Welcome Magic lovers!
The Standard format saw more high-level competitive play as the Arena Championship 7 happened this past weekend, where just under fifty players battled for a piece of the hefty $250,000 prize pool, pro tour invites and a couple of entries into the Magic World Championships 31 taking place in 2025. Now that the dust has settled, there's plenty of data to pore over, giving us a pretty good snapshot of where the Standard format currently sits, and where it may trend in the coming weeks.
Dimir Midrange
To almost no one's surprise, Dimir Midrange was the most registered deck in the tournament, with 41.7% of players opting to battle with Kaito, Bane of Nightmares and his trusty sidekick, Enduring Curiosity. Dimir has been on top of the Standard metagame for some time now, as its versatile nature makes it a very difficult deck to pin down. One week, Dimir players may show up with Preacher of the Schism and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse in the main deck, and the next week, it's Tishana's Tidebinder or new addition, Faebloom Trick, filling up the three-mana slot.
Speaking of which, Faebloom Trick has been a particularly potent piece of tech, as it plays beautifully into Enduring Curiosity, tapping down a potential blocker on turn three, while simultaneously putting two evasive creatures into play on the opponent's end step, ready to draw cards once they swing in the following turn. This has really given the Dimir decks a big boost, as it also makes Spell Stutter a relevant counterspell for much longer.
The removal suite can also be tailored to fit any situation one can anticipate, with the 2nd place deck running not only the typical Cut Down and Go for the Throat, but also a pair of Nowhere to Run, presumably to deal with Snakeskin Veil out of the Gruul aggro decks and Sheltered by Ghosts in Jeskai Convoke.
This versatility led to Dimir not only being the most played deck, but also making up fully half of the top 16, with three copies finishing in the top 8. There's no question that Dimir is the current boogeyman of the format, and we're going to see the other decks in tier 1 Standard have to bend over backward to try and keep it in line. If you are participating in a Standard tournament anytime in the near future, you must either have a way to beat the black and blue menace, or you should probably pick up and play the deck for yourself.
Gruul Aggro
The next most-played archetype was Gruul Aggro, with 20.8% of players choosing to pilot the premier aggressive strategy of the Standard format, including the eventual tournament winner.
Leaning heavily on its cheap, yet outstanding, Bloomburrow mice, Heartfire Hero, Emberheart Challenger and Manifold Mouse, the Gruul deck has mostly moved away from the heavy combat-trick, Leyline of Resonance versions we saw in the hands of many of the World Championship competitors.
Screaming Nemesis has proven to be one of the deck's most invaluable cards, dodging Cut Down while also proving essentially unblockable, as many opponents are almost never going to be willing to put a creature in front of the Nemesis and trigger it, losing their ability to gain life for the remainder of the match. In many spots, it's often correct to point one's own burn spells at the Screaming Nemesis in order to ensure that it triggers before it dies, effectively slamming the door shut on an opponent's ability to claw back into the game. There's a good reason this Duskmourn mythic is between $40-$50 right now in paper.
Backing up the dreaded Nemesis are a pair of Innkeeper's Talent, which have found their way back into the deck once more, as it has proven itself to be the most consistently reliable way to trigger Valiant on the various mice running around. Giving one’s aggressive creatures the ward 1 ability is the perfect icing on the cake.
Burst Lightning was another huge addition to the deck from the newly minted Foundations set, giving Gruul just enough reach to put the game away if the opponent lets themselves get below ten or less life.
Despite having a great matchup against the late-game decks in the format, Gruul Aggro can still struggle against the cheap removal and threats presented by Dimir Midrange, which is why one will often see the full playset of Torch the Tower in the seventy-five. It's the perfect removal spell for Enduring Curiosity, ensuring it never returns as an enchantment, while also trading nicely for any of the other small threats in Dimir, and doming Kaito, Bane of Nightmares when it rears its ugly head.
While Gruul Aggro is obviously still a strong choice in Standard, its lack of flexibility often means it's at the mercy of decks that choose to stock up on ways to beat it, such as Mono-white Control, which plays the full four copies of cards like Beza, the Bounding Spring and Carrot Cake, alongside a bunch of cheap removal and a cheap card draw engine which can keep finding more.
Jeskai Convoke
While the Standard Boros Convoke decks that existed pre-rotation were a powerful pillar of tier 1, their popularity waned shortly after, as the cheap, red threats printed in Bloomburrow eclipsed even the most aggressive starts that the red-white tokens deck could muster. In addition, many white-based decks were still running three or four Temporary Lockdown in order to deal with the pesky aggro creatures that seemed to be running around everywhere after Bloomburrow dropped, which meant that even the newly modified versions of Convoke, running blue for Spyglass Siren, were still getting hammered by the white deck's sweeper enchantment.
However, with the printing of Authority of the Consuls in Foundations, the anti-aggro package that the late-game decks were relying on to combat red shifted to incorporate this new, powerful tool. Running Authority of the Consuls alongside Temporary Lockdown doesn't make much sense, as the latter will eat the former, which led to all of the tier 1 white decks abandoning the sweeper in exchange for this new, much cheaper alternative.
However, while Authority of the Consuls excels at shutting down the plethora of red, hasty creatures and sideboarded Urabrask's Forge in the Gruul and Mono-red aggro decks, it doesn't end up being quite as potent against the Jeskai Convoke deck, which can easily go wide enough to overwhelm the single-white mana enchantment. This has led to a sudden resurgence of Jeskai Convoke back into tier 1, as it has an excellent game against the other aggressive decks, while also still having a fast enough clock to line up well against the late game decks like Domain Zur and Mono-white control.
New Duskmourn addition, Sheltered by Ghosts, is one of the cards helping to elevate the Jeskai decks back into the spotlight, as it's absolutely back-breaking against red-based aggro, providing not only a removal spell but also a source of repeatable life-gain, all in one card. Against Dimir, it hits not only creatures, but even Kaito, Bane of Nightmares or an Enduring Curiosity that has turned into an enchantment. In addition, the ward 2 ability can make dealing with it a major problem, forcing the opposing tempo deck to have to choose between casting a removal spell or a creature, rather than having the mana to do both in one turn.
With a versatile set of options in the sideboard, including a playset of Torch the Tower to deal with recurring threats like the Enduring creatures from Duskmourn, as well as cheap countermagic in Protect the Negotiators and Disdainful Stroke to stop sweepers from the late-game decks, Jeskai Convoke has suddenly found itself back in the spotlight as one of the best decks in Standard, putting two copies into the top 8 of the Arena Championships. This could very well be the best option for any upcoming Standard tournaments where one expects to see a lot of Gruul Aggro and Dimir Midrange.
Simic Terror
The newest kid on the block is implementing a gameplan that really isn't all that new. We all remember the Mono-blue Haughty Djinn / Tolarian Terror decks of pre-rotation Standard, running only eight creatures in the main deck and relying on filling up the graveyard as cheaply and quickly as possible in order to power out a huge threat early in the game. These strategies have changed their texture often, sometimes running red or green, though always playing a ton of card draw, self-mill spells and the same eight creatures.
The latest iteration, Simic Terror, is no different. Running a paltry eighteen mana sources, with a set of Bushwhack to act as pseudo-land numbers nineteen to twenty-two, this deck is jam-packed with spells. All of the cards in the deck effectively cost only one or two mana, as This Town Ain't Big Enough, Eddymurk Crab and Tolarian Terror all have cost reduction abilities which allow them to be cast cheaply at almost any point in the game.
Up the Beanstalk does amazing work as the de facto card draw engine here, and despite triggering off of only twelve out of the sixty cards in the main deck, it still ends up doing great work, as it's a simple matter to keep bouncing Stormchaser's Talent (or even one of the threats), with This Town Ain't Big Enough, then pulling the bounce spell out of the graveyard with the second level of Talent over and over again.
While it may not seem like much on paper, it can be a very tricky deck to pin down, as anyone that's played against it can attest. Its spells are all so cheap that, once the pilot has four or five mana available to them, it becomes almost impossible to deal with their threats since they can easily cast two or three things in one turn, often playing a Tolarian Terror or Eddymurk Crab with enough mana left over to leave up This Town Ain't Big Enough to protect them.
The newest innovation in the deck is Rona's Vortex, which gets the nod over the more mundane Unsummon, as the Vortex can be kicked using the four Gloomlake Verge in the mana base in order to deal with sticky threats like Enduring Curiosity by putting them on the bottom of the opponent's deck, effectively exiling them from the game.
With plenty of card draw filtering in the form of Sleight of Hand and Opt, it's not hard to dig quickly to find whichever piece of the puzzle that the deck is missing.
Cache Grab and Seed of Hope not only fill the graveyard quickly in order to power out Tolarian Terror and Eddymurk Crab for one and two mana by turn five, but they also ensure the deck can consistently make its land drops. This is crucial since, despite everything in the deck being very cheap to cast, the pilot must get to the point where they can cast multiple spells in one turn in order to start pulling ahead and ending things.
The sideboard features plenty of enchantment removal in the form of Tear Asunder, Pawpatch Formation and Pick Your Poison, as well as Nowhere to Run, a key removal spell seeing more and more play across a variety of decks due to the uptick of cards like Sheltered by Ghosts and Snakeskin Veil.
Herbology Instructor is a cute little card against aggressive decks, gaining a bit of life and providing a roadblock for the opposing creatures to plow through before being able to hit one's face, while a basic Swamp in the sideboard comes in against the late-game decks like Domain and Mono-white to ensure consistent land drops into the latter portion of the game.
While still an outlier, the Simic Terror deck can be a resilient, dangerous deck to run into, especially if one isn't packing the right tools to beat it or doesn't have much experience playing against it. Keep an eye out for this one popping up in the hands of at least one or two players at your next Standard tournament.
Conclusion
Standard currently seems quite settled, with the same two decks that featured prominently at the World Championships back in October also being the most played decks at the Arena Championship. The rest of tier 1 is filled out with Jeskai Convoke and Simic Terror, with previously powerful decks like Golgari Midrange, Domain Zur and Mono-white control falling down to tier 1.5 as the low-to-the-ground decks continue to prove too efficient to reliably keep in check without bending over backwards to beat them.