Ramunap Red (2017) vs. Izzet Cutter (2025) | Best Standard Deck Ever Top 64

Hello everyone, and welcome to the next match in the Best Standard Deck Ever Tournament! This week, we're getting aggressive. On one side, we have Ramunap Red, the dominant aggro deck of 2017, which ended up getting its namesake land Ramunap Ruins banned in Standard. On the other side, we have the best deck from the first half of 2025 in Izzet Cutter, which dominated Pro Tour Final Fantasy, leading to Cori-Steel Cutter being banned in the format. Rising from its ashes with Izzet Cauldron, a potentially even more dominant Izzet deck, which already cleaned up during its first-round match back near the start of the round. Which aggro deck is moving on to the round of 32, and which is going home? Let's get to the video and find out! Oh yeah, you can find all the decklists and the bracket for the Best Standard Deck Ever Tournament here.

Ramunap Red (2017) vs. Izzet Cutter (2025)

Ramunap Red was the dominant aggro deck of its era. It broke out during Pro Tour Hour of Devastation, putting a massive six players into the top eight, including giving Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa the trophy. It took second at Worlds a few months later and then absolutely dominated the World Magic Cup with seven of the top eight teams having it as one of their decks. 

The primary power of the deck came from two cards. The first was Hazoret the Fervent, which gave the deck an inevitable finisher, coming down to hit for five with haste and indestructible, while also offering some direct damage by allowing you to discard cards to deal two damage. The second was its namesake land Ramunap Ruins. While sacrificing a land for two damage doesn't sound that exciting, it allows Ramunap Red to play 24 lands (considered to be a lot for red aggro), which helped reduce mana screw because getting up to five mana was actually beneficial since you could turn extra lands into damage to close out the game. After the World Magic Cup, Wizards decided to ban Ramunap Ruins itself to help power down the archetype.

The deck's lasting impact, however, came from a rules change that it helped create. Remember at Worlds last year when Seth Mansfield took back a play in the top eight? The reason the take back was allowed all goes back to Ramunap Red. During the semifinals of Pro Tour Hour of Devastation, Wing Chun Yam had victory in hand thanks to a Hazoret the Fervent, but in his excitement, he went to combat before discarding a card to Hazoret the Fervent's ability, which kept him from being able to attack with Hazoret and allowed PVDDR to sneak out the win. This punt, one of the most infamous in professional Magic history, led to Wizards softening the rules on take backs, which is what allows for plays like the Worlds Top 8 take back this past year. 

After being printed in Tarkir: Dragonstorm in April 2025, Cori-Steel Cutter found its final form at Pro Tour Final Fantasy a couple of months later thanks to the printing of its best friend Vivi Ornitier. The two cards, backed by cheap cantrips and removal, led to a historically dominant deck that made up more than 40% of the meta at the Pro Tour and would take up a full half of the top eight. In July, Wizards would ban Cori-Steel Cutter, along with six other cards from Standard, in an effort to stop the archetype, which didn't really work.

The deck of Izzet Cutter led to the rise of Izzet Cauldron, arguably an even more dominant Izzet deck, which also needed to be banned later in the year, which hilariously led to a revival from Izzet Prowess, which today, even without Cori-Steel Cutter or Vivi Ornitier, is once again the most played deck in Standard and could even be in line for another banning in the coming months.

Updated Bracket

You can find the updated bracket here!

Next Week: Erhnam-Geddon (1996) vs. Domain (2024)

Next week, we have one of the oddest matchups of the first round when Erhnam-Geddon, a land destruction deck from Worlds 1996, takes on the five-color Domain ramp deck from 2024!