There are a few ways to look at the Pioneer format in its early days. I say early because as of now there are only five cards banned (the Khans/Onslaught fetch lands). This will quickly and often change for the foreseeable future with bans being announced every week. For me it’s the wild west and we should focus on these deck building concepts early on:
Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time are banned or restricted in every format but Pioneer. Ostensibly, without fetchlands these cards are not as terrifying. I posit that these cards are still as powerful as ever if, and only if, your deck is built to abuse them. The best ways to do this currently is with cheap cantrips and self mill effects. Dig Through Time is most playable as a generically powerful card, but in my opinion is only ban-worthy if it’s finding combo pieces, which is mostly what got it banned in every other format.
There are some packages I’ve included here to maximize Treasure Cruise. Tome Scour is an awful magic card but when it fuels Treasure Cruise, Mission Briefing, Finale of Promise, and Arclight Phoenix it actually does quite a bit for one mana. I’m actually terrified this deck might be better than the modern version. I love Treasure Cruise but I think once people figure out how to build with it it’ll be gone.
This shows off the “fair” side of Dig Through Time in a control/midrange deck. It also includes another card banned in most formats, Deathrite Shaman. Both of these cards need a little help and are why we don’t see a full playset of either. To assist them we have Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy and Satyr Wayfinder. To top it off we have four Oko, Thief of Crowns. All three of these cards, less so Deathrite Shaman, may no longer be with us in a few months after the bans play out. For now, this is raw power and the best place to start if you want to play fair magic.
Modern is an old format with a wide range of cards that are simply not compatible with modern card design. Choke, Blood Moon, Tron lands, etc. are all not only too powerful for Pioneer, but also they make it so that not many Pioneer decks will resemble Modern decks, and that’s a good thing! That isn’t to say there aren’t some overlaps. I classify these two as roughly the same deck archetype of disruptive aggro.
This deck very closely resembles modern spirits with a few clear downgraded but acceptable substitutions. The general plan of disruptive flashing in spirits, Collected Company, and lords is a tried and true strategy, and was once the best deck in modern. Throw in Oko/Teferi and this deck can disrupt combo decks while thumping creature decks. There’s no Tron to ruin Company decks so I have a feeling they will dominate early if they have a plan for the Saheeli lists.
This is a bit of a hybrid of a deck from many seasons ago, 4 Color Rally with some Modern Humans vibes. It can play attrition, combo, or aggro, which is a lot of potential game plans for a deck with this many creatures. The gameplan is to play your aggro game with Thalia’s Lieutenant, Reflector Mage, and Collected Company until you can’t (your board gets trumped or wiped or you’re about to lose to a combo) and then you move to the attrition/combo plan with Rally the Ancestors and the sacrifice creatures. The varying gameplans is what Modern Humans was all about and between this hybrid approach and the sideboard that resembles Modern Humans, this deck could be a real contender.
Arcbound Ravager is a messed up magic card, and not having it here hurts. Still, we’re looking at a very fast deck with nut draws that are are unreal. In Modern, this deck has fallen out of favor but in Pioneer, a large part of the power level remains and the replacements are all pretty reasonable.
Fair warning: I don’t sling just red spells very often but I can’t deny how close to the Modern prowess deck we are here. Yeah, we don’t get Bolt and maybe we’re a turn slower, but this will consistently provide turn 4 kills and should serve as a litmus test on how much your deck needs to interact. I wouldn’t be surprised if the red aggro deck wins big early on if people just try to go bigger with synergy based decks.
Improving old standard decks strikes me as the “level one” place to start with deck building as well the most likely to yield poor decks. Standard is a place where we can cast larger spells that care about battlefield advantage. Pioneer and Modern are more liekly to be about simply out muscling your opponent from multiple angles.
Aetherworks Marvel was eventually banned but I maintain it really wasn’t that great of a deck. If it’s good here it’s because it has an absurd supporting cast in Oko and Emry. Like Saheeli, Marvel can end the game on turn 4, or play a longer game that goes over the top of midrange decks in a way Saheeli doesn’t. It’s worth nothing there isn’t a lot of good artifact hate so this might be worth running just based off that. It also plays Oko so there’s that. Ulmaog may also be worth considering here as well.
This build is a bit different, but I’m sure you’ve all seen a hundred different Saheeli lists at this point. This version is focused on having turn two Planeswalker every game and trying to set up turn three Saheeli-Cat combo. Or turn two Oko which is a combo all in itself. The playset of Supreme Verdict makes this great against opposing creature decks, which in turn makes the backup plan of value planeswalkers all the better. For what it’s worth, I don’t think this combo will be in Pioneer long. There are rumblings of an absurd win rate on MTGO.
I wanna live in a world where a deck like this is viable but we might still be a few ban announcements away. On its surface, this goes way above most other decks and completely destroys any deck trying to have a battlefield presence, or attack life totals. For now I think Siege Rhino remains a relic.
Lastly, I can’t not talk about Kethis, the other elephant in the room. Kethis was never banned in Standard, but there’s a good chance if the deck was discovered earlier it would have been. Certainly, a consistent turn 4 kill with a lot of redundancy is something to worry about. Something I’m not sure if people have really talked about is how you can get infinite mana and cast triggers with Paradox Engine, which, by the way, is legendary. Kethis is the biggest question mark for me. My guess is that it will be the Summer Bloom of Pioneer, where we don’t know it’s as broken as it is for a while yet.
The fourth method, play cards you think will be banned, is a bit harder to do. For me it’s abusing Treasure Cruise, Oko, and Saheeli. Luckily, I think Cruise will stick around at least a little while, but if I were prepping for an early Pioneer tournament I would play one of those three cards.
Here’s my only truly original list of this article, and the deck I plan on jamming in this weekends PTQ:
This is a mix of all the methods. It has cards that are banned in other formats, a card that will be banned, a successful modern strategy ported to Pioneer, and a deck that has seen success in Standard. I’ll admit, the list looks really strange but if you’ve never seen Treasure Cruise in action, it really makes this deck churn. It regularly kills on turn four and I’ve even killed on turn three. Once people play any significant number of Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void this deck is toast, but I’m not sure sideboards will be that well tuned early on. I’m still working on beating those cards and it starts with Brazen Borrower. The graveyard package is explosive enough that one turn with the hate card not in play is often enough.
There is SO much more I could talk about it’s almost overwhelming. There are tons of decks, great ones even, that I missed here. I have to say that so far this is the best magic format I’ve played in a long time. I love the broken ness, the nostalgia, all of it. I’m really excited to share more decks, brew more decks, and maybe even play a little bit! Hopefully the power stays on in California for longer than a few days.