Hello there! Welcome to the final edition of Arena Adventures, the series where I’ve climbed up the Magic: The Gathering Arena Standard ranked ladder, and taken you along for the journey! Last article, I got up to Diamond 4. This time around, I’d like to talk about the decks I used throughout my ladder climb, the lessons I learned, and where I recommend new players start.
Reconstruct History
#1 – Dimir Faeries
The first deck I used in this series was a blue-black Faeries kindred list, with a heavy focus on evasive, specifically-typed creatures. This deck evolved over time, beginning as one of the two-color starter decks provided to new players, and eventually becoming a much more powerful deck.
I upgraded the deck significantly over time, adding card advantage like Enduring Curiosity, efficient ways to interact with my opponents, like Ego Drain, and even some more universally-applicable removal like Into the Flood Maw. Combined with a suite of 16 Faeries, this deck aimed to land a small, flying creature and chip-in damage over time while controlling my opponent’s board.
The deck worked well sometimes, but it too often felt held back by the self-imposed creature type restriction. The creatures that Dimir Faeries aimed to keep on the board were not very individually powerful, and it felt like I wouldn’t be able to turn the corner into higher ranks on the Arena ladder.
And, for those of you who are interested, here’s the most upgraded/updated version of the Dimir Faeries list, from earlier in the series:
#2 – Mono-White Hare Apparent
With the release of Foundations came Hare Apparent. This card immediately intrigued me. As a Commander player, I love cards that break deckbuilding restrictions. I saw this card, and saw that it would work particularly well with lifegain-synergies like Hinterland Sanctifier and ways to reanimate a whole bunch of Rabbits from the graveyard like Raise the Past.
I also found the interactions that Hare Apparent has with Delney, Streetwise Lookout and Dollmaker’s Shop // Porcelain Gallery to be super interesting. Both of those cards provided massive, game-ending amounts of value if they stuck on the board long enough. If I was able to get them on the battlefield early, I won many more games than I lost.
Eventually, I changed the deck to include ways to discard copies of Hare Apparent to the graveyard, for later reanimation with Raise the Past. My favorite discard outlet was Grab the Prize, which also usually chipped in some direct damage to my opponent. But, even after some upgrades and an attempted strategy change-up (switching to a Boros reanimation list), the deck didn’t feel strong enough to let me push to higher ranks.
Here’s the final mono-white list, complete with a full four copies of Raise the Past and 20 copies of Hare Apparent:
#3 – Blue-Black Midrange
After not seeing success with my Hare Apparent-focused deck, I decided to go back to the first deck I used in this series. As I mentioned, I really enjoyed the blue-black (Dimir) Faeries deck, but found that the creatures it intended to end the game with just weren’t good enough.
So, I decided that I would largely ignore the creature type focus of the earlier deck, and instead just focus on building the most powerful deck I could.
The result was much more powerful, and I got to include some of the best cards in all of Standard. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, for example, is just a ridiculously powerful card. So is Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, who I actually included in the original Faerie-focused list. My favorite card, though, was and still is Faerie Mastermind. It’s so easy to hold up mana for either it or a piece of interaction, leaving me to make some powerful choices.
This deck kept the same spirit as the original Dimir Faeries list, but brought me much more success due to its higher card quality. I’m glad that I got to finish this series the same way I started it.
Here’s the full, final decklist:
Pedantic Learning
So, what did I learn from playing Standard for 20 weeks straight? First, I learned that whenever I lose a game my opponent is playing something that’s too powerful and should be banned.
All kidding aside, I learned a lot. I definitely came to appreciate the importance of holding interaction for an opponent’s most powerful threats. It may be tempting to use a removal spell on an early game beater, but it could be much more important to use a copy of Spell Stutter to ensure that an opponent’s Virtue of Persistence never hits the battlefield.
I also learned that, unfortunately, the best games a deck can produce aren’t going to come around frequently. I had some games where, while playing my Hare Apparent-focused deck, I landed a copy of Hinterland Sanctifier on turn one, a copy of Hare Apparent on turn two, and a copy of Delney, Streetwise Lookout on turn three before going on to absolutely demolish my opponent. And, I stuck with that deck for a little bit too long because of how much fun it was to experience that play pattern. But it just didn’t happen as often as I needed it to, and I wasn’t able to climb the ladder well.
So, with those lessons (and a few hundred games) under my belt, I’d like to talk about where I think new Magic: The Gathering Arena players should start.
Fiery Finish
New players, even those with a limited amount of experience in other formats, should experiment with each of the starter decks provided to all new accounts. When I started this series, I was admittedly quite new to playing Standard, and found it very helpful to see what each of the 10 two-color pairs could do with a somewhat restricted cardpool. Although some of the decks were pretty underpowered, I did learn a lot just by seeing what cards my opponents used to trounce me.
And, for more experienced players, I recommend running a deck with some amount of blue in it. The Standard meta has some ridiculously powerful cards in it, and the best way to deal with them is to ensure they never resolve in the first place. Even having a few Counterspells somewhere within your 60-card deck can help you win a lot more games.
Thanks very much for reading this edition, and the entirety, of Arena Adventures. Good luck with all your future Arena games!
To continue your MTG Standard journey, click here to see the five best decks in Aetherdrift Standard.
