Standard remained mostly the same over the last week, with some decks pushing their way to the top or others falling slightly out of favor. However, the overall meta remains rather consistent, albeit with some decks gaining more ground as the prey of other decks becomes more scarce.
1. Temur Ramp
Temur Ramp has moved up to the top spot in this week’s power rankings, coming a long way over the course of the season. This iteration now often combines the best parts of Temur “Ramp” in a traditional sense and Temur Adventures, not to mention the occasional inclusion of a companion, Obosh, the Preypiercer, for even more value.
This Temur Ramp deck, from my perspective, is a good example of a deck’s evolution over the course of a standard season, adjusting to the metagame and finding strategies to combat all sorts of matchups. Temur Ramp gets the nod for the best deck right now by combining the adventure engine with a ramp strategy, both of which often find their way to the top of the rankings.
2. Mono Green Food
Mono Green Food is a deck that has come on strong in the past month or two, largely because it was preying on the Gruul deck. With the decline of Gruul and the rise of Temur Ramp, Mono Green has fallen a bit. However, one interesting, and perhaps unexpected thing about Mono Green Food is that it’s really been able to hold its own against a wide swath of decks and continued to put up great results even as it’s “prey” has declined.
3. Dimir Rogues
Dimir Rogues is still a great strategy and honestly, the top four or five decks this week are all super close. That’s the sign of a very healthy standard format in my opinion; lots of decks that are in contention for the best deck of the format without an absolutely clear front runner. Dimir Rogues, strategically, has it all: removal, card draw, counters and cheap efficient threats. Virtually any time you can make a deck where all those things are true, the deck will be a contender.
4. Dimir Control
This deck has seen a surge late in the season, largely because counters are good against some of the big mana decks. Control decks haven’t been great in standard for a while so it’s nice to see one relatively close to the top. Another Yorion, Sky Nomad deck, the white has been removed from this iteration of the deck in favor of a more consistent mana base, which is a good thing in a control deck.
5. Esper Doom
This is basically Dimir Control splashing white. The white cards are very powerful though, particularly Doom Foretold and Elspeth Conquers Death. That being said, there are some consistency issues and a lot of the white cards were there to prey on Gruul, which has fallen in the rankings this week.
6. Gruul Adventures
A few weeks ago, Gruul seemed basically untouchable, but since then, other decks have risen up that are engineered to prey on the strategy or at least people are choosing decks where they feel the Gruul matchup isn’t awful. Sideboards and sideboard plans become better suited for fighting the Gruul deck, and it’s showed in overall results.
7. Rakdos Midrange
While Rakdos Midrange is a strong deck, I feel it’s had the biggest drop in results so far. Rakdos Midrange has a strong and consistent strategy but it just never seemed to be able to consistently put up results like many of the top decks. Maybe it was too reliant on synergies or just a little too slow, but I think Rakdos was at its best when Rogues was at the top, due to all the main deck escape cards and has sunken to somewhere in the middle of the pack since then.
8. Rakdos Ramp
The next few decks are a big drop off, and I considered Rakdos Ramp, Mono Red, Selesnya Yorion and Mardu Doom Foretold to round out this week’s list. All in all, I would give the eighth place nod, barely, to Rakdos Ramp, although the rest of the decks are of similar quality. As the format goes on, the tier two decks get more and more suppressed by the big guns, and these are those decks at this point in the season.
