Here’s How Each of the 7 Deck Archetypes of Magic Work

Last updated on January 2, 2026

Archetype of Finality | Illustration by Chris Rahn

Magic has an abundance of decks that have been developed over its 30-year history. These decks use a wide range of cards, win conditions and alternate win conditions to bring an end to the game. This diversity is a large part of Magic's appeal.

But, as diverse as the card options may be, there are often underlying ideas and themes that bind decks together across decades and formats. These underlying tenants are the archetypes of decks. Understanding deck archetypes is vital to improving as a player; it helps you play better and aids in deck building so you can brew decks, not just piles of cards.

Let's talk about that!

What Is an Archetype in Magic?

Archetype of Endurance | Illustration by Slawomir Maniak

Archetypes in Magic refer to the strategy and game plan of a decklist. The difference between deck lists isn’t just the cards they play, but why they play them. A control deck plays Lightning Bolt primarily for removal, while an aggro deck uses it to end the game.

Archetypes are one of the most fundamental parts of the game. The first questions you should ask yourself when you build a deck or try to understand that brew that Top 8’d your local PTQ is: “What’s the archetype? How do you plan to win?”

To start, I tend to view Magic archetypes as sitting on a spectrum defined by aggro and control on either end. The archetypes I cover here are the foundations of deckbuilding, and numbered just to help myself keep them straight. I'll also take a look at what happens when they intermingle, or when other strategies get introduced.

#1. Aggro

Screaming Nemesis | Illustration by Liiga Smilshkalne

At one end of our spectrum are aggro decks. These decks look to end the game ASAP with a critical mass of cheap creatures to rush down your opponent. Aggro decks tend to go all in on winning within the first turns of the game and don’t have much removal or many grindy cards to help an extended game; win or lose, aggro matches tend to be decided early.

Aggro decks are full of cheap creatures and cheap spells with a low land count that facilitates playing spells as quickly as possible, ensuring they have the critical mass of damage needed to take an opponent out.

A great example of an aggro deck is a former Standard red aggro build (the decklist above contains cards that were eventually banned in the format), which takes advantage of the synergies between mouse creatures like Heartfire Hero and Manifold Mouse. Using Manifold Mouse to trigger Heartfire Hero’s valiant ability grows it and gives it double strike, and you can go even further with cards like Monstrous Rage and Might of the Meek.

Cards like Hired Claw and Screaming Nemesis aren’t mice, but they help with the “attack every turn” game plan. A land like Rockface Village helps by giving our creatures haste, while Burst Lightning often finishes games or clears away early blockers. The only card in this decklist that doesn’t help with direct damage is Witchstalker Frenzy, but it’s our best way to clear up big blockers—and you can still turn it into a burn spell if you cast it on your Screaming Nemesis.

#2. Control

Lay Down Arms | Illustration by Liiga Smilshkalne

Control dominates the other end of the spectrum. Control decks are about as far from aggro as you can get. These decks use a bunch of cheap interaction to extend the game as long as possible so they can win at their leisure.

Card advantage is also important to a strong control strategy. You need to see more cards than your opponents so that you can bury them beneath all your removal. Control decks are often multicolor decks that use blue for access to card advantage like Memory Deluge, and countermagic like Essence Scatter and Three Steps Ahead.

The secondary color usually gives access to removal that blue lacks. A popular pairing in Pioneer right now is white. You'll see these decks use white to access interaction like Lay Down Arms and Supreme Verdict as well as finishers like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and The Wandering Emperor.

It's also a great example of how slowly a control deck can win the game. Once you’ve taken control with your wraths and counterspells and such, you can win at your own pace by chipping away with tokens from The Wandering Emperor and Castle Ardenvale. You can even win by putting Teferi, Hero of Dominaria back into your library with its -3 ability to force your opponent to mill out.

Control decks thrive in metas with access to plentiful interaction to disrupt their opponents. This archetype is great for players who enjoy long games and want to outthink their opponents. It’s also a good fit for players with a deep knowledge of all the decks in their format so they can pinpoint and exploit those decks’ weaknesses.

#3. Midrange

Bloodtithe Harvester | Illustration by Lucas Graciano

Midrange sits in the middle of our spectrum between control and aggro, borrowing a few pieces from each. There will often be plenty of cheap interaction just like you’d see in a control deck, paired with efficient threats that one could see in an aggro deck. It often walks the line between the two, looking to out-aggro the control decks and win quickly, but slowing down against aggro decks and grinding them out in a longer game.

A good example is a typical black midrange deck in Pioneer. You have creatures that pressure your opponent’s life total while leaving good value behind, and are also good at blocking aggro creatures. The versatility of a card like Bloodtithe Harvester demonstrates what a midrange deck wants from its threats: It attacks, blocks, loots via the Blood token, and can be a good removal spell. Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is an all-star, giving you ramp, card filtering, and late-game power. You also have a discard suite to ruin control decks while also disrupting other midrange decks. These decks’ sideboards are crucial because you want to be more controlling against aggro, and be more aggressive/disruptive against control and combo.  

Midrange decks are fantastic for players looking for a challenge. I’ve always found them to be the hardest decks to pilot as they ask you to be the control player and the aggro player depending on the matchup, and it even shifts multiple times over the course of a game. It requires adaptability and a solid understanding of not just your turn, but also the next turns of your and your opponent’s gameplay. Because midrange decks tread the space between aggro and control they have a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none vibe that’s challenging and rewarding when you play it perfectly.

#4. Combo

Atraxa, Grand Unifier | Illustration by Marta Nael

If we look at our previous archetypes as points on a line representing our spectrum, aggro and control are on opposite ends, with midrange being a point in the middle. The point representing combo decks would be off the line because this is a whole other card game. We’re entering the realm of unfair decks.

The other decks we’ve looked at are, by and large, fair. They follow the quintessential rules of Magic: They deploy creatures and spells to take their opponents to 0, just with different plans of how they want to get there. They play Magic as Richard Garfield intended. Combo wins out of left field, invoking other strategies that use cards in interesting ways to skirt the intentions of the creator.

Take this Legacy reanimator deck. It wins with Griselbrand and Atraxa, Grand Unifier, but it’s certainly not paying for them honestly. The deck drops them in the graveyard and uses spells like Animate Dead and Reanimate to get them back. It has some disruptive elements in Thoughtseize and Unmask to help get the combo off, but the whole deck is basically an engine with one purpose: reanimate.

You’ll often find combo decks with a strong engine feel like this. There aren’t a lot of cards on the list for value or to help in various matchups. It’s all geared towards doing “the thing” as quickly as possible. Any situational tech is in the sideboard to respond to your opponent’s sideboarding; for example, cards in the reanimator sideboard like Show and Tell and Wear // Tear are great against opposing decks trying to use cards like Leyline of the Void to disrupt your graveyard.

Combo decks are unconventional and use strategies far off the beaten path. These decks are great for players who want to puzzle out the best route to victory. Playing combo decks well is about understanding the lines you take to get from zero to Griselbrand and executing them around whatever disruptive elements your opponents might be playing. This is the perfect archetype for anybody who looks at their hand and sees how they want to win.

#5. Combo-Control

Deceiver Exarch | Illustration by Izzy

Combo-control is what happens when fair meets unfair. These decks combine the elements of a control deck with a combo finisher. These often aren’t built around engine combos the way combo decks like reanimator or storm are, but they work off 2-card combos that close the game after using cheap interaction to maneuver themselves into a position to combo off with ease.

The best-known example of combo control is the Modern Splinter Twin deck (with an early prototype version displayed above). Its primary win condition was the 2-card infinite of Splinter Twin with Deceiver Exarch or Pestermite to end the game as soon as turn 4.

Rather than being geared to churn out the combo as soon as possible, this deck is surrounded by a suite of cards that wouldn’t look out of place in a control deck. There’s cheap removal like Lightning Bolt and Flame Slash, and counterspells like Dispel and Remand. Splinter Twin plays out a controlling game plan before using the combo as a finisher.

The inclusion of control elements gives the deck more strength in a longer game than a traditional combo might have, while the combo gives the control shell an explosive finish, making it harder for an opponent to top deck out of a losing situation. Combo-control decks are great for players who enjoy the controlling strategy but don’t want to spend their evenings tucking Teferi 50 times, or for players who like the idea of combo decks but don’t care for the all-or-nothing playstyle that engines can result in.

#6. Aggro-Control/Tempo

Into the Flood Maw | Illustration by Danny Schwartz

Aggro-control decks, also called tempo decks, borrow from control’s love of cheap interaction but pair it with more efficient creatures rather than a combo finisher. Tempo decks don’t pop up often since they need a specific blend of interaction and creatures to really work.

The prime example of tempo is Legacy’s perennial Izzet Delver deck. We can see the control influence with cards like Lightning Bolt and Force of Will, and we’ve got some of the best aggressive creatures ever printed, like Dragon's Rage Channeler and Delver of Secrets.

Aggro-control decks are one-of-a-kind in that they try to be the control deck, using cheap interaction and counterspells, while benefiting from said cards when their creatures are in play. Against aggressive decks, you want to kill their creatures or counter their spells, and against control, you want to stick a threat and ride it to victory, using your counterspells to protect your threats or to counter their bigger threats. Aggro-control decks usually have a small window to win the game, and mechanics like prowess and flurry translates into casting a bunch of spells and attacking with a big threat.

Across MTG formats, we have classic aggro-control decks like UB Faeries, UB Rogues, or UR Delver. In Standard, we currently have the Izzet Prowess deck using the key card Cori-Steel Cutter that adds explosiveness. Once this powerful equipment is in play, you can play cantrips or burn spells on your opponent’s turns, triggering flurry and making a token. Next turn, you play a haste creature and another cantrip, which makes another token while triggering the prowess abilities from other creatures you have around. It’s possible to attack for 12 or so just by doing this. Even if you don’t kill your opponent, they still need to deal with all the tokens you have lying around.

Aggro-control decks depend on a combination of cheap, instant-speed interaction and threats that can get played around those spells. The typical weakness of a creature deck with a bunch of countermagic is that it conflicts with your mana. If you cast a creature spell on your turn, you can’t hold up mana for your counters. But if you hold up countermagic, you can’t meaningfully impact the board.

Flash creatures can get around this. This made the Standard rogues deck so potent back in Zendikar Rising Standard. They could hold up interaction like Drown in the Loch and threats like Soaring Thought-Thief and deploy whatever was most appropriate. You also have decks, like Delver, that get around this restriction by playing free countermagic and tapping out on their turn.

Aggro-control decks are my favorite to play. They’re similar to midrange in that they constantly keep you on your toes and ask you to rapidly switch between being the control player and the aggro player. This is a great option for players who like playing tricky decks that reward careful sequencing and quick thinking.

#7. Ramp

Maelstrom Wanderer | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez

Ramp decks typically sacrifice the early turns in the game to build a superior mana position. That can be done via mana rocks: artifacts like the Signets, or Mana Crypt/Mana Vault; or via green spells: Llanowar Elves, Farseek, Cultivate. Either way, you want to be dropping 6 and 7-mana bombs as soon as possible. Not that long ago, Standard had a deck whose sole purpose was to cast Emergent Ultimatum and win from there, so it was racing to get to mana.

Not all ramp decks focus on lands. A lot work off other forms of fast mana. Legacy has a great example in dragon stompy that uses cards like Chrome Mox and Simian Spirit Guide to accelerate out disruptive cards like Blood Moon and Chalice of the Void to lock your opponents out of the game. Another deck that turbos out threats is Urza Tron in Modern, which uses the Urza lands (Urza's Tower, Urza's Mine, and Urza's Power Plant) to drop cards like Karn Liberated on turn 3.

Commander, especially casual Commander, is one of the best formats to play ramp decks. It’s a slower format that’s decided by who’s the last standing, so you have plenty of time to deploy your expensive spells. Some Commander decks have very expensive commanders that create a huge advantage if you resolve them, so you need to get there ASAP. The decklist I have here is a typical Maelstrom Wanderer deck from EDHREC. Not only do you want to cast it because of all the cascade triggers, but you also want to cascade into high mana value spells. Your decklist ends up having a high mana curve overall, and the dream is to cascade into two 7-cost cards.

This deck has plenty of 5- to 7-mana creatures that work as both cards we want to cast normally and cascade targets. This deck has many lands and uses cards like Three Visits and Farseek to make extra land drops, so we can cast expensive cards ahead of curve. Cards like Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty and Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma act as intermediate milestones when you’re developing your board.

Ramp decks are another great option for newer players thanks to their straightforward gameplan. They’re also great for players who love jamming giant spells and overwhelming their opponents with value.

Archetypes in Limited

Cloud's Limit Break | Illustration by Billy Christian

A lot of these archetypes are present in Limited, but they’ll look very different. The only major archetype that’s not present in the vast majority of Limited formats is combo. It doesn’t come together unless the format specifically seeds in a combo, like Foundations Limited, in which you could open the bomb mythic Bloodthirsty Conqueror and combo off with Marauding Blight-Priest.

Control is the archetype that changes the most. You almost never hit a critical mass of removal intense enough to avoid playing creatures; everybody prioritizes removal super highly. You need early defensive creatures that block well, like Dragon Sniper to defend early against aggro, and a bomb like Dragonback Assault or Jeskai Revelation that wins you the game in the long run. Creatures that help control decks a lot are small bodies that give you an advantage, such as drawing cards, scrying, gaining life, and so on. Note that, without a big splashy finisher, you’re usually playing midrange in Draft/Sealed.

How Do Archetypes Differ by Format?

The card pool of a format impacts what decks are available. For example. blue and black aggro-control decks have a good card in common across multiple formats (Kaito, Bane of Nightmares), but the 1-drop enablers, payoffs, and counterspells/removal spells vary greatly. Some formats have only Cut Down as cheap removal, while others have access to Fatal Push. You can have cards like Ponder and Psychic Frog, or you must make do with Opt and Enduring Curiosity. As for combo decks, even formats like Standard have something they can pull off on turns 3-4 (mainly reanimator), while Eternal formats win on turns 1-2.

Metas also have a big impact on which archetypes are viable. Some archetypes might be weaker in a format, but as the meta-chosen decks shift, they can become much better.

The tools available to an archetype will change more between formats than the ideas of the deck.

Wrap Up

Archetype of Courage | Illustration by Willian Murai

Understanding deck archetypes is essential for deckbuilding and playing Magic. You gain a deeper understanding of how to pilot your decks better and pressure your opponent’s weak points once you understand how archetypes work and why they play the cards they do. It also gives you more room to innovate with your deck.

Knowing what your deck wants to do and following through makes playing the game much easier. It also gives you fundamental skills as a Magic player that are transferable across formats.

What’s your favorite deck archetype? Do you prefer to brew or net deck? Let me know in the comments, or on Draftsim's official Twitter.

Stay healthy, stay happy, and thank you for reading!