The Best Decks For Standard In MTG

Summary

• Magic: The Gathering’s Standard format is in a fantastic place, with diverse decks and a great deal of variety.
• Standard allows players to use premiere sets from the last three years, providing a wide selection of playable cards.
• Recent inclusions such as Foundations have ensured that no individual deck dominates the metagame, setting up a bright future for the format.

In recent years, Magic: The Gathering has been trying to revitalise its Standard format. In 2023, it increased the rotation window from two years to three, keeping your cards playable for longer, and in 2024 it introduced Foundations, a set providing the ground floor for the format through 2029.

The result is that Standard is in a fantastic place, with tons of fun decks and a great deal of variety. If there was ever a time to check out Magic’s premiere format, it’s now.

Updated January 2, 2025 by Joe Parlock: With Foundations, Standard is in an incredible place. Diverse decks and tons of cards, without any individual deck thoroughly dominating the metagame sets us up for a great future for the format.

Standard is the format where the last three years of premiere sets are all playable together. Currently, the legal sets are:

• Dominaria United
• The Brothers’ War
• Phyrexia: All Will Be One
• March Of The Machine
• March Of The Machine: Aftermath
• Wilds Of Eldraine
• The Lost Caverns Of Ixalan
• Murders At Karlov Manor
• Outlaws Of Thunder Junction
• The Big Score
• Bloomburrow
• Duskmourn: House Of Horror
• Foundations

10

Mono-White Token Control

Go Wide While Keeping Your Opponent In Check

You don’t often see mono-white doing a full control deck, but thanks to cards like Ossification, Elspeth’s Smite, and Lay Down Arms, it has more than enough tools to keep your opponent on the back foot.

The main goal here, though, is to build up a huge army of tokens, primarily through Overlord of the Mistmoors, Enduring Innocence, and Carrot Cake. Once you’ve got a big enough board, a fully upgraded Caretaker’s Talent gives you the raw beatdown power to take the victory.

Alternatively, if going wide doesn’t work out, simply drop down a Sunfall to exile all the tokens, and everything else, and make one, big incubator token to punch them in the face with.

9

Jeskai Aggro

Tapping For Profit

Knight-Errant of Eos has had a huge impact on Standard, thanks to being an easy way to get the creature cards you need into your hand. It helped drive red/white Convoke decks for a long time, but has since evolved into a less specific red/white/blue Aggro build instead.

Alongside Knight-Errant, there’s also Warden of the Inner Sky to serve as a big beater. But primarily, your goal is to get lots of cheaper creatures like Novice Inspector and Spyglass Siren in play, as well as tokens with Imodane’s Recruiter and Resolute Reinforcements to just keep swinging.

Bloomburrow and Duskmourn introduced a few newer tools to the deck, like Clockwork Percussionist to get more spells into your hand, or Mockingbird to copy one of your bigger beaters, but with flying as an added bonus.

8

4C Domain

An Enchanting New Take On Domain

Atraxa’s time as the face of the domain decks has come to an end, thanks in part to the massive increase in popularity Zur, Eternal Schemer saw following the launch of Duskmourn: House of Horror.

This deck needs you to get as many land types out as possible, primarily so Herd Migration can spit out Beast tokens with ease. Otherwise, it has a heavy enchantment theme, with Zur giving your enchantment creatures (the three Overlords) hexproof, lifelink, and deathtouch.

Zur also bypasses the impending cost of the Overlords, as for two mana you can turn an impending Overlord enchantment into a creature way ahead of the curve. It’s a frightning interaction that’s single-handedly pushed this deck in an entirely different direction from its Atraxa days.

7

Mono-Red Prowess

Mono-Red Aggro has a spellslinging twist in this Standard rotation, thanks to the addition of prowess as a deciduous mechanic in Dominaria United.

The idea is still the same: turn creatures sideways and go for the face, but you’ve also got a burn package of Shock, Lightning Strike, and Foundations’ Burst Lightning to trigger Prowess and buff that damage even further.

Slickshot Showoff has really fallen off, with it being supplanted by cards like Heartfire Hero and Emberheart Challenger despite having flying. Duskmourn also gave us Screaming Nemesis, which just needs to be dealt any amount of damage for it to permanently turn off lifegain for your opponent, which can be back-breaking.

6

Boros Mice

Squeak Out A Victory

Bloomburrow saw numerous kindred decks come and go from Standard, like black/red Lizards and white/black Bats. Right now, it’s the humble Mouse’s time to shine, with an aggro deck using the best Mice in the format.

Heartfire Hero is a best-in format card at the best of times, but it can be buffed by Flowerfoot Swordmaster for an extra whallop.There are a few non-Mice too, like Hired Claw and the ubiquitous Screaming Nemesis.

This deck also makes use of Lightning Helix, which returned to Standard in Karlov Manor, and Shardmage’s Rescue and Sheltered by Ghosts, two enchantments that can protect your biggest pieces.

5

Azorius Convoke

Swoop In

Despite the name, this deck doesn’t actually use any spells with convoke, or even pseudo-convoke effects. Instead, it’s all about going wide with fliers, and tapping down your creatures to profit in other ways.

For instance, Warden of the Inner Sky can tap creatures to put a +1/+1 counter on it, while Subterranean Schooner can be crewed instead.

Combine that with Virtue of Loyalty, and you’ve got an easy way to make your flying Mockingbirds, Seraph, Sirens, and Wardens massive and difficult to deal with.

4

Gruul Aggro

The Best Red Has To Offer

Red decks stay winning in Standard, with a huge number of prowess creatures and cheap instants and sorceries flooding into the format to keep it hitting hard and fast.

The latest version of this deck sees Leyline of Resonance falling out of favour, largely replaced by the ever-popular Screaming Nemesis. This deck really is a pile of the best red has to offer, with Nemesis joined by Heartfire Hero, Hired Claw, Monastery Swiftspear, and Manifold Mouse all at the same time.

Thornspire Verge only really gives you access to green mana for two cards in Inkeeper’s Talent and Questing Druid, but having a land that can tap for either mana is never a particularly bad thing.

3

Golgari Midrange

Black Goodstuff Is Still Here To Stay

Black midrange decks have been a huge part of Standard for a very long time, and with Dominaria United’s Cut Down and Sheoldred, The Apocalypse still legal, we won’t be saying goodbye to it any time soon.

The Golgari (black/green) colour combo has proven popular over recent sets, though. Glissa Sunslayer, Pillage the Bog, and Restless Cottage make it easy to gain life, control the board, and get access to the cards you need, making it a very dominant deck.

The big tool Foundations introduced to this deck are the four copies of Llanowar Elves. Green hasn’t seen much play in the format for a while, but having a mana dork as good as the Elves could be enough to see it stage a comeback.

2

Esper Self-Bounce

Back To Your Hand

Optimistic Scavenger is the value engine of this deck, with the rest of the deck being built around bouncing enchantments back to your hand to replay and retrigger eerie.

There are tons of cheap ways to do that, too, thanks to Nurturing Pixie, This Town Ain’t Big Enough, and Fear of Isolation both putting the work in.

This is one of the more original decks currently ruling Standard, with it using few cards seen anywhere else. If you’re wanting something different and a bit idiosyncratic to play, bouncing things back to your hand certainly fits the bill.

1

Dimir Midrange

Back On Top

Blue and black may have stumbled for a while after Raffine, Scheming Seer rotated out, but it’s firmly back on top now with a flexible midrange deck.

It’s full of interaction, with the ever-present Cut Down offering easy removal, while Tishana’s Tidebinder can turn off your opponent’s bigger threats. Spyglass Siren continues to be one of blue’s best offensive threats, and Faerie Mastermind offers up some excellent card advantage.

Duskmourn introduced Kaito, Bane of Nightmares to the deck, as its -2 ability can tap down threats before turning into a hexproof creature that’s incredibly hard to deal with.