New Format announced - Pioneer

[H]

Fine, I disagree with this weaker statement as well (that legacy has "less opportunity to capitalize on ...")

Fair enough, this is not a scientific posit, it's my own qualitative take.

Yeah but legacy isn't unique in this regard, you can say the same thing about standard / modern / limited formats also. If you hand me a standard deck and ask me to go play a tournament I won't have any idea what I'm doing. So my position is the same as before: pro players only lack this legacy-specific knowledge because they don't play the format much, because they have no incentive to. Legacy has no intrinsic quality that either makes it more difficult to grok or provide less opportunity to leverage skill/ability

Well, I do disagree that Legacy "has no intrinsic quality that provides less opportunity to leverage skill" because I do think that they higher the power-level of cards available, there is less opportunity to leverage the skill of "optimal" play, that is, less opportunity to capitalize on sub-optimal play. Because, when single top-decks, for example, have a chance of simply just winning the game, even your optimal play could end up in a loss.

To use made up numbers to illustrate what I am thinking of, let us say that, perhaps, "optimal play" might win you 70% of your Standard matches. Now, in Legacy, it would be my hypothesis that "optimal play" might only win you 60% of your matches, because the chance, in a higher-power format, that your opponent simply "gets lucky," that is, plays something from a disadvantaged position that is powerful enough to just win the game despite what you did.

Consider a case where you are playing a Delver deck vs. something like ANT. You have "optimally played" so far, stopped all their plays, leveraged any and all card advantage you can and applied consistent pressure. Lets say this has loaded their graveyard and exhausted your hand of useful cards (let's pretend this is a game 1). They have one currently useless card in hand, Past In Flames and will die the next turn to your clock. They draw for turn, it's LED and this enables them to make enough mana, discard the PiF, cast a bevy of rituals and win on the spot. Even if the ANT player there had played sub-optimally and your Delver pilot played optimally, the end result in a loss for "optimal play."

Now, my hypothesis is that a format where cards as "powerful" cards, like LED in the above example, exist, I think it is reasonable to surmise that their effect could be to, in these sorts of cases, invalidate some of the benefit to "optimal play." That does not mean that "optimal play" is somehow not "optimal" or that "optimal play" does not yield consistently "better" results than sub-optimal play. Again, we can quibble about numbers and degrees in perpetuity, but my point is that in "low power" formats, the likelihood of outlier events dramatically (that is, making a loss into a win) changing game results is just smaller. 1%, 5%, 10%, again we can disagree on the exactly quantitative effect forever, my only point is that "higher power" formats can have greater "variance" because the in-game effect of single cards can be greater, therefor the net effect of "optimal play" is somewhat lower there. Again, "somewhat lower" not being equal to or synonymous with "nothing at all."

Not to mention, that this "outlier effect," even if we surmise that it only result in a .5% "change" in the net win percent of "optimal play," likely would still have a greater psychological net effect, just based on how people perceive things. I'd point to many people's notions of Vintage as an example, there many people have a perception of it being predicated on broken, crazy things being commonplace and consistent. Again, even just the academic notion of the effect gives rise to psychological valence toward it's possibility, not it's probability.

I'd actually surmise this is a subtle part of why some don't like Modern, aside some other obvious problems there, but the net-effect would be much smaller, since Modern is a lower-power format than Legacy.

[ronco]

Now, my hypothesis is that a format where cards as "powerful" cards, like LED in the above example, exist, I think it is reasonable to surmise that their effect could be to, in these sorts of cases, invalidate some of the benefit to "optimal play." That does not mean that "optimal play" is somehow not "optimal" or that "optimal play" does not yield consistently "better" results than sub-optimal play. Again, we can quibble about numbers and degrees in perpetuity, but my point is that in "low power" formats, the likelihood of outlier events dramatically (that is, making a loss into a win) changing game results is just smaller. 1%, 5%, 10%, again we can disagree on the exactly quantitative effect forever, my only point is that "higher power" formats can have greater "variance" because the in-game effect of single cards can be greater, therefor the net effect of "optimal play" is somewhat lower there. Again, "somewhat lower" not being equal to or synonymous with "nothing at all."

I will concede to your point above about the lucking out and still losing while playing optimally in various formats, but instead of looking at it as "You can play optimal and still lose" I wonder if its better to flip it on its head and look at it a different way: "If you don't play optimal can you still win?" I think that might be a better way to look at the lines of play piece of it.

In "powerful" formats, the punishment for misplays is high, many times costing valuable tempo/CA (which may lead to a loss down the line).
In "less powered" formats, the punishment for misplays is low, sometimes just costing you some life points which may or may not matter.

From this standpoint I'd argue that the more powerful formats require optimized/more skilled play. Of course, that is not to say standard players or limited players are not as skilled at legacy, just that a misplay isn't as costly as it could be in more powerful formats.

[H]

I will concede to your point above about the lucking out and still losing while playing optimally in various formats, but instead of looking at it as "You can play optimal and still lose" I wonder if its better to flip it on its head and look at it a different way: "If you don't play optimal can you still win?" I think that might be a better way to look at the lines of play piece of it.

In "powerful" formats, the punishment for misplays is high, many times costing valuable tempo/CA (which may lead to a loss down the line).
In "less powered" formats, the punishment for misplays is low, sometimes just costing you some life points which may or may not matter.

From this standpoint I'd argue that the more powerful formats require optimized/more skilled play. Of course, that is not to say standard players or limited players are not as skilled at legacy, just that a misplay isn't as costly as it could be in more powerful formats.

Well, I think it's fair to consider the perspective change there.

The thing is, while what you say is true, that is what I would consider that as "suboptimal play." In other words, if your opponent is making poor tempo or card advantage decisions, they are playing suboptimally. So, even from this perspective that "suboptimal play" is more detrimental in higher power formats, the thing is that this does not, as such, mean that optimal play is that much more advantageous. How could that be?

Well, because let us consider the case of optimal play vs. optimal play. In that case, the simple determining facet will then just be a question of the "power" of each card drawn. In other words, who draws better. Now, in a more homogenous power level format, the net likelihood that the card in question determines the outcome, rather than the continued optimal play, at least seems lower to me. Maybe I am wrong.

Another way to think about this is that there is a "right wall" of optimal play. In other words, if you play "optimal" there is not "more optimal" play available. Since you can't, in theory, make you opponent play suboptimally, or rather, we should say, there is no optimal strategy of forcing suboptimal play, I would tend to not consider them reciprocals of themselves. (Now, this is actually somewhat false, because bluffing does exist and in my mind, more so in higher power formats, but it's vastly "harder" do necessarily quantitatively determine the optimal "bluff," I think.)

In other words, I don't really think that "optimal play" is exactly a zero-sum game between both players.

[Qweerios]

In a game where chance trumps over skill because there is an achievable ceiling to optimal play patterns, I believe the most influential skill to have is how you manipulate your odds outside of a game. Choosing what cards you allow chance to deal to you is the most skill-testing play you can make in a game of magic. You can give any top player a list they have genuine interest in and they will probably make near identical lines of play in a short amount of practice time. The smaller the card pool for a format is, the less room there is for card combinations that give you favorable odds against a given optimized strategy there is.

The best cards in Legacy are the ones that reduce variance for yourself (Brainstorm, Ponder, Fetchlands, Duals) or increase variance for your opponent (Wasteland, Thoughtseize, Force of Will). Most pros excel at finding optimized strategies first. Others will ''break'' the format with optimized piles that have favorable odds that operate within the confines of an already optimized format. The pros that excel at establishing a format's pillars have no interest in a format like Legacy where you have to play that rock paper scissors metagame optimally to be an above average player. If you chop the pro scene in half when a format is ''solved'', it is only normal that interest from a competitive perspective for that format decreases.

Legacy and cube are the only formats I know of that offer threats and answers of similar power level. This is only possible because of its deep card pool. This balance is the only measure I can think of that values a format's longevity and competitiveness because it will retain a certain pro-scene. A format like Pioneer will see it's share of competitiveness in its infancy. Then the interest for the format will decrease faster than every format with a deeper card pool.

[FTW]

Right off the bat. Treasure Cruise and Dig need to be gone. There are plenty of ways to abuse this. These cards have proven to be too powerful in any format.

TC and DTT (and DRS) were proven too powerful in formats with fetches and cantrips to fuel the graveyard. Pioneer doesn't have any of them.

The following Modern cards are essentially banned from Pioneer:
Faithless Looting
Ponder
Preordain
Serum Visions
Sleight of Hand
Gitaxian Probe
Thought Scour
Burning Inquiry
Goblin Lore
Mishra's Bauble
Street Wraith
Chromatic Star
Chromatic Sphere
Manamorphose
Remand
The word "Dredge"
All 11 fetches
Free spells (pitch, phyrexian mana)

This is an interesting experiment from Wizards. Is Delve a fair mechanic if we just ban the enablers and let it be used as a fair card? Treasure Cruise is not that good if you have to hardcast 5 spells first and still pay 3 mana for Concentrate. It may not even be playable, dropped in favor of Chart a Course.

Other notable creatures that are "banned": Delver of Secrets, Tarmogoyf, Snapcaster Mage, Dark Confidant, Wild Nacatl, Death's Shadow, Vendilion Clique, Stoneforge Mystic, Noble Hierarch, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Splinter Twin/Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Kitchen Finks/Murderous Redcap/Melira, Sylvok Outcast, Urza, Lord High Artificer, Griselbrand, Bloodbraid Elf, Goblin Guide, Primeval Titan, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn...

Taking out all the tier 1 Modern creatures opens up a whole lot of design space to give other creatures a try, while still having a much bigger card pool and better mana than Standard.

Other things that are banned: Tron, Eggs, KCI, Infect, Dredge, Affinity, Storm, Cascade, Phyrexian Mana, Summer Bloom+Amulet of Vigor, Liliana of the Veil, Wrenn and Six, Goryo's Vengeance, Thopter Foundry+Sword of the Meek, Pyromancer Ascension, Living End...

This choice of blocks is a really clean way to knock out all the unfair stuff in Modern and remove the tier 1 creatures without needing a BR list.

The format won't be anywhere near as skill-testing as Legacy or Commander, but it should be a big improvement on Standard for those players who find Modern too stale.

[LOLWut]

Two random thoughts about Pioneer:

Planeswalkers could end up being very good in Pioneer, given factors like the lack of cheap removal and Pioneer encompassing the era of powerful planewalkers. If so, it could force WotC to print good planeswalker removal (unless attacking creatures preempt the issue/more dumb efficient creatures are printed as an answer instead), which would be great to have in Legacy.

When Modern was created, the difference between Modern and Legacy was starker; why play with 8 years of Magic's history if you can play with all 18 years? Although there are many other reasons why Legacy is awesome compared to Modern, and I've always been Legacy exclusive, that stark difference has narrowed by percentage. It became: why play with 16 years of Magic's history if you can play with all 26 years? If Pioneer replaces Modern as the premier LatestExtended format, Legacy's complete card pool and history stand out even more as the way to go if you dig that kind of thing. If someone's looking at these as their two non-rotating format options, it would be playing with all 26 years of Magic history vs. playing with 7 years of it, which gives Legacy special qualities.

[(nameless one)]

Right off the bat. Treasure Cruise and Dig need to be gone. There are plenty of ways to abuse this. These cards have proven to be too powerful in any format.

They weren't broken when they were in Standard. The lack of fetchlands slow these cards down.


On the other and interesting note, Extended Goblins is almost legal in the format. Its missing Goblin Matron and Gempalm Incinerator. I wonder if Volley Veteran can cover the bases.

[kombatkiwi]

Consider a case where you are playing a Delver deck vs. something like ANT. You have "optimally played" so far, stopped all their plays, leveraged any and all card advantage you can and applied consistent pressure. Lets say this has loaded their graveyard and exhausted your hand of useful cards (let's pretend this is a game 1). They have one currently useless card in hand, Past In Flames and will die the next turn to your clock. They draw for turn, it's LED and this enables them to make enough mana, discard the PiF, cast a bevy of rituals and win on the spot. Even if the ANT player there had played sub-optimally and your Delver pilot played optimally, the end result in a loss for "optimal play."

This argument is bad because it doesn't take into account the fact that power level across formats is relative.

Sure, standard doesn't have pseudo-lotus, but it's not like the whole format is Bear Wars. I can write an equally compelling parable about how me the control player has perfectly sequenced my removal and counterspells into a stable board position and then my opponent topdecks Carnage Tyrant and I die, or I get paired against the control mirror and my opponent has turn 2 Azcanta on the play and I die etc. In Legacy this would be met with a "you have carnage tyrant in your deck? LOL" but that doesn't mean that these cards aren't 'high power', because labeling something as 'powerful' only has meaning in the appropriate context

[FTW]

On the other and interesting note, Extended Goblins is almost legal in the format. Its missing Goblin Matron and Gempalm Incinerator. I wonder if Volley Veteran can cover the bases.

No Goblin Matron, Goblin Ringleader, Gempalm Incinerator, Goblin Sharpshooter, Mogg War Marshal, Mogg Fanatic, Goblin Chieftain, Goblin King, Mad Auntie ... and no Lackey or WInstigator. There's much less payoff for Goblin Tribal.

No lords hurts a lot. Maybe you could build something like this:


//Goblins: 29
4 Skirk Prospector
4 Frenzied Goblin
4 Goblin Cratermaker
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Legion Warboss
3 Volley Veteran
2 Siege-Gang Commander

[kombatkiwi]

No Goblin Matron, Goblin Ringleader, Gempalm Incinerator, Goblin Sharpshooter, Mogg War Marshal, Mogg Fanatic, Goblin Chieftain, Goblin King, Mad Auntie ... and no Lackey or WInstigator. There's much less payoff for Goblin Tribal.

No lords hurts a lot. Maybe you could build something like this:


//Goblins: 29
4 Skirk Prospector
4 Frenzied Goblin
4 Goblin Cratermaker
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Legion Warboss
3 Volley Veteran
2 Siege-Gang Commander

Warchief and Ringleader are legal but you're right that a lot of the other stuff is missing
Lack of Sharpshooter isn't too bad because you have Chainwhirler, but I think the main problem for this kind of deck is that Vial/Cavern aren't available so control decks can just counter your ringleaders and you're forced to just slowly deploy 1 creature at a time, forcing you to basically be a Sligh/RDW deck in which case there are probably stronger non-tribal alternatives

[Wrath of Pie]

They weren't broken when they were in Standard. The lack of fetchlands slow these cards down.

Actually, they were with fetchlands in Standard at the same time and were just fine in that format, so it is really more about efficient spells and the fetchlands fueling delve together, and they took the fetchland factor away (Fabled Passage does not really qualify), so the question is whether or not the efficient spells available can do enough work on their own to enable the delve cards and if they are worth playing.

[H]

They weren't broken when they were in Standard. The lack of fetchlands slow these cards down.

This was my initial take as well, but historicism and rationalism should probably wait for some empiricism.

I've been watching Todd Anderson play a UR Energy deck with Dig and it seems kind of busted. Now, we'll have to see how the meta actually shapes up, but Dig might be a little too strong. Cruise is probably alright, but of course it remains to be seen.

This argument is bad because it doesn't take into account the fact that power level across formats is relative.

Sure, standard doesn't have pseudo-lotus, but it's not like the whole format is Bear Wars. I can write an equally compelling parable about how me the control player has perfectly sequenced my removal and counterspells into a stable board position and then my opponent topdecks Carnage Tyrant and I die, or I get paired against the control mirror and my opponent has turn 2 Azcanta on the play and I die etc. In Legacy this would be met with a "you have carnage tyrant in your deck? LOL" but that doesn't mean that these cards aren't 'high power', because labeling something as 'powerful' only has meaning in the appropriate context

That is a fair point. The question then is how many of those cards there are in each respective format?

Since there is no realistic (that is, not practically, given limited time and resources) task of trying to formally calculate how many are in each, I will simply just rest on my intuition that it seems as if there are more of those sorts of "high-power" cards in Legacy than there are in Standard. You can disagree and maybe rightly, but again, without hard data, the likes of which we are not apt to have/find, I'd stick with my own impression, with the caveat of course, that this is is a matter of my interpretation, not a matter of fact.

[FTW]

Warchief and Ringleader are legal but you're right that a lot of the other stuff is missing
Lack of Sharpshooter isn't too bad because you have Chainwhirler, but I think the main problem for this kind of deck is that Vial/Cavern aren't available so control decks can just counter your ringleaders and you're forced to just slowly deploy 1 creature at a time, forcing you to basically be a Sligh/RDW deck in which case there are probably stronger non-tribal alternatives

I didn't include Warchief because Rabblemaster, Warboss and Chainwhirler seem like better 3 drops for a Sligh version. Didn't know Ringleader was reprinted too. Ringleader does make Warchief much better and vice versa.

There are 0 lords, no Lackey, no Gempalm, so the main tribal payoffs are Goblin Piledriver and Goblin Rabblemaster. Without those the deck is better off as non-tribal Sligh.

Cruise is probably alright, but of course it remains to be seen.

See my previous comment. All the enablers are out of the format. Not just fetchlands, but most of the graveyard-filling cantrips too.

If you have to get 5 cards in the graveyard the old-fashioned way (i.e. hardcasting 5 spells or having creatures die) and still pay 3 mana to draw 3 cards, that's pretty bad.

[FTW]

Actually, they were with fetchlands in Standard at the same time and were just fine in that format, so it is really more about efficient spells and the fetchlands fueling delve together, and they took the fetchland factor away (Fabled Passage does not really qualify), so the question is whether or not the efficient spells available can do enough work on their own to enable the delve cards and if they are worth playing.

See my novel above. It's not just the fetchlands. All the good graveyard fodder from Modern is out of this format.

It's an interesting experiment from Wizards. With the enablers banned instead, are Delve, Delirium and DRS fair mechanics?

[H]

See my previous comment. All the enablers are out of the format. Not just fetchlands, but most of the graveyard-filling cantrips too.

If you have to get 5 cards in the graveyard the old-fashioned way (i.e. hardcasting 5 spells or having creatures die) and still pay 3 mana to draw 3 cards, that's pretty bad.

Yeah, but in watching what that Energy deck seems to be able to do fairly consistently, even with janky cantrips, I'd consider Cruise "speculatively OK" but not declaratively so. Now, it could just be the Todd's Energy deck was "close to optimal" where he was playing against decks that were pretty clearly not optimal though.

As I said, we'll have to see how it actually plays out in the meta, but to me Dig is now on a "watchlist" where Cruise is on a "speculative watchlist." One additional factor is that Torrential Gearhulk seems pretty good and that can recast Dig and not Cruise.

Again, it's not my position that Dig is not alright, just that I have now seen evidence that Dig might potentially not be alright. More data is needed as well as the arrival of a "settled" meta and then the meta's reaction. I'm just citing a possible first order effect, not an ending conclusion.

[rufus]

... so the question is whether or not the efficient spells available can do enough work on their own to enable the delve cards and if they are worth playing.

Slower games means more time to build up the graveyard for treasure cruise, so I don't think the mana efficiency of the other cards matters that much.

[Cire]

Slower games means more time to build up the graveyard for treasure cruise, so I don't think the mana efficiency of the other cards matters that much.

Assuming an undisrupted Copycat or Aetherwork combo, Pioneer is still a Turn 4 format . . . granted consistency wouldn't be the same as Modern, but it's not like the format will be that much slower?

Edit - thinking further of how to disrupt these combos: The main decent answers seem to be Thoughtseize, Abrupt Decay, Assassin’s Trophy, Cyclonic Rift, and Pithing Needle. Maybe even Anguished Unmaking or Detention Sphere? In terms of decent counters Pioneer has Dovin’s Veto, Negate, Spell Pierce, Mystical Dispute (?).

[FTW]

Yeah, but in watching what that Energy deck seems to be able to do fairly consistently, even with janky cantrips, I'd consider Cruise "speculatively OK" but not declaratively so. Now, it could just be the Todd's Energy deck was "close to optimal" where he was playing against decks that were pretty clearly not optimal though.

Can you copy his list or link a stream?

The closest thing I could find was an SCG premium article on it, which I'm not paying $$ for.

[H]

Slower games means more time to build up the graveyard for treasure cruise, so I don't think the mana efficiency of the other cards matters that much.

Yeah, I noticed this as well. There seems to be a fair number of ways to punish the sort of "fast aggro" decks that are being tried, namely Kozilek's Return and a few other things. I think the only thing I have seen so far that "matches" Dig is either the Copy-Cat combo or Hardened Scales decks. Granted, I have not been watching 24/7 though.

I'm really not trying to say that Dig is broken, just that some anecdotal evidence could suggest it is very good.

[H]

Can you copy his list or link a stream?

The closest thing I could find was an SCG premium article on it, which I'm not paying $$ for.

Here's his latest from yesterday: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/499013206

(Just a note, I tuned in to this "late" and his league results at the beginning don't look stunning, so could be more a case of Jim's decks being somewhat suboptimal.)

Still, Dig seems pretty good, even if not totally broken.