How do we Fix Pioneer?

Pioneers got some problems but I think we can fix them what's up guys doomwake here and welcome back to another discussion video on the channel as you can see by the title in the intro Pioneer is in a bit of a weird spot right now and I wanted to have this discussion to go over maybe the history of some recent ban list announcements where they stand on the state and the health of the pioneer format as well as a current metagame snapshot uh all of those things combined and we'll talk about what I think could potentially help fix the format long term first and foremost as with these discussion videos please be sure to let me know in the comments section down below if you guys enjoy this type of content let me know what you would like to see as far as a discussion video is concerned and with all of that said let us start by taking a look back at the December 2023 ban list announcement here is an excerpt here now for context this is the announcement where K the great Creator and geological appraiser were both banned and Smuggler's copter was unbanned now I feel like a lot of people expected the geological appraiser ban K was not necessarily on everybody's radar like I think a lot of people thought that it was a possibility that K would eventually go but I don't think people necessarily expected it to go at this particular time but just reading the second paragraph here they said K's range is so broad it can facilitate convoluted infinite combos that make the format less approachable at little to no opportunity cost we might rehash that statement a little bit later additionally K's ability to naturally suppress artifacts is likely keeping a spread of interesting cards from being played while it has recently been on the decline in terms of metagame share it is clear that the deck has had a warping effect in the metagame for too long and for these reasons car the great crater is banned as far as The Smuggler copter and geological appraiser are concerned appraiser kind of obvious we don't need to go into too much discussion about that it was a turn three combo deck they don't want that stuff in Pioneer and as far as Smuggler copter is concerned I think there was a bit of hesitation myself included I was actually kind of shocked when they unbanned copter but I think for the most part it seems to be a relatively decent part of the metag game the initial builds of vampire I think the channel Fireball list if I recall correctly I think had two copies of Smuggler copter I played a lot of it in the gr Vehicles deck and various aggro decks have adopted it over the past 9 months or so however long it's been legal but I think overall it hasn't really had a warping effect in the metag game as much so as it was previously for the reasons that it was previously banned in the format in like the mono black aggro deex so now let's fast forward to the March 11th banned and restricted announcement this was the one directly after the modern prot tour happened which for context Was Won by chainel Fireball and Seth Manfield piloting ratos vampires which was the breakout deck of the tournament this was protour murders of Carlo Manor which means vain Ripper had just been released and to be honest with you I don't think this deck was on anybody's radar it was definitely not on mine I was somebody who was playing a lot of pioneer at that time Channel had mostly been Pioneer focused and that is definitely an interaction that I missed I'm sure a lot of other people had missed it as well but with them talking about the format after the pro tour said we made a few changes during our last announcement with the goal of setting up the stage for a more fun and diverse Pioneer metag game which to be fair to their credit I think they did achieve by Banning geological and K I think it really opened up the metag game a little bit more recent sets continue to impact the format with cards printed over the last year appearing in top decks true no more lies deduce meticulous archive Amalia picklock prankster slight of hand Arch jid's charm and vein Ripper all cards from recent sets that have all made a huge impact in the format the recently unbanned Smugglers copter also made an appearance in the aformentioned Rose vampires as well as is it in Soul lists with new cards impacting the format and a slew of viable strategies Pioneer is in a great spot for our upcoming Regional Championship qualifiers beginning in April now to their credit when they made this statement right before the Regional Championship qualifier season had started I kind of agree with that and back at that time the metag game was a little bit more diverse this was when vampires had first been discovered and not become this potential Terror of the metag game that we might talk about in a little bit but I think overall the format was relatively healthy this was when Phoenix started to pick up a little bit more in popularity and then you had the amolia deck that had just come out with lost caverns of Exelon that was the set prior to that but those lists were still a little untuned and still not quite refined to the point where they are today I think overall at that point the metag game was relatively healthy fast forward a little bit to May 13th of this year this is the announcement that was a couple of months after the pro tour they said Pioneer remains in a healthy state after protour murders at colov Manor the breakout ratos vampires deck from the protor utilizing ve Ripper has proven that it is not a fluke and continues to be an important part part of the pioneer medic game prevalence has contributed to a decline in Phoenix's win rate which I don't know if I necessarily buy that 100% I don't exactly know what sort of data they use maybe they have like a specific win rate Matrix for magic online data but as a phoenix player I think that match up is closer than a lot of other people think a deck that we've been monitoring coming out of the protour given its large degree of success there and then they said here the biggest shakeup coming out of Outlaws of Thunder Junction was a large metagame increase in modern black waste knot decks utilizing the brand new carc The Punisher where those waste knot decks today huh carc has a massive card Advantage engine alongside all of your interactions that commit crimes and another strategy that can meaningfully play four copies of go blank as a powerful option against the front running Phoenix now to be fair at the time Phoenix was still one of the more do if not the more dominant deck than ratos vampires people hadn't really necessarily fully made the switch to vampires now this is an important piece which we will see this trend continue in the next band list announcement for now Pioneer is in a great place for playing any macro archetype is viable aggro control mid-range or combo with tools for each strategy to address one another and now if we fast forward to June 24th this was the most recent band list announcement now they start off by saying we are seeing a flood of results in deck list stream in from Pioneer Regional Championship qualifiers and it's a mixed bag the biggest positive we are seeing in the format is that almost every macro archetype is viable one thing that we are going to keep a close eye on is the evolution of the Amalia combo deck a creature combo deck we are generally positive on it unfortunately its ability to draw the game is a negative play experience which I 100% agree with we are making no changes to the format today as we still see room for the meta game to shift around the surge of aalia combo and because Regional Championship qualifiers for Pioneer continue to Mid July we don't like to disrupt those events mid-season so that is the last couple of ban announcements in including the Banning of K and geological appraiser now with all of that said it seems to me that their big take away from these announcements is that they like when all macro archetypes are viable aggro control mid-range and combo now for the sake of argument let's go ahead and take a look at the metagame snapshot of the last 30 days as of recording today last 30 days from August 6th 2024 ratos vampires coming in at a whopping 27.8% and if you look there's ratos vampires there and then ratos mid-range three slots later at 5.8% I went through the deck lists and I really couldn't find that much of a difference so if anybody has any ideas in the comment section let me know down below but realistically vampires is at over 33% of the metagame ABS Animalia 17.6% is it Phoenix 12.2 now if you combine the metagame percentage share for those three decks those three decks alone take up over 62% of the metagame for context if you look at the Modern metagame snapshot over the last 30 days this is the Nadu format by the way it's right about half it was around 31% of the top three decks in modern so if you look at the top of the metag game it is extremely topheavy when it comes to those three decks and I think a lot of the people's negative complaints that towards Pioneer specifically revolve around those three decks now as far as every macro archetype being viable aggro control mid-range combo I don't see aggro I don't see control and I guess you could argue that Phoenix is this weird like control mid-range hybrid right it's really hard to classify is it Phoenix as a deck by the way there's definitely games where it can feel like an aggro deck where you Mill over two to three phoenixes in the first couple of turns and start attacking your opponent for six or nine damage on turn three there are games where it feels like a control deck where you just kill all their stuff and draw a bunch of cards and even in post boort games you can play mid-range esque fights with stuff like crackling drinks Phoenix is good because it has the ability to adapt between those three macro archetypes and maybe that's what they're saying when they say this but as far as macro archetypes are concerned I'm seeing a lot of combo now I might get a lot of flack for this but ratos vampires it's a combo deck whether you want to believe it or not if you go back and look at the history ratos mid-range was the best deck for the longest period of time and even when it was the most played and the most winning deck I don't really remember seeing a lot of complaints about it sure there was the occasional maybe you want to ban Fable here and there but for the most part everybody was kind of just okay with playing against ratos mid-range because it was a mid-range deck a true mid-range deck that played creatures and removal and four drops now if you take a look at the vampires decks nowadays they have some elements of that but realistically a 100% of the time their plan a in every single matchup is just find saurin plus F Ripper uh also known as show Andel plus atraxa there's not a lot of differences there and I think the other big issue with with saurin plus v Ripper is how quickly it ends games the ruus mid-range deck of old used to have to play much longer games with stuff like blood TI Harvester and graveyard trespasser and all these three drops and there were relevant interactive points and now it's just oh here's my saurin here's my vein Ripper if you don't have the very specific answer that you need to kill my creature that has Ward sacrifice a creature on the spot you're just going to die next turn because bin Ripper also synergizes so well with the plus abilities on saurin to sacrifice mols and it also synergizes with blood tithe Harvester it's not very difficult to kill your opponent on turn four with vampires basically is what I'm saying so at the end of the day vampires is for all intents and purposes in my opinion a combo death now as far as amoia is concerned the amoia metag game if you're comparing it to vampires specifically is much much less than that 17% compared to around 33 32% but I think the biggest issue for Amalia which is something that they addressed in a prior band announcement that we talked about earlier is the fact that specifically red archetypes that have monstrous rage a lot of the plans in that matchup is specifically the goal of the red player wants to draw the game if you go into a match of magic with your intent on being I want to draw the game we have kind of a bit of a problem there all you have to do is go back and watch the pro tour murders of carof Manor top eight where Simon neelon played a seven game match that's all you need to know on that subject it's just not good for tournament magic for paper tournament magic but I think for that reason alone I would like to see a little bit of a change and then then as far as Phoenix is concerned now it it breaks my heart to say this because I have been playing a lot of is it Phoenix over the past two or three months it's a little strange because you can point to certain cards in the vampires Animalia Decks that are problematic like there's a very specific combo piece it's like saurin plus ve Ripper or Amalia Plus Wild growth Walker with is it Phoenix there's not really a combo going on it's just a bunch of can trips some card draw and the creatures but when people talk about is it Phoenix they all always seem to talk about one specific card and that card is treasure Cruise which to its credit has quite the history of being broken in multiple different formats modern Legacy it's restricted in vintage I believe to my knowledge I think Pioneer is the only format where you're allowed to play four copies so yeah it's got a track record on it so for the sake of changing the metag game if I am of the opinion that I think something from vampires needs to go and something from mamalia needs to go where is the 44% or sorry 27 yeah 44% of metagame share where's that going to go if we don't remove anything from Phoenix it's probably going to go towards Phoenix to be honest with you for the sake of competitive diversity prior to this upcoming Regional Championship cycle preferably am I my wish list again this is personally if I was in charge of changing the Pioneer format with the goal to specifically increase metagame diversity because three decks taking up 64% of the metagame it's just unacceptable the three cards that I would ban are saurin imperious blood Lord wild growth Walker and treasure cruise see it's weird because I think that the Phoenix gameplay and let me know in the comment section down below your thoughts on this but I actually don't mind the Phoenix gameplay maybe that's because I have become a Phoenix main myself and I'm sort of taking a blind eye and being oblivious to the the fact that what I'm doing is kind of messed up but there's a lot of interaction points there's graveyard hates good against it now obviously Cruz might be a bit out of bounds and something that maybe the deck shouldn't have access to but as far as the Phoenix gameplay it's not that bad especially when you're comparing it to stuff like oh show and tell my vein rer to play on turn three or literally kill you on turn three with my Amalia deck in closing that's one thing that I really want to bring home about specifically if you go back to the last B announcement in December of 2023 the last time they banned cards from the format geological appraiser was banned because it was too consistently able to end the game on turn three and they only had four copies of geological appraiser it's not like you had eight effective copies of that card and ratos vampires and Amalia also end the game on turn three a lot of the time now it's in a different fashion for sure but they really do put so much pressure on the format to force you to interact early and often and then these very unique ways like you need a specific removal speed for amolia but those removal spells are definitely not good against ve Ripper so I think it's putting a little bit too much pressure on the format in terms of the answers that it's requiring you to play the speed in which your deck has to operate the number of creatures that you play in your deck there are certain Decks that you just cannot play into a field of amolia like Grill Vehicles the other consideration potentially is maybe you want to just weaken the decks a little bit maybe weaken their consistency and if you don't want to kill the decks outright perhaps there's maybe an argument to say I don't know Banning a blood tie Harvester perhaps there's an argument to Banning collected company or Court of calling or some other consistency piece for Amalia maybe with Phoenix it's really tough because if you ban a random canant trip they're just going to like say okay whatever I'll just play less can trips maybe you could talk me into the picklock prankster and make them go back to playing pieces of the puzzle because three Mana sorcery versus two minut instant that's a huge difference maybe there's something you can do there but I really do think that if your goal is to specifically increase the diversity and the health of the metag game overall which they've said in previous ban announcements that they are trying to do I really think that we need to be addressing all three of those decks now again not sure if you want to kill them out right maybe you just want to decrease their consistency but something is got to happen let me know what you thought in the comment section down below but that is my personal opinion as someone who has played a lot of pioneer over the past 9 months or so anyways let me know what your thought in the comment section down below like subscribe and I will see you guys in the next one adios