Okay, so I’ve been hearing a lot about “Explorer Meta” in Magic: The Gathering, and I was like, “What’s the deal?” I’m mostly a casual player, you know, kitchen table Magic with friends, some Arena here and there. But this “Explorer” thing kept popping up, so I decided to dive in.
First, I had to figure out what Explorer even is. Turns out, it’s a format on Magic: The Gathering Arena. It’s meant to be a stepping stone to Pioneer, which is a paper format. Basically, it’s all the cards that are legal in Pioneer and are already on Arena. No weird digital-only stuff, just good old-fashioned (well, relatively recent) Magic cards.
My Exploration Begins
So, I launched Arena, and found the Explorer section. Easy enough. Now, the big question: what deck to play? I’m not a pro, and I don’t have a massive collection on Arena, so I needed something budget-friendly but also, you know, good. I did not want to build an expensive meta deck.
I spent some time browsing around, looking at decklists. There were a bunch of options, some familiar faces from Standard, and some totally new stuff. I even search other’s deck online, and I have the basic card collection to build.
After some trial and error, and a few tweaks to fit my own collection, I started playing! And… it was fun! I wasn’t winning every game, of course, but I was holding my own. I was seeing new cards, new strategies, and it felt like a whole new world of Magic had opened up.
My learning, started my first step to try out with a budget deck, and play and test it out. And here is my result.
- Mono-Red Aggro: Because who doesn’t love smashing face with cheap, fast creatures? It’s pretty straightforward and can steal some quick wins.
- Izzet (Blue/Red) Spells: I also play around the Blue/Red to test out spellslinger decks. It is pretty fun playing around with cheap instants and sorceries to control the board and burn out the opponent.
So, that’s my Explorer Meta journey so far. It’s been a blast, and I’m definitely going to keep playing. If you’re an Arena player and you’re looking for something a little different, I’d recommend giving it a shot!
