Top Mythic Ladder Decks – March 2020 Season – Week 1

Standard is still moving along and evolving after the Mythic Point Challenge last week, and under its influence the first week of the March 2020 Ranked Season has now almost wrapped up. Today, we will provide you with a Standard metagame update and of course, a bunch of decks that have rushed to the Mythic rank in the early days of the season. Click here to go straight to them!

Standard Metagame Update – March 6, 2020

Personally, I had the time to play a bit more ladder more than usual this season practising with the version of Rakdos Sacrifice that utilizes Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger for more late game power. This is because during my climb, I have experienced the shift in metagame firsthand.

It’s still a small sample size, but out of the 41 matches so far:

• 13 of the games were against Bant or Sultai Ramp Nissa decks (with mixed results), and it’s meant to be a good matchup but found it to be heavily play-draw dependent.
• 7 matches against Temur Adventures, and 6 against Mono Red. Both are very favorable matchups thus making the choice of deck.
• 4 matches against Jeskai Fires, and haven’t won a game yet. This is a very strong deck that gets better as its bad matchups, such as Azorius Control and Simic Flash, become less prevalent in the metagame.
• Only once I was matched against Azorius Control. The deck still posted some good results at the Mythic Point Challenge, but as the popularity of Temur Adventures (its worst matchup) rises and the metagame shifts to the slower, greedier ramp decks, it may be hard to keep up and close the game.
• Jund Sacrifice was faced just once so far. This is more likely it just being an unpopular deck despite being even better in the current metagame. It’s probably a better tournament deck than a ladder deck, as the games can drag on for a very long time.

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• It appears that Azorius Control is effectively pushed out of the metagame for now, and we have a battle between the aggro and slower midrange/ramp decks.
• Amongst the aggro decks, the Rakdos Sacrifice deck is quickly picking up traction following its performance at the Mythic Point Challenge. It is particularly strong against Mono Red and Temur Adventures, and it can still grind out longer games thanks to the power of Witch’s Oven and Cauldron Familiar. Gruul Aggro is also a decent option, as its bigger creatures are harder to get through for opposing aggro decks.
• Jeskai Fires and the Nissa Ramp decks are all solid choices on the other side of the spectrum, as they can build their resources and end the game faster than Temur Adventures. Of these, Sultai Ramp featuring Casualties of War looks to be very good once again, followed closely by Bant Ramp’s Elspeth Conquers Death.

In light of this, we’ve updated the BO3 Standard Tier List, so check it out and let us know what you think!

Card of the Week

A card caught the eye while uploading this week’s decklists, and that was Leyline of Combustion featured in Lanyr’s Gruul Aggro deck. This is a card that has not seen much play at all since its introduction in Core Set 2020, but there is a lot of spot removal out there in this metagame and less sweepers. It even triggers on targeting you (like Thought Erasure) and on abilities as well (Priest of Forgotten Gods).

MTG Arena Mythic Standard Decks of the Week

Here is the full list of known Mythic decks over the past week shared by the players, sorted by the deck archetype name with their highest placement noted!

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Be sure to check out the other Mythic Theros Beyond Death Standard decks from previous weeks for more decklists:

• Top Mythic Ladder Decks – February 2020 Season – Week 4
• Top Mythic Ladder Decks – February 2020 Season – Week 3
• Top Mythic Ladder Decks – February 2020 Season – Week 2
• Top Mythic Ladder Decks – February 2020 Season – Week 1

This weekend, MagicFest Lyon is going ahead and we will get to see a snapshot of the Standard tournament metagame with a larger field (compared to the 16 at Worlds). Do keep in mind the data we may get from this tournament will likely be limited as Wizards of the Coast restricted the publishing of all the decklists outside of the top finishers and win rate analysis.

Next week, the Historic ranked ladder is coming back and we are excited to be trying out some fun decks using cards from Historic Anthology 2. Keep an eye out for Historic decks in the next few days. Also remember the next Festival of the Gods event is also on tomorrow, which will turn off Planeswalkers via The Immortal Sun Emblem. We will be back with some fun decklists for you to try, as always!

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 wish to be featured, please tweet us at @mtgazone or give us a shout at our Discord.