An Introduction to Vintage (Type1) Magic

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What is Vintage?
Vintage is the oldest format of magic, and allows the use of all cards from all sets ever printed (except for ante cards, dexterity cards, and un- cards). The key difference between Vintage (Type 1) and Legacy (Type 1.5) is that, while they both encompass all sets in their format, only Legacy bans cards that are considered "too good" while Vintage restricts them (one per deck). As you will see, this seemingly small difference has far-reaching consequences for the game-pace and deck design.

The Nature of Vintage
Since Vintage "cardpool" (the total set of all cards from which you may draw to build your deck) is so massive, and since the Magic: The Gathering design team isnt perfect, there are naturally many more overpowered cards than in any other format. Furthermore, due to the large amount of cards in the pool, the possible combos and synergies are practically endless in Vintage. These characteristics make the pace of a typical Vintage game far faster and far more brutal than in any other format. The speed of Vintage is such that the decks are distilled to the point where all the inefficiencies have been boiled off and all that's left is a super-efficient win-condition surrounded by a massive array of acceleration (speeding up your mana supply in order to play high-costed cards early), distruption (messing with your opponent), protection (stopping your opponent from messing with you), card-draw (getting more cards in your hand), and search (looking for your win-pieces).

The Power-Nine
No discussion of Vintage can be complete without this behemoth of raw power that lies at the core of the Vintage metagame. Almost all decks use at least some, if not all, of these cards.

1) Black Lotus - an artifact that costs zero mana (is free to play) and can be sacrificed for 3 mana of any color. this is acceleration so powerful that it is the only card whose inclusion will produce a higher win rate regardless of the deck that it is being put into.
2) Ancestral Recall - an instant that costs one blue mana and allows you to draw 3 cards. by far the best card draw in the game. the card advantage and tempo boost enabled by ancestral recall makes it the card with the highest correlation between resolution (successfully cast without being countered) and game win (pwning your opponent) in decks that include this card. Not all decks use this card, however, since some are not built to include blue or do not need to draw cards to win.
3) Mox Sapphire - an artifact that costs zero mana and taps for 1 blue. It's like an island, but gets around the "one land per turn rule". Very powerful acceleration
4) Mox Jet - like mox sapphire, but for black mana
5) Mox Ruby - like mox sapphire, but for red mana
6) Mox Emerald - like mox sapphire, but for green mana
7) Mox Pearl - like mox sapphire, but for white mana
8) Time Walk - a sorcery that costs one colorless and one blue mana and say "take another turn after this one". Taking extra turns is very useful, and at such a low casting cost, this card is an auto-include in almost any deck that has blue
9) Timetwister - a sorcery that costs two colorless and one blue mana, and says "each player shuffles their hand and graveyard into their library and draws 7 new cards". This card is good because it draws you 7 new cards, and also costs very little mana to use. Although seemingly symmetrical at first glance, this card's assymetry becomes apparent as you consider how many cards you and your opponent have played thus far. For example, consider: turn 1 you play an island, a 2 moxes, play timetwister. now your opponent hasnt had a chance to use any of his cards yet, but you have already played 3 cards, and now you both draw 7 new cards. This gives you a 3-card card advantage.

Duals and Fetches
Vintage decks usually comprise at least 2 colors (usually blue and black) and have a third or fourth color "splashed" in. At first glance, this seems very odd because the more colors a deck has, the less stable it usually is (for example consder a 5 color deck, where all the spells in your starting had require green mana, but all the lands in your hand only produce red or black mana; a big problem indeed!). However, in Vintage, we have a special land combo using Dual Lands and Fetch Lands.

An example of a dual land is Underground Sea, which says: underground sea counts as both a swamp and an island and can tap for either blue or black mana. There are 10 different dual lands, one for each combination of 2 of the 5 colors of magic (underground sea - blue/black, tropical island - blue/green, volcanic island - blue/red, tundra - white/blue, bayou - black/green, badlands - red/black, scrubland - white/black, taiga - red/green, plateau - white/red, savannah - white/green)

An example of a fetch land would be Polluted Delta, which does not make any mana but says: tap, pay 1 life, sacrifice polluted delta to search your library for a swamp or an island and put it into play. There are 5 fetchlands, one for each "allied" color combination (polluted delta - blue/black, bloodstained mire - black/red, wooded foothills - red/green, windswept heath - green/white, flooded strand - white/blue).

As you can see, if a deck uses lots of fetchlands to find dual lands, this accomplishes 2 things:
1) it thins lands out of your deck (playing and using this land reduces the number of lands in your deck by 2, which means that when you draw more cards you have a higher chance of getting useful spells)
2) it provides access to one of the colors specified on the fetchland, and any one other color (as long as you have the necessary dual land). To see why this is true, consider a deck that has, among other things, polluted deltas and one of each of the 10 different dual lands. Now consider that I play and use polluted delta. Now I can get access to either blue or black PLUS any other color that I want by getting the appropriate dual. To get blue and black I would look for underground sea, to get blue and green I get tropical island, to get black and green I get bayou, etc, etc...

Needless to say, this combo is extremely powerfull in enabling vintage players to play many-colored decks. In playing many-colored decks, the number of "good cards" availible for inclusion in the deck naturally increases.

Other Cards of Note:
There are also a variety of other cards that are seen very frequently in the vintage metagame because of their power

1) Force of Will - an essentially free counterspell, this is the only way to stop your opponent from either winning or doing something totally rediculous on their first turn before you've had a chance to play any lands or moxes
2) Dark Ritual - powerful mana acceleration that allows players to play very strong black enchantments and win by executing a flashy combo very early in the game
3) Mishra's Workshop - a powerful land that enables players to play powerful artifacts early in the game
4) Tinker - a powerful spell that lets the player search their deck for an obscenely powerful (but also expensive) artifact and play it for free
5) Darksteel Colossus - one of two artifacts commonly searched for with Tinker. It attacks to win the game two turns later if not dealt with.
6) Memory Jar - the second of two artifacts commonly searched for with Tinker. It is like a one-sided draw-7 card because the extra cards are only in players' hands during the turn of the person who uses Memory Jar (i.e. the opponent never gets a turn of his own to use the cards, but the player using memory jar does)
7) Yawgmoth's Will - a powerful graveyard-recursion card that allows the player using it to generate massive card advantage and "storm"
8) Tendrils of Agony - the primary win condition in combo decks using Dark Ritual and Yawgmoth's will.
9) Ill add any more that I think of along the way