Naya Midrange Stompy (Arena Bo1) (Standard)

Lately I've been focusing on changing my deck building to suit best of 1. It is an entirely different experience to play without sideboards. You need to have a plan for the increase of pure aggro and token decks that go wide in your main board. You need to have ways to evade removal in your 60. You also need a way to get back into games against burn decks. Finally, you need answers for problem creatures and enchantments that can spiral out of control. This is a lot to ask for in a single deck. And yeah, you also need to be able to still mount an offense of your own while not running out of gas.

I feel this Naya deck list is a very balanced list for checking all the boxes for best of 1.

a) Plan against pure aggro:
1) Life gain- Wildgrowth Walker, Knight of Autumn, Lyra Dawnbringer, Deafening Clarion
2) Sweeper- Deafening Clarion

b) Plan against tokens:
1) Sweeper- Deafening Clarion
2) Destroy the source or anthem effect- spot removal
3) Gain life- make them grind it out into the midgame until you go over the top or can wipe their board.

c) Evasion
1) Rekindling Phoenix- enough said
2) Shalai- hexproof effect for all your creatures. Defense against Settle the Wreckage
3) Gruul Spellbreaker- hexproof on your turn. Defense against Settle the Wreckage
4) Aurelai & Lyra- evades Lava Coil and Cast Down

d) Against burn
1) Life gain- already mentioned there are multiple ways to gain life
2) Shalai- turns off direct damage
3) Gruul Spellbreaker is a minor inconvenience to burn.

e) Problem creatures and enchantments
1) Justice Strike- a fantastic answer to almost all the big creatures in the format and also many of the smaller ones.
2) Vivien Reid- destroys enchantments and flyers (flyers make up the majority of the big problem creatures in the format)
3) Knight of Autumn- enchantment removal with great versatility.

f) Card draw.
1) Vivien Reid- the deck plays 29 creatures. You probably would be dissapointed if you rip a Llanowar Elves, so 25 viable targets.
2) Adventurous Impulse- not flashy in any way, but it is a nice turn 1 play to help you curve out into the mid game. Also, at 1cmc can easily be cast in a mid game turn and then still cast the creature it draws.
3) Explore creatures- draws lands and fixing your top deck is not the same as drawing a card, but it still serves as card advantage in terms of being able to consistently play your cards on curve.

g) Aggressive attacks
1) Llanowar Elves- gets us to the juice a turn early.
2) Explore creatures- Branchwalker and Ranger can be above curve, but they are really golden with Walker.
3) Gruul Spellbreaker & Knight of Autumn- very aggressive 3cmc creatures that are often played on turn 2.
4) Aurelia- great at enabling other creatures or simply being an evasive flyer that can stonewall a board while still doing damage each turn.
5) Phoenix- haste on re-entry really ramps up its attack potential.
6) Lyra- very big body that works so well with Shalai and Aurelia.

Final Thoughts:

*I believe this to be a very powerful deck to play on Arena in Bo1. The deck is so balanced that you have a solid chance of winning against every archetype. It has cards that just win games against various archetypes that decks tend to normally struggle against.

*It is not the easiest deck to build on Arena. You are looking at 4 basic lands, 6 commons and 10 uncommons. One third of the deck is easily put together, however that leaves 2/3's of the deck being rare or mythic. One bonus is that only 6 are mythic (and Vivien can be subbed for until you get a chance to include her). The issue with the rares is all the shock lands and check lands, accounting for 20 rares in total.