It’s Arena Championship weekend! MTG Arena’s best and brightest have the opportunity to qualify for the Pro Tour and even the World Championship, not to mention the $250,000 prize pool. With so much on the line, you can be sure that the participants have tested a ton of Standard in order to optimize their chances for winning the tournament.
Thanks to a collection of unbalanced metagames, many of the recent major tournament metagame overviews have been… unideal, to say the least. All of that said, this one might be the most lopsided we’ve seen so far. Standard is in deep trouble and, if you’ve been keeping up with us, you already know that.
Vivi Ornitier Against the World
This is quite a hilarious graphic from Wizards of the Coast, but it actually undermines the problem somewhat. Izzet Cauldron, a combo deck using Vivi Ornitier and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron to create absurd amounts of mana, has a 54% metagame representation, which is obscene. This is an even higher metagame representation than Izzet Prowess at Pro Tour Final Fantasy, and that event is considered one of the most lopsided metagames we’ve ever seen at pro-level Magic.
That said, the fact that all the other decks are grouped together in one section makes the metagame seem a bit more balanced than it actually is. Fortunately, there is another graphic that details what this ‘Other’ section looks like.
This one reveals a much scarier metagame. The second-most played deck in the tournament only has three representatives. Esper Pixie and Dimir Midrange, the two decks that seem ahead of everything except for Vivi Cauldron, only have three and two players on them, respectively. The only other deck with three players is Izzet Prowess, another Vivi Cauldron deck that relies a lot more on Prowess interactions than the Cauldron combo itself.
This may seem like it came out of nowhere for many, but the signs have not only been there, they’ve been screaming rather loudly. Referencing an article we wrote earlier in the week, Vivi Cauldron has not placed lower than second in any MTGO Standard Challenge since Edge of Eternities rotation. There’s usually at least three copies of Vivi Cauldron in any given Challenge top eight, with some having upwards of six copies of Vivi Cauldron decks. This is an unparalleled level of dominance for any format.
Considering the grim nature of the Arena Championship metagame, this graphic does, in a weird way, depict the story of the tournament well. There is clearly one big bad wolf in the format, and it will be up to our ragtag group of heroes to try and beat it.
An Upset Story?
Interestingly, a lot of the remaining decks appearing in the Standard Arena Championships aren’t ones we’ve seen a lot of. Sultai Control, Temur Ferocious, Temur Landfall and Boros Mice are all newer decks that haven’t really had a signficant metagame presence post-rotation. Gruul Delirium started showing up in force right before Edge of Eternities released, and Jeskai Artifacts could be the sneaky favorite to win the event, especially if they’ve managed to break the new Weapons Manufacturing.
We don’t know the decklists for this event yet, so its hard to say if one of these rogue decks appears to have a strong matchup against Vivi Cauldron, but from the little we can see so far, the writing already appears to be on the wall. From what many MTG players are saying, control strategies equipped to take on the scourge might have the best chance, but even then, those chances might not be great.
Hopefully, this event will give Wizards of the Coast the heads up that they need in regards to the state of Standard. The next ban announcement is November 24th, 2025, meaning that a lack of emergency changes have a chance of ruining three upcoming Spotlight Series events. This event alone may not be enough to force a ban ahead of schedule, but if metagames like this persist after this event, it seems like a no-brainer.
This is, of course, assuming that the metagame breakdown has foretold the end of the Arena Championships before its even started. There is a chance that one of these rogue decks end up being the hero we need but, the data is certainly stacked against it.