1. Omnath Adventures
Omnath Adventures is the deck I’ve been advocating for ever since Uro was banned. I still feel that Temur Adventures in the best deck in Standard, and this weekend it took second in the CFB Clash event as well as fourth and 7th in the RedBull Untapped Qualifier: France. Lucky Clover has always been a deck that I’ve loved, and the Omnath synergies with Fertile Footsteps/Fabled Passage/Fae of Wishes just make this a really great deck.
2. Omnath Ramp
Omnath Ramp is also a great deck, and while it might have a slightly favorable matchup against Omnath Adventures, I feel it gives up a little bit elsewhere. I think if one decides to play either Omnath deck, they really can’t go wrong. The Omnath Ramp deck has the ability to get draws that are a little more explosive.
3. Dimir Rogues
Dimir Rogues had a great showing over the weekend, taking down the CFB Clash event as well as putting a couple other copies in the top 16. Dimir Rogues is a deck that has the cards it needs to compete with the Omnath Decks, and I think actually is a bit better against Omnath Ramp than it is against Lucky Clover variations. Congrats to Franche Tan for winning the event.
4. Mono Green
Mono Green seems to be making a bit of a resurgence. Gemrazer has gotten a little better again by giving the deck access to a maindeck way to kill Lucky Clover, and the banning of Uro has helped a bit for aggressive strategies to be able to win games that go a little bit longer.
5. Dimir Control
Dimir Control is a little like Dimir Rogues, in that I think it can be built to be okay against Omnath by getting access to counters and discard, but when I last tried it, I was having a little bit of trouble against the aggressive decks, particularly Mono-Red. Mono-Red seems a little bit on the decline again, so maybe it’s time to dust off the Dimir cards. Intuitively, I think Dimir would actually do better against Mono Green than Mono Red, because removal tends to trade better, in terms of mana for mana, against green, and there’s no risk of being burned out.
6. Mono-Red Aggro
Mono Red is down to the second best aggressive deck in standard. I just think mono red matches up so poorly against the card Omnath, a 4/4 for 4 that gains 4 life per turn. Also, some (half?) of the Omnath decks are now playing 4 copies of Bonecrusher Giant and also some copies of Lovestruck Beast, all of which are gamebreaking cards against Mono Red.
7. Gruul Adventures
Edgewall Innkeeper in an aggressive deck is pretty potent. A lot of decks are playing Spikefield Hazard, but still, Edgewall Innkeeper demands an immediate answer. Aggressive decks that have ways to leverage card advantage and a top end finisher like Embercleave are very strong and the top end draws are very strong.
8. Rakdos Midrange (or Rakdos Mill)
This deck had a copy in each of the big events over the weekend finish somewhere near the top of the standings; 5th in CFB Clash and 6th in the Redbull International France Qualifier. This deck is a graveyard deck. It uses Mire Triton and Tymaret Calls the Dead to fill the graveyard and from there it can use cards like Agadeem’s Awakening/Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger/Ox of Agonas to turn the cards in the graveyard into an advantage.
9. Esper Doom
Doom Foretold and Dance of the Manse has been a combo in Standard for a while now, and while the deck has never been the absolute best deck in the format, it’s been competitive. Andrea Mengucci is a fan of it right now, and I think one advantage it has over other control decks is that Doom Foretold is actually a way for a control deck to remove a Lucky Clover in the first game.
10. Grixis Control
This deck showed up a bit in the Redbull event, and it seems to make some sense to me. It has a lot in common with Dimir Control but the red allows it to play Bonecrusher Giant, among other things, which should help a bit against the very aggressive decks.
