Home » What’s Happening in Magic Esports – June 2021 Recap

What’s Happening in Magic Esports – June 2021 Recap

Bryan Rockwood

Publish Date: July 1, 2021

Even though there aren’t many in-person events anymore, the Magic: The Gathering esports scene is still going strong. Every month there are a few tournaments audiences can check out where pros play several different formats like Standard, Modern, and Historic. But sometimes life gets crazy, and people miss what’s happening in the competitive MTG environment. Fear not, as The Game Haus has prepared the Magic Esports June 2021 recap for readers everywhere.

Strixhaven Championship

What is the Strixhaven Championship?
The Strixhaven Championship is a three day tournament that features 250 players from both Magic Arena’s Rivals Leagues, the Magic Pro League, and players who had qualified for the tournament through various qualifier events. The tournament tests players’ knowledge of both Standard and Historic formats. Through the first two days, players competed in both formats in order to score enough wins to secure a spot in the top 8 for day three.

On day three, the format swapped to purely Historic decks. There players would participate in a double-elimination bracket with best-of-three matches determining the winner. The Championship match featured two, best-of-three matches to crown the winner of the Strixhaven Championship.
When: June 4-6
Where: Magic Arena
Format: Standard and Historic
Winner: Sam Pardee
Decklist: Jeskai Turns

Courtesy of Magic.gg

While the Standard bracket seemed relatively diverse, the big story of the weekend was the prominence of the Izzet Phoenix deck in Historic. The blue-red spellslinging deck boasted an impressive 35% share of the metagame. Players were extremely excited to pair Faithless Looting and Arclight Phoenix together again in Historic after their previous dominance in Modern. The combination of recursive threats and powerful draw spells made for a deck that not only wins, but also offers plenty of exciting lines of play.

However it appeared as though the rest of the field saw this deck as the biggest threat and prepared accordingly. Jeskai Turns broke out as the best counter to the Phoenix decks. The Turns deck simply didn’t mind facing down multiple flying threats, as their game plan revolved around looping extra turns in order to close out the game. In fact, the Championship match would feature two similar versions of the Jeskai Turns deck. Eventually it was Sam Pardee who took the title with his favorite version of the turbo-turns list in a stunning 2-0 fashion.

2021 Magic Online Championship Showcase

What is the Magic Online Championship Showcase?
The MOCS is a tournament of eight competitors battling against one another in a combination draft and constructed tournament. Players draft Modern Horizons 2 as well as play in a Modern bracket to decided the first ever MOCS champion. If a player wins both the draft and the constructed portion of the event, they are deemed the champ. If the two events have two different winners, the two winners will play one more best-of-three match of Modern to determine the victor.

When: June 26
Where: Magic Online
Format: Draft and Modern
Winner: Yuuki Ichikawa
Decklist: Temur Footfalls

Courtesy of Magic.gg

Players were more than happy to get their hands on the incredibly powerful cards from Modern Horizons 2. Four players opted to start their deck lists with the powerful new one-drop Dragon’s Rage Channeler. Other players saw the chance to cheat in a massive board advantage thanks to Crashing Footfalls and Shardless Agent. Overall it looked like aggro was on the menu, as no entrant dared to register a midrange or control deck for the first ever Champions Showcase.

After falling in the Limited portion of the tournament, Yuuki Ichikawa had to once again prove himself as the best Modern player in the tournament. Ichikawa earned his spot in the Showcase after becoming the Modern Champion on Magic Online. He piloted a streamlined deck list that wanted to cheat out as many 4/4 rhinos as possible. With Shardless Agent and Violent Outburst as the Cascade options, Ichikawa took advantage of strong counter spell suite available to blue decks in order to lock down Francisco Sanchez and his Mardu Death’s Shadow deck.

What’s Coming up in July?

MTG Arena League Weekend
When: July 3 – 4

Magic Pro League players and Rival League players face off against players in their league to earn points towards the postseason. Check out all the action on Twitch at twitch.tv/magic.