Will it Climb? A Look at GB Fighting in Standard

One of the many appeals of Magic: The Gathering Arena is the concept of climbing the ranked ladder. Players love to see their rank increase, but sometimes the grind can be an absolute slog. To climb, players often times have to play hundreds of games to reach their goal. Whether it be to hit Mythic or just to reach Gold, people want to get their in a reasonable amount of time.

That’s where our new series comes in. Welcome to “Will it Climb?” – a new weekly article aimed at helping players find a deck that will climb through the MTGA ranked ladder. These decks will often times be in the scope of best-of-one matches, so there won’t typically be a sideboard mentioned here.

The inaugural deck list will be an off-meta list that has been around for a bit, just not in Standard. Green-Black Fighting is a list that has made some noise in Explorer as it possesses pretty explosive turn 4 plays. In this list, we are going to try and see if we can recreate that success in Standard with GB Fighting.

Deck List

What’s the Gameplan?

The goal of this list is to cheat out expensive cards with a combination of Fight Rigging and high-power cards like Shakedown Heavy and Archfiend of the Dross. On turn four, if the pieces all fall in place, you could have a 7/5 Shakedown Heavy and a Titan of Industry, or an Archfiend of the Dross and a Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting staring down your opponent.

There is also a fighting sub-theme in this list with the combination of Bushwhack and Phyrexian Obliterator. Admittedly this list should also feature something like Tail Swipe to give more fight effects because both Bilious Skulldweller and Phyrexian Obliterator are premier fighters. These fight cards help keep the board clean from other big threats like Sheoldred or Atraxa.

There are some normal removal spells as well in here just in case we don’t have any creatures on the board. Anoint with Affliction and Go for the Throat are key cheap removal spells that are pivotal for slowing the game down while you set up Fight Rigging. Liliana of the Veil is just always good as well, so we throw it in there too.

The land base wants to focus around always having some sort of black mana available. Because multiple cards have double black in their mana cost, we need to always have at least two black sources at the ready. The only land not able to produce black mana is Boseiju, which we add because of the various enchantments and artifacts running rampant in Standard.

Does it Work?

This is a tricky question to answer. In the several games in testing this list, the conclusion is a very underwhelming “yes and no”. When this deck is allowed to curve out in time, it feels very powerful. Turn onw Bilious Skulldweller, into some amount of removal on turn two, into Fight Rigging on turn three, finishing up with Archfiend plus a free card is very satisfying. The deck feels at it’s strongest when that free card is Vraska, that allows you to draw more cards and keep Archfiend far from causing you to lose the game.

The problem with this list is it’s very, very slow. The main difference between this list and it’s Explorer counterpart is the lack of Elvish Mystic. Not being able to ramp into Fight Rigging or Shakedown Heavy on turn three feels pretty darn bad. Because we need to wait another turn, this gives our opponent the window to do really anything that would disrupt the game plan.

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The list overall struggles mightily against faster aggro decks and grindy midrange decks. List that can produce multiple threats on turns two and three make it very hard to climb back into a winning position. Mono Red in particular is a menace on this deck, and at the moment the entire Standard meta. Because this deck relies on a two card combo, one of which being a creature, means the combo is very much thwarted by a timely kill spell. Even then if the card under Fight Rigging is a creature, it’s easily dispatched by Go for the Throat or Invoke Despair.

The deck is at it’s best when Phyrexian Obliterator is on the board. Maybe that’s more of a praise of PO rather than the deck itself, but it doesn’t change the fact that once this creature hits the board, the deck gains a moment to catch its breath. It takes one fight spell to put the opponent far back enough that they usually concede.

Is it Worth Fixing?

Verdict: Probably

There’s a world where this deck can be adjusted to make those aggro matches a bit easier. Deck builders will need to be careful however, as the balance between “slowing down aggro opponents” and “keeping in big threats” is tricky one to get right. There could be an argument to be made to remove Vraska in favor of something that brings more of an immediate impact rather than “just a good card”, but finding that card is tough. Phyrexian Fleshgorger could be the missing link here, as it can come down on turn three or be cheated out for full power. Lifelink would go a long way with making those aggro matchups much easier.

Most Importantly: Will it Climb?

Verdict: Yes, but in low tiers.

GB Fighting is a deck that will perform well in lower ranks where the meta isn’t as tightly defined. You’ll be able to climb relatively steadily as you push through Silver and Gold, but this isn’t a deck that finds itself on winning streaks too often. The benefit of earning two ticks per win in lower ranks helps this deck successfully climb. Outside of that, it’s a bit more 50/50 .This deck is fun to play, but is something that should be shelved once your reach Platinum and higher.

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