Randy Buehler has, once again, shown that he is still a genius when it comes to Magic. Recently the first week of the Vintage Super League took place. This league is made up of 10 competitors in a round robin tournament, choosing a deck to pilot and switching decks every three weeks. This league is stacked to say the least, with three hall of famers, three Platinum pros and future hall of famers and four Vintage aficionados.

With all of the trolling and wondering what the pros were going to play, everyone knowing that Rich Shay was going to be on Grixis Welder, to wondering how one should go about choosing their first deck, there were many questions as to how the players would strategize. There hasn’t been anything like this, specifically having to change decks within the same format, with high profile players like these.

Would any of them prepare together? Would any of the players deviate from the pillars of Vintage and look to build a deck that would surprise everyone or would everyone just play a blue deck? With all of this anticipation, the first week took place and it did not disappoint.

What’s Everyone Playing?

Thankfully, Randy Buehler posted a link on his Twitter with a Google document with the week one decklists for all the players.

Surprisingly there were three players who decided to play Merfolk in week one. This tells us that people were not expecting many people to play Shops and definitely did not think anybody would be playing Dredge. Looking at the rest of the decks in the field, Merfolk was a very good choice for the first three weeks, but as per usual in Vintage, matchups are not everything.

With so many powerful cards in the format having a good matchup isn’t always enough and a 1-2 finish for Merfolk the first week in a field full of blue and combo is evidence of this. Vintage is the No Limit Texas Hold ‘em of Magic. You can be in a dominating position and still lose it all, just like that and the swings can be unbearable at times.

Although I will say that I am in no way surprised that the two players who won their “bad matchup” were Stephen Menendian and Rich Shay. I thought that their knowledge of the format would give them a huge edge and there is no way they would try anything cute, but there was a chance somebody else might.

Josh Utter-Leyton’s deck choice definitely had some cuteness, the most obvious being the full set of Mishra's Bauble. I understand that this is a free cantrip that helps with achieving metalcraft for Mox Opal, but there are just better options. Gitaxian Probe comes to mind especially as knowing the contents of your opponent’s hand seems much better than knowing the top card of your opponent’s library.

He also had the full set of Forbidden Orchard with no Oath of Druids in sight. This seems like a mistake as well. When you essentially have access to four Griselbrand at the cost of playing Oath, which isn’t really much of a cost, and just choose to not take advantage of it, just baffles me. Wrapter is arguably the best deckbuilder in the world, but here I think he missed the mark. Besides that, no real surprising card choices in the field for week one.

Who’s the Favorite?

Going into this I was wondering how people would approach this question. Would people simply think that the pros would have the advantage with play skill? Would people consider the Vintage ringers in Menendian and Shay have an advantage with their format knowledge and wealth of experience? Or would the old school players in Buehler and Pikula show them how it’s done?

I personally felt that Menendian and Shay were the two favorites from the get go with LSV and Buehler right behind them. I think that their knowledge of the format would give them a huge edge. As someone who mostly plays Vintage and is a huge fan of these two Vintage masters I do have quite the bias toward them, but it’s not without good reason either. One of the main reasons that Shay and Menendian are not as high profile is because they have made a conscious choice to not play Standard or Modern as Vintage is just sweeter compared to those formats. The drawback to this is that since Vintage is not given the same attention as Standard or Modern these players are not as well known.

I would argue that if Vintage was or ever does become a PTQ or GP format these two would have been on the Pro Tour for a long time and if there were a Vintage Hall of Fame these two are first ballot without a doubt. Unfortunately, the fact that this can never become a reality due to the price and scarcity of cards we will never know, but it’s fun to dream.

Who Should Be Invited?

I will start by saying that I do not know who all was invited to play in the league. The following is simply what I would try to accomplish if I were trying to put together the Vintage Super League.

First, I would definitely invite the winner of the Vintage Championships at Eternal Weekend. I am not sure if Joel Lim was invited to play, but I sure hope he was. Next, with the MTGO Vintage Constructed Championships debuting this year, I would invite the winner of that to play as well. I think that getting high profile players is the next step because people want to watch them play Magic in general, Vintage specialists want to see how they approach the format and they want to test their skills against the best players.

Third and most obviously the winner of the VSL should be invited to defend their title the next year and also, as is the case, the person who finishes dead last should not be invited back. Next I think the person who wins the Bazaar of Moxen should also be considered. I am not sure how international this league wants to get or if the time zone issues would be too much, but the BOM was consistently the largest no-proxy Vintage tournament for years.

Lastly, I hope that next year there will be at least one, maybe two, more Vintage experts in the field. The people I would want to watch the most would be either Paul Mastriano, Brian DeMars or Kevin Cron.

All of these players have three Vintage Champs Top 8’s, with a win for Mastriano in 2008. Kevin Cron has Top 8’s in two different decades with his first two back to back in 2003 and 2004 and DeMars went back to back in 2008 and 2009. These guys have been crushing Vintage for a little over a decade now and I hope their talent and love for the format get to be showcased at some point.

In terms of the pros, the two that come to mind are Owen Turtenwald and David Ochoa. Owen is the 2010 Vintage World Champ and made Top 8 in 2008, but being one of the top players in the world, if not the best, it is understandable that he may need to focus on the Pro Tour and not have much time to play Vintage. David Ochoa has been known to love Vintage and apparently was known for crushing Vintage in Northern California for quite some time.

MTGO Vintage Constructed Championships

There has been much discussion about the fact that the MTGO Vintage Constructed Championship qualifiers have not been firing with any sort of consistency. Some have reasoned that it is because many of them are not well timed and 30 tickets isn’t cheap, but I don’t think either of those are good enough reasons to explain why these qualifiers are not getting enough players.

The bottom line is that what is at stake isn’t enough. If people have the option to qualify for the Pro Tour by other means on Magic Online or in real life, or play for a set of foil Vintage Masters, they will choose the former most of the time.

As someone who loves Vintage more than any other format I can speak to this. If there is a PTQ in the area, I will most likely play even if I don’t enjoy the format all that much, like Standard or Modern. This has become less true now that Vintage is more readily available in my area, but qualifying for the Pro Tour can make people do silly things like skip Vintage events or even play Sealed. With the prizes being what they are this will most likely continue to happen.

One thing this tournament does guarantee is that there will be more power in the environment. Unfortunately, there will not be enough power given out to really make any shift in the price of Vintage on Magic Online as a whole. So don’t go selling your power or anything crazy. I would say keep holding onto it, because once Vintage Masters is gone there will be a spike in their value. If you aren’t looking to be in it for the long haul then right after Vintage Masters leaves is when I think you want to sell.

Overall the future of Vintage is still looking bright and we will know if this trend is to continue once Champs roles around in October. Will Champs be the biggest IRL Vintage tournament ever? All signs point to yes.