Magic: The Gathering’s digital version, Magic: The Gathering Arena has began to rotate sets out of its Standard card pool earlier this year with the release of Core Set 2020. While this means that cards from sets like Ixalan and Dominaria can no longer be played in the Standard format, Arena has introduced the new Historic system to compensate.

Any cards available in Arena can be played in Historic, regardless of Standard legality. As new cards continue to be released - including some specifically for the Historic mode - deck archetypes in the mode have risen to prominence. Let’s take a look at 10 of the coolest Historic decks you should check out.

10 Jund Dinosaurs

The Jund dinosaur deck exist largely due to the presence of Rotting Regisaur, a Creature with incredible power that costs only three mana. Combined with cards like Embercleave or Ghalta, Primal Hunger, this deck can easily overpower opponents.

Other popular cards in the archetype include Regisaur Alpha to put more dinosaurs onto the board, Ripjaw Raptor for card draw, and Marauding Raptor for both board control and activating your own Creatures’ Enrage abilities. This aggressive powerhouse of  a deck is a blast to play and is a must for any Jurassic Park fans.

9 Mono-Blue Control

Mono-Blue decks can be extremely frustrating to play against given that they’re all about countering and denying opponents’ carefully laid plans. The Historic version is no different, employ creature like Siren Stormtamer and Tempest Djinn for control and defense, and a bevy of control options.

The deck primarily seeks to win quickly by denying foes’ early plays and overwhelming them with a Tempest Djinn combined with a Curious Obsession for easy card draw. It makes life miserable for players who don’t have any answers - which makes it that much more satisfying to play.

8 Historic Breach

Underworld Breach is a card just recently released in the Theros Beyond Death expansion, but it has found a place in Historic decks. This archetype focuses on filling the graveyard with Diligent Excavators and Emry, Lurker of the Loch, then recurs them using Underworld Breach.

This deck is most effective when using the alternate win conditions of Thassa’s Oracle or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, making it effectively a self mill deck. Putting your entire deck into your graveyard allows you to then deploy either of these cards to immediately win the game outright.

7 Azorius Control

Wherever there is Magic, there will be control decks - and Azorius decks are the best for this strategy. For all the tools Standard gained in Core Set 2020 and onwards, it also lost quite a few handy cards that allow for greater control of the board.

Historic lets you play with such powerhouses as Teferi, Hero of Dominaria to draw cards and remove threats, Seal Away to handle attackers at instant speed, and Search for Azacanta for consistency. It’s a potent set of cards that can lock your opponents out of the game entirely when played right.

6 Legendary Kethis Combo

Kethis, the Hidden Hand forms the basis for another mill archetype centered around Mox Amber and Diligent Excavator. With a deck containing enough Legendaries, Kethis will let you play a Mox Amber from the graveyard repeatedly and the Excavator mills you or your opponent.

Alternate win conditions are very useful here again, though you can also try to fill your graveyard up, then mill your opponent out of the game. It’s an incredibly satisfying combo to pull off and makes for a fun and exciting deck to play.

5 Mono-White Aggro

Mono-White gained quite a few tools from the Historic Anthology sets, including Soul Warden and Serra Ascendant. These two cards, along with various other life gain outlets, provide the basis for a very aggressive deck list.

Ranger of Eos allows you to tutor up your useful cheap Creatures such as the Soul Wardens or Ajani’s Pridemate. You can then easily go on to activate Serra Ascendant on top of gaining an excessive amount of life, making it very difficult for anyone to actually catch up to your life total.

4 Gruul Aggro

Gruul Aggro dominates Historic due to the powerful combat Creatures it boasts and the easy ramp available in the smaller cards. Burning-Tree Emissary and Llanowar Elves are readily available to out-tempo your opponent and build up to more powerful threats.

Cards like Questing Beast and Embercleave also find homes here as they fit nicely into Gruul’s strategy of playing big Creatures and smashing face with them. If you’re tired of all the thinking and math that often comes with more complicated decks, you can’t go wrong with a solid Gruul archetype that only cares about going on the offensive.

3 Bant Scapeshift

The Bant Scapeshift deck has a few key tools that make it work. Teferi, Time Raveler allows you to cast Sorceries at Instant speed, such as the titular Scapeshift. Scapeshift lets you sacrifice lands to search up more from your library. Finally, Field of the Dead grants you Zombie tokens when lands enter the battlefield, making it a powerful engine.

The deck usually prefers to play Scapeshift on your opponent’s turn, activating several Field of the Dead triggers and then attacking for lethal with a wide array of Zombies. It can be a bit slow to get started, but once online, there’s very little that can stop this deck.

2 Mono-Red Aggro

Mono-Red Aggro, much like Azorius Control, will likely find a home in every meta, no matter what. This deck uses many of the old tools that have rotated out of Standard, such as Ghitu Lavarunner and Viashino Pyromancer to burn down your opponent’s health.

That’s not to say it only uses older cards - the powerful demigod Anax, Hardened in the Forge, is almost an auto-include and combos well with Goblin Chainwhirler’s three red mana symbols. Needless to say, whether you’re playing Standard or Historic, Mono-Red Aggro isn’t going anywhere.

1 Nexus Of Fate

Finally, the coolest Historic deck out there is also the one that garners the most hate - the Nexus of Fate decks. Nexus of Fate is a card that grants you an extra turn, then shuffles itself back into the library. When combined with cards like Search for Azcanta and Tamiyo, Collector of Tales, it’s a genuine threat.

Nexus of Fate is currently banned in Best of One games, but not Best of Three, which means that it still very much has a place in the meta-game. Standard may not have to deal with this archetype anymore, but it is alive and well in Historic.

NEXT: Magic: The Gathering - The Top 10 Land-Focused Commanders In The Game