The November holidays are behind us now, and with the month coming to a close, so too is the MTG Arena November ranked season. Ranks will reset at the beginning of December, and over the last week, players have either been finalizing their rank for the season or pushing to see how high they can climb before it all starts over again.
With the fourth week of the season now completed, it’s time for us to take our usual look back at some of the most highly ranked decks shared with us by Mythic-ranked players across social media. This week, we’ve got #1 decks in both the Standard and Historic formats that you won’t want to miss.
As per usual, we’ll get started by looking at the most highly ranked decks we’ve collected from each format. Afterwards, we’ll present all of the deck from the week in two lists separated by format. By the time we return next week, the season will have reset and we should have a whole collection of early #1 decks to pour over.
Let’s get started with our review, and finish off the month of November strong.
Izzet Turns, also known as Izzet Epiphany, has been known since the early days of Midnight Hunt Standard as a serious contender for top deck in the format. While not always easy to play, Izzet decks based on the interaction between Galvanic Iteration and Alrund's Epiphany, along with their Grixis spinoffs, have been consistently showing up at the highest levels of Standard play.
This version of the deck was posted on Twitter by Mythic grinder Tian Fa Mun along with a screenshot showing his accomplishment of the #1 Mythic rank using the deck. It’s a mostly typical Epiphany combo deck, plus a few innovations from Crimson Vow – most notably three maindeck copies of Abrade and two Hullbreaker Horror in the sideboard.
With both Epiphany and Galvanic Iteration still hanging around in the format, the “spam extra turns” decks aren’t going anywhere, and Tian Fa Mun is just one of many players who are continuing to showcase the archetype’s power.
Similar to the Izzet decks, Mono Green Aggro is another archetype that has been at or near the very top of the format since rotation – even before if you consider the Standard 2022 format. Over the last few sets, green has gotten access to more and more efficiently costed creatures with upside. Werewolf Pack Leader, Ranger Class, and Old-Growth Troll are staples of the archetype, and Crimson Vow has added even more options for the deck.
This decklist, which Twitter user Atog_MTG claims to have ridden to the #58 Mythic rank, is actually somewhat unique in that it only has two copies of the powerhouse card Esika's Chariot and they’re both in the sideboard. Instead, Atog has used the maindeck space for a large number of new creatures from Crimson Vow – Ascendant Packleader helps to fill the otherwise vacant one-drop slot, Cemetery Prowler provides a nice bridge to the late game, and Ulvenwald Oddity hits hard as a surprise attacker late.
Sick of Izzet yet? Well, our next deck on the list is the Dragons variation of the infamous Epiphany-based deck, coming to us from MTG YouTuber Sonio and optimized for best-of-one play. The core of the Dragons deck has many cards in common with Izzet Epiphany, but rather than building up to the Galvanic Iteration/Epiphany combo, Dragons plays a more tempo-oriented gameplan that wants to stick a Goldspan Dragon or Smoldering Egg on the field, protect it with disruption, and finish the game with Alrund's Epiphany.
Our final Standard deck for the week is something a bit more off the beaten path – a Rakdos aggro deck shared with us by streamer and YouTube creator GonTV. Immediately after the release of Innistrad: Crimson Vow, aggressive Rakdos were quite popular, usually in the form of Vampire tribal. However, as time went on, the deck dropped off in popularity as it struggled to find its role in the format.
This style of Rakdos Aggro, has started to gain popularity, but it has moved away from the synergies of the Vampire tribe, instead focusing the deck around playing the best threats available in those colors. In fact, this Rakdos list has about as many Werewolves as Vampires, leveraging the power of Reckless Stormseeker and Graveyard Trespasser, among others.
GonTV was able to pilot this deck to #354 Mythic on the ladder. If you’re a midrange or aggro player who’s looking for a deck to play that’s a bit different from the usual Mono White or Mono Green decks, perhaps Rakdos is worth some experimentation.
That brings us to the end of our Standard featured decks for this week. You can browse the full collection of the week’s Standard decks below. Afterwards, we’ll head over to see what the Historic format had in store this week.
Collected Company-based lifegain combo decks featuring Scurry Oak and Heliod, Sun-Crowned have been picking up a lot of popularity in the Historic format since Jumpstart: Historic Horizons brought the squirrel factory to the format. The deck benefits greatly from the fact that Collected Company can hit all of the combo pieces needed to win the game.
Mythic grinder Altheriax was able to take their version of the deck all the way up to #1 Mythic in Historic over the past week. This version of the deck includes four copies of the newest addition to the lifegain archetype, Voice of the Blessed from Crimson Vow. Clearly, this creature combo archetype continues to be a powerful force in Historic on the Arena ladder.
In last week’s column, our final Historic deck for the week was an Elf tribal deck, and so this week it’s fitting that we round things off with one of the other major tribes in Historic: Merfolk. This deck comes to us from Mike Greenbaum on Twitter, who shared the deck after reaching as high as #265 Mythic.
Simic Merfolk is another example of an archetype that has benefited greatly from Jumpstart: Historic Horizons thanks to cards like Svyelun of Sea and Sky from Modern Horizons 2 and the special, digital-only Shoreline Scout. The Merfolk tribe combines efficient threats such as Kumena's Speaker from Ixalan and the self-replacing classic Silvergill Adept with a critical mass of “lord” creatures like Merrow Reejerey that buff the whole team. And of course, no green creature-based deck in Historic would be complete without Collected Company.
With that, our Mythic spotlight series for the November Ranked season is complete! Below is the full collection of Historic decks from the week. Thanks for reading, and we’ll be back next month with a collection of some of the best-performing decks in the new season.
This column is our weekly roundup of Standard and Historic decks players are using to climb the ranked ladder on MTG Arena! Our goal is to curate and post a variety of deck archetypes and interesting card choices at the end of each week to help you keep up to date with the latest trends in the metagame. If you have any decks you want featured, please tweet us at @mtgazone or give us a shout at our Discord.
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