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In Magic: The Gathering the game does not have starter decks in the traditional sense like many other trading card games do. Instead, Magic does what they call Challenger Decks. These are pre-constructed decks that are built for the Standard or Pioneer formats.
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These are meant to be decks that are playable straight out of the box for tournament play. They are all based on the top decks of the formats, though slightly weaker to allow for upgrades over time to make them into their full-power counterparts. These are the 11 best Challenger Decks that you can pick up to start playing with straight out of the box.
11. Dimir Control
Dimir Control is a deck built around resource denial while dealing damage to your opponent through big-power creatures and threats. A quarter of the deck is made up of instants, with plenty of counterspells like Saw It Coming and Jwari Disruption to keep powerful spells from resolving.
The removal suite is solid as well. Power Word Kill can destroy most of the popular creatures, Parasitic Grasp can gain you life and deal three damage to a creature, and Infernal Grasp is one of the best removal spells in Magic.
Dimir Control’s creatures are all great as well. Graveyard Trespasser can act as graveyard hate while being annoying to deal with since it has ward that requires your opponent to discard a card to remove it. Hullbrekare Horror is also fantastic as it turns all your spells into bounce spells to keep your opponent from sticking anything to the battlefield.
10. Pioneer Dimir Control
Although Azorius Control is the primary top control deck of Pioneer, Dimir Control is solid in the format as well. It has a ton of solid removal spells included in the decklist, including Fatal Push which is one of the best removal spells in the entire format. Pioneer Dimir Control has plenty of interaction to keep your opponent’s creatures from staying on the battlefield for long if you even let them get there in the first place.
Shark Typhoon is one of the main win conditions, creating an army of flying Sharks to get in for damage if you choose to cast it. Torrential Gearhulk is a great creature for recycling instants from your graveyard to get use out of them more than once while being a solid body to get in for damage.
9. Orzhov Auras
Orzhov Auras is a deck built around Auras and loading up creatures with them to give them massive stats to win the game in the first few turns. The decklist features four of Sram, Senior Edificer which is the cornerstone of the strategy as it draws you a card whenever you cast an Aura to make sure your hand never runs out of spells to play. Selfless Savior is also included to give the creature with Auras on it protection.
Upgrade Orzhov Auras
Orzhov Auras originally came out in 2021, so it is missing cards that came out past that. Notably, Skrelv, Defector Mite isn’t in the decklist since that came out in 2023’s Phyrexia: All Will Be One. If you want to buy Orzhov Auras, it is recommended to pick up four copies of Skrelv, Defector Mite with it. It is one of the best support cards for Auras as it can tap itself for one white mana or two life to give a creature hexproof from a colour and make creatures of that colour unable to block it. This not only gives protection but gives the creature with a ton of Auras on it the ability to swing it without having to worry about it being blocked to close out games.
The main gameplan of Orzhov Auras is to choose a creature and put as many Auras as possible onto them. It is a bit of a fragile strategy, but if the creature sticks around it can quickly become impossible to deal with and start forcing creature trades until you deal enough damage to win in just one turn.
8. Orzhov Humans
Although Mono White is what Humans usually are in Pioneer, Orzhov Humans opens up the ability to play cards like Kitesail Freebooter for hand disruption and Dire Tactics as removal, two cards that are included in the Orzhov Humans decklist. Thalia, Guardian Of Thraben is also a good counter to decks playing a lot of interaction as it induced a tax on all the spells being cast.
The strategy for Orzhov Humans is to flood the battlefield with cheap Human creatures to thin swing in for damage. No creature in the deck costs over two mana to play, so you will almost always have mana to cast your spells. The manabase is solid as well, having plenty of dual lands to ensure you always have access to your two colours.
7. Mono-Red Burn
Mono-Red Burn is a staple of about every format, being one of the most common budget and aggro options in every format, and Pioneer is no exception. The deck is built around dealing bursts of burn damage in while dealing damage with cheap creatures to close out games.
It has a plethora of burn spells that deal two or three damage, which is the height that most burn spells can do that are easy to cast. Monastery Swiftspear is the main cornerstone of the strategy as its haste and prowess can give it big burst damage. Soul-Scar Mage is great for helping with removal as it turns damage into -1/-1 counters instead to lower their stats so you don’t have to worry about them or bring them in range of destruction from another burn spell if they have an effect that hampers you.
6. Pioneer Gruul Stompy
Stompy is an archetype that is about bringing out powerful creatures as quickly as possible. Unlike other aggro decks, Stompy is focused heavily on creatures rather than burn spells. It has eight copies of one-drop creatures that tap for green mana which is used to ramp into your powerful creatures.
Your main win conditions are Glorybringer and Questing Beast. Glorybringer can deal four damage to problem creatures to act as removal at the cost of exerting itself while Questing Beast has so many abilities it’s not uncommon to forget about half of them. Pioneer Gruul Stompy has a few removal spells as well that deal a lot of damage to keep the battlefield clear of creatures so you don’t have to worry about anything getting blocked.
5. Cavalcade Charge
Cavalcade Charge has a ton of creatures with just one power and cards that create 1/1s like Chandra, Acolyte Of Flame. The reason for this is that the deck is built around the enchantment Cavalcade Of Calamity which makes every creature with one or less power deal one damage to the player it is attacking.
Cavalcade of Calamity’s effect triggers on attack, so stat-boosting spells like the Adventure side of Rimrock Knight after the trigger can deal big burst damage. The deck also includes a playset of Torbran, Thane Of Red Fell, which makes all red sources deal two excess damage to an opponent or permanent they control for massive damage.
4. Dimir Rogues
Dimir Rogues was the deck to beat during its time in Standard, and when it moved down to Pioneer the deck was still solid, making Dimir Rogues a solid Challenger Deck to pick up. Dimir Rogues is a tempo deck, playing cheap creatures and controlling the board with counterspells and removal.
The creatures of Dimir Rogues are rather evasive or tricky to block. Soaring Thought-Thief gives a stat boost to your Rogues so long as there are eight cards in an opponent’s graveyard, and Thieves’ Guild Enforcer gets a stat boost and deathtouch if the same threshold is reached.
The payoffs for the milling are Nighthawk Scavenger which gains big stat boosts for every card type in your opponent’s graveyards and Zareth San, The Trickster which can put any permanent from your opponent’s graveyard when it deals combat damage. Since Zareth can cheat itself out onto the battlefield for four mana by swapping it out for an unblocked creature, this becomes trivial to accomplish, especially with your flying creatures.
3. Azorius Spirits
Azorius Spirits is the best tempo deck in Pioneer, and one of the best Challenger Decks you can buy. It has a lot of primary cards you need such as Supreme Phantom which gives +1/+1 to all your other Spirits and Rattlechains which gives temporary protection and lets you cast all your Spirits as if they had flash.
Azorius Spirits casts cheap creatures and then holds up mana for powerful counterspells like Lofty Denial to prevent your opponent from playing spells that hurt your board state. If your opponent doesn’t cast anything, then you can flash in Spirits at the end step when you don’t need mana for counterspells anymore.
2. Izzet Phoenix
Izzet Phoenix has spent a long time at the top of the Pioneer metagame and remains one of the top decks. The deck is built around casting a ton of cheap instant and sorcery spells to trigger the effects of Thing In The Ice and the namesake card Arclight Phoenix.
You want to get Arclight Phoenix into the graveyard to then get it onto the battlefield for free by casting three or more instant and sorcery spells in a turn. Luckily, there are a ton of strong options like Consider and Opt to draw cards and Treasure Cruise that can be cast with delve to draw three cards to get you closer to where you want to be.
Izzet Phoenix has plenty of ways to get Archlight Phoenix into the graveyard as well. Chart A Course draws you two cards and discard a card, Izzet Charm draws two cards then discards two cards (and can be used as removal or a counterspell), and Lightning Axe requires a discard to deal five damage to a creature.
1. Lotus Field Combo
The best Challenger Deck comes in the form of Lotus Field Combo. It is one of the top decks in Pioneer and has just about every card you need for the strategy. The deck is built around the land Lotus Field, which can tap to add three mana of any color at the cost of sacrificing two lands when it enters the battlefield. The land has hexproof, so once it hits the battlefield it’s almost impossible to get rid of it. It also has Thespian’s Stage in the decklist which can become a copy of Lotus Field for just two mana without any of its downsides.
The main goal of the deck is to keep untapping Lotus Field with cards like Hidden Strings and Vizier Of Tumbling Sands to make a ton of mana to keep casting your spells. Pore Over The Pages is the most important piece of the deck as it draws three cards and untapped two lands which can untap Lotus Fields to go mana-positive if you’re untapping two copies of it.
The combo ends by using a card like Fae Of Wishes or Mastermind’s Acquisition to bring a card from your sideboard into your hand to use. The primary way to win this way is with Approach Of The Second Sun as you can keep drawing cards and creating enough mana to cast it, draw it again, and cast it the second time to win the game through that method.
Those are the best Challenger Decks available in Magic. They came out every year, though skipped out on a release in 2023 with no word on why, though lackluster sales may have played a factor in that. However, the Challenger Decks that have been released are fantastic starting points for those who want to get into constructed formats, especially Pioneer as many are very close to the actual meta builds of these decks. They are all solid decklists and can hold their own in a local tournament setting. All of them can benefit from a few upgrades as well to turn them into their full-power versions.
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MTG Best Challenger Decks – FAQ
What are the best Challenger Decks for Magic: The Gathering?
There are many strong challenger decks but some of the best are Pioneer.
What are challenger decks in Magic: The Gathering?
Challenger decks are pre-constructed starter decks that you can purchase to start your Magic journey with.
