Arclight Phoenix

Arclight sb guide

Worth noting that if your playing open decklist this should be much more of a rough draft then an actual guide. While I think all guides are more like loose outlines than a Bible. With open decklist you can easily see how the cards line up. So you might see something here today that doesn't make sense with that info gained by open decklist.

The trick to Arclight in my opinion is that you are just a blue version of Rakdos. What that means is that you have less raw power per card, and your fair plan is a little weaker, however you have much higher impact cards versus specifically mono green, and your able to find the cards you are looking for more consistently then a deck like Rakdos and in exchange your worse vs the graveyard hate. You are the classic 47% vs the field deck with a few spots where your way better then that. If your weak at cantripping tho I would suggest playing rakdos over this, however I do think this decks ceiling is way higher then Rakdos. The Parmesan effect (if you dont know what that is I suggest reading the parmesan effect article I wrote on Patreon) this deck has of Galvanic and Tresspass, is hard to undersell. Taking two turns in a row is often more then enough to beat your opponents or burry them. The othe is the deck is super not well tuned compared to rakdos. Arclight just doenst have a “Missplaced Ginger” equivalent grinding games with the deck to help innovate and push it forward and I think thats why we see such different builds of the deck.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5244590#online


Mono Green
In 3 Stroke 2 Thing in the ice 2 aether gust
Out 4 Arclight phoenix 3 lightning axe.

Your two drops are your best threats against green cause you can develop them early and late holding up your interaction. This matchup is a lot about you making sure the first few big things don't resolve while you pressure them a bit then you end up chip shotting and crossing the finish line. Worth mentioning a few tricks to the matchup.
First you can gust a Cavalier of Thorns with its trigger on the stack as a way to permanently answer it.
Second You want to use your thing in the ice flip typically at the end of their turn so that you can get a clean attack in and they have to spend the next turn rebuilding.


Rakdos
In 2 Crackling Drake 2 brothers end 1 abrade
Out 2 Spell pierce 2 Temporal trespass 1 thing in the ice

This is the nightmare matchup and the one matchup I actually tested a lot going into the event. Your a huge dog in this matchup as its really easy for them to line up all there answers with your threats and remove them and you have to wait to deploy cards like Pieces of the puzzle, unless you want all your work undone by a go blank. There are multiple ways to sb in this matchup. I know one team landed on cutting all the threats and bringing in a bunch of burn down the houses etc. As a way to become much more controlling and invalidate a lof the cards in the rakdos deck. I opted for a more aggressive approach leaving in everything but the one thing and trying to race them in lots of spots as it felt I cant consistently go long in games they have their sb cards. I am not sure what method is correct however I think for both you want to choose to take the draw. I know I mentioned it being a race a second ago, but your both bad at that so having the extra card matters a fair bit. It also makes your opp curve worse. Imagine I am on the play and I play a shredder into a black mana, if they have fatal push I am in a huge world of hurt. While the inverse is true for them with my spot removal and then I get to develop my threat and have board control.

Mono White
In 2 Brothers end 1 rending volley  2 thing in the ice 2 crackling drake
Out 2 Spell Pierce 2 Galvanic 2 trespass 1 treasure cruise  

With this sb plan I am basically trying to minimize the impact of RIP on the game. Crackling drake is also just a good blocker that eventually can kill them. They can brutal cathar it, but often that's playing with fire and those are already taxed by the Thing in the ices. If your on the draw you need a Thalia answer. (thing does count if you have mulliganed.)


Mirror
In 2 Dispute 2 stroke
Out 3 Impulse 1 thing in the ice  

This is a weird matchup where most games come down to the combo. To be honest I am not rock solid that this plan is the best option, but I think its a totally serviceable one. One thing I def learned from testing was that you often don't win with chip shots early, so sometimes its better to just hold back just to make sure you don't die to the combo. Also shredder can be a real problem if it grows big enough.


Grease Fang
In 1 Abrade 1 Rending Volly 2 Brothers end 2 thing in the ice  (2 drake if they have a bunch of gy hate)
Out 2 spell pierce 2 galv 2 tresspass

This matchup they can basically present a tax of “hey you can never really tap out or I am going to kill you” the way to beat this mu is sticking a two drop early and then riding it to victory. The Arclight are weird in that they actually can help you win the game but you don't want to many of them as they are sorta clunky.

The reason we want brothers end is for their fair plan. A fair number of Fang players board out 1-2 parhellion and plan to use chariot plus tokens to beat us down. So the deal three to everything mode is fairly important in that context.

I might add more to this in time, if you have a mu your curious about feel free to reply or message me on here or in discord!