Every month or so, Magic: Arena holds their Arena Open tournament, where players can look to win straight cash money. We’ll we’re on the eve of our next Arena Open, and this weekend it’s a Historic event. With the release of Jumpstart: Historic Horizons a few weeks ago, the metagame has shaken up quite a bit. We’ve talked about that metagame, so here’s our picks for the best decks to play for the Arena Open.
Day 1 Decks
On day 1 of the event, You’ll have the option in playing in a Best 1 queue or a Best of 3 queue. For Best of 1, you have to get 7 wins before getting 3 losses to qualify for Day 2, and for Best of 3, you have to get 4 wins before getting 1 loss for your qualifier token. We’ll give you decks for both queues to play for Day 1
Best of 1
Tibalt’s Trickery
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The first Best of 1 deck I’d recommend is the
Tibalt’s Trickery
Tibalt’s Trickery
Counter target spell. Choose 1, 2, or 3 at random. Its controller mills that many cards, then exiles cards from the top of their library until they exile a nonland card with a different name than that spell. They may cast that card without paying its mana cost. Then they put the exiled cards on the bottom of their library in a random order.
deck. This deck has picked up in popularity on the ladder of the past week or two, and it’s a very all or nothing deck. It’s a house in the best of 1 ladder, so it should be the most played deck. There’s a few different versions out there that you could find but we’ve provided one example.
Indomitable Creativity
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The next deck is the Jeskai Creativity Deck. This is, in my opinion, the best deck in the format overall. This deck looks to play control until they can get through a
Hard Evidence
Hard Evidence
Create a 0/3 blue Crab creature token.
Investigate. (Create a Clue token. It's an artifact with "{2}, Sacrifice this token: Draw a card.")
, and
Indomitable Creativity
Indomitable Creativity
Destroy X target artifacts and/or creatures. For each permanent destroyed this way, its controller reveals cards from the top of their library until an artifact or creature card is revealed and exiles that card. Those players put the exiled cards onto the battlefield, then shuffle.
. This will put 2
Serra’s Emissary
Serra’s Emissary
Flying
As this creature enters, choose a card type.
You and creatures you control have protection from the chosen card type.
s into play, naming the 2 most relevant card types in their opponent’s deck, effectively locking their opponent out from winning the game. When this goes off in game 1 of a best 3, it often can lead to an easy game win, so it stands to reason that it could be very good in Best of 1 as well.
Mono White Humans / BW Humans
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For Mono White Humans, we definitely are an aggressive strategy that is hedging on Trickery and Creativity are going to be pretty highly represented. We have some odd inclusions here that let us have a bit more favorable odds against these two decks.
Containment Priest
Containment Priest
Flash
If a nontoken creature would enter and it wasn't cast, exile it instead.
is the only “non-counter spell” answer to the Creativity deck. Since the Serra’s Emissaries are not cast, they will be exiled. Taxes effects are really good against the Trickery deck as well. Our various taxing effects cause our opponent’s to go off a lot slower since they need more mana to cast their spells.
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For black white humans, we have a lot of the same things as the mono white version, but we have some disruption and removal spells as well. There is a great addition of
Collected Company
Collected Company
Look at the top six cards of your library. Put up to two creature cards with mana value 3 or less from among them onto the battlefield. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
, which can help get our taxes pieces in play.
READ MORE: 3 Sweet Brews in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Standard
Best of 3
Here is what I’d recommend if you’re playing Best of 3
Jeskai Control
Jeskai Control is a very close second “best deck” in the format. It has a lot of fantastic tools to deal with nearly every deck. With the addition of
Archmage’s Charm
Archmage’s Charm
Choose one —
• Counter target spell.
• Target player draws two cards.
• Gain control of target nonland permanent with mana value 1 or less.
, the deck has every tool needed to get
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
+1: Draw a card. At the beginning of the next end step, untap up to two lands.
−3: Put target nonland permanent into its owner's library third from the top.
−8: You get an emblem with "Whenever you draw a card, exile target permanent an opponent controls."
online, and protect it as it builds to ultimate.
Jeskai Creativity
The same as above, this deck is good in both queues.
Rakdos Delirium
There’s a few different builds of this deck, but Rakdos Delirium has been a pretty consistent contender throughout the past couple weeks. With the upgrades of
Dragon’s Rage Channeler
Dragon’s Rage Channeler
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, surveil 1. (Look at the top card of your library. You may put that card into your graveyard.)
Delirium — As long as there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, this creature gets +2/+2, has flying, and attacks each combat if able.
and
Unholy Heat
Unholy Heat
Unholy Heat deals 2 damage to target creature or planeswalker.
Delirium — Unholy Heat deals 6 damage instead if there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard.
, the deck has been given some great tools to get their early game on lock, and push through damage.
Day 2
For Day 2, it’s only a best of 3 queue, so for this, I’d recommend playing Jeskai Control, or Humans / Taxes. If you’re very well versed in Creativity, then go with that. Otherwise, Jeskai Control will answer the breadth of decks you’ll face, and I think taxes is pretty well positioned against the anticipated popular match ups for the event.
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For me this weekend, I’ll be giving a few goes at the Day 1, one with Trickery in Best of 1, and the other I’m thinking about doing Taxes in Best of 3. Hopefully this helped with your decision making, and let us know if you tried any of these decks out in the Open this weekend and how you did!