Wizards really hit a home run with the Pioneer. A new format has been due for a long time. I don’t think I’m the only one that was starting to get a little burnt out with Modern as the only other commonly played format besides standard. And I’m certainly not the only one who was sick of standard. At MC Richmond I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to scrub out of a tournament; not seeing my Nissas coupled with questionable play on my part led to a rough tournament for me. Even with the recent standard bannings I think that Pioneer’s status as the new kid in town will keep it wildly popular for the foreseeable future.
This leads to the obvious question: what’s the best thing you can be doing in pioneer? Well that’s what we’ll set out to answer today. With the first few rounds of bannings, the most consistent and obnoxious combo decks have been removed or at least slowed down. Without Felidar Guardian, cat combo ceases to be a thing. Without Leyline of Abundance, green devotion at least has to work for it’s most busted draws. The result is that while a combo component to the meta exists, we are still squarely in the aggro-midrange portion of the metagame cycle. While the most flagrant violators of mtg law have been removed, there is definitely still a subset of cards that are significantly more powerful than the others. If I were forced to place the metagame into one of my signature aggro->mid->control->big mana->combo charts it would look something like this.
However, all of these blocks are not created equal. True control hasn’t really found its footing yet, and neither has combo. The picture for combo honesty could have been wilderness reclamation, mox amber, or jeskai ascendency just as easily. I mostly chose possibility storm to troll Mr. Clifford. True midrange exists, but isn’t yet putting up the results the stompy and mono green decks are seeing. The actual diagram for the meta can pretty much be summarized via 3 cards.
Both Field and Once decks fill a fairly wide swath of metagame roles, and as a result I think each of these refined tiers requires a more thorough breakdown.
There exist aggro decks that do not run the copter, but these aggro decks are probably just worse. Da choppa adds resilience to sweepers, increased card selection, and an efficient evasive threat to every deck that chooses to run one drops. The only good decks that are not running smuggler’s copter are only doing so to maximize their hits with Once upon a time, or they are mono red. I’m not convinced that mono red is quite good enough; the philosophy of fire is much harder to enact with shocks as your base unit of damage instead of lightning bolts (especially when Oko exists).
Mono black decks of this variety have been tearing up the online meta of late. No bans were announced on the 18th, I suspect partially because they couldn’t find a way to ban this deck without getting rid of the chopper, and wizards is reluctant to kick that crutch out from under aggro in pioneer. This deck has the best removal spell (fatal push), best interaction (thoughtseize) and the best creature (chopper) all rolled into one. Combined with the best one drops / recursive threats, this deck is an aggressive monster with a very strong grind plan. Most importantly, the mono black deck has emerged as the front-runner because it best utilizes the smuggler’s copter. Mono black has the best and most synergistic one drops (night market lookout always gets in da choppa), can recur the threats that it discards, and even has lands that can activate it (mutavault). Thanks to the wonders of Urborg, this deck also happens to have the most resilient mutavault gameplan in the format. Other chopper decks exist, but this one is the most synergistic and resilient, and therefore the most powerful for now. If you want to win the mirror, pack more Kalitas, he’s a house and an ongoing midrange staple.
The midrange decks are spread across a range of stompy and devotion, with a smattering of r/g go big aggro decks.
The pattern is clear. Once upon a time acts as a land/llanowar elf/threat split card. As a result there are a wide swath of decks looking to play 8+ one mana dorks, always have them in the opener, and enable some busted 3 mana plays. Those plays can be huge beaters, oko, or even goblin rabblemaster, but the goal is to turn an early mana advantage into huge plays that put the opponent on the back foot. Note that this is different from a typical midrange deck like sultai oko: a deck that might feature a heavy food theme, some tireless trackers, abrupt decays, etc. Fair midrange decks were chased out of the format relatively quickly by the abundance of recursive threats, additional card advantage (castle Locthwain anyone?), and huge mana advantages of the other strategies. When the aggro decks can keep up card for card and the stompy decks have better threats at every point on the curve, it’s hard to be a traditional jund player.
In short, the decks I am defining as midrange are probably more on the aggro spectrum. They tend to interact only minimally pre-board, and tend to land themselves into the stompy category. However, cards like Oko or Nissa are something of a freeroll that allow these aggro decks to grind very well, and even generate huge flametongue kavus ala voracious hydra. What I define as the midrange, is essentially decks that are looking to leverage a mid-game mana advantage and ride that to victory. Our next set of decks is also looking for mana advantage, but they are going much further into the late game to do it.
The field of the dead deck is both a big mana deck and a loose combo-control deck, and it fills the role as the best deck that isn’t in the other camps. Given my proclivities for big mana strategies I am probably biased here. The utility lands in this format are very powerful and there are minimal ways to punish greedy manabases (blood moon, back to basics) in pioneer. As a result there are some huge payoffs for just playing a wide range of on color duals combined with some tutor-able utility lands and then finishing with some zombies.
This deck goes way bigger than what the rest of the format is doing. A set of sweepers to protect it from the aggro/midrange side of the spectrum. Teferi prevents counterplay, and sphinx’s revelation lets you refuel on cards and life as you get through the midgame.
Monstrosities like the above are able to exist as what would otherwise be a b/g midrange list, that just happens to have field of the dead and hour. There is something of a blurred line between aggro, midrange, and even big mana, because the cost of playing castles, fields, and other go big utility lands is so low that it is not unreasonable for a deck to span several different archetypes.
Summary time. Pioneer is about mana. The aggro decks want to use theirs efficiently while mitigating flood as best as possible with mutavaults or other utility lands. The midrange decks want to turn an early mana advantage into huge plays in the midgame. The big mana decks want to go way over the top; draw more cards, make more land drops, and generally invalidate what the opponents are doing. If your mana isn’t doing something busted in this format, whether it’s nykthos, field, sanctum of ugin, mutavault or a castle, you’re doing it wrong.
As for me, I prefer to turn my mana into scissors and run with them. Not sure if it is correct, but man is it fun.
I’ve been playing a version of this with a few ornithopters, but I wouldn’t recommend them. I think this latest deck from the challenge is the best place to start. There’s a reason unravel the aether is seeing heavy sideboard play.
Overall, take all of this with a grain of salt. Pioneer is new, and the difference between tier 1 and 2 is not nearly as large a gap as in other formats like standard or legacy. There’s a huge swath of u/r decks that I didn’t discuss throughout this article (phoenix, emerge, scissors, jeskai ascendency), that are very playable and might find their time in the spotlight soon. Still, some decks are definitely distinguishing themselves from the rest, and I believe I covered the majority of those decks here.
I expect all of the pillars I covered in this article to be banned by the end of the year. Copter and OUAT allow unheard of consistency in aggro and midrange decks, while field of the dead is an uninteract-with-able end game that only asks you dedicate a few deck slots to ramping. Despite some dissent I think all three cards create substantial bottlenecks on the format. OUAT substantially reduces the playability of non-creatures (where did collected company go?), copter defines how aggro decks are best utilized, and field defines the top end and helps keep control out of the format. I expect changes to continue until combo, and especially control manage to put up results again.
In the meantime, may you always cast your 3-drops on 2.