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 on twitch.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 1 was won by Sam Rolph, Arena Championship 2 was won by Hiroshi Onizuka, Arena Championship 3 was won by Benjamin Broadstone, Arena Championship 4 was won by Shinya Saito, and Arena Championship 5 was won by Toni Ramis Pascual. The upcoming event invites players who earned the most wins across Qualifier Weekend Day Twos held in January, February, March, and April of this year.

Earning an invitation is a big achievement. The announced updates for the MTG Arena Premier 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 Shuko nor Outrider en-Kor are available on MTG Arena, so the Nadu, Winged Wisdom combo strategies that dominated the Modern rounds of Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 did not show up in Historic. However, the Boros and Jeskai deck that we are seeing in Historic are quite similar to their Modern counterparts, as they all leverage a large suite of energy cards.

Galvanic Discharge Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury Guide of Souls Ajani, Nacatl Pariah Amped Raptor Ocelot Pride

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 Guide of Souls, Galvanic Discharge, and Amped Raptor. With this collection of cards, you can spend energy on the most fruitful way possible for the game at hand, either adding to your side of the battlefield or blowing up the biggest creatures on the opponent's side.

Boros Energy deck also uses the feline firepower of Ocelot Pride and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah. They can put considerable pressure onto the opponent, and many decks can sacrifice Cat tokens to Goblin Bombardment to effortlessly transform Ajani. Boosted by these new cards, Boros Energy claimed 58.1% of the Historic metagame at Arena Championship 6, so it's clearly the breakout archetype. It has high individual card quality, powerful synergies, and an ability to win games quickly.

Most Boros Energy decks opted for Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury over Lurrus of the Dream-Den, as the escape creature provides strong grinding power in longer games. Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury was also a universal inclusion in the various Jeskai decks, where it allows them to hide a win condition in their removal suite.

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 Wrath of the Skies or Divine Purge provide efficient ways to reset the board. These sweepers can give the control deck an edge, and Boros Energy players will need to be careful not to overcommit. However, specific card choices can make a big difference.

Suncleanser

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 Galvanic Discharge or Wrath of the Skies. As a result, when Suncleanser comes down, it'll be very difficult to remove.

There are several players who run three or four copies of Suncleanser in their main decks, which looks like a brilliant metagame call. All viable Arena Championship 6 decks, save for one Jeskai Lotus Field list, use the energy mechanic in one way or another. Even the Golgari Yawgmoth decks splash white to include Guide of Souls! So, Suncleanser is poised to do a lot of work, and decks with three or four main deck copies look to be well positioned for this weekend's metagame.

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 Lurrus of the Dream-Den as their companion, while fourteen players use Jegantha, the Wellspring to unlock Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker.

Jeskai Control (6 players): Jeskai Control features spot removal, countermagic, card draw, sweepers, and the powerful new Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury to stabilize and win the game. The deck also exploits an energy package from Modern Horizons 3 with Tune the Narrative, Galvanic Discharge, and Wrath of the Skies. Accordingly, this is the control deck of the format.

Jeskai Lotus Field (3 players): Jeskai Lotus Field looks similar to Jeskai Control at first glance, but it exploits
Strict Proctor, Stifle, and Consign to Memory to annul the detrimental enters-the-battlefield trigger of Lotus Field. This enables a huge mana boost that can overpower the opponent. The same set of cards can also counter the sacrifice triggers of Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury or Nulldrifter.

Abzan Yawgmoth (2 players): Golgari Yawgmoth combines undying creatures and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician to generate card advantage and achieve infinite combos. One such combo can be achieved with Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and two copies of Young Wolf, one with a +1/+1 counter and another without. When Yawgmoth sacrifices the counterless creature, it returns with a +1/+1 counter. The other receives a -1/-1 counter, which cancels out against its +1/+1 counter. This can be repeated to draw lots of cards, and adding Marionette Apprentice can ultimately win the game. White is mainly for Rope Line Attendant and Emmara, Voice of the Conclave, providing a secondary angle of attack by going wide.

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. Doorkeeper Thrull and Torpor Orb consistently curve into a turn-three Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury or Nulldrifter, which will stay on the battlefield to annihilate opponents early on.

Mardu Energy (1 player): This is basically Boros Energy with a splash for Sorin of House Markov, which is easy to transform when gaining life with Guide of Souls.

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 Fragment Reality, with 35 copies across all decklists, and Tajic, Legion's Valor, which is squarely a sideboard card.

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 Yawgmoth, Thran Physician or Nulldrifter surprise us? Don't miss the livestream, which begins 9 a.m. PT each day, July 13–14, at twitch.tv/magic! More details can be found in the viewers guide.