Standard Metagame Breakdown: Arena Championship 7

Hey all. Arena Championship 7 was this past weekend, and it featured 48 of the best Arena players in the world jamming some matches of Standard. I love when we get a high level event like this because it really shows us what good players think is going on in the Standard format, and how they prepare for the meta.

Smaller tournaments like this do occasionally create very specific metagames. What I mean by that is if you are tuning your deck for a tournament where you expect half of your opponent’s to be playing Dimir Midrange, some of your main deck or sideboard choices may change to cards you know are good versus Dimir Midrange, versus if you were preparing for a big open tournament where you have to be prepared for every matchup.

So let’s break down the overall metagame, and then go over examples of all the decks so you have the latest lists for your own Standard tournaments or just for grinding the ladder!

Metagame Breakdown

As you can see, the metagame was dominated by Dimir Midrange and Gruul Aggro, which shouldn’t be too surprising since these have been two of the top decks for the past several months. That said, if you look at the number of decks represented, there is a good variety and plenty of interesting things going on.

The finals did come down to a matchup of Gruul Aggro versus Dimir Midrange, a fitting end to the tournament, and a statistically likely conclusion, and in the end Gruul Aggro piloted by Keisuke Sato took it down over Dimir Midrange piloted by Mikko Airaksinen.

The Top 8 included three copies of Dimir Midrange, two copies of Gruul Aggro, two copies of Jeskai Convoke, and one copy of Simic Terror

Gruul Aggro

Overall, this build of Gruul Aggro should look familiar to avid Standard players, but I do think that Sato made a couple of choices that may have helped him in a field dominated by Dimir Midrange and Gruul mirror matches.

First, the inclusion of three main deck copies of Questing Druid gives the deck a good amount of card advantage that can help it keep up with the one-for-one removal plan that Dimir Midrange plans to execute. The sideboard also has good tools against Dimir Midrange, such as Urabrask’s Forge, one more copy of Questing Druid, and even Sunspine Lynx.

For the mirror match, Sato has chosen to not just play four copies of Burst Lightning, but also two copies of Shock, and a single copy of Torch the Tower, the former two which are fine in any matchup, but all them are great in the mirror at slowing the opponent down and breaking up their board.

I think that moving forward we will see Gruul Aggro continue to be a flexible deck outside of the core creature base and Monstrous Rage. That means that you really can make calls on if you want more card advantage or more removal based on your local meta, or what you expect on the Arena ladder.

Dimir Midrange

Dimir Midrange has continued to evolve since the release of Foundations, and if you haven’t seen it in a while, there should be some new cards in these builds.

The core of the deck is the same, with cheap evasive creatures, cheap removal spells, and Enduring Curiosity and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares for card advantage. But a lot of the spell choices and creature choices have shifted in this build of Dimir.

For example, Deep-Cavern Bat and Preacher of the Schism have been benched in favor of spells that aid the tempo game plan. Floodpits Drowner is great at the tempo game, coming in to tap down an attacker or blocker, and then getting in with vigilance, leaving it able to block for Kaito, or just block to protect your life total.

Faebloom Trick is the big pickup from Foundations. This three mana instant gives you two flying creatures and taps down an opposing creature, usually stopping an attack and then making two blockers, or tapping a blocker and making two attackers at the end of the opponent’s turn.

This may seem like a strange inclusion of a limited card into a constructed deck, but it just works so well with the tempo game plan. The two faerie tokens have flying, meaning they are great attackers for Enduring Curiosity, and the defensive power of tapping an attacker and making two blockers is huge against aggro decks.

Faebloom Trick also fuels Spell Stutter, which is in for Phantom Interference. Now, not all builds of Dimir Midrange have gone this far away from the traditional builds we are used to, but this build did make it all the way to the Finals, so it deserves to be the version featured here.

Jeskai Convoke

Jeskai Convoke was the four most represented deck, but it did put two of the three copies into the Top 8, so it is worth discussing next.

Previously, Jeskai Convoke has been mostly similar to old builds of Boros Convoke and just splashing blue for Spyglass Siren and Protect the Negotiators. This build goes a bit further into blue though, also choosing to make use of Mockingbird for extra copies of your best creatures, and Disdainful Stroke in the sideboard.

What I like about this build is how clean it is. Mostly four copies of cards across the board. Sheltered by Ghosts continues to do the heavy lifting for removal, but the deck does have access to Torch the Tower and Destroy Evil in the sideboard.

I think that Jeskai Convoke is a solid choice if you are expecting a lot of a deck like Dimir Midrange, because their one-for-one plan is a bit worse against a wide board of creatures. They do have access to sweepers in the sideboard, so make good use of your copies of Protect the Negotiators.

Mono-Red Aggro

I know you may look at the mana base in this deck and be confused why it is Mono-Red Aggro and not Gruul Aggro, but the spells are all Mono-Red, the Gruul lands are just to cast Pawpatch Formation and Questing Druid out of the sideboard.

Mono-Red Aggro had previously risen above Gruul Aggro as the aggro deck of choice in Standard but I think that most players wanted access to cards like Innkeeper’s Talent, Snakeskin Veil, and Questing Druid in the main deck to help grind through Dimir Midrange.

Mono-Red Aggro is still a great choice, and it still has good tools against Dimir Midrange, I just think it is more susceptible to the one-for-one removal plan that Dimir and Golgari rely on to stay alive.

Golgari Midrange

Golgari Midrange has been passed over by many players who are instead reaching for Dimir Midrange for their midrange thrills, but it is still a solid player in the format.

Llanowar Elves can make any draw explosive, with turn two Glissa Sunslayer, Preacher of the Schism, or Unholy Annex forcing the opponent to start reacting to your game plan instead of focusing on their own.

Builds of Golgari Midrange are all over the place in terms of their exact threat and removal composition, but I think that Golgari should have a good matchup against aggro decks while struggling against a tempo deck like Dimir Midrange.

Token Control

Mono-White

Mono-White Token Control is still the go to control deck in the format, as its card advantage engine is better than any other control deck can put together.

Orzhov

Whereas Orzhov Token Control is using black removal spells to play more at instant speed. This also gives the deck the inclusion of Deadly Cover-Up to permanently exile problematic cards when you collect evidence.

Kaya, Spirits’ Justice is also a cool inclusion, as a way to make tokens, manage the graveyard, and use your tokens for removal. And Elenda, Saint of Dusk gives you a nice resilient threat against Dimir and Golgari midrange.

Either of these decks are fine choices if you are a fan of the Token Control game plan, but I would be wary in a world of Dimir Midrange, as their tempo game plan is going to be very good at disrupting your sweepers and card advantage engines.

Simic Terror

The Terrorin the title of these decklists is Tolarian Terror, as it, alongside Eddymurk Crab, are the threats that make this deck go.

The main goal of this deck is to cantrip several times on early turns, to the point where your crabs and terrors are nice and cheap. Once they are, you deploy them, hopefully drawing a card with Up the Beanstalk, and beat the opponent down over a couple of turns.

This deck makes use of This Town Ain’t Big Enough in a lot of cool ways. It can protect a threat, returning it to your hand, or it can bounce a Stormchaser’s Talent to make another 1/1 token and level up to return the This Town Ain’t Big Enough to continue the loop. It can also bounce your Up the Beanstalk to replay for value.

All in all, this is a cool tempo deck that is going to frustrate a lot of opponents.

Sultai Terror

The Sultai version is trying to shore up the matchup against aggro decks with removal spells. For example, Nowhere to Run plays great with This Town Ain’t Big Enough, giving you another use of the removal spell.

I worry that both of these versions will struggle against Dimir Midrange though. Their tempo game plan is better at pressuring the opponent’s life total, and they have plenty of removal spells to fight over your threats.

Regardless, if you like how either of these decks look, they really reward experienced pilots, so get your reps in to master the various lines of play and play patterns before taking it to a tournament.

Zur Domain

This is an interesting build of Zur Domain, as it plays Overlord of the Boilerbilges instead of Overlord of the Floodpits, forcing the deck to support five colors, and play a lot of red sources as Overlord of the Boilerbilges requires two red mana regardless if you are paying for impending or not.

I kind of like this plan though, because animating an Overlord of the Boilerbilges with Zur, Eternal Schemer gives you either a really fast clock or a good consistent source of removal. That said, the lack of Overlord of the Floodpits means that you are finding your Zur less often.

If you are a dedicated Zur Domain player, I’m curious if you have tried both versions, and which version you feel is better in the current meta of Dimir and Gruul.

Azorius Artifacts

This deck is very similar to Jeskai Convoke in that is plays a ton of one drop creatures, and then has payoffs, in this case cards like Regal Bunnicorn, Case of the Filched Falcon, and Zoetic Glyph instead of cards like Imodane’s Recruiter and Knight-Errant of Eos.

The gameplay should feel very similar as well, flooding the board early and then using your more impactful spells to try to put the opponent in awkward spots. No More Lies is great at slowing down opponents, and Dusk Rose Reliquary is a super efficient removal spell as long as you have the artifact tokens (or cheap creatures) to support it.

If you like Jeskai Convoke but are looking to play a bit more of a tempo game plan, this deck could be worth a shot!

Wrapping Up

I think the only big player that was missing from this tournament was Azorius Oculus, as all the other big players in the format were represented in at least one decklist. If you want to see all 48 decklists you can see them here: 

https://magic.gg/decklists/arena-championship-7-standard-decklists

That makes me think that even though this tournament was small it was a good representative of the Standard format overall, and probably is going to closely mirror the Arena ladder experience in ranks like Platinum and Diamond, where a lot of players are trying to play the best deck to climb up to Mythic.

I think we will continue to see the dominance of this more tempo version of Dimir Midrange, alongside Gruul Aggro as the top dogs in the format for the immediate future. That makes me think that it is going to be a tough world for slower decks and clunky decks as both of those decks are very good at punishing slow draws.

I could be wrong though, as the Standard card pool is so large now, who knows what new innovations will come out of it by the next tournament. As always, I hope this article was helpful as you consider your options for both the Arena ladder and/or any local tournaments you may be preparing for.

Best of luck in all of your matches and I’ll see you next time!