We’re back with another installment of MTG Arena Zone’s Top Mythic Decks! Each week, we’re tagged on social media with a myriad of decklists from players around the world. In this series, we compile some of the most highly ranked decks we’ve seen across MTG Arena’s constructed formats and take a look at how the metagame is progressing – and what decks have brought players the most success at the highest levels of the Mythic ladder.
This week, we’re seeing the apparent influence of the recent Neon Dynasty Championship in both Alchemy and Standard. Since then, players have been tapping into the power of Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, a card that help Jim Davis go undefeated in the Swiss rounds of the Championship.
In Alchemy and Historic, players are still just getting started experimenting with the new cards from Alchemy: Kamigawa, which was just released on the client this past Thursday.
We’ll be keeping our focus on Arena’s two rotating formats for today’s article, as we haven’t been seeing as much buzz around Historic this week. Let’s jump in, and see what the community has been bringing to the Mythic queue.
Standard Top Mythic Decks of the Week
Jund Midrange by pironeko – #21 Mythic
Regular high-Mythic grinder pironiko showed up near the top of our features last weekend with an oddball Boros Control deck, and this week he’s back (at an even higher rank) with the midrangiest of midrange decks in Standard.
The Neon Dynasty Championship reaffirmed the power of midrange decks in Standard – Jim Davis, although he didn’t manage to take down the whole tournament, did turn a lot of heads with his impressive 12-0 run. One of the cards that his deck was built around was Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, a card that didn’t originally garner much attention in constructed Standard following the set’s release.
It turns out that the first two modes on Fable provide some solid value even on their own, and we’ve seen a wave of players experimenting with the card in various midrange shells since the landmark tournament. pironeko decided to put a Jund twist on the deck, pairing the saga with other established midrange cards in the colors like Esika's Chariot and Graveyard Trespasser.
Chariot is particularly strong in the deck thanks to a neat interaction with Fable, where the tokens made by Reflection of Kiki-Jiki can be copied with Chariot. While the original Reflection token will be sacrificed as usual, the token from Chariot will stick around on the board afterwards.
pironeko took this deck for a ride up to our highest rank of the week at #21 Mythic.
Izzet Delver by h0lydiva – #24 Mythic
Our second deck for today comes to us from Twitch streamer and MTG content creator Daniela Díaz, also known by her Arena handle h0lydiva. Daniela has been a lover of Delver of Secrets strategies in Standard since the card was reprinted back in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, and she frequently posts her decks along with a (often very high) ranking.
Her most recently shared version of the deck also includes four copies of Fable of the Mirror-Breaker for the value. Otherwise, the deck plays a tempo gameplan that’s familiar to other Delver decks, combining cheap threats like Spectral Adversary, efficient answers (including the mini-sweeper Seismic Wave), and the untouchable card advantage provided by Expressive Iteration.
Tempo decks like this are always better in best-of-three, and Daniella is out on the ladder to prove that her pet deck can hang with the other decks in high Mythic when piloted with skill.
Naya Tokens by crokeyz – #108 Mythic
Coming in as our third and final Standard showcase this week is a deck by none other than Crokeyz, one of Magic Arena’s most popular Twitch streamers. While pironeko has been jamming Jund as his midrange deck of choice, crokeyz has gone with Naya, leaving Graveyard Trespasser behind for white cards like Skyclave Apparition and The Wandering Emperor.
The combination of white and red of course also opens up the option of running Showdown of the Skalds, and crokeyz is running three copies of the grindy enchantment here with the fourth in the sideboard. There are still a number of cards in common with piro’s deck, including – you guessed it – Fable of the Mirror Breaker. Crokeyz himself notes the potentially busted interaction as a core element of the deck:
And that’s the end of our Standard Showcase for the week. We’re going to move on to Alchemy next, but you can check out some other decks we collected in Standard below.
Alchemy Top Mythic Decks of the Week
Rakdos Despair by crokeyz – #27 Mythic
Speaking of Crokeyz, our first Alchemy deck also comes from the Angry Scottsman – several days later, he posted a list that helped him push even higher into Mythic up to #27.
Croke’s Alchemy list features four copies of Invoke Despair, the five mana sorcery from Neon Dynasty that can grind the opponent to dust in the mid-late game. It’s also notable for including four copies each of the new cards Undercity Plunder and Painful Bond from Alchemy: Kamigawa.
Crokeyz claims to have gone 9-1 in his first run with the deck, and credits both new cards as a part of the deck’s success – even going as far as to say they could become staples in the format for black decks going forward.
Esper Midrange by adrik – #475 Mythic
Up next, we have yet another midrange pile – although according to its author, this deck has been specifically tuned to beat other midrange decks in the format. adrik, who took the list to the #475 slot, has built their deck on a familiar core of cards that have been showing up in Orzhov since rotation.
Deadly Dispute, cheap fodder to sacrifice for value, and top-end planeswalkers to overpower the opponent are joined by a suite of blue cards that can steal spells from the opponent’s deck such as King Narfi’s Betrayal and Kotose, the Silent Spider. Meanwhile, counter-magic like Malevolent Hermit, Test of Talents, and Disdainful Stroke can come in from the sideboard to shut down other grindy decks when they try to go over the top with their big plays.
Bo1 Golgari Ninjas by Delmo – #477 Mythic
We’re going to close things off on this week’s Spotlight with an archetype that hasn’t seen much love after the first few days following Neon Dynasty’s release: Ninjas. The deck is coming to us in a new and unexpected form as well – while most of the Ninja decks we’ve seen have been Dimir to include the three-mana planeswalker Kaito Shizuki, regular contributor Delmo has taken his deck in a different direction.
Jukai Liberator is a brand new Ninja from Alchemy: Kamigawa that has pushed Delmo into the Golgari color pair. The three mana 3/3 has a draw ability that is reminiscent of Abundance, an enchantment card that may be familiar to Commander players. Assuming it can connect with your opponent, Liberator either ensures that you make your land drop or draws a non-land when you need the gas.
The rest of the deck is mostly made up of other cards with Ninjutsu or cheap creatures that play well with Ninjutsu like Eyetwitch and Tenacious Pup. Delmo has also included a handful of other new cards from Alchemy: Kamigawa, namely Painful Bond for some card advantage and the ninja Swarm Saboteur.
It feels wrong to be playing Ninjas without Kaito, but Delmo was able to take this unconventional build up to #477 Mythic with a 75% winrate in best-of-one. It definitely seems clumsy to run all three colors in a deck that really wants to hit its one-drops on time – especially when Sultai isn’t one of the color combinations supported by New Capenna’s three-color theme and therefore won’t be getting a tri-land.
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’d like to see featured, please tweet us at @mtgazone or give us a shout on our Discord.
