Unlikely Color Pair Beats Down in Pre-Ban Standard

Last updated on October 23, 2025

Koma, Cosmos Serpent | Illustration by Jesper Ejsing

There's not much new at the top of the Standard food chain. For weeks now, roughly half of Magic's Standard metagame has been a 50/50 split of Izzet Vivi Cauldron and mono-red aggro (aka Red Deck Wins), with Dimir midrange in a distant third place… and there are not too many reasons to think things will change until WotC's next Banned and Restricted Announcement shakes things up on November 10th.

That's not to say that there's nothing going on outside of the top three decks, though!

Simic Aggro is on the rise. It's the 4th most popular archetype in the last two weeks.

Source: MTGTop8

… and, in the fringes of the meta, there's an Azorius Aggro deck that's also getting traction. Let's check them out!

Jackal's Simic Aggro On The Rise

Ouroboroid | Illustration by Samuel Perin

Simic Aggro has been a thing in Standard since Edge of Eternities introduced Ouroboroid and Genemorph Imago. Mono-green stompy was already a thing at the tail-end of the Final Fantasy season and right before Standard's rotation; after EOE, Simic Aggro became the deck of choice if you just want to drop creatures and turn them sideways, interaction be damned.

And Simic Aggro got two new toys to play with when Spider-Man hit Magic.

The first is Jackal, Genius Geneticist. That's one of the main innovations seen in the Simic Aggro brew that morris used to claim #1 in the MTGO RC Super Qualifier at the start of this month, beating 197 players and a field chock-full of Vivi Ornitiers:

Source: MTGTop8

morris’ deck has a super-low curve, chock-full of one-drops (including full playsets of Llanowar Elves, Pawpatch Recruits, and Spyglass Sirens) to quickly grow tall and wide, then run over foes with Ouroboroid.

Simic Aggro has been putting up very solid results since then, including Hamuda's version topping the MTGO Challenge 32 two days ago…

Source: MTGTop8

.. and where we find another Spider-Man card, which is low-key becoming the most impactful card from the Universes Beyond set in Standard: Multiversal Passage! 

Multiversal Passage is currently the fifth most popular land in Standard, only topped by Soulstone Sanctuary and Vivi's mana base:

Source: MTGGoldfish

Multiversal Passage is so popular that it makes it into the Top Ten of most expensive regular prints from SPM.

Azorius Aggro

By now, Simic Aggro is a well-known deck, breathing down Dimir Midrange's deck and chasing it to become the 3rd most popular deck in Standard.

But it's hardly the only new aggro brew punching up: Azorius Aggro has also been showing good results, like MJ_23’s build taking down an MTGO Challenge 32 during the weekend:

Source: MTGTop8

Azorius Aggro also likes going wide, then tall: It plays the white one-drops that Boros Aggro loves (Novice Inspector and Warden of the Inner Sky) along EOE's Cosmogrand Zenith, and blends it with several blue creatures and tricks.

What Will Happen After the November Bans?

Vivi Ornitier | Illustration by Toni Infante

Wizards moved the next B&R announcement up to Nov 10, and they explicitly said that “Vivi Ornitier is warping the Standard format and likely needs to go.” Given how prevalent Vivi still is, it seems like a very safe bet that either Vivi Ornitier or Agatha's Soul Cauldron will get smashed by the ban hammer in two weeks.

Past that point, it's pretty much impossible (and I'd say even futile…) to guess how the Standard metagame will look like, because Avatar: The Last Airbender will drop just a couple of weeks after the ban announcement.

But none of the Simic Aggro cards are in danger of getting banned, so if you're looking for a punchy deck that should survive Nov 10th unchanged, it may be the brew for you.