Historic Artisan – Midweek Magic Event Guide and Decklists

Hello everyone! This week’s Midweek Magic is Historic Artisan! This is bar none my favorite format on Arena as you get to play very powerful decks that only utilize commons and uncommons! This creates a huge diversity in deck selection and a super vibrant metagame.

Players can enter the event for free, win some free Rare Individual Card Rewards (ICRs) and a random cosmetic item on the third win. Below is everything you need to know about the event as well as the list of decks you can use for this event.

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Event Details

Welcome to Midweek Magic! Each week, try out a different way to play MTG Arena!

Bring a 60-card deck using only commons, uncommons, and basic lands from any set in MTG Arena. Without rares, the common folk can truly be heard!

Find out more details about this and upcoming Midweek Magic events HERE.

• Duration: January 3, 2023 @ 8:00 AM PST to January 5, 2023 @ 11:00 AM PST
• Format: Historic Artisan
• Entry Fee: Free
• Ends After: You can play as much as you like for the duration of the event.
• Match Structure: Best-of-one matches (BO1)

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Event Rewards

Wins	Reward
1 Win	Rare Individual Card Reward (ICR)
2 Wins	Rare Individual Card Reward (ICR)
3 Wins	One Random Cosmetic Item

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Banned Card List

The following cards are banned in Historic Artisan:

• Abiding Grace
• Cauldron Familiar
• Gates Ablaze
• Persistent Petitioners
• Veil of Summer
• Wilderness Reclamation
• Zenith Flare

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Historic Artisan Decklists (January 2023)

If you’re unsure what deck to play, Mono White is always a great option. With a brutal curve and great threats, you can easily get under any opponent.

The closest analog to an existing Historic deck, Mono Blue Tempo leverages cheap threats and interaction to whittle the opponent down.

Playing a litany of cheap creatures and sacrifice outlets, Mono Black is really good at prolonging games and winning through sheer advantage.

If you’re trying to get the opponent dead as fast as possible, it’s hard to go wrong with Mono Red! With a brutal curve, you’re going to put any opponent to the test.

A slightly different take on Mono Red, Burn has less consistently explosive starts, but makes up for it with reach, redundancy, and the ability to interact.

With a great curve and powerful top end, Mono Green has the tools it needs to be a balanced and strong option.

Although you can’t play the Rare “Spiritdancer” creatures, playing hard to kill creatures and slapping Auras on them is an extremely effective game plan!

A simple plan of growing creatures who like being targeted, Azorius Heroic will allow you to scale creatures like crazy and kill the opponent within a few swings!

The most value packed deck in the format! Every creature replaces itself so you can just keep accruing advantages with every spell you cast.

A different flavor of aggro that utilizes some of the powerful Modular cards. If you like aggressive decks that pack a ton of synergy, this is an easy choice.

An offshoot of the breakout deck from Decathlon 6 last year, Boros Shrines ditched the Black as the new Kamigawa shrines give the deck enough late game to contend with any deck.

If you like playing a classic control deck with plenty of counterspells, removal, and card draw, you can’t do any better than Dimir.

One of the best decks in Historic Artisan off the back of the broken Into the Story and Drown in the Loch package, Rogues can kill quickly and grind late depending on what it needs to do.

A few years ago this was the de facto best Artisan deck and although it’s been usurped in recent years, it’s still a powerful option for those who like decks with a lot of value engines!

Looking to play approximately a billion Elves, Elves can flood the board quick and then start dealing huge amounts of damage with Shaman of the Pack and Skemfar Shadowsage!

Combining the best threats from Red and Green, Gruul looks to end games as fast as possible with extremely brutal curve outs.

One of the coolest decks around, Gruul Storm can keep chaining spells and end the turn with an indomitable armada of Squirrels!

The Artisan take on one of my favorite Historic decks, Izzet Blitz uses a litany of a cheap threats and spells to kill as fast as possible.

A blend between Mono Blue and Blitz, Izzet Tempo can mount a lot of pressure quickly while also effectively controlling the opponent’s deck.

One of the highest risk / highest reward decks in Artisan, you’ll get snacked on by decks with a lot of counterspells, but resolving even one huge threat against a fair deck can be game over!

One of the strongest decks in Artisan based on pure card quality, Anvil is extremely grindy and has great interactive tools as well!

Another flavor of combo deck for Artisan, Goblin Combo is great at creating infinite mana and/or infinite drains between Putrid Goblin, First Day of Class, and a sacrifice outlet!

Utilizing many of the Enchantment matters pieces from Kamigawa, this deck can be quite fast when needed while also being extremely synergistic.

One of the strongest decks in Artisan, this is an aggro deck that can snack on other aggro decks based on the sheer size of the threats you’re producing!

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All Historic Artisan Decklists