Every workday ahead of the set's paper release, Insight takes a quick look at a deck featuring cards from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. Only three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and Standard's monocolored beatdown decks. Thanks to three spicy additions, the genre has a new king!
It feels like long gone are the days when Monored was the bad guy of Standard. It now oftentimes gets trumped even by other monocolored strategies, for example in white and, completely unsurprisingly, green. While people still tend to believe in , it seems like faith doesn't always cut it anymore.
The main culprit for the rise in popularity of Monogreen is . All of its levels are powerful yet cheap enough for an aggro-midrange shell that already worked well without it. The first level giving you a creature, small as it may be, is actually the best thing you could ask for. This leaves room for the second level and, if you happen to flood, the third one as well.
Ranger Class also works well with . A Lair will enter the battlefield tapped on turn three, which is awkward, but now you can just level the class up. This is huge for a deck that never had many good two-drops. Of course, the Lair is very versatile itself—more flood protection, more insurance against board wipes, more longevity.
Speaking of two-drops, the new finally fills that hole for good. Its pack tactics are pretty easy to trigger, and it's yet another card that can help you if you get flooded. Its second ability turns it into a 5/3 trampler, almost enough to fulfill the pack tactics requirement all by itself. (Note though that the ability only triggers if you attack with 6 power, not when it grows to 6 via 's second level.)
Call the deck aggro, call it midrange, it doesn't matter. You don't even need one-drops to win on a beatdown plan, and this is proof. You can even play it with just minor adjustments in "Standard 2022"—how Wizards call the post-rotation format currenly on MTG Arena—if that's what you're into. It's likely the best aggressive deck there as well.
However, if you combine all the amazing new stuff with the trusted old Beasts, and , as well as , you the best monocolored pick for current Standard. The following list reached the Top 8 at the Challenge on July 10, and two very similar builds made it to the Top 16, while the best Monored player finished 19th.
| Monogreen Aggro-Midrange, Top 8 at Standard Challenge |
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| Main Deck | Sideboard |
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