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A First Look at Ikoria Standard by the Numbers

April 24, 2020
Adam Styborski

Monday was the relaunch of MagicFest Online Daily Qualifiers after the MTG Arena release of Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, and that means one thing: new decks for a new Standard format.

With everyone's decklists available—including the 15+ match point lists that qualified players for the Weekly Championship—we took a quick look through the data to see how the first four days of Qualifiers shook out. If you want to see decklists, the daily decklist hub links out to all of the top decks and the complete set of decklists for each qualifier, plus more events such as the ELEAGUE Showdown: MTG Arena.

The Big Picture

First, let's look at the overall metagame of 15+ match point decks by each day, Monday through Thursday.

Meta Archetype Archetype Companion Total 20-Apr 21-Apr 22-Apr 23-Apr
Fires Four-Color Fires Keruga, the Macrosage 19 1 4 6 8
Fires Jeskai Fires Keruga, the Macrosage 13 4 3 2 4
Reclamation Temur Reclamation   13 2 3 6 2
Sacrifice Rakdos Sacrifice Lurrus of the Dream-Den 12 5 5 2  
Ramp Bant Ramp Yorion, Sky Nomad 7   2 2 3
Sacrifice Rakdos Sacrifice Obosh, the Preypiercer 4   2 1 1
Yorion Esper Yorion Yorion, Sky Nomad 3 2     1
Control Jeskai Control Kaheera, the Orphanguard 3 2   1  
Ramp Sultai Ramp   3 1     2
Fires Five-Color Fires   2       2
Midrange Gruul Monsters Kaheera, the Orphanguard 2       2
Tempo Jeskai Cycling Lurrus of the Dream-Den 2       2
Sacrifice Lurrus Sacrifice Lurrus of the Dream-Den 2     1 1
Gyruda Bant Gyruda Gyruda, Doom of Depths 1   1    
Flash Dimir Flash   1 1      
Aggro Grixis Knights   1     1  
Aggro Gruul Aggro Kaheera, the Orphanguard 1     1  
Fires Gruul Fires Kaheera, the Orphanguard 1 1      
Control Jeskai Control Yorion, Sky Nomad 1   1    
Aggro Jeskai Winota   1       1
Sacrifice Jund Sacrifice   1   1    
Sacrifice Jund Sacrifice Jegantha, the Wellspring 1       1
Tempo Mono-Blue Tempo   1     1  
Aggro Naya Aggro   1   1    
Sacrifice Rakdos Sacrifice   1 1      
Flash Simic Flash   1     1  
Adventure Temur Adventure   1     1  

Rolling this up a bit more makes some trends easier to see.

Overall 20-Apr 21-Apr 22-Apr 23-Apr
Archetype Total Count % Count % Count % Count %
Fires 35 6 30.0% 7 30.4% 8 30.8% 14 46.7%
Sacrifice 21 6 30.0% 8 34.8% 4 15.4% 3 10.0%
Reclamation 13 2 10.0% 3 13.0% 6 23.1% 2 6.7%
Ramp 10 1 5.0% 2 8.7% 2 7.7% 5 16.7%
Aggro 4     1 4.3% 2 7.7% 1 3.3%
Control 4 2 10.0% 1 4.3% 1 3.8%    
Tempo 3         1 3.8% 2 6.7%
Yorion 3 2 10.0%         1 3.3%
Flash 2 1 5.0%     1 3.8%    
Midrange 2             2 6.7%
Adventure 1         1 3.8%    
Gyruda 1     1 4.3%        
Grand Total 99 20 100% 23 100% 26 100% 30 100%

  • Over the week, Sacrifice (from Rakdos to white-black Lurrus of the Dream-Den to Jund flavors) started strong but began to trail off.
  • Conversely, Fires decks began to perform better and better thanks to consolidation around the Four-Color Fires build with Keruga, the Macrosage.
  • Fires of Invention decks put the squeeze on other archetypes, but every day revealed some novel decks capable of netting a Weekly Championship invitation—including Aggro, Flash, and Tempo decks.
  • Alongside Fires decks rising, Temur Reclamation also picked up play. Shark Typhoon is the real deal.

Top Cards Played

While you can always expect basic and rare lands—such as the Ravnica duals and Ikoria's tri-lands with cycle—to be highly played, the counts for the nonland cards can tell us a little more about what's in decks. Here's a look at the top 50 played, without lands.

Card Total Main Sideboard
Mystical Dispute 1924 735 1189
Teferi, Time Raveler 1492 1477 15
Elspeth Conquers Death 1052 727 325
Aether Gust 1009 213 796
Cauldron Familiar 924 924 0
Witch's Oven 924 924 0
Growth Spiral 914 914 0
Deafening Clarion 894 789 105
Bonecrusher Giant 837 812 25
Fires of Invention 825 821 4
Priest of Forgotten Gods 770 770 0
Grafdigger's Cage 752 9 743
Scorching Dragonfire 708 303 405
Shark Typhoon 689 555 134
Cavalier of Flame 684 682 2
Claim the Firstborn 670 645 25
Serrated Scorpion 645 645 0
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath 618 606 12
Legion Warboss 610 93 517
Narset, Parter of Veils 608 428 180
Sphinx of Foresight 605 605 0
Shatter the Sky 583 488 95
Omen of the Sea 582 580 2
Brazen Borrower 572 538 34
Kenrith, the Returned King 457 453 4
Narset of the Ancient Way 442 433 9
Flame Sweep 426 23 403
Dreadhorde Butcher 424 420 4
Gutterbones 423 423 0
Call of the Death-Dweller 410 401 9
Whisper Squad 407 407 0
Robber of the Rich 399 158 241
Neutralize 390 362 28
Devout Decree 388 0 388
Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger 380 379 1
Embereth Shieldbreaker 353 0 353
Act of Treason 338 0 338
Heartless Act 335 186 149
Dovin's Veto 331 53 278
Wilderness Reclamation 324 324 0
Fiend Artisan 320 318 2
Expansion // Explosion 320 317 3
Mire's Grasp 303 75 228
Negate 297 46 251
Mayhem Devil 288 273 15
Lurrus of the Dream-Den 285 105 180
Essence Scatter 281 198 83
Nissa, Who Shakes the World 268 259 9
Paradise Druid 262 262 0
Hydroid Krasis 259 210 49

  • Mystical Dispute is a potent card against any deck leaning on blue, but it almost always starts in the sideboard. Of course, being the most played cards is also somewhat self-fulfilling: An efficient answer for Mystical Dispute is one of your own!
  • Many of the top cards reflect the most popular decks throughout the week: Sacrifice and Fires decks. With Fires of Invention and equal copies of Cauldron Familiar with matching Witch's Oven there's similar amounts of both decks seeing play.
  • Teferi, Time Raveler continues to be one of the most pivotal cards in Standard, seeing maindeck play in Fires decks as well as the bevvy of Ramp and Control decks floating around.
  • Shark Typhoon is the most-played nonland Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths card, thanks to Temur Reclamation and Control decks being rewarded the most for using it.
  • Lurrus of the Dream-Den isn't the most popular companion as companion among 15+ point decks (which belongs to Keruga, the Macrosage thanks to Fires decks doing well), but it is the most popular of the companions as a card in general. Aggro decks, as well as many builds of Sacrifice decks, take advantage of recurring permanents as you can always just play Lurrus in a main deck to get its ability too.

What's Next?

The Weekly Championship that kicks off Saturday, April 25 will put everything top competitors have learned so far to the test—and the Top 32 to emerge on Sunday will show us which decks stand up to the crucible of a big tournament.

Don't miss any of the MagicFest Online action live 24/7 over at twitch.tv/channelfireball and watch the Weekly Championship unfold!

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