Traditional Standard (BO3) Metagame Tier List and Rankings: July 2021

Introduction

Discover the best Magic: The Gathering Arena Standard decks and archetypes that the players are using to climb the ranked ladder and win tournaments. Explore the Traditional (BO3) Standard metagame as we regularly rank the top decks in a tier list, as well as our comprehensive analysis and review.

• Click here to view the separate analysis and tier list for Arena Standard (BO1).
• Click on the deck archetype name to find a brief description, links to the full deck guide with a more detailed overview and to find the latest decklists representing it.
• Each deck will be ranked in numerical order as well as tier order. The higher something is within the tier, the better it is than other decks.
• Below the tier list you will also find a curated decklist for each archetype as well as a full explanation and reasonings behind these rankings and tiers.

Methodology

When constructing the tier list, we take into account a variety of factors and sources:

• Field representation, win rate and matchups: How prolific a deck is on the Mythic ladder and how it stacks up against the other popular decks in the metagame.
• Third-party applications: that track matches and publishes the data directly from ladder play. Currently, we have access to Untapped.gg, MTGA Assistant, MTG Arena Pro and MTG Arena Tool.
• Tournaments: Important results shaped professional players. MTGmeta.io and MTG Data aggregates these results to analyze their performance.
• Game Mode: As a general rule, best-of-one (BO1) prefers linear strategies and the metagame is different from Traditional best-of-three (BO3). Read more about the differences here. Generally speaking, the tournaments results are in BO3 only, have a much smaller sample size and its environment is very different from an open MTG Arena ladder experience.
• Opinion: Our own ladder experience and in consultation with players.
• Others: If a deck doesn’t appear below, either the play rate of it is too low for it to make a tangible impact or it falls below the tier 3 threshold which we sometimes will highlight as Honorable Mentions below. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad deck either, as this will just be focused on the most popular decks in the current metagame.

Legend

• Tier 1: The best of the best. The most consistent decks that sport the highest win rates and generally, the highest play rates.
• Tier 2: Very solid decks that are slightly lacking in some capacity, whether it’s consistency or power compared to the Tier One archetypes. These can still be strong choices for ladder or for tournaments if you are highly skilled with the archetype or play them during the right metas.
• Tier 3: Either these decks are poorly positioned or have a lot of power/consistency issues. These are decks that see play, but are generally worse choices than your other options.
• Tier 4: Off-meta or decks that are not in the rankings, but we have coverage on.

Tier List and Rankings

TIER ONE DECKS

1. SULTAI ULTIMATUM

• Deck Guide
• Win Rate: 58.1 (3400 matches)
• Change: 1 -> 1

Although this is 10th in terms of win rate on untapped, it would be criminal to not place this at the top spot. This has been dominating the few tournaments that have been held for normal Standard and is still the most powerful deck by far.

The control game plan into 7 mana win the game is a really hard combination to beat, and although it’s far from unbeatable, it’s still the strongest thing you can be doing.

2. TEMUR LUKKA

• Deck Guide
• Win Rate: 64.6% (410 matches)
• Change: 8 -> 2

My favorite Standard deck has really shot up the rankings and currently holds the highest Standard win rate (although the sample size is small). Furthermore this has been a popular choice in tournaments as well and still performing up to par for it’s 2nd place status.

Temur Lukka has all the power of a classic Adventures deck with the extremely powerful end game of Koma, Cosmos Serpent, a card many decks won’t be able to beat. Couple that with having some of the best flexible cards in the format, this is a force to be reckoned with.

3. NAYA ADVENTURES

• Deck Guide
• Win Rate: 58.0% (1300 matches)
• Change: 4 -> 3

Once again we have a discrepancy between ladder win rate and Tier list placement. According to untapped this isn’t even in top 10 of played decks, but Naya has been a consistent performer both in tournaments and ladder so not placing it in tier 1 wouldn’t make sense.

Naya has really evolved with the times and has become a deck that every other matchup is starting to fear, including Sultai Ultimatum which was initially thought to be a bye for Sultai.

The deck is extremely powerful when piloted well, but piloting it well is no small ask. I believe the small sequencing decisions may partly be the barrier that’s suppressing the win rate on ladder play.

4. MONO GREEN AGGRO

• Deck Guide Coming Soon
• Win Rate: 63.4% (5500 matches)
• Change: Unlisted -> 4

Well Rumti, you finally did it. He’s been on a crusade for over a year preaching the good word of Monogreen, and now the general population believes him. I generally don’t like putting newly represented decks high on the tier list as a good portion of the time they’re flashes in the pan, but look at that win rate and sample size. Monogreen is simply dominating Standard right now. This deck has the second highest win rate and far and away the highest play rate. If that doesn’t make a deck Tier 1, I don’t know what would.

5. GRUUL ADVENTURES

• Deck Guide
• Win Rate: 62.2% (790 matches)
• Change: 3 -> 5

Aside from Temur Lukka, Gruul is one of my other favorite decks and it has been performing consistently well for quite awhile, although the popularity isn’t quite matching up to it’s power.

The deck is extremely fast, grindy, and interactive which makes it’s a potent threat in any matchup it comes across. It can struggle against the other Adventure variants like Temur or Naya, but the game plan of a good curve into Goldspan Dragon and/or Embercleave can overcome functionally any obstacle.

TIER TWO DECK ARCHETYPES

6. CYCLING

• Deck Guide
• Win Rate: Unlisted
• Change: 9 -> 6

Although Cycling is not the most popular option as it doesn’t even have enough matches for Win rate data, the deck is very powerful. With a fast and grindy game plan that’s hard to interact with, the deck is very much a force to be reckoned with and would always be one of the best choices if it didn’t have it’s consistency issues. Most players avoid playing it on ladder since the play patterns aren’t very interesting, but this has been a mainstay in tournaments for quite a bit now and is constantly putting up results.

7. JESKAI MUTATE

• Deck Guide
• Win Rate: 63.1% (350)
• Change: 7 -> 7

Jeskai Mutate is so interesting as it’s so alike and dissimilar to Cycling. Both are pretty unpopular strategies because of their play patterns, but both have high win rates. However, unlike Cycling, this deck’s play patterns are super intricate which scares a lot of players away.

The deck is very powerful as it can play out as a weird midrange deck or randomly combo people out adding an interesting dynamic in all of it’s matches unlike Cycling which is really just cycling towards a Zenith Flare. Although this probably has Tier 1 potential, I think it’s lack of popularity and difficulty of play bars it for now.

8. DIMIR ROGUES

• Deck Guide
• Win Rate: 56.5% (1400 matches)
• Change: 6 -> 8

Rogues is such a weird case for a Standard deck as the deck is absurdly powerful, easily Tier 1, but will live and die by it’s matchups and how much the format respects it. Right now, I would say the format is still respecting Rogues pretty highly as Sultai has multiple Polukranos Unchained main deck, every red deck has Phoenix of Ash and/or Ox of Agonas, Cycling is really popular, Monored is really popular, and so on.

Despite all these problems, Rogues is still one of the most powerful strategies in Standard and it’s hard to justify putting it any lower thantier 2 as it’ll have no presence for a few weeks then suddenly dominate a tournament.

9. MONO RED AGGRO

• Deck Guide
• Win Rate: 60.1% (2200 matches)
• Change: 4 -> 9

Per usual, Monored’s play rate and win rate generally don’t have a great bearing on it’s Tier positioning. Despite is having a strong representation and win rate on ladder, Monored is noticeable absent from the top levels of play, and when it is there, it very rarely performs well.

I think the deck is simply outclassed by better options, but putting a 60% win rate deck in Tier 3 wouldn’t make much sense either. I know I’m biased as I haven’t liked Monored since Goblin Rabblemaster was legal, but I truly think it just doesn’t have the power to compete.

10. MONO WHITE AGGRO

• Deck Guide
• Win Rate: 61.4% (1200 matches)
• Change: 10 -> 10

Similar to Monored, I think the deck’s play and win rate don’t really translate with their ladder positioning. Although I like this deck quite a bit more than Monored, it still struggles to contend with the power level that Eldraine and Ikoria brought to the table.

Unlike Monored, I would be way less surprised if Monowhite continues to trend up and improves it’s position on ladder, so we’ll see over the coming weeks if it’s able to cement itself in a higher spot.

TIER THREE DECK ARCHETYPES

11. IZZET DRAGONS

• Deck Guide
• Win Rate: 52.7% (2400 matches)
• Change: 2 -> 11

I feel a bit vindicated being able to put Dragons in Tier 3. I didn’t have anything against the deck, I just didn’t think it was a particularly good strategy. Despite a solid play rate, Izzet has been failing to perform well either on ladder or tournaments earning it’s place in Tier 3.

Realistically speaking, Izzet isn’t even the best strategy in Standard 2022 where it got to keep most of it’s cards, so imagine trying to compete in a Standard with Eldraine and Ikoria legal.

Goldspan Dragon is an amazing card as is Alrund's Epiphany, but it’s hard to compete with the ridiculousness that is Adventures and Emergent Ultimatum.

12. NAYA WINOTA

• Deck Guide Coming Soon
• Win Rate: 61.8% (1700 matches)
• Change: Unlisted -> 12

I have a very strong love for Winota and it has been performing very well recently, but I’ve been burned too many times by Winota’s reemergence, me placing the deck highly, then it going nowhere. I’ll temper my expectations once again as this could be another case of Winota showing up for the first few weeks of a format then never to be seen again.

Nevertheless, Winota, Joiner of Forces is a disgustingly powerful card and I wouldn’t be surprised if a Winota deck even became Tier 1, but I’ve been waiting awhile now and it doesn’t seem to be happening. Fingers crossed.

Thank you for reading! Have a great day!