The current Magic: the Gathering Standard metagame under the aggro category considers Winota decks as one of the top-tier archetypes. Aside from the main strategy of Winota trigger and Blade Historian, the deck offers versatile gameplay that makes it last for the late game. The only major drawback would be its three-color deck build which is handled by Magda and Prosperous Innkeeper. Can we conclude that it is a top-tier house aggro deck? Yes, we can. Now how do we deal with it?

Here below are a few ways of dealing with Winota Aggro decks.

1. Do not let them develop their board early on. They can hastily curve from turns one to three so if you have ways to deal with their creatures that can benefit from Winota’s trigger ability, you can just kill them or block-trade with them before he/she can reach four mana. Sorcery spot removals such as Bloodchief’s Thirst get their one or two-drop and then later on if you have counterspells or instant removal, open your mana during their turn four. Dimir control does this well.
2. Discard Winota from their hand. The current Standard has a few Black discard spells that are cast on turn two or three which can check their hand to reveal their gameplan that which you can. If they don’t have it, then you just take their best card in the current situation.
3. Remove them from their library. This is one option but has less effect. “Extracting” Winota makes them into a lesser typical aggro deck though their recent build does not rely on the card. If this is the major way you want to deal with Winota, then add cards like Necromentia to your sideboard.
4. Prevent them from casting the card. A specific Blue card named Ashiok’s Erasure, a Flash enchantment that exiles a spell when it etb. In addition, your opponents can’t cast spells with the same name as the exiled card. That basically counters their Winota and stuck the rest of the copies in their hand. The only drawback is when the erasure leaves the battlefield.