Aareon “littlebeep” Gertler won the first DreamHack Arena Open with Temur Clover on Sunday evening in Anaheim, CA. He defeated Mani “zapgaze” Davoudi, who was on Jeskai Fires, in the Grand Finals two games to zero.
Gertler brought the perfect deck for a metagame full of UW Control—which made up half of the Top 16 decks—after Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa’s victory with the archetype at World Championship XXVI. Temur Clover is an especially difficult matchup for UW Control because its namesake card, Lucky Clover, can overwhelm the control deck with card advantage. Combined with the fact that most UW Control players weren’t packing many answers to a two-mana artifact and Temur Clover was perfectly positioned to take down the tournament.
Oh, and it didn’t hurt that Gertler had played the deck for more than 40 hours with more than an 80% win rate.
Gertler faced Davoudi in the Grand Finals after breezing through a Top 16 full of UW Control. The matchup pitted the #1 and #2 ranked players on Arena against each other—the first time in the game’s short history that the finals of an Arena tournament featured the two top-ranked players. Though Davoudi’s Jeskai Fires list could pack a punch, it just couldn’t keep up with the insane amount of card advantage Lucky Clover provided and Gertler took the match 2-0.
The DreamHack Arena Opens are a new tournament series in 2020 made up of four events in Anaheim, Dallas, Atlanta, and Sweden. To enter, players must buy a three-day pass ($100+ plus tax), bring their own laptop, and preregister. In Anaheim, the tournament lasted for three days: two days of swiss and then a cut to a double-elimination Top 16 bracket on Day 3.
Prize payouts at DreamHack Anaheim
The DreamHack Arena Opens award $100,000 in prizes, including $30,000 for first ($5,000 less than the winner of a Players Tour), as well as an invite to a Mythic Invitational (Ikoria in this case)—yet only 93 people showed up to the event in Anaheim. Gertler, for his part, announced on stream that he was donating half of his winnings to Givewell.
The next DreamHack Arena Open is in Dallas, TX on May 22-24, 2020. Three-day passes are still available for $110 but details about the Open have yet to be posted.
The Decklists from the Finals of DreamHack Arena Open Anaheim
Standard Temur Clover by Aaron Gertler (1st)
| Creatures (24) 4 Edgewall Innkeeper 4 Brazen Borrower 4 Bonecrusher Giant 4 Lovestruck Beast 4 Beanstalk Giant 4 Fae of Wishes Spells (4) 3 Escape to the Wilds 1 Incubation // Incongruity Artifacts (5) 4 Lucky Clover 1 The Great Henge | Lands (27) 6 Forest 4 Island 2 Mountain 4 Stomping Ground 4 Breading Pool 3 Steam Vents 2 Temple of Abandon 1 Temple of Mystery 1 Temple of Epiphany Sideboard (15) 1 Mystic Repeal 1 Shadowspear 3 Aether Gust 1 Disdainful Stroke 1 Negate 1 Fling 1 Return to Nature 1 Domri’s Ambush 1 Sorcerous Spyglass 1 Storm’s Wrath 1 Once and Future 1 Escape to the Wilds 1 Chandra, Awakened Inferno |
Standard Jeskai Fires by Mani Davoudi (2nd)
| Creatures (20) 3 Brazen Borrower 4 Bonecrusher GIant 4 Sphinx of Foresight 4 Cavalier of Flame 2 Cavalier of Gales 2 Kenrith the Returned King 1 God-Eternal Oketra Planeswalkers (4) 4 Teferi, Time Raveler Spells (3) 3 Deafening Clarion Enchantments (6) 4 Fires of Invention 2 Elspeth Conquers Death | Lands (27) 4 Fabled Passage 2 Plains 2 Island 2 Mountain 4 Hallowed Fountain 4 Steam Vents 2 Sacred Foundry 3 Temple of Epiphany 2 Temple of Triumph 2 Castle Vantress Sideboard (15) 4 Mystical Dispute 3 Aether Gust 1 Devout Decree 4 Robber of the Rich 2 Dovin’s Veto 1 Deafening Clarion |