The decks are in, the data is ready, and Magic World Championship 31 begins tomorrow! From December 5–7 in Bellevue, Washington, 126 of the world's best Magic: The Gathering players will compete for their share of a $1,000,000 prize pool, the chance to be immortalized on a future Magic card, and the most prestigious title of the year.

Magic World Championship 31 represents the pinnacle of the 2024–25 Magic premier play season. Most of the competitors earned their spots through standout performances at Pro Tour Aetherdrift, Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™, and/or Pro Tour Edge of Eternities. The field also boasts Regional Championship winners and top contenders from Arena Championships, Magic Online Champions Showcases, and last year's World Championship. With such an impressive line-up, we can look forward to high-level gameplay and meticulously tuned decks.

The formats are Magic: The Gathering® | Avatar: The Last Airbender™ Booster Draft in the morning on Friday and Saturday, followed by four rounds of Standard Constructed each afternoon. The Top 8 showdown on Sunday will also be Standard Construct. To catch all the action, tune in to the stream at the twitch.tv/magic or the Play MTG YouTube channel. The broadcast begins at 11 a.m. PT on Friday and Saturday and 10 a.m. PT on Sunday. For more information, be sure to check the viewer's guide.

Standard Metagame Breakdown

Standard, Magic's rotating 60-card format, currently encompasses expansion sets from Wilds of Eldraine onward. In recent weeks, the bans of Vivi Ornitier, Proft's Eidetic Memory, and Screaming Nemesis reshaped the metagame, while hundreds of new cards from Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender opened the door for fresh archetypes. With so many new tools entering the format, the Standard decks for World Championship 31 break down as follows:

The metagame showcases a broad mix of archetypes, with several surprises. Most striking is the near-absence of Dimir Midrange. Although it was the most prominent archetype to emerge from the bans completely unscathed, it disappeared from the format prior to this event. Instead, many World Championship competitors gravitated towards strategies that gained powerful upgrades from Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Compared to early online and tabletop events from the first week of the new format, the meteoric rise of Izzet Lessons, Temur Otters, and Bant Airbending stands out. All three rely heavily on new cards, ranging from Accumulated Wisdom to Badgermole Cub and Appa, Steadfast Guardian. Izzet Lessons in particular relies almost solely on spells from Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender and has unexpectedly claimed the top spot as the most-played deck in the field.

Classic red aggro decks are not a major force, with midrange and combo decks defining most of the field. Still, games can end quickly.

Stormchaser's Talent
Boomerang Basics
Torch the Tower

The most-played cards across all main decks are Stormchaser's Talent, Boomerang Basics, and Torch the Tower. These one-mana staples underscore how crucial mana efficiency is today's Standard. They are key inclusions in Temur Otters, Izzet Looting, and Izzet Prowess, and they appear in most Izzet Lessons decks as well. So even though Izzet decks can no longer leverage Vivi Ornitier or Proft's Eidetic Memory, their core of efficient spells remains firmly intact.

Standard Archetype Summaries

All Standard decklists for the tournament will be published on the Magic World Championship 31 event page on Friday, December 5, at the beginning of Round 4 gameplay, at approximately 2 p.m. PT. Until then, here are brief summaries of all the archetypes.

Izzet Lessons (23 players): Izzet Lessons is the breakout Standard deck enabled by Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender. Packed with Lesson cards, it effortlessly puts three of them into the graveyard. This scales up the firepower of Combustion Technique and turns Accumulate Wisdom into a draw-three effect. With Gran-Gran on the battlefield, these spells cost only a single mana, creating a remarkably efficient engine. There are various ways to build from that shell—such as including Artist's Talent and Monument to Endurance—but the underlying core already teaches a compelling lesson.

Temur Otters (20 players): Temur Otters features a powerful infinite loop. If you control Valley Floodcaller and your Otters and Rats collectively tap for at least three mana—assisted by Enduring Vitality and Badgermole Cub—then you can bounce Stormchaser's Talent with Boomerang Basics, replay it, and advance it to its second level to return Boomerang Basics. This six-mana sequence untaps and buffs your creatures twice with Valley Floodcaller, allowing you to storm off and win the game in spectacular fashion.

Bant Airbending (16 players): Bant Airbending uses its namesake mechanic to remove opposing permanents for tempo or to reset its own creatures for fresh value. Appa, Steadfast Guardian and Aang, Swift Savior are among the most efficient Airbenders in the new set. Alongside Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius, they can airbend each other endlessly to create infinite Ally tokens.

Izzet Looting (14 players): The Izzet color pair supports several strategies, all differing in their creature base. Izzet Looting maximizes draw-and-discard effects, known as looters, to fuel the new Tiger-Seal. The suite of looters also powers up Duelist of the Mind and helps enable delirium for Fear of Missing Out, tying the deck's components together in a synergistic package.

Jeskai Control (10 players): Jeskai Control is a classic control strategy that aims to dictate the pace of the game through countermagic like No More Lies, removal like Lightning Helix, sweepers like Day of Judgment, and card-draw effects like Stock Up. While most lists use Shiko, Paragon of the Way as a formidable finisher, individual card choices differ across builds.

Izzet Prowess (9 players): Instead of exploiting Lessons or looters, Izzet Prowess focuses on creating tokens via Stormchaser's Talent; Ral, Crackling Wit; and/or Astrologian's Planisphere, then pumping them with a barrage of instants and sorceries. Every list also uses Splash Portal to blink a warped Quantum Riddler for immediate board presence or a Thundertrap Trainer for a bit of card advantage.

Simic Ouroboroid (7 players): With Llanowar Elves, Gene Pollinator, and Badgermole Cub accelerating its early turns, this deck floods the battlefield with cheap creatures while ramping into an Ouroboroid. Alongside Innkeeper's Talent, its power can scale to astronomical heights. And if you ever copy Ouroboroid at the end of a perfect Jackal, Genius Geneticist chain, you may need a cosmic supply of dice to track the resulting board state.

Sultai Reanimator (6 players): Sultai Reanimator is a graveyard-centric combo deck that aims to fill the bin while digging for Superior Spider-Man. When cast, Superior Spider-Man can enter as a copy of Bringer of the Last Gift, producing a devastating Living End-style effect.

Golgari Ouroboroid (5 players): Golgari Ouroboroid shares many key green cards with its Simic sibling but adds black for removal spells, Lively Dirge, and Overlord of the Balemurk, letting it find Ouroboroid more consistently. Nature's Rhythm also supports a small toolbox of utility creatures and game-enders.

Jeskai Artifacts (4 players): Jeskai Artifacts can control the early game through Pinnacle Starcage or Split Up before taking over the battlefield with enormous Constructs from Simulacrum Synthesizer. With United Battlefront and Repurposing Bay to find and trigger the Synthesizer consistently, and The Fire Crystal to give the tokens haste, the deck overwhelms opponents with artifact synergies.

Dimir Bounce (3 players): Dimir Bounce leverages Fear of Isolation and Boomerang Basics to reuse removal permanents like Nowhere to Run and Grim Bauble. It functions as a resilient midrange strategy that aims to bury opponents in repeated value.

Mono-Red Aggro (3 players): Mono-Red Aggro aims to win as fast as possible, relying on haste creatures and direct-damage spells to reduce the opponent's life total to zero. None of the lists use Leyline of Resonance. It is a timeless strategy that remains as dangerous as ever.

Dimir Midrange (2 players): Dimir Midrange disrupts opponents with a mix of removal, discard, and countermagic while pressuring them with cheap, evasive creatures. Once Enduring Curiosity hits the board, these creatures can refill your hand, and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares provides additional card advantage.

Simic Otters (1 player): Simic Otters is similar to Temur Otters but omits red for a smoother mana base. Instead of the red cards, it leverages the synergy between Splash Portal and Quantum Riddler.

Golgari Dragons (1 player): Golgari Dragons capitalizes on Caustic Exhale and Scavenger Regent, which reward a high density of Dragons. The list also incorporates a self-mill angle, using Icetill Explorer to replay Fabled Passage or casting Esper Origins from the graveyard.

Orzhov Demons (1 player): Orzhov Demons is a midrange deck that can curve Demon Wall into Unholy Annex, turning the enchantment into a life-draining powerhouse. The white splash grants access to Abandoned Air Temple, which can put +1/+1 counters on Demon Wall to let it attack or help Preacher of the Schism's tokens dominate damage races.

Boros Mobilize (1 player): Boros Mobilize is spearheaded by Stadium Headliner and Voice of Victory, both of which create temporary 1/1 Warrior tokens whenever they attack. These mobilize triggers put quest counters on Firebender Ascension; enable massive drains from Arabella, Abandoned Doll; and get doubled by Delney, Streetwise Lookout.

The Most-Played Cards from Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender

Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender made a major impact on Standard, strengthening established archetypes and introducing powerful new build-arounds. The table below outlines all new-to-Standard cards across the 126 submitted decklists.

Boomerang Basics
Badgermole Cub [LerH8gGFQprXZ5n6Qbelh]

When it comes to raw numbers, no card left a larger footprint than Boomerang Basics. Its appeal lies in its flexibility: You can bounce an opposing permanent for a clean tempo advantage, or you can target your own Stormchaser's Talent for extra value. Overall, 52.4% of the field used this blue spell, with 253 registered copies across 20 Temur Otters, 19 Izzet Lessons, 14 Izzet Looting, 9 Izzet Prowess, 3 Dimir Bounce, and 1 Simic Otters deck.

Badgermole Cub was not far behind, serving as a potent ramp enabler for 38.1% of the field. It sets up explosive turns with Enduring Vitality, provides two bodies for Ouroboroid, and doubles the mana output of Llanowar Elves and Gene Pollinator. In total, 183 copies were registered across 20 Temur Otters, 16 Bant Airbending, 7 Simic Ouroboroid, and 5 Golgari Ouroboroid decks.

Accumulate Wisdom
Combustion Technique

The huge suite of Lesson cards from Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender enabled a brand-new archetype, which is the most-played deck at Magic World Championship 31. Key payoffs include Accumulate Wisdom and Combustion Technique, with Gran-Gran as a potent enabler. To support these cards, Lessons like Iroh's Demonstration, Firebending Lesson, Abandon Attachments, and several others found a natural home.

Aang, Swift Savior [4MHvDH5Uzj8CZ6s3ZAkKwa]
Appa, Steadfast Guardian [4RwnGT5ueO57mYRYXEESo0]

Sixteen competitors brought Bant Airbending, turning the new mechanic into an elegant infinite combo. With Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius on the battlefield, airbent cards can be cast for free from exile. Hence, Appa, Steadfast Guardian and Aang, Swift Savior (or Airbender Ascension) can repeatedly airbend each other, creating infinite Ally tokens. To assemble the combo consistently, Aang, at the Crossroads serves as another centerpiece. You can even airbend your own Bramble Familiar, then cast the powerful Fetch Quest Adventure spell for just two mana!

See the Decks in Action This Weekend

Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender has sparked a wave of innovation in Standard. With what feels like a brand-new format, it will be exciting to watch these Standard decks in action at Magic World Championship 31.

If you're eager to see which cards and strategies will rise to the top, and which competitor will etch their name into the annals of competitive Magic history, be sure to catch all the live action. Could Javier Dominguez become the first three-time Magic World Champion? Coverage begins Friday, December 5, on the twitch.tv/magic or the Play MTG YouTube channel!