Another week has passed in the Arena, and that means we’ve got a fresh set of decklists to review. Every weekend, we take a look back at some of the most highly ranked decks that were posted on social media during the week.
We’ve got quite a few high-ranking lists this week – all of our featured decks made it inside the top thirty, including two decks that climbed all the way to the #1 slot.
We’ll get started by taking a closer look at some of these top decks in each format, and you’ll find a list of all of the decks we collected over the week at the bottom of each section.
Our first deck this week is a bit of a spicy one, but first, a bit of context. Mono White Aggro has been known as one of the top decks in the format in both Arena ranked and tournament contexts since the rotation and release of Midnight Hunt. The archetype was pushed even farther with Crimson Vow thanks to the reprinting of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.
It’s a bit interesting then to see this Azorius Aggro list by yuunonn, which has many cards in common with the Mono White deck, foregoing Thalia entirely in exchange for a blue splash and access to efficient counterspells like Geistlight Snare and Jwari Disruption.
This list also has a bit higher of a curve than the usual Mono White decks, and pushes more damage with fliers like Spectral Adversary and the new Crimson Vow card Welcoming Vampire.
It feels a bit weird to be running a white aggressive deck without Thalia in the 75, but yuunonn was clearly onto something – they were able to pilot their deck all the way to #1 Mythic.
Mardu Sacrifice decks powered by Extus, Oriq Overlord showcased their power in the Standard 2022 format, and streamer Matías Arvigo is proving that the archetype still has a place in the format.
The deck, which Matías forged in some of the highest rankings on the ladder, is notable for playing four of the Crimson Vow planeswalker Kaya, Geist Hunter. The new three-mana planeswalker hasn’t seen much play in Standard yet, but Mardu has enough token generation that the synergies may well be worth the card slots.
With the recent dominance of extremely creature-heavy aggro decks in Standard like Mono Green and Mono White, we’ve also been seeing a rise of Mono Black and Orzhov control decks packed with removal.
This style of control deck featuring Blood on the Snow has been popular on and off since Standard 2022, but has notoriously bad matchups against Izzet and other blue decks running countermagic.
The meta in Mythic can’t be too unfriendly to these decks though, with Twitter user NicK: Automata using their version of the deck to take the #18 position.
Our final deck for today is Mono Green Stompy, and honestly, there isn’t much to say about this deck that hasn’t already been said. Mono Green is a known quantity in Standard – it received a nice upgrade from Crimson Vow in the form of Ascendant Packleader, and it continues to be one of the best decks in the format.
This particular list was tuned and shared by Roy Varney, who used it along with a Mono White deck to achieve the #28 rank.
That brings us to the end of our Standard featured decks for this week. You can browse the full collection of the week’s Standard decks below, and then we’ll get into the Historic format.
Ah, Izzet Phoenix. Phoenix decks have been a major part of the Historic format for most of its existence. The power of the recursive namesake flier Arclight Phoenix combined with Faithless Looting and other cheap cantrips has proven itself as a force to be reckoned with and respected.
This build of Izzet Phoenix was shared by Zan Syed, who piloted the deck all the way to #1 Mythic with some pretty interesting card choices. Demilich is a card that was the subject of much debate after it was spoiled, as nobody was sure if it would be able to find a home in an archetype as tight as Phoenix.
It’s kind of nice to see Zan Syed doing so well with the oddball Skeleton Wizard, and there are a handful of other unusual cards that he has added to the archetype: Otherworldly Gaze, which helps provide some extra velocity of cards into the graveyard, and Strike It Rich, which Syed claims adds an extra explosive element to the deck.
Last but not least, we have an Elf tribal deck submitted by Iamthewalrus, who reached the impressive rank of #4 with the deck. Backed up with the power of Collected Company, Elves are one of the strongest tribes in the Historic format.
Iamthewalrus’s deck is notable for splashing not one, but two colors alongside green using pathways and the shock lands in white and blue. The only non-green card in the maindeck is three copies of Swan Song to protect the board state, but the sideboard includes additional counterspells along with Declaration in Stone and Rest in Peace to bring in some hate for the matchups where they’re needed.
And that takes us to the end of our Mythic spotlight for the November Ranked Season Week 3. Below is the full collection of Historic decks from this week. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you here again soon!
This column is our weekly roundup of Standard and Historic 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.
