Vintage is a crazy format where all manner of things are possible. The thing about such an enormous card pool is there are always niche role-players finding their way into the limelight. In what other format could Slash Panther and Ingot Chewer become absolute superstars? Keeping that in mind, it’s not especially surprising to see Thing in the Ice 4-0 a Vintage Daily event; it’s mostly exciting. Let’s take a look at what The Atog Lord has going on:

U/R Thing in the Ice ? Vintage | The Atog Lord, 4-0 Vintage Daily Event

• Creatures (8)
• 2 Scab-Clan Berserker
• 2 Snapcaster Mage
• 4 Thing in the Ice

• Spells (38)
• 1 Ancestral Recall
• 1 Brainstorm
• 1 Dig Through Time
• 2 Flusterstorm
• 2 Pyroblast
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Gush
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Mental Misstep
• 1 Ponder
• 1 Shattering Spree
• 1 Time Walk
• 1 Treasure Cruise
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Preordain
• 1 Black Lotus
• 1 Mox Ruby
• 1 Mox Sapphire

• Lands (14)
• 2 Island
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Tundra
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Volcanic Island

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Scab-Clan Berserker
• 3 Shattering Spree
• 2 Containment Priest
• 1 Kataki, War's Wage
• 2 Mindbreak Trap
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Pulverize
• 4 Ravenous Trap

Buy This Deck

This deck is very similar to the U/R Delver decks we saw in years past. Cheap threats backed by efficient removal and powerful card advantage effects have always been a recipe for success. The combination of Mental Misstep and Force of Will to trade efficiently with opposing cards, combined with Gush and company to recoup your cards means you’re almost always going to have more gas than your opponent — as long as you can contain whatever your opponent is doing.

For many decks, countermagic will do just fine. After all, it’s pretty easy to win if your opponent never resolves a card like Oath of Druids, Dark Petition, or Lodestone Golem. However, you will, occasionally, still have to deal with resolved cards, particularly creatures. This is particularly true in the current Vintage metagame, which is more creature-centric than almost any time I can remember.

Enter Thing in the Ice. Thing in the Ice doesn’t care what your opponent is doing. Whether it’s Lodestone Golems, Bridge from Below tokens, Monastery Mentor and Young Pyromancer — it just doesn’t matter. You can make your opponent scoop up all of their creatures, smash in for a huge chunk of damage, and leave your opponent very far behind and potentially in burn range. A huge part of the power of this card comes in the fast mana and free spells that are available in Vintage. Between the easy mana, Gush, and Delve spells, it’s not hard to imagine casting a Thing in the Ice and flipping it all in the same turn. This gives you a powerful way to reset the board which also functions as a proactive way to pressure your opponent.