Pioneer Meta: Weekend of May 26-28, 2028

Pioneer

Qualifier Decklists

Saturday Decklists

Sunday Decklists

Top of the Metagame

Winners of the Week

Greasefang (Qualifier)

Lotus Field (Saturday)

Rakdos Mid (Sunday)

Top Archetypes Across Top 32s of Both Challenges/Top 16 of the Qualifier (Ties Weighted by Top 8 Conversion)

1. Mono G - 16.25%

2. Rakdos Mid - 11.25%

3. Greasefang - 8.75%

4. UW Control/Rakdos Sac/Lotus Field/Boros Convoke/UW Spirits - 6.25%

5. Mono W - 5.00%

Best of the Best: Top 5 Decks Representing the Highest Percentages Across All 3 Top 8s (Ties Weighted by Overall Metashare)

1. Mono G - 16.67%

2. Greasefang - 12.50%

3. UW Control/Rakdos Sac/Lotus Field/Boros Convoke/UW Spirits - 8.33%

4. Rakdos Mid - 4.17%

5. Mono W - 4.17%

Mono G reclaims the crown! After many weeks firmly sitting at the top of the metagame and despite still claiming yet another Challenge win this weekend, cracks have emerged in the veneer of Rakdos Mid’s dominant position. The combination of Greasefang’s sudden re-emergence and the rise of Boros Convoke seem to be cutting down the success of Rakdos enough that both its meta share and its top 8 conversion rate fell sharply this week. Mono G doesn’t care much about either of those decks as it’s fully capable of still beating their hyperfast draws, so it held strong in its position and capitalized on the stumblings of its biggest rival. The debate over Boros Convoke’s long-term viability continued to rage this week but it had another strong showing in the Challenges (though it didn’t manage to crack the top 16 of the Qualifier). The deck’s consistency remains an issue, but those hands that let you have lethal on board turn 3 are certainly making their mark. Rakdos Sac continued its comeback tour this week with another strong showing, though its high metashare may offer another clue as to why Mono G had such a dominant week.

Checking In On LMS Valencia

This past weekend saw a big qualifying event in Valencia, Spain for the next season of Regional Championships, and the weekend was, surprise surprise, all about Rakdos Midrange. The paper meta naturally seems to lag a bit behind the MTGO one, so there wasn’t as much Greasefang or Boros skulking around to combat Rakdos’ dominant position. An impressive 19.75% of the 81 players who registered Rakdos made day 2 and two of those players made top 8. On the less successful side of things, UW Control had an absolutely abysmal weekend, with only 1 (!) of the 33 players who registered it making day 2. Considering its solid success online as of late, that’s a surprisingly grim number.

Doing better than expected was Creativity, which not only had a very solid day 2 conversion rate but saw 2 players make it to the top 8, one of which won the whole tournament. Alejandro Dupuy’s winning list was the stock Gearhulk version of the deck, while the other top 8 list was recent MOCS Winner Marco Vassallo on Atraxa Creativity. Marco’s list had some interesting spice in the sideboard, largely Koma, Cosmos Serpent as a Creativity target for the Mono G matchup to overwhelm the board and turn off Nykthos. He also registered one Chandra, Hope’s Beacon in the side, a card that has been impressive in the Chandra Turns deck and is slowly creeping into other archetypes as her high power level becomes more and more apparent. What Creativity deck you opt for still largely comes down to personal preference, though both the Gearhulk and Atraxa versions seem more and more impressive compared to the traditional Wurm version in recent weeks.

Mono W also had a big weekend, with the only perfect day 1 record belonging to Álvaro Santiago who piloted the deck to an impressive 9-0 start and handily made top 8 on day 2. His interesting tech was 4 Invasion of Gobhakan in the main to combat removal and sweepers, which is an option that is growing more and more attractive for W aggro decks as time goes on.

While I imagine this weekend’s round of Regional Championships will look considerably different with Greasefang and Convoke kicking around, the performances of most of the decks I’ve outlined above (sorry Control players!) give you a good idea of how things are looking going into this exciting next couple of weeks for Pioneer.

Is Greasefang Secretly the Deck To Beat Right Now?

Fans of the biker rat have risen from the ashes in past weeks to combat the Rakdos scourge, and the redemption arc of the deck has been so strong that it seems to be a popular and wise choice for many top players going into the big Regional Championship weekend. The deck has largely been on a stock list for a while now, but some new cards as well innovations in the Qualifier-winning list point to the Greasegang looking for ways to give the deck a newfound edge.

The big change to the list which has become a staple addition in recent months is the inclusion of Vessel of Nascency. This inconspicuous little common all the way back from Shadows over Innistrad acts as a largely better Satyr Wayfinder when you pop it due to its flexibility in finding you a variety of cards as opposed to just blindly dumping everything but lands in the yard. It’s a small but nice upgrade which has seen the deck gain more consistency. A similar small but impactful upgrade has been the inclusion of Scrapwork Mutt as another looting blocker that you can unearth later with Mana Confluence mana if need be, giving you an extra Raffine’s Informant to dump Parhelion from your hand into the yard.

New additions in the Qualifier winning list that caught my eye are Seed of Hope and Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord. Seed of Hope is a new one-mana green card from MOM that gains you some life and lets you mill two cards and put one of them back into your hand if it's a permanent. It’s an obvious if not crazy impactful inclusion that mostly gives you something to do on turn 1 other than Thoughtseize, which is something this deck wants but doesn’t necessarily need since Vessel has already somewhat filled that role. More interesting is the one-of Sorin, which gives you another way to reanimate a milled or removed Greasefang while really putting you ahead on a successful vehicle reanimation since the vampire planeswalker now gives all your goodies lifelink.

Innovations like this and the excellent results it has shown off lately make me personally think Greasefang is a rogue contender for the best deck to register for big events right now. It has a great Rakdos matchup, punishes most other midrange decks, and faces very little meaningful graveyard hate in the meta as of late with Phoenix in such a poor position and the perception of this deck’s inconsistency still present amongst players. The deck also high-rolls so effectively that it will just win you some free games and gain you a few percentage points, which has its benefits in large tournaments with diverse fields. It’s not a perfect choice, as Mono G can just outcombo you and true aggro decks always feel a tad bit faster, but it’s one that crushes what is often the most represented deck in the format and is sometimes stupidly easy to pilot with the right draws. Long gone are the days of calling this deck a fun meme; it’s a top tier contender that is scary for anyone to face, even for those who consider it a good matchup.

Rona Combo Scores Its First Top Finish

After weeks of community testing and tinkering, Rona combo finally secured a top 8 finish as the runner-up in Saturday’s Challenge. Many variations of the new archetype are running around, but this triumphant list is centered around Fae of Wishes // Granted as its win condition, allowing you to find that much needed Retraction Helix or Mox Amber to start comboing off or grab your ultimate win condition in Aetherflux Reservoir. This version also has flexibility as Granted allows you to grab a wider variety of cards from your board than Karn if you’re not ready to combo off yet, such as Illness in the Ranks for your Boros Convoke opponents. An amusing aspect of this build is that you can grab Karn in your wishboard if you’re confident in his survival to grab more wishpieces.

Another interesting piece of tech in this list that I’m seeing Rona decks slowly start to pick up is Lazav, the Multifarious, a two mana shapeshifter which essentially acts as Ronas 5 & 6. Between removal, discard, Lazav’s surveil, Jace’s looting, and Tyvar’s mill, it’s very likely that there will be Rona in your yard to copy with Lazav, making this a natural fit on curve that adds to the deck’s consistency. I’ve seen a lot of high-profile players starting to turn their eye towards Rona as a potential competitive deck, so seeing it finally secure a top finish right before RC weekend is certainly interesting. While this deck doesn’t have a good backup plan like the Ledger Shredder version, I do think it’s the most consistent Rona list we’ve seen yet and one that will continue to pop up in the coming weeks.

That’s all for Pioneer this week. See you next week for more coverage of the Modern and Pioneer metagame and in the meantime, enjoy this weekend’s RC coverage! Happy trophy hunting!

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