What is the Pioneer Format?

By: Thayne

What is Pioneer?

Pioneer is a 60-card competitive format in Magic: The Gathering that includes all of the standard legal cards from Return to Ravnica to now! Started in October 2019, the format has very humble beginnings when it comes to its initial ban list. The format began with no cards being banned, with the exception of the allied fetchlands, to balance this out WotC had weekly bannings for the first several months, so everyone had a chance to really see what was actually broken and what was answerable in the format. The format is often considered a brewer's paradise because of this beginning, as well as the fact that it is still impacted by standard and not artificially rotated by the Modern Horizon sets. Another one of the things that sets Pioneer apart is the access to the powerful delve spells! As a benefit to not being a fetch land format, we have the ability to include Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time in our lists as a powerful way to power through our decks.

The Pioneer Community.

Often forgotten by many players as the start of the format was mired by the pandemic, it has a loyal fan base of highly invested players who strive to keep the best format alive and strong to this day. From Magic Online (MTGO) grinders to casual Friday Night Magic (FNM) players, the format is more often kept alive by the folks who play the format rather than being officially supported by Wizards of the Coast (WotC), as they have not included Pioneer as a Regional Championship Qualifier (RCQ) format in quite some time.

How to Play Pioneer?

Pioneer is a 60-card format with a 15-card sideboard, and you can only play four copies of a given card between your main deck and sideboard. You must play cards from sets between Return to Ravnica and the most recent standard release, and you must not include cards that are listed on the banned list. Other than that, there are not really any rules for how to play the format. You can do whatever strategy seems fun, powerful, or busted to you, and often you can find great success by testing weird combinations as the format is still unsolved! But if you are looking to get started in a more competitive direction, I would recommend looking at the Pioneer Tier List Tyrant updates every single week here on the website as a starting point for powerful lists to get the feel for the format.

Staples

At the time of writing, most decks fit within these Top 5 pillars of building in the format

Fatal Push and Thoughtseize. This is your classic Black-Green Rock deck list or Rakdos variants. Cheap, efficient threats paired with top-of-the-line removal. The threats most mages pair with them are Sheoldred the Apocalypse and the powerful new planeswalker Professor Dellian Fel.

Llanowar Elves and Badgermole Cub. Sort of double-dipping here, but Pioneer has a lot of variants of the Badgermole cub paired with mana dork to generate silly amounts of mana to power out any spell you want. Green-White Collected Company, Mono-Green Devotion and Green-Black Midrange are popular ways players use the mana makers.

Greasefang, Okiba Boss and Parhelion II. These two cards in combination make an extremely powerful combo deck that can often go off as early as turn three. The said combo is to find a way to put the Parhelion into the graveyard, and then play a Greasefang that will make it so you can attack for 13 and be left with two large angels that will finish the job next turn. The combo is not for the faint of heart. Often seen in Abzan and Orzhov versions.

Stormchaser's Talent and Cori-Steel Cutter, often the main engine for the potent prowess shells, these two cards will often, when paired with cantrips and removal, make unassailable board states that will both go very wide and very tall to assail your opponents with more power than they have life total. The common shells are Izzet Lessons, Izzet Prowess, and Izzet Phoenix.

Blue-White Control. Last but not least, Blue-White Control is the police that keeps all of us, Pioneer players, fair. It may be a slog to play against, but they are important to make sure the format has a stop valve for unfair combos and extreme greed piles. Counter spells, planeswalkers, and removal altogether to make sure everyone is following the rules.