The Historic Challege event returns to MTG Arena for two days, an event with a high entry fee and huge rewards to match! Players will test their mettle in competitive Historic best-of-three matches before the upcoming Mythic Invitational and subsequent release of Zendikar Rising. In this guide, we will update you on the Historic metagame for September 2020 as well as the best decks to try for this event. We will also be posting the decks that players are using to achieve good results as the event progresses. Read on to find out more!

Event Details

Duration : September 5, 2020 @ 8:00 AM PST – September 8, 2020 @ 11:00 AM PST (players will have until September 8, 8 AM PT to join the event)

: September 5, 2020 @ 8:00 AM PST – September 8, 2020 @ 11:00 AM PST (players will have until September 8, 8 AM PT to join the event) Format : Historic

: Historic Entry Fee : 10000 Gold or 2000 Gems

: 10000 Gold or 2000 Gems Ends After : 8 wins or 3 losses (whichever comes first)

: 8 wins or 3 losses (whichever comes first) Match Structure: Best-of-three matches (BO3)

Event Rewards

Wins Gold Additional 8 15,000 40 Amonkhet Remastered booster packs 7 10,000 20 Amonkhet Remastered booster packs 6 8,000 12 Amonkhet Remastered booster packs 5 6,000 8 Amonkhet Remastered booster packs 4 4,000 4 Historic Individual Card Rewards (ICRs) 3 3,000 4 Historic ICRs 2 2,000 4 Historic ICRs 1 1,000 4 Historic ICRs 0 0 4 Historic ICRs

Historic ICRs grant cards from pack releases onMTG Arena. They do not include cards that were released outside of packs (e.g. cards from Historic Anthologies). Historic rare ICRs may upgrade to a mythic rare, each rare is twice as likely to be awarded as each mythic rare. Card sleeve rewards are evenly distributed and duplicate protected; if you already have all four card sleeves in your collection you will receive no additional reward.

In addition to the rewards based on your play record, all players who enter will receive one of the following special card sleeve rewards:









Ornithological Studies Birds of Paradise Card Sleeve

Full Sleeves: The Tattoo Pack Pithing Needle Card Sleeve

Can You Feel with a Heart of Steel? Arcbound Ravager Card Sleeve

The Path Not Traveled Ajani Steadfast Card Sleeve

What is Historic Challenge?

The Historic Challenge is a high risk, high reward event comparable to the Competitive Metagame Challenge but here we have a bit more leeway since we can have up to three losses. If you are interested in the expected value (EV) for this event, u/SmartyCat12 from reddit has done the maths on the subject. Since the rewards are based around Historic cards (though you can still open Wildcards from booster packs), newer players will want to focus on spending their resources on Standard sets especially with a new set on the horizon.

The Historic Metagame

Historic has seen a few shake ups over the past few weeks – first was the release of Amonkhet Remastered, then the banning of Field of the Dead. The format is far from being solved, but here is where the metagame is at so far. You can click on the links below to go to the sample decklist provided.

Field of the Dead is gone, but that is not to say that the collection of ramp cards will not do their job. Players have been pairing up the core Blue and Green cards with Black, similar to Standard except we have access to the almighty Pact of Negation and Thoughtseize in Historic. The suite of disruption spells are tailored to the metagame, and it looks like the deck is the one to beat so far.

Muxus is a card that can turn a game around on its own by calling all his hasty Goblin friends to create a lethal attack from an empty board. It is powered out by mana accelerators like Skirk Prospector and Wily Goblin, and expecting your opponents to have answers for it every game is a tall order. After its competitor decks have become culled from the bans, Goblins are rising to the top again due to its speed, consistency and its ability to win on the spot with a single card.

This is a midrange deck that has been performing well, based around casting cards such as Thoughtseize and Kroxa over and over to strip your opponents hands from your graveyard with Dreadhorde Arcanist and Lurrus of the Dream-Den. This deck can perform particularly well in an aggro heavy meta where Claim the Firstborn shines, and can out value control decks also. It may be hard to compete with the speed of Goblins and inevitability of the ramp decks, which is why we would place them below those decks.





Sacrifice decks are now involving Collected Company one way or another, but the two builds differ in including Bolas’s Citadel or not. The powerful artifact can give the deck a combo finish in conjunction with cards like Blood Artist and a sacrifice outlet such as Woe Strider; various Mono Black and Golgari builds have been popular but it looks like players are settling back into splashing red for Mayhem Devil. The deck is still powerful with the Cat Oven combo still legal and is a viable strategy for this event if you can play it well!







If mono colored aggro decks are your thing, or perhaps you want a deck more easy on your Wildcards, the three here are more refined, proven and consistent. They can definitely compete with the higher tier decks, and are not too far behind in this metagame.

Last but not least, Auras have performed extremely well since the release of Jumpstart and the Cartouches from Amonkhet Remastered certainly has boosted the deck slightly. It can really have its nut draws but in the end you are racing to the finish line with the other decks in the format with barely any interaction. We would still place the deck among one of the better, well-refined Historic decks currently.

There are of course many other decks not mentioned here – from Gruul Aggro, Mono Black God-Pharaoh’s Gift, Mono Green Ramp, Azorius Control and Bant Spirits that can all perform decently well but we do believe these decks are slightly below the ones mentioned here.

The Best Historic Challenge Event Decklists

Below we will be posting the decks that players have used to conquer the event itself (generally aiming for 6 wins or better). We’ll try post them as soon as they are submitted so you don’t miss out! Updated for the September 2020 event.