Mono-Blue Spirits was once the most underrated decks in both Pioneer and Explorer. Now, people are starting to get wise to the truth that it’s one of the absolute best choices in either format.
Mono-Blue has the highest win rate on the Magic Arena ladder by a massive margin. According to Untapped.GG, at the time of writing, Mono-Blue has a 64.1 percent win rate from Bronze to Mythic in Explorer, while the next archetype (among those with a sample size of more than one deck) is Abzan Greasefang with 59.1 percent. That’s a difference of five full percentage points! These stats aren’t everything, but in all my time studying Untapped.GG, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a large outlier in terms of win rate, and that means something to me.
The archetype sometimes gets brushed off as a gimmick, where it’s mostly “stealing games” when a quick Curious Obsession goes unanswered. It’s frustrating to lose to Mono-Blue, and opponents often leave the match grumbling, “if they just didn’t have that last counterspell, I would’ve won easily!” Well, I’ve been on both sides of the table enough to assure you that this deck is not a gimmick, and its high win rate is not a fluke. And if others want to persist in this delusion, then it gives Mono-Blue yet another advantage!
