Oct 5, 20222 min read

Deck of the Week: Historic Arclight Phoenix

Deck Overview

Let’s be honest; Arclight Phoenix has been a powerhouse in almost every format. Historic is no exception, and this decklist brought Kirkwood Bros team member Mike Bodden from Bronze to Gold in one day. The deck is your classic build of cheap instant and sorceries that dump your Phoenixes into your graveyard in order to bring them back, but the spice that makes this deck stand out is the inclusion of Demilich. Demilich gives you late-game action, allowing you to cast it from your graveyard and giving you extra value from your instants and sorceries.

The deck also runs Founding the Third Path, a new Saga from Dominaria United that allows you to cast a cheap instant or sorcery for free, fill your graveyard, and cast a copy of a spell from your graveyard. This gets real cute with the inclusion of the card See the Truth, which turns into an Ancestral Recall if it’s cast from somewhere other than your hand. This could happen in multiple ways, from Founding the Third Path, an attacking Demilich, or even off of Expressive Iteration.

Arclight Phoenix decks are fast, resilient, and consistent, three factors that make a deck tier-one. As more impactful blue and red instant and sorceries get printed, Phoenix decks will continue to get more powerful. The banning of Faithless Looting in Modern and the exclusion of the OG Innistrad block in Pioneer has kept Phoenix out of the spotlight for competitive play, but I’m sure it won’t be long before a new instant or sorcery takes its place.