MTGO Standard Challenge – July 30, 2023 – Top 8 Decklists

Hi! My name is Vertyx and I will go over the top finishes of the Magic Online Standard Challenge that took place on the weekend: July 30, 2023. Lets go take a look at all of the interesting decks people chose to register this weekend!

Top 8 Decks

Another top 8 that is also quite similar to other recent challenges!

1st, 4th and 6th place were taken down with a more aggro variant of Dimir Midrange! This deck uses powerful Blue and Black threats and backs them up with counterspells and removal! This exact variant of the deck plays more low to the ground threats that also provide abilities that either disrupt your opponent or develop your board!

2nd place was taken down with Selesnya Enchantments! As the name suggest this deck goes all in on enchantments, Thanks to some of its enablers like Jukai Naturalist this deck maximizes the value it can get by casting multiple enchantment spells in a turn and providing threats with its other cards (for example with Hallowed Haunting)!

3rd place was taken down with Esper Control! As control as it gets this deck maximizes blue countermagic, premium removal and strong boardwipes to make it a nightmare for the opponent! Maximizing on those cards can make it really tough for the opponent to compete with you.

5th place was taken down with Mono-Red Aggro! This deck is the definition of aggro. Playing cheap and fast threats in combination with burn spells in a mono colored deck has always been a strong strategy in most formats! This deck gets the games down really fast since the mana curve maxes out at 3 drops!

7th place was taken down with Domain Ramp! Early in the game the deck might seem like it does not do much since it only ramps and casts a few removal spells, but the true power unleashes when you get enough mana to hard cast Atraxa, Grand Unifier. Atraxa should be enough to win the game since it gets you a lot of cards and also a huge threat that some decks have a hard time dealing with

And 8th place was taken down with Azorius Midrange! The main core of the deck is basically Mono White Midrange which means that the deck is full of white removal, strong planeswalkers and value creatures! This white shell is a really strong package against creature based decks but this deck also plays blue to get access to a few maindeck cards and also sideboard counterspells to deal with some annoying spells from the opponent

Overall the top 8 has: 3 copies of Dimir Midrange, 1 copy of Selesnya Enchantments, 1 copy of Esper Control, 1 copy of Mono-Red Aggro, 1 copy of Domain Ramp and 1 copy of Azorius Midrange!

1st, 4th and 6th place were taken down with Dimir Aggro by Arianne, ChipotleDogBowl and kthanakit26!

This deck is a more aggressive variant of Dimir Midrange but shares a lot of the same card choices. The maindeck mainly consists of a creature package that is full of Black and Blue threats that are mostly low to the ground and often provide additional benefits either by disrupting the opponent or developing your board. This threat package is backed up with removal, counterspells and powerful planeswalkers so that the deck is prepared for anything that the opponent potentially throws at it!

Threats backed up by counterspells has always been a good strategy in the game and this deck is a good example of it!

2nd place was taken down with Selesnya Enchantments by MJ_23! This pilot managed to also top 8 the Saturday Challenge with the same deck!

This deck, as the name suggest, is all around enchantments and benefiting from them! This deck has a lot of different effects ranging from cost reduction (Jukai Naturalist), pumping up your creatures (Generous Visitor), drawing you cards (Rite of Harmony) or providing threats (Hallowed Haunting)! With those cards your enchantments are able to produce a lot of value for you making this deck able to gain an upper advantage on other grindy decks!

3rd place was taken down with Esper Control by Graciasportanto!

This deck is great at the control gameplan! Taking a full advantage of blue countermagic, cheap removal and premium boardwipes you get an access to a lot of effects that control wants! Those cards should provide you a lot of power that a control deck needs to take over the battlefield and lock the opponent out of the game! When you get to that spot it also won’t be hard to win since your removal (The Wandering Emperor and Sunfall) is able to provide threats when needed!

5th place was taken down with Mono-Red Aggro by Boin!

This deck is probably the most iconic aggro strategy of the game and has been existing for a very long time! Consisting of cheap haste creatures like Monastery Swiftspear and burn spells like Play with Fire makes this deck capable of closing the game out really fast. Fast strategies will always exist taking an advantage of the formats slow and durdly decks that are almost always loosing to the aggro deck!

7th place was taken down with Domain Ramp by Game_Night!

When you first face this deck it might look like it isn’t that strong since it mostly ramps and plays a removal spell from time to time, but the real fun starts when it gets to 7 mana. When it gets to accomplish that it becomes able to hard cast Atraxa, Grand Unifier which is so strong that it should provide enough value to win you the game! Drawing a bunch of cards and getting a 7/7 flier on the battlefield is a really powerful effect that a lot of decks have a hard time dealing with! And when you don’t have access to Atraxa, you can also create five 3/3 tokens with Herd Migration.

And 8th place was taken down with Azorius Midrange by LucasG1ggs!

This deck looks mostly the same as Mono White Midrange. That means it’s full of white removal like Lay Down Arms, strong planeswalkers like The Eternal Wanderer and value creatures like Serra Paragon. This combination of cards is able to remove any creature from the battlefield that the opponent may try to present.

The problem comes in when the opponent presents non-creature spells since your cards don’t do much against them, and that is where the blue splash comes in! If those cards become an issue you get an access to counterspells thanks to the splash so you can deal with those otherwise deadly spells!

That’s it for today! Mono-Black Midrange is slowly loosing popularity which means people have started adapting to it so the format might start to evolve again! I hope you enjoyed the article and see you soon!