Welcome Magic lovers!
This week, we’re going to be diving deeper into the Standard format as it continues to churn and evolve under the lens of the competitive community, as we approach the upcoming round of Regional Championship Qualifiers.
Over the course of the last several months, the Domain ramp deck has cemented itself as the Tier 1 deck-to-beat of the format, making up 20% of the Standard metagame while shrugging off most of the decks attempting to dethrone it. In response to this, the last two weeks of Magic Online Challenge and Preliminary results have been absolutely full of new decks or unique spins on existing archetypes, all of which are specifically designed to beat up on decks casting Atraxa, Grand Unifier. Let’s take a closer look at some of these spicy new lists, as well as an updated version of the Atraxa ramp deck which attempts to mitigate or sidestep these upstarts trying so hard to take it down!
Bant Toxic
Selesnya Toxic decks were a strategy that saw flashes of brilliance a few months after The Brothers’ War set first dropped when, in March of 2023, it burst upon the scene by winning a Regional Championship in Japan. However, it quickly faded into obscurity and hasn’t really been heard from since, as it lined up poorly against the midrange decks like Grixis and Esper Raffine, which dominated last year’s pre-ban Standard. That is, until last weekend, when suddenly Bant Toxic decks saw a resurgence, placing 1st and 2nd in the Magic Online Challenge 32 and causing many to ask if they are here to stay, or just a symptom of Domain Ramp being the best deck in the format, as the toxic decks are fast and resilient enough to steamroll the slower Atraxa decks before the latter has a chance to execute their plan. Essentially a white-blue deck splashing green for only one card, Venerated Rotpriest, its clearly an interesting thing to behold. With only twelve green mana sources (counting Mirrex, which is dubious), you’re not always able to run out an early Rotpriest, but the beautiful part about this deck is that you don’t always have to. Despite running a paltry twenty-two lands and a curve that tops out at three, this list can play more like a combo than an aggro deck in many games, where the Rotpriest isn’t necessary until it’s time to end things. Simply playing resilient threats like Crawling Chorus into Skrelv’s Hive is one of best early openings the deck can have. Even a single Jawbone Duelist backed up by board control in Fading Hope and Serum Snare, countermagic like Bring the Ending, or protection like Skrelv, Defector Mite and the insane March of Swirling Mist, allows the deck to shift into a ‘protect-the-queen’ role. In fact, March is so powerful that all one needs to really do is get in a couple of early points of poison damage on their opponents, have a few creatures in play, then cast Venerated Rotpriest with March of Swirling Mist up to target all of your own creatures and voila: ‘fireball’ for 15, or the equivalent thereof. While March really is the deck’s real MVP, Charge the Mites being instant speed is also excellent against sweepers like Sunfall, and when cast on the opponent’s end step, can easily lead to some surprise wins. While an aggressive, resilient deck with powerful late-game reach that only has to count to ten sounds like it may be the truth, it does have its weaknesses. Temporary Lockdown is devastating against it, and it struggles against other aggressive strategies like Mono-red, which is why we see the full four Knockout Blow in the sideboard. The individual power level of the cards in Bant Toxic is lower than almost every other deck in the format, which means everything must be coming together consistently to enable this strategy to compete. Stumbling or missing that key piece can cause your whole gameplan to fall apart, which makes Bant Toxic a good choice if you’re sure that your opponents will be giving you a lot of time to sculpt and execute your plan, like the Atraxa ramp decks, but a bad call if you’re expecting to face a lot of the aggressive lists designed to beat the ramp decks, like Dimir Tempo and Mono-red.
Mono-Red Aggro
Speaking of which, one of the best plans to defeat any deck trying to resolve 7-mana spells is to simply hit them as hard and fast as possible, which is why the Mono-red aggressive decks are almost always the best place to start. In last Sunday’s Magic Online Challenge 64, we saw Mono-red take down the event in addition to putting three copies into the top 8. This weekend’s events showed that those results weren’t an anomaly, as Mono-red came in 1st place in the Magic Online Challenge 32 with a very similar list. The current builds of the deck run twenty-three lands, a little on the high side for Mono-red, but making land drops to ensure you can double spell is crucial, not only to apply increasing pressure on your opponents, but to double spell in order to trigger Goddric, Cloaked Reveler, a powerful new addition from Lost Caverns of Ixalan. Goddric does great work in the deck, with plenty of ways to enable his Celebration ability, from casting and/or flipping Kumano Faces Kakkazan, or creating two permanents with Charming Scoundrel, or simply playing two of the deck’s powerful one-mana creatures, such as Monastery Swiftspear or Phoenix Chick. This version of Mono-red doesn’t have access to enough burn spells to reliably finish opponents at instant speed, so it relies on its repeatable sources of damage (its creatures), to do most of the heavy lifting. Shivan Devastator, Squee, Dubious Monarch and Thundering Raiju are all powerful threats at the top of the curve that have haste, filling the role of your final ‘burn spells’ to finish the opponent off with. Sideboarding into difficult to deal with threats like Urabrask’s Forge and red planeswalkers like Jaya, Fiery Negotiator and Koth, Fire of Resistance against Domain ramp lines up quite well against their Sunfalls and Leyline Bindings. Furnace Punisher and the full four copies of Lithomantic Barrage are there to pay proper respect to the Esper Raffine decks that have been a pillar of tier 1 in Standard for some time, as well as the new Dimir Tempo, Esper Mentor and Bant Toxic decks that have also been seeing play in order to combat Domain ramp. Mono-red is in a great place right now, as it not only excels against the Domain Ramp decks, but also has a great matchup against the other low-to-the-ground aggressive decks that have sprung up to combat the Atraxa menace.
Rakdos Ramp
In fact, with Atraxa, Grand Unifier proving itself to be one of the best over-the-top threats ever printed, many players simply said, “Hey, when you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”, and thus, the Rakdos Ramp was born. A deck more affectionately referred to as the ‘slot-machine deck’ because of the random spells being cast by the pair of red dinosaurs, Etali, Primal Conqueror and Trumpeting Carnosaur, when they enter the battlefield, as well as whichever random creature or planeswalker gets milled by Breach the Multiverse, the Rakdos Ramp deck is aiming to resolve a Big Score as early as turn three (with help from The Irencrag), which ramps it into one of its big haymaker cards on turn four or five. Why play your own Atraxas when you can simply pull one out of your opponents deck or graveyard with Etali, Breach or Cruelty of Gix’s third chapter? Trumpeting Carnosaur also nicely fills multiple different roles in the deck, being a standalone threat in addition to acting as an early game removal spell when necessary, while also potentially Discovering into one of the playset of Cruelty of Gix, which results in some truly monstrous turns.
Hot, new creature, Preacher of the Schism is showing up everywhere in Standard these days, and Rakdos Ramp is no exception, slotting in the full four Preachers as a way to stonewall against aggro or provide value in the early game, while also neatly dodging commonly played Standard removal spell, Cut Down. Four toughness and deathtouch means the Preacher almost always trades up in combat, and none of the other commonly played three-mana creatures in Standard can push their way past it, aside from the underplayed Glissa Sunslayer. Crucially, it also dodges your own three-mana sweeper, Brotherhood’s End, which, when combined with a pair of Cut Down, Go for the Throat and Bitter Triumph, make for a potent removal suite, which this deck uses to effectively combat aggressive creature-based strategies. Twenty-seven lands is certainly correct when running this many seven-mana spells, and having the full playset of Cavern of Souls to force them through opponent's counterspells are also critical.
Being a slower, late-game deck means it has the same vulnerability to aggressive and tempo-based decks that Domain Ramp does, which is why we see four Lithomantic Barrage and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse in the sideboard for Bant Toxic, Esper Raffine, Esper Mentor and Dimir tempo, with an additional couple of Night Clubber for the Toxic decks specifically. A playset of Duress and a third Breach the Multiverse helps ensure the deck’s post-board games against other late-game decks like ramp and control are rock-solid. Is there room in Tier 1 Standard for a second very powerful, late-game deck to exist? With Rakdos Ramp being designed to specifically prey upon the more popular Domain Ramp decks, and having the cheap, black removal and red sweepers to stave off the aggressive strategies, perhaps dinosaurs will be the new apex predators in the metagame going forward. Only time will tell.
Domain Ramp
Which finally brings us back to boogeyman of the format, Domain Ramp, which, despite seeing a slew of new decks materialize that are specifically designed to beat it, continues to make up the largest share of the Standard metagame while still putting one or two copies into the top 8 of each Magic Online Challenge. One of the reasons for this is that the Domain deck, by virtue of the fact that it has easy access to all five colors of mana, can pivot and adapt relatively effortlessly, switching up its sweeper or card advantage configurations from one week to the next in order to try and anticipate which hate decks it's expecting to face.
For example, switching the pair of Depopulate in the main deck to a pair of Temporary Lockdown instead seems wise in the current Standard climate, especially when expecting to face threats that attack on a very different axis, like Skrelv’s Hive and the incredible Subterranean Schooner. While it won’t deal with Goddric, Squee or a post-board Urabrask’s Forge, being one mana cheaper is still a big game against the Mono-red decks. Speaking of which, new sideboard option, Obstinate Baloth, does great work against the red decks while also being an excellent card against the Rakdos midrange decks running Liliana of the Veil. There aren't many situations in magic as sweet as 'disacarding' a Baloth to a Liliana and instead putting it directly into play, gaining four life, while watching one's opponent still discard a card.
Up the Beanstalk can be a bit awkward with Temporary Lockdown, so one change Domain pilots can try is to utilize a different card advantage source, the newly reprinted Treasure Map. The Map not only fixes your draws with its ability to scry 1, but quickly flips into a lot of mana and/or cards, as the situation requires, getting out of the way of the Lockdown. It allows for more control over when and how many cards are drawn from it compared to Up the Beanstalk, which can be critical when one’s opponent has a Sheoldred, the Apocalypse in play, or when one has only ten cards left in their deck during a long Domain Ramp mirror match.
Yet another powerful, new card from Lost Caverns of Ixalan that was immediately incorporated into the Standard decks trying to beat Atraxa, is Tishana’s Tidebinder. However, the Tidebinder is also an amazing card in the Domain Ramp decks. Initially, it was a sideboard card one would bring in for the mirror match, but running one or two copies in the main deck of Domain may actually be correct. It turns off Raffine, the backbone of the Esper decks, as well as Etali, Cruelty of Gix and the discover creatures like Geological Appraiser and Trumpeting Carnosaur in the Rakdos decks. Tidebinder even has utility against the low-curve tempo decks, since having a 3/2 creature with flash to ambush a Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor or take away a Faerie Mastermind’s flying then block it can be very valuable in those matchups.
With so many new decks to test and tune, as well as innovations on existing archetypes to explore, Standard really is in a fantastic place right now, despite the outsized meta game share that Domain Ramp may still currently hold, so get out there are play in some Standard events online or at a local game store near you!
