_Cat |
| Esper Lurrus | 7th | Malowless |
| Jewel Shops | 8th | Munchlax446 |
Lot of Lurrus PO here, but the event was won by Lurrus Breach.
Some interesting numbers on things like Drain and Gifts in this list. One thing I did notice is a pair of Mindbreak Trap in the main deck, which makes sense if you're gunning for decks like Lurrus PO being popular.
In Second Place, we had Oath.
I am not as huge of a fan of the Tinker package in Oath builds, but I can't deny that it does have its appeal to have a possible on the spot win. Oath is a bit of an awkward Tinker deck because Atraxa costs seven life to cast with it, but if you're gonna win the game, every point of life is a resource.
Further down the Top 8 we had Esper Lurrus.
I do think if people are going to be doing stuff like Murktide Regent to bypass Fatal Push, then having decks playing Swords to Plowshares is a solid way to combat that. Maybe Esper can be on an upswing because of stuff like that.
Around the Web
- Brian Coval has some Unpowered Lands. Check it out here.
- Montolio is doing some Doomsday. Check it out here.
- Justin Gennari always has stuff for us:
- James Kisau is playing some Doomsday. Check it out here.
- FiretruckModo is turbo Dredging. Check it out here.
- Kindamtg is getting aggressive with Mono Red. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Brian Kelly never ceases to amaze.
Wrapping Up
That's all the time we have this week folks! Thanks for your continued support of the column, and join me next week as we continue our journey into Vintage!
As always, you can reach me at my Link Tree! In additio,n you can always reach me on the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the Vintage Streamers Discord.
Until next time!
