Last updated on October 21, 2024
Fervent Champion | Illustration by Steve Argyle
The MTG Challenger decks have been an annual occurrence in Magic since their initial debut in 2018. Each year, four Standard format constructed decks are released with some rares, a mythic, and a neat little name.
Whether or not these decks are good is always up for debate. With that in mind, I’d like to share with you my two cents on it all and hopefully give you some decent insight into this year's 2021 Challenger Decks.
So, let’s get it rolling!
What are Challenger Decks?
Rankle, Master of Pranks | Illustration by Dmirty Burmak
Replacing Duel Decks in 2018, Challenger Decks are an annual release of four constructed decks that are handcrafted by Wizards of the Coast. They serve as a reference to the current metagame for those looking to learn and improve, in addition to being great places for new players to start out. We reviewed last year's decks here.
They’re built as Standard-legal 60 card decks with 15-card sideboards, so they’re useful right out of the gate. They also come with several rares and one mythic rare in the list, meaning they aren’t pushovers.
It’s also important to remember that these decks tend to reflect the dominant archetypes in the meta, making them useful in some competitive scenes. That said, they only reflect the Standard metagame and aren’t copies of it, so they won’t always hold up against their optimized ancestors.
With all of that in mind, let’s jump into the lists and learn about how things are shaking out this time around.
Challenger Decklists
All right, we’ve got four of these snazzy piles of cardboard to sift through, and they’re all some really interesting piles. So let’s have some fun with this. For each of these we’ll start with the lists and what strategy they’re mimicking from the metagame, and then dive into the cards themselves and look at what’s good or bad, and how to improve.
Azorius Control
Archon of Sun's Grace | Illustration by Matt Stewart
Alrighty, let’s start with control. We’ll rip the bandage off at the beginning here and see what’s up with our patient friend.
Creature (6)
Skyclave Cleric x2
Dream Trawler x2
Archon of Sun's Grace x2
Instant (10)
Neutralize x3
Saw It Coming
Negate
Thirst for Meaning x3
Behold the Multiverse x2
Sorcery (4)
Emeria's Call
Shatter the Sky x2
Doomskar
Enchantment (14)
Shark Typhoon
Elspeth Conquers Death x3
The Birth of Meletis x4
Omen of the Sea x4
Banishing Light x2
Artifact (2)
Glass Casket x2
Land (24)
Temple of Enlightenment x4
Plains x8
Island x8
Tranquil Cove x4
Sideboard (15)
Archon of Sun's Grace
Banishing Light x2
Glass Casket x2
Skyclave Apparition x2
Confounding Conundrum x3
Mystical Dispute x3
Essence Scatter x2
Quite Enchanting
Banishing Light | Illustration by Willian Murai
So, taking a look at this list, it’s actually a little bit of a farther cry from its inspiration than the rest of the Challengers this year. The control metagame falls under the domain of Yorion, Sky Nomad decks. While this deck doesn’t run those 80 cards, it still has a solid list of control staples in an enchantment shell.
You’re going to want to play this deck very methodically and pace yourself well. You’ll be using cards like Glass Casket and Skyclave Apparition to remove early threats and keep your opponent from getting steam. You’ll also be casting Birth of Meletis and Omen of the Sea to smooth out your land drops and sustain yourself as you build up for the big guns like Dream Trawler and Archon of Sun's Grace and start looking for ways to end the game.
As a way to supplement this strategy, you’ve got access to solid removal in Elspeth Conquers Death and ways to protect yourself and your stuff with counterspells like Saw It Coming and Neutralize. If push comes to shove you can always slam a board wipe like Doomskar or Shatter the Sky to clear things up and slow your opponent down. Rounding everything out you have Thirst for Meaning and Behold the Multiverse to make sure your hand never runs dry.
Doomskar | Illustration by Piotr Dura
The sideboard here is pretty solid with extra copies of Archon of Sun's Grace, Skyclave Apparition, Glass Casket, and Banishing Light. These can be brought in as you see fit depending on your matchup.
Seeing a lot of tiny gremlins on your opponent’s board? Go ahead and side in another Glass Casket, probably taking out Elspeth Conquers Death since it’s going to have less targets.
If you’re running into a lot of other troublesome permanents that aren’t necessarily creatures, then you’re probably going to drop your Glass Caskets to add in more Banishing Lights and hit those pesky nonland permanents.
You also have Mystical Dispute for your mirror matches against other control decks or blue decks in general, as well as Essence Scatter for creature-heavy opponents.
How’s It Stack Up?
Confounding Conundrum | Illustration by Bryan Sola
I’m gonna be honest with you, chief. This deck isn’t peak control. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty solid. But other control lists run more. More what? Just more. More answers, more win cons, more colors. This deck wouldn’t be the same if we tried to make it more like what’s out there now. That said, it has more potential to hold its own against optimized decks than some of the other Challenger Decks. It’s a control list and counterspells are universally powerful since they can shut down bad things before they happen, making your answers more situational than necessary at times.
In addition to that, the underlying strategies here are pretty strong. Archon of Sun's Grace makes a token whenever you cast an enchantment. Dream Trawler can protect itself by discarding and gets strong when you draw cards. This deck has a lot of enchantments and card draw, meaning there’s a good chance these cards benefit from something whenever they’re on the field.
In addition to these boons, the sideboard is consistent and its only dead card is Confounding Conundrum. You’ll often be able to pick out the answers you need to include in your deck to deal with your opponent.
So, my final answer is that it’s solid, it can put in some work, and you can have some good fun playing it. It ain’t the best control list out there, but it’s worthy of a thumbs up and an approving nod.
But How Do You Make It Better?
Yorion, Sky Nomad | Illustration by Steven Belledin
All right, all right. You got me. I can’t move on without telling you this much. If you want to improve it, start by chopping Confounding Conundrum out of the sideboard. That was useful when Zendikar Rising released, not now. Instead, you want more Elspeth Conquerors Deaths in the sideboard in addition to one more in the main board.
You want to run Yorion, Sky Nomad in the companion slot, pump up how many cards of it you’ve got in the deck, and run two or three copies of it in the main board. From here, crank up the number of removal enchantments, then you want card draw and more copies of board wipes to fill things out. Yorion is going to do a phenomenal job of flickering cards like Omen of the Sea and Elspeth Conquers Death to generate free value off of their entry.
In addition, you might consider adding a copy or two of Kiora Bests the Sea God, as it can close out games and shut down large amounts of creatures. I could go on and on about different changes you could make, and I could talk in circles for days. Instead, I’m just going to move on to the next list.
- 60-card battle-ready MTG deck + 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens, 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Deny your opponent's spells. Finish the fight with fliers.
- Competitive and playable right out of the box
Dimir Rogues
Thieves' Guild Enforcer | Illustration by Evyn Fong
I hear you, there’s a chance you don’t like hearing the term “rogues” and I understand. Just know that this was not my choice.
Creature (24)
Blackbloom Rogue x2
Rankle, Master of Pranks
Thieves' Guild Enforcer x4
Vantress Gargoyle x3
Nighthawk Scavenger x3
Zareth San, the Trickster x3
Merfolk Windrobber x4
Soaring Thought-Thief x4
Instant (9)
Malakir Rebirth
Drown in the Loch x4
Eliminate x2
Heartless Act x2
Sorcery (2)
Land (25)
Temple of Deceit x4
Island x8
Swamp x9
Dismal Backwater x4
Sideboard (15)
Bloodchief's Thirst
Negate x2
Into the Story x2
Pestilent Haze x2
Agonizing Remorse x2
Cling to Dust x3
Duress x3
To The Grave
Saw It Coming | Illustration by Randy Vargas
Rogues win one of two ways: smashing face with a wide board or putting your opponent’s deck into the graveyard. It’s not very far from its metagame counterpart and honestly, it’s got all the important pieces here.
Thieves' Guild Enforcer synergizes with almost every single creature in the deck. Whenever a rogue enters the battlefield, it mills your opponent by two cards. When eight or more cards are in your opponent’s graveyard, it gains +2/+1 and deathtouch, becoming a solid attacker or blocker.
Speaking of attackers, you’re going to want to have Soaring Thought-Thief on the field when you attack with one or more rogues, as this triggers Thought-Thief to mill your opponent for another two cards. You can also use Zareth San, the Trickster to swap with an unblocked attacking rogue, and if Zareth deals combat damage to your opponent, you can steal a card from their graveyard. The options should be limitless considering how much you’ve probably milled them by now.
Other heavy hitters include Rankle, Master of Pranks and Nighthawk Scavenger. Nighthawk is strong after a few turns of milling and Rankle comes with powerful effects.
Nighthawk Scavenger | Illustration by Heonhwa Choe
Don’t forget that you’re in the right colors for a mashup of counterspells and removal like Drown in the Loch, which will always be on and ready to go after a turn or two of milling your opponent. There’s also Eliminate and Heartless Act to pick off those pesky threats on the other side of the field.
Once more there’s a solid sideboard here, with the ability to shift this deck from an aggro mill to a discard mill deck. You’ve got options like Duress and Agonizing Remorse. There’s also other removal, card draw, and counterspell options that will more than likely be used.
Short And Sweet, Right?
Heartless Act | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast
This was a much more straightforward rundown than the previous list. With this deck you want to play on your opponent’s turn as much as humanly possible. Enough of your creatures have flash and you run very few sorcery-speed removal cards, so acting on your opponent’s turn gives you room to play your slower spells on your own turn and amplify the plays you made on theirs.
The overall nature of this deck and what it can do is super solid. It has threats and answers in equal parts and can play as slow or fast as it likes or needs to. Your biggest weakness here is card draw, since you have very little of it. I’ll say this though: it’s probably the best of the four decks this year. It’s also super easy to upgrade, as your main pillars are Thieves' Guild Enforcer, Soaring Thought-Thief, and Drown in the Loch.
Speaking of upgrades, let’s go over that.
Upgrades, People, Upgrades!
Ruin Crab | Illustration by Simon Dominic
Without messing around, we’re immediately chopping out Blackbloom Rogue and Vantress Gargoyle and replacing them with four copies of Ruin Crab and Into the Story. The Crab is extra mill when you play a land as well as a decent blocker and a removal magnet to clear the way for your other creatures, while the Story is good card draw that becomes affordable and efficient after just a few turns of milling. Finally, cut two copies of Zareth and add more Heartless Acts.
All of that instantly makes the deck more consistent, but it can go farther if you aren’t bound by your budget. Fixing your mana base with Fabled Passage makes your Crabs better and more annoying, and you can add Zagoth Triome to give yourself the option to cycle cards later in an emergency. You also have the option to chop out Zareth and Rankle, as well as Nighthawk Scavenger to put Lurrus of the Dream-Den in the companion slot and act as recursion for dead creatures. These upgrades can send this deck to Mythic rank if you pilot it right. It’s definitely not a pushover after updating the list to just be a metagame deck, and it holds a solid spot in the top decks of the meta.
- 60-card battle-ready MTG deck + 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens, 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Get an edge by milling your foes. Finish the job with sneaky legends.
- Competitive and playable right out of the box
Mono Red Aggro
Anax, Hardened in the Forge | Illustration by Eric Deschamps
Mono red aggro is a staple in most Standard metagames. It’s always going to be around as a straightforward path to victory. And honestly, it’s pretty wild in the Challenger Decks too.
Creature (27)
Fervent Champion x4
Kargan Intimidator x4
Bonecrusher Giant x4
Torbran, Thane of Red Fell x3
Akoum Hellhound x4
Rimrock Knight x4
Anax, Hardened in the Forge x4
Instant (8)
Spikefield Hazard x4
Shock x4
Sorcery (6)
Shatterskull Smashing x2
Roil Eruption x4
Artifact (1)
Land (18)
Castle Embereth x2
Mountain x16
Sideboard (15)
Relic Robber x2
Roiling Vortex x2
Soul-Guide Lantern x2
Redcap Melee x4
Thundering Rebuke x3
Soul Sear x2
Ah, That’s Hot
Bonecrusher Giant | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez
This deck plays into its roots of being a fast and aggressive deck that wants to outpace everything. It’s loaded with already phenomenal cards, and its upgrade isn’t difficult at all.
Fervent Champion, Bonecrusher Giant, Anax, Hardened in the Forge, and Rimrock Knight are your core pillars in the deck. Torbran, Thane of Red Fell along with Embercleave are your all-stars.
You’re going to want to play out your Champions and Kargan Intimidators as fast as possible to build a board while using Shock, Bonecrusher Giant, Shatterskull Smashing, and Spikefield Hazard to deal with pesky blockers before they get to deal with you. Once your board is built, throw down your Torbran to add massive output to your damage and keep pushing ahead with your now ultra-powerful creatures. You’re also looking to flash in Embercleave to turn one of your monsters into a killing machine that hits for big numbers with double strike and trample.
Your sideboard consists of cards that you can swap out for some of your creatures for even more removal. Keep in mind though that Redcap Melee is going to be best used in matches against other decks playing red creatures.
How Hot is Hot?
Torbran, Thane of Red Fell | Illustration by Grzegorz Rutkowski
This deck is pretty hot. But it’s weak to hand hate and removal. It’s a one trick pony and it can fall short in a lot of scenarios because of that. Then again, that’s always been the game for mono red aggro: go fast or go home.
If you find yourself up against pesky control foes, you’ll have to be careful not to overcommit to the board and save all of the powerful cards in your hand until they’re safe to cast, if at all possible. Same goes for a mirror match. You’re going to want to make sure that your opponent uses more resources than you so that you can out-speed them after they’ve exhausted themselves.
But We Can Go Faster, Right?
Robber of the Rich | Illustration by Paul Scott Canavan
We can absolutely go faster. We can also become more consistent. You can easily remove Roil Eruption and Spikefield Hazard and replace them with more copies of Castle Embereth to swing bigger and more copies of Embercleave. Also go ahead and add two more basic Mountains to round things out and make sure we hit our land drops properly.
If you have the desire to go farther, ditch Akoum Hellhound for four copies of Robber of the Rich. This will allow you to swipe some cards from your opponents if you’re lucky, but mostly you’re looking at having a two mana 2/2 with haste to apply more pressure.
If you want to cool down a bit, you could make all of your lands snow lands and replace Shock with Frost Bite. You can even swap out some basic Mountains and two Castles for four copies of Faceless Haven.
Removing Kargan Intimidator for equal copies of Fireblade Charger grants revenge damage that synergizes well with Embercleave and Rimrock Knight. Plus, they’re alternative 1-drops that you can place if you don’t draw into your Champions.
Finally, if you’re looking to spice up the sideboard, go ahead and cut the Soul-Guide Lanterns for Ox of Agonas. After that, it’s going to depend on the matchups you find yourself against most often, as the current sideboard should do a pretty solid job.
- 60-card battle-ready MTG deck + 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens, 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Burn everything that moves. Overwhelm with an army.
- Competitive and playable right out of the box
Mono Green Stompy
Garruk, Unleashed | Illustration by Lie Setiawan
The word “stompy” should explain it all. We’re about to get big and strong!
Planeswalker (1)
Creature (29)
Kazandu Mammoth x3
Stonecoil Serpent x2
Swarm Shambler x3
Scavenging Ooze x2
Wildborn Preserver x2
Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig x2
Lovestruck Beast x4
Gemrazer x2
Wildwood Tracker x4
Syr Faren, the Hengehammer x2
Thrashing Brontodon x3
Instant (6)
Ram Through x4
Snakeskin Veil x2
Sorcery (5)
Turntimber Symbiosis x2
Primal Might x3
Land (19)
Forest x19
Sideboard (15)
Thrashing Brontodon
Snakeskin Veil x2
Khalni Ambush x2
Chainweb Aracnir x3
Return to Nature x2
Oakhame Adversary x3
Run Afoul x2
Absolutely Wild
Scavenging Ooze | Illustration by Dan Scott
I was never too fond of the big green strategy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect its power and viability. Sometimes all you have to do to win is get big and smash face. Mono green was pretty dominant in the Standard meta for a while. While it’s begun to take a bit of a back seat now, that doesn’t make it any less powerful.
Every creature tends to be an all-star in this Challenger list, and they all contribute to the big picture. Scavenging Ooze gets big and gains life as it removes things like Ox of Agonas or Woe Strider out of opponent’s graveyards or keep your graveyard thin so that rogues can’t profit as easily.
Gemrazer and Thrashing Brontodon are solid artifact and enchantment removal on a body that can deal damage and block, making them solid pieces to hit on turn 3. Stonecoil Serpent, Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig, and Lovestruck Beast are three big and efficient creatures that want to see combat action while Syr Faren and Wildwood Tracker support with buffs.
Primal Might | Illustration by Randy Vargas
Wildborn Preserver benefits every time a new non-human enters the battlefield under your control. Once you’ve got big creatures on the field, you’re looking to cast cards like Primal Might and Ram Through to act as pseudo-removal against opposing creatures before sending your army of monsters to demolish your foe.
If you aren’t sure they’ll stay alive, you can hold up Snakeskin Veil to protect them from targeted removal. If you’re having trouble getting a creature to cast, go ahead and play your Turntimber Symbiosis to pick exactly what you need off the top portion of your library.
Touching on the sideboard, it’s pretty good. It’s got extra copies of cards you might want to see more often in a certain matchup plus some situational removal you can run for fliers or artifacts and enchantments. Notable cards are Chainweb Aracnir as a way to block more evasive creatures and Oakhame Adversary to help draw some cards.
Buff and Tough, but Falls a Tad Short
This is a solid list, and it can snowball into a powerful board fast. That said, it’s susceptible to removal and a lack of draw. It can be hard to come back once it’s out of gas. Mono green relies on either having one unstoppable super-creature or cultivating a large ecosystem of heavyweights. It falls a little short regardless of its standalone power against some of the other lists this year.
Let’s Make it Taller!
Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider | Illustration by Daarken
If you’ve got the budget and time, there’s no shame in making this a stronger force to be reckoned with. Let’s start by ripping out every copy of Syr Faren, Thrashing Brontodon, Wildborn Preserver, and Wildwood Tracker. You’ll also be taking out your copies of Ram Through and Turntimber Symbiosis.
Now add in three copies of Questing Beast and three copies of The Great Henge. Then you’re going to want to drop a couple Vorinclex, Monstrous Raiders into the list as well as four copies of Tangled Florehedron and start rounding out your creatures with more copies of each, focusing on Gemrazer and Kazandu Mammoth.
Finally, if you want, you can change out your basic lands for snow basics while also replacing some of them with three Castle Garenbrigs and four Faceless Havens. While the original deck runs 19 lands, you’re looking for about 22 lands total with those new additions so that you’re able to cast your bigger creatures more consistently.
These changes give the deck more consistency across the board with more threatening creatures. Vorinclex also does you the favor of shutting down any sagas or planeswalkers that your opponent plays. It also makes anything you do with counters just that much better. Faceless Haven becomes a threat that can hide in your lands until it’s needed, and every creature that you added to the deck is danger on a stick.
- 60-card battle-ready MTG deck + 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens, 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Play big creatures. Smash face and win.
- Competitive and playable right out of the box
All Together Now, Who Wins?
Zareth San, the Trickster | Illustration by Zack Stella
If I had to give it to one deck alone, it’s Dimir Rogues. It’s already an extremely powerful archetype that became infamous in the Standard meta, and it’s pretty versatile in its build. It plays aggressive creatures, a good removal suite, and counterspells. Not to mention mill as a strategy denies your opponents some copies of the cards they need to win the game.
It’s one of the easiest decks to upgrade in my opinion, though you could argue that Mono Red Aggro is just as easy to update. I’m still in the camp that Rogues wins that matchup because it has access to removal and counterspells, which can snuff out Aggro’s game plan pretty easily since they’re based almost exclusively on getting creatures on the board.
I’d say that puts Mono Red at a close second to Rogues overall because of its speed and aggressive nature that outpaces the remaining two decks. Azorius Control just barely beats out Mono Green Stompy by virtue of having removal and counterspells while Mono Green’s removal is heavily based on creatures, which makes some of its cards dead in hand in some cases.
Keep in mind that each of these decks have cards in them that rotate out later with the 2021 Standard rotation, which is how Wizards tend to print these Challenger Decks. Regardless, you’ve still got some time before that hits, and these lists aren’t bad by any means. They aren’t optimized, but they can hold their own in some situations and they’re great for new players or anybody looking to get into more competitive deck building.
Where to Purchase
If you’re looking to pick any of these up, I can recommend several sites. But first, I’ll start with my obligatory Local Game Store plug, because if you’re going to buy from anywhere I always recommend buying from the place that was established to provide these products.
If you can’t make it to a local store for any reason, there’s always online sites like TCGPlayer and CardKingdom. If those don’t work for you, you can pretty easily find Magic products on eBay or Amazon:
Wrapping It All Up
Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig | Illustration by Zack Stella
To bring everything together here at the end, these decks are pretty solid. While I could talk about the discrepancies in power between them, they’re realistically pretty close to each other. You can choose a style that fits you best and start playing the minute you purchase one.
I don’t usually tell people how to spend their money (or wildcards), but these lists have solid value in them and put you on the path to some of the leading strategies in the current meta. If you’re looking to play competitively and don’t know where to look, these are great places to start with some great cards.
The meta in Magic may change frequently, but the staying power of these decks is nothing to laugh at. They’re definitely stronger than ye old starter decks and should stick around in the meta roughly until rotation. You can always update them the way we discussed or as you please otherwise, as well.
As always, thank you for taking the time to join us today! If you’re looking for more content from us, just check out our blog. If you want to help us out so we can continue to produce more content, hop over to our Patreon.
Stay safe everyone, and I hope to see you again next time!
Bonus tip: Strangely, if you buy two copies of each deck, it looks like you can get a discount. So if you want to get more copies of each rare/mythic, this might be the way to go:
- Package Dimensions: 9.449" (L) x 6.811" (W) x 4.764" (H)
- Product Type: Collectible Card
- Package Quantity: 1
- Country Of Origin: United States
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1 Comment
Actually for that build of rogues you don’t want to play ruin crab surprisingly, because the deck is less grindy and want’s to be more focuesd on aggresive creatures, although off course you always wan’t the 4 mana draw 4 we call into the story crab is not needed to pull off the mill. Although blackbloom rogue wants a cut unless you add adageems it is something actually good in the deck, because again your not trying to make it into a strictly worse then lurrus version, but instead a different deck. Embrace the difference and build the more aggressive less grindy rogues variant. If you keep that in mind you might actually not want all the into the story main deck. If you can tell wizards intentionally chose this variant because it is quite less annoying to play against. Zareth is very good and definitely does not want a cut. And actually there is not much you’d want to replace except for some better sideboard cards to beat the meta.
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