Introduction

Hello everyone,

The Historic Arena Open is this weekend and what a great time to play something fun and competitive and take a break from Standard.

The Historic format is fresh and its metagame is far from solved. Better yet, Best-of-one and Best-of-three Historic are quite diverse from one another.

Matti Kuisma and Sebastian Pozzo already wrote about their 《Field of the Dead》 deck choice and I am also going to be very boring and join them in the selection for the Best-of-three portion of the Open.

Deck For BO3: Temur Reclamation

This is the Temur Reclamation decklist I’ve been playing and finding success with.

Deck 4 Wilderness Reclamation 2 Oracle of Mul Daya 4 Expansion // Explosion 2 Aether Gust 2 Magmaquake 4 Explore 4 Growth Spiral 2 Shark Typhoon 3 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath 4 Field of the Dead 2 Fabled Passage 1 Arch of Orazca 1 Blast Zone 2 Breeding Pool 1 Stomping Ground 1 Steam Vents 1 Temple of Epiphany 1 Temple of Abandon 1 Temple of Mystery 1 Island 1 Mountain 2 Forest 1 Thriving Isle 1 Lonely Sandbar 1 Forgotten Cave 1 Castle Vantress 1 Thriving Grove 1 Sulfur Falls 1 Rootbound Crag 1 Thornwood Falls 1 Hinterland Harbor 2 Ketria Triome 1 Raugrin Triome 1 Zagoth Triome 1 Tranquil Thicket Sideboard 3 Scorching Dragonfire 2 Flame Sweep 4 Grafdigger’s Cage 1 Aether Gust 2 Negate 1 Disdainful Stroke 2 Thragtusk

How to Use It?

　1. Copy the whole text.

　2. Open the Deck menu on MTG Arena and click “Import”.

　3. If you succeeded, your deck will be there as an “Imported Deck”.

I am sure most of you are already sick of reading about Temur Reclamation, so I am going to be brief and mostly talk about what I am doing differently from other lists.

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The most important difference: 33 lands. I’ve seen too many lists playing 29-30 lands in this archetype, which I believe is a mistake. The deck needs access to three colors and 6 of the lands only tap for colorless. You need to increase the number of lands significantly to consistently cast your spells early.

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That’s not all. The reason why this deck and similar archetypes are considered so good in Historic is because they have access to 8 land accelerators on turn 2 and the mana advantage is gone if you can’t hit enough land drops, even after the first 4-5. The 《Field of the Dead》 mirror matches are all about land drops and if you stop making yours at basically any point in the game, you are falling behind.

For this reason I believe 《Oracle of Mul Daya》 is the mirror breaker. It generates so much advantage in the course of 1-2 turns. It’s also at its best here with 33 lands because you are very likely to hit land from the top as soon as you play it. The deck can easily change the top card of the library with all the cheap cycling and card drawing as well. I rarely miss making two land drops from the top after untapping with Oracle in play.

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Seven lands with Cycling are very useful to avoid flooding later in the game and are also good to get 《Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath》s back easily. I don’t like the negative interaction between 《Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath》 and 《Search for Azcanta》, so I decided early during testing to cut the enchantment from the deck.

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Sweepers are very good against Goblins, but the match overall is pretty good, so I am only running two 《Magmaquake》 maindeck and focusing more on the 《Field of the Dead》 mirrors.

《Rampaging Ferocidon》 and 《Anax, Hardened in the Forge》 could be problematic so I prefer having access to 《Scorching Dragonfire》 in the sideboard instead of 《Bonecrusher Giant》.

Kethis Combo is normally the fastest deck in the match-up, so I like having all 4 《Grafdigger’s Cage》. I want to draw it early and I also don’t mind drawing multiple copies because that makes it so much harder for them to just bounce it with 《Teferi, Time Raveler》 and go off.

I’ve seen lists with 《Elder Gargaroth》 in the sideboard and I have to assume this is only because people forget that 《Thragtusk》 is in the format.

I trust any of you interested in playing this deck already know how 《Wilderness Reclamation》 and 《Expansion/Explosion》 work, so I am not going to go into detail about that.

Instead, I want to talk about my spicy pick for Best-of-One. As I mentioned before, the metagame is quite different between Best-of-three and Best-of-one because with such a large card pool there are so many options for decks and without a sideboard it’s hard to have the answers for everything. For this reason proactive and aggressive decks are so much more popular in Best-of-one.

But what if you could have a sideboard anyway?

Deck For BO1: Mono Black Control

Deck 2 Massacre Wurm (M21) 114 2 Phyrexian Arena (8ED) 152 3 Cry of the Carnarium (RNA) 70 3 Languish (JMP) 246 2 Mastermind’s Acquisition (RIX) 77 4 Tendrils of Corruption (M10) 114 4 Mind Stone (WTH) 153 4 Karn, the Great Creator (WAR) 1 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon (M21) 1 4 Guardian Idol (JMP) 467 2 Karn, Scion of Urza (DAR) 1 1 Ugin, the Ineffable (WAR) 2 1 Treasure Map (XLN) 250 23 Swamp (M21) 311 2 Field of Ruin (THB) 242 1 Cabal Stronghold (DAR) 238 1 Erebos’s Intervention (THB) 94 Sideboard 1 Platinum Angel (M10) 218 1 Ratchet Bomb (SOM) 196 1 Agonizing Remorse (THB) 83 1 Murderous Rider (ELD) 97 1 Necromentia (M21) 116 1 Virulent Plague (DTK) 125 1 Grafdigger’s Cage (M20) 227 1 Soul-Guide Lantern (THB) 237 1 Sorcerous Spyglass (XLN) 248 1 Crucible of Worlds (M19) 229 1 Liliana, Dreadhorde General (WAR) 97 1 Fountain of Renewal (M19) 235 1 The Immortal Sun (RIX) 180 1 Ritual of Soot (GRN) 84 1 Tormod’s Crypt (M21) 241

How to Use It?

　1. Copy the whole text.

　2. Open the Deck menu on MTG Arena and click “Import”.

　3. If you succeeded, your deck will be there as an “Imported Deck”.

I tried Reclamation in Best-of-one as well, but not even 5 sweepers maindeck were enough sometimes, or 《Magmaquake》 would be awkward against Mono White Angels or Mono Blue Tempo full of fliers. 《Flame Sweep》 wouldn’t do much against all the 3/3s and 4/4s in Gruul either.

Mono Black though, seems to have all the tools to fight against most of these problems, while also having a smoother mana.

Having access to a sideboard tool box is so powerful in Best-of-One and here you are making great use of both 《Karn, the Great Creator》 and 《Mastermind’s Acquisition》.

I’ve played 20 games with this deck so far and it’s been the most fun I’ve had yet in the format and the most challenging to build as well. I’ve been constantly changing cards and I am sure there is still space for improvement.

The 8 mana rocks are excellent and work so well with Both Karns and both Ugins. 《Treasure Map》 seems a bit slow for the format, I’ve been going down in numbers, but it’s still quite useful and again plays well with the Planeswalkers.

《Cry of the Carnarium》, 《Languish》, 《Tendrils of Corruption》 and 《Massacre Wurm》 are all great against the creature decks that are so popular in Best-of-one.

From the sideboard 《Grafdigger’s Cage》 is what seals the deal against Goblins. With so many sweepers it’s so hard for them to get a meaningful board presence and their best shot is with a good trigger from 《Muxus, Goblin Grandee》.

《Ratchet Bomb》 and 《Platinum Angel》 have also been very useful. Surprisingly not many decks have answers for the Angel in Best-of-one and it just wins you the game on the spot.

《Necromentia》 is the go to against 《Expansion/Explosion》. If you get rid of it, you have a good shot at beating some Sharks and Zombies with all the sweepers in the deck. Eventually you can also get 《Virulent Plague》 or 《Crucible of Worlds》 to combine with 《Field of Ruin》 to solve the problem for good.

《Murderous Rider》, 《Liliana, Dreadhorde General》 and 《The Immortal Sun》 helped me in different situations as well. I think basically everything else in the sideboard is flexible.

Conclusion

I am really looking forward to this weekend of Historic play and also to see how the format evolves from there. I hope you find this article useful and maybe these lists help you to a good run!

Thanks for reading,

Fabrizio (Twitter)