This week in the Second installment of my Vintage Series leading upto Eternal Weekend, I’m talking about the decks everyone packs Hate in their sideboard for. Shops and Dredge are a weird nexus of the Vintage universe. The cards that brick them in the sideboard are general just fine sideboard cards in Vintage.
It’s no secret that the deeper you go back into Magic’s history the more likely it is that you’ll find great Artifact cards that everyone can use, and abusive combos the include the graveyard. This holds especially true with these two decks in particular. Shops plays broken artifacts and Dredge just uses it’s graveyard to play a game that sort of resembles Magic.
SHOPS
Why is it called Shops? That’s the easy question. Mishra’s Workshop is an Unrestricted 10th piece of Power. Being able to run 5 Black Lotus in your deck is pretty potent. Here’s a list that LSV recently ran.
Shops
| LANDS (18) 4 Mishra’s Workshop 4 Ancient Tomb 4 Wasteland 4 Mishra’s Factory 1 Tolarian Academy 1 Strip Mine CREATURES (16) 4 Lodestone Golem 4 Phyrexian Revoker 3 Arcbound Ravager 2 Triskelion 2 Porcelain Legionnaire 1 Phyrexian Metamorph OTHER SPELLS (26) 4 Tangle Wire 4 Thorn of Amethyst 4 Chalice of the Void 2 Sword of Fire and Ice 2 Sphere of Resistance 1 Mox Pearl 1 Batterskull 1 Trinisphere 1 Black Lotus 1 Mox Ruby 1 Mox Sapphire 1 Sol Ring 1 Mox Jet 1 Mox Emerald 1 Mana Crypt SIDEBOARD (15) 1 Sphere of Resistance 1 Triskelion 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 3 Crucible of Worlds 1 Duplicant 1 Ghost Quarter 4 Grafdigger’s Cage 1 Null Rod 2 Wurmcoil Engine |
If it wasn’t painfully obvious from the Tangle Wires, Trinisphere, and Sphere of Resistance/Thorn of Amethyst, this deck looks to lock you out of the game from it’s first turn. then it just plays massive hard to deal with Artifact Creatures that end the game as fast as possible. 4 Wastelands and 1 Strip Mine keep you off balance long enough to smash with grey dudes.
It’s a simple if not blunt plan. You never have to worry about getting mana screwed on a particular color or if you’re gonna be short on mana. But there is one problem. You are essentially top-decking for the entire game. Zero deck manipulation/Draw effects and sorcery/instant spells at all put you in a place that says if your opponent has it, there is nothing you can do about it.
Some versions play some Seats of Synod and Blue Power, because hey why not. Other versions play Kuldotha Forgemaster for that sweet sweet library searching. In the end, this deck has insanely strong starts that can stop even the best decks from recovering, and windmill slam style plays that end the game quick. As far as Vintage decks are concerned this is one of the strongest/most resilient to hate and not insanely (in Vintage terms of course) expensive, since you can forego the power and just play the Workshops to start. Still $4000-$5000 is nothing to scoff at to get a cheaper version of this deck built.
DREDGE
If you aren’t packing some kind of graveyard hate in Vintage… you’re probably playing Dredge. Or you just like losing a lot. Dredge is a unique deck in MTG in that it can win without lands and many times without playing spells. The engine of this deck is Bazaar of Baghdad. A seemingly innocuous Arabian Nights land that lets you draw two cards then discard three. Thanks to the Dredge Ability this sort of thing lets you flip most of your deck into your graveyard in a couple of turns, producing an army of Zombies, then turning them sideways and killing your opponent either via raw attrition or a Dread Returned Flame-Kin Zealot. Here’s a list.
Dredge
| LANDS (12) 4 Bazaar of Baghdad 4 Undiscovered Paradise 3 Mana Confluence 1 Dakmor Salvage CREATURES (27) 4 Bloodghast 4 Golgari Grave-Troll 4 Ingot Chewer 4 Narcomoeba 4 Stinkweed Imp 2 Golgari Thug 2 Fatestitcher 1 Flame-Kin Zealot 1 Ichorid 1 Sun Titan INSTANTS and SORC. (13) 4 Mental Misstep 4 Cabal Therapy 3 Dread Return 2 Darkblast OTHER SPELLS (8) 4 Bridge from Below 4 Serum Powder SIDEBOARD (15) 1 Mana Confluence 2 Ichorid 3 Mindbreak Trap 1 Gemstone Mine 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 3 Chain of Vapor 4 Nature’s Claim |
One of the things you’ll hear often enough during a Vintage tournament is the phrase “mull to Bazaar” This deck doesn’t just hope to get a Bazaar of Baghdad in it’s opening hand… It insures it with Serum Powder and Aggressive mulligans. Really the deck only needs one card to get things going. BoB is that card.
This is what Vintage players call a game one deck. It wins a lot of it’s game 1’s. Game 2-3 however it has to fight it’s way through a mix of Hate cards that every deck plays in the format. Where Shops suffers from lack of card draw as it’s weakness Dredge can out right lose to a well played Grafdigger’s Cage or Leyline of the Void. You can see that it’s sideboard is devoted to not losing to these cards. Extra lands produce mana for Nature’s Claim and Chain of Vapor. Many times Dredge just needs one turn to get things going so a single hate card is nice but many times not enough to seal the deal.
Why the Hate?
These are the two least interactive decks in Vintage (That’s really saying something). Each deck is mildly aware that you are also playing Magic and really doesn’t care what you are playing as long as you either aren’t able to cast spells, or stop it’s hoard of 2/2’s. As a result Magic players generally hate to see these type of decks. If having your spells countered makes you mad, try having a grip of spells and no way to cast them, or have all the counter magic with no spells to counter.
Next week I’ll go over Gush (Human) Storm and Oath.
Until then keep saving. You’ll get that first Mox soon.
Zac Clark is the Founder of Hipsters of the Coast. An avid gamer since his early teens, Zac can often be found in Brooklyn either playing games or taking photos. When he’s not drawing extra cards, wrathing boards and countering spells, he’s taking pictures of other peoples good times and listening to 90’s Music.