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Main » Articles » Superior Standard Deck Lists

Superior Standard Deck Lists

Michael Flores
Posted on October 14, 2025
 Reddit

"There are some very interesting things going on in Standard right now."

Is that a sentence that you didn't anticipate reading in the autumn of 2025? It turns out, nevertheless, that it's true!

While some memorable headlines have highlighted the dominance of ur Vivi as a class (and the Red Decks that can race them), the format has a wild ceiling and a ton of variable, viable, and downright strange options. This article is going to highlight several of them.

Superior Decks

Superior Spider-Man

Superior Reanimator | SPM Standard | koornfrost, 5-0 MTGO Standard League 10/2/2025

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First up are a couple of decks based on Kavaero, Mind-Bitten (aka the Superior Spider-Man).

This style is more of a true reanimator deck, which includes Ardyn, the Usurper from Final Fantasy for more of a long game.

The setup here is to use cards like Esper Origins, Town Greeter, and even Bitter Triumph on defense to put creature cards into your graveyard (where they can come back and give the opponent headaches). I in particular like Awaken the Honored Dead in this build; because hey, if you can make the mana, it's part Vindicate (for the price of a Vindicate)... But also helps to juice your graveyard.

Fateweaver / Radioactive Spider is only a one-of here but it can also help to get the party started. Not only is this a card that can come down as early as turn one; and one that can slow down the opponent's offense a la Eli Kassis; but it can search up the Superior Spider-Man specifically.

For his part, Superior Spider-Man is just a good card on rate. It's never worse than a 4/4 for four mana, but the ability to copy a card in the graveyard makes it almost all upside. Like, you wouldn't copy a Town Greeter unless you really, really needed two life. Whereas there are scenarios where you could copy Valgavoth, Terror Eater... and actually end up with two Valgavoths in play because Superior Spider-Man would change one of their names.

The real trick here is that you cast Spider-Man / Kavaero from your hand. This lets you kind of cheat Bringer of the Last Gift.

Bringer of the Last Gift

Superior Reanimator | SPM Standard | Cornetto, 5-0 MTGO Standard League 10/1/2025

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This one is an even more extreme implementation.

Any Superior Spider-Man copying a Bringer of the Last Gift is going to initiate a Living Death-like scenario. Most of the opponent's creatures will die. If you've been chump blocking to stay alive, most of your creatures will come back. What might also come back as a result of all your Steamcore Scholar discards or flipping over your library with Overlord of the Balemurk are cards with big 187 triggers...

Cards like Harvester of Misery - maybe even multiple Harvesters - to sweep the board of anything small.

Or Marang River Regents to bounce anything problematic (while hopefully leaving you a 6/7 body that withstands Harvester of Misery).

But CORNETTO doesn't seem to want to keep playing the game like an Ardyn build! No, this deck has lots of Craterhoof Behemoths! When you cast Superior Spider-Man to get the party started with Bringer of the Last Gift, it is Craterhoof Behemoth's intent to end it right there.

Okay, Okay... Red Decks

The Red Decks might not be as exciting as the Superior Decks, but they've emerged as a more interesting set of foils to Vivi than you might have thought at first headline-read. Here are three angles the little red men and mice might take to gain an edge, shave off a turn, or double up on what the strategy is already good at doing...

Boros Aggro| SPM Standard | Ghift, 5-0 MTGO Standard League 10/2/2025

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GHIFT's is a rw deck that follows a dominant Nova Hellkite mold, but adds Flowerfoot Swordmaster as an additional 1-drop. To me that's not really the notable card, though... I mean just adding a splash color 1-drop isn't nearly as exciting as going FULL BORE now is it?

Full Bore

This card really is most of a Giant Growth! It can defend a creature from removal; and in the right spots, can defend an attacker from removal! Don't sleep on the trample and haste at least one of those keywords might just come up.

Here's a different, maybe more straightforward, look atrw:

Boros Aggro | SPM Standard | Blvcky, 4th Place MTGO Standard Challenge 10/4/2025

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This is more a standard Standard deck, but with the better burn cards splashed. Again we see Nova Hellkite as essentially stock, but joined by the original Boros Charm thanks to the Boros splash.

If you think other Red aggro decks are going to be one of the most common sorts of opponents (or you want to give your game-winning Screaming Nemesis an additional layer of resilience) perhaps add Sheltered by Ghosts? Not only will this give your Emberheart Challenger a legitimate route to Valiant, but in many matchups it will make your Nova Hellkite completely unstoppable.

"Mono"-Red Aggro | SPM STANDARD | deleon91, 1st Place MTGO Standard Challenge 10/6/2025

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Riverpyre Verge
Spirebluff Canal

It might take you a second to see why this "mono" Red deck might splash for Blue lands. The easiest answer is that Riverpyre Verge taps for red naturally, so has almost no cost at all!

Ultimately the Blue splash is there to support Steam Clean.

Steam Clean might not be the best Into the Flood Maw, or the fastest, or even the right cost; but it comes free with a Scalding Viper, which is a card that teams up pretty well with Razorkin Needlehead to make the opponent have to think before doing anything. Little packets of damage can add up, especially when you're a deck that... Let me see here... has also adopted Nova Hellkite as its finisher.

Creature Deck Re-runs

No This Town Ain't Big Enough?

No Hopeless Nightmare?

No problem!

Orzhov Pixie | SPM Standard | ML_23, 2nd Place MTGO Standard League 10/3/2025

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I'm not sure that the Esper Pixie deck would have gone to Cosmogrand Zenith and Elegy Acolyte if they got to keep playing with their original tools (though Tinybones Joins Up is a cute Tim Drake to Hopeless Nightmare's missing Jason Todd)... But here we are and the deck has a much more overwhelming high end... In part by cutting all the Blue! Elegy Acolyte has got all the Enduring Curiosity DNA the deck needs, without going into that original third color.

Just playing your Nurturing Pixies and Sunpearl Kirins can help you go wide with Humans and Robots. You have multiple ways now of exploiting width, including card drawing, additional Overrun-like power, or even a pivot to mid-range with Elspeth, Storm Slayer and Beza, the Bounding Spring.

Mother of invention, that ban.

Temur Landfall | SPM Standard | Nandisko, 5-0 MTGO Standard League 10/2/2025

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If someone told me the Mono-Green Gruul Temur Landfall deck would find itself bursting out of the 60-card template and will have cut one of its staples at 61... I never would have guessed Mossborn Hydra would be one of the cards to not make the cut.

NANDISKO's build goes in two different directions simultaneously.

First, Epser Origins is now in the main deck to provide some card advantage, selection, and even Icetill Explorer fuel.

Meanwhile the deck has even more protection spells than before... A Royal Treatment in the main, and Defend the Rider in the sideboard.

Of course we have the transformation that buys Temur all its wins after sideboarding (and justifies all three colors).

Dragonback Assault
Dragonback Assault
Dragonback Assault
Dragonback Assault

Control the Ceiling

Jeskai Control | SPM Standard | Feitosa, 3rd Place Standard RC Super Qualifier 10/3/2025

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If you thought the six Black pips were a wild way to tune a perfectly good Azorius Jeskai deck, how about Cursed Recording?

This card screams "fun of" to me. There is only one. Though it has a hilariously minor down-side for a deck with 2 Jeskai Revelation, 4 Lightning Helix, and 4 Inevitable Defeat... 20 damage? Maybe you can weather that storm.

There are also any number of ways to Abrade or bounce your Cursed Recording before it kills you. I hate it and I am also salivating at the idea of doubling a Jeskai Revelation.

Jeskai Control | SPM Standard | KingBeav999, 4th Place MTGO Standard Challenge

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Or, for a return to normal Jeskai control decks... Those are doing great right now, too!

This deck is obviously built to exploit Shiko, Paragon of the Way. Re-buy your Lightning Helix; or in the right matchup, your Riverchurn Monument. Even the sweepers are designed with Shiko in mind: Ultima remains a non-negotiable, but there are also three Split Ups in the main because you might want to say "tapped" and leave yourself a 4/5 blocker.

There is one thing that this strategy doesn't lack, and that's card advantage. How rich a deck are you that you only play two Consult the Star Charts? It's okay... 4 Stock Up, 3 Marang River Regents, and a Rediscover the Way pave that way for Jeskai Revelation.

No, you won't have quite the burn side-plan that Inevitable Defeat gives Jeskai's four-color cousins, but you'll have plenty of cards in hand to win in a less spectacular fashion; not no mention less stress at managing your own Cursed Recording.

The Un-Bear-Able Combo

Temur Aggro | SPM Standard | CrazyMorango, 3rd Place MTGO Standard Challenge 10/12/2025

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So, when I started this article by saying "[t]here are some very interesting things going on in Standard right now[,]" this is what I meant.

If you haven't seen this deck play, you might not even grok what's going on here. What set is Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius from anyway? Outlaws of Thunder Junction? Why have I never seen it in play before?

Again, the wild swings in Standard have paved the way for some very unusual paths to victory outside of just Mono-Red and Vivi Cauldron. Here you have a 2-drop that at the minimum makes your Outcaster Trailblazers quite a bit more efficient. And your Railway Brawlers.

What's the Red for? Well, Temur Battlecrier can help you discount your stuff too.

Does that sound slow?

Well, you get some speed back by having the best Winternight Stories in the field!

Enormous and unrelenting layers of mana efficiency not exciting enough?

How about devastating?

Devastating Onslaught

Devastating Onslaught conveniently only requires a single Red mana. There are a lot of things you can do with it (especially if your cards are discounted) but the big A + B in this deck is around Outcaster Trailblazer. You Onslaught it, get a bunch of Trailblazers, and even if your opponent somehow lives through the turn, you're going to be discarding because your hand is so stacked.

There are also more elegant lines you can take. Like a little Doc Aurlock, a little play to the board; force the opponent to tap a ton of mana to sweep you... And then un-Plot and Devastate. It will be a bloodbath.

Just don't get caught by point removal along the way because that would be embarrassing.

LOVE

MIK

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TAGS articles, standard, constructed, analysis, decklist, michael flores, spm standard, 10142025

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