Explorer Metagame Challenge Event Guide and 7 Win Decklists

The Explorer Metagame Challenge event is a limited-time competitive event held over this weekend, where players can compete for some big prizes in a fresh new metagame. In this guide, we’ll give you a overview of the event and sample decklists from players that achieved the maximum 7 wins.

This July 2023 edition of the event is for the new Explorer format, MTG Arena’s non-rotating, true-to-tabletop, bridging format to Pioneer! That means only cards originally from Standard sets, Return to Ravnica onwards, are legal. It comes right after the (somewhat disappointing) release of Explorer Anthology 3, adding 25 new cards to the format but the meta looks largely unchanged. It’s time to test out your decks against other like minded players to see if you can get the coveted seven wins!

In this guide, we’ll give you a overview of the event and sample decklists from players that achieved the maximum 7 wins as they become available. Make sure to check out our Premium article on our recommendations going into the event, updated for the July 2023 edition by Mythic #1 player Altheriax!

Event Details

Bring your Explorer deck and play best-of-three matches! You’ll receive rewards based on how many matches you win.

Explorer Metagame Challenge is an analogous event to the Standard Metagame Challenge that happens not long after the release of a new set. It gives players the opportunity to win huge rewards in a relatively new metagame where the new cards from the latest set are being tested.

• Duration: July 28, 2023 at 8:00 AM PST – July 30, 2023 at 8:00 AM PST
• Format: Explorer
• Entry Fee: 2,000 Gold or 400 Gems
• Ends After: 7 wins or 1 loss (whichever comes first – single elimination)
• Match Structure: Best-of-three matches (BO3)

Rewards

As you can see from the reward structure above, the event is high variance because it ends as soon as you get your first loss. Most of the value of the event comes after your fifth win, though getting to three wins will at least guarantee your entry fee returned. Hall of Famer Frank Karsten’s calculations show that you need “75.7% win rate to go infinite but valuing packs at 1,000 gold, a player with a 50% win rate already has a net expected profit of 23 gold“.

Explorer Metagame Challenge 7 Win Decklists

Below we have collected all the 7 win decks from this event, and we hope to showcase a nice variety of deck archetypes. Make sure to submit your deck using our deck builder!

We will continue to add decks here until the event concludes on May 9. You can also find these Explorer decks and more at our deck database.

July 2023

April 2023

December 2022

May 2022