Zendikar Rising Standard Decks from Day 1

On September 17, Zendikar Rising set has debuted on MTG Arena. It was not the smoothest of sailings in the first few hours of the launch as the game client wasn’t able to withstand the load of so many people attempting to simultaneously log in. Many streamers and content creators – as well as casual and competitive players – were stuck in the long queues or were unable to enter the client at all. It unfortunately led to the fewer than usual amount of interesting decks being playtested on the first day of the new set.

Still, in this article, you can find quite a few of the powerful and fun brews that we have spotted on the debut day of Zendikar Rising. Unsurprisingly so, Omnath, Locus of Creation and Lotus Cobra were at the center of all the creativity, with people trying to build both competitive and janky decks around Landfall. Either Genesis Ultimatum or Felidar Retreat serve as win-cons for these kinds of decks, while the mana is very well-supported with the arrival of the Pathway lands.

Boros Aggro strategies were also quite popular on the day, with many variations on both Winota approach, as well on straight-up Embercleave beatdown builds. Kargan Intimidator and the new Nahiri planeswalker – Nahiri of the Ancients – were among the more impressive cards to come out of Zendikar.

Scourge of the Skyclaves also tickled the fancy of the aggro players – several fast Rakdos lists popped up that aim to present this new exciting Demon as a powerful threat as early into the game as possible.

And of course, the community continued to experiment with the Dimir Rogues archetype. So far is has been built as a deck full of efficient evasive creatures, that combines some of the Control, Mill and Tempo-oriented patterns in an interesting and tricky way.

Check out the decklists below to learn what’s been cropping up on the Day 1 of Zendikar Rising! Be wary though, popular decks from the first week can disappear from the meta very quickly. Please always think twice before committing your precious resources and Wildcards early on after a set release. A metagame will likely remain quite unstable in the first week or so – until the tournament and event results start to come out.

We will be continuously be adding all decks here, or you can go straight to our Standard deck section. We will be following up with deck techs, crafting guides, and more so stay tuned!

Decklists

Abzan Counters by JdoubleR2 – Zendikar Rising Standard

Bant Ramp by Ali Eldrazi – Zendikar Rising Standard

Boros Warriors by Delmo – Zendikar Rising Standard

Boros Warriors by William ‘Huey’ Jensen – Zendikar Rising Standard

Boros Winota by Crokeyz – Zendikar Rising Standard

Boros Winota by Filipa – Zendikar Rising Standard

Dimir Rogues by Jeff Hoogland – Zendikar Rising Standard

Dimir Rogues by MTG_Joe – #593 Mythic – Zendikar Rising Standard

Dimir Sea Gate Control by Robert Lee – Zendikar Rising Standard

Esper Doom by MythicMatt – Zendikar Rising Standard

Four-Color Omnath by LuCaparroz – Zendikar Rising Standard

Gruul Aggro by AfterOfficeTV – Zendikar Rising Standard

Gruul Landfall by IglooBoi8 – Zendikar Rising Standard

Izzet Spells by Butters – Zendikar Rising Standard

Mono Black Aggro by Mason Clark – 98% Mythic – Zendikar Rising Standard

Mono Red Aggro by Delmo – Zendikar Rising Standard

Naya Landfall by Day9tv – Zendikar Rising Standard

Omnath Lands by Jeff Hoogland – Zendikar Rising Standard

Orzhov Lifegain Aggro by Shieldmaiden – Zendikar Rising Standard

Rakdos Party by Jeff Hoogland – Zendikar Rising Standard

Rakdos Scourge by Andrea Mengucci – Zendikar Rising Standard

Rakdos Scourge by ThePoptartKitten – Zendikar Rising Standard

Selesnya Counters by coutinho brewer – #478 Mythic – Zendikar Rising Standard

Sultai Control by Charizard7 – #100 Mythic – Zendikar Rising Standard

Temur Omnath Ultimatum by HowlingMines – #143 Mythic – Zendikar Rising Standard

Temur Sea Gate Draw Two by Robert Lee – Zendikar Rising Standard