Pioneer Meta: May 6-7 + May 14, 2023

Pioneer (May 6-7 + May 14)

Welcome to Multiverse Meta: Pioneer Edition!

Due to the MTGO issues surrounding certain Challenges this weekend, there was only one Pioneer Challenge. I’ve aggregated the data from the previous weekends’ Challenges with that one that fired this week to make up for it! Let’s dive in!

Top of the Metagame

Winners of the Week

4c Enigmatic (May 6)

Wurm Creativity (May 7)

Niv to Light (May 14)

Top Ten Archetypes Across Top 32s of All 3 Challenges (Ties Weighted by Top 8 Conversion)

1. Rakdos - 34.38%

2. Mono G - 12.5%

3. UW Control - 6.25%

4. UW Spirits - 6.25%

5. Wurm Creativity - 4.17%

6. 5c Atraxa Fires - 4.17%

7. UB Rogues - 4.17%

8. Gearhulk Creativity - 3.13%

9. Bring to Light - 2.08%

10. GW Company - 2.08%

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

1. Rakdos - 29.17%

2. Mono G - 12.5%

3. UW Control - 8.33%

4. Wurm Creativity - 8.33%

5. Gearhulk Creativity - 8.33%

Rakdos is king! The archetype’s stranglehold on the Pioneer meta continues with a shocking 34.38% of the overall share. This week’s news about changes to the ban system seemed to indicate that next round of bans will focus only on Standard, and given the length of time of the new ban window it looks like we will be sitting with Rakdos at the top of the format for the considerable future barring any crazy new cards in Wilds of Eldraine and beyond. I personally don’t think this is the worst thing, as I do think there’s plenty of weapons against Rakdos in the format and there’s more exploration of archetypes to be done. However, looking at these numbers and the 3 months of Pioneer RCQs ahead, I do think a lot of players will be hard-pressed to play anything outside of Rakdos. That’s a worrying place to be and something I’ll monitor in the coming months. With that, onto the more exciting things happening elsewhere in the Pioneer meta!

Chandra Turns: A Potential New Archetype?

The most exciting Pioneer success story I saw this week didn’t come from the Challenge results. Instead, it came from a RCQ winner in Spain!

This impressive list melds together a few simple but powerful ideas from various corners of the Pioneer landscape and beyond. What if you took one of the best deck shells in the format (Izzet Creativity) and combined it with one of the standout cards from Pro Tour Minneapolis (Chandra, Hope’s Beacon) and one of the most powerful recently banned cards in Standard (Alrund’s Epiphany)? The result is a control deck with some potentially serious staying power, as your already proven Creativity-style early game morphs into a lights out endgame that capitalizes on Chandra’s ability to copy instants and sorceries for free, giving you multiple extra turns with one cast of Alrund’s Epiphany.

Chandra seriously caught my eye as a potential Pioneer playable with her powerhouse showing in the Pro Tour, and I think the closeness in similarly between Standard decks and Rakdos right now is a pretty good indicator that we are not in an age of ignoring big mana Standard cards for eternal formats. I don’t believe the planeswalker’s combination with Invoke Despair is quite good enough for Pioneer, but extra turns is a methodology we’ve already seen propel Izzet Phoenix to the top of the metagame in certain points of time, and this method doesn’t rely on your graveyard to function.

With cards like Hullbreaker Horror also in the mix, I think you have a good range of gameplans that makes this deck seriously hard to handle and harder to disrupt than Creativity, which remains a strong if imperfect archetype that can be easily hated on by any well-aware player. I love the curve of Creativity until it hits its namesake spell, where then I become a bit underwhelmed by its combo finish regardless of whether I’m playing the Wurm or Gearhulk versions. This Chandra version of the Izzet combo archetype offers a refreshing alternative that doesn’t fold to an exiled Wurm or no Madma Opus in your graveyard for Gearhulk. It was a hit on Twitter and I’m sure we’ll see it pop up in Challenge results in the coming weeks.

Gearhulk v. Wurm: The Creativity Civil War

Speaking of Creativity, a full-blown archetype civil war has broken out into the hallowed halls of the Pioneer challenges. Are you for the Wurm? Or are you for the Hulk?

Reid Duke’s win and Channel Fireball’s success with Wurm Creativity at Pro Tour Philadelphia took the deck, which was popular but starting to move towards the fringes of the meta, back into firm contention once more. Genius innovations like the addition of Mutavault as a Creativity target/backup beater made the deck feel exciting again, and Reid’s absolutely dominant performance with the deck throughout made it feel indisputably top tier. Flash forward a few months later and the Wurm is still in the building but nowhere near the top of the meta as some surely thought it would be. Why?

I think Reid and company’s decision to play the deck was an excellent metagame call and not an indicator of its long-term viability in the overall format. They knew it was on the downswing and that few players would be prepared for it, and the fact that the Wurm + Xenagos combo can just flat out win on the spot is the kind of thing that can hard-carry you through a difficult tournament and save you from having mentally taxing games every single match. The downside of the deck’s exposure in the Pro Tour is that players know what to do against it now. Since Wurm has no meaningful ETB, players will let you resolve Creativity and lose your treasures before sending your 15/15 to the phantom zone. Exile effects are still prevalent in Pioneer and counting on one Wurm, one Xenagos, and a dream to get it done is a risky gambit.

Wurm haters have therefore turned back to Gearhulk, which was popular pre-Philly with fans of Aspiringspike and other well-known players who were looking for something a little different. It has also had success and remains a strong deck, but in my mind has similar issues. It has a great early game with a potentially game-ending combo, not to mention an actual backup plan since you can just cast your Gearhulks if the game goes long enough. However, the premium combo of Gearhulk + Magma Opus is very easy to interact with for anyone in the know and while very cool, is sometimes simply nowhere good enough against a solid Rakdos or Mono G board state.

Ultimately the decks are very similar and have almost identical win rates, and the decision to play which version will come down to your style as a player. Looking for a patient, shark-like approach where you wait and wait until you win on the spot? Wurm’s for you. Looking to be more proactive and less reliant on just casting Creativity for the win? Go for Hulk. Either way, you’ll be playing a strong deck that feels just on the fringe of greatness.

5c Atraxa Fires: The Definitive Atraxa Deck Going Forward?

Speaking of Creativity, that archetype had a brief flirtation with everyone’s favorite new Phyrexian angel Atraxa, Grand Unifier, but something about these lists doesn’t feel quite as strong as the decks above. The main reason was Atraxa mostly fills your hand with medium cards that have little impact late game, a similar issue to why the Atraxa decks using the Neoform plan have also struggled to consistently find success in Challenges. With Atraxa having such a powerful ETB effect, players have been scrambling to find a shell that maximizes her strengths whilst still cheating her into play quickly.

Enter this new archetype, popularized by DreamsOfAshiok on Twitter, a 5c Yorion build which looks to control the board early with cheap removal, wipes, and dummy blockers before overwhelming your opponent with Fires of Invention and Transmogrifying said blockers into Atraxa. Your Atraxa hits are far better here, ranging from Esika’s Chariot to Invasion of Alara, giving you plenty of juicy options to choose from and serve as your backup plan should Atraxa get removed. The deck also runs two Invasion of Tolvada as a secondary reanimation plan for Atraxas discarded with Fable and Bitter Reunion, though the thing I’ve found most impressive about that card is its ability to bring back a cycled Shark Typhoon from the graveyard. If you have Fires going, casting Tolvada as your first spell then making a huge shark with your second cast is often too much value for your opponent to handle. Tolvada is also a reanimation spell that is blinkable with Yorion and flips into a token generator that puts decks like Rakdos in the dust.

I think this list is difficult to pilot well but has a lot going for it, principally that it out values both Rakdos and Mono G a considerable amount of the time. Despite being a relatively new deck, versions of it are already making an impact in Challenges, representing a solid 4.17% of the latest top 32s. Keep an eye out for this one as RCQ season rolls on.

Nashi, Moon’s Legacy: Rona’s New Best Friend

It’s been almost a month now since MOM’s release and brewers are still scratching their heads over the best ways to build Rona Combo, a deck that revolves around pairing Rona, Herald of Invasion with Mox Amber and Retraction Helix to net a ton of mana, draw your deck and win the game. Luckily for them, they’ve already found a new toy in Nashi, Moon’s Legacy, a legendary rat from Aftermath that copies legendaries from the graveyard as it attacks. This card is doing a lot of what the Rona deck wants in that it recurs Ronas, Mox Ambers, and Tyvar, Jubilant Brawlers from the yard while also having a solid 3/4 body, menace, and ward 1. And all for 3 mana! The inclusion of this adorable little engine propelled Rona into its first Challenge top 32 appearance since MOM opening weekend and is already looking to be a solid addition to the archetype. With other recent additions such as Ledger Shredder making a big splash, is this tricky deck finally approaching a stable list? We will see!

New Set, New Humans Archetype?

The Pioneer archetype that undoubtedly got the biggest buff from Aftermath is Humans, which got the head-turning Coppercoat Vanguard as an instant staple in the two drop slot. This 2/2 lord also gives other Humans ward 1 in addition to its +1/+0 pump, an already impressive ability that gets crazier and crazier with more Vanguards in play. As someone who has had a lot of success with Mono W and is likely looking to main it for most of this RCQ season, I am very high on this card.

While Vanguard is an easy fit, there’s one more new human in Aftermath that has some Humans players headed back to the drawing board. Jirina, Dauntless General is a BW two drop that exiles an opponent’s graveyard upon ETB and can be sacrificed to give all other Humans hexproof and indestructible until end of turn. That’s a lot of text that’s relevant for the Humans archetype, and other BW Humans-matter cards such as Dire Tactics and Jirina’s dear old dad General Kudro suddenly seem more viable with her as an option. An Orzhov Humans list featuring these cards already popped up in this weekend’s Challenge, and the archetype certainly seems worth exploring. However, it’s also worth noting that a lot of Mono W’s strength comes from its near-flawless, pain-free mana base, and as Mono W master Jesse Robkin recently pointed out on Twitter, it’s hard to imagine a BW Humans deck working as long as Mutavault only taps for colorless mana. Never say never, but for now I’ll personally be sticking to 14 Plains in my deck.

That’s all Pioneer for this week. See you next week for more Modern and Pioneer deep dives! Thanks for reading and happy trophy hunting!

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