Standard Tier List Companion – March 9, 2023
KarnageKards breaks down the movements and additions to yesterday's Standard Tier List update!
Overview
Each week, we here at PlayingStandard take a deep dive into the Magic Online results for Standard. We take what data we do have and break down which decks sit where in the overall metagame of Standard. These tier lists include a rolling average to ensure decks’ movement isn’t too volatile on the tier list after one good week. Here’s the Tier List from this week that we’ll be working with.
The Data
Each week, we look at top Magic Online Tournaments including the weekly challenges, any Regional Championship Qualifiers, or Magic Online Championship Series events, along with the Pioneer Prelim events. For the Challenges, we are looking at all decks that earned the same number of points as the player in 16th in each event
If there are any high-profile paper events, we will also include those. Some examples of events we would count are SCG Con events, NRG Events, Regional Championships, Pro Tours, etc.
Here were this week’s events:
MTGO Standard Challenge 3/4
MTGO Standard Challenge 3/5
RC SEA
RC AUS/NZ
RC Japan/KOR
Yokohoma
Now that we’ve looked at the data sets, let’s take a look at what changes occurred in this week’s tier list!
Moved Up
Moved Down
Stayed the Same
Fell Off the List
None
New to the List
Competitive Team Movements
The following deck(s) changed position on the tier list based on a decision by the competitive team at PlayingPioneer rather than strictly based on data.
None
Notes
Grixis Midrange has finally made the jump back into to S Tier! After two straight weeks of dominating the finishes, Grixis Midrange has taken back its place as the deck to beat.
Esper Legends is the de-facto second-best deck in the format. It may have had less finishes, but its winrate in the recent Regional Championships was the best of any deck. It has amazing matchups across the board and could secretely be the format’s best deck.
Selesnya Toxic was new to the tier list and had an outstanding weekend. This aggressive deck was a standout from the weekend events, even winning a Regional Championship. Look out for this as it picks up in popularity in the weeks to come.
Atraxa decks are all the rage. Jund, Grixis, Five-Color and Rakdos variants all make an appearance on the tier list. Atraxa is definitively the most powerful card in Standard. Decks will continue to find ways to abuse its power. Eventually, one or two variants will make their way to the top, but until then, we will continue to have many different builds on the tier list.
Mono-White Midrange is struggling recently. It was a top deck for quite a time, but it seems to be falling off. We believe it could be in trouble moving forward. The metagame seems to simply be evolving past it.
