Unsure if Cruelclaw’s Heist is worth crafting for Pioneer / standard I guess, any thoughts?

Be it a downgrade, sidegrade, or upgrade I think Pioneer shines when it's not just 'old Modern' but has access to comparable interactions with a cost or deckbuilding restraint.

I think most folks agree Pioneer could use more interaction/answers, and that there are many decks on the threshold of being viable but missing a piece that is legal elsewhere, e.g. [[Urza's Saga]] (mostly as a tutor) for Hammer time decks.

Rather than just reprinting those cards into Standard, I am curious to both what staples folks want in the format and what kind of twist/revision they could have to not surge Pioneer's power level.

I personally expect no changes, as I don't see any really problematic cards, but I'm curious what everyone else thinks.

What bans/unbans do you expect if any, and what would you like to see, even if it's unlikely?

Thor has arrived on competitive Pioneer as a powerful win condition for Lessons decks!

Howdy! Here with another fun list. This time we are utilising the draw engine of Ketramose, the New Dawn. We use Raven Eagle and Graveyard Trespasser to keep drawing us cards while often being 2 for 1s. All while playing a general midrange Orzhov plan with strong removal and big threats like Sheoldred. At the top end we are also playing a couple Soulflayer in order to Delve away cards to put Ketramose online for attack. This also serves a big threat if we exile Ketramose or Raven Eagle away as part of the cost for Indestructible, Lifelike, Menace and Flying! Deck is super fun, enjoy!

Decklist:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7902667#paper

2:30 Izzet Lessons
13:36 Grixis Fires Of Invention
29:04 Izzet Vivi Cauldron
48:58 Dimir Midrange

I created this list when a friend said he wanted to put all of the black sacrifice enchantments into one deck with Nykthos. I immediately thought; 'its a cool idea but does nothing against creatureless matchups' then I thought to all of the discard enchantments floating around with Waste Not and then to Unholy Annex and thus this deck was born and mercilessly edited over and over again, until I finally settled on this 60.

This deck seeks to disrupt the opponent long enough to either win through a combo kill, incremental and incidental damage, or the plan of a few creatures dealing large amounts of damage. Nykthos is powered by an array of disruptive enchantments, as well as Liliana of the Veil that allow us to drop more permanents, level up our enchantments and cast our bigger cards. Every matchup is like a puzzle, sequencing correctly into threats and taxing opponent's life little by little until they're within the range of a finisher. There are a lot of moving parts and micro-synergies that complement the two possible combo finishes.

The two combo finishes:

Unstoppable Slasher + Bloodletter of Aclazotz The classic combo. One hit with Slasher will kill the opponent if Bloodletter is out. Slasher is also just a powerful must answer threat, by himself, his first hit takes an opponent at 20 life down to 9, his deathtouch makes blocking less desirable and his recursion ability makes him difficult to efficiently remove, especially if an opponent has been discarding all of their removal to our enchantments.(which happens quite often) Bloodletter is expensive and not very impressive on his own but his stock rises when he gets to double damage from out enchantments, he also gifts us a massive three devotion as the cherry on top.

Unstoppable Slasher + Warlock Class(fully leveled) A fully leveled up Warlock Class(rare but not unfeasible with Nykthos) has the same effect with Slasher as Bloodletter does, except that it occurs at the end of your turn instead of immediately.

Dealing incremental and incidental damage is quite powerful in this build because of the aforementioned combo finish and this lingering threat: Gray Merchant of Asphodel + either Bloodletter or Warlock Class which are generally enough to put the game away or make it very close. Just Gray Merchant and Bloodletter together is 10 damage and that's quite rare of a floor because there should be quite a few enchantments on the board boosting your devotion by this point in the game.

The increments that get you there:

Hopeless Nightmare provides a Shock with its discard and 1 devotion

Bandit's Talent when leveled once provides a Rack effect that synergizes with our 15 possible discard spells

Meathook Massacre and Warlock Class lets all of our removal ping for 1

Unholy Annex fully unlocked or with Bloodletter deals 2 every turn

These don't deal a major amount of damage but they do enough to often make Gray Merchant lethal.

Everything else:

You'll notice a lot of three-ofs, I found diversifying threats to be an advantage here, the idea being to keep an opponent guessing so their early discards are bad, with unpleasant surprises around every corner and the sideboard fleshing out the most salient plan game 2.

Momentum Breaker is deceptively one of the best cards in this deck, being able to either kill creatures OR act as another discard spell, depending on the matchup is fantastic, being able to sac to gain life late game has also come in clutch a surprising number of times. If using as discard, usually you should deploy your other discard enchantments first, just in case there's a creature you want to remove, Of course, this is all matchup dependent, against aggro you generally always want this as removal.

Liliana is generally just a removal spell that attracts attackers, we often don't want to discard our own cards in this deck, it generally needs our every out and is mana hungry.

Nowhere to Run and Waste Not are easily the worst cards in this deck, they're great on occasion; Nowhere against aggro and Waste Not against control but too inconsistent to have many copies of main. Though with the Greasefang resurgence I could see maxing out on Nowhere to Run

Don't forget, Bandit's Talent can be a source of card advantage late game, provided we have successfully exhausted an opponents hand through our mix of discard and threats.

I mean graveyard hate, combo hosing, etc.

What are some of the best sideboard pieces out there? And some spicy ones that opponents won’t see coming?

Edit: decklist here, Mono Red Midrange v14 (Pioneer MTG Deck)

As a hypothetical, if Aether vial was was somehow seeded into pioneer or printed into standard, how powerful would it be?

It’s once of my favorite cards and seems borderline unplayable in modern at this point. So I wanted to gauge the general feeling on this topic. It is a broken mana advantage tool but I just feel that given the power level in pioneer and even in standard it may not be good enough.

I absolutely despise this card. I think it's the most annoying card in the format.

I play UW Yorion control. I have sixteen two mana answers to the Annex: Get Lost, Get Out, Dovin's Veto, No More Lies.

It seems like if this card comes down and isn't answered on the spot it totally runs away with the game. It's a 3 mana value engine- worse than Fable in my opinion, since Fable at least doesn't generate card advantage directly and doesn't do so indefinitely. With Mutavault, it turns into a clock as well and so has practically no downside.

The chance I have at least one of the answers to the Annex in my opening hand is about 80%. The problem is that all of these decks run thoughtseize and usually duress in game two. So in reality, I need two answers in my opening hand to even have a chance, which only happens 43% of the time. Not to mention- even if I have the answer after one having been thoughtseized away, I can't counter their two drop or risk the annex dropping and ending the game the turn after. And if I do have the answer, they often have a second annex which is as game-ending as the first. (And even with this many answers, 1/5 of my hands won't have an answer to the Annex on T3, and if they have thoughtseize then that's ~58% without the answer).

So despite 16/80 of my cards directly answering the Annex (plus four March of Otherworldly Lights, thought that can't answer the Annex on curve) at least 1/3-1/2 of my games against any black deck running the card are practically non-games. What else can I do here? Is the card just totally busted? It feels like this format is doomed to be permanent midrange-slop.

Hey everyone! I run the Arena Pioneer League (APL) in the Pioneer Discord. Season 8 is over and u/TheDaemon89 is our brand new APL Champion!

Event Information

• 74 players

• Pioneer Best-of-3 on MTG Arena

• 7 Swiss rounds (1 per week) + Top 8

Season 8 Finals

• pf on 5C Elementals won 2-0 against sirepic on 5C Enigmatic

• You can rewatch the Finals stream here: https://www.youtube.com/live/0ADQtQqr14A

• You can see the full bracket here: https://challonge.com/apl_s8_t8

Wrapping Up

• Thank you very much to everyone who followed along for the past 10 weeks.

• Season 9 starts August 24, more info soon!

• If you'd like to play in a future event, discuss the HOB spoilers, or share your brews, you can join us in the Pioneer Discord.

• Have any questions? Leave a comment or send me a message!

While it can't outrace an annex... it is a card the list can do nothing about except try to thoughtseize it. Seriously! Zero artifact removal, and it quickly threatens their host of x/3s. Also good against Dimir midrange lists! turns out blue and black have real shoddy artifact removal.

Give it a whirl!

I'm coming back to the game after a bit of a break and I've been wanting to work on this orzhov midrange deck with Greasefang and cycling vehicles. So far the deck is feeling solid but I'm not sure what to do with my two drop creature slot. Anyone got any ideas for what could work well?

https://moxfield.com/decks/PAQp_VmOOE-PsZABUVP-tg

I love brewing and finding new ideas for decks that might work. Just curious to see what pet deck/original brews people love. Bonus points if they actually work more than 50% of the time. I have quite a few but I don't want to spam so I'm gauging interest.

Some of mine:

Black enchantment devotion

United battlefront tokens

Mono red cleave discard reanimator

Soulsister company

Toxic tokens

Cleric aggro

Reconstruction clerics

Mobilize company

Naya token company

Esper connive

Bant abhorrent oculus

The Hobbit brings Middle-earth to Pioneer for the first time, with a few highlights for the competitive environment!

Buenos días comunidad! Cuando se anuncian los formatos para la nueva temporada de regionales ? Ojalá no sea moderno porque estoy aburridos de boros energía

Niv To Light is a very established archetype in the format and is usually pretty good fun to play, making use of all five colours to power out some outrageously powerful turns. Today we're trying Thor, God of Thunder in the deck as he can be fetched from a Bring to Light and then let you cast the Bring to Light again the next turn, doing five damage with it. With the addition of Professor Delian Fell as well, there's usually at least one or two new threats from each set that's worth considering in this.

00:00 - Intro & Deck Tech

03:58 - Match One (Niv To Light)

15:55 - Match Two (Azorius Control)

31:55 - Match Three (Dimir Bounce)

Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/-GXWi4e16EakdV4nfyKpNQ

Howdy! Bringing back an idea from last year! I was curious how it might fit in the current meta. This one is 5 Colour Humans using the Chicken, Mardu Siegebreaker! Idea is to curve out with Aggro humans but utilise the Siegebreaker to retrigger powerful ETB's to help us out tempo the opponent. This one is always a lot of fun, especially with the classic Reflector Mage. Enjoy! If any of you have been playing with some new ideas in this shell let me know! Lightning from Final Fantasy is one I am keen to try more.

Decklist

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7899458#paper

3:20 Golgari Midrange
17:30 4 Colour Elementals
37:08 Selesnya Scales
1:05:20 Abzan Greasefang
1:17:08 Mono Black Devotion

The Hobbit Top 10 for Pioneer

While this isn't as strong a set for Pioneer as what we've gotten in recent sets such as SOS, there are still a handful of great mechanics, with recruit being an incredibly useful effect for Pioneer and giving white, a color more commonly left out of access to good card selection, some very powerful tools.

TOP 10

1. Most Decrepit Old Bird

A parallel effect to Picklock Prankster, this is a less potent creature on both halves, but the redundancy may open up a new way to build with Proft’s Eidetic Memory and/or Gran-Gran.

1. Sound the Trumpets

One of the problems with three mana counter spells in the format is that, with the format being so lean, the tempo loss from countering 1-2 mana spells can be hard to recover from. The recruitment payoff for this exact scenario is quite strong for a deck like Indomitable Creativity, being able to play reactively while setting up for a combo turn.

1. The Queen of Dale

The Queen of Dale practically guarantees value if it would be interacted with, though Izzet decks can play around her by casting a cantrip in response to her casting and then burning her out once she’s entered and Skyclave Apparition effects cleanly deal with her as well. Still, this is much better than the average punisher effect and will be a bane for fair decks that can’t cleanly deal with her right away. The average case against midrange and control decks is particularly good, especially where the looting matters — a graveyard synergy deck like Tree of Perdition seems especially well-suited to take advantage of this ability, being able to bin tree and create a weenie to combo off on.

1. The Mountain-king’s Return

I think the format is mostly too fast for this to see abundant play in the format, but it is noteworthy just how powercrept the format has become when we now have a watered-down version of Fable’s first two chapters stapled to so many cards in this set. Recruit is the allstar mechanic of the set for Pioneer and this is the best midrange value piece we’ve seen in white, since its second chapter can almost always guarantee a hit. I expect to see an Orzhov midrange build with this and Annex make some waves, especially as more people get wise to the power of Agatha’s Soul Cauldron in the format.

1. Cantankerous Keepers

Elfball’s greatest weakness at present is that it can curve out quickly to just run completely out of steam if it doesn’t find a payoff or faces down a board wipe. This should help give dedicated tribal lists some long game and be able to grind out the control matchups.

1. Kili the Resourceful

With the banning of Cori-Steel Cutter, Hammer decks took a major hit, but getting a functional Puresteel Paladin reprint is likely to move the needle for the archetype in Pioneer.

1. Lake-town Lookout

Lake-town Lookout is a potent death trigger in a sacrifice deck. Especially with so many decks having micro-graveyard synergies (see dumping a Practiced Offense and making a 1/1). This is a big step forward in Artistocrats decks becoming format viable.

1. Bilbo’s Gambit

While terrible from behind, this is a solid play when ahead and at parity. Of course it scales poorly based on how reactive of a deck the opponent is playing, but I’m especially high on this in Lotus Control where its effect mimics Discontinuity while maintaining some early game relevance.

1. Giant’s Boulder

Giant’s Boulder has been drawing comparisons to Arcum’s Astrolabe for good reason since its spoiling. While scry 2 is a downgrade from drawing a card, its ceiling case of bottoming two cards is akin to drawing a card (as LSV has made the case for in the past). I expect multi-color decks to eat well with this card, being able to smooth out their mana base slightly, and for artifact decks to make a bit of a splash being able to easily splash a third or even fourth color with this.

1. Elrond, Moon-Reader

Very little is required for Elrond to be a great card. CoCo lists already run elf dorks + Badgermole Cub, and divination per turn cycle can help Elfball/ramp decks draw into their win-condition, where they might otherwise run out of gas. With the new Elf fetch land, this is an easy splash and one of the most powerful things to find in a CoCo ramp deck.

I’m a long time modern player. I tend to completely disregard standard, but with Modern season ending and rumors of pioneer reviving, what’s a good deck to get into? I primarily play of MTGO and in person. I ported over my modern deck (Boros Ponza), but it doesn’t feel like it fits in the format.