Hello, I was thinking that what is known as the "Five Pillars of Vintage" (Mana Drain, Mishra's Workshop, Bazaar of Baghdad, Dark Ritual, Null Rod) is outdated and does not portray today's metagame, so I decided to create an "updated" Vintage Pillars list. It's very possible that there are better cards to represent the pillars, but these are the five I think best fit each strategy and are not restricted. Also keep in mind that while decks in these pillars possibly don't run all or even any of the title cards, those cards should represent the general strategies of the decks.
Decks included in this pillar: URx Delver, UWx Mentor, Gush Storm, Doomsday
Summary: This pillar contains decks which are mana-light (in both lands and Moxen) that subscribe to the "Turbo Xerox" principle that is more dense in cheap, efficient spells and abuses the card Gush, which can make up for missed land drops in addition to having a very powerful decks. Because these decks take advantage of Gush to its maximum potential, they often negate or even utilize its cost of returning to Islands to your hand. Cards that synergize well with Gush include Fastbond, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Library of Alexandria, Doomsday and Brainstorm. Gush also gains value when it is cast in response to land destruction cards like Wasteland, Strip Mine and Ghost Quarter.
Final thoughts: Other cards I thought could possibly represent this pillar were Preordain, Gitaxian Probe and Dig Through Time, but these decks have and can exist without those cards, and Gush magnifies the most, the core strategy and design of these style decks.
Decks included in this pillar: Martelo Shops, Terranova Shops, Affinity, "Etc." Shops
Summary: There are definitely some differences between these decks, but there fundamental strategy is to utilize the card Mishra's Workshop, Ancient Tomb and broken mana accelerants to quickly play relatively expensive artifacts, which tend to be card which prevent/challenge your opponents from casting or being able to resolve their spells. The deck also plays lands to destroy the opponent's, all while beating down with artifact creatures and manlands. While Mishra's Workshop is an extremely powerful land that taps for three mana every turn, the deck is "restricted" in a sense that Workshop can
only cast artifact spells. If it could produce colored mana and/or activate abilities, it would obviously be more powerful, as it could rapidly play some of the most broken cards in the format.
Final thoughts: This is one of two pillars which still remain from before. I am referring to "Etc." Shops as Shops decks which don't fit the first two versions, playing less common cards like Goblin Welder, Smokestack, Serum Powder and/or various colored spells.
Decks included in this pillar: Dredge, Dragon Combo
Summary: These decks are designed to take advantage of the card Bazaar of Baghdad by using their graveyards often as a primary resource. Dredge accelerated Bazaar of Baghdad by playing cards with the Dredge mechanic, so that it can use cards which work out of the graveyard or by being milled (Narcomoeba). The Dragon combo deck can generate infinite tapping and untapping of lands, which can put its entire deck in the graveyard when there's a Bazaar of Baghdad out, and then proceeds to kill the opponent by recurring a card out of the graveyard with its infinite mana.
Final thoughts: This may be the most boring pillar in that it has the least amount/variety of decks, and the decks are not interactive in either way. It is also the other pillar which has survived the test of time, even with improved graveyard hate, showing the resiliency of this strategy.
Decks included in this pillar: Grixis Control, Oath, Bomberman, Keeper
Summary: This pillar in many ways has a very abstract definition. The decks are generally controlling decks, and often have different combos to finish the game spontaneously, rather than in increments. These combos are often referred to as haymakers. The ultimate haymaker which all of these decks tend to run is Jace. It is generally agreed upon that Jace is the best four mana card to be casting in Vintage, at least in decks without Mishra's Workshop. These decks play many counterspells and run much of the broken artifact accelerants. Accelerants, that is, to Jace most often. Sometimes these decks play four mana blue spells, like Fact or Fiction or Gifts Ungiven, but Jace is most uniform. Other haymakers these decks usually play are Tinker, Yawgmoth's Will and the Vault-Key Combo, but Jace is the only unrestricted one of these, and is the most consistent.
Final thoughts: Other decks in other pillars run Jace, but usually not any more than two. You can think of decks in this pillar as being a crescendo, countering early threats and laying out their mana artifacts, until they hit their climax, a.k.a Jace.
Decks included in this pillar: BUGr Fish, Merfolk, Various Color Combinations of Hatebears
Summary: Similar to Gush decks and spells, decks in this pillar plays cheap, efficient creatures, while destroying lands, depriving other mana sources and preventing the resolution of spells. While your opponent is struggling to cast spells, they are being hit over time with creatures dropped early, so that if they eventually can recover, they are either out of life and/or are at a disadvantage in other resources.
Final thoughts: Previously these style decks were branded as primarily using Null Rod as the other access of mana denial besides Wasteland. However, these decks have adopted cards that Shops decks already lose, yet are still beneficial to this pillar of decks. These cards include Chalice of the Void and Thorn of Amethyst. Because I consider those cards as being in the same category as Null Rod, I wanted to title this pillar with a card that is uniform in these decks, yet unique in effect (the singleton Strip Mine notwithstanding).
There is a lot more I have to say about these pillars which I am just not recalling at the moment because my head is still spinning with so many thoughts and ideas. I would just like to say that maybe you didn't notice Landstill and/or Belcher decks in the pillars list. Landstill was not written anywhere because I think there are strong arguments to include it in both the Jace, the Mind Sculptor pillar, and the Wasteland one. I have no idea where to put Belcher because it is so different from all the other Vintage strategies (Dredge is as well, but it is more of an established and successful deck). There is no clear category to put Belcher in; maybe Gush because of the lack of lands, maybe Mishra's Workshop because it sometimes runs that card in its sideboard and maybe Jace, the Mind Sculptor, being it builds up to being able to cast a four-of haymaker (Goblin Charbelcher). Which decks do you think these two decks should fit into? Am I missing any prominent decks in my pillars list? Do you think I should change which decks go where and/or one or more of the pillars? Should my explanations of the pillars have more information? Am I just crazy? What do you guys think? Thank you for reading!!
