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About Carl Winter: Carl Winter is the former Vintage World Champion and a regular fixture at the top tables of major Vintage events.
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These are the defining cards of the event. Oh, sure, there are lots of Mana Drains, but I don't expect to see too many Mana Drain-based decks at the top tables; at least not as many as we would have expected a few months ago when Control Slaver was the deck to beat. It seems that that Mana Drain has been ousted by Vial-based aggro decks. Goblins are all over as well, though most seem to just be mono-Red, and nearly all are without Aether Vials, something that surprised me. I guess Vialing out Goblin Lackey is just too slow.
The Fish decks are coming in two flavors: Blue/Green ala Jacob Orlove's Worse Than Fish, and Ashok Chitturi's U/W Vial Fish. Both decks operate essentially the same way, but Blue/Green looks to have the advantage thanks to the raw power of Wild Mongrel. Besides Aether Vial, all of the Fish decks have another card in common: Chalice of the Void. Chalice may well be the defining card of the format. Walking by the tables I saw countless Chalices set to zero, stranding innumerable Black Lotus and its Moxen friends in their owner's hands.
Goblins and Fish are definitely the most played decks, but the rest of the field is composed of every deck under the rainbow: Gifts Ungiven, Slaver, Oath, Affinity, Landstill and even combo decks like DeathLong, Land Grant Belcher, TPS and even Illusions/Donate decks are here. Mana Drain is being heavily played, but mostly in Control Slaver decks of the Shay and Goth varieties. I had assumed that Gifts Ungiven had pushed Slaver into the background, reminiscent of Slaver ending the era of Psychatog's reign of terror.
It seems that the Vintage pundits were wrong declaring Fish a dead deck. Once again the influence of Marc Perez and his little Blue men, albeit in a different form, are dominating the format.
As for new tech, well, I didn't notice much aside from a gentleman casting Dominating Licid against Goblins. Unfortunately the effectiveness of the 1/1 from Exodus is still a mystery as his opponent played a Mogg Fanatic on his turn, making Baby Jesus a very sad panda.
Here's the quick n' dirty metagame list courtesy of JP Meyer.
Worse Than Fish (WTF): A lot.
U/W Fish: A lot divided by two.
Slaver: Lots!
Gifts: A little bit.
Mono Blue: Very little.
4cc: One or two.
Stax: Around five-ish.
TPS: One or two.
Affinity: One.
Workshop Aggro: A few.
Dragon: Next to none.
Salvagers: A few.
Oath: A few.
Landstill: A few.
DeathLong: One! (That one was me)
Two-Land Belcher: One.
