It’s a monstrous time in Standard (at least for now).
Welcome to the Standard Power Rankings! As I write, I’m on my way home from Pro Tour: Final Fantasy, which proved to be an epic event. As one of the most popular sets of all time gets infused into one of the most powerful Standard environments of all time, it’s worth paying attention to how the world-class players wound up navigating the tournament.
For each archetype, I’ve included the decklist of the highest-finishing pilot at Pro Tour: Final Fantasy.
#15 Golgari Midrange
Golgari players need to remain sharp and stay a step ahead of the competition. But for those who can do so, this remains one of my favorite archetypes in Standard. Golgari Midrange can utilize old favorites like Cut Down, Go for the Throat, Duress, Preacher of the Schism, and Mosswood Dreadknight. At the same time, it was a winner from the release of Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY, with Cecil, Dark Knight and Dark Confidant both upgrading the creature suite. I even played a bit with Torgal in my Pro Tour preparation; and he was indeed a fine hound.
#14 Izzet Vivi Cauldron
Market Price: $36.75
Market Price: $46.12
This deck resembles the familiar shell of Jeskai Oculus, with plenty of cheap spells and ways to fill its graveyard. However, instead of using Helping Hand, it uses Agatha’s Soul Cauldron to grant the activated ability of Vivi Ornitier to its other creatures. Once you do that, you can explode out with mana and kill your opponent very quickly.
A big appeal of Izzet Cauldron is that Agatha’s Soul Cauldron provides built-in graveyard hate, which can be helpful in a variety of matchups, including a few near the top of the Rankings.
#13 Insidious Roots
Market Price: $23.42
You might think that a deck that generates so many tokens might be afraid of Temporary Lockdown. However, with access to no less than eight Disenchant effects, plus ways to reuse them over and over again, the Insidious Roots archetype can shred any gameplay based around enchantments and artifacts.
Note that both a Golgari version and a Jund version (using Terra, Magical Adept) of Insidious Roots showed up at the Pro Tour, but the Golgari version performed better.
#12 Jeskai Control
No other deck on the Rankings embodies Tarkir: Dragonstorm like Jeskai Control. It’s no surprise, since Jeskai is one of the supported “Clans” in the set, and features some of the best rares and mythics for both Limited and Standard play. Shiko, Paragon of the Way is a dream top-end creature for anyone who loves value, as it can give you a second shot at the best card in your graveyard, no matter what the situation calls for.
With access to any combination of Lightning Helix, Split Up, Temporary Lockdown, and Day of Judgment, Jeskai Control really has the tools to beat up on Standard’s aggressive red decks. That alone would have my attention. So when you show me a powerful and flexible shell of cards that offers game against everything, this is one I’ll be considering for my next Standard event.
#11 Esper Pixie
Although other archetypes can incorporate elements of the self-bounce plan, the Esper Pixie deck goes the hardest on the plan of bouncing and recasting value permanents. Nurturing Pixie, Fear of Isolation, This Town Ain’t Big Enough, and even Kaito, Bane of Nightmares can bounce and retrigger plays ranging from Hopeless Nightmare and Stormchaser’s Talent to Nowhere to Run and Momentum Breaker.
#10 Gruul Mice
Market Price: $11.32
Well, Gruul has finally and decisively been dethroned. That said, I do think that this deck remains strong. It’s so powerful and proactive that its pilots hardly need to worry about what opponents are up to–they can just get them dead. Gruul also has long-term results, and for all of these reasons, it’s still a respectable choice in my book. Note that I’m grouping together versions of Gruul with and without Leyline of Resonance and I think both approaches can be very effective.
#9 Demons
The archetype continues to evolve, and a recent development is Deep-Cavern Bat often now being replaced by Cruelclaw’s Heist. However, for the most part, there are no big surprises here; it’s a grindy midrange deck featuring all of the best black cards in the format.
#8 Orzhov & Abzan Pixie
Sunpearl Kirin and Ambrosia Whiteheart provide yet more ways to rebuy permanent-based removal spells. In all cases, these white and black-based decks are likely to be well set up against opposing creature decks, as they utilize the very best removal spells available in Standard. For what it’s worth, some players have also found success splashing green for Skirmish Rhino or red for Cori-Steel Cutter.
#7 Jeskai Oculus
Market Price: $14.88
This archetype uses Abhorrent Oculus with self-mill and discard to combine with Helping Hand and Recommission. In this way, you can dump a powerful creature into your graveyard, and then return it directly to the battlefield at a discounted rate. Since the deck also has a few well-placed permission spells, it then becomes easy to protect your key threat and ride it to victory.
Any combination of Glacial Dragonhunt, Winternight Stories, and Tersa Lightshatter can allow you to churn through your library and dump your key card — Abhorrent Oculus — into your graveyard ready to be brought back to life by Helping Hand.
#6 Azorius Control
Key cards include Stock Up, Temporary Lockdown, and a variety of permission spells. Additionally, it can make great use of the hateful enchantments Authority of the Consuls and High Noon, which are options to help Azorius Control beat up on a few of Standard’s top decks right now. Mitchell Tamblyn’s innovative 11th place decklist utilized Dreams of Laguna from MTG—FINAL FANTASY.
#5 Domain Overlords
Market Price: $15.19
Domain Overlords was my personal deck of choice at Pro Tour: Final Fantasy. I went 7-3 in Standard, finishing in 26th place overall. Meanwhile, my teammate Edgar Magalhães placed 9th with the exact same decklist.
The goal is to ramp into game-winning cards like the various Overlords. Along the way, you have any combination of Temporary Lockdown, Leyline Binding, Day of Judgment, Sunfall, Ultima, Beza, the Bounding Spring, and Ride’s End to neutralize opposing threats. While the variety of fast aggro decks does put some strain on Domain Overlords, there are enough anti-aggro measures that it can keep up.
The killing blow comes from Zur, Eternal Schemer. Zur can animate Leyline Bindings or impending Overlords into giant, lifelinking attackers. In short, Domain Overlords combines high individual card quality with a strategy that will go over the top of most other decks in the format.
#4 Dimir Midrange
Market Price: $14.84
In short, Dimir Midrange is not going anywhere. It’s great at getting ahead and staying ahead with permission spells, which is important for matchups where you don’t want to trade blows, such as Azorius Omniscience Combo and Domain Overlords. Enduring Curiosity and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares serve as major payoffs for unblocked attackers.
#3 Azorius Omniscience Combo
The goal is to mill or discard Omniscience and use Abuelo’s Awakening to return it to the battlefield. If everything goes well, you can then enact one of several different infinite loops and win the game on the spot. Even if the opponent points a removal spell at the 1/1 Omniscience token, the density of instant-speed plays leaves the combo player with a good chance of taking over the game anyway. This makes for a fast, scary, and difficult-to-disrupt combo deck.
#2 Mono-Red Aggro
Market Price: $17.69
While similar to Gruul Aggro (#10), Mono-Red Aggro has more reliable mana and typically plays more burn, plus Hired Claw and Screaming Nemesis in larger numbers. Particularly scary is Sunspine Lynx, which hammers an already-favorable Domain Overlords matchup, and performs even better in Mono-Red Aggro than in other aggressive decks. Magebane Lizard represents a hate card against Izzet Prowess and other spell-based decks. I strongly considered giving Mono-Red Aggro the #1 position this time around.
#1 Izzet Prowess
Market Price: $46.12
However, while Mono-Red has put up astounding results, I’ve still decided to give the #1 position to Izzet Prowess. This archetype made up a nearly-record-breaking 42% of the Pro Tour field and also put four copies into the Top 8. It still manages to perform, even with everyone in the field gunning to beat it (see my four maindeck copies of High Noon!).
Izzet uses a collection of hard-hitting prowess creatures like Stormchaser’s Talent, Monastery Swiftspear, Drake Hatcher, Slickshot Show-Off, or the powerful new Vivi Ornitier to apply a fast and consistent clock. It has burn and tempo for creature matchups and can devastate slower opponents by hitting them with a well-timed Spell Pierce to ruin their plans and slam the door on the game.
Wrapping Up
If you read the Mono-Red Aggro and Izzet Prowess sections carefully (or watched the Pro Tour coverage), you may have noticed that all eight of the Top 8 decks at Pro Tour: Final Fantasy were aggressive red decks. That’s an extreme and remarkable result, and I’m expecting a banning to come next Monday (June 30).
What card, or cards might be banned? I think Monstrous Rage is a likely candidate since it typically appears in both Mono-Red and Izzet Prowess. Additional cards from Izzet like Cori-Steel Cutter, or perhaps even Stock Up could be options as well. In any case, expect something from these red decks to go, to slightly slow down the format.
If you’re looking for a deck to play in Standard this week, any one of the fifteen featured decks might serve you well. In any case, be sure to have a plan against the Red aggressive deck–specifically Izzet Prowess (#1) and Mono-Red (#2) — plus Azorius Omniscience (#3), as these represent the top tier of the format right now.