What are the best MTG Arena decks? Grinding up Magic: The Gathering Arena's Standard ladder is tough, so there's no shame in looking up a tournament-winning deck. This guide tracks the best MTGA decks every month, based on the latest competitive results.
On MTG Arena, the meta is constantly moving. With the busy MTG release schedule constantly adding stacks of fresh cards that unlock new winning strategies, the best MTG Standard decks can swiftly rise to the top or plummet into obscurity.
Each month, we review which decks are performing best, crunch down exactly how they work, and explain the top decklists below. You can also find crucial info in our FAQ section to help you understand how these decks win games.
With the ban of Vivi Ornitier, the total dominance of standard by Izzet and Aggro decks finally seems to be over. With midrange and control decks emerging to fill the gap left by the diminutive wizard.
The best MTG Arena decks in Standard are:
- Dimir Midrange
- Control
- Simic Ouroboroid
- Sultai Reanimator
- Izzet Looting
- Mono Red Aggro
- Simic Omniscience
Dimir Midrange
Dimir Midrange is pretty straightforward. It runs evasive fliers like Spyglass Siren alongside value cards like Enduring Curiosity and the MTG planeswalker Kaito, Bane of Nightmares to create card draw from attacking.
And with the blue/black color pair, you get the privilege of playing all the best single-target removal and counter spells in Standard. Just as we predicted, now that Vivi has been banned - taking Izzet Cauldron and Izzet Prowess with him - Dimir Midrange has emerged to dominate the meta.
Control
Now that they're not being obliterated at lightning speed by Vivi and mono-red Aggro, Azorius, Jeskai, and four color Control decks have emerged to make up a sizeable part of the met.
The aim, as ever with a Control deck, is to stabilize and keep command of the game until you have the mana to cast a big game-winner. White has access to up to eight wrath effects between Split Up and Day of Judgement, plus cheap targeted removal such as Get Lost and Seam Rip. Blue and Azorius have access to good counter-magic, the excellent draw cards Stock Up and Consult the Star Charts, and combo card-draw slash finishers in Wan Shi Tong, Librarian and Quantum Riddler.
Jeskai Variants can play with Shiko, Paragon of the way and Jeskai Revelation as finishers, plus the always agreeable Lightning Helix. And a four color no green variant is also popular, adding black for the nasty Mardu removal spell Inevitable Defeat.
Simic Ouroboroid
An archetype that has been evolving since Edge of Eternity printed its name-sake card, Ouroboroid is so Simicy I keep mentally searching the deck list for Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and Growth Spiral (don't worry, they're not in Standard). This is a Timmy deck - with buckets of draw, ramp, and +1/+1 counters.
Part of the deck's play pattern looks like Craterhoof: start with elves and ramp into the Ouroboroid, then let your opponent sweat while it grows your board at a frightening rate. Druneth, Reviver of the Hive lets you grow the board even wider, while Avatar's new Wan Shi Tong, Librarian provides evasion, card draw, and a grow threat.
Sultai Reanimator
Through the Omen Paths hasn't had much impact on Standard, but it does have a four mana sorcery-speed reanimation effect, Kavaero, Mind-Bitten. The dominance of aggro had kept a lid on Reanimator, but with Vivi gone Sultai Reanimator is in a position to start making waves.
As with most Reanimator decks, you've got a blend of cards that load the graveyard - like Overlord of the Balemurk, Oblivious Bookworm, and even TLA's Gran Gran - and reanimation targets, like Valgavoth, Ardyn the Usurper, and Bringer of the Last Gift. With some Duresses in the sideboard in case you come up against a blue deck, this does exactly what a Reanimator deck should - put hideous threats onto the battlefield on turn four.
Izzet Looting
With crown prince Vivi dead, Izzet has looked elsewhere for its aggro strategy - and settled on looting. Instead of prowess creatures, this is all about cheap threats that care about looting: Tiger Seal, Marauding Mako, Fear of Missing Out, and Duellist of the Mind.
The focus on draw and discard for the pump effects means that, while this deck is running a lot of spells, most of the creatures in it can be pumped by non-spell effects. It runs a higher creature count than Izzet Cauldron or Izzet Prowess did for a slightly more traditional creature-based aggro strategy.
Mono Red Aggro
Far fallen from its total format dominance earlier this year, the current variant of Mono Red Aggro has a decent burn pacakge. It uses spells like Burst Lightning and Lightning Strike, alongside creatures such as Sunspine Lynx, to provide enough reach to go through around deck's defences.
Old favorites like Emberheart Challenger and Screaming Nemesis have been joined by Nova Hellkite for a deck that looks to hit hard and fast, but will crumble if the game goes long. The most recent addition is Zhao, the Moon Slayer, who starts out as a STAX piece that makes non-basic lands enter tapped.
Simic Omniscience
Ever since this enchantment was granted permanent Standard-legality in Foundations, it seems like there's always been the option of playing a decent Omniscience deck.
The current iteration makes use of Kona, Rescue Beastie to cheat the card into play, relying on the Spacecraft lands to easily tap the card. Then you loop Marang River Regents and use Roiling Dragonstorm to draw through your whole deck, finishing up by just attacking with your dragons.
Best MTG Arena decks FAQ
If you're relatively new to Magic: The Gathering and are here for a helping hand to grab some wins, some of the terminology here may seem like daunting jargon (and it is) so let's explain some of it.
What do MTG Arena deck names mean?
MTG Standard deck names are generally made up of two components:
- Colors - The first part tells you which MTG colors are in the deck (for example Mono Red or Blue/White).
- Archetype, mechanic, or theme - The second part either describes the strategy 'archetype' it uses to win games (e.g. Aggro); the main in-game mechanic it uses (e.g. Burn or Life Gain) or a distinctive theme to its cards (e.g. Rabbits or Vampires). If the deck is driven by a single powerful card, that card name might be used here instead.
Both halves of the deck names can get complicated, though. Players often refer to decks with more than one color by their in-universe lore labels, like Gruul or Azorius, rather than the straightforward colors. We explain every single one of these in our guide to MTG color combinations.
And when it comes to labelling decks' strategies and themes, there's very often more than one commonly used term to indicate a specific deck's distinctive playstyle or win conditions - so you might see the same deck referred to by slightly different names by different players or websites.
It's easy to identify these doppelgängers, though - just look at the cards in the decklists. They may vary slightly - every deck has variants - but the core deck concept remains the same and builds on the same cards.
What are the main MTG Arena deck archetypes?
Magic: The Gathering has a huge range of strategic interactions and options in it - but generally, your deck needs to follow a single, coherent strategy to win games. Fans have grouped these winning strategies into six main 'archetypes', based not on which cards they include, but on how they set out to win games.
You can find full details in our guide to MTG deck archetypes - but here's a short summary of the six types and how they play:
- Aggro - Win fast with aggressive damage, mostly using creatures.
- Control - slow down the opponent while you spin up powerful cards.
- Midrange - Use the best available mid-cost cards to outmaneuver both aggro and control.
- Combo - Set up and then play a specific, game winning card combo.
- Combo-Control - Play control and then win with a combo.
- Aggro-Control / Tempo - Disrupt the opponent with quick control cards, while chipping away life with cheap aggro.
How do I build the best MTG Arena decks?
To build a Magic: The Gathering Arena deck, you'll need to collect all the cards necessary for the deck list (click on the images above each deck in our guide to see the cards you need), then navigate to the 'Decks' area in the game client, create a deck, and add all those cards to it.
How do you get the cards you need? Well, you'll either need to collect the cards from Arena booster packs for the sets they came in, or else directly 'craft' the specific cards you need using MTG Arena Wildcards - effectively tokens you can exchange for the exact Common, Uncommon, Rare, or Mythic Rare card you want, depending on the type of Wildcard.
Unless you're lucky enough to find exactly the cards you need in boosters, you'll need to earn a stack of Wildcards to craft the best decks. You get Wildcards by opening boosters, competing in events, and winning games to beat your daily and weekly challenges - so if you're short on Wildcards for the shiny new Arena deck you want to build, the best thing to do is get playing with the decks you already have!
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