Hello again for another Magic: the Gathering Brother’s War Standard Decks update and today’s archetype in spotlight is the top-tier Esper Raffine deck. As you have remembered, this is the most preferred deck during the recent World Championships and is continue to strive in the metagame. With the entry of The Brother’s War, we check if it benefited from it or not.

The basic strategy of the deck that goes with out-tempo opponents, countering their relevant spells,& prevent them to develop a board. Raffine goes with filtering your draws and at the same time, becomes a clock that is at times difficult to be dealt with. There is a grinding process on this setup, as most value cards will not be drawn on time, such as curving to the Wedding Announcement. Now that most build have a built-in Destroy Enchantment spells, the list has some adjustments to be made.   

Here below is the full decklist from the event/tournament Daily Tournaments @ Hareruya (Japan) and was piloted by Takahashi Ippei:

https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=39778&d=496467&f=ST

What is Magic: the Gathering Red-Green Gruul’s deck main theme? To smash with huge, hasty creatures to end opponents as soon as possible. Placing it into the paper, a deck with creatures that get pumped with their Landfall ability. Sure they are fast to kill but how are they resilient to spot removal? They are not. They are easily picked off even by Shock or a ping effect. The deck needs to evolve and here we have an updated list with ETB (Enters the Battlefield) abilities while maintaining a fatty power/toughness.

Today’s Standard BO1 deck tech for Magic Arena comes from a recent playtest video by CovertGoBlue. He featured a Gruul Deck that benefits from Snow-covered lands and Snow spells like Blizzard Brawl. It appears to be a crossbreed with the Mono-Green Aggro list but still retains a few core components such as Jaspera Sentinel, Esika’s Chariot, and Goldspan Dragon.

Check out the full Gruul Smash Standard BO1 deck list below.

MainDeck
7 Snow-Covered Forest
6 Snow-Covered Mountain
2 Shatterskull Smashing
4 Cragcrown Pathway
2 Faceless Haven
3 Highland Forest
2 Lair of the Hydra

4 Goldspan Dragon
3 Magda, Brazen Outlaw
4 Jaspera Sentinel
4 Gnarled Professor
4 Prosperous Innkeeper

4 Blizzard Brawl
3 Esika’s Chariot
4 Frost Bite
4 Ranger Class

Sideboard
1 Environmental Sciences
1 Expanded Anatomy
1 Introduction to Annihilation
3 Mascot Exhibition
1 Containment Breach

See CovertGoBlue’s playtest video below.

The Magic: the Gathering Standard Best of 1 Format in Magic Arena is one of my preferred modes because of the lack of card components in my original account’s card pool. The advantage is if you win, the opponent has no chance to get back with the sideboarded games. That is also the drawback if you get to face a deck that has more edge than your build. Anywho, I can say that this is the best mode to grind fast your rank if you get to build the best deck fitted for the BO1 gameplay.

For today, I have this Standard BO1 deck feature that has probably filled with utility cards for any metagame deck matchup in the format. In what way that it can perform 100% but in a Control shell with, of course, the three best colors in Magic for the archetype: Esper.

Check out this Esper Control version for Magic Arena Standard BO1.

Reference: https://aetherhub.com/Deck/esper-control-22-577453

It has been a while seeing control decks in a single color in the Standard format and having discovered one that is suited for Magic: the Gathering Arena got me hyped up. Like really got my interest in.

The Youtube Channel CovertGoBlue published a video on their take of the Standard Mono-Black Control deck in MTG Arena and the list does not vary from the old strategy of controlling the early aggression while setting up the mana (i.e. using Solemn Simulacrums) for the late-game big spells.

See the video below on the full decklist and the BO1 matches that he made while on the Mythic rank. Enjoy!

One of the ways to keep in touch with the Standard metagame is to check on the tournament results from various weekly major events. I have found this website that covers the metagame when the weekly results are published at the Magic Arena site. This specific post covered the dates October 12th when the Omnath, Clover, and Escape were banned, up until October 18th. This is for the Standard BO3 Week 5 metagame, and the Top 5 archetypes are as follows:

1. Rakdos Midrange (64.90% Non Mirror % Win Rate)
2. Dimir Rogues (50% Non Mirror % Win Rate)
3. Mono-Red Aggro (64.90% Non Mirror % Win Rate)
4. Gruul Adventures (39.30% Non Mirror % Win Rate)
5. Mono-Green Aggro (36% Non Mirror % Win Rate)

You can check the complete details of the report on the link here.

It was the first week of the recent bannings that were implemented and so that is what’s left of the other decks’ archetype in the meta. They are adjusting with an empty hole that the elephant in the room has left and so the development and updating might take a while. Anywho, we would expect the rise in statistics of new decks as they would become a popular choice among players. We will see if this will be reflected in the coming weeks.

I have finally reactivated my Magic Arena account after almost two years of hiatus since playing it during the Open Beta days. I am getting familiar with the new setup as well as redeeming all of the necessary codes for booster pack and card freebies along with other items. It is a good thing that these codes are one Google search away and I found a Magic: the Gathering website with these compilations of Magic Arena codes. It is continuously updated and the expiry dates are also indicated.

You can check the full details of it here.

Anyhow, I will do the dailies (daily quest) for now as I still have to assemble my Standard deck just yet. I might also check on the rotated cards for the Historic deck build. Expect more blog posts and probably short You tube videos on this in the coming weeks.