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It's now one month after the release of Aetherdrift. See how the metagame for the quick queue has progressed since then. We feature decklists that have posted some of the best win rates recently, including new brews that were quite successful.
MTG Arena’s Standard Bo1 meta is quite different from the Traditional Bo3 format. With just one game on the line to win a match, most successful decks aim for consistent early game with win conditions that are difficult to stop.
Here's the meta tier list for Bo1 Standard this week. Decks marked with a 🌟 are either different from the decks featured in the last meta report for that archetype or are a new archetype included in this report, so make sure to check those out.
| Tier | Deck | Meta Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | Mono Black | 11% ↔️ |
| Mono Red🌟 | 8.5% 🔼 | |
| Tier 2 | Boros Auras | 4.8% 🔽 |
| Esper Pixie🌟 | 4.3% 🔼 | |
| Goblins🌟 | 2.1% 🔽 | |
| Omniscience🌟 | 1.9% 🔼 | |
| Tier 3 | Orzhov Lifegain | 1.6% 🔽 |
| Azorius Control🌟 | 1.6% 🔼 | |
| Domain Overlords | 1.5% 🔼 | |
| Dimir Bounce🌟 | 1.5% 🔼 | |
| Azorius Artifacts | 1.4% ↔️ | |
| Gruul Aggro🌟 | 1.2% 🔼 | |
| Selesnya Tokens🌟 | 1.2% 🔼 | |
| White Weenie | 1.1% 🔽 | |
| Azorius Oculus | 1% 🔽 |
Tier 1
Mono Black
Combine a ton of removal with some demons in a ritual chamber and you have the best deck in the format. Mono Black can kill pretty much everything the opponent plays and keep doing so thanks to pdsk-118p-unholy-annex-ritual-chamber. Mopping up with dsk-119-unstoppable-slasher or big flying demons makes this a surprisingly quick deck to queue with.
Mono Red
For the fastest matches, nothing gets it done faster than Mono Red. It’s got cheap, aggressive creatures that can grow along with enough burn to push through. Prowess and pump spells result in big damage, especially for opponents with less than optimal draws. blb-138-heartfire-hero, one-124-cacophony-scamp, and woe-221-callous-sell-sword-burn-together can even fling for the finish.
This cook added some very interesting artifacts:
Tier 2
Boros Auras
Boros tones down on the aggression in favor of making its creatures bigger and more resilient. dsk-21-optimistic-scavenger along with versatile auras make it more difficult for opponents to deal with your threats. dsk-29-shardmages-rescue can save for very cheap while blb-13-feather-of-flight can break ground stalemates.
Esper Pixie
Esper Pixie does as well in BO1 as in BO3. The value engine of otj-20-nurturing-pixie and dsk-58-fear-of-isolation bouncing enchantments can take over the midgame if the opponent isn’t fast enough. Once it stabilizes, dsk-220-kaito-bane-of-nightmares can keep the cards flowing.
Notable inclusions in this featured deck are dft-88-grim-bauble, dft-97-momentum-breaker, and dsk-30-sheltered-by-ghosts.
Goblins
Aetherdrift gave us a lot of interesting new goblins, with dft-134-howlsquad-heavy leading the charge giving your gobbos haste. At max speed, it combos nicely with m13-138-krenko-mob-boss to let you cast everything, too. dft-115-burnout-bashtronaut and dft-121-draconautics-engineer give the deck more payoffs late-game. Plus, dft-249-avishkar-raceway can turn dead draws into better cards.
There's way more haste in this featured deck along with a curious artifact:
Omniscience
Imagine having m13-63-omniscience by turn 4. That's what this deck can do with draw-discard spells and lci-1-abuelos-awakening. Once your spells are free, you can draw even more cards, dig for mom-61-invasion-of-arcavios-invocation-of-the-founders to tutor for silver bullets, and with a big enough flying spirit even swing for lethal with m19-217-heroic-reinforcements.
Tier 3
Orzhov Lifegain
This lifegain deck wants to plop as many small creatures as it can, with several notable creatures getting you incremental advantage like blb-12-essence-channeler and lci-221-amalia-benavides-aguirre. The big wallop comes when you cast fdn-22-raise-the-past to get numerous triggers off blb-116-starscape-cleric, often enough for a huge life swing if not an outright win.
Azorius Control
Like all blue-white control decks before it, the current versions of Azorius Control has the typical permission, targeted removal, mass removal, and draw spells. Aetherdrift added some notable cards that made the archetype better such as dft-25-rides-end and dft-67-stock-up. Finishers vary a lot, with most lists picking between dsk-23-overlord-of-the-mistmoors, blb-2-beza-the-bounding-spring, and even dft-57-riverchurn-monument.
Domain Overlords
While it has arguably the best late game strategy in the format, Domain Overlords can be a bit too slow for BO1 matches. Going second, missing a land drop, not drawing a sweeper - these can be punishing when you're still trying to ramp. dft-25-rides-end is a welcome addition from Aetherdrift, and is a necessary speed bump for aggro matchups.
Dimir Bounce
Some of the best performing Dimir Bounce lists have been using a more controlling approach with Aetherdrift cards dft-88-grim-bauble, dft-97-momentum-breaker, and dft-215-oildeep-gearhulk. Still, there are a lot more players opting for the regular creature-heavy versions.
Azorius Artifacts
Finally we have another deck that’s enabled by new cards from Aetherdrift. dft-56-repurposing-bay, the new nph-104-birthing-pod, can tutor for all the artifacts you want. dft-23-perilous-snare and dft-227-voyage-home are obvious additions in Azorius. With all these artifacts, big-36-simulacrum-synthesizer can manufacture hulking constructs in no time.
Gruul Aggro
It's interesting to see how much more preferred Mono Red is over Gruul in best of one despite how similar their core cards are. Needing full sets of red-green non-basic lands to support it is a big deal so it's much easier to simply go monocolor for budget players.
Selesnya Tokens
Without mass removal, the rabbit deck can build up a fearsome yet cuddly army in no time. blb-16-hop-to-it and blb-38-warren-warleader spawns recruits while blb-36-valley-questcaller and blb-187-pawpatch-recruit train them up. Unfortunately, there's a lot of removal in the format and the aggressive decks are a lot faster.
White Weenie
Like the Orzhov deck, the pure white weenie build leverages lifegain triggers. fdn-135-ajanis-pridemate and blb-12-essence-channeler can get really big really quickly. eld-20-linden-the-steadfast-queen urges you to go wide into the red zone, putting mom-26-knight-errant-of-eos in charge of recruiting. dsk-18-leyline-of-hope in your opening hand might just cause every aggro deck you face to concede on the spot.
Azorius Oculus
dsk-42-abhorrent-oculus and dmu-52-haughty-djinn are two big flyers that can end games quickly if unanswered. Even if the opponent kills them, lci-17-helping-hand and bro-22-recommission can bring them back. A few counterspells can seal the win when you have a big enough clock.
