Vintage Insights: Analyzing the Impact of Secrets of Strixhaven

Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of Vintage 101! This week we're going to be taking a look at how Secrets of Strixhaven is affecting Vintage. In addition to that, we have our MTGO recap and our Challenges from last week.

Back to School#

Secrets of Strixhaven is here now on MTGO, and we've got our first results with some new cards from the set. There were really only two major cards that felt like they were fairly powerful. Let's start with the elephant in the hamlet.

When Petrified Hamlet was spoiled, people were losing their minds over this on Bazaar decks and just a lot of stuff in general. Like, people were saying they would play this in literally every Vintage deck, including Lurrus of the Dream-Den Frog decks and stuff (which is wrong, don't do this, it's bad).

However, realistically? There have been a total of five lists across the entire weekend's Challenges (and no League results) with Petrified Hamlet since its release last Wednesday. Of those, the card has really only shown up as 1-2 of in Raker Shops lists (with one list going for a full four copies).

Frankly, I think Petrified Hamlet will realistically settle into that space of a 1-2 of maybe in these very specific lists, and even then it might not last. I think the card is not nearly as strong as people made it out to be during spoiler season, and I think so far the results are proving to jive with that evaluation of the card. I think the card is probably only very good on Turn 1, and even then it could be bad since it's costing you a land drop to do it.

The other major card of this set was Flow State. Over the weekend, combined with Leagues and Challenges, there were 17 decks with this card in them, from Lurrus of the Dream-Den decks to card-ref:Doomsday and even Oath of Druids. Most of these lists fluttered between 2-4 copies overall. My impression is that the card is actually quite good, and the rate you get for it is pretty reasonable card selection.

Of the two major cards, I do expect that Flow State will go on to be more played than a card like Petrified Hamlet. It goes in more decks overall and is simply going to see more play as a 3-4 of, whereas Petrified Hamlet is a very niche card that answers very niche scenarios. I am excited to see where we go from here, but I do expect that something like Flow State will continue to see play here. Even if I wasn't super high on it for Vintage, the fact that players are able to build around its existence is pretty cool, and cards that simply reward you for playing the game often tend to be very good.

Weekly MTGO Recap#

As always, thanks to Justin Gennari for his community-supported data and weekly recaps. This week was a fairly light and normal week, with events only in the 30s and 40s. We had the following events this past week:

• Vintage Challenge 32 4/23/2026: 45 players
• Vintage Challenge 32 4/24/2026: 35 players
• Vintage Challenge 32 4/25/2026: 42 players
• Vintage Challenge 32 4/26/2026: 32 players

This week, as noted, was light, so we only had around 154 total decklist entries for the week. Let's look at the graphical data.

As is generally the case, Lurrus of the Dream-Den decks take up quite a bit of space, with this past week being 60 copies and almost HALF of the weekly metagame. However, as we've continued to say in the past on this, this is slightly differing because the Lurrus of the Dream-Den macro archetype just represents decks playing the companion and doesn't quite address the fact that all of the decks under that umbrella are very different decks, from control to aggro to combo. This just means if you were playing this past week, almost half the time in Challenges you'd possibly run across a deck playing Lurrus of the Dream-Den.

Esper Lurrus was the most played deck of the week, but its overall win rate was less than 50% at 45.1% non-mirror. This is down from last week's close to 60% non-mirror win rate. Natural metagame forces are pretty cool when you see them in action week to week. Esper Lurrus was very good last week, and because of that, people honed more in on it this week, so it didn't do as well. Gotta love it.

Lurrus PO was the second most played deck of the event, and it too dropped hard from last week's 53.7% non-mirror to a 44.5% non-mirror win rate. Again, I think people are playing to the metagame, and things just naturally shift like this, and it's kind of sweet to see how things move about. Of the Lurrus of the Dream-Den combo decks, I do think things flip-flop a lot between card-ref:Breach and Paradoxical Outcome, and each variant has its own strengths and weaknesses. This is a good thing because it presents variety to these combo-based archetypes.

card-ref:Dredge was the third most played deck of the week, and frankly, it continues to look pretty bad. It has its moments in Challenges, but overall card-ref:Dredge's positioning is one of sheer popularity because there are people who adore the archetype and not because it's incredible in current Vintage. The format absolutely seems ready for card-ref:Dredge as a deck, and that's solid to see.

Initiative remained in the conversation this week in fourth place, having a slightly less win rate from last week in a 50.7% non-mirror. The results I saw weren't stunning for the deck, but some consistent performance at least. There's still, I think, some deck-building things that I think should be explored with this deck (like, get rid of them Void Mirrors), but overall it's a deck that's hanging strong and waxing/waning appropriately as the metagame shifts.

Raker Shops rounded out the Top 5 this week, with a really solid-looking 58.1% non-mirror win rate. The deck looked quite strong and had a number of solid results in the first week of Secrets of Strixhaven. However, not a lot of that is on the back of Petrified Hamlet as we discussed earlier. I just think the deck is just very raw and powerful at times.

Week to week, Vintage continues to impress. It looks fun and fluid, and the metagame is shifting in ways that are appropriate for it. Are you enjoying Vintage so far with Secrets of Strixhaven? Let me know in the comments below.