Magic: The Gathering Arena is perhaps the best place to play Standard game after Standard game at the moment. For anyone unfamiliar, Standard is Magic's constructed format for the most recently released cards. There are many benefits to playing Standard online versus in paper, not the least of which is the fact that you don't need to spend hundreds of dollars on Standard cards whose dollar values will likely deflate in mere months.
Another great benefit of playing Standard on Arena is access to the best-of-one queue. This queue is great for beginners since it doesn't require you to deal with the intricacies of managing a sideboard. Additionally, best-of-one play is the fastest way to rank up on the Arena ladder. All this being said, if you enjoy playing aggressive strategies that feature amazing top deck winning moments, it's well past time you queued up for some best-of-one. Let's take a closer look at some decks that will get you started.
10 Orzhov Midrange
For players who are uninterested in aggressive strategies, Orzhov (black/white) Midrange is as close to control as you're going to get for the purposes of quick best-of-one play. It's also the most difficult deck to pilot properly among your best-of-one options. This is due to the importance the deck places on Silverquill Silencer.
Meta savvy players who are able to identify an opponent's decklist by the lands that they play will often be able to put the Silencer's ability to good use. However, if you're like most people and aren't quite capable of making these connections, it's best to stick with another deck.
9 Mono-Black Aggro
This mono-colored deck makes use of cheap removal, high power/toughness creatures with aggressive abilities, and the powerful sorcerery Invoke Despair. Altogether, these cards combine incidental damage from cards like Invoke Despair and combat damage from the deck's creatures to bring the game to a quick close.
Despite being an aggro deck, this build is quite capable of drawing a lot of cards thanks to the inclusion of Shakedown Heavy, Tenacious Underdog, and the aforementioned Invoke Despair. Furthermore, a late game Tainted Adversary is capable of putting forth a board of zombie tokens very capable of an alpha strike (a big combat step that ends the game).
8 Angels
Angels is the best deck to play when you're running into a lot of aggressive decks. This tribal deck leans more towards midrange than aggro and is filled with a ton of incidental lifegain, thanks to cards like Inspiring Overseer, Righteous Valkyrie, and Liesa, Forgotten Archangel.
As a result, it's incredibly difficult for quick decks that rely on dealing 20 damage before opponents can stabilize to beat Angels. On top of that, the high toughness on many of your flyers makes them great blockers. Who would have guessed that Angels would be good at protection?
7 Mono-Red Goblins
For players looking to ball on a budget, Mono-red Goblins is the deck of choice. In total, it requires just seven rare wildcards to build. The rest of the deck is full of uncommons and commons. Goblins looks to build up a sizable board while poking away at the opponent with hasty and first strike creatures.
It's also home to cheap removal in the form of Frost Bite and Roil Eruption, the second of which can steal games from a seemingly unwinnable position on rare occasions. Once you've got a big enough board of goblins, Battle Cry Goblin's activated ability or the Charge them mode on You See a Pair of Goblins provides a game-winning alpha strike.
6 Esper Aggro
This list doesn't feature a single removal spell, instead relying on the sheer power of its creatures, as well as the tempo they provide, to overwhelm the opponent. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Elite Spellbinder, and Obscura Interceptor all prevent your opponent from deploying spells until it's far too late.
Meanwhile, aggressive threats including Luminarch Aspirant, Sungold Sentinel, Raffine, Scheming Seer, and Adeline, Resplendent Cathar put down the hurt. For removal in a pinch, the deck relies on both Brutal Cathar and The Wandering Emperor to get the job done.
5 Naya Runes
Despite many players catching wind of how to beat this deck, it still has some very hard-to-beat lines and requires the opponent to understand the exact right time to deploy their removal. Naya (red/white/green) Runes is a sort of combo deck that uses the abilities on its creatures to make playing the ten Runes in the deck cost either one generic, or be free entirely.
Thanks to the fact that each Rune cantrips (draws a card), it's easy to dig deep into your deck if the combo goes off. Furthermore, Showdown of the Skalds provides a rebuild mechanic in case your first couple of creatures get hit by removal spells.
4 Selesnya Enchantments
Selesnya (white/green) Enchantments is like Naya Runes light. This deck doesn't really feature a combo in the same way as Runes, instead relying on the powerful synergies its cards have with enchantments in order to secure a win that feels a little fairer. It's also home to a number of removal enchantments, unlike Naya Runes which fails to feature a single interactive spell.
The main idea here is to get a number of enchantments on the board beside a creature, then resolve a Michiko's Reign of Truth to make your creature a ridiculously big threat turn after turn. This is another deck that's fairly light on Rares as well, requiring only 16 in total.
3 Naya Humans
Naya Humans plays similar to Esper (white/black/blue) Aggro, except instead of relying on the tempo of Obscura Interceptor and Raffine, Scheming Seer, it takes advantage of the synergistic creatures Sigarda, Champion of Light and Halana and Alena, Partners. This build is almost like a callback to Modern Humans, which was dominant across the Modern format just a couple of years back.
This is another deck that's chock-full of creature cards. It's only got two instants alongside its long list of 34 creatures, 31 of which are Humans. While Naya Humans is a ton of fun to play, it should be noted that this deck requires over 50 rare wildcards to build.
2 Mono-White Aggro
Mono-white aggro has been around in Standard for a very long time now. Some players might be beginning to tire of piloting this deck, but it's hard to argue with the results it puts up. After all this time, it is still one of the best decks in the best-of-one format. The power of its aggressive low-cost creatures including Hopeful Initiate, Luminarch Aspirant, and Sungold Sentinel quickly puts a clock on opponents unless the creatures are removed.
Then, once your opponent is dry of removal, the deck makes use of creatures like Brutal Cathar and Skyclave Apparition to develop its own board while simultaneously clearing the way for attacks. All the while, Elite Spellbinder and Reidane, God of the Worthy prevent your opponent from making use of much-needed wrath (destroy all creatures) effects.
1 Boros Aggro
The most recent evolution of Mono-white aggro, Boros (red/white) Aggro has taken the best-of-one ladder by storm over the past month. It pairs the original mono-white aggro deck's powerful low costed creatures with removal and interaction that can take care of key creatures your opponent lies down or burns away their final life points if needed. Kumano Faces Kakkazan, Play with Fire, and Roil Eruption round out your early game plays alongside Hopeful Initiate and Luminarch Aspirant.
Then, Sunrise Cavalier and Thundering Raiju make for powerful, low-costed finishers that can attack the same turn they come down thanks to haste. If the game happens to go long, the deck also has access to Bloodthirsty Adversary for additional removal or points of burn alongside yet another well-sized hasty creature. Due to the deck's high amount of interaction and hard-hitting curbes, there's no doubt that Boros Aggro is the place to be in best-of-one at the moment.