Anyone who’s gotten to know me for any amount of time is aware that I am not a fan of MTG Arena. While it’s a fine introduction to the game, and a reasonable starting place for those that want to grind in free-to-play, I don’t think that it’s reasonable to ask currently enfranchised players to jump into the program because, in order to play how they want to play, they are tasked with either spending hundreds to thousands of dollars up front, or putting in hundreds of hours doing dailies that could otherwise be spent practicing the decks they want to play. I think the thing I take the most offense to though is that the Arena economy is not designed to benefit any player that doesn’t want to fully commit to one deck. Specifically, the pinch on rares is a huge turn off for me, as most of the cards that you want to be playing with are at rare and thus, you’re put into the position of either playing your new deck with a bad mana base, playing half of your new deck and with random junk or not playing a new deck because your other deck has eaten up all of your rare wildcards. I could go on and on about the toxic nature of an economy that doesn’t have a secondary market, but instead let’s take a look at some decks you can put together without any rare wildcards to start your grind on the Standard ladder.
Starting Fresh
The Standard format is really the best place to start off your journey into the competitive realm. Its limited card pool makes learning interactions relatively straightforward, and putting a deck together is fairly simple because the general power level of the format is lower on the whole. With this Phyrexian format in specific, there are many strategies that can be assembled from a pile of commons and uncommons.
Standard No-Rare Mono-Blue by Darren Magnotti
Instant (29)
Land (21)
One such deck is the famous Mono-Blue Tempo deck. While not exactly “beginner-friendly” in the traditional sense, this archetype has been around for years and has proven its worth on the competitive scene. This deck’s primary focus is to disrupt the opponent’s strategy while “trading up” on mana and acting as efficiently as possible. By “trading up,” I mean that it wants to get better use out of the same amount of mana that the opponent is using. If they cast a spell for three mana and you answer that spell with a one-mana card, you’ve just traded up for two mana in that exchange. This doesn’t seem significant, but compounding these micro-advantages over the course of several turns will put you incredibly far ahead. This line of thinking is called “tempo” and hundreds of decks have leaned into the plan over the years.
Unlike other variants on this Tempo strategy, this current iteration of Delver acts more as a control deck than a deck like Pioneer Spirits, Modern Murktide or Legacy Delver might. Their plan is usually to resolve a threat in the early turns of the game and protect it, either by disrupting the opponent or with cards like Shore Up or Slip Out the Back interfering with interaction. This deck will usually prefer to either do nothing in the opening turns as players build up resources or use its cheap interaction to throw them off and buy some additional turns later on, winning eventually with the likes of a one-mana Tolarian Terror. Playing this deck successfully can certainly be a challenge for newer players or those not yet versed in the minutiae of the current metagame, so while cheap, this deck may not be suited for players of all experience levels.
Standard No-Rare Artifact Beatdown by Darren Magnotti
Creature (19)
Sorcery (4)
Instant (4)
Enchantment (4)
Sideboard (15)
Something that everyone can get behind though is this “Affinity”-style artifact beatdown deck. One of the first things that players learn to do is to cast a creature and turn it sideways. This is one of those decks that looks to do this exact thing and not much else. Utilizing a load of cheap artifact creatures, some card draw spells and a couple of nasty finishers, this Affinity list is sure to end games quickly one way or the other.
The term “Affinity” comes from an older mechanic that was actually recently reprinted in All Will Be One that makes the spell you’re casting cheaper based on how many of a thing you have in play. The original deck was all about affinity for artifacts, and played a similar artifact creature beatdown strategy. For years since, there have been various iterations of artifact beatdown decks, all referred to as Affinity even though many didn’t even play the namesake effect anymore. With the return of the mechanic though in Plated Onslaught, I thought that it might be time for the strategy to make a comeback as well.
This deck functions on the basis of being all-in, or not holding anything back at any point. It wants to vomit its hand onto the table and start attacking immediately in hopes to go under some of the bigger and clunkier decks in the format. It can afford to do so thanks to its three payoffs. Patchwork Automaton scales up as you commit more and more to the board, becoming a must-answer threat that’s also difficult to cleanly answer thanks to ward. Michiko’s Reign of Truth turns any of the rinky-dink creatures into a substantial beater while later becoming one of its own – another must-answer threat. Finally, Plated Onslaught allows you to swarm in and overwhelm by rewarding the go-wide approach to the deck. While unlikely to take down your next RC or Arena Open, this deck is capable of some relatively free wins, and is an excellent choice to blast through those early ranks on the ladder.
Preparing for the Future
Remember that part in the beginning when I expressed lament at the concept of building multiple decks on Arena? And then showed you two decks that you aren’t very likely to play forever and would need to build into a new deck eventually anyway? Good times. This next bit is a bit more forward-thinking, featuring decks that can be built upon to become actual metagame staples. Not only that, but they also feature some Mythics that you’re probably (definitely) going to want to craft at some point anyway, so it may as well be now. I’m generally of the belief that building into an established archetype over time is the best way to go, because you get to play with a version of the deck right now and gain some experience with it that can then be carried over to the full version once you’ve got it all together.
Standard No-Rare Mono-White Control by Darren Magnotti
Planeswalker (2)
Creature (20)
Sideboard (15)
Mono-White Control is a phrase that non-rotating format players would probably lose their minds over, but the deck has actually been pretty commonplace for a while here in Standard. This deck combines powerful planeswalkers like The Wandering Emperor with some of the best removal to play that classic control game while accruing some serious value in the meantime to grind through the various black-based decks.
This specific iteration leans a bit harder into that value generation plan, featuring Elesh Norn and a good amount of blink targets. From drawing cards to digging for lands to gaining life, the cheap creatures in this deck check all of the boxes that a control deck looks for. Using them as a defensive wall will also to access to the later game, where you can then take over either via The Wandering Emperor or by doubling up these effects with Elesh Norn and just burying the opponent in card advantage while shutting down any threats that they might be able to establish.
This mono-white shell can be taken any number of ways when you commit more to the strategy. Staying in Mono-White will get you one of the best decks in the format, though you can also add any number of colors to tune and twist the strategy to suit your play style, your local metagame or the broader ladder meta. My personal choice would be to dip all the way into five colors with the likes of Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Leyline Binding and The Kami War, but you wouldn’t be punished for going less greedy either.
Standard No-Rare Mono-Black Control by Darren Magnotti
Planeswalker (1)
Creature (18)
Lastly, we have a Mono-Black Control deck. It’s not often that I get to feature control strategies in a budget article, so you’ll have to excuse me here, but both the concept and this particular archetype are near and dear to my heart. I started my journey into the competitive realm with budget control back in Return to Ravnica Standard in 2013, and have always been in love with Black Devotion since its Standard days as well. Plus where else are you going to see Sheoldred, the Apocalypse in a budget list?
This deck draws influence from both the Pauper Black Devotion deck and current Mono-Black Midrange decks in Standard. It relies on creatures to fill the roles that spells would occupy in other colors, turning those creatures into win conditions in the later game. Loaded up with both creature removal and hand interaction, this deck should have no issue keeping some of those pillar singular-threats at bay either. Cards like Atraxa, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and opposing Sheoldreds are usually meant to sit in play and take over a game, so this deck makes sure to pack a significant amount of removal to keep all of that nonsense at bay. It then looks to cap things off with its own finisher in Corrupt, which can provide a tremendous life swing if the game goes late enough.
There are a few ways to take a deck like this going forward into the format, the most obvious of which is Grixis Midrange. While there isn’t a ton of specific card crossover between the two strategies, most of the lessons and muscle memory you can build with the mono-black version can be translated to Grixis. The deck can also move vertically instead of horizontally, becoming the shell for Mono-Black Devotion in Explorer as well. Knowing how to evaluate threats over the course of several turns, picking which need to be removed and which can stay, and learning to balance your interaction with establishing your own threats are all invaluable, multiformat concepts that this deck.
That’s all for this one. I know that I talk down on Arena a lot, but it’s mostly because I’m a boomer who got in too late. The program is great for newer players and a valuable asset to the Magic community because it offers the only true free-to-play experience. Hopefully you’re able to use and abuse the experience of the Arena grind to really level up your game and reach your Magic goals. Until next time, stay safe, play smart and thanks for reading.
Liliana of the Veil is rare… I thought these were “no rare” decks?
Liliana of the Veil is a mythic in every set she’s in.
You are doing God’s work here Darren thanks for looking out for the more financially handicaped folks out there trying to enjoy some Magic