Standard Orzhov Midrange Premium Deck Guide: The New Tier 1 Midrange Deck

By the time the New Capenna Championship rolled out (over a month ago at this point), the king of midrange decks was Esper Midrange. The championship presented us with some other versions like Jund, Grixis, and Naya midrange decks, but Esper remained the most popular midrange deck.

Since then, the format has evolved, and there’s a new midrange deck that’s trying to take away Esper’s crown - Orzhov Midrange. This deck has had a lot of success on Magic Online, and it seems that it has supplanted both Esper and Jund as the default Midrange deck. Here’s a sample list that got second in a Standard Challenge by Sapoa:

This is, much like Esper, a classic midrange deck - it’s got some creatures, some removal, some disruption, some card advantage. You are capable of some relatively fast draws with Luminarch Aspirant and Wedding Announcement, but you can also win grindy games with Planeswalkers, Legion Angel and utility lands.

I would say that there are three main differences between Orzhov and Esper:

There is a focus on Discard spells. Since you can not play counterspells witho...