All Explorer Articles

Anthony dives into the Junk tank to find how many playable cards Abzan really has

Things Have Been Bad Explorer has been in a tough spot for a couple of months. The meta has been stale and full of 300% your daily value of Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Even I, a Pioneer-and-Explorer-only player and Arena ladder grinder, fully stopped playing Explorer through the months…

Anthony shows off his top picks from March of the Machine that don’t cost a rare wildcard for Explorer.

Anthony Joins us this week to show us the updates to The “Rock” and prove that Rakdos isn’t the only game in town.

The first edition of Brews from the Crew, where we share demonstrably successful brews from the PlayingMTG team and Patreon community!

Christian “Sir EPIC” hit Mythic #469 in eight days playing Enigmatic Fires this season. Here, he shares the deck, sideboard guide and tips for piloting Explorer’s premier toolbox deck.

Rose-emoji recaps the January season of Explorer Best-of-Three ranked play, just in time for All Will Be One to come shake it up (hopefully).

DarthJacen ranks the plethora of new planeswalkers in All Will Be One, with a focus on Pioneer and Explorer.

Anthony covers his initial thoughts on the first real intriguing spoiler that we got for #MTGONE, Koth, Fire of Resistance.

Cris “Iglooboi” Smith breaks down one of the sweetest standard decks from the last few years and how the archetype may look in Pioneer today!

PVDDR breaks down Pioneer and Explorer decks that would be significantly improved by the printing of the Allied Fast Lands in the new set.

Anthony covers his remaining few cards to brew around from The Brothers’ War before phyrexia drops.

Anthony Dolce shares his GW Artifacts brew, which features a snowballing +1/+1 counter theme and a good matchup against Green Devotion.

rose-emoji breaks down the Explorer metagame going into Explorer Anthology 2, which promises to shake up the format more than we’ve ever seen.

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx was just announced as an inclusion in Explorer Anthology 2. Let’s go over some of the early meta implications of that!

Join Anthony Dolce returns as he updates his old Brew, UW Soldiers

rose-emoji covers the newest additions to Explorer following a reveal and an Arena Cube Spoiler

Anthony Dolce takes his pick of five newly-printed cards that have potential to make an impact in Explorer.

Skura examines the meta game for last week’s worlds and shares his thoughts on what it means for the format as a whole.

Anthony reviews and discusses five underrated cards that are missing from the Explorer card pool on MTG Arena that he’d like to see printed sometime soon.

Jaffer dives into this week’s Explorer metagame, discussing matchups and tier list updates.

Join Anthony Dolce as he covers his brand new Brew, UW Soldiers

Jaffer dives into this week’s Explorer meta game, discussing matchups, and tier list updates.

Anthony Dolce and rose-emoji go over some of the most impactful cards expected for printing into Explorer in the Shadows Over Innistrad: Remastered set announced today.

Jaffer dives into this week’s Explorer meta game, discussing matchups, tier list updates and some new contenders enabled by Dominaria United.

Jaffer dives into this week’s Explorer meta game, discussing matchups, tier list updates and some new contenders enabled by Dominaria United.

rose-emoji and BiRDxC0Re dive into this week’s Explorer meta game, discussing matchups, tier list updates and some new contenders enabled by Dominaria United.

The Best-Of-Three Explorer Tier List The Best-Of-One Explorer Tier List Legend S Tier: Decks in this tier are the most heavily played and format dominant. These decks are the core that the rest of the meta revolves around. Players should be prepared to face these decks multiple times throughout a given event.A Tier: Decks in this tier…

An explanation of the movements and placements in this week’s Explorer tier lists.

Tyrant of Tales dives once again into the deep end of what spicy decks posted good results in Explorer this week.

An explanation of the movements and placements in this week’s Explorer tier list.

Tyrant of Tales dives once again into the deep end of what spicy decks posted good results in Explorer this week.

ServoToken cover one of magic’s oldest strategies in his “patented” budget outlook

An explanation of the movements and placements in this week’s Explorer tier list.

Join DarthJacen for a deck tech and sideboard guide for the strongest deck that not enough people are playing.

Tyler dives into the world of competitive grinding on MTG: Arena and evaluates the pros and cons of both ways of playing. Learn what style might work best for you.

Tyrant of Tales dives once again into the deep end of what spicy decks posted good results in Explorer this week.

An explanation of the movements and placements in this week’s Explorer tier list.

Explorer Anthology’s gift of Mausoleum Wanderer has propelled Explorer’s best tempo deck to new heights. Deck tech and sideboard guide inside.

In PlayingExplorer’s second season-reset meta breakdown, rose-emoji takes a look back at the last four weeks of tier lists and data and breaks down any major shifts, new archetypes and recurring themes that showed up over the course of the month and what it could mean for the new season.

Tyrant of Tales dives once again into the deep end of what spicy decks posted good results in Explorer this week.

An explanation of the movements and placements in this week’s Explorer tier list.

A breakdown of the twenty cards being printed into Explorer tomorrow and predictions on how they will affect the meta in the near and long-terms.

A deck guide for Abzan Humans, one of the premier Collected Company decks in the Explorer format thus far.

Tyler builds from Arena starter deck to A Tier Explorer deck and gives some tips at spending as little as possible while remaining competitive.

Tyrant of Tales dives once again into the deep end of what spicy decks posted good results in Explorer this week.

An explanation of the movements and placements in this week’s Explorer tier list.

Wizards has released a three-card teaser of the first Explorer 20-card Anthology, which is set to release fully on July 27th. Until that day, Wizards will be spoiling cards on a schedule not yet released.

ServoToken brings his budget expertise for the first time to PlayingExplorer with 6 New Budget Explorer Decks

Tyrant of Tales dives once again into the deep end of what spicy decks posted good results in Explorer this week.

An explanation of the movements and placements in this week’s Explorer tier list.

Tyrant of Tales dives once again into the deep end of what spicy decks posted good results in Explorer this week.

An explanation of the movements and placements in this week’s Explorer tier list.

Welcome to PlayingExplorer’s first season reset meta breakdown, where our team will take a look back at the last four weeks of tier lists and data and break down any major shifts, new archetypes and recurring themes that showed up over the course of the month and what it could mean for the new season.

TyrantofTales dives once again into the deep end of what spicy decks posted good results in Explorer this week.

Here, the PlayingExplorer team shares their top-five card wishlists for the first Explorer Anthology and explains why they chose the way they did.

The fire of a brewer’s heart is still burning strong, and in the first part of this short series, Servotoken “Darren” goes over how to keep it not only strong but always progressing towards the perfect brew.

Anthony Dolce talks about his love of Casualties of War, a six-mana sorcery that he will never pull from his Golgari Rock deck.

TyrantofTales dives once again into the deep end of what spicy decks posted good results in Explorer this week.

A breakdown of the changes to this week’s Explorer Bo3 and Bo1 tier lists

In light of the recent Arena BO3 Qualifier, IslandGoSAMe goes over his thoughts on his deck of choice, Mono-Red Burn.

A dive down into the spicy decklists that performed well in Explorer Bo3 and Bo1 this week.

A breakdown of the changes to this week’s Explorer Bo3 and Bo1 tier lists

Tyler goes over the pros and cons of joining MTG Arena now that Pioneer is scheduled to be available on the client.

This starts the NEW weekly tradition of showing off all the cool decks that show up in our data sets that don’t make it in our Weekly Tier Lists.

A breakdown of the changes to this week’s Explorer Bo3 and Bo1 tier lists

This starts the NEW weekly tradition of showing off all the cool decks that show up in our data sets that don’t make it in our Weekly Tier Lists.

A breakdown of the changes to this week’s Explorer Bo3 and Bo1 tier lists

The weekly explanation of the movements for BO1 And BO3 Movements in Explorer

A breakdown of the changes to this week’s Explorer Bo3 and Bo1 tier lists

Explanation of placements and movements in the Explorer Bo1 and Bo3 tier lists for the week of May 12, 2022

Wizards of the Coast’s Banned and Restricted announcement today included a ban of Winota, Joiner of Forces and Tibalt’s Trickery in Explorer. At the time of writing, Winota decks are holding up a 63% winrate in Bo3 and a 68% winrate and disproportionate play rate in Bo1. The decks were in S Tier on both the Bo1 and Bo3 Explorer tier…

Today, we are proud to introduce our Explorer Tier Lists in both best-of-one and best-of-three formats. Our Explorer Tier List will be updated every Thursday morning Eastern US Standard Time and will be accompanied by an article like this one or a video (or both) explaining the placements and movements within the tier list. This contextual video or article…

Explorer launches tomorrow, and Bradcifer and rose-emoji have some meta calls and predictions for you to look over before you step into the ranked ladder.

Amidst the announcement of Explorer, Wizards announced a restructuring of Arena competitive play that includes a de-emphasis of the ladder system in favor of events and an Arena Championship tournament similar to the new paper Pro Tour, here’s how to qualify!

Let’s talk about which Pioneer decks we can and can’t build using the existing cards available on Arena.

If you are reading this, Wizards just announced a Pioneer analogue on Arena. Let’s talk about how this website will handle covering that format!