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It’s now been a full week since the release of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty on MTG Arena, and in that time, players have been testing every new card and synergy they can come up with on the Mythic ladder – and many of them have been sharing their results with the community. It’s now time for us to review the decks we’ve seen over the past week as the dust has begun to settle, and highlight the some of those whose clever pilots have taken up to the highest echelons of Mythic.
We’ve got an exciting lineup for this week – all of the featured decks achieved ranks in the Top 50 or better across all three of Arena’s competitive formats. In Standard, which will be our main focus for today, all of our features were played in the Top 10 – including one that was published by a current pro.
In the Historic format, a new card from Neon Dynasty may have broken a certain eight mana bargain-bin rare Vehicle, and we haven’t completely forgotten about Arena’s newest competitive format – there’s a little something here for Alchemy fans, too.
We’ve got a lot of new decks to look at and nearly all of them include cards from the new set, so let’s get on with it! The decks are broken down by format; we’ll present the featured decks first, followed by the full compilation of decks we collected over the week.
Standard Top 50 Mythic Decks of the Week
Abzan Vehicles by Noriyuki Mori – #4 Mythic
We’re getting started right off the bat this week with a deck submitted by Magic Pro League player Noriyuki Mori. One of the strong themes of the futuristic new set is Vehicles, and his deck, built on a Orzhov shell splashing green for the notorious Esika's Chariot, took the MPL member up to #4 Mythic – our highest rank for the week.
The vehicles in the deck provide serious beatdown power in the form of Mukotai Soulripper and the aforementioned Chariot, but they also come with some ability to grind thanks to the card draw ability on Reckoner Bankbuster. The rest of the deck is support for the theme: a few removal spells, and a ton of creatures to crew the Vehicles – including lots of three-power creatures to make sure the Bankbusters can turn sideways.
Esper Midrange by Zan Syed – #5 Mythic
Up next we have a deck that brings a new Kamigawa twist to an archetype that’s gained a lot of traction in Standard since the bans in January: Orzhov Midrange. Cards like Wedding Announcement and Deadly Dispute have proven their potency in an Epiphany-free Standard, but now, regular high-Mythic grinder Zan Syed has put a twist on the deck that took him to #5.
Zan’s deck takes the familiar sacrifice-heavy shell and adds the power of the new Neon Dynasty planeswalkers Kaito Shizuki and The Wandering Emperor. Both planeswalkers come with the ability to create tokens, which were already an important part of the archetype’s built-in synergy.
Besides Kaito, the only other blue cards in the maindeck are four Malevolent Hermit, which has no shortage of targets in a Standard where even most of the aggro decks include non-creature artifacts or enchantments.
Orzhov Midrange by TraceOn – #7 Mythic
Is midrange the ruler of Neon Dynasty Standard? Our final Standard showcase for this week is also an example of Orzhov Midrange, but manages to be entirely different from the last. This deck, built by Arena player TraceOn, forgoes the token and sacrifice strategy that other Orzhov decks have been known for, and plays a more traditional midrange plan featuring efficient removal, splashy spells costing four mana or five mana, and lots of value-generating permanents.
The top-end spell that the deck is largely built around is Invoke Despair, a five mana sorcery from Neon Dynasty that can drain the opponent’s life and/or wipe a bunch of their permanents off the board. Spells like Life of Toshiro Umezawa, which eventually transforms into a mana dork, and The Restoration of Eiganjo, which can use its II ability to sneak an extra land into play, help to make sure that the deck can consistently cast the four-black spell – sometimes ahead of schedule.
That brings us to the end of the Standard showcase, but don’t worry – there are a ton of other decks to browse from over the week in our full collection below. Farther down, we’ll move on to Historic.
Historic Top 50 Mythic Decks of the Week
Mardu Parhelion by AlthMTG – #14 Mythic
Our highest ranked deck from Historic this week is an example of a new Neon Dynasty-fueled archetype that has been taking the Historic ladder by storm – Parhelion Reanimator. Parhelion II is a Vehicle that represents an absurd 13 power when it attacks, but never saw any competitive play in the past due to its prohibitive eight mana casting cost and Crew 4 requirement.
However, the printing of Greasefang, Okiba Boss has given players a way to cheat Parhelion into play from the graveyard and send it in for an attack all on the same turn. Historic is notable for being a format where Faithless Looting is still legal, and along with other powerful Rakdos cards in the format, it seems that Parhelion reanimator may be a very real force to be reckoned with in the format.
This particular example was submitted to us by content creator Altheriax, who played the deck in as high a rank as #14 Mythic.
Bo1 Gruul Turbo Emissary by AlthMTG – #17 Mythic
The second deck of our Historic spotlight also comes from AlthMTG, and this one is another wild combo ride. Back when Time Warp was printed and then promptly banned from Historic, decks built around Transmogrify and (more importantly) Indomitable Creativity dominated the format by cheating Velomachus Lorehold into play early and chaining off extra turns.
Since Time Warp was rightfully removed from the format, decks using Creativity for other degenerate effects have been on the fringes but have never quite reached the same level. Now, Altheriax has built a new version of Creativity optimized for best-of-one that he claims to taken on a 35-9 streak up to #17 Mythic.
In the Tweet above, Alth links a video where you can check out his deck tech and some gameplay. The basic principle of the deck is essentially the same as Creativity decks of the past: it creates some tokens in the first few turns which are then used to sac to Indomitable Creativity and cheat out a big threat – in this case, Serra's Emissary to lock the opponent out of the game.
You’ll find more Historic decks from the past week below, but we’ve got one last deck lined up for today – this time in the Alchemy format.
Bonus: Alchemy Top 50 Deck of the Week
Azorius Control by Ignotus – #6 Mythic
Along with Gruul Werewolves, Azorius Control has been considered one of the top decks in Alchemy in recent months thanks to the obscene power of Key to the Archive powered with Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset and Discover the Formula. Our Alchemy featured deck this week is an updated version featuring new cards, submitted by player Ignotus who ranked up to #6 Mythic using the deck.
Four copies of March of Otherworldly Light (which can still be affected by Discover the Formula’s cost reduction) help to round out the deck’s removal suite. Divine Purge is still the wrath of choice, but one copy of Farewell joins the list as well to help deal with the wide variety of permanents that decks are bringing in the Neon Dynasty environment of juiced artifacts and enchantments.
This column is our weekly roundup of Standard, Historic, and Alchemy decks players are using to climb the ranked ladder on MTG Arena! Our goal is to curate and post a variety of deck archetypes and interesting card choices at the end of each week to help you keep up to date with the latest trends in the metagame. If you have any decks you want featured, please tweet us at @mtgazone or give us a shout at our Discord.
