Strixhaven Cards to try in Pioneer

By: Doctorjango

With the release of Secrets of Strixhaven, the Pioneer format has some fun tools it now has access to. 

Flow State

The first card is the most obvious one, that card being Flow State.

Izzet and Pioneer have been a match made in heaven since the early days of the format, as Arclight Phoenix reigned supreme. Even though those decks are now running a more prowess style approach, Flow State is still a fantastic card that gives loads of card advantage in the early game and gets better as the game goes on. For any spell slinger deck the condition of getting one instant and one sorcery in the graveyard isn’t something the deck really needs to “try” to do. 

Flow state slots perfectly with this archetype, and it's no coincidence that people have been comparing this card to Expressive iteration, a card that put izzet so over the top in pioneer that it had to later be banned to keep the phoenix deck's power level to a more manageable state.

Cauldron of Essence

The next card is Cauldron of Essence. 

Since the banning of Jegantha, the Wellspring in late 2024 as well as the printing of Cori-Steel cutter, which increased the speed of the format, the sacrifice archetype in pioneer has still existed but has been slowly falling off. The combo of Ygra, Eater of All and Cauldron Familiar is still somewhat playable but the decks have had to have a more grindy, mid-range gameplan to keep up with faster format. 

It also hasn’t helped that Orzhov and Abzan Greasefang have been a constant presence in the top tier of the meta, leading to more graveyard hate being pushed then it was previously. 

To help stick to this more mid-range focused approach, Cauldron of Essence is definitely a card to try. Being able to drain your opponent like a Blood Artist but being much harder to remove is nothing to sneeze at even at an extra mana. The card being able to also reanimate a key creature like Mayhem Devil or Ygra, Eater of All multiple times as long as you have creatures to sacrifice to the Cauldron is also a huge play that could help keep the deck more consistent. It’s definitely something to keep an eye on if you want to try sacrifice again.

Hardened Academic

The final card I will talk about today is Hardened Academic. With Greasefang decks being more and more prevalent, this card could make them even better. 

A two mana discard outlet that has evasion and puts a counter on a creature every time a card leaves your graveyard is something that slots right in with the Greasefang and Monument of Endurance package. Although the decks would have to go back to Mardu to run it, it's maybe worth it to get a body that can grow very quickly, all while gaining you more and more life as the game goes on. It may not revolutionize the stock lists, but it definitely gives us a different build of the deck for those who want to play Greasefang but have grown tired of the same list. 

There isn’t much to say about this card, like the other two. It isn’t very flashy like Cauldron, and it isn’t potentially game-breaking like Flow State. Hardened Academic is just a solid card that fits into a solid deck, and sometimes that can be the scariest card to look out for.

Closing

Pioneer has been in an odd place for multiple years at this point. With Wizards of the Coast being seemingly unwilling to make any real change, the format has been in an odd state of purgatory where the top deck seems to change based on whatever people feel like playing. 

Pioneer is still my favorite format, and I hope that the cards above, as well as others that came about in Secrets of Strixhaven, can help liven the format up.