MTG Arena’s Historic Midweek Magic Event Looks to Shake Up the Meta

In Magic Arena, Wizards of the Coast have put out Midweek Magic events. These events can be a host of different things, from Momir, to Pauper, to Artisan. This week’s event is a Historic Shake Up event, where the aim is to see what the metagame would look like with a bunch of the top cards in the format being banned. This week’s list is quite a long one, so here’s the list and what we’d suggest playing in the event.

The Ban List

The ban list that is below is in addition to the other ban and suspended cards, and target some of the top decks in the format.

• Arclight Phoenix Arclight Phoenix Flying, haste
  At the beginning of combat on your turn, if you've cast three or more instant and sorcery spells this turn, return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
• Bonecrusher Giant Bonecrusher Giant Whenever this creature becomes the target of a spell, this creature deals 2 damage to that spell's controller.
• Burning-Tree Emissary Burning-Tree Emissary When this creature enters, add {R}{G}.
• Cauldron Familiar Cauldron Familiar When this creature enters, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
  Sacrifice a Food: Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
• 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.
• Kor Spiritdancer Kor Spiritdancer This creature gets +2/+2 for each Aura attached to it.
  Whenever you cast an Aura spell, you may draw a card.
• Llanowar Elves Llanowar Elves {T}: Add {G}.
• Memory Lapse Memory Lapse Counter target spell. If that spell is countered this way, put it on top of its owner's library instead of into that player's graveyard.
• Mizzix’s Mastery Mizzix’s Mastery Exile target card that's an instant or sorcery from your graveyard. For each card exiled this way, copy it, and you may cast the copy without paying its mana cost. Exile Mizzix's Mastery.
  Overload {5}{R}{R}{R} (You may cast this spell for its overload cost. If you do, change "target" in its text to "each.")
• Muxus, Goblin Grandee Muxus, Goblin Grandee When Muxus enters, reveal the top six cards of your library. Put all Goblin creature cards with mana value 5 or less from among them onto the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
  Whenever Muxus attacks, it gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each other Goblin you control.
• 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.
• Soul Warden Soul Warden Whenever another creature enters, you gain 1 life.
• 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."
• Thoughtseize Thoughtseize Target player reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card. You lose 2 life.
• 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.
• Vesperlark Vesperlark Flying
  When this creature leaves the battlefield, return target creature card with power 1 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
  Evoke {1}{W} (You may cast this spell for its evoke cost. If you do, it's sacrificed when it enters.)

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As we can see, a lot of the best decks got hit here. From Gruul to Goblins, from Izzet Phoenix to Jeskai Control and more, we’re really seeing a true shake up in the meta. There are a few decks that didn’t get hit though, so here’s our 3 decks that we’d suggest for you to play in this event.

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What’s Looking Good

There’s a couple of decks that weren’t hit nearly as badly as other decks.

Mono White Humans

The First deck is Mono White Humans

This deck really only lost Collected Company, and even then it’s not a HUGE loss. This deck is a really aggressive and consistent option to just jam in some damage. This is a sleeper contender in the current metagame, but it should do very well in this event as well.

Izzet Delver

Next up, I’d recommend Izzet Delver.

Izzet Phoenix lost 2 pretty important cards, in Memory Lapse and Phoenix itself, but we can turn that into a Delver of Secrets Delver of Secrets At the beginning of your upkeep, look at the top card of your library. You may reveal that card. If an instant or sorcery card is revealed this way, transform this creature. strategy, and play almost a blitz style deck. With our host of removal and draw spells, we should be able to get in with our evasive creatures pretty easily.

Mono Red Madness

The last deck that I’d recommend is Mono Red Madness.

Championed by players like Jim Davis, Mono Red Madness has a great engine to get it’s creatures in play for very little cost, often times free. There’s a lot of great graveyard recursion here and an aggressive strategy to go along nicely with it.

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Hopefully this event will get people excited for a new Historic season. I expect that with this event being Historic, and the upcoming Mythic Invitational Qualifier events being Historic, we may see some more Historic Anthologies released soon. What deck are you looking to play in this event? Let us know in the comments!