Setting New Standards

Ding dong the wizard’s dead.

After far too long Vivi Ornitier is gone, and Proft’s Eidetic Memory as well for its sins. Screaming Nemesis ate a ban too, though no one really knows why. Avatar the Last Airbender has also been released, with some powerful and interesting new cards.

So what does Standard look like now?

There haven’t been any major tabletop events since the Banned & Restricted announcement on November 10th, and the release of Avatar a week later, but we do have some online results and decklists. Standard is the current RCQ format, and the World Championships is this weekend, so what does Standard look like on the eve of the biggest tournament of the year?

I’m going to run through the top handful of decks, share an example list, note its inherent strengths and weaknesses, and what I think of its position in the metagame.

The Metagame

Other is everything 2% and under. Data taken from MTGGoldfish for the 14 days from 17/11.

Dimir Midrange

Ninja’s are still cool, right?

1. Sample List: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7486961#paperhttps://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7486961#paper

2. Key Play Patterns: Yep this is still the same deck a year later. Guess those Dusmourn packs were a good buy. Develop some cheap disruptive creatures and deploy a Kaito, Bane of Nightmares or an Enduring Curiosity to snowball your lead. The Bats are back in vogue now too, given the reduction in cheap red removal at the top of the metagame.

3. Inherent Strengths:

   1. You have great mana and get to play 3-5 creature lands.

   2. Sometimes Kaito just solos the game.

   3. You get to play a lot of the game at instant speed - with Floodpits Drowner, Tishana’s Tidebinder and Enduring Curiosity all having flash the deck can be awkward to play against. (This is a much smaller benefit against experienced players).

   4. You get a good sideboard with lots of cheap interaction that lets you improve most matchups post-board.

4. Inherent Weaknesses:

   1. You have to pick what you want to beat game 1, and sometimes this means drawing hands full of removal against control decks. Sometimes you even get to draw 3 or 4 cards from Enduring Curiosity triggers and they just don’t seem to do anything.

   2. The removal spell suite is poor - since Cut Down and Go for the Throat rotated Dimir players seemingly use the variance in cosmic radiation to pick their removal spell numbers. Creatures that make multiple bodies such as Pawpatch Recruit and Badgermole Cub are problems.

   3. Your creatures are kind of small and crap - they don’t block well (especially now lists have trimmed Preacher of the Schism), and trade down for removal spells - especially Torch the Tower.

   4. Your big plays and power spikes aren’t that strong - nothing in your deck matches an Ouroboroid or Superior Spiderman on the battlefield.

5. Metagame Position

   1. This deck is pretty good if you can reasonably guess the meta and build it accordingly. I’d happily play this at an RCQ as well, it’s the type of deck that will let you have a good game against most of the room.

   2. I’d never play this deck at Worlds - it’s too underpowered and weak against combo decks game 1.

Simic Aggro

Insert 5th different pronunciation of Ouroboro-thingy

1. Sample List: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7488031#paper

2. Key Play Patterns: The first deck on the list with our new baby animal standard overlord, where buying a playset will cost you about as much as trying to crossbreed a badger-mole yourself. The deck has two key patterns, firstly, to play a pile of cheap creatures into Ouroboroid then dominate the board, and, secondly, to play a Jackal, Genius Geneticist into a pile of cheap creatures and dominate the board. (Is that really two patterns or just one?...)

3. Inherent Strengths:

   1. You’re a really good elves deck. Your key creatures get significantly better when you can play them a turn ahead of schedule and you can also turn the mana creatures into threats themselves later.

   2. You’re really difficult to beat on-board. The green creatures get bigger and go wider than the other main players in the meta.

   3. Pawpatch Recruit, Badgermole Cub and Tyvar do a lot of work at insulating you against 1-for-1 removal.

4. Inherent Weaknesses

   1. You’re going to flood. A lot. You’re playing 30+ mana, and can only really fit in 1 creature land.

   2. You have literally zero removal and between 2 and 5 pieces of any kind of interaction game 1. Be glad Screamy Neemy is gone.

   3. You’re soft to sweepers. These aren’t popular, especially the unconditional kind, but they will get you. You can have some counter-spells postboard but it’s not always enough. You can play around Fire Magic and Pyroclasm to a degree.

   4. The current sideboard does a lot for your bad game 1 matchups (e.g. 4 Torpor Orp, 2 Soul-Guide Lantern, 2 Tishana’s Tidebinder, 2 Spider-Sense for the Reanimator matchup, which must be close to unwinnable game 1).

5. Metagame Position

   1. Simic Aggro is proactive, powerful and reasonably resilient. It gets to play the shiniest of shiny new toys in the Cub and has some genuinely powerful plays.

   2. There’s a good chunk of the list you can tweak if you want more game against certain decks game 1 - but I’d be wary about diluting the decks strengths (i.e. Keen-Eyed Curator would probably be a trap maindeck).

   3. This deck is popular online, but I’d expect it to be much less so on the RCQ circuit. Whether you want to play Riddlers or not this deck is quite expensive and has “will be outmoded by the next set’s shiny mythic” all over it.

Izzet Looting

Riddle me this

1. Sample List:https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7487204#paper

2. Key Play Patterns: Play some cheap threats and interaction to establish a strong early position on the board, then either win with that early pressure or flip to a longer game with Quantum RIddler or Winternight Stories.

3. Inherent Strengths

   1. This is a really good Quantum Riddler deck with 16-20 1-mana spells.

   2. Boomerang Basics and Stormchasers Talent is kinda nuts - though this isn’t the best shell for it…

   3. Torch the Tower lines up really well against Dimir, Simic Aggro and Mono Red.

   4. You didn’t have to de-sleeve your Vivi deck and only had to spend about £10 on new cards. It essentially has a higher floor to its performance than Vivi (you can’t draw 3 Soul-Cauldrons in your opener if you don’t play any) but also a much, much lower ceiling.

   5. Fear of Missing Out in combination with Duelist etc can fairly easily one-shot an unprepared opponent.

4. Inherent Weaknesses

   1. You’re probably never beating an Ouroboroid that sticks in play for a turn or Superior Spiderman trigger in a million years, (wait this sounds familiar…)

   2. Everyone and their mum has plenty of practice playing against your deck.

   3. Tiger-Seal is incredibly awkward sometimes. Its emblematic of the struggles this deck can have playing from behind.

5. Metagame Position

   1. Like Dimir this deck feels a little underpowered, but has a similar attraction of just letting you play lots of magic. You don’t have the big power spike anymore but the deck plays very well to the board and can maneuver an early advantage well.

   2. This deck also looks stinking against the combo decks, especially game 1 where you can never really kill before turn 5 and you have no stack based interaction.

   3. I’d expect this to be popular throughout the season, and probably more popular than Dimir at worlds.

Mono-Red Aggro

Why am I still losing to ****** Hired Claws?

1. Sample List: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7487247#paper

2. Key Play Patterns: Play some cheap creatures and cheap removal spells to gain an early lead, then position a midgame where your awkward threats stop your opponent from catching up.

3. Inherent Strengths

   1. I have no idea. This deck was sub 50% winrate in the last meta and had its best card banned.

   2. I mean I guess Zhao is pretty good? Especially against 3+ colour decks.

   3. No that can’t be enough, surely. Maybe you win the die roll and Hired Claw snowballs every match for a whole tournament?

   4. Ojer Axonil is pretty good with Razorkin Needlehead if no one is playing removal (*cough* Simic Aggro *cough*)

   5. The Legend of Rokku is a really strong grindy card too.

4. Inherent Weaknesses

   1. You only have about 12 strong cards in your deck. You’re priced into playing too many lands and your sideboard is terrible.

   2. Your card quality is terrible. Shock was a bad magic card in 2010 never mind now.

5. Metagame Position:

   1. This deck is only going to do well when the rest of the meta forgets about it and gives it no credit.

   2. There will always be a small percentage of the meta playing this deck. Its cheap and easy to build, but lets you learn lots of valuable magicy lessons.

   3. I’d be amazed if this is in the top 5 decks played at Worlds. I don’t like its matchup against any of the decks we’ve covered so far.

Bant Airbending Combo

I bought three boxes of Avatar and want to use my new toys

1. Sample List: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7487224#paper

2. Key Play Patterns: Like Simic Aggro you’re a mana dork deck with Badgermole Cubs. The difference here is that we end in an infinite combo - Aang, Swift Saviour and Appa, Steadfast Guardian can airbend each other. When you replay Aang you get a 1/1 Ally from Appa. If you have a Doc Aurlock in play you can do this repeatedly for 0 mana as much as you want at instant speed - pretty nifty!

3. Inherent Strengths

   1. Aang and Appa are pretty powerful cards in their own right that are difficult to interact with, letting you play a pretty powerful flash game.

   2. Airbending Bramble Familiar (to play the adventure side for 2 mana) or the 5-mana Aang, at the Crossroads also gives you a powerful value engine.

   3. Your ‘big thing’ trumps most other decks ‘big thing’ and you can do yours at instant speed.

   4. Avatar’s Wrath in the sideboard is very nice for creature mirrors - you can choose to keep a Doc Aurlock in play then redeploy your board for free.

   5. You’ll do the creature combo thing a lot where you threaten the combo but win with 2/2s and 2/3s. Its quite fun. If the mana was any good the new gavony township land could help a lot with this.

4. Inherent Weaknesses

   1. Like all the multicoloured decks that play 4 Multiversal Passage / 4 Starting Town your mana is sketchy. You can easily find yourself taking 5 damage and still struggling to cast your double pip spells.

   2. You have very limited means of interacting with your opponents to stop them snowballing you. A Dimir deck that sticks a Kaito only really needs to draw a couple of interactive spells to keep you at bay long enough to flip that into a win.

   3. There’s a good bit of splash damage from the Torpor Orbs that have started appearing - they’re pretty good against you!

   4. You don’t win the turn you combo off unless you have an Imodane’s Recruiter available - which might not be worth it. Bear in mind against Fire Magic specifically.

5. Metagame Position

   1. I think the core combo here is pretty powerful, and you’ll likely see it stick around in various forms. I’m not convinced the mana dork heavy version is the best, it might be better suited as just a UW flash style midrange deck.

   2. I’d need to get very comfortable against Dimir, Simic and Izzet to justify playing this - if you can’t assemble the combo they’ll pretty much all beat you on the board.

   3. This deck would be great at an RCQ with closed decklists. Especially the early rounds where unless you have a very canny opponent they might not realise what is going on until too late.

Jeskai Control

Because 10% of the playerbase is contractually obliged to play control at any given event

1. Sample List: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7488056#paper

2. Key Play Patterns: Kill some things, cast some Stock Ups, win with a big card advantage dragon.

3. Inherent Strengths

   1. Your deck is a pile of removal and interaction against a very creature-heavy meta. It’s also probably the easiest deck on the list to play well.

   2. Shiko, Paragon of the Way is playable again now that Agatha’s Soul Cauldron isn’t in 40% of the meta as a 4x maindeck. Between it, Marang River Regent and Jeskai Revelation, Jeskai control can actually end the game in a reasonable fashion.

   3. Casting Stock Up is really fun. You should try it sometime.

   4. Sweepers seem quite well positioned.

4. Inherent Weaknesses

   1. This is a control deck in 2025. We’re now a decade past the point where threats got significantly better than answers.

   2. The metagame is still in a state of flux, if you get your answer suite wrong you’re in trouble and if people want to beat you they can.

   3. Depending on the list you’re playing between zero and two 1-mana cards, and only two or three sweepers. You can fall behind very easily without guarantee you can catch up. The Dragons aren’t always enough.

   4. Kaito, Bane of Nightmares will just beat you by itself sometimes. It happens.

5. Metagame Position

   1. Playing a control deck is a metagame choice in and of itself. Azorius and 4c control are also relatively popular. My guess is the 3 and 4 colour versions are better at the moment given how Lightning Helix looks to line up against the meta.

   2. The combo decks (Reanimator, Airbending combo and Omniscience) are pretty poor matchups game 1 and you need to pick and choose what you want your sideboard to beat.

   3. I would not be surprised to see this deck get more popular as the meta solidifies and would expect this to be more popular at Worlds than online at the moment.

Superior Spiderman Reanimator

Spiderman, Spiderman, does what ever a demon(???) can

1. Sample List: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7483991#paper

2. Key Play Pattern: Mill or discard some big creatures. Cast Superior Spider-Man which enters as a copy of Bringer of the Last Gift. Because you cast the Spider-Man you get the Bringer’s enter the battlefield trigger. This wipes the board and reanimates your whole graveyard. Sometimes you win on the same turn because of Ardyn giving haste or because there was a Terror of the Peaks hidden in your box of tricks, but most of the time it’s just a big enough swing it doesn’t matter if you deal the final blow that turn or the next.

3. Inherent Strengths:

   1. The combo is really powerful. Casting Living Death on turn 4 is pretty busted and you’re a huge favourite whenever you do this.

   2. For a Standard deck the enablers and utility pieces are strong - Awaken the Honored Dead in particular saves a bunch of sideboard slots and Analyze the Pollen is a great land / Spiderman hybrid card.

   3. Cavern of Souls and Overlord of the Balemurk insulate you nicely against counterspells and discard spells - as the game goes on the deck has more reliable access to Spiderman than it looks at first blush.

4. Inherent Weaknesses:

   1. Rest in Peace and co. While the deck and sideboard is built to beat them, a prepared opponent will have a huge edge on you in sideboard games. Even the threats like Overlord / Ardyn / Bringer are weak without a functioning graveyard - so you almost always have to board as if they have it. You can’t really pivot to a different plan postboard - its just the game 1 plan but with ways to stop their hate.

   2. Torpor Orb also stops your combo - be aware!

   3. More Dimir decks are playing Tishana’s Tidebinder main, and in multiples. While the exchange of using it to counter a Bringer trigger looks bad (you have a 4/4 flyer, they have a 3/2 and you’re even on cards) - its frequently enough to get them over the line. Playing around these effects is very difficult and frequently just not worth it.

5. Metagame Position

   1. I thought this deck would be much more popular than it is. The combo looks very good against Badgermole Cub decks, and Dimir, Control and Mono Red have all historically been decent matchups.

   2. There is a lot of hate kicking around - but I wouldn’t expect that to last as other players in the meta emerge and demand sideboard slots.

   3. This deck isn’t purely a meta call, as it is genuinely strong on raw power - but you will do best with it if you pick your weekends well for when to play it.

   4. If any ‘pure’ combo decks like Omniscience emerge, the matchup is likely incredibly bad.

Other Bits and Bobs

So thats pretty much it in terms of the most popular decks, but there’s a couple more interesting ones to highlight. Stormchasers Talent and Boomerang Basics are really powerful together, and the Izzet Looting deck isn’t the only one taking advantage of the pair.

Dimir Bounce: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7487234#paper

This deck wants some more cheap threats (can we fit Kaito in?) and some Quantum Riddlers but the core is powerful. Boomerang Basics is serving as a nice Pixie variant here.

Temur Otters: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7487243#paper

One of my favourite decks in standard since it debuted at Worlds last year, Badgermole Cub and Enduring Vitality is absolutely cracked, and combined with the Basics / Talent loop you now need a much lower critical mass of ‘stuff’ to threaten to combo. It’s what I’ve been playing on Arena and my sleeper pick for the weekend (and Craig’s as well - just in case it does win!).

Also Simic Omniscience is probably really well positioned but its like the most boring deck to play to it has disappeared online. Make of that what you will.

Thanks for reading if you’ve made it this far. I’ve been wanting to do some magic blogging and writing for a while, but have struggled to articulate some of the points of theory I want to write about. I also don’t do much writing at all these days and definitely need the practice! So I settled on this structure to force myself to get something out there that might actually be useful for the RCQ scene. Let me know what you think!

Take care,

Drew.