The holiday season has now come to a close, but we’ve got another busy year of MTG ahead! The last week of 2021 was an exciting one not just because of the New Year, but also because it saw the successful launch of our brand new tournament series, the MTG Arena Zone Championship Series.
The Championship, brought to life through our new Esports organization DotGG Events, features a Season 1 with weekly $1K prize pool tournaments. Thanks to our partnership with MTG Melee, we are also able to offer an exciting opportunity to our participants: a Set Championship Qualifier on January 30 that will provide the winner with an invitation to the official Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Set Championship!
Each week of Season 1 includes three events: two events during the week that earn automatic bye rounds for the $1K Preliminary Set Championship Qualifier on Sunday – the events that could be your path to the Kamigawa Set Championship and beyond.
You can read all about the details of the MTG Arena Zone Championship Series at our announcement page (embedded below), but today, it’s time for us to take a look at the turnout and results from our first week! All of the events this week were based in the new Alchemy format, but next week will feature Historic.
We’ve got the final results from all three events, plus decklists, the official Championship Leaderboard standings, metagame data, and more. You can use the following links for quick navigation:
After the first week of competition, we have our first standings posted on the DotGG leaderboard! The full leaderboard, which is determined by points that are earned from each of the MTGA Zone Championship Series events, can be viewed here.
Season 1 and its cumulative point-based leaderboard system are starting out small, but we have big aspirations for the future. For now, the top 16 players on the board at the end of the season in March will all be offered 1 bye for each of the Sunday events in Season 2.
We’ve got some fierce competition stacking up already after just one week, with Vtuber and streamer sanetomi taking an early #1 thanks to their win in the first PSCQ piloting Orzhov Clerics, and MTG Rivals League member Tomรกลก Pokornรฝ (@TheDaninja) close behind in second.
We’d like to invite anyone who is interested in the MTG competitive scene to join us in the coming weeks for some fun gameplay and cash prizes! You can find out the full schedule on the event calendar here and even enter in them yourself!
All prizes will be paid out promptly following each event, and we’re hoping to build these events over the year as we work to gain the trust and support of the community.
The Metagame
Alchemy is still a young format, and while there have been a few tournaments since its inception, the competitive meta is still unsettled – and could potentially be drastically altered by buffs and nerfs coming down the pipe.
With that being said, we saw a number of archetypes that were prevalent in our early events.
Control:
Many of the control decks that have appeared in Alchemy thus far are based at least partially on the new cards Discover the Formula and Key to the Archive.
Most commonly, Discover the Formula decks have been showing up in two shells: Izzet, which has forgone Alrund's Epiphany but otherwise looks similar to the Izzet Epiphany decks of Standard, and Azorius, which benefits from powerful sweepers.
Gruul Werewolves hasn’t managed to break into the top tiers of Standard, but in Alchemy, the addition of powerful curve fillers like Tenacious Pup and Rahilda, Wanted Cutthroat have made the archetype a serious contender.
Meanwhile, the Clerics deck, which also hasn’t gotten much done in competitive Standard, has received a huge boost in power in Alchemy thanks to the addition of Inquisitor Captain. The Captain, which has been compared to Collected Company, gives creature-heavy decks a highly explosive mid-game threat that just so happens to also have the Cleric type.
And a Bit of Midrange:
Midrange decks haven’t been the star of the show in our Alchemy events thus far, but it’s not totally absent either. Perhaps most the notable archetype from the week was Boros Dragons, which made an appearance in all but one of our events and even scored a Top 8 at the PSCQ in the hands of Tim Calvert.
You’ll find that decklist, along with the rest of Sunday’s Top 8, in the PSCQ coverage at the bottom of the page. Additionally, you can view metagame tables from each of the events below:
Thanks for reading! This article is the beginning of a series of coverage on the MTG Arena Zone Championship Series. We hope to see you at some of our events this season and beyond! You can learn more about the Championship Series over on DotGG. Tournament registration is handled through our page at MTGMelee.
Premium
Enjoy our content? Wish to support our work? Join our Premium community, get access to exclusive content, remove all advertisements, and more!
No ads: Browse the entire website ad-free, both display and video.
Exclusive Content: Instant access to all exclusive articles only for Premium members, at your fingertips.
Support: All your contributions get directly reinvested into the website to increase your viewing experience!
Discord: Join our Discord server, claim your Premium role and gain access to exclusive channels where you can learn in real time!
Special offer: For a limited time, use coupon code L95WR9JOWV to get 50% off the Annual plan!
