One of the big goals of Wizards of the Coast Organized Play in 2024 has been to revitalize paper Standard, both at the local store level as well as at larger events. While Magic has been super Commander-focused in recent years, it's hard to emphasize how important Standard is for the growth of the game.

Standard has been the long-time onramp to the game, bringing relevance to each new set, providing a fun and ever-changing game experience, while also being accessible for newer players who can immediately turn around their pre-release and draft cards and start building a deck. Learning a format with only 4 to 6 sets that are in print, easily available, and reasonably priced is perhaps the most accessible starting point for newer players.

The biggest hurdle at the moment is that Standard has garnered somewhat of a negative reputation over the last five or so years. FIRE design led to a startling number of bans, and this alongside the Covid-19 pandemic was a disaster for paper in-store Standard play. This led to a general feeling in the community that Standard was just "bad" and not worth playing.

Well, I'm here to remind you that Standard has not only been awesome for the better part of last year, but has also exploded into the new year with a bunch of new decks and innovation, even without a recent set release!

Seriously, while the metagame at Worlds back in October was already quite wide open and exciting, there have been an extremely surprising amount of new and interesting decks coming out of seemingly nowhere in the last few weeks, which is odd for a format that hasn't gotten a new set since the middle of November.

As such, today we're going to look at four very awesome and unique Standard decks that have been putting up results on Magic Online!

Esper Mentor | LCI Standard | Zendikatt, 2nd Place MTGO Challenge

• Creatures (14)
• 2 Halo Forager
• 4 Haughty Djinn
• 4 Monastery Mentor
• 4 Picklock Prankster

• Instants (12)
• 1 Make Disappear
• 1 March of Swirling Mist
• 2 Bitter Triumph
• 2 Cut Down
• 2 Otherworldly Gaze
• 4 Consider

• Sorceries (14)
• 1 Duress
• 2 Recommission
• 3 Chart a Course
• 4 Helping Hand
• 4 Sleight of Hand

• Lands (20)
• 2 Island
• 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Raffine's Tower
• 2 Adarkar Wastes
• 2 Deserted Beach
• 3 Underground River
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Seachrome Coast

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Bitter Triumph
• 2 Duress
• 3 Disdainful Stroke
• 1 Preacher of the Schism
• 3 Temporary Lockdown
• 1 Sunset Revelry
• 1 Destroy Evil
• 2 Ledger Shredder
• 1 Negate

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Did you know that Monastery Mentor, a onetime Legacy staple and card that is restricted in Vintage is currently legal in Standard?

I had forgotten too until I saw this decklist take 2nd place in a Magic Online Challenge in the hands of Zendikatt!

In higher power formats with fast mana, free counterspells, and Sensei's Divining Top, Monastery Mentor has a chance to start going wild early, but in lower-powered formats like Standard, Pioneer, and even Modern, the upfront cost of 3 mana is just too high to risk your opponent dealing with Monastery Mentor before you get value out of it. As such, Monastery Mentor has largely been relegated to an afterthought.

Well, what if Monastery Mentor only cost one?

There are actually a bunch of great ways to dump Monastery Mentor into the graveyard in Standard right now, which allow cards like Helping Hand and Recommission to give you a serious discount on Monastery Mentor and get the ball rolling very quickly. Furthermore, almost all the filtering effects are non-creature spells which work you toward Monastery Mentor but also pay you off once it's in play.

This deck is a very clever bit of deck-building, but there's certainly still room for improvement. Maindeck copies of Ledger Shredder feels like a glaring omission, as an incredibly powerful card that slots in perfectly, but either way this is quite the brew.

Mono White Poison | LCI Standard | J_tekt, 4th Place, MTGO Challenge

• Creatures (13)
• 1 Annex Sentry
• 4 Crawling Chorus
• 4 Jawbone Duelist
• 4 Skrelv, Defector Mite

• Instants (4)
• 1 Destroy Evil
• 3 Charge of the Mites

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Expel the Interlopers
• 2 White Sun's Twilight
• 4 Lay Down Arms

• Enchantments (11)
• 3 Ossification
• 4 Skrelv's Hive
• 4 Tocasia's Welcome

• Lands (25)
• 17 Plains
• 4 Mirrex
• 4 The Seedcore

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Knockout Blow
• 2 Destroy Evil
• 1 White Sun's Twilight
• 2 Annex Sentry
• 2 Expel the Interlopers
• 2 Lantern Flare
• 1 Serra Paragon
• 2 Welcoming Vampire
• 1 Get Lost

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Ever since the release of Phyrexia: All Will Be One, various Toxic decks have existed on the fringes of the metagame. However, none of them have ever looked like this before.

Historically they've almost always been based around Venerated Rotpriest, either as a more aggressive Green/White deck with pump and protection effects or a more combo-style deck with March of Swirling Mist.

However, Magic Online user J_tekt recently took 4th place in a Challenge with this very innovative Mono-White Toxic deck.

One of the biggest draws to Mono-White Midrange previously was access to two of the best removal spells in the format in Lay Down Arms and Ossification. Both exiling removal spells are clean, cheap, and unconditional, making them extremely versatile in such a creature heavy format, and the lifegain is hardly a drawback in a poison deck. The issue was the Mono-White Midrange just wasn't proactive enough to beat the Atraxa, Grand Unifier decks, an issue this deck solves nicely.

Having great removal and a super clean and pain-free mana base makes Skrelv's Hive much better than usual, and being able to utilize the phenomenal Mirrex and The Seedcore to their max potential is excellent as well.

Throw in the best White Sun's Twilights you've ever seen and a good curve and mix of threats and you've got the most unique Standard deck I've seen in a while.

Artifact Control | LCI Standard | Hluca, MTGO League 5-0

• Creatures (8)
• 4 Market Gnome
• 4 Thran Spider

• Sorceries (2)
• 2 Depopulate

• Artifacts (25)
• 1 Chimil, the Inner Sun
• 1 Glass Casket
• 1 The Irencrag
• 2 Thousand Moons Smithy // Barracks of the Thousand
• 4 Braided Net // Braided Quipu
• 4 Fabrication Foundry
• 4 Spring-Loaded Sawblades // Bladewheel Chariot
• 4 The Mightstone and Weakstone
• 4 Unstable Glyphbridge // Sandswirl Wanderglyph

• Lands (25)
• 3 Island
• 5 Plains
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1 Mirrex
• 2 Adarkar Wastes
• 4 Demolition Field
• 4 Deserted Beach
• 4 Restless Anchorage

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Akal Pakal, First Among Equals
• 3 Glass Casket
• 3 Disdainful Stroke
• 2 Knockout Blow
• 3 Negate
• 2 Urza, Lord Protector

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There have been a lot of powerful artifacts printed across various sets in Standard, from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty to The Brothers' War to The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, and a critical mass has finally been hit to put them all together in a deck.

When every card is an artifact, Fabrictation Foundry looks like a pretty nice ramp spell, as does the ever versatile The Mightstone and Weakstone. Being able to play this sort of mana ramp plan with such high-quality spells that effect the board is excellent. The deck also makes superb use of Thran Spider, which provides defense, ramp, and a late game mana sink that can't hit by Cut Down or Go for the Throat.

And then you get to the great control elements.

Spring-Loaded Sawblades // Bladewheel Chariot is a super reasonable removal spell with both synergy and upside, proving it's not just a limited card. And then you come to the original fix, Wrath of God and Icy Manipulator, or I suppose Unstable Glyphbridge // Sandswirl Wanderglyph and Braided Net // Braided Quipu for the modern era. The tap effect of Braided Net encourages your opponent to overcommit and Unstable Glyphbridge mops em up. Braided Net also flips into a very nice card draw engine.

If you'd like to see me playing this deck, check out my video of me playing it last month right here on CoolStuffInc.com!

Rakdos Ramp | LCI Standard | Melicard, 7th Place MTGO Standard Challenge

• Creatures (7)
• 3 Etali, Primal Conqueror // Etali, Primal Sickness
• 4 Trumpeting Carnosaur

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Chandra, Hope's Beacon

• Instants (10)
• 2 Bitter Triumph
• 2 Go for the Throat
• 2 Sheoldred's Edict
• 4 Big Score

• Sorceries (8)
• 2 Breach the Multiverse
• 3 Brotherhood's End
• 3 Burn Down the House

• Enchantments (5)
• 2 Virtue of Persistence
• 3 The Cruelty of Gix

• Artifacts (1)
• 1 The Irencrag

• Lands (27)
• 4 Mountain
• 3 Swamp
• 1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 2 Cavern of Souls
• 2 Demolition Field
• 2 Ziatora's Proving Ground
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 4 Field of Ruin
• 4 Haunted Ridge

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Cut Down
• 2 Duress
• 4 Lithomantic Barrage
• 3 Preacher of the Schism
• 2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 2 Duress

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Wait Jim, Rakdos isn't anything new...

That's what you think, take a closer look!

In essence, this is an odd Rakdos Ramp/Reanimator deck. Big mana elements like Big Score and The Irencrag allow you to just cast your big boomers like Etali, Primal Conqueror // Etali, Primal Sickness and Chandra, Hope's Beacon ahead of schedule, going all the way up to perhaps one of the biggest spells in the format in Breach the Multiverse.

However, the deck also has a bit of a reanimator component, using The Cruelty of Gix to return Etali or Trumpeting Carnosaur for some big value as well. It's great that the deck plays both sides of the ball here, as it can never get stuck with uncastable boom booms in hand because they're all Red and you've got a lot of mana, but it also has the ability to reanimate as early as turn four. Also awesome is that Trumpeting Carnosaur can channel itself as a removal spell to get into the graveyard naturally.

Throw in some big time sweepers like Burn Down the House as well as Brotherhood's End (which is sneakily very good against a few of the artifact decks in the format), as well as all of Rakdos's usual great removal like Go for the Throat, and you've got a deck capable of playing a midrange or controlling game but that also has a huge and powerful endgame itself to win those midrange mirrors.

Get Out And Play!

There are a ton of great established decks in Standard in a pretty wide open metagame, as well as a ton of great brews like these showing up every week, making it an awesome time to play Standard.

I had the brief, exciting moment of "I really want to build this because wow, I love Monastery Mentor but then realized that Standard FNM's don't fire in my area so I guess I won't pick up the cards."

This has been my experience with Standard for the last 12 months. Frustrating. https://t.co/quIogSKo6f

— Emma Partlow ? MagicCon: Chicago (@emmadpartlow) January 2, 2024

The problem is that it feels like a lot of folks are itching to play but afraid to take the dive. Head out to your local store! Express interest! See who's still running Friday Night Magic, and if they're not suggest they do! Build a deck!

A lot of the success of Magic is due to grassroots, word of mouth organizing. Don't be shy about getting your playgroup excited to play something that isn't just another Commander game and is a little more organized. You can always play Commander afterwards!

Standard is fantastic right now and it's a shame there aren't enough opportunities to get out and play it besides on MTG Arena. The Standard RCQ season is coming, and hopefully with it more chances to play!