Mirror, Mirror Event Guide and Decklists

Hello everyone! For a few days, Arena will be hosting the Mirror, Mirror event where Wizards attempts to fix some notoriously overpowered cards and reintroduce them to the Historic format! This is a very interesting experiment as this may be the beginning steps to making Historic an exclusively online format where they can rebalance cards as they see fit, similar to many other online CCGs. If you want to read about what cards were changed and how that impacted them, you can check out the article below.

In this guide, we list all the card changes and decklists you can try for this event. This is yet another great opportunity to play with cards you normally don’t get to, because for this event, you have access to all the cards in the game!

Event Details

Step through the looking glass into an alternate reality where Oko, Thief of Crowns is just another great Historic card or Teferi, Time Raveler is more of a friend than foe to the format . . .

Given that MTG Arena is a digital expression of Magic, we want to experiment with some of the advantages only digital Magic can offer. Mirror, Mirror opens a portal to a Historic event in which twelve banned cards have been rebalanced, allowing you to play with those versions instead.

This event is All Access, meaning all cards are available for you to build your deck—even if they’re not in your collection!

• Duration: July 3, 2021 at 8:00 AM PST – June 6, 2021 at 8:00 AM PST
• Format: Mirror, Mirror
• Entry Fee: Free
• Ends After: You can keep playing, but rewards do not go past one win.
• Match Structure: Best-of-one matches (BO1)

Event Rewards

• 1 Win: 500 Gold

Mirror, Mirror Cards and Changes

The rebalanced cards will have the MTG Arena “A” logo before their names. Note that this logo is the mythic-rare-colored version on all these cards and is independent of the card’s actual rarity.

In exported decklists, these cards will appear with “A-” at the beginning of the card name. If you want to import a deck that uses these rebalanced cards, be sure to include the “A-” before the card name as well.

You can find these cards by using the advanced search command “set:ANC” in the deckbuilder.

Rebalanced cards cannot be crafted or otherwise added to your collection.

Card Name	Rebalancing	Original Version	Rebalanced Version
Agent of Treachery	Enters-the-battlefield ability triggers only if Agent of Treachery was cast from your hand.
Field of the Dead	Changed to legendary. Zombie tokens changed to enter the battlefield tapped.
Fires of Invention	Mana cost changed from 3R to 3RR.
Nexus of Fate	Exiles itself instead of shuffling itself into your library.
Omnath, Locus of Creation	Enters-the-battlefield ability is now scry 1 instead of draw a card.
Oko, Thief of Crowns	Food-creating ability cost changed from +2 to +1. Elk-making ability cost changed from +1 to -2.
Once Upon a Time	If it’s the first spell you’ve cast this game, it costs {1} instead of nothing.
Teferi, Time Raveler	Mana cost changed from 1WU to 2WU. Starting loyalty changed from 4 to 5.
Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath	The “put a land from your hand onto the battlefield” effect removed; life gain and card draw effects remain.
Veil of Summer	Mana cost changed from G to 1G.
Wilderness Reclamation	Ability lets you “untap up to two lands you control” instead of all lands you control.
Winota, Joiner of Forces	Ability allows you to “look at the top four cards of your library” instead of the top six.

Mirror, Mirror Decklists

Here are the direct links to the decks, and below that are the importable decklists you can copy straight from here (press the Arena button) with commentary for each one.

Simic Food – Mirror, Mirror

Four-Color Omnath – Mirror, Mirror

Temur Fires – Mirror, Mirror

Naya Winota – Mirror, Mirror

Bant Scapeshift – Mirror, Mirror

Jeskai Fires – Mirror, Mirror

Simic Turns – Mirror, Mirror

Azorius Blink – Mirror, Mirror

Bant Turbo Fog – Mirror, Mirror

Temur Walkers – Mirror, Mirror

Gruul Fires – Mirror, Mirror

Simic Food

[sd_deck deck=”nsNYGP3LO”]

When someone says overpowered, I think Oko, so it makes sense to start with some good old Simic Food. Functionally a Historic port of the old broken Standard deck, this build has some serious power behind it with eight turn 1 dorks, plenty of Food synergies, and some amazing top end. Although Oko was nerfed, it still seems very powerful and I wouldn’t even be surprised if this iteration of Oko was still too good for Historic. If you never had the chance to play with the shirtless menace, this is likely the best shell for him.

Four-Color Omnath

[sd_deck deck=”NTPlh3iVp”]

A more recent foray into the realm of overpowered, Omnath was legal only for a month or so before the ban hammer fell onto it. With that, many players never got to play the insanely powerful 4 Color midrange deck as Omanth was banned very shortly after winning the Grand Finals back in October.

It’s a weird juxtaposition with Omnath as one one hand, eliminating the ETB card draw does nerf the card, but barely since the ability to recoup it’s mana cost on the second land drop was really the broken part of the card. On the other hand, Historic has gotten significantly more powerful and it’s really hard to say if this deck would even be that broken in the context of what’s going on in Historic now.

Unfortunately, we probably won’t get any answers in terms of whether Omnath would be fine in Historic as you’ll mostly be facing other decks with modified cards, but it’s still interesting to think about.

Temur Fires

[sd_deck deck=”pa2s7aAFt”]

The first of the Fires of Invention deck I brewed up. Fires was quickly put on the Historic banned list around the time Jeskai Lukka was dominating Standard and then creeping into Historic. Personally, I think it probably died for the sins of other cards like Teferi, Time Raveler or Agent of Treachery.

Nevertheless, Fires is a fantastic engine card that mostly acts as a better Mirari's Wake as you can immediately cast a spell off of it the turn you play it. With that, we’re looking to turbo it out and then get maximum value off of it with Cavaliers and Time Warp. This deck never had a chance to be in Historic, so this is a good time to try it out.

Naya Winota

[sd_deck deck=”Dw5t5Pzqj”]

One of my most loved and hated decks ever, Naya Winota was the first deck to truly break Historic back in the formats inception. I actually have a fun little anecdote from the first month of Historic.

There I was, 90% in Mythic as Jeskai Lukka beat my face into pudding in Standard, only a few days left to secure top 1200. I figured at that point, there was no way I could make it in time, until I heard about this Naya deck that was super good. Desperate to escape Standard, I decided to craft it and try it out. A disgustingly quick 17-0 later, I secured not just top 1200, but was in the mid 100s; that’s how strong this deck was.

So, why share this anecdote? I’ve heard a lot of players express their discontent for Winota being banned while Muxus, Goblin Grandee is legal, but I think that’s mostly a lack of playing with the deck. The nerf to Winota is definitely impactful, but the deck itself is unbelievably good and I would say likely still too good for Historic. The insane inevitability combined with the speed of this deck made it such a hard combination to fight through, so if you’re looking to play something really gross, this is your ticket.

Bant Scapeshift

[sd_deck deck=”Uue_SGIMx”]

One of my favorite Historic decks of all time, Bant Scapeshift uses not just one, but two nerfed cards! First, we obviously have Field of the Dead as the land we’re looking to hit off of Scapeshift to make a huge Zombie army. Although Field is now Legendary, you still get all of the triggers from them entering so it’s still quite easy to set up lethal board states with Scapeshift.

To help aid in that endeavor, this deck also uses Teferi not only to stop the opponent from interacting, but to let us cast Scapeshift on their end step so you can swing for lethal on your turn!

Field and Teferi were legal much longer than they should’ve been, but many players never had the chance to play the Scapeshift deck specifically as it only started gaining traction right before the deck got banned.

Jeskai Fires

[sd_deck deck=”tg1mpVyFS”]

The second Fires deck I made for this event, I had to go with Jeskai to be reminiscent of the widely loved and hated Standard deck. More or less, it’s the same deck most players are familiar with with some very nice upgrades in both the manabase and the early plays. This iteration of the deck was completely outshined by the Jeskai Lukka version and since it’s using some Mystical Archive cards, this may be the only chance you have to play this deck again in it’s (mostly) former glory!

Simic Turns

[sd_deck deck=”UurquaaMl”]

A cool deck that died for the sins of Velomachus Lorehold, Simic Turns was a deck I really enjoyed right at the beginning of Strixhaven’s release. Utilizing a lot of Ramp spells, this deck is looking to establish a threat (either Kefnet or Nissa), and then follow up with a bunch of Time Walk effects to end the game on the spot!

The best part about this deck is that Kefnet can win the game by itself if it happens to reveal a Time Walk on top of the library, or if you strategically put one there with Brainstorm! This deck mostly got overshadowed by more powerful options in Historic, but considering how a lot of these revamped decks are on the clunkier side, this may be really well positioned in the Mirror Mirror meta!

Azorius Blink

[sd_deck deck=”YUJbMukX5″]

Despite Agent of Treachery being much weaker than the original incarnation, I still had to show it some love. The best way I could think to do that is putting it in a Blink shell with a bunch of other cards that have great ETB effects. I know that Agent doesn’t do anything when blinked, but we have Niambi, Esteemed Speaker and Barrin, Tolarian Archmage to bounce Agent back into hand to recast it! That is definitely way more complicated that it used to be, but once you’re stealing something from the opponent every turn, I doubt you’ll be too concerned by that.

Bant Turbo Fog

[sd_deck deck=”y8ppEvKGG”]

Looking at Wilderness Reclamation is like Don Vito Corleone looking at Sonny’s body. But if I learned anything from the Godfather, we should always at least spruce up the corpse. For Reclamation to be at all playable, we need to make the best use of the ability to untap two lands.

That being said, the old versions of the deck made pretty good use of it whether it was untapping Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin, holding up Fogs, or casting a Nexus of Fate, so going with an iteration of that seemed wise. Furthermore, I figured the deck would need a little more power to help it across the finish line so I splashed White so we can get Teferi in there. Think of it this way, if you have Wilderness Reclamation and Teferi out at the same time, you can untap FOUR lands! Talk about value!

Temur Walkers

[sd_deck deck=”pTG02A89H”]

The final deck on this list was a bit of a spicier take on my dear friend Oko. With eight”mana dorks”, better fixing, and a huge pool of cards, I figured you could make a pretty strong Superfriends list. The concept behind the deck is that you ideally have an early play to start you off, then you’re off to the races when you’re slamming down a Walker every turn for the rest of the game.

To reward our greed, Sarkhan really likes when there’s a lot of Planeswalkers on board and can kill extremely quickly, sometimes even the turn it comes in! If you’re looking to jam some more mindless games of Magic during this event, this would be my recommendation for some good old hedonist fun.

Thank you for reading! What decks are you going to try in this event? Let us know in the comments!