Energy is high as Arena Championship 6 begins this weekend, July 13–14! In this prestigious tournament, which will be streamed live starting at 9 a.m. PT each day ontwitch.tv/magic, 32 of the top MTG Arena players will battle it out for $200,000 in prizes and two Magic World Championship 30 invitations. The Constructed format is Historic, and all Historic decklists will be available on Melee after the event gets underway.
Who Is Competing?
The Arena Championship, a thrice-yearly event, is the pinnacle of competition on MTG Arena.Arena Championship 1was won by Sam Rolph,Arena Championship 2was won by Hiroshi Onizuka,Arena Championship 3was won by Benjamin Broadstone, Arena Championship 4was won by Shinya Saito, and Arena Championship 5 was won by Toni Ramis Pascual. The upcoming event invites players who earnedthe most winsacross Qualifier Weekend Day Twos held in January, February, March, and April of this year.
Earning an invitation is a big achievement. The announced updatesfor theMTG ArenaPremier Play system have made it easier to do so for future Arena Championships, unlocking exciting opportunities for an even larger group of skilled players.
The field is largely comprised of competitive Magic veterans. The majority of Arena Championship 6 competitors have at least one Pro Tour-level event under their belt, and many have even scored at least one Top Finish in their career, which includes Pro Tour Top 8s, Arena Championship Top 8s, and more. All of them are ready for high-level Magic with some of the best players in the world, including:
- One-time Top Finisher Bernardo Torres
- Two-time Top Finisher Sean Goddard
- Three-time Top Finisher Riku Kumagai
- Three-time Top Finisher Eduardo Sajgalik
- Four-time Top Finisher Logan Nettles
Sean Goddard recently showed that he's on top of his game with a Top 8 finish at Pro Tour Thunder Junction and a 19th-place finish at Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3. Based on his premier event performance over the past few months, he might be the favorite to take down Arena Championship 6. However, it won't be easy, as the field is absolutely stacked with talent.
What Are They Playing?
Day 1 of Arena Championship 6 leads off with Modern Horizons 3 Draft followed by three rounds of Historic Constructed. Day 2 features three more rounds of Historic Constructed with a cut to a Top 8 Historic Constructed playoff to determine the champion.
Historic features nearly every card available on MTG Arena in a format that never rotates and that allows for digital-only cards. With over 10,000 cards to choose from, including cards from Modern Horizons 3, the format's power just received a massive buff. The metagame at Arena Championship 6 breaks down as follows, excluding one deck submission that consisted of basic lands only.
Archetype | Number of Players | Percentage of Field |
Boros Energy | 18 | 58.1% |
Jeskai Control | 6 | 19.4% |
Jeskai Lotus Field | 3 | 9.7% |
Abzan Yawgmoth | 2 | 6.5% |
Jeskai Torpor Orb | 1 | 3.2% |
Mardu Energy | 1 | 3.2% |
The last major Historic tournament was Arena Championship 4, where the metagame in the Swiss rounds was dominated by Mono-Green Devotion, Dimir Control, and Golgari Yawgmoth. Shinya Saito ultimately won that event with Izzet Wizards. Since then, several new sets have been released, with Modern Horizons 3 having a particularly huge impact.
Unlike Modern, neither
The most played nonland cards across all Arena Championship 6 decklists, shown above, all stemmed from Modern Horizons 3. Every single Boros Energy deck uses the energy core of
Boros Energy deck also uses the feline firepower of
Most Boros Energy decks opted for
Speaking of the Jeskai decks, they look reasonably well positioned against Boros Energy because aggressive go-wide strategies are generally weak to cheap sweepers, and cards like
Combining 28 main deck copies and 45 sideboard copies, Suncleanser was the most played nonland card that did not come from Modern Horizons 3. When Suncleanser enters the battlefield, the opponent will lose all energy counters, and they won't be able to accumulate new ones. This nullifies many of the cards in Boros or Jeskai decks, including cards like
There are several players who run three or four copies of
Historic Deck Summaries
To explain deck compositions in more detail, let me to briefly summarize and introduce all the archetypes one by one.
Boros Energy (18 players): Boros Energy makes the most of the energy mechanic brought back in Modern Horizons 3, along with early-drop creatures to put considerable pressure on the opponent. Four players use
Jeskai Control (6 players): Jeskai Control features spot removal, countermagic, card draw, sweepers, and the powerful new
Jeskai Lotus Field (3 players): Jeskai Lotus Field looks similar to Jeskai Control at first glance, but it exploits
Abzan Yawgmoth (2 players): Golgari Yawgmoth combines undying creatures and
Jeskai Torpor Orb (1 player): Jeskai Torpor Orb features similar synergies as Jeskai Lotus Field, although the list does not include Lotus Field. Instead, it's based more around creatures.
Mardu Energy (1 player): This is basically Boros Energy with a splash for
Digital-only or rebalanced cards are not played in large numbers. At Arena Championship 6, the only rebalanced cards that are different between paper and digital are A-The One Ring, where the card-draw effect costs one mana to activate, and A-Haywire Mite, which became a 1/2 that gains 3 life. The only digital-only card that sees play in large numbers is
All in all, Historic at Arena Championship 6 will largely be a battle between different energy strategies. Will the aggressive Boros approach take it down, will any of the controlling Jeskai builds emerge victorious, or could