Table of Contents
Hello everyone! We’re back with another week of the MTG Arena Meta Snapshot! While Standard is generally going to be the talk of the town, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been an impact in other formats as well! To that end, I’ll be giving a brief overview on the state of affairs, so to say, for each of the formats so you can be kept up to date on the newest trends! The first step to attacking a metagame is understanding it, so I’m hoping that this is helpful to those looking to get ahead of the competition! To that end, if you want to read last weeks, you can check out the link below!
For clarity’s sake, I’ll be going over each of MTG Arena’s Constructed formats in alphabetical order – Alchemy, Explorer, Historic, then Standard for your convenience. Without further ado, let’s dive right in!
Alchemy
Rakdos Vat Anvil
RB Atraxa Vat Anvil
by Altheriax
Alchemy
best of 3
8 mythic
27 rare
16 uncommon
9 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (12)
Lands (25)
60 Cards
$289.28
Sideboard
15 Cards
$29.73
Kicking us off, we have to talk about the deck that has absolutely taken Alchemy by storm. Altheriax hit rank 1 with this in mid February, and since then, that’s what the ladder has been about. It did take a little while for the deck to be adopted, but once players realized this was a really easy way to rank up that required very few Alchemy cards, it was like vultures on carrion.
What’s cool about this deck in particular is that it was created through the combined effort of not one, but two MTG Arena Zone writers! The idea was initially Omrithopter’s and through their collaboration, they were able to create this masterpiece!
What makes the deck so potent is that it has all the power of the previous Anvil decks including their good early game and brutal grinding potential, and make the late game that much more problematic by including the Vat/Atraxa package. Not only does it take up next to no room in the deck, Vat can still be good even without Atraxa as bringing back a Crucias or even a Blood Artistthat was made off of Sanguine Brushstroke can be really devastating in the right matchups.
Overall, Altheriax seems to command the ebb and flow of Alchemy as it stands since there is very little reason to experiment in it otherwise, so if you’re looking for some easy ranking up or endless mirrors, you know where to go.
Let’s see if Alchemy: Phyrexia can shake things up even further!
Explorer
Izzet Creativity
Izzet Creativity
by DoggertQBones
Explorer
best of 3
5 mythic
29 rare
3 uncommon
23 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Instants (25)
Sorceries (4)
Lands (24)
60 Cards
$335.38
Sideboard
15 Cards
$48.19
Last week, Izzet Creativity was popular off of the heels of Reid Duke’s win in the Pro Tour with it in Pioneer. Of course players are going to be eager to try it out in those circumstances as it was a relatively easy port from Pioneer. However, as more players catch wind of it (I’m sure not everyone knew that there was still a good two creature win condition in Explorer) that the deck is the real deal, the meta is starting to coalesce around it a bit.
Decks that don’t have interaction have seen a pretty sharp decline in the last week as being obliterated by one Indomitable Creativity feels pretty bad. As a consequence, decks that can interact with this like Mono Blue Spirits have seen a nice uptick as well, and considering it was already the best deck, that’s not too much of an ask for most players.
As the metagame develops more, I’m sure we’re going to see some pretty staunch hate for this deck coming from any strategy that can muster it. One of the tougher things about contending with Creativity is that common hate pieces like Grafdigger's Cage or Weathered Runestone don’t actually work against Creativity because of the wording which is forcing players to play more pointed pieces of hate against the strategy.
It’ll be hard to say if Creativity can fight against the hate long term, but as it stands, it’s definitely one of the better things you can be doing right now.
Rakdos Sacrifice
Rakdos Sacrifice
by DoggertQBones
Explorer
best of 3
3 mythic
22 rare
24 uncommon
11 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Companion
Creatures (19)
Instants (4)
Sorceries (4)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (21)
60 Cards
$344.4
Sideboard
15 Cards
$61.15
Hey, this looks familiar!
While I give Alth and Omri full credit on making this list in Alchemy, the base they used was likely from the Tweet that went mini-viral about the Pioneer player using the Vat/Atraxa package in their Sacrifice deck. Little did they know, their memey thought experiment turned out to be good!
While many players are starting to shift focus from beating creatures to beating combo, Rakdos Sacrifice is put into an interesting position. It is not particularly well set up to beat Creativity, just some hand disruption, but it can be good against the decks that are looking to beat Creativity! To beat combo, pressure and disruption are the name of the game, and Sacrifice is really good at beating decks that are looking to pressure early as cards like Claim the Firstborn and Mayhem Devil can really mess up their day.
It’s hard to say if the Vat/Atraxa package will persist indefinitely or if it will be a variation that’s better in certain metagames, but it is certainly fun and quite strong in the meantime!
Historic
Rakdos Midrange
Rakdos Crucias Midrange
by Altheriax
Historic
best of 3
15 mythic
37 rare
4 uncommon
4 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (15)
Instants (4)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (25)
60 Cards
$511.6
Sideboard
15 Cards
$52.65
Weeks ago, Altheriax and I independently discovered that Rakdos Midrange was actually secretly busted. Since then, the metagame has definitely caught on as wherever Altheriax goes, the metagame tends to follow. So while I was very much enjoying Rakdos, I recently discovered a little issue – the deck is phenomenally hard to beat.
Rakdos is really, really good at what it does, and what it does is disrupt you. You have so many pieces of hand disruption and removal that it can be hard to get any sort of foothold at all. Then on turn three, you’re more than likely facing down a value machine like Crucias, Titan of the Waves or Fable of the Mirror-Breaker to contend with afterwards which is really hard under good circumstances and near impossible after Rakdos has already stymied you twice. Despite me playing a lot of decks, I found this much harder to beat than anticipated.
Even playing decks that like playing long games didn’t necessarily yield the results I wanted and decks that wanted to end quickly faced a similar issue, so while I may be hyperbolizing this a bit, I do think that Rakdos is kind of Tier 0 right now. Unless you’re looking to specifically beat it, you’re probably going to lose to it. That isn’t to say you have to play a deck that’s a dog to the rest of the metagame, but you may want to play something that does specifically have a good Rakdos matchup if it continues to trend upwards.
Rakdos Goblins
Rakdos Goblins
by Altheriax
Historic
best of 3
0 mythic
37 rare
16 uncommon
7 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (31)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (25)
60 Cards
$332.42
Sideboard
15 Cards
$77.37
One of Altheriax’s favorite decks, Rakdos Goblins is exactly what I’m looking for in a deck to fight against Rakdos. The matchup isn’t unloseable, but forcing them to interact early and often and still having plenty of gas left is the nightmare scenario for Rakdos. Between
All in all, this deck is just the epitome of grinding, and if you’re looking to beat Rakdos, that’s a good place to be. Of course, you do have to give up equity elsewhere to get this ability, predominately the matchups that you need to win quickly, but every deck is going to have it’s tradeoffs.
Izzet Phoenix
Izzet Phoenix
by DoggertQBones
Historic
Tempo
best of 3
8 mythic
22 rare
12 uncommon
18 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (14)
Instants (15)
Enchantments (1)
Lands (20)
60 Cards
$267.16
Sideboard
15 Cards
$41.74
First we covered one of Altheriax’s favorites, now we get to mine! I have a big preference for Phoenix as it has most of the elements I’m looking for in a deck – it has a powerful, hard to disrupt game plan, it has a lot of interaction and card selection, and most importantly, you have an abundance of agency.I had to put away the Phoenixes for awhile when Mono Green Devotion was popular, but now that the hype has died out a bit in lieu for Rakdos mania, it has felt like a good time to pick them back up.
What I like about Phoenix is that you’re good against the quicker decks that people like to play as well as the grindy decks that don’t go too over the top as it’s hard to contend with Phoenixes constantly swooping out of the graveyard. Of course, this does have issues with decks that have a go big game plan like Mono Green Devotion or the aforementioned Rakdos Goblins, but since they feel to be a rather small part of the metagame (especially Goblins, for whatever reason, it’s profoundly unpopular despite its power), Phoenix feels like a strong choice right now.
Standard
Grixis Midrange
Grixis Midrange by katuo079595
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Midrange
best of 3
1 mythic
37 rare
13 uncommon
9 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Planeswalkers (1)
Instants (13)
Sorceries (4)
Artifacts (3)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (26)
60 Cards
$267.04
Sideboard
15 Cards
$264.89
I’m not going to beat a dead horse here – Grixis is good and once again likely the best deck. The game plan is hard to deal with as there’s no simple counter to it and will continue to be a good deck presumably until the major pieces rotate out of Standard.
What is interesting to note though is how Grixis is now being constructed. Despite Sheoldred, the Apocalypse being a pillar of the deck since its printing, players are now looking to mostly eschew it in favor of more interaction. While many are still playing it in the sideboard for more aggressive matchups, it seems Grixis is trying to gain equity in the more grindy matchups as Sheoldred wasn’t necessarily that good there. While this may seem like the next step in Grixis’ evolution, this week of Standard Challenge results may also show the natural consequence of that decision.
To be clear, Grixis still killed it this week, but so did some more unexpected options.
Mono Red Aggro
Mono Red Aggro by _IlNano_
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Aggro
best of 3
5 mythic
16 rare
16 uncommon
23 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (24)
Sorceries (2)
Enchantments (4)
60 Cards
$76.88
Sideboard
15 Cards
$28.81
By far the biggest winner of Grixis starting to trim Sheoldred has to be Mono Red Aggro. There’s nothing much to say beyond fast deck good. With a bunch of decks looking to work towards this grand plan to either go way over the top of the opponent or grind them out, Mono Red simply wants to bonk a few heads and call it a day. Where Mono Red was mostly absent the past few weeks, it had a huge resurgence putting multiple players into top 9 and even winning one of the last Standard Challenges. While simple and a bit meta dependent, if you like cracking heads, this looks to be a good time to do it.
Mono Blue Tempo
Mono Blue Tempo by Lennny
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Tempo
best of 3
0 mythic
6 rare
10 uncommon
44 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Instants (28)
Sorceries (2)
Lands (22)
60 Cards
$33.36
Sideboard
15 Cards
$9.53
On the opposite end of the spectrum, if players are looking to play long and/or greedy games of Magic, this is an amazing way to punish them. Lennny got second this weekend alongside a few other Blue pilots which is a great run that was unfortunately felled by Mono Red (one of the toughest matchups), but goes to show this deck needs to be respected.
Personally, Mono Blue is such a curious case for me because I feel that it’s been perpetually good since it’s release, but it will randomly surface and do well in a Challenge or two, and then disappear again. Considering the recent metagames have mostly been slow, there’s no reason for it to flux so much in popularity, but so it goes.
None the less, if you enjoy agency and ridding your opponents of it, Mono Blue is a great spot to be in. The deck can be quite tough to pilot, but with some repetitions, the play patterns become much more natural.
End Step
That’s the fourth week wrap up for Phyrexia: All Will Be One! Rather than any huge developments, we’re seeing a lot of metagame mobility which is exactly what we like to see in all of Arena’s constructed formats!
Thank you for reading!
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DoggertQBones
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