Timeless is the best Magic: The Gathering format right now.

I could not have imagined myself saying this a month ago, when the format was announced. I dismissed it outright when I heard there would be digital-only cards in it. I wondered what the purpose of creating a new format that is essentially just No-Ban List Historic was. I was angry at WOTC for doing this instead of coding Hidden Strings onto the client. But here we are. More than 200 games, 56 hours, $80, 28 rare and 19 mythic wildcards and 37 brews into the format and I am here writing that Timeless is the best way to play Magic right now.

There are a few reasons I am convinced of this:

1. It’s wide open, and brewers will feel at home here.
2. Players who don’t like the idea of digital-only cards absolutely do not need to play them to be competitive, and players who do like them can.
3. You get to play Brainstorm on Arena.
4. You get to play Lightning Bolt on Arena.
5. You get to play Counterspell on Arena.
6. You get to play Oko, Thief of Crowns somewhere.

Those last four are all the same point, of course, but it bears repeating because this is truly the reason Timeless feels so good. 

Nostalgia and Powerful Cards

As a newer Magic player, my first time ever casting Brainstorm, Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, Swords to Plowshares, Dark Ritual, Primeval Titan and Necropotence were all while playing Timeless. Again, as a newer player and someone who doesn’t play older formats, I sometimes felt like I was missing out on all this stuff when Magic players around me talk about them. Now, I have probably cast more Dark Rituals than some people who have been playing paper Magic for 20 years.

For players who have been playing longer than I have, some of these cards hold a deep-rooted nostalgic itch that no “close-enough” reprint will ever scratch, and many of these cards have been banned in older formats.

Economy

I don’t want to drum up any Arena vs. paper Magic economy vitriol (and it does feel insanely bad that Lightning Bolt costs a rare wildcard), but there is a near-zero chance that I was ever going to be able to own a Legacy or even a Modern deck, and I despise MTGO. While Timeless is neither Legacy nor Modern, I am able to have a wide plethora of Timeless decks at my disposal that are each a few cards off of $1,300 tiered Modern decks for about $80 plus  an immeasurable amount of time building my collection on Arena, which I built by playing the game I wanted to play anyway.

The Meta

So how is the meta? I think it’s the healthiest meta across all of the formats I play – which is almost unbelievable to imagine about a format with no ban list – but it’s true.

There are five decks solidly in what I would consider a Tier 1 category: Rakdos Lurrus, Titan Field, Domain Zoo, Jund Midrange, and Mono-Black Devotion.

Five decks in the top tier is a lot, and every macroarchetype is represented there except control (aggro, midrange, ramp and combo), but more on that later.

Close behind that tier is Izzet Phoenix, the 4/5 Uro decks, Death’s Shadow, Dimir Control, Red/Rakdos Burn and Sultai Midrange.

While climbing the ladder, you will mostly run into one of the decks above, but every few matches you will surely face a rather viable off-meta deck or a brew. 

The Dark Ritual Problem 

Dark Ritual is an issue. Of all the wild things you can do in this format, Dark Ritual is the only thing that feels like it needs to go, simply because there is nothing you can do on the draw to prevent a Dark Ritual into a three-drop like Necropotence, Liliana of the Veil or Chalice of the Void on X=1. A Sheoldred, The Apocalypse, Karn, The Great Creator or The One Ring on turn two feels just as bad, and is almost equally impossible to counter or come back from. 

There are two decks in the top of the meta succeeding off the back of Dark Ritual: Rakdos Breach Storm and Mono-Black Devotion. While Rakdos Storm would disintegrate if Dark Ritual were restricted, Mono-Black Devotion would likely just drop a couple of tiers. 

The other option, of course, is printing zero-mana countermagic into the format, which would have its own implications and problems (the combo decks capable of supporting blue would become far too powerful).

The Titan Problem

Primeval Titan/Natural Order/Field of the Dead will always elicit a groan from me, but I’m not sure there is a problem here yet.

Whereas there is nothing you can do on the draw against a turn-one Dark Ritual, there is a lot you can do against Titan decks:

1. Win the game before turn four/five
2. Play Ashiok, Nightmare Muse
3. Play Aether Gust
4. Play Alpine/Blood Moon
5. Play Titan but draw better than your opponent

(The last option is not even a joke. While playing Dark Ritual decks against Dark Ritual won’t prevent you from facing down an unstoppable turn-one Necropotence, Titan mirrors are much less dice-roll dependent and much more draw-dependent.)

I wouldn’t be upset if Field of the Dead were restricted, but I also don’t think it should happen.

The Control Problem

Pure Control decks are largely unviable in this format. When Timeless was announced, I would have bet money that Oko/Uro/T3feri/Swords to Plowshares/Counterspell/Memory Lapse/Time Warp would have been the best deck in the format. 

The problem for Control is, though: Timeless has far too many threats and not nearly enough answers. And the threats are super efficient and super powerful.

For a pure control deck to really be viable in this format, it would need 12 cheap removal spells (for Ragavan, Deathrite Shaman, Delighted Halfling and Orcish Bowmasters), at least 12 cheap counterspells for the combo decks and bigger midrange decks and a way to win the game against wildly grindy mindrange matchups that are packing a lot of the same things. 

Azorius Control can’t hit 12 efficient removal spells, and while Dimir can (4 Fatal Push, 4 Drown in the Loch, 3 two-mana removal spells and a sweeper), it has a hard time actually winning the game. 

Bant Control, on the other hand, is the closest to hitting all of those requisites and, not by coincidence, is the best-performing control deck in the format right now. With Oko acting as removal 5-9, Mystic Sanctuary recurring your removal and/or your counterspells and Uro and Oko winning you the game, Bant Control is in a good spot.

Izzet, Esper and Jeskai are largely underexplored, and each theoretically provides the prerequisite components for a good Timeless control deck, so let’s get to brewing!

The Bowmaster Problem

Orcish Bowmasters makes cards like Brainstorm, Ragavan and Treasure Cruise nearly unplayable, which is a wild sentence to type. Getting hit with a Bowmasters on your Brainstorm stack will literally cost you games, though. 

Whether this is a problem or not is to be determined, still, and I have no opinion in either direction.

The Blood Moon Problem

Just kidding Blood Moon rocks.

Deck Pick

I think Domain Zoo is the strongest deck in the format right now. It has game against Titan, Mono-Black, Breach, Dimir Control and most unoptimized brews or slower off-meta decks. It plays Bolt, Ragavan, Minsc and Boo, Oko, Leyline Binding, Veil of Summer, Rest in Peace, Orcish Bowmasters – some of the best cards in the format. As a five-color deck, it can adjust its sideboard quickly in reaction to a meta shift or a known meta. It’s aggressive enough to beat down the slower, uninteractive decks and interactive enough (Stubborn Denial, Tribal Flames, Bolt, Leyline Binding) to deal with some of the other aggressive decks.

I went 19-9 with Domain Zoo last season, and it’s a deck I always come back to when I am looking for wins rather than testing new ideas.

Wrapping Up

If you can shrug off turn-one Dark Rituals and don’t mind the very occasional digital-only card on the other side of your Arena screen, Timeless is the best format you can play right now – I’m sure of it. 

Hopefully, this article has given you a better idea of the meta, the problems and some of their solutions. Our Timeless Tier List is here, and the highest-performing versions of each decklist is one click past that. See you there!