The best MTG Arena Best of One Timeless (Bo1) decks in our meta tier list comes with the latest up to date decklists and descriptions, their weaknesses, and when it is good to play.
Discover the best Magic: The Gathering Arena Timeless decks and archetypes that the players are using to climb the ranked ladder and win tournaments. Our MTG Arena Best of One (Bo1) Timeless Meta Tier List regularly reviews and ranks the top decks in the format, carefully curated by our expert Altheriax. We also follow up our choices based on a variety of factors and sources, with a comprehensive analysis of the data available.
Meta Overview and Changes
Here’s the new meta report covering all of the changes since the release of Bloomburrow:
You also have Atraxa, Grand Unifier as an alternate target to cheat into play which provides you with more redundancy for your combo, enabling you to go off early more consistently which is very important in best of 1. Atraxa, Grand Unifier as a creature is great at stabilizing and often winning the game on its own against fair decks, and it refueling you can often set up another Show and Tell into Omniscience to win the following turn.
With the addition of Grief to the format, discard-heavy black decks definitely pose a problem for Show and Tell but running Leyline of Sanctity in the maindeck often just wins you the game on its own if it’s in your opening hand since it shuts off their main way of keeping you off the combo and they usually struggle to race you outside of that.
Weaknesses: Specific hate cards are less likely to be an issue in best of 1 but some decks like Rakdos Burn with Roiling Vortex can still afford to run them. Additionally both discard spells and counterspells are very effective ways of keeping you off your combo plan so control and black midrange decks are generally the trickiest matchups – you do have counterplay here too in the form of Leyline of Sanctity but you won’t always have it in your opening hand, and you don’t have a great maindeck answer to counterspells.
When is it good to play? This is such a generically powerful deck that it should be a good choice as long as the meta is not dominated by decks running maindeck hate pieces, discard spells, or counterspells.
This is an aggro deck that is also capable of grinding well into longer games with incredible overall card quality which makes it difficult to outrace or outgrind with fair decks.
I prefer the Lurrus of the Dream-Den variant more in best of 1 since it’s lower to the ground and closes games out faster thanks to Goblin Bombardment which is important since speeding up your clock against decks like Show and Tell can make a huge difference.
Weaknesses: Your creatures all being very high quality makes single-target removal fairly ineffective but you are very vulnerable to sweepers so control can be a tricky matchup if they’re running Divine Purge, Toxic Deluge, or Wrath of the Skies in high numbers. Additionally you don’t have great ways to interact with combo decks that don’t involve creatures so matchups like Show and Tell and Belcher are difficult too.
When is it good to play? Boros energy is a very fast, powerful, and resilient deck so it should be a good choice in the vast majority of metagames as long as it’s not dominated by combo decks like Show and Tell and Belcher (in which case you could consider running some hate cards in the maindeck).
The real strength of this deck is that it isn’t one dimensional, and having a fair midrange plan B means that combo hate cards only slow you down, and don’t shut you out of the game entirely which makes the deck very resilient and difficult to shut off both angles of attack, since if the opponent is very focused on shutting off Underworld Breach, they leave themselves vulnerable to getting beaten down by Dragon's Rage Channeler and the evoke elementals instead.
Weaknesses: Unlike best of 3 you don’t need to be as concerned with graveyard or storm hate since they’re not commonly run in best of 1, but more focused combo decks that are capable of assembling their combo faster than you such as Show and Tell can be an issue although you do have Grief and Thoughtseize as a way to disrupt them.
When is it good to play? This will be a good choice into most metagames assuming graveyard hate isn’t seeing play as it’s fairly resilient and has good tools to fight most matchups, although it is tricky to play optimally.
The rest of the deck is largely comprised of cheap instants and sorceries to enable you to bring back Arclight Phoenix fairly such as Thoughtseize for extra interaction and, Surgical Extraction which can be very effective in best of 1 against more all-in graveyard decks etc.
Weaknesses: Since the deck has so many different synergies going on it can lead to clunky draws – this is the sort of deck that is happy to mulligan since it has some very broken starts even on 4 or 5 card hands but you can be punished for mulliganing if the opponent is running a discard heavy deck.
Additionally even though you have some very fast starts, they’re often too slow against a deck like Show and Tell where your only way to slow them down is Thoughtseize. Finally even though very few decks in best of 1 run graveyard hate, a big portion of your deck does get hit by it so you are very soft to opposing Surgical Extraction.
When is it good to play? This is generally a good choice assuming discard heavy decks, graveyard hate, and faster combo decks aren’t very prominent.
This is another Arclight Phoenix variant but this one is much more focused on maximizing Arclight Phoenix synergies so will have a much easier time grinding into longer games and won’t have to mulligan as much.
This list also runs Bloodghast to increase your density of good cards to pitch to Faithless Looting as well as giving you uses for your second and third copies of Buried Alive. Speaking of which the single copy of Ox of Agonas is also very nice alongside Buried Alive providing you with a way to refuel your hand once you’re low on resources.
Highway Robbery maximizes your fast Arclight Phoenix starts as well since you can plot it on turn 2, then cast it for free on turn 3 to pitch an Arclight Phoenix or Bloodghast, then cast Dark Ritual into Buried Alive hitting your three spells and bringing back all Arclight Phoenix from the yard. Finally this list also runs the full playset of Surgical Extraction which is excellent in the mirror and also very useful against decks like Breach and Dredge too.
Weaknesses: This list has a lot of the same weaknesses as the Mardu list in that you can struggle to race some of the faster combo decks like Show and Tell and Belcher without Thoughtseize, however you’re less vulnerable to discard spells so you won’t have to mulligan as much, but you’re more vulnerable to graveyard hate since you don’t have much of a plan B.
When is it good to play? This will generally be a good choice assuming graveyard hate and faster combo decks aren’t seeing a lot of play.
This is a deck that is looking to punish people for dealing damage to themselves with fetch and shock lands with a bunch of cheap aggressive creatures and burn spells to burn the opponent out.
The creatures in this list are all very efficient and good at forcing through damage over the course of multiple turns which should hopefully put the opponent within range that you can finish them off with your burn spells, and with Lightning Bolt being in the format you have a pretty high density of efficient burn spells which gives you great reach to close out games even if the opponent can keep your creatures off the board.
Moving into black also gives you access to Lurrus of the Dream-Den as a great mana sink if you run out of resources, Bump in the Night as another efficient source of direct damage, Okiba Reckoner Raid as another source of direct damage and pressure once it flips, and Orcish Bowmasters which is one of the best cards in the format and is great at dealing chip damage which plays well with your overall gameplan.
Additionally this list runs 4 Roiling Vortex which is a great consistent source of damage against slower interactive decks, provides a way to prevent lifegain, and can deal huge amounts of damage to combo cards that rely on casting spells for free such as Beseech the Mirror. The filtering from Dragon's Rage Channeler also helps you to not run out of gas, but having access to Lurrus of the Dream-Den gives the deck a failsafe even if you do.
Weaknesses: There are a number of cards that see play which provide incidental lifegain which are very effective at stabilizing against you such as Deathrite Shaman, Guide of Souls, and Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury – this isn’t as much of an issue in best of 1 since a lot of the best incidental lifegain cards like Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury and Omnath, Locus of Creation tend to see play in decks which are less common in best of 1, and you do have access to Roiling Vortex to shut it off, but it’s still an issue against specific decks.
Additionally since you’re reliant on red damage-based removal you tend to struggle to answer bigger creatures which can be a problem against a deck running bigger creatures like Titan Field.
When is it good to play? Burn is generally a good choice when decks are running fetch shock manabases, and aren’t running much incidental lifegain.
This is an aggressive deck that is very all in on the graveyard and is capable of swarming the battlefield very quickly, especially off a turn 2 Glimpse the Unthinkable. Narcomoeba, Bloodghast, and Prized Amalgam are all cards that can return themselves from the graveyard to the battlefield for free when their requirements are met, and similarly Creeping Chill and Wonder provide you benefits for free when they’re milled over meaning that you can get a ton of power in play and value for free simply by milling yourself.
Glimpse the Unthinkable is by far the best card in the deck since it has the best mill to mana value ratio which is largely why the deck is also running Founding the Third Path as a way to recast it whilst also getting additional mill value on chapter 2. Outside of that you have Stitcher's Supplier, Otherworldly Gaze and Merfolk Secretkeeper that fill out the 1 drop slot nicely and help get you off to a fast start which is important since this deck is all about racing from the board early on.
One of the biggest advantages this version gets over its Historic counterpart is fetch lands which enables you to find Islands much more consistently which then makes Wonder a much more consistent finisher since it gives your whole board flying when its in the graveyard, and you get access to Flare of Denial as a free counterspell if you sacrifice Narcomoeba, Prized Amalgam, or Merfolk Secretkeeper.
Weaknesses: Being an all-in graveyard deck makes you very vulnerable to graveyard hate – thankfully it’s not very common in best of 1 but some incidental graveyard hate does see play in the form of Deathrite Shaman and Bojuka Bog from the Titan deck. Additionally since you’re so reliant on winning via damage you can struggle against other decks that are capable of committing to the board in the early game, or combo decks especially if you don’t have the fastest start or get unlucky with your early mills.
When is it good to play? Dredge is a generically strong deck that should be a decent choice assuming graveyard hate or other faster combo decks aren’t very popular.
This is an all-in linear combo deck that is trying to get Goblin Charbelcher into play and activate it as fast as possible in order to kill the opponent. This deck runs only the double-faced modal lands from Zendikar Rising which count as spells when they’re not on the battlefield meaning that Goblin Charbelcher will almost always be lethal unless the opponent is at a very high life total. The main two ways you have of accelerating into Goblin Charbelcher is Dark Ritual and Channel with Channel being by far the more powerful of the two, although it is restricted meaning it’s more difficult to find.
Achieving triple black in a list without any dual lands is difficult, but this is helped in a big way by artifacts like Chromatic Star and Wizard's Rockets that can turn your green mana into black, and are also great bargain enablers for Beseech the Mirror.
Weaknesses: The manabase is both slow and painful since it’s all modal lands which can be punished by the faster decks in the format, and is also punished hard by land destruction effects such as Boseiju, Who Endures, Field of Ruin, and Assassin's Trophy since you’re not running any actual lands. Additionally as an all-in combo deck you’re vulnerable to both discard spells and counterspells that both see a good amount of play, although you do have 4 Leyline of Sanctity to provide insulation against discard if you open with it.
When is it good to play? Belcher is generally a good choice when the rest of the format is linear since you can race most non-interactive decks. You typically tend to struggle the most if discard spells and counterspells are commonly played.
This is a combo deck that is looking to storm off using Dark Ritual and Beseech the Mirror alongside a bunch of other cheap spells that can produce mana, ending on Tendrils of Agony to achieve lethal. This list runs a lot of fast mana in order to ramp to the combo such as Dark Ritual, Phyrexian Tower, Springleaf Drum, and the treasure token off Shambling Ghast, as well as being able to cast multiple spells in the turn to up the storm count before you go for Beseech the Mirror.
Beseech the Mirror itself can provide up to 5 extra storm count assuming you have 4 bargain enablers in play and have the remaining three copies of Beseech the Mirror in your library, since you can go through all 4 copies finishing on a Tendrils of Agony.
Speaking of which this list runs 3 copies of Tendrils of Agony firstly so you’re always likely to have one left in your library to cast off Beseech the Mirror, but it’s also decent to draw because you can often pull off ‘fair’ storm turns without Beseech the Mirror where you can chain together multiple cheap spells and finish with a Tendrils of Agony which is often good enough for lethal if you’ve gotten in for early damage or the opponent’s taken damage off their manabase.
You also have Necropotence as an incredibly strong card advantage engine to help assemble your combo which you can also get into play on turn 1 via Dark Ritual, Leyline of Sanctity to provide you with some insulation against discard spells, and Underworld Breach as a tutorable way to achieve a higher storm count if you have enough cards in your graveyard.
Weaknesses: This deck tends to mulligan pretty aggressively which makes it vulnerable to both discard spells and counterspells – you do have Leyline of Sanctity to help against discard spells but you won’t always open with it. Additionally unlike Breach you’re very much all in on the combo which means if the opponent can keep you off it, or you have a slightly slower start, you can often end up being outraced.
When is it good to play? This is generally a good choice as long as discard spells, counterspells, and storm hate cards aren’t seeing much play.
This is a ramp deck that is looking to get Primeval Titan into play on turn 3 or 4 to get Field of the Dead online which gives you incredible inevitability against any fair deck.
Weaknesses: Titan’s matchup spread in best of 1 is incredibly polarizing where you’re very strong against any fair deck, but really struggle against any fast combo deck since you don’t have any way to interact early on, and don’t close out the game particularly quickly. In best of 3 you at least have access to your sideboard to hedge against these matchups but in best of 1 you don’t have that option and so will almost always lose against a deck like Underworld Breach or Belcher unless they have a very slow start.
When is it good to play? Titan is a great choice assuming fast combo decks aren’t popular.
Alth is an MTG Arena grinder who has been #1 on the ladder multiple times and is always looking to bring new ideas and archetypes to the format and push them to the top spots on the ladder. You can follow him on Twitter and YouTube.
