Vintage is an interesting format. There are all manner of absurdly powerful and unfair things that you can do in the format. But for each unfair thing you can do, there are a myriad of hate cards that just shut the strategy down. The key question is always this: can you find the right combination of hate cards to win against an open field? Or do you have to rely on getting lucky breaks in your pairings? Typically, aggressive decks based that rely on these hate cards are white-based, and touch Green and Black for cards like Qasali Pridemage and Choke. Given some of the cards printed in recent sets, it may be worth exploring new color combinations:

Esper Hatebears - Vintage | Bazaar of Baghdad, 3-1 Vintage Daily Event

• Creatures (26)
• 4 Dark Confidant
• 4 Eldrazi Displacer
• 4 Spell Queller
• 3 Containment Priest
• 3 Kataki, War's Wage
• 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
• 2 Meddling Mage
• 2 Notion Thief
• 1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar

• Spells (15)
• 3 Mental Misstep
• 1 Ancestral Recall
• 1 Black Lotus
• 1 Chalice of the Void
• 1 Mana Crypt
• 1 Mindbreak Trap
• 1 Mox Emerald
• 1 Mox Jet
• 1 Mox Pearl
• 1 Mox Ruby
• 1 Mox Sapphire
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Time Walk

• Lands (19)
• 1 Plains
• 4 Cavern of Souls
• 3 Flooded Strand
• 3 Marsh Flats
• 2 Tundra
• 1 Adarkar Wastes
• 1 Ancient Tomb
• 1 Caves of Koilos
• 1 Karakas
• 1 Scrubland
• 1 Strip Mine

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Containment Priest
• 1 Batterskull
• 1 Disenchant
• 2 Enlightened Tutor
• 1 Ethersworn Canonist
• 2 Path to Exile
• 1 Rest in Peace
• 1 Serenity
• 3 Stoneforge Mystic
• 1 Stony Silence
• 1 Umezawa's Jitte

Buy This Deck

This is a deck that opts for powerful Blue cards rather than aggressive Green cards in this hate bear shell. You give up cards like Noble Hierarch and Gaddock Teeg, but gain access to the likes of Ancestral Recall and Time Walk in exchange, which is a tough trade to turn down. The key here is that this deck has a huge density of powerful cards in the maindeck that can just end games on the spot. Kataki, War's Wage and Containment Priest are both monsters in the appropriate matchups, while Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Meddling Mage are more powerful against spell-oriented decks. On top of all of that, you have the flash package of Spell Queller and Notion Thief to back up Containment Priest, allowing you to play on your opponent’s turn.

Perhaps the most interesting inclusion in this deck is Eldrazi Displacer. This is a card I haven’t seen showing up a ton in Vintage, but makes some amount of sense. The ability to lock cards like Lodestone Golem and Reality Smasher out of combat is very good when you’re trying to chip away with your two power creatures. Additionally, you can prevent cards like Blightsteel Colossus and Griselbrand from really taking over the game. Furthermore, if you can buy enough time, you can even trump the token generation of Monastery Mentor and Young Pyromancer as long as you don’t get overwhelmed by multiple copies. You can even generate value by flickering your own creatures, such as Spell Queller or Meddling Mage.

One of the strengths of this deck in the format is the amount of pressure it places on opposing removal spells. Vintage isn’t necessarily a format where people play four copies of cards like Lightning Bolt and Swords to Plowshares. That means that you can force your opponent to choose between killing Dark Confidant or a hate bear. Any time you can force your opponent to make difficult choices about whether to fight the lock pieces in play or deny you access to additional lock pieces, you’re generally in a pretty good spot.