How’s it going everyone, I hope you had a great time this past week. I greatly enjoyed watching Pro Tour Outlaws of Thunder Junction and seeing the joys of Standard in the current environment. However, once the Sunday top 8 was done, it was time to turn my attention back to  Pioneer and what decks took over Magic Online while many like me were checking out Standard. When looking at the data, we’re starting to see some interesting trends since the release of Outlaws of Thunder Junction in terms of the overall Pioneer Metagame. So, let’s dive right into the last week in Pioneer:

Looking at the data

This week continued the trend we saw last week of the overall metagame shifting away from Phoenix and Vampires as completely runaway top decks. We saw Phoenix sitting at fifteen percent overall last week and Vampires at fourteen percent. With this week being the first time since the release of Outlaws of Thunder Junction neither deck crossed one-hundred total results within the metagame.

We also saw a stark increase in Niv up from seven percent to nine percent and Mono Red Aggro shaking out as the Slickshot Show-Off deck of choice going from four percent last week up to eight percent and sitting in fourth place in terms of overall representation. This is an exciting development since Gruul also picked up percentage from four percent to six percent and Heroic only dropped one percent to three percent. It looks like Aggro is here to stay and it wasn’t just a week one fad.

As the format settles after the new set, it seems like Outlaws of Thunder Junction has done a good job of spreading out what decks players are using in the overall metagame, but the real test will be once we dive a little deeper into the premier metagame and if these decks can conquer these established top decks.

Here we can see that Vampires and Phoenix continue to hold their percentages from the overall metagame, but it remains a drop from last week at fourteen and sixteen percent respectively. Niv also held its percentage from overall, while Discard and Lotus picked up the two percent drop from Mono Red between overall and premier.

The aggro decks remain popular once we move out of the leagues, but it does feel like there’s a little more to the story seeing many of the decks losing a percentage here or there as the metagame spreads out and more decks find a degree of success. If this continues, we might see the top decks no longer claim the throne so clearly as we did heading into Outlaws of Thunder Junction.

Looking now at the winner’s metagame, this is the most critical data for if this dispersion of decks are able to fight Phoenix and Vampires in the meaningful rounds of the events:

Here we once again see Vampires and Phoenix at the top with both picking up a percentage from their overall metagame share, but this is still a small drop from the previous period. With Discard hot on the decks’ tail with a large jump to eleven percent along with the other top decks roughly holding on to their metagame shares, the top five decks make up 52% of the winner’s metagame, same as last week, but with more of that being distributed to decks three to five.

We are starting to see a level of parity in Pioneer we haven’t seen in quite some time. While there are two decks that are most likely to show up at your RCQ or MTGO event, they aren’t dominating in the same way they have been before. There’s a high diversity of playable decks in Pioneer and we have circled back to the olden days wherein you can win with most anything as long as it is proactive and powerful enough. Granted, there are certainly stronger choices than others.

Finally, we look at the challenge top 8s where Phoenix, Niv to Light, Vampires, and Discard all share the top spot with eleven percent of the top 8s, with six each. Red aggro sits just behind these decks with five and surprisingly, Azorius Control, Amalia, and Creativity sneak into the next placing with three top 8s each. Once again, we are seeing a flattening of the top 8s, whereas last period, Vampires had nine top 8s and Phoenix had eight.

It’s a good time to be exploring other decks than Vampires and Phoenix as players start targeting the perceived top decks. Amalia, Red Aggro, Azorius Control, Creativity and even challenge top finishers Greasefang, Elves, and more show there is plenty of room for experimentation at the top tables in Pioneer right now.

Deck Highlights

Geralf, the Fleshwright

This was the deck idea most people thought about when they saw Geralf, the Fleshwright. Could it pair with Monastery Mentor and create an army of value tokens to overwhelm the opponent while leveraging the power of Azorius spells in the format? It turns out, the deck certainly does look good with a 5-0 here by streamer D00mwake.

While the deck isn’t in contention to light the world on fire right now, it is certainly a concept I’d love to see delved into deeper. I’d just caution that with so much Aggro running around with four Play with Fire, it might be a tough concept to explore right now.

Collector’s Cage

This card took Modern and Pioneer by storm this week and here we see two different versions that got 5-0s and Challenge top 32s. Free spells are incredibly powerful in every format, but getting a free seven-mana spell or eight-mana overrun plus flying really puts the deck over the top. Given you can cobble together aggressive starts to pressure control and combo, you just have access to a great back-up plan to cheat out over-costed effects that can end the game by themselves.

While the payoffs aren’t quite as impressive as the Eldrazi titans in Modern, in the context of Pioneer and the power-level here, we have seen how strong a free Vein Ripper is, so what about a free Moonshaker Cavalry or Emeria’s Call? It certainly can’t be too bad.

Old Decks Back for Another Round

Here we see Mono Black Aggro and Izzet Prowess brought back to life with a pair of strong challenge finishes. Mono Black Aggro was once upon a time the premier aggro deck in the format and the power of Thoughtseize, removal, and recursive threats hasn’t diminished in recent years. With the addition of Forsaken Miner as a recursive threat that plays well with your ability to commit crimes, the deck can grind even better than before and whenever an aggro deck picks up a new one-drop, it is worth considering.

For Izzet Prowess, the new addition shouldn’t shock anyone that has been keeping an eye on Pioneer lately as Slickshot Show-Off is an incredible two-drop addition to the deck. While this version leans closer to Izzet Wizards with Wizard’s Lightning, it is keeping more in line with the Modern version that leverages a lean curve, plenty of burn, and prowess creatures to kill the opponent before they can interact. Post-board, you can leverage Spell Pierce as a knock-out blow and Tears of the Valakut and Witchstalker Frenzy serve to keep Vein Ripper and Sheoldred in check.

It’s great to see some older favorites getting new life breathed into them thanks to the new set, even if there are plenty of other decks getting the same benefits, I love seeing decks like these start to pop up as surprises you can take to your local RCQ.

Speaking of Old Friends

The last RCQ I won was with Abzan Greasefang. Since then, the printing of Amalia has really pushed Abzan Greasefang out of the format. You could play this deck, but why play the deck that requires multiple attack steps to win, even if you hit your combo early when Amalia has several different ways to pressure the opponent via combo, lifegain, or just value recursion.

Even so, Rushi_00 has been plugging away with Abzan Greasefang lately scoring a few 5-0s and a third-place finish in the Challenge Sunday. This deck really only gained Pillage the Bog as a new tool, but what it does is pressure the various Rakdos and Mono-Black decks while still having a fast clock against control and aggro. While it can still lose to itself, it’s a deck that I kept asking myself why it couldn’t see a resurgence alongside Amalia and I’m glad to see that Rushi agreed.

While I don’t think Greasefang is likely to set the world ablaze right now, it is an excellent consideration against the various midrange decks of the format and if your local RCQs are anything like mine, that might be a wise choice of styles to attack. That being said, the long-time problematic matchup for Greasefang of Izzet Phoenix remains a top deck, so you’ll need to carefully balance your excitement until we see less of the powerful bird floating around.

Wrapping Up

 There you have it, this last week in Pioneer reviewed! We are starting to see some real equality and diversity among the top tables of the Pioneer Metagame and I’m excited to see if this trend can continue and we might even have a new deck sitting upon the throne sometime soon. While it has been exciting to see the reinvigoration of Izzet Phoenix and Rakdos through Vampires, I am excited to get back to the vast number of powerful strategies Pioneer can offer to take down a local RCQ or MTGO event!