Teferi Time Raveler in Vintage Eternal Weekend

I've always wanted to play in Eternal Weekend. For many years, I'd set it as a goal, even when I didn't own any Vintage decks. Eventually, I completed my set of Power Nine and I thought I'd finally go. However, I never managed to attend because of a limited travel schedule and other Magic obligations taking priority. For this year, it was certainly a tentative plan, but we're now far enough into the COVID life that I can no longer pinpoint alternative activities that I once had firmly scheduled. It would have been tough to make it, so I was happy to here they were doing it on Magic Online.

I've been busy with school, so I figured I would only have time to play one of the six offered events. I chose Vintage because it always delivers. Legacy is great, but sometimes it is in a bad spot, and the current Legacy decks look didn't excite me as much as the Vintage lists did.

The Deck

A while back, I said I should always play Teferi in Modern. I don't think that necessarily runs true for Legacy, where three mana is a much bigger ask in a world of Wasteland and Daze. In Vintage, you have Mox and fewer Wasteland decks, so it seemed like maybe the Teferi strategy would translate. The extra importance of Force of Will meant the upside of Teferi was even higher.

I also knew I wanted something proactive. I don't have much experience with Vintage as of late. The last time I played any games was in 2018 and I think I had four Mental Misstep in my deck. This meant I would most likely play Paradoxical Outcome or another blue combo deck. I would not try to play Xerox Control, even though those decks are usually more my style. Also, I want to Teferi people, and Combo is the best way to do it.

I saw a list from Medvedev that did well in two different Vintage events online. It jumped out from the rest with 2 Teferi and 4! Lavinia, Azorius Renegade. Lavinia acts a lot like Teferi in Vintage since most counter magic costs zero mana. It also is very good against Basking Rootwalla and Hollow One decks.I copied this list and played a league to a 3-2 finish with the little free time I had in the week before my EW event:

I realized Teferi was better than I thought. He effectively cost two mana since he would usually bounce your Mox back to your hand to replay (rarely were there opposing creatures to bounce). I talked with some of the Austin Romancing the Stones Vintage player because there were some changes I wanted to make and I wanted to be sure I wasn't screwing up the deck too badly. They basically mandated I have at least one Hurkyll's Recall in the main. They also suggested trying a Karn package. They confirmed my suspicion that Sphinx of the Steel Wind is better now than Blightsteel Colossus. They also said that cutting Lotus Petal is fine. With those suggestions, I registered this:

With additional Teferi, I didn't think I needed the main deck Swords to Plowshares. I felt confident not having a storm card to kill with, especially with Karn as an alternative win condition. I didn't really know which artifacts to play in the sideboard. 

The Games

A quick rundown of some matches:

R1: GW Fastbond Hatebears. I think game one I have to use Karn to wish for Sphinx and then hard cast it. It was good enough. I win game two with only 1:58 on my clock. Comboing without a storm card takes a lot of mouse clicks.

1-0

R2: 4 Color Leovold Goodstuff. I think I go off game one with Teferi. Game two I hard cast Sphinx turn two with Flusterstorm backup and he can't remove it.

2-0

R3: Doomsday (tournament winner). Game one he has one more counter than me and resolves a Necropotence which buries me in card advantage. I mess up game two and don't play a Mana Crypt then can't pay for his Flusterstorm on a key turn.

2-1

R4: BUG goodstuff. I don't remember much about this. Teferi was probably very good.

3-1

R5: Hollow Vine. I lose game one but turn one Lavinia stops him from doing anything game two. He has two Deafening Silence, but eventually I build my mana up and hard cast Sphinx for the third time in five rounds. Game three I don't have any interaction, but neither does he and my combo is way faster.

4-1

R6: Blue Belcher. Game one I lock him out with Lavinia. I lose game two on a mulligan and I can't cast my interactive spells. Game three I Spyglass and see Manifold Key, Time Vault, and Grim Monolith. I name Manifold Key. He draws Narset and finds Voltaic Key to kill me.

4-2

R7: Ravager Shops. I don't remember much about the shops matchups. One match I had to cast Balance twice in a game to not die and then stabilize by blocking with a Sol Ring before I could get Lattice online with Karn. A different match I Tinkered for Sphinx to stabilize from 1 life where Colossus would not have one. One of the matches also had a game where my Sphinx was held at bay by Stonecoil Serpant but I eventually swarmed the board with Mentor tokens to kill him.

5-2

R8: BUG goodstuff. He didn't have enough interaction and Teferi definitely won a game.

6-2

R9: Ravager Shops. See round 7, not sure what happened which round.

7-2

R10: Oath. I win game one but he is better configured post board. Game three I punt when I don't tutor for a Force of Will to protect my Teferi and then lose to Narset and Pyroblast a turn before I can go off.

7-3

What I learned

I think it was a reasonable showing for not having played Vintage in a long time. Some things I wish I had done differently:

Lotus Petal was important at casting turn one Lavinia and I maybe shouldn't have cut it. I lost some games where I didn't have the mana to cast Lavinia or Teferi, I could have added an additional land instead of Lotus Petal.

I definitely would not play a storm card if I was playing a paper event. The actions of comboing go much faster and you are more likely to get a concession while going off since the clock is shared. A storm card might be nice to have online where the clicking takes so long and you can time out.

I don't know if Karn was worth it. Maybe with Teferi and Lavinia I needed cheaper cards. I would have liked to have had an Ensnaring Bridge in the board. The Needle effects and GY hate weren't that important in my games.

Balance is real messed up. This deck can take advantage of it better than usual since you only need one card to get back in it.

I don't really see the appeal of Night's Whisper. I get the logic behind needing a critical mass of resources, but when compared with cards that can straight up win the game on their own like Teferi and Lavinia I'm not sure it does enough.

Repeal or some way to remove a Narset or Karn is probably needed.

Lavinia and Teferi were great, but I think 4 Lavinia 2 Teferi makes more sense. 

The biggest takeaway was how awesome Vintage games are. Every game is epic in some way or another. I remember watching VSL and being stunned at how often the games weren't just fine or okay, but actually good. It's pretty much the only format that I always enjoy watching. I should try to play it more.

Props:

Every card in my deck for being one of the best cards ever printed (and Lavinia for being good against the best cards ever printed)

Eternal Weekend Online

The RTS crew for being a good virtual hang out

Slops:

Not being able to play Beta art power nine with the "full access" accounts

My round three opponent for winning the event but then getting caught bribing opponents

Thassa's Oracle. Doomsday was way more interesting before you showed up.