Hey all. Strickles here back with Week 5 of our Duskmourn Standard meta reports. To give you all the latest info without having to dig through decklists and events, each week I will be going over the top events of the weekend and provide analysis of how the meta is evolving. As all of these tournaments are Best of-3, keep in mind that these meta changes only reflect the Bo3 meta and not Bo1.

This week is special because the World Championship just happened this past weekend, giving us a very competitive tournament to break down. First, let’s cover the World Championship metagame and Top 8, and then I will break down the Magic Online results like usual, this week we have three Standard Challenges and one Standard Qualifier to break down.

So let’s dive right in!

World Championship 30

The metagame for worlds was actually quite diverse, and can you can see a full breakdown on the Magic website here:

https://www.magic.gg/news/magic-world-championship-30-metagame-breakdown

The most played deck was Gruul Prowess, with 20 players, 3 on Leyline of Resonance and 17 on the more common build we’ve seen the past two weeks. Although, with Dimir Midrange at 16 players, if you fold in the 9 Dimir Demons players, you have a total of 25 players on some form of Dimir Midrange, making it the most played deck of the weekend.

The breakout card of the weekend was Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber, the most played main deck card from Duskmourn at 76 copies, which showed its power this weekend, driving two Dimir Demons players into the Top 8, and one to an event win in Javier Dominguez, and a Golgari Midrange player as well.

With that context laid out, let’s break down the Top 8 decks!

Dimir Demons

Let’s start with Javier Dominguez, the winner of the event, and his build of Dimir Demons.

This deck has a lot in common with Dimir Midrange, good removal, including Anoint with Affliction to exile pesky threats like Abhorrent Oculus and Mosswood Dreadknight, and Faerie Mastermind and Caustic Bronco for some card advantage.

The “Demons” part of this deck, and many other decks at the tournament, is the combination of Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber and Archfiend of the Dross. It is really a great curve, getting the annex down to start the card advantage, and then the archfiend to threaten the opponent and turn the life loss into life drain. Then on turn five unlock the chamber for a big 6/6 flier.

The unique part of Javier’s build is the inclusion of Doomsday Excruciator and Jace, the Perfected Mind. Basically, you play Doomsday Excruciator, leaving both players with only six cards, and then with a Jace in play or casting one from your hand, mill those six cards so your opponent dies.

We’ve seen this kind of combo in Golgari Midrange last season, where it doesn’t take up too much space but does give a way to win the game in games that you would otherwise lose to Domain or other decks that have gone over the top of you.

Ha Pham had a slightly different build of the deck, choosing to play Unstoppable Slasher and Bloodletter of Aclazotz for their two card combo kill.

As this deck did win the World Championship, I expect it to increase in popularity for the short term at least, so be prepared for Demons!

Golgari Midrange

Second place was taken by Marcio Carvalho, who took Golgari Midrange all the way to the finals.

This list is the new norm that we have gotten used to for Golgari Midrange, featuring the same Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber and Archfiend of the Dross curve, however he has chosen to go with Caustic Bronco for more card advantage over a card like Deep-Cavern Bat for disruption.

In its place we have main deck Duress and Dreams of Steel and Oil to attack the opponent’s hand, and Tranquil Frillback to take out the variety of enchantments in the format, such as Unholy Annex.

Golgari Ramp

Golgari Ramp, brought to the Semi-Finals by Seth Manfield, is a new build of Golgari looking to play into the late game.

The main synergy here is the same one in Domain decks, which is the combo of Up the Beanstalk and Overlord of the Hauntwoods, for card advantage and ramp. The deck has several big spells to ramp to, including sweepers like Deadly Cover-Up, Gix’s Command, and Harvester of Misery, and Virtue of Persistence and Outrageous Robbery to take over the late game.

Other than that it is quite similar to Golgari Midrange, a lot of good removal and Glissa Sunslayer and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse to tie the threat suite together.

If you like Golgari but haven’t been feeling Golgari Midrange, give this build a try!

Mono-Red Aggro

The other Semifinalist was Quinn Tonole on Mono-Red Aggro, a build that should be quite familiar nowadays, as it has completely replaced Leyline of Resonance builds of mono-red.

The interesting choice that Quinn made for this tournament was the inclusion of four main deck copies of Screaming Nemesis, instead of a card like Squee, Dubious Monarch. We also have all four copies of Rockface Village, meaning that in the mid game any threat we top deck can be a haste threat to close out games.

Gruul Prowess

Yoshihiko Ikawa played Gruul Prowess into the Top 8, and like most Gruul players this weekend chose to not play Leyline of Resonance and instead go for the more common build that is less all-in and more equipped to play into the mid game.

Dimir Midrange

Two players made Top 8 on more familiar builds of Dimir Midrange, legendary player Kai Budde and Max Rappaport.

These builds do vary a bit, showcasing the versatility of this deck. Kai chose to play Unstoppable Slasher and more copies of Enduring Curiosity, while Max chose Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor and Preacher of the Schism.

The new card that both players brought was Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, which up until now hadn’t seen any play at a high level. The planeswalker is quite powerful in Dimir Midrange because it is quite easy to get it into play with Ninjitsu on turn three, thanks to the variety of flying one and two drops the deck has.

Kaito is quite powerful for executing our gameplan. The plus one ability is our go to when we have nothing else to do or need to buff up our Kaito to get through opposing blockers. The zero can help us find action and is great the turn we ninjitsu him into play to draw a card. Finally, the minus two can tap a problematic attacker or just keep a blocker out of the way so that we can connect with our creatures when we have a Gix or Enduring Curiosity in play.

Worlds Wrap-Up

Overall, the World Championship meta was different than what you can expect to find on the MTG Arena ladder or when playing Standard Challenges on Magic Online. Because it was a smaller tournament and there were a lot of teams testing for the event, the meta was likely less diverse than you will find in other tournaments.

One example of this is how Token Control decks were mostly absent from the tournament, despite how popular they have been in other tournaments up until this point. Another example is how over-represented Dimir Midrange (and Dimir Demons) were compared to their totally average performance in Standard up until this point.

So I would suggest using World as a source of sweet decklists more than as an insight into the Standard format overall!

Other Standard Tournament Results

Our other Standard tournaments this weekend were a bit more diverse but did have some interesting things going on. Gruul Prowess had a horrible weekend, with only one deck, and a Leyline of Resonance version at that, that made a Top 8. Meanwhile, Mono-Red Aggro was absent from all the tournaments except for the Standard Qualifier where it took 5 of the 8 Top 8 spots.

Other than that, Dimir Midrange and Golgari Midrange were the consistent performers, putting 5 and 6 copies into Top 8s respectively. So let’s go over some decklists.

Aggro

Mono-Red Aggro

As I mentioned above, Mono-Red Aggro took up 5 of the 8 spots in the Standard Qualifier Top 8, and they all seemed to be on the build that Top 8ed the World Championship. As this qualifier was on Sunday, players were already able to observe Worlds and copy the decklist.

I expect that moving forward, Mono-Red Aggro players will continue to play Screaming Nemesis, as its ability to prevent life gain is great if a ton of players are on Unholy Annex, since mono-red has no way to efficiently remove the 6/6 demon that comes from Ritual Chamber, and/or Archfiend of the Dross.

I’m not sure if this version of Mono-Red Aggro is going to move up the tier list to become a real player in the format, but five different players making a Top 8 of the same tournament means that most players were not prepared to face this deck in one way or another.

Especially since it Top 8ed the World Championship, I expect this deck to see a lot more play moving forward.

Jeskai Convoke

Jeskai Convoke had two copies into a Top 8 this weekend, but it did win one of the Standard Challenges, earning it a shout-out.

The builds of Jeskai Convoke seem to have settled down around playing cards like Clockwork Percussionist, Sheltered by Ghosts, and Painter’s Studio // Defaced Gallery, which is cool that Duskmourn made an impact on the deck when Bloomburrow didn’t.

Saying that, this player did choose to play one copy of Mockingbird, which seems cool for copying Imodane’s Recruiter or even Resolute Reinforcements to help convoke out a Knight-Errant of Eos.

Azorius Artifacts

Azorius Artifacts came back from the dead this weekend to win one of the Standard Challenges, and no other copies made any other Top 8s.

I’ve covered this deck before, but it is a cool combination of artifacts and enchantments to attack the opponent from a unique angle that can be difficult to answer. Well, at least that used to be the case. Most opponents are prepared for enchantments nowadays, and the power of Steel Seraph used to be that it didn’t die to Go for the Throat, but I believe that the prototype has mana value three, making it susceptible to the now popular Anoint with Affliction.

Sheltered by Ghosts has quickly become one of the stand out cards from Duskmourn, showing up in a variety of decks, and it is a key player here as well, giving the deck removal that continues to advance their game plan.

I think this was more a fluke than an indication that this deck is a real player in the format, but that is the cool part of a big standard, any deck can come out of the woodwork to take down a tournament.

Midrange

Dimir Midrange

I won’t wax long about Dimir since I talked so much about it earlier, but it did put five copies into Top 8s this weekend and did win a Standard Challenge. All of these builds are the standard Dimir Midrange we have been used to the past few weeks, not the new Demons build.

Several of these players have adopted Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, so the time to invest in copies of the ninja planeswalker is likely right now.

Golgari Midrange

Golgari had another good weekend, with six players making Top 8s, although no event wins. This build is a copy of the build that made it to the finals of the World Championship, so I expect it to be the default build moving forward.

Control

Zur Domain

Three copies of this Zur, Eternal Schemer version of Domain made Top 8s this past weekend, and no versions of the more Standard Domain build were present.

We’ve seen this build before but for those unfamiliar, the goal is to get an overlord into play for its impending cost, and then play Zur, Eternal Schemer, and activate it to turn that overlord into a creature ahead of schedule and attack and trigger its ability again.

Zur is also great with Leyline Binding, turning it into a 6/6 creature, and this version has chosen to play Scrollshift, used to exile an overlord that is just an enchantment, to return it to play as a creature for a surprise blocker or just as a value play at end of turn.

What I like about this build over the more usual Domain builds is that it is good at ending the game more quickly. Zur can come down later in the game, activate twice to make two big attackers and end the game in one or two swings. This means that against aggro decks you don’t really give them time to finish you off, especially since Zur gives the enchantment creatures lifelink.

So, we’ll see if this build of Domain sticks around or not. We also saw at Worlds another build around Up the Beanstalk and Overlord of the Hauntwoods, so we know that two card core is powerful and worth building around, regardless of how you do it.

Tempo

Azorius Oculus

Azorius Oculus was quite popular at Worlds, but failed to break through into the Top 8. It had a fine weekend, putting three copies into Top 8s.

There isn’t much new to discuss here, but I do think that Azorius Oculus has come down from being a tier one deck to just a solid tier two, player in the format, type deck. I think that players are just prepared for it now, indexing higher on cards like Anoint with Affliction to prevent repeated use of Helping Hand on one threat, and Ghost Vacuum is also a very popular sideboard card.

Other Decklists

There were several other decks that put one copy into a Top 8, so you can look at all of those decks here:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/standard-challenge-32-2024-10-25#paper

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/standard-challenge-32-2024-10-26#paper

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/standard-challenge-32-2024-10-26-1#paper

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/standard-qualifier-2024-10-27#paper

Wrapping Up

I expect that Worlds will shake up Standard a bit, as more players explore the Demon synergies, just in time for Halloween later this week. Other than that I’m not sure where Standard goes from here. Consistent performers in Gruul Prowess and Mono-White Token Control had little to no presence this past weekend, and it would have been a horrible weekend for aggro in general if Mono-Red hadn’t dominated the Standard Qualifier.

It seems like Standard is going to become more and more Midrange focused, as both Golgari and Dimir have good tools to fight aggro and control decks, so the question is what builds of those decks become the default moving forward?

Whatever happens, I’ll be here to cover it as we move toward the end of Duskmourn Standard and look to welcome Foundations in just a few short weeks.

Until then, best of luck in all of your matches!