Somewhere out there there’s a joke about the storm mechanic somewhat fitting in with how Cori-Steel Cutter works, that also acknowledges that Cori-Steel Cutter is taking over multiple major formats – I’ll it to the readers to come up with a better one than I can! What about in that oldest of eternal formats on Arena, our beloved Historic? Has Cori-Steel Cutter had as big of an impact on Historic as it has in standard and pioneer? Read on to find out what exactly is going on in historic!

We’re back with another edition of our tournament series, with a report on the May 2025 MTG Eternal Historic Open! We have a much smaller pool to report from this time, but we have an interesting selection of decks to talk through from our top 8 – let’s get right to it! The full decklists are at this link, and a full record of the event can be found at the Matcherino page here.

First, a look at our most played nonland cards from this event (including sideboard cards):

Now, let’s take a look at what made our top 8:

Roaring into first place, we have frequent competitor freeyoumind bringing their unique take on UW Tempo to our tournament, a unique style of deck that has been popping up in the Historic meta recently that slows the game down to a more controllable speed, allowing cards like Talion’s Throneguard, Jace, the Mindsculptor, and High Noon to take over and dictate the game. Note the two copies of the new Clarion Conqueror in the sideboard, which can disrupt a wide variety of highly synergistic and combo-oriented decks in the meta! Make sure to take this for a spin if UW tempo is your style of deck!

Conquering second place, we have phantomime_48 piloting another UW tempo deck to a strong finish! There is a lot of overlap between this list in the previous list, but notice some of the differences – more copies of JtMS in the mainboard, alongside a copy of The Wandering Emperor, and a different spin on some interactive creatures and spells in the 75. While very similar to the previous list, the differences in these two well-positioned lists demonstrate that tempo gamers have flexibility in taking on today’s Historic meta.

Taking it down at third, we have frequent competitor and known Historic grinder Käpälä heading off the Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord and Saint Elenda gamers with his Sultai variant of the Sorin-Elenda decks, also featuring Psychic Frog, Emporer of Bones, Olivia, Crimson Bride, and two maindeck copies of Ulamog, the Defiler. This proactive deck packs plenty of hand disruption and other interactive pieces that allow it to flexibly beat down opponents – whether with the Sorin gameplan, or the Emperor of Bones gameplan. Käpälä and others have been tearing up the Historic ladder with variants of Sorin-Elenda decks for at least several weeks now, and although it didn’t take the top spot this time, now is an appropriate time to remind our readers that both Sorin and Elenda were the most played nonland cards in this event.

At fourth place, we have an incredibly unique combo list brought by first-time competitor Lords_Servant in LotusShift, a unique Lotus Field/Shifting Woodland combo deck that is extremely resilient to a lot of hate. Just about every time we have one of these tournaments, a combo deck makes the top 8 that I am not qualified enough to explain, and we have made it to this tournament’s edition of that list! You can check out the pilot’s initial primer on the MTG Historic subreddit to get a better idea of what’s going on here, but I want to advise you that this list has a lot of unique lines, and sometimes those lines are difficult to execute within Arena’s UI. If combo is your thing, and you want something that tends not to pay much mind to an opponent dropping an Elenda off of a Sorin on you, this could be the list you’ve been waiting for!

That rounds out our top 4 – with a smaller tournament size, we only had five rounds with the previously mentioned players playing out a top 4 elimination round for the number one spot. To round out the top 8, we have:

SirHamilton playing their variant of Sultai Bones, similar to the list we saw Käpälä on previously;

jjgalz played yet another Sultai Bones list;

15odwyer played a Mono Black Necrodominance list that also featured the Sorin-Elenda package; 

And rounding out our top 8, we have Kelvandil on MTG Joe’s variant of Jeskai Lotus Control, bringing us a bit more variety to our top 8 competitors.

Make sure you take a look at our other competitors’ lists linked above, as for now, that’s it!! So while it seems that Cori-Steel Cutter isn’t putting up the same kind of dominant results in the Historic meta at this time, Sorin-Elenda piles are here to stay and are forcing players to pack plenty of combo hate, or try to just combo through Sorin-Elenda. What’s your favorite list from our top 8? How do you prefer to beat up on Sorin-Elenda?

That’s all for now – thank you to all our players for making these events possible, and we hope to see you next time! To find out about when our regular monthly events are happening, please join our active Discord server focused on all Magic: Arena eternal formats.

-alfalfa1 and the MTG: Eternal community