The Top 8 Vintage Decks from Cardmarket Series Paris

Let's take a look at the Vintage results of Cardmarket Paris. The format which everybody loves — or hates — but which is hardly played. What did the ones fortunate enough to enter the Vintage zone choose to bring to the table? How diverse was the field, and what ended up on top?

Vintage doesn't leave much room for shenanigans when it comes to building the most competitive decks compared to other Magic formats. Unpowered lists are possible and I love seeing them, but they rarely work out.

Old Favorites Back from the Dead?

The format lately benefited from the restrictions of and as well as and . The Misstep restriction made a bunch of decks playable again, such as DPS, Classic Storm, Painter, and of course . The unrestriction of gave the format room to experiment, culminating in new decks like "Crabshack" and "Ziasbond." Decks like on the other hand had some recent success too. The format as a whole became a little slower and slightly more grindy.


oath of druids

Let's see which archetypes came out on top at the most recent Vintage main event. Here is a short overview of the decks that made it out of the Swiss rounds at Cardmarket Series Paris 2020:

Top 8

  • 2 (one of them winning)
  • 2
  • 2 Dredge
  • 1
  • 1

Five different decks out of eight is not as diverse as CM Series Prague 2019, but on the plus side, it reveals no dominance of any one particular strategy — even though is a damn fine deck at the moment. It will be interesting to see if will earn a restriction if Oath remains this good. I personally am happy to see Workshops/Prison style decks less dominant theses days. The short [Karn, the great Creator] – – era was a to me. Overall, having the Prague and Barcelona 2019 results in mind, I think that Vintage is in a great spot right now.

The Top 8 Decklists


1. Mikael Linden – Oko Oath (Winner)
Main DeckSideboard
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I'm happy to see here. This creature is difficult to remove because most artifact removal is red or green. The best way would be via or maybe an Edict effect. But these are not played very often since Vintage is not a creature heavy format. could get the job done too … Just fodder for my s, thinks Mikael Linden. The Sphinx seems to be in a perfect place in the current metagame and iIt seems that Oath has all the answers at the moment.

  • Strengths: Synergy with Oko, able to run four
  • Weaknesses: Dependent on a single card

2. Benjamin Bouveret – Paradoxical Outcome
Main DeckSideboard
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A sweet Mentor Outcome list eschewing the classic / combo. We have and as win conditions. This list also sets aside . comes in from the sideboard as an alternative win condition. decks profited the most from the restriction of .

  • Strengths: Explosive, balanced, no bad matchups, lots of win conditions
  • Weaknesses: , , ,

3. Nicolas Wallian – Survival
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Survival is probably the fairest out of all the top tier Vintage decks, if you can call a Vintage deck fair. It always has a good chance to take a match and it does not have any bad matchups. was the perfect fetchable addition against artifact-heavy decks like Outcome or Workshops. We see other lock pieces or hosers in the form of and as well as , , and . plus do their best against Dredge. Survival has answers to all decks in the metagame. Compared to a deck like Outcome it may only lack that kind of super crazy speed. It's ridiculous to say that about a deck that is capable of having two 4/3s (with haste), a 4/4, and a 1/1 creature on the battlefield on turn one … Survival came out of the Swiss rounds with the best record.

  • Strengths: Flexible creature toolbox with a wide range of silver bullets
  • Weaknesses: A little less explosive than other decks in format

4. Romain Laroche De Roussane – Dredge
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Dredge is dead, long live Dredge. There is simply no way to stop bad ol' Dredge. This archetype got hit the hardest by the latest restrictions losing its playset of and . Some people thought this would be the end of Dredge in Vintage, but it is still creeping forward like a Zombie in a Romero movie. The missing copies of were replaced by a couple copies of and the missing green pieces to cast were replaced with . Dredge without the Grave-Troll might be a little less explosive, but it profited a lot from on the other hand.

  • Strengths: Explosive, disruptive, with Elesh Norn against Monks
  • Weaknesses: So much (effective) hate from every corner

5. Mackenzie Stratford – Paradoxical Outcome Storm
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Mackenzie Stratford's plays with , but again foregoes /. You also see no in this deck, but and two s against other blue decks. One in the main, three in the sideboard as weapons against , , Lavinia, and of course other countermagic.

  • Strengths: Explosive, balanced, no bad matchups, lots of win conditions
  • Weaknesses: , , ,

6. Guillaume Denoix – Shops
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Shops was not hit hard by any restrictions, but by Modern Horizons through the printing of and . Although the deck was blessed with new tools in and , it faces much more pressure than before. But much like Dredge with four , one should never count out this strategy as long as it has four Workshops.

  • Strengths: Very effective game plan
  • Weaknesses: So much hate from every deck

7. Philip Richman – Oath of Druids
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Very classic Oath stuff here. Philip Richman relies heavily on counterspells — twelve plus — and artifact hate via , , and . The creature choice is the classic plus duo. Since the deck has all the tools against blue and artifact decks main, the sideboard is filled with even more gravyard hate. Oath decks are in a great spot since Oko hit the scene. The planeswalker brings answers against artifact decks and elevates the natural game plan of Oath players. At the same time is the deck easiest loaded up with four as the best answer to .

  • Strengths: Synergy with Oko, able to run four Pyroblast
  • Weaknesses: Dependent on a single card

8. Sonia L'Hopital – Dredge
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The Dredge list of L'Hopital isn't very different from Laroche's. She runs three main whereas Laroche has another , , and a single .

  • Strengths: Explosive, disruptive, with Elesh Norn against Monks
  • Weaknesses: So much (effective) hate from every corner

Observational Notes


Wild Research

  • More and more action. It is becoming very important to deal with Oko and the blue static-ability planeswalkers (Narset and Teferi). You see four in the main deck of Oath, while Outcome lists include one to two in the main and one to three in the sideboard.

  • is in every blue deck and her restriction was the absolute right move.

  • White has become very common in Outcome — not just for Mentor — and in most Survival decks. and/or [Teferi Time Reveler] are a great fit here. Outcome decks are built slightly less explosive than before. Instead Lavinia, Teferi, and Narset provide a more secure game plan.

  • Most decks, besides Dredge and Shops, tend to go to three or four colors.

  • is very underappreciated.

  • Surprisingly, no skulls from Storm lists in the Top 8, although they benefited from the restriction.

  • No real surprises, no rogue lists, no .

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily Cardmarket.