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 tournament results, with full deck-lists and info on how to play each one - but with the recent spate of bans upsetting standard, expect this guide to change rapidly.
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 rise and fall very quickly.
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. The biggest changes come when a new set drops - most recently that was Final Fantasy - and when there's a big change to the MTG banlist. You can find the full timeline in our guide to all MTG sets.
June 30 standard bans and meta decks
On June 30 Wizards of the Coast dropped a slew of Standard bans, hitting seven cards - and utterly devastating the current meta. Of the 10 decks we featured in this guide last month, six have lost cards:
- Gruul Aggro - Monstrous Rage, Heartfire Hero
- Izzet Prowess - Monstrous Rage, Cori-Steel Cutter (sometimes) This Town Ain't Big Enough
- Mono Red Aggro - Monstrous Rage, Heartfire Hero
- Esper Self-Bounce - Hopeless Nightmare, This Town Ain't Big Enough
- Domain Overlords - Up the Beanstalk
- Azorius Omniscience - Abuelo's Awakening
The ban to Cori-Steel Cutter, Monstrous Rage, and Heartfire Hero were essential, as evidenced by Pro Tour Final Fantasy, in which over 40% of the meta played Izzet Prowess and the entire top eight were played either that or Mono Red Aggro. Standard had become a very fast, very monotonous aggro format.
But card bans also affected the second tier of decks, leaving just four unaffected: Jeskai Oculus, Jeskai Control, Dimir Midrange and Golgari Midrange. Is Aggro season over? Will the control and combo decks affected by bans have a chance of recovering? What new decks will emerge on top? Here's our predictions:
The best MTG Arena decks in Standard are:
- Gruul Aggro - Red/Green - hit by bans
- Izzet Prowess - Blue/Red - hit by bans
- Jeskai Oculus - White/Blue/Red
- Mono Red Aggro - Red - hit by bans
- Esper Self-Bounce - Blue/White/Black - hit by bans
- Jeskai Control - White/Blue/Red
- Dimir Midrange - Blue/Black
- Domain Overlords - White/Green/Blue/Black - hit by bans
- Azorius Omniscience - Blue/White - hit by bans
- Golgari Midrange - Black/Green
Gruul Aggro
As with any aggro strategy, this deck sees you playing cheap creatures and turning them sideways, but it also relies heavily on the Prowess keyword. That means you need to be playing spells to land big hits, and Gruul Aggro opts for buffs and damage instants that allow it to win any combat and force terrifying hits through.
After seeming glued to the top of Standard since the start of last year, Gruul Aggro is in trouble. Premier combat trick Monstrous Rage, and terrifying Bloomburrow mouse Emberheart Challenger, have both been banned. Whether it has enough tools to recover, or adopt a slightly amended strategy, remains to be seen.
Izzet Prowess
The new hot deck from Tarkir Dragonstorm, Izzet Prowess relies heavily on the artifact card Cori-Steel Cutter - and as that card is now banned in Standard, we're assuming that this deck is dead until an intrepid brewer finds a new way to make it work.
Izzet Prowess has some similarities to Gruul, with lots of the same Prowess bodies and combat tricks. However, the addition of blue turns the deck into a tempo strategy. Though very aggressive, it wants to play a lightly controlling game, just clearing enough of a path to swing through with the team.
Izzet Prowess came out of the gates hot, and made up 42% of the meta at Pro Tour Final Fantasy. We're not surprised it was banned into the shadow realm. Fittingly, this is one that burned bright, but not for long.
Jeskai Oculus
Jeskai Oculus is an interesting iteration on what was once a pure blue-white deck, which relied on pulling Abhorrent Oculus out of the graveyard with Helping Hand.
It can still do exactly that, but the newest version of this midrange deck, isn't so tied to that line of play. Instead it gains value from drawing and discarding a bunch of cards, with creatures that buff themselves like Marauding Mako, and the enchantment Proft's Eidetic Memory, which can turn any creature into a massive beater.
Oculus is still a dangerous threat that your opponent must answer, but this Jeskai deck now has loads of new options that can help it finish games very fast. Fear of Missing Out is a good example, giving one of your buffed-up creatures a free attack. And with Aggro decks taking a massive kicking in the latest banlist update, Oculus could be poised to take more of the field.
Mono Red Aggro
The Gruul Aggro deck never ran much green, and Mono Red Aggro dropped the color altogether. Apart from this, it's pretty similar to the Gruul deck, and again contains many of the same key cards - which means it got hit just as hard by the bans to Emberheart Challenger and Monstrous Rage.
Still, you should never count Red Deck Wins out of a fight. Standard has a lot of good cheap red cards at the moment, and though none of them are as cracked as the Emberheart Challenger and Monstrous Rage duo, there's never a shortage of players who want to use the time honored strategy of 'turning things sideways'.
Esper Self-Bounce
An innovative deck that took off at the very end of 2024 without any new cards coming along to help it, Esper Pixie or Esper Self-Bounce is a strategy that's all about bouncing your own permanents and replaying them, to get the absolute most value you can from ETB effects.
It's been hit by two significant bans: Hopeless Nightmare, a cheap Enchantment that forces your opponent to discard and burns them when it enters; and This Town Ain't Big Enough, a very effective sorcery that allows you to bounce your permanent to hand while disrupting one of your opponents.
There are other sources of self-bounce in Standard, such as the Planeswalker Kaito and the Nurturing Pixie the deck was first named after, and no shortage of solid bounce targets, so perhaps Esper Self-Bounce will survive the bans in some form.
There's also the related Orzhov Self-Bounce strategy only really reuses enchantment-based removal cards. The creatures in this deck are far more midrange-y, with old favorites like Sheoldred and Preacher of the Schism.
Jeskai Control
The best control deck in the format right now is Jeskai Control, proving that Jeskai is definitely the best Tarkir clan. And the key to the deck is Shiko, Paragon of the Way, a creature that lets you pick and replay whatever spell you need from your graveyard, from card draw to board wipe.
Beza helps you survive an onslaught, Marang River Regent and Chandra, Hope's Beacon are nice late-game cards, but then the rest of your list is just smashing non-creature spells that Shiko can replay for you.
Jeskai Control players who experimented with Cori-Steel Cutter will have to remove it from their decks, but otherwise, this is unaffected by bans, and well placed for the new meta.
Domain Overlords
Another deck that's been kicking around at the top-end of Standard for literal years, the Domain deck looks to win the long game, keeping the board clear with removal until you build up steam for a devastating attack with multiple Duskmourn Overlords.
However, it's just been nerfed hard by the banning of Up the Beanstalk. This cheap enchantment allowed you to draw a card whenever you cast a spell with mana value five or greater - easy to do by casting an Overlord for its reduced Impending cost. It was a fantastic card draw engine that the deck will struggle to replace.
But perhaps with the massive nerfs to aggro decks, Domain will be able to keep its footing in the new, slower Standard. If you want to play a deck with a ton of mana colors, ramp a lot, and cast Leyline Binding for very little mana, the game isn't over for this deck quite yet.
Dimir Midrange
Dimir Midrange has been a powerhouse in Standard for many months, and though it had a bad slump lately, it remains one of the best MTG Arena decks in the meta, even in the world of Tarkir Dragonstorm.
As usual with this color combination, evasive creatures, counters, and removal spells abound - it's a fairly controlling form of midrange deck. And unlike a lot of other decks on this list, it hasn't caught a single ban.
What is fairly new, however is the appearance of an MTG planeswalker: Kaito, Bane of Nightmares. Kaito is a really solid source of card advantage, and also works great against other midrange strategies, being very difficult to remove.
Azorius Omniscience
Though it sounds like a meme deck, Azorius Omniscience has shown it can win games - it represented 20% of the field at Pro Tour Final Fantasy. This Control strategy uses a lot of self-mill and reanimation to put Omniscience onto the field, making all your other spells free, and from there combo off for a win.
However, the most recent bannings have just taken away the decks premium reanimation spell, Abuelo's Awakening. Repair and Recharge is perhaps the most promising alternative, as it only costs one more mana and doesn't require dipping into another color; Campus Renovation and Yuna, Hope of Spira might also be viable.
If you can use removal and counterspells to hang on until Omniscience is out, the game is usually a sure victory. With the combo of Roiling Dragonstorm and two Marang River Regents (repeatedly bouncing each other) you can draw through your entire deck to find your win con, a single copy of Founding the Third Path. Now you can play and repeatedly bounce this aura with your dragons to mill your opponent out.
Before Tarkir Dragonstorm, the much more complicated win condition was to play and bounce Invasion of Arcavios to repeatedly bring in spells from your sideboard.
Golgari Midrange
Once an S-tier deck, Golgari Midrange has wasted away a little in recent months, but with the big hits to Aggro and control decks, perhaps it's in for a resurgence. This deck 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.
This particular iteration of the deck has a strong focus on demons, thanks to the excellent Room card Ritual Chamber. Capable of making a huge flying beater and drawing/draining an opponent out, it tends to define any game you get to play it.
A few cheap removal spells round out the decklist, and you also get the benefit of Restless Cottage, probably the best 'man land' in Standard right now.
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!
And that's our guide to the strongest MTG Arena decks right now! If you're lacking the cards to craft one of these decks above, you might be able to gain a few free wildcards with our list of all the MTG Arena codes that still function. Alternatively, behold the priciest rare Magic cards on earth in our guide to the most expensive MTG cards.