We’re out of the bannings-every-Monday phase of the pioneer format (beta phase? alpha?). Pioneer is now officially a real boy, with its own pro tour and everything. Having called the previous several sets of banned cards pretty accurately, I’ve honesty been waiting the last few weeks to see if llanowar elves gets banned, to no avail. Not surprising, as the number of green stompy decks appears to have actually decreased by quite a bit with the rise of goblin chainwhirler decks. So long Oko, and thanks for all the elks.
Let’s address the elephant in the room. Having just been released, there’s the potential that walking ballista and his new partner in crime Heliod, Sun-Crowned will run the tables. The immediate comparison to the Saheeli combo comes to mind: add two cards to your deck that function as reasonable value engines on their own and together form instant-death Voltron. Both combos are easily broken up by wild slash and its ilk, both involve 3 and 4 drops. Ballista combo even takes fewer colors, and ballista itself is arguably better than either of the previous combo pieces, and the Heliod portion is near impossible to actually get off the table. Saheeli had two advantages; one, it only actually cost 6 mana to do all the things in one turn, and two, the two cards helped dig for each other. Basically, walking ballista is easier to fit into any ‘ol deck, but loses to any creature removal and takes more mana. The hardest part is that most tutors don’t find both pieces of the combo. (chord of calling, finale of devastation, etc.) Basically, all the normal tools that enable a creature combo of this type don’t really work. Also, the combo hasn’t actually put up a result yet, and it’s been like 5 WHOLE DAYS. I suspect that the fewer copies of Heliod in the actual deck, the better this combo will be; possibly in a 3 color delirium shell starring traverse the ulvenwald. In short, I expect that this will be a nuisance, especially once the right shell has been found, but I don’t expect it to run the tables in quite the same way Saheeli did.
Let’s go over the messed up cards that are still remaining in the format and how they warp around each other to form a metagame.
Let’s break this down piece by piece. Most of the relevant archetypes are present in the top 16 of the most recent pioneer challenge, suggesting a wide open format with substantially more diversity than was previously present.
Aggro remains the majority of the format, but the choices are split between several wildly different archetypes.
The current boogeyman, and a deck that has existed in one form or another since the dawn of the format is mono green stompy. Surrak, the Hunt Caller plus Ghalta, Primal Hunger technology can lead to a very dead opponent out of nowhere. This deck has a fast clock backed up by a card advantage engine. Previously, this deck used Oko as the primary source of card advantage, but is now able to lean on The Great Henge as an artifact that will produce an incredible amount of card advantage, board size, mana, and life. Previously, Henge was unplayable because of Oko, but now comes into its own as a crazy endgame for decks willing to go big. I personally enjoy putting Possibility Storm in my green stompy decks, but that’s probably more of a meme than a way of life.
Similarly, there exists mono black aggro, a previous boogeyman in the days of Smuggler’s Copter. Honestly, the deck hasn’t changed all that much, replacing chopper with Rankle as the card filtering method of choice. This deck is fast and disruptive thanks to unconditional removal and Thoughtseize.
One of my favorite decks. Running with scissors might actually be the front-runner for the most busted deck in pioneer. I was worried about the lack of filtering with the loss of da choppa; but The Royal Scions and Emry, Lurker of the Loch take over the filtering and card advantage role vacancies that chopper previously filled. If you like killing on turns 4-5 consistently and punking your opponents out, this is the deck for you.
I’ll finish out the aggro section with a spicer of a tribal deck. Turns out flying is pretty good, and getting to play at instant speed also helps significantly. Heaven help you if your opponent sticks Teferi, hero of hearthstone, but until then this deck is very good at lightly disrupting the opponent with their threats while beating down with a hard to block airforce. I’m also interested to see if Staggering Insight ends up making a splash in this style of deck or in general in the format – the lifelink is not insubstantial in a deck like this that would love to race and ignore its opponents.
Mono red has been the big winner for the past few weeks. I am loosely placing this in the midrange category along with mono black vampires, but both are aggressive enough that this grouping is very loose. This deck first had success preying upon the Elvish Mystics of the format and has since gone on to realize the legacy of mardu vehicles of standards past. This is an aggressive deck with super-efficient creatures all the way up the curve, ending with Glorybringer, probably the best creature in the format.
Next we have uw control. I still can’t believe that Azorius Charm is actually functioning as a stand-in for actual removal, but here we are. The power of Teferi and the other hyper-efficient walkers of 2019 is not to be underestimated. Supreme Verdict is a hell of a card, keeping Stubborn Denial from running the tables.
My thoughts on bring-to-niv are well documented. I am grudgingly forced to admit that this style of deck has become the new hotness and put up numerous results in the past week. I believe this is a much better game-plan in pioneer than it is in modern. This deck goes so far over the top that it almost earns itself a spot in the “big mana” category. I think Uro is an interesting addition to the deck, and a cool way to utilize graveyard cards. If you like drawing cards and basically playing a commander deck against everyone else’s pioneer deck, this is the place to be. I personally would be looking to play more sweepers than this particular version of the deck, as the siege rhinos seem like poor substitutes, but maybe having actual threats to close out the game is an improvement.
I almost made Hour of Promise a pillar of the format, until I realized that not all versions of these decks even play it. Ugin remains the biggest payoff for big ramp strategies, as he can get you out of most situations in pioneer if put on the board soon enough. This versions is a little less rampy than some previous versions of the deck. Having blue as the second color instead of colorless (yes, colorless was essentially a splash color, often for eldrazi) allows it to play Uro. It should be interesting to see if that sticks or if Temple of the False God and Ulamog are the way to build top-ends.
Finally we have a new take on twiddle storm. Underworld Breach is a hell of a Yawgmoth’s Will and I would be very surprised if it went unbroken. Dig Through Time is still the grease that keeps the wheels in motion. In the combo category I would still keep an eye on Jeskai Ascendency as another possible route to victory; the deck is very fast, but has problems ever beating an Abrupt Decay. I think this is the category most open to change, especially now that Nexus of Fate is gone.
As for myself, I’m personally on a boros heroic kick. I prefer it built faster with Titan’s Strength and Monastery Swiftspear over some of the grindier options like playsets of Dreadhorde Arcanist. Killing on four with boros charm is no joke.
In short, the format is wide open. There are still several busted cards, but they form a much wider spread than previously. You still have to be doing something powerful, but what is powerful is no longer defined by a very narrow subset of cards. The format is no longer “chopper or bust,” or “Oko or broko.” Aggro is still the largest chunk of the pie, or at least the one with the most choices, but control has finally gained ground and is slowly moving in. Play what you want. Have fun. Pioneer is great until the pros break it at the next PT.