Looking for the best MTG Arena decks? For anyone having a hard time grinding through Magic: The Gathering Arena’s Ranked Standard mode, there’s no shame in seeking help to start stacking up the wins.
On MTG Arena, the meta is constantly moving. With new MTG sets arriving at an alarming pace, and old cards rotating out of the format, the best MTG Standard deck can change week to week. If you need help catching up, we’ve scoured recent tournament results and top decklists to find the decks that can be ridden all the way to Mythic.
The best MTG Arena decks in Standard right now are:
Gruul Prowess
A fairly new deck that’s soared to the top of Standard as each set gives it new toys, Gruul is a rather unique type of aggro deck. While you’re still playing cheap creatures and turning them sideways, this deck relies heavily on the Prowess keyword. That means you need to be playing spells to land big hits, and Gruul Aggro opts for buffs that allow it to win any combat and force damage through.
Bloomburrow gave the deck a swarm of mice like Emberheart Challenger, a natural fit for the deck with their Valiant mechanic. But Duskmourn kicked things up another notch.
Players are now experimenting with a three card combo of Leyline of Resonance, Cacophony Scamp, and Turn Inside Out, which in the right circumstances enable a kill on turn 2. If it turns out to be really good, this deck may eventually get hit by an MTG banlist update.
Domain
We thought the loss of the New Capenna lands would spell the end of Domain, but a mixture of Fabled Passage plus the Karlov Manor surveil lands are keeping it alive. While it no longer plays red cards, this deck still does a lot of what it used to: ramping, using Leyline Binding as absurdly cheap removal, and gaining loads of value from Atraxa.
So what’s new? Well, we have lots of exciting new ramp options, the most interesting of which is Duskmourn’s Overlord of the Hauntwoods which can instantly get you all basic land types so you don’t need to run mountains. And some folks have dropped a win con, leaving Herd Migration out of the deck altogether to make room for Overlord. If you want to play a deck with a ton of mana colors, this one’s for you.
Golgari Midrange
Golgari is one of the strongest flavors of midrange you can play on Arena. Like most midrange decks, it pairs aggressively statted creatures that can beat down, with ways to generate value over a longer game, whether that’s casting spells from the graveyard, or drawing cards.
In this particular decklist, the number of ways to draw cards is frankly absurd, and the deck’s going to gain a lot from Sheoldred as a result. There’s also a discard package in the form of Aclazotz, Hostile Investigator, and the MTG planeswalker Liliana. When you play Golgari Midrange, you’ll be generating lots of extra resources while denying your opponent their own cards.
A few cheap removal spells round out this decklist, and you also get the benefit of Restless Cottage, probably the best ‘man land’ in Standard right now.
Dimir Midrange
Dimir Midrange has been a part of Standard for months and months, and despite rotation, most of its fundamentals remain the same. You’ve got a winning combo of evasive creatures, the best removal from black, and great counterspells in blue. Sheoldred remains one of the greatest four-drops in Standards, and some players use Gix in this deck to gain endless cards.
What’s particularly great about the counterspell package of Ertai, Phantom Interference, and Three Steps Ahead is there’s little opportunity cost to leaving your blue mana up. If there’s nothing you particularly want to counter, these modal cards have another use. The Spree cards are particularly good in the late game too.
Orzhov Bats
Bats, bats, we’re the bats! Zoraline, Cosmos Caller is the lynchpin card behind the latest take on Orzhov Midrange. This cute Bloomburrow critter rewards you for playing other bat cards like Deep-Cavern Bat, letting you gain a ton of life and then pay some of it to resurrect whatever’s gone to the graveyard.
I’m being a little bit bat-biased calling this a bats deck. It’s really just a Zoraline deck, armed with a bunch of strong black and white midrange cards. In that regard there are some very familiar faces in this decklist, but one newcomer worth shouting out is Season of the Burrow. This highly flexible spell can reanimate Zoraline and make her hard to remove, handle a key threat, or create an army of bunnies to gum up the board.
Rakdos Lizards
The game plan for this deck, which is almost entirely made up of Bloomburrow lizards, couldn’t be simpler. Play as many cheap, aggressive reptiles as you can and attack, attack, attack.
Low cost creatures like Gev and Hired Claw let you whittle your opponent down, inflicting death through 1,000 tiny cuts, and Flamecache Gecko does a decent Burning-Tree Emissary Impression, letting you play multiple two-drops a turn. Deep-Cavern Bat also makes the cut as the deck’s sole mammal – it’s just that good.
Laughing Jasper Flint provides an unconventional top-end for this deck, letting you steal your opponent’s cards when you run out of your own.
White Token Control
An innovative new deck that makes use of the sheer might of powerful card draw engine Caretaker’s Talent (which lets you draw each turn you make a token) to try and win the long game.
Pair your engine with reliable token producers like Archangel Elspeth, and Sanguine Evangelist, and here you’ve got a deck that can just keep the value train going.
Recently, Enduring Curiosity has added a second source of card draw to the deck, which has helped the mono-color version gain a competitive edge over the Boros variant.
The Boros take on this strategy is still plenty of fun though, especially thanks to Urabrask’s Forge, which automatically creates larger and larger tokens to swing at your enemies.
Azorius Control
My PTSD from ol’ Teferi’s reign of terror must have finally worn off, because I’m actually jazzed to see an Azorius Control deck stepping up to the plate. The eagle-eyed among you may spot that I’ve opted not to include a decklist for this entry. That’s because there are a couple of very different blue-white control decklists jostling for position, so I thought I’d wait a few weeks until one is established as ‘best’.
On one side we have a fairly typical take on the archetype. It’s very light on creatures, and just plays a bunch of counterspells and removal. The new card that makes it all possible is Beza, the Bounding Spring, the ultimate catchup creature card that can create tokens and gain you life.
On the other side we have a rather unique artifact control deck. It’s mostly a bunch of colored artifacts from Lost Caverns of Ixalan, but then we also have Simulacrum Synthesizer, which can shoot out an unending tide of constructs. You might even be able to create the ultimate Urza planeswalker with this deck.
If you’re lacking the cards to craft one of these decks, you might be able to gain a few free wildcards with our list of all the MTG Arena codes that still function. And for more news about what’s coming up in your favorite TCG, take a look at our MTG release schedule guide.
Source: Wargamer
