New Format announced - Pioneer

[Barook]

Click me (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/announcing-pioneer-format-2019-10-21?c)

Starts with Return to Ravnica. The interesting part - nothing is banned, except fetches:

https://media.wizards.com/2019/images/daily/xlGnhlXqAs.jpg

So WotC might have realized that fetches are a core problem, after all.

[Dice_Box]

Why do I see a new format and my first thought is "Am I in an abusive relationship?"

[H]

So now we will have Pioneer on MTGO and Historic on Arena.

I'm actually not at all bothered by this, honestly. I think one of the best things about Magic is how many formats there can be. It just depends on if this one is really "worth" playing. That I don't know, but I don't dismiss the idea of it, a priori.

[Ace/Homebrew]

*groan* :rolleyes:

I don't hate this, but the precedent it sets is frustrating... So every 15-18 years we'll have a new non-rotating format that everyone will incorrectly call Eternal?

[ReAnimator]

Soooooo happy that fetches are banned.

Interesting to see if DRS ends up overpowered without any good fetches to go with it.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

How aggravating! Just one more block back and my modern deck would have been legal!

[H]

*groan* :rolleyes:

I don't hate this, but the precedent it sets is frustrating... So every 15-18 years we'll have a new non-rotating format that everyone will incorrectly call Eternal?
Well, yeah, probably.

I think that we (the collective "we," that is) thought, in the past, that "non-rotating" formats (Eternal or not) would be every expanding endeavors. While that is true, in the sense of "raw" card-pool, the actually "playable" card-pool is actually constrictive, because the power-level is always rising.

That is to say, the cards you would realistically want to play are always the best of the best cards, which means, as the prospective card pool grows, what actually constitutes the "best of the best" gets smaller. In other words, outliers stand out more in a larger pool, rather than the opposite.


On a different note, someone elsewhere pointed out that DDT and TC are legal in this format. :eek:

And brother Deathrite! :cry:

[Cire]

Well . . . lets look at the modern ban list . . . which cards would still need to be banned in the new format? I don't see which cards (from the sets that will be legal) won't be safe to unban without repeating modern?

Actually it's not too bad only the following would be "unbanned" compared to Modern:

Chrome Mox
Deathrite Shaman
Dig Through Time
Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
Treasure Cruise

They all deal with the same mechanic (except the mox) which is Delve/Graveyard filling.

[Unlif3]

On a different note, someone elsewhere pointed out that DDT and TC are legal in this format. :eek:


Y'know, legal as in legal until it's banned. :laugh:

[ReAnimator]

This is the list of cards from those sets that have been banned somewhere.

Smugglers Copter
Treasure Cruise
Dig Through Time
Deathrite Shaman
Aetherworks Marvel
Reflector Mage
Attune with Aether,
Rogue Refiner
Ramunap Ruins
Rampaging Ferocidon
Field of the dead
Felidar Guardian
Emerakul the promised end

[H]

Y'know, legal as in legal until it's banned. :laugh:

Well, yeah! For all the anti-Fetchland sorts, this format ought to be something worth taking note of.


Well . . . lets look at the modern ban list . . . which cards would still need to be banned in the new format? I don't see which cards (from the sets that will be legal) won't be safe to unban without repeating modern?

Perhaps this is Wizard's "test" of how big the anti-Fetch market is? That is, people who hate Fetches or just don't want/can't afford them. While also seeing just how much it "fuels" other cards, like the Delve spells and DRS?

[Rood]

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.

[Cire]

This is the list of cards from those sets that have been banned somewhere.

Smugglers Copter
Treasure Cruise
Dig Through Time
Deathrite Shaman
Aetherworks Marvel
Reflector Mage
Attune with Aether,
Rogue Refiner
Ramunap Ruins
Rampaging Ferocidon
Field of the dead
Felidar Guardian
Emerakul the promised end

I think you forgot Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, and also not sure if Chrome Mox counts since it was a masterpiece in Kaladesh? Is it legal in this format?

[H]

I think you forgot Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, and also not sure if Chrome Mox counts since it was a masterpiece in Kaladesh? Is it legal in this format?

Hogaak was in Modern Masters, it's not legal in this format. And Expedition/Masterpieces don't give a card legality in a format unless it's "main" set prints do.

[Cire]

Hogaak was in Modern Masters, it's not legal in this format. And Expedition/Masterpieces don't give a card legality in a format unless it's "main" set prints do.

Ah got it! Thanks!

[Ace/Homebrew]

Upon further thought, this is probably bad for Legacy. Most of the coverage for Legacy is in SCG Team Trios and we also get decklists from their Classics. But Pioneer is likely to take Legacy's place in those events...

[Cire]

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.

Out of curiosity, I am wondering how to abuse them with no fetch lands and no good cantrips? I feel like you'll need to run:

To approximate Fetches you can maybe run:

Evolving Wilds
Fabled Passage
Prismatic Vista
Terramorphic Expanse

Best remaining cantrips would be . . . ?

Opt
Witching Well

[Mr. Safety]

Why do I see a new format and my first thought is "Am I in an abusive relationship?"

The safe words are 'mana screw'.

[H]

Upon further thought, this is probably bad for Legacy. Most of the coverage for Legacy is in SCG Team Trios and we also get decklists from their Classics. But Pioneer is likely to take Legacy's place in those events...

Well, maybe? I don't know, it's hard to say if anyone really wants that.

I mean, I'm sure Wizards does, so how hard to do they push it? Then again, most "Pro" Magic player do not like Legacy, so maybe they do want this to be the case.

But I don't think that is necessarily bad for Legacy. "Official support" is not "saving" us. We either save our format, or let it die.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Well . . . lets look at the modern ban list . . . which cards would still need to be banned in the new format? I don't see which cards (from the sets that will be legal) won't be safe to unban without repeating modern?

Actually it's not too bad only the following would be "unbanned" compared to Modern:

Chrome Mox
Deathrite Shaman
Dig Through Time
Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
Treasure Cruise

They all deal with the same mechanic (except the mox) which is Delve/Graveyard filling.

Supplemental sets weren't included, so chrome mox and hogaak don't make the pool.

[H]

Someone has pointed out that this might signal that the forthcoming Zendikar 3.0 set might not have fetches in it. Hard to read the signal clearly though. Do they really want to make a set that has banned cards in for this new format right out the gate? I wouldn't think so, but it's not clear.

[Tylert]

Mosdern horizon is not legal in that format!!

[PirateKing]

Someone has pointed out that this might signal that the forthcoming Zendikar 3.0 set might not have fetches in it. Hard to read the signal clearly though. Do they really want to make a set that has banned cards in for this new format right out the gate? I wouldn't think so, but it's not clear.

Wouldn't that then just signal that they're giving up on Modern? Without occasional downward pressure on the markets, it would start to legitimately price children out and leave it as just another old fogey format. Seems like they've already let it grow to the cusp of it anyway with the way the card pool has been selectively refreshed with the Masters series, but there won't be much draw for the cool chase build-around cards if you can't even cobble together a basic manabase. That's what keeps people out of Legacy more than anything.

[H]

Wouldn't that then just signal that they're giving up on Modern? Without occasional downward pressure on the markets, it would start to legitimately price children out and leave it as just another old fogey format. Seems like they've already let it grow to the cusp of it anyway with the way the card pool has been selectively refreshed with the Masters series, but there won't be much draw for the cool chase build-around cards if you can't even cobble together a basic manabase. That's what keeps people out of Legacy more than anything.

Well, I already sort of speculated that, like Legacy (and Vintage before that) the time of Modern was/is/will be limited. That is, because my thesis is that larger card pools are ever more constrictive, over time the notion of the "open format" requires moving to smaller card pools in some intervals. In other words, there must be a culling to "restore" that "open" ideal, because the "open ideal" is not something "natural" arising from the card pool, but is an arbitrary paradigm we intellectually desire from the card pool.

So, indeed, I do think this might be the beginning of the "sunsetting" of Modern. I don't think they will abandon it, whole-cloth, just like they haven't actually abandoned Legacy or Vintage, but the "support" will wain, ever more, with time. In fact, I'd consider this to be an actual sign that even minus the Reserve List, actual Eternal Formats would be "sunset" as well, perhaps even sooner than they are/were.

[Barook]

Soooooo happy that fetches are banned.

Interesting to see if DRS ends up overpowered without any good fetches to go with it.
It did jackshit during its time in Standard, so there's that.


Wouldn't that then just signal that they're giving up on Modern? Without occasional downward pressure on the markets, it would start to legitimately price children out and leave it as just another old fogey format. Seems like they've already let it grow to the cusp of it anyway with the way the card pool has been selectively refreshed with the Masters series, but there won't be much draw for the cool chase build-around cards if you can't even cobble together a basic manabase. That's what keeps people out of Legacy more than anything.
Apparently, Modern right now is more popular than ever before. I doubt they're going to let that cash cow go to waste until they've completely ruined it, like with everything good they come up with (Arena is already on the decline again and trying to compete with MTGO in the numbers of bugs).

[H]

Apparently, Modern right now is more popular than ever before. I doubt they're going to let that cash cow go to waste until they've completely ruined it, like with everything good they come up with (Arena is already on the decline again and trying to compete with MTGO in the numbers of bugs).

Well, keep in mind, that I don't surmise that Modern just disappears. Modern takes on the "Legacy" spot in the "team trios" paradigm, so those will be Standard, Pioneer and Modern events. Modern just is the "new" Legacy. It will still get events. Just not as many as Standard and Pioneer, in my estimation. And this will likely take place slowly, over the next 3 years or so.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Vintage/Legacy/Modern would make for an interesting Team Trios event. Maybe for Eternal Weekend.

[H]

Vintage/Legacy/Modern would make for an interesting Team Trios event. Maybe for Eternal Weekend.

I think that would be awesome, but hard to say how many would be in for that. I'd love to do something like that (in the Vintage or Legacy seat), but not sure when I could realistically make it to another EW, :cry:

[Purple Blood]

Soooooo happy that fetches are banned.

Interesting to see if DRS ends up overpowered without any good fetches to go with it.

You can still run 8 fetches if you really want.

[Purple Blood]

Well, keep in mind, that I don't surmise that Modern just disappears. Modern takes on the "Legacy" spot in the "team trios" paradigm, so those will be Standard, Pioneer and Modern events. Modern just is the "new" Legacy. It will still get events. Just not as many as Standard and Pioneer, in my estimation. And this will likely take place slowly, over the next 3 years or so.

They could actually make Modern into Legacy minus the RL if they start pushing the envelope with future Modern Horizons sets (i.e. print Wasteland, Daze, FoW, etc. into Modern) and unbannings. If they recreated the Legacy metagame in Modern without $2000 mana bases would people here be interested in playing that format?

Take a look here: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/no-reserved-list-legacy

This would give you an idea of what they could make the metagame look like. Basically, Legacy but no LED decks, weaker Chalice decks, and more painful manabases.

[H]

They could actually make Modern into Legacy minus the RL if they start pushing the envelope with future Modern Horizons sets (i.e. print Wasteland, Daze, FoW, etc. into Modern) and unbannings. If they recreated the Legacy metagame in Modern without $2000 mana bases would people here be interested in playing that format?

Well, I certainly don't think that is off the table. In reality, I don't think Wizards actually want Vintage, Legacy, or Modern to "go away" it's just harder and harder to effectively "sculpt" their metagames by putting out prints and reprints specifically for them, while also promoting formats that realistically drive more sales (Limited and Standard). Because you just have super-atavistic cards, like Blood Moon, or Wasteland, for example, that are very constrictive. Or, for that matter, Fetchlands, which were deliberately excised from this new format.

In fact, I could see your paradigm as a possible next phase, when the pendulum swings back into the reprint paradigm. Which is probably post-Zendikar 3.0, especially if that set does not have Fetches (and I think it is likely that it does not).

Of course, I could be wrong about anything and everything, I am just trying to be sort of Bayesian here.

[morgan_coke]

It did jackshit during its time in Standard, so there's that.


Apparently, Modern right now is more popular than ever before. I doubt they're going to let that cash cow go to waste until they've completely ruined it, like with everything good they come up with (Arena is already on the decline again and trying to compete with MTGO in the numbers of bugs).

As goes standard, so goes arena. Because they can't ban Oko and didn't ban the other green garbage, it's going to go down until they ban something else.

[alvoi]

Vintage/Legacy/Modern would make for an interesting Team Trios event. Maybe for Eternal Weekend.

Vintage/Legacy/Old School would be better :)

[jmlima]

... (Arena is already on the decline again and trying to compete with MTGO in the numbers of bugs).

The fact that Pioneer is better thought out than historic and will be launched first is a sure sign that they have no serious intentions of making Arena anything other than standard. Ultimately, arena players are in larger numbers asking for more than standard and eventually there will be a flow from Arena to MTGO because of this. If that flow is big or small remains to be seen but, if they cannot sort historic it will happen.

With hindsight, they should have never entertained the idea of historic. They should have removed standard from MTGO (which would mean live human draft in arena would have to exist) and make MTGO the platform for whatever was not standard or sealed. They now have two competing platforms and they cannot even develop one properly, let alone two.

[bruizar]

Someone has pointed out that this might signal that the forthcoming Zendikar 3.0 set might not have fetches in it. Hard to read the signal clearly though. Do they really want to make a set that has banned cards in for this new format right out the gate? I wouldn't think so, but it's not clear.

I have said for years that fetchland should get axed. It's why Brainstorm is good, it violates the concept of the color pie and makes everything. I think Pioneer has a good chance of succeeding because it doesn't have fetchland in it. If it did, I would have glanced over it.

[bruizar]

It did jackshit during its time in Standard, so there's that.


Apparently, Modern right now is more popular than ever before. I doubt they're going to let that cash cow go to waste until they've completely ruined it, like with everything good they come up with (Arena is already on the decline again and trying to compete with MTGO in the numbers of bugs).


Riotgames just sent me an email about their new Hearthstone/Magic Arena competitor.

[Smuggo]

So is this new format an admission that Modern will just never be a good format so they're starting again?

[Wrath of Pie]

So is this new format an admission that Modern will just never be a good format so they're starting again?

More like an admission that Hasbro wants more money (to keep the shareholders happy, of course), and Wizards is too stubborn to admit that old Extended was the perfect second format before they ruined it by making it only 4 blocks instead of 6.

I think the real side effect is that Pioneer will eventually end Legacy GP/SCG events.

[kombatkiwi]

More like an admission that Hasbro wants more money (to keep the shareholders happy, of course), and Wizards is too stubborn to admit that old Extended was the perfect second format before they ruined it by making it only 4 blocks instead of 6.

I think the real side effect is that Pioneer will eventually end Legacy GP/SCG events.

Yeah idk why people think this is a sign that wizards is trying to get rid of modern
The queue goes Vintage -> Legacy -> Modern -> Standard, so if the GP circuit can only sustain 3 constructed formats and the oldest / high-barrier-to-entry formats get abandoned, inserting Pioneer between Modern and Standard will put Legacy with Vintage in the 'unplayable' camp, not modern
[it does mean modern is next on the chopping block if we have to do this shuffle again in the next ~5 years, but hopefully not, bc reserved list]

[Smuggo]

Well in the UK Legacy GPs are so rare it makes little difference anyway.

But from a player perspective, each format offers something different but Modern and Standard are much more linear. An additional linear format would seem to me to only serve to replace one of the other linear formats and since Standard rotates it would make Modern the more likely one to go out of vogue. Legacy is totally different to Modern and attracts different players who won't play Pioneer either.

[H]

I have said for years that fetchland should get axed. It's why Brainstorm is good, it violates the concept of the color pie and makes everything. I think Pioneer has a good chance of succeeding because it doesn't have fetchland in it. If it did, I would have glanced over it.

We've done this for years here though. I don't disagree with the fact that fetches, when fetchable duals exist, are essentially optimal. I don't disagree with the fact that fetches reduce diversity. I don't disagree that fetches make some cards vastly better (Brainstorm, Delve spells).

I just disagree that these are things that should be acted upon with bans in Legacy.

Now, this Pioneer format, I do agree that if it had fetches, it would be sort of "worthless" right out of the gate, to me. Any format really worth playing (to me) needs an evident sort of Aristotelian "Final Cause." This is why Standard, and to some extent Modern, hold no interest to me. Because Modern's is just a shadow of Legacy and Standard's is just arbitrary "newness," in my opinion.

Consider how the casual formats of Middle School and PreModern have the same card pool, that is, we could say the same "material cause" but via the very different ban lists, have divergent "final causes" in how they actually play out.

Now, the question of if this format is actually interesting to play, well, I have no idea. And there is almost no chance I actually play it. But it at least is interesting to me in the intellectual sense.

[Michael Keller]

Well, maybe? I don't know, it's hard to say if anyone really wants that.

I mean, I'm sure Wizards does, so how hard to do they push it? Then again, most "Pro" Magic player do not like Legacy, so maybe they do want this to be the case.

But I don't think that is necessarily bad for Legacy. "Official support" is not "saving" us. We either save our format, or let it die.

I have my own opinions about that. I think in a format as deep as Legacy, the playing field levels dramatically. Whether people want to believe Legacy is solved or not doesn't matter - most people have their favorite deck and know it well. Some, extremely well. Because the power level of cards in Legacy is intrinsically much higher than its contemporaries, I believe this handicaps skill as a tool for "pro" players to lean on because of the wide variety of curve balls that exist in Legacy. This is why I love the format more than any other: you're not playing in a format with a rotating card pool and shipping cards for peanuts when they're illegal to play.

I'm not saying there aren't skilled players that are on the "Pro" Tour that can't play Legacy. What I'm saying is that there are so many variables that exist in the format that continuity of cashing or Top 8'ing is so much harder because of the nature of the format, and I don't think they like that. That in turn sort of drifts the "support cloud" away from the format - not because of cost - but because they don't see a way to gain any competitive edge with longevity or continuity.

[kombatkiwi]

Well in the UK Legacy GPs are so rare it makes little difference anyway.

But from a player perspective, each format offers something different but Modern and Standard are much more linear. An additional linear format would seem to me to only serve to replace one of the other linear formats and since Standard rotates it would make Modern the more likely one to go out of vogue. Legacy is totally different to Modern and attracts different players who won't play Pioneer either.

You have no info about Pioneer at all, the format was announced 2 days ago and we have no tournament results, idk how you can claim anything about what the format is going to be like. If you were instead trying to imply that legacy attracts nostalgic boomer-esque complainers who reject any format where you can't play old border cards then sure, but these people don't buy packs so why would wotc give a shit

[Smuggo]

You have no info about Pioneer at all, the format was announced 2 days ago and we have no tournament results, idk how you can claim anything about what the format is going to be like. If you were instead trying to imply that legacy attracts nostalgic boomer-esque complainers who reject any format where you can't play old border cards then sure, but these people don't buy packs so why would wotc give a shit

Well I know it has an even smaller card pool than Modern and I know it won't have brainstorm and fetches and won't have daze and force.

It seems safe to assume, therefore, that it will be a format where you cast your 1-mana spell turn 1, your 2-mana spell turn 2 and so on.... Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see why I would be since this is how Modern works and this new format will have a more restricted card pool so where is the room for it to be any more interesting?

I'm implying that Legacy players want a more complex game with a high level of decision-making, which is what Legacy offers that Modern and Standard don't.

[kombatkiwi]

Well I know it has an even smaller card pool than Modern and I know it won't have brainstorm and fetches and won't have daze and force.

It seems safe to assume, therefore, that it will be a format where you cast your 1-mana spell turn 1, your 2-mana spell turn 2 and so on.... Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see why I would be since this is how Modern works and this new format will have a more restricted card pool so where is the room for it to be any more interesting?

I'm implying that Legacy players want a more complex game with a high level of decision-making, which is what Legacy offers that Modern and Standard don't.

Modern has this problem because the threats are insane (and varied, must be attacked in different ways) and the interaction is wack by comparison

What if your 1 mana spell is thoughtseize and your 2 mana spell is abrupt decay and you can't die on turn 3 and don't need a SB for 20 different decks? There's no reason this format would necessarily be linear

[H]

I have my own opinions about that. I think in a format as deep as Legacy, the playing field levels dramatically. Whether people want to believe Legacy is solved or not doesn't matter - most people have their favorite deck and know it well. Some, extremely well. Because the power level of cards in Legacy is intrinsically much higher than its contemporaries, I believe this handicaps skill as a tool for "pro" players to lean on because of the wide variety of curve balls that exist in Legacy. This is why I love the format more than any other: you're not playing in a format with a rotating card pool and shipping cards for peanuts when they're illegal to play.

I'm not saying there aren't skilled players that are on the "Pro" Tour that can't play Legacy. What I'm saying is that there are so many variables that exist in the format that continuity of cashing or Top 8'ing is so much harder because of the nature of the format, and I don't think they like that. That in turn sort of drifts the "support cloud" away from the format - not because of cost - but because they don't see a way to gain any competitive edge with longevity or continuity.

I agree, generally, with your thesis here, but there are some of the finer point that I slightly disagree with. I do agree that the higher, general power level of cards in Legacy, does mean that "strategic diversity" is higher in Legacy than in any other format. While Legacy is somewhat homogenous in a certain sense, it is also diverse within that. Like in Vintage, where decks can be vastly homogenous, but changing even just 8 cards from one deck to another could lead to a notably different strategic paradigm. I don't think most "Pros" like this, because it makes it harder to "know" just what it is your opponent is up to.

Also, I think part of the power-level is also why "Pros" don't like Legacy or Vintage. Because higher-power level means that there can be more variance and slightly less opportunity to capitalize on opponent's suboptimal play. Because, to use an extreme example from Vintage, you can totally misplay a game, draw Tinker and just win. I think most Pro players would see this as a strict negative. We see it as "fun."

Also, I agree, that to be "good at Legacy" takes a sort of dedication to the format that Pro players are not really interested in, especially because the format is not "monetized" through events like Modern and Standard are. So, in their analysis, skills for Legacy don't "pay." And, in a sense, they are probably right.

[Cire]

I was scrolling through various forums and the predicted decks (which will probably change but whatever) are:

BGw Midrange
UWB Control or Tempo
BGU Tempo
Burn
Affinity
Ascendancy
Aetherworks
Copycat Combo
Hardened Scales
Collected Company
Monoblue Control/Tempo
Monoblack Control/Tempo
UR Thing In Ice/Arclight Phoenix

Black with Bitterblossom (edit - nvm on this, not legal) and Thoughtseize are considered some of the best remaining spells in the format, and everyone wants to play with DTT or TC, so BU decks may be over represented initially, especially as Thoughtseize may be needed to deal with the CopyCat combo.

Overall looks like a solid metagame, enough variety between Tempo/Control/Midrange, probably not enough Combo though, but the combo that does exist looks very strong in this enviornment (CopyCat, Ascendancy, Aetherworks). So it might end up being Combo Vs. Thoughtseize Tempo/Control Decks Vs. Aggro that beats Thoughtseize Tempo/Control Decks.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

So is this new format an admission that Modern will just never be a good format so they're starting again?

It's more an attack on legacy, and gives them full control over the availability of all competitive formats.

[kombatkiwi]

Also, I agree, that to be "good at Legacy" takes a sort of dedication to the format that Pro players are not really interested in, especially because the format is not "monetized" through events like Modern and Standard are. So, in their analysis, skills for Legacy don't "pay." And, in a sense, they are probably right.

This is all you can really conclude, 'pros' (MPL etc) dont play legacy day-in-day-out because they have no incentive.

A lot of them (BBD, Mengucci etc) have said they really enjoy it (and the record shows they're pretty good at it) but they have no reason to play it on a regular basis. I hard disagree with some kind of idea that there's no place to leverage skill in legacy because there are too many powerful cards, that's nonsense.

[@Cire Bitterblossom is not legal right? Lorwyn block is too old and modern masters doesn't count]

[Cire]

[@Cire Bitterblossom is not legal right? Lorwyn block is too old and modern masters doesn't count]

Yep - I scrolled through MTGsally and reddit and people keep making the same mistake I did when it comes to the Modern Masters and "eternal" legal sets.

[H]

I hard disagree with some kind of idea that there's no place to leverage skill in legacy because there are too many powerful cards, that's nonsense.

That's not what I was trying to say. Or what MK was trying to say either, I don't think.

"Less" does not equal "no" in any sense. Less opportunity to capitalize on suboptimal play doesn't mean you can't, it just means it occurs less often and so is "harder" to do. There is plenty of skill to playing Legacy. If there wasn't, we would not consistently see the same players do well, but we do.

But those players generally are more "tuned" to Legacy, as in, sorts of Legacy-specific knowledge and skill sets, not just "general optimal play" ones. Again, nothing presupposes that just being good at Magic means you can't be good at Legacy. You can. Just that it is likely the case that "good at Legacy" involves skill sets designed more specifically to Legacy.

[Wrath of Pie]

Burn
Affinity


I question Burn being a thing, because the creature options are way better than the burn spells, so something like Sligh would make more sense.

Also, what does Pioneer Affinity even look like?

[rufus]

Yep - I scrolled through MTGsally and reddit and people keep making the same mistake I did when it comes to the Modern Masters and "eternal" legal sets.

Yeah, I keep wanting to build around modern horizons cards like Scale Up that aren't legal.

It seems like there's room for some kind of ramp deck with Hydroid Krassis or taking turns with Nexus of Fate.

[Cire]

I question Burn being a thing, because the creature options are way better than the burn spells, so something like Sligh would make more sense.

Also, what does Pioneer Affinity even look like?

I think they are misnamed affinity, they are mostly just artifact creature decks. The decks that I saw being kicked around didn't seem to have any affinity cards. They either go the Aggro Artifact route with lots of cheap artifacts (Smugglers Copter, Steel Overseer, Hope of Ghirapur, Bomat Courier, Onrithopter, Mutavault) with Toolcraft Exemplar,Ghostfire Blade, Ensoul Artifact along with Spring Leaf Drum and even Emry, Lurker of the Loch or go Artifact Creatures with +1/+1 counters/hardened Scale route.

Burn also may be misnamed, because many of the lists I see people kicking around have around 16+ creatures and seem more like "Red Prowess" (Monestery Swiftspear, Bomat Courier, Eidolon of the great Revel, Soul-Scar Mage, Abbot of Keral Keep)

Edit - also people are trying to port Golos/Field into the format as well.

[H]

Burn also may be misnamed, because many of the lists I see people kicking around have around 16+ creatures and seem more like "Red Prowess" (Monestery Swiftspear, Bomat Courier, Eidolon of the great Revel, Soul-Scar Mage, Abbot of Keral Keep)

Yeah, I mean, it's hard for me to call a deck Burn when Lightning Bolt isn't even legal. I did see CalebD playing a Rg version of Prowess last night though, much like that, plus Atarka's Command.

[Wrath of Pie]

I think they are misnamed affinity, they are mostly just artifact creature decks. The decks that I saw being kicked around didn't seem to have any affinity cards. They either go the Aggro Artifact route with lots of cheap artifacts (Smugglers Copter, Steel Overseer, Hope of Ghirapur, Bomat Courier, Onrithopter, Mutavault) with Toolcraft Exemplar,Ghostfire Blade, Ensoul Artifact along with Spring Leaf Drum and even Emry, Lurker of the Loch or go Artifact Creatures with +1/+1 counters/hardened Scale route.


Ah, so keeping up the Modern tradition.

[Lord Seth]

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."Any format"? Treasure Cruise didn't even see much play in Standard. Dig Through Time was a big deal, but not really any more of a big deal than Sphinx's Revelation was from what I remember. And they were in a Standard that did have fetchlands (which Pioneer will not).

[H]

Ah, so keeping up the Modern tradition.

Well, I remember there was much consternation from people when they started calling Modern "Affinity" decks "Robots" instead. Despite having essentially zero Affinity cards in the decks, people like that name better than any of the usual alternatives.

[Purple Blood]

I question Burn being a thing, because the creature options are way better than the burn spells, so something like Sligh would make more sense.

Also, what does Pioneer Affinity even look like?

Emery Ascendancy with any random 0 cost crap artifacts you can cobble together. But that can just as easily be called an Outcome deck.

Example: https://i.redd.it/1xt1qajltcu31.jpg

[kombatkiwi]

That's not what I was trying to say. Or what MK was trying to say either, I don't think.

"Less" does not equal "no" in any sense. Less opportunity to capitalize on suboptimal play doesn't mean you can't, it just means it occurs less often and so is "harder" to do.

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


There is plenty of skill to playing Legacy. If there wasn't, we would not consistently see the same players do well, but we do.
Agree


But those players generally are more "tuned" to Legacy, as in, sorts of Legacy-specific knowledge and skill sets, not just "general optimal play" ones. Again, nothing presupposes that just being good at Magic means you can't be good at Legacy. You can. Just that it is likely the case that "good at Legacy" involves skill sets designed more specifically to Legacy.
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

[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.

[Rood]

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.
A few people at my local meta are saying the same thing...I'm not overly convinced that Delve isn't going to be busted in this format. We'll have to wait and see the verdict on alot of the legal cards right now but as of right now there are many cards I forsee Wizards having to address going forward if they want a balanced competitive format.

[FTW]

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

Todd's deck seems high variance and slow to get off the ground running. A lot of the time DTT is dead or too slow for him. His only cheap cantrips are Opt and cycling Censor, which seems fair. Overall Glimmer of Genius looks better in his deck. DTT is amazing lategame, especially cast for free off Gearhulk, but that's how expensive draw spells always are.

Dig seems good but not broken. TC would be bad in his deck. He's correct to run 0.

Marvelworks, Felidar, Smuggler's Copter and a few other cards look like bigger problems than DTT.

[H]

Todd's deck seems high variance and slow to get off the ground running. A lot of the time DTT is dead or too slow for him. His only cheap cantrips are Opt and cycling Censor, which seems fair. Overall Glimmer of Genius looks better in his deck. DTT is amazing lategame, especially cast for free off Gearhulk, but that's how expensive draw spells always are.

Dig seems good but not broken. TC would be bad in his deck. He's correct to run 0.

Marvelworks, Felidar, Smuggler's Copter and a few other cards look like bigger problems than DTT.

Yeah, I think Dig might dominate mid-range and "control" matchups. If you don't combo or aggro them early, it will be hard to beat the late-game that Dig can open up. Of course, there is a great deal left to be "decided." I even just caught the end of a GU Oko-Leyline of Abundance deck 5-0 a league. It didn't even look all that good most of the time, but there is so much up in the air that anything even half-reasonable can put up results right now.

[rufus]

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 (?).

Dig and Treasure Cruise aren't great in decks that don't play a lot of cards before winning, and they aren't great in decks that have better ways to use cards in the graveyard. My guess is that they'll get caught up in the first or second wave of bans.

[Cire]

Dig and Treasure Cruise aren't great in decks that don't play a lot of cards before winning, and they aren't great in decks that have better ways to use cards in the graveyard. My guess is that they'll get caught up in the first or second wave of bans.

Not sure how that was in reference to my comment?

I was just recognizing that there are already two well known combos in the format. The combos are without acceleration and without opposing distribution turn 4 combos. Given that the format doesn't have great draw spells consistency in the combos will be an issue, but turn 4 should be considered the Win-or-Die turn. Modern is a bit faster, but it is also considered a Turn 4 format. I was just trying to show that it doesn't seem that pioneer will be slower, in the sense that a player could win around the same turn a Modern player could win, just slower, in the sense that without draw combo's will take longer to assemble.

[rufus]

Not sure how that was in reference to my comment?

The forum doesn't show nested quotes. I made an edit to add it for context. I thought it was still in the context of "are treasure cruise and dig throug time going to be problem cards?"

[FTW]

The combos are without acceleration and without opposing distribution turn 4 combos. Given that the format doesn't have great draw spells consistency in the combos will be an issue, but turn 4 should be considered the Win-or-Die turn. Modern is a bit faster, but it is also considered a Turn 4 format.

Aside from combo, there's also just aggro. Sligh should be able to goldfish in 4-5 turns. This should be a turn 4-5 format, just without the broken combos and tier 1 cards from Modern.

[Lava Snacks]

Speaking of combos: ya know how WotC doesn't test cards with Legacy, Vintage and Modern in mind, for potential combos and whatnot--just Standard and Limited--is there any indication if they'll incorporate Pioneer in their new card testing? Thinking you can keep degenerate combo out through carefulness and without answers is futile anyway, but I'm curious if they're gonna test with the format in mind.

[Barook]

Speaking of combos: ya know how WotC doesn't test cards with Legacy, Vintage and Modern in mind, for potential combos and whatnot--just Standard and Limited--is there any indication if they'll incorporate Pioneer in their new card testing? Thinking you can keep degenerate combo out through carefulness and without answers is futile anyway, but I'm curious if they're gonna test with the format in mind.
Pretty sure they're not going to test for Pioneer.

[Ronald Deuce]

A format front-loaded with a banlist that doesn't include mechanically nonfunctional cards or literal automobile vouchers holds no interest for me.

I hope Wizzerds will stop catering to the censorious bullshit of the neophytes someday, but evidently that's a fool's hope.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

A format front-loaded with a banlist that doesn't include mechanically nonfunctional cards or literal automobile vouchers holds no interest for me.

I hope Wizzerds will stop catering to the censorious bullshit of the neophytes someday, but evidently that's a fool's hope.
Waiter, I ordered wedge salad.

[(nameless one)]

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


Goblin Ringleader is legal as its reprinted in M20. Mogg War Marshal can be subbed with Goblin Instigator. Mogg Fanatic can be subbed with Fanatical Firebrand but I don't think that card is good in the format. If anything, Foundry Street Denizen can push early damage faster.

For lords, you have Goblin Warchief. There is also Goblin Trashmaster.

Not having Goblin Matron does suck.

I was thinking of running Goblin like it was back in Onslaught Standard/Extended. In the early game, you can just spam the board and go all in on attacks. Then lategame, you Patriarch's Bidding. You can use Rally the Ancestor as a stand in.

[Cire]

FYI first 5-0 Pioneer decklists have been reported: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/pioneer-league-2019-10-28. (Note: there are a lot of lists, as a brand new format I doubt any of these are optimized or the metagame has solidified in any way).

Some Notes:


Oko, Thief of Crowns, Teferi, Time Raveler and Smuggler's Copter show up in 20+ decks.
10+ Copycat decks.
Only one deck with Aetherwork Marvel
Thoughtsieze and Veil of Summer show up on mostpeople's 75.
A lot of devotion decks running Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.
About 20ish lists with Tireless Tracker.
Most common answers looks like Pithing Needle, Rest in Peace, Fatal Push, Abrupt Decay and Declaration in Stone.


Edit:

going down the list of other "banned cards"

Treasure Cruise - shows up in 10 decks
Dig Through Time - shows up in 22 decks
Deathrite Shaman - shows up in 5 decks
Reflector Mage - shows up in 16 decks
Attune with Aether - shows up in 6 decks
Rogue Refiner - shows up in 2 decks
Ramunap Ruins - shows up in 11 decks
Rampaging Ferocidon - shows up in 13 decks
Field of the dead - shows up in 3 decks
Emerakul the promised end - shows up in 5 decks

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

FYI first 5-0 Pioneer decklists have been reported: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/pioneer-league-2019-10-28. (Note: there are a lot of lists, as a brand new format I doubt any of these are optimized or the metagame has solidified in any way).

Some Notes:


Oko, Thief of Crowns, Teferi, Time Raveler and Smuggler's Copter show up in 20+ decks.
10+ Copycat decks.
Only one deck with Aetherwork Marvel
Thoughtsieze and Veil of Summer show up on mostpeople's 75.
A lot of devotion decks running Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.
About 20ish lists with Tireless Tracker.
Most common hate looks like Pithing Needle, Rest in Peace, Abrupt Decay and Declaration in Stone.


Marvel is bugged on MTGO right?

[FTW]

Going through the lists, there are few Treasure Cruises and DTTs even compared to the number of Sphinx's Revelation, let alone Collected Company, Once Upon a Time, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Search for Azcanta. The format has stronger draw fixing. Doesn't look broken to me.

And that's with a whole team of pros purposely trying to break DTT. The few 5-0 decks that ran it are slow control decks with self-mill engines like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. Seems like a fair use of the card. Some decks opted to run 0 DTT and play Sphinx's Revelation instead.

[morgan_coke]

From playing some Pioneer on MTGO, I fear the format will be a hellscape of Oko and other 3 mana 'walkers until more Elderspell level hosers get printed in every color. Also, completely and totally fuck Veil of Summer. That card is flat out a mistake.

Also, Oko+Heart of Kiran is exactly as garbage as you'd expect.

[Barook]

https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1189974044722024449

First bannings on Monday - isn't it a bit too early for that? :confused:

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1189974044722024449

First bannings on Monday - isn't it a bit too early for that? :confused:

About two weeks ahead of schedule

[Cire]

About two weeks ahead of schedule

For the curious - felidar guardian, oath of nissa, leyline of abundance are now banned. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/november-4-2019-pioneer-banned-announcement?s

[jmlima]

This is going to be another crap fest like 1v1 commander on mtgo was (is?).

[Tylert]

This is going to be another crap fest like 1v1 commander on mtgo was (is?).

Probably. I'm not going to invest any cents in this format. I have everything for Arclight Phoenix deck... that's enough for me :)

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

It reminds me a bit of early modern: there's a their zero deck which will be banned soon, but also your brew could easily break into the meta.

[non-inflammable]

i just dropped $200 or so on some missing pieces to put together several decks.
my LGS is running twice a week events and i'd guess this format will live or die on how much support it gets from WOTC.

i always liked slaughter games in standard, so i get to jam it again...

[Amon Amarth]

Mono Black Devotion looks pretty sweet. I always liked MBC. Also the UR Ensoul decks look pretty cool. Darksteel Citadel and Shrapnel Blast are legal. That seems fun.

[Smuggo]

So looking at CFB's magic fest schedule for 2020 and it does indeed appear that Pioneer is just being used to push out Legacy.

https://www.cfbevents.com/2020

Feel like my legacy deck spends too much time gathering dust these days, might just sell up so I can get a new kitchen.

[Mr. Safety]

So looking at CFB's magic fest schedule for 2020 and it does indeed appear that Pioneer is just being used to push out Legacy.

https://www.cfbevents.com/2020

Feel like my legacy deck spends too much time gathering dust these days, might just sell up so I can get a new kitchen.

Modern had the same feel as Pioneer does now, and that didn't push out Legacy. It did have a significant impact on potential growth for Legacy, but the format survived. Pioneer doesn't pull on Legacy like Modern does, it pulls on Modern. I may be completely wrong, but I think that Legacy will survive Pioneer. It is also possible that with the combined total of resources being injected into Modern and Pioneer that Legacy just starves to death. I hope this will not be the case, but I do think it's possible (if not probable.)

In regards to Pioneer and the incredibly strong control that WOTC has taken of the ban-list, I don't think it will last very long. Modern was tested and then finally accepted as an official format. It was wildly popular in the beginning and then almost didn't survive the heavy ban-hammers that fell. With Pioneer's narrower card pool I don't know if it will survive the even heavier ban-hammering it will get. Look at how popular Standard is (pretty low) and all of the problems it's had with bans in smaller card-pools. If Pioneer was the 'no banned card' version of Modern I think it would be incredible; finally a competitive format without a banned list. They went the opposite way and are banning like it's a Taco-Tuesday regular event.

Take all of this with a grain of salt, because I don't have any interest/stake in Pioneer. With WOTC supporting it as an official comp-REL tournament format at its events it might be 'forced' into the community because there are enough people that just want competitive outlets.

[KobeBryan]

With those card sets, it would just cannibalize modern more than legacy.

[Smuggo]

I may be completely wrong, but I think that Legacy will survive Pioneer.

It may well do but this is just sapping my desire to play even more. Seem to be fewer big events than ever in the UK and I've not played legacy competitively since the summer as with a baby I can't rly justify going out for small events like FNMs etc... This event schedule makes it look less promising than ever.