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It’s time once again for the Weekend Tournament Report, where we take a look at some of the biggest Arena tournaments each week and break down the meta and results. This weekend, most of the action took place at the SCG Tour Online satellite events, but there was also one large split-format tournament of note with a $5k prize pool.
Insight Esports is one of the largest online tournament hosts for MTG: Arena events. This weekend, they put on their Tier 1 Summer Series $5,000 Invitational, a tournament which featured both the Standard and Historic formats and is the capstone for Insight’s summer season. Only players who qualified for the event through other Insight events over the summer were eligible to enter.
The Tier 1 Summer Invitational featured some big names in the Magic pro scene, from Magic Pro League members to popular streamers. The competitors battled through four Swiss rounds each of Standard and Historic, followed by a Top 8 Historic single-elimination showdown.
Standard Metagame
| Archetype | Number of Decks | Percentage of Field | Winrate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Naya Winota | 20 | 28.2% | 69.2% |
| Temur Adventures | 10 | 14.1% | 33.33% |
| Gruul Adventures | 7 | 9.9% | 47.1% |
| Dimir Control (Yorion) | 5 | 7% | 14.3% |
| Jeskai Mutate | 4 | 5.6% | 40% |
| Izzet Dragons ❄️ | 3 | 4.2% | 33.33% |
| Dimir Rogues (Lurrus) | 3 | 4.2% | 75% |
| Naya Adventures (Jegantha) | 3 | 4.2% | 44.44% |
| Sultai Ramp (Yorion) | 3 | 4.2% | 40% |
Naya Winota is an archetype that’s been floating around in Standard for a while now, but in recent weeks, the deck has exploded- both in terms of popularity and in terms of success. In this tournament, Naya Winota made up nearly 30% of the field and achieved an insane 69.2% winrate in non mirror matches.
This archetype seems to be one of the few to receive significant upgrades from the most recent set Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. There’s a fair bit of variety among these decks, but the most common AFR cards showing up in this archetype are Prosperous Innkeeper, Ranger Class, and Minsc, Beloved Ranger.
The treasure tokens from Prosperous Innkeeper both ramp into Winota, Joiner of Forces and also fix mana for the three-color deck. The incidental lifegain from its triggered ability can certainly have an impact on the game as well, especially for decks like Winota that tend to dump a ton of creatures on the field.
Ranger class, meanwhile, generates a non-human creature to trigger Winota that also is able to remain relevant as the game progresses thanks to its ability to level up and eventually provide some card advantage. Minsc is a human for Winota to hit that also generates a non-human token, making it a great player with both halves of Winota’s ability.
Other than Winota, much of the metagame was made up of other familiar archetypes- Adventure decks, Sultai Ultimatum, and Izzet Dragons all showed up at this tournament, but most of them performed poorly in the meta.
The highest winrate overall—even higher than Naya Winota’s 69%—was achieved by Dimir Rogues, an archetype which I predicted may have a good opening in the meta as it continues to adjust to AFR. Four Dimir Rogues decks at the Tier 1 Summer Invitational managed a 75% winrate which is no joke. Many players are tired of playing against turn 1 Ruin Crab, but it isn’t finished with you yet- keep an eye on the Rogues deck going forward.
Historic Metagame
| Archetype | Number of Decks | Percentage of Field | MW%* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeskai Control (Kaheera) | 13 | 18.3% | 48.89% |
| Izzet Phoenix | 11 | 15.5% | 44.7% |
| Orzhov Auras (Lurrus) | 8 | 11.3% | 53.6% |
| Jund Food | 8 | 11.3% | 57.6% |
| Dragonstorm | 5 | 7% | 33.33% |
| Mono-Black Aggro | 5 | 7% | 42.9% |
| Rakdos Arcanist (Lurrus) | 4 | 5.6% | 60% |
| Azorius Auras (Lurrus) | 4 | 5.6% | 61.5% |
With the Star City Games Tour Online being exclusively focused on the Standard format, there have been few large events in Historic since Wizards of the Coast took the step of suspending Brainstorm from the format. The suspension was made with the intention of improving the diversity of a format dominated by Izzet Phoenix and Jeskai Control.
While Izzet and Jeskai decks still made up the majority of the field at the Tier 1 Summer Invitational, neither deck performed particularly well against the meta. Both archetypes had a less than 50% winrate in non-mirror matches, and only one example of each deck made it to the top 8.
It’s not particularly surprising that both the Izzet and Jeskai archetypes survived the suspension in some capacity, but the jury is still out on whether or not the metagame will become more diverse as a result. Thus far, both archetypes are still the most popular archetypes in the competitive sphere, albeit not the best performing.
The results from this tournament seem to suggest that the biggest winner from the suspension may have been Jund Food/Sacrifice. Previously known as possibly the best deck in the format, Jund Food decks were so ubiquitous in time before the release of the Mystical Archive with Strixhaven: School of Mages that many decks ran specific hate pieces to shut the deck down, namely Yasharn, Implacable Earth– a somewhat clunky four drop that hasn’t seen play before or since the dominance of Jund.
Although Jund performed consistently poorly against the powerful blue decks powered up by the Mystical Archive, things may be looking up for the archetype now that three cards from the archive have been banned and the format struggles to regain some normalcy. Jund Food performed quite well in this event with a 57% winrate overall and 3 decks in the top 8. It’s possible that Yasharn may be back on the menu if Jund is able to regain its commanding position in the meta.
Top 8
| Rank | Player | Standard Deck | Historic Deck | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | hogpog_98 | Jeskai Mutate | Jund Food | 9-2 |
| 2 | Pedro Urquisa Barbosa | Rakdos Midrange | Rakdos Arcanist | 8-3 |
| 3 | Gabriel Nassif | Gruul Adventures | Izzet Phoenix | 8-2 |
| 4 | Arne Huschenbeth | Naya Winota | Jeskai Control | 8-2 |
| 5 | Gabriel Nicholas | Naya Winota | Jund Food | 7-2 |
| 6 | Chase Masters | Naya Winota | Rakdos Arcanist | 6-3 |
| 7 | Nicholas Price | Naya Winota | Jund Food | 6-3 |
| 8 | Renzo Arana | Dimir Rogues | Bant Ramp | 6-3 |
