The Star City Games Richmond 2026 Casual Value Vintage Report
April 2, 2026
So, this write up has been one month coming. Between health issues (both physical and emotional/mental), the world feeling inescapably horrible, and my mom being in the hospital? I have had less time and energy to do this than I thought. But all of that does not compare to how good of a time that Star City Games: Richmond was.
From march 6th to march 8th, people descended on the Greater Richmond Convention Center to play Magic the Gathering of all sorts. But, what I was there for was not only my friends, but the format we call Value Vintage.
Value Vintage operates on the Vintage ruleset for Magic the Gathering. Essentially, you have all 33 years of the card game to pull from that don't include cards that require some amount of dexterity to use (Like chaos orb being dropped onto the table), Cards with the type Conspiracy that are used for drafting, cards that require you to ante (which mean you wager it on whether you win or lose, yugioh anime-style), etc. You also have a suite of Restricted cards where you are only able to play 1 copy because they are frankly too strong in multiples. And while that seems extremely busted, and it can be, there is a second stipulation to the format: You only get a budget of $30. So your 60 card main deck, and your 15 card sideboard which you use to swap out your tools? Yeah, 30 bucks total. This forces you to balance between powerful and inexpensive cards, where you are trying to optimize your deck list to do Powerful and unfair things while at the same time automatically regulating cards that get played in other places because their price will go up due to demand.
Needless to say, it's really good fun.
So What Deck Did I Play?
U/W Gearhulk, loving named "Thunk" by it's original pilot, is a decklist that starts out by playing hard control with Counterspells, Swords to Plowshares, and efficient draw cards like Faithful Mending. Your Cool Thing is to put Magma Opus in your graveyard, cast Torrential Gearhulk, and reap the benefits of the former Standard All-star.I like this deck for two reasons. First is that when Star City Games came to Richmond 2 years ago, I was introduced to the format on this very deck. I Piloted is to a casual 3-0 finish in one evening event. Since then, the deck has been in the corner of my mind making me think about how to play something that so decisively wins and loses it's games and how to get better with it. Second is simple: Casting Magma Opus for free with Torrential Gearhulk is hilarious. Same with Mystic Confluence. Or Rebuilt. Or Swords. Or, y'know what you get it. It's a funny Magic deck.
I played in both the Friday and Saturday casual events, forgoing the 1K tournament due to exhaustion and losing Daylight Savings time. So, What did I go up against and how did I do?
FRIDAY
After buying a set of sleeves that I will likely not use, and a deckbox for a deck I will only sometimes use, I sat down at 5 PM for my first round of 3 for the event. Be a shame if I had the bye.
I had the bye
Another player didn't have their opponent show up either, so while we both got the pass round 1, we decided to sit down and play each other to warm up our brains and actually play some Magic the Gathering at a magic the gathering event.
Round 1: Energy Aluren
While Aluren itself is a $77 card, the principle of the deck is the same. Play Primal Prayers, Play Rogue Refiner to draw a card and make the energy needed for Prayers, play Decoction Module so that every creature you play makes an extra energy per module, play cavern harpy, returning Refiner to hand, and proceed to draw your whole deck. Once you get to Ukkima, Stalking Shadow? Replace Rogue Refiner with it in the loop. Got All That?
Game 1 I didn't know what I was up against, so I lost pretty decisively. Turns Out, Decoction Module, Primal Prayers, And Rogue Refiner are the most important cards in the deck and act as the main fuel for the loop. Once I figured that out, going into game 2 I was much more confident. But as I was just getting the hang of things, the next round started. I shook my opponent's hand, thanked them for the game, and figured I would have had a better Game 2. Alas
Round 2: GoyfTivity
Round 2 I was not as lucky as to have the bye round. Even worse, I went up against the originator of the Thunk deck himself. In both games we played, I had to see Narset, Parter of Veils. The evil herself.
With Hard Control, Indomitable Goyfs, and Narset holding my head underwater? I lost. Both Games. This round made me think about what I would change about Thunk and how I could use more abilities to get rid of planeswalkers, more kill spells, and more removal like Surgical Extraction to erase my opponent's stronger spells from the game. I couldn't have been beaten by a nicer guy though, I made him happy by continuing the legacy of Thunk and will be working to make sure it continues in some capacity.
Round 3: Rhinestone Cowboy
Don't be fooled, if your opponent's friend isn't standing behind him singing Larry Weiss' Rhinestone Cowboy? You're playing against sparkling Artifact Storm. Besides the Very Silly Backing Track, once again I get matched up against combo where I have no idea how I should be fighting it due to stress against an unfamiliar deck. What became apparent is that using Meria, Scholar of Antiquity to turn your artifacts into mana; Helm of Awakening to help discount your artifacts, and a suite of cards that draw you resources when you play them? You can count off with storm really easily. Throw in Paradox Engine to double your draws, Channel to make as much mana as you have life, Tinker to grab Engine, and a host of Wish cards to seek out your win conditions in Grapeshot, Empty the Warrens, Tendrils of Agony, and Aeve Progenitor Ooze and you can kill people quickly before they figure you out.
I spent so much of my games laughing my head off and being kept off balance that I couldn't snag a win against it. If I were to play against it again I'd make sure to have ways to deal with Meria and Channel, forcing my opponent to deal with the aftermath. Something like Extirpate or Surgical Extraction would just get the job done. Thus ends Day 1 of SCG Con Richmond
SATURDAY,
I spent most of the day just hanging around at the Value Vintage part of the convention and just kind of hung out. Didn't play much other events. But, 5 PM hit and it was time to once again lose every round but one that I played in. I had the most fun in a while at a Magic event.
Round 1: UG Poison, Kind Of
While I could not find the exact decklist, the concept is the same. Use an early Rotpriest to make your opponent gain poison counters early, and then hold on until you can either use cheap spells to increase poison, or Ivy to make copies through this process. As a special note: you only need 10 poison counters to lose the game, so this deck goes a lot faster than you expect. This deck plays out much closer to a Storm deck where you need to deal with the rotpriests immediately. And that's pretty tough for a slower control deck.
Round 2: Bard Class
The only round I actually won For Sure, Bard Class leverages it's Level 2 ability to discount all of your creatures, which just so happen to be legendary. All of the creatures are very strong but however the real kicker is that you can play the legal Minsc and Boo. I had to stare down one of the most messed up planeswalkers each game I played, with a Turn 2 M+B running roughshod over me before I clutched the game out. Scarlet Spider is a really fun include in this deck too, it gets to take advantage of being free with bard class and web swinging.
The way you beat this deck is running out it's resources, or by removing them completely. There is no card draw, so smart use of Counterspells and doing extremely hard Balance math will get you into the winner's circle. Each match was close though, where if I messed up my line I would have lost very fast. Minsc and Boo are just a beating, and each legendary creature fills a fun offensive niche.
Round 3: BGoyfTivity Rematch
So IDK, I got the Day 2 run back against Goyftivity. And everything went just about the same. For extra notes, each card in this deck that makes a token (Hard Evidence, Deduce, Prismari Command, Shark Typhoon) is an important part of the puzzle for getting Pyrogoyf out early. All of the counterspells are cheap to cast as well, so it's important to hold them up when you have 4-5 mana to use. The problem, though, is that Pyrogoyf wins games on it's own, and dealing with that is tough even without having to work around Indomitable Creativity. But also to say again, I had fun with all my games and I can't be that mad with my performance.
So what did I learn from this outing
One: I still love Magic the Gathering. I mean, I wouldn't have gone to a weekend event if I didn't, but I figure that Value Vintage has kept me in this game. Two: I'm rethinking my approach on the Thunk deck. It needs ways of getting through strong 4-ofs for problematic cards, and flexible ways of dealing with Enchantments or other threats. So I have put together an Esper version of the deck to see what I can do with it
And finally? I had a lot of fun. Losing is just on the pathway to getting better here, and as someone who's very casually a Value Vintage player I think this was a great onboarding to what I think will be a new part of my saga with the game.