An Uncommon Budget: Top 100 Decks for the Historic Artisan Festival

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The Historic Artisan Festival

From May 1st to May 6th, there will be an event on Arena known as the Historic Artisan Festival. Assuming that it follows the same pattern as past "Festival" events we've seen on Arena, it will cost 2500 gold, then you can play as many games as you want, earning cosmetics for the first few wins. Historic Artisan means that it will be like playing Historic, but with only cards of Common or Uncommon rarity.

While this sounds like a small event, it is significant because of something that happened in the past. The last Historic Brawl Festival was so popular that Wizards of the Coast decided to make it a permanent queue. While this is unlikely to happen for Historic Artisan, the English Artisan Discord still got excited about this being a chance at making the format more popular and letting Wizards of the Coast know that people are interested in it.

However, a lot of people's perceptions of the format are warped by the Midweek Magic experience of slapped-together, boring decks. People will play random White semi-aggressive cards together and call it a deck, but especially when playing without Rares or Mythics, this can lead to a very un-fun experience with the format.

Thus, with a lot of help from Artisan fans (mostly from the English Discord, but also some from the Italian one), we came up with 106 decklists—we originally planned for 100, but got carried away—that can give people a wider taste of the format.

Artisan Decks are Naturally Interesting

Artisan is a unique format. Without Rare and Mythic cards, you aren't going to find many cards that win the game on their own, but there are still open-ended synergistic Uncommon cards designed for Limited formats. This means that Artisan decks in general are going to be highly synergistic. Some will take a Limited archetype to an extreme like Selesnya Counters, while others like Crap Oven and Hardened Scales add a unique spin to the archetypes, and yet others will find strange and unintended synergies like Putrid Combo and Abzan Liquimetal Coating. There are some decks that attempt to run generic, less-synergistic gameplans, but in general, the format encourages decks that are creative and make cards you wouldn't expect to see in Constructed look good.

These 106 decklists were made with the goal of showing of how interesting deckbuilding in the format can be. We missed a lot of decks (Disturb Midrange, Neoform Soulherder, Rogues, Golgari Lifedrain, Mono Red Devotion, and many more), but there still should be something for everyone here.

Enjoy difficult combat math? Try Boros Modular!

Enjoy memeing on your opponents? Try Yargle Fling!

Enjoy long games that almost come down to milling out? Try Phyrexian Reclamation!

Enjoy winning on a mulligan to three cards? Try Twiddle Storm!

Enjoy quick games that require minimal thought? Try Gruul Aggro!

However, along with variety in gameplay, there is variety in power levels. Each decklist below has a power level next to it on a scale of [1] to [5]. Here is what those power levels mean:

1. Meme deck. Play for fun, not for wins.
2. Interesting or fun, but I wouldn't ever bring it to a tournament.
3. The average deck. Fairly strong.
4. Tournament-level decklist.
5. Meta-defining decklist. If you know how to play it, you will win.

Most of the decklists I ranked at [3], meaning that the power level isn't that important. The ratings are also subjective, and partially based off of best-of-three matches, so take them with a grain of salt.

Each decklist has a brief primer, explaining the bare-bones basics of the idea behind the deck, which can be useful for some of the more confusing lists like Grinning Ignus.

So, with all of that out of the way, let's get into the decklists!

Historic Artisan (No Rares/Mythics) Decklists

Aggro

These decks generally try to win the game quickly, going too fast for the opponent to get their gameplan online.

Tribal

These decklists usually use lord effects like Inspiring Veteran as a payoff for restricting the deck to a specific Creature type.

• Dredge Zombies [4]
• Vampire Aggro [4]
• Merfolk [3]
• Elves [3]
• Werewolves [3]
• Rakdos Goblins [3]
• Knights [3]
• Jund Slivers [2]

Ancient Ziggurat

These decks are all-in on mana fixing with Ancient Ziggurat at the cost of not playing non-Creatures.

• Vampire Tribal [3]
• Warriors [3]
• Goblins [3]
• Esper Zombies [3]

Blitz

These decks are spellslinger-focused, with payoffs like Balmor, Battlemage Captain turning cards like Opt into damage.

• Izzet Wizards [4]
• 8 Pyro [3]
• Izzet Drakes [2]
• Boros Heroic [2]
• Azorius Heroic [2]
• Kilntrips [2]

Go Wide

These decks play as many creatures as possible, often winning with some sort of Burn Bright effect.

• Azorius Tokens [4]
• Selesnya Tokens [3]
• Boros Heroes [3]
• Looting Rally [3]
• Orzhov Tokens [3]
• Azorius Rally of Wings [3]
• Modular Tokens [3]
• Gleeful Demolition [3]
• Anvil Aggro [3]

Voltron

These decks try to go tall with Auras or Equipment to make a single, powerful, resilient threat.

• Azorius Scissors [5]
• Bogles [4]
• Hammertime [2]
• Simic Mutate [2]
• Sultai Mutate [2]
• Selesnya Auras [2]

Stompy

These decklists balance going wide and tall, playing multiple large threats.

• High Alert [4]
• Hardened Scales [4]
• Selesnya Counters [4]
• Forests Matter [3]
• 3-Power Uprising [3]

Burn

These decks to some degree rely on spells that deal direct damage to the opponent like Play with Fire, rather than just using creatures to get it done.

• Gruul Aggro [3]
• Mono Red Madness [3]
• Red Deck Wins [3]
• Gruul Delirium [3]
• Rakdos Madness [3]
• Spitfire Cavalcade [3]
• Rakdos Cavalcade [2]
• Pure Burn [2]

Tempo

These decks combine elements of aggro and control, playing early powerful or growing threats like Delver of Secrets, then disrupting the opponent while those threats to close out the game.

• Turbo Serpents [4]
• Mono Blue Tempo [3]
• Azorius Fliers Tempo [3]
• Ninjas [2]

Other Aggro

These decks were a little too hard to categorize.

• Black Banner [3]
• Abzan Mutate [3]
• Aggro Sacrifice [3]
• Azorius Vehicles [2]
• Rat Colony [1]

Midrange

These decks have some amount of interaction along with either "goodstuff" cards or some sort of engine that gives them power as the game goes on.

Graveyard

These decks are usually recursion-based, constantly getting cards back from the graveyard for card advantage.

• Phyrexian Reclamation [4]
• Explore Reclamation [4]
• Abzan Specialist [4]
• Crap Oven [3]

Blink/Bounce

These decks effectively reuse "enters the battlefield" triggers by returning cards to hand or exiling and returning them to the battlefield.

• Oketra's Monument [5]
• Orzhov Skyfisher [3]

Soulherder

These decks are built around Soulherder, which generates insurmountable value if not answered.

• Bant Soulherder [5]
• Esper Soulherder [3]

Sacrifice

These decks are built around "when this creature dies" sorts of effects, using cards like Deadly Dispute to draw cards while also sacrificing something you wanted to sacrifice.

• Orzhov Dungeons [4]
• Orzhov Sacrifice [4]
• Orzhov Aristocrats [3]
• Death-Dweller Devil [3]
• Golgari Sacrifice [3]

Anvil

These decks are built around Artifact sacrifice and Oni-Cult Anvil, a card strong enough to be suspended in Italian tournaments recently.

• All-in Anvil [5]
• Mardu Anvil [4]
• Grixis Anvil [4]
• Trash for Treasure Midrange [3]

Other Midrange

These decks were hard to classify.

• Mono White Midrange [3]
• Mono Black Devotion [3]
• Golgari Adventures [3]
• Golgari Treasures [3]
• Mephidross Slime Time [3]
• Abzan Liquimetal Coating [2]
• Bant Clues [2]

Control

These decks are built more around disrupting and destroying the opponent's gameplan more than developing your own.

Draw Go

These decks tend to play their spells mostly on the opponent's turn.

• Izzet Terror Control [4]
• Izzet Control [4]
• Fog Gates [2]

Tap Out

These decks are more likely to play their spells on their own turn.

• Jeskai History [3]
• Jeskai Acuity [3]
• Shrines [3]
• Jund Cartouches [2]

Other Control

These decks were hard to classify.

• Izzet Fling [3]
• Grixis Thieves [2]

Combo

These decks are built around game-breaking (sometimes infinite) interactions between specific cards.

Slow Combo

These decks play a little bit more controlling, giving themselves time to set up the combo.

• Yargle Fling [2]
• Roil Reef [2]

Turbo Combo

These decks generally forego interaction to play ways to find combo pieces, or protection to make sure the combo doesn't die to removal.

• Putrid Combo [4]
• Wand 'n' Gond [3]
• Grinning Ignus [1]

OTK (One Turn Kill)

These decks will sculpt a situation where an otherwise unimpressive board can suddenly deal twenty damage.

• Zada Combo [2]
• Atogs [2]

Storm

These decks use various means to make cards effectively cost nothing, then play a lot of spells in one turn.

• Chatterstorm [3]
• Twiddle Storm [1]
• Sacrifice Storm [1]

Other

These decks don't fall into any specific category.

• Simic Flash [3]
• Spider Spawning [3]
• Zombie Hunt [1]
• Lupine Trash [1]

Escape Protocol

These decks are built around Escape Protocol.

• Escape Protocol Lock [2]
• Escape Protocol Mill [1]

Reanimator

These decks put extremely powerful cards directly from the graveyard to the battlefield, getting a huge discount on them.

• Sultai Reanimator Control [3]
• Orzhov Turbo Reanimator [3]

Conclusion

Phew! That was a lot of work. These decks were made with a lot of care, and hopefully they give you a chance to play the format with something more spicy than the usual Historic Artisan lists that pop up in these events.

Please find me in the English Artisan Discord if you have any suggestions for the decklists or want to play in future Historic Artisan tournaments.

And if you love the format, the best thing you can do for it is play it! Join the Festival and have fun playing cool decklists. There's no better way to show Wizards of the Coast that the format would get played than simply playing it.

See you in the Festival!

- Rooker