The Arcana Domain for Clerics was one of the rare subclasses in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide that was neither very popular nor utter dogshit. It makes sense, though, that in a polytheistic world filled with magic that there might very well be some priests who worship gods of magic.
Sort of the inverse of the Divine Soul Sorcerer, the Arcana Cleric gets to dip their toes in arcane magic.
We'll be looking at this feature-by-feature and comparing it to the SCAG version. As a note, because of the consolidation of 1st and 2nd level features into 3rd level features and moving Divine Strike and Potent Spellcasting to a choice separate from subclass in 2024, Clerics actually only have three feature levels - though they still have domain spells that come online at 3, 5, 7, and 9.
Arcana Domain Spells:
1st: Detect Magic, Magic Missile
2nd: Magic Weapon, Nystul's Magic Aura
3rd: Counterspell, Dispel Magic
4th: Arcane Eye, Leomund's Secret Chest
5th: Bigby's Hand, Teleportation Circle
There are some really solid spells here - a number of go-to classics that a Wizard is likely to pick up, especially among the 1st and 3rd level spells. As we'll see is something of a theme with this UA, there's a lot of counter-mage magic here, with Nystul's Magic Aura in particular feeling like it's useful in extremely specific scenarios, but in most campaigns probably useless.
We lose Magic Circle for Counterspell, which is probably a trade-up (even if Counterspell isn't as powerful as it used to be). We also lose Planar Binding for Bigby's Hand, which I also think is a big upgrade.
3rd level:
Arcane Initiate gives you two benefits:
Arcane Knowledge gives you both proficiency and expertise in the Arcana skill, if you didn't have it already (remember that if we go with the Thaumaturge Divine Order option, we can also add our Wisdom to Arcana and Religion checks, so we could be better than a Wizard at Arcana).
You also gain two Wizard cantrips of your choice, and can replace one you know when you gain a Cleric level. While it doesn't say this explicitly, I'd assume we can use Wisdom to cast these. Even though Thaumaturge plays well with the former feature, grabbing True Strike here and picking up Divine Strike could make us hit really hard with a martial weapon (as I wrote long ago, Clerics and Druids ironically are the best classes to use guns if you can't use feats or the Artificer class from Tasha's). Still, outside of that particular combination, Wizards have far more cantrip options than the relatively small Cleric list, with some pretty good damage options as well as tons of utility ones.
The old version gave us the cantrips, but didn't give us any way to swap them on level-up. The expertise in Arcana is also brand-new. I might want to have a clause that says if you already have Arcana, that you can take proficiency in a different Cleric skill, but otherwise, this is a nice if not enormous feature.
Modify Magic, the next 3rd level feature, lets you alter your spells when you cast them by expending a use of Channel Divinity in one of the following ways:
Fortifying Spell lets you give one target of the spell 2d8 + your Cleric level's worth of Temp HP.
That's actually a pretty good chunk of Temp HP. If I'm slapping you with a 1st level Cure Wounds, already doing an average of 12 points of healing if I have a +3 to Wisdom, I can throw another 12 Temp HP on top of that, really fortifying whoever just got healed.
Tenacious Spell lets you apply a penalty of 1d6 to one target's saving throw against the spell.
A d6 has the potential to be a big dent in their roll to resist one of your spells. This option's certainly riskier than the previous one - if the target would fail anyway, or if they roll super-high, or if you roll really low on the d6, it might not actually clinch you a failed save. But with some luck, this could come in clutch.
Modify Magic is a full replacement of the old Arcane Abjuration, which was effectively a "turn celestial, fey, or fiend" ability that would also, at 5th level, have a sort of "destroy undead" effect on them, except instead of auto-killing them, it would banish them.
Arcane Abjuration was for sure a powerful ability, but only useful against a few creature types (one of which you rarely fight,) so I think we're probably going to be happier with this version - except in those rare cases when we want to mass-banish a whole bunch of Imps.
6th level:
Dispelling Recovery allows us, when we cast a spell with a spell slot that restores HP or ends a condition on a creature, we can also cast Dispel Magic on that creature as a bonus action without expending a spell slot. We can do this Wis times per long rest.
This is clearly a nice little action-economy and spell-slot-conservation hack. If an ally gets hit by some nasty spell that deals damage and hurts them, you can clear it off. It'll also work with Lesser Restoration, and while that might seem redundant with Dispel Magic in a lot of cases, remember that this saves you the 3rd level spell slot. Certainly only useful when you need to dispel an ally, but that doesn't seem super rare.
The old feature, Spell Breaker, let you end a spell on an ally to whom you were restoring HP with a spell, as long as the spell you were ending was equal to or less than the level of your healing spell. The old version had no limited use, but this one will allow you to potentially end higher-level spells if you roll well. Probably a bit better.
17th level:
Arcane Mastery allows you to learn four Wizard spells, one each of levels 6, 7, 8, and 9, and they're always prepared. You can also swap them out when you gain a Cleric level.
This is actually very similar to the old version, except that this allows you to swap them as you gain Cleric levels. A really solid feature - especially because if you pick Wish as your 9th level spell, you effectively get all spells of 8th level or lower. You don't get extra spell slots to cast these, but still, you're really expanding your options (and spells prepared).
Overall Thoughts:
I think that this is a very solid subclass with some fantastic utility and a hell of a capstone. I do think you're going to be happiest in a campaign with a lot of enemy spellcasters, but even outside of that, there are some really good things in here as well. Truly solid, and a pretty great option if you wanted to play a Wizard but the party really needs a healer.
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